Apparently you can't be 'Fluffy' and Competitive and if your competitive you are also WAAC (Win At All Costs for the uninformed).
I am however, Fluffy and Competitive but not WAAC.....stop fucking laughing...I'll prove it then...
First an insultingly vague definition of each 'type'
Fluffy.
'You can't have x unit, in y army, with z character because...'
Competitive.
'That troop units awesome for the points, I'll take 6 of them...'
W.A.A.C.
'That weapon hits automatically and causes instant death...to the whole unit...there's no need to check the rulebook, it really does that honest...'
So by my (admittedly slightly lame) definitions I'm competitive. I optimise my army lists as best as I can, I 'spam' units that I think are optimal and I occasionally use rules loopholes in order to make my army better. I however don't cheat and as far as I'm concerned that's what moves you into the WAAC category.
The Fluffy part is a bit harder for me to justify, however I'll give it a go...
My first army was Chaos Space Marines*, I liked the idea of renegade Space Marines so I made mine out of normal Marines and gave them Chaos markings. I didn't bother defacing the Imperial markings I just painted them the same colour as the rest of the armour figuring that they hadn't gotten that bitter about the whole 'False Emperor' thing just yet.
* That should have got every-bodies sympathy right from the beginning ;-)
My first army was very 'battleforce', based around Chaos Space Marine squads in Rhino's with a bit of Heavy Support in the form of Vindicators and the like...It didn't do particularly well, but it was 'Fluffy'.
When I began to understand 40K a bit better I realised that Obliterators would be a great unit to have. Unfortunately my recently turned renegades wouldn't have access to such units. After checking the profiles of various options I decided that sticking various heavy weapons to a bunch of Chaos Terminators and them 'Counting As' Obliterators would work fine, my justification being that their Tech Marines wouldn't be working by the rules anymore and that from a gaming point of view they'd look different enough from normal terminators so there would be no confusion.
So my army became more competitive but was still entirely justifiable by my background.Later on I decided I needed some Daemon Princes. Now those I definitely couldn't justify...or could I...
The 'Night Reapers' renegades (yes, by now they even had a name) became a whole chapter of renegades that had been gradually turning over a long period of time (possibly millennia). Several Marines had become impatient with the progress and went off to find their own way and returned just as the Chapter was planning a swift get away to somewhere a bit less 'ordered'. Hence my Daemon Prince and Possessed (his former squad members) joined the happy family. So yet again my army became more competitive but was justified by the background I had decided upon for my army.
I could continue to bore you with other examples, but the point is I didn't need to do any of that if I didn't want to. The Codex says I can have 2 Daemon Princes, 9 Obliterators and a unit of each 'cult' troop choice if I damn well please and there's fuck all anybody can do about it other than just not play against me. I however, happen to like having a 'story' to my army as it enhances my enjoyment of using it considerably and that's my choice.
It also takes considerably more work than just picking out every unit with Slaanesh in the description and calling it a Fluffy army. My Background was created by me, not taken lock, stock and barrel from somebody else's writing.
The point (if I can remember what it was as I drifted a bit in the middle) is that I'm a competitive player with an incredibly detailed background to my army. I can probably put down somewhere in the region of 30,000 points of Marine Units of one codex or another on the table and have a reason for them all.
There's no reason why playing for fun, playing to win and making a themed army can't all sit together happily at the same table...
It just takes a bit of conversion work and an imagination, that's all...
It also takes considerably more work than just picking out every unit with Slaanesh in the description and calling it a Fluffy army. My Background was created by me, not taken lock, stock and barrel from somebody else's writing.
ReplyDeleteI miss doing that. I did all that elaborate backstory stuff with my Vampire Counts and Chaos Marines, tried to do it with my Chaos Warriors and Orks, and pretty much gave up by the time the Dark Elves rolled around (I'm tired of emotionally overinvesting in armies that turn out not to be any good, so I just took the models I was sold, realised nearly everything Khainite was in there, and topped it off with a Cauldron of Blood - lazy theming, I'm afraid).
Someone's going to tell you you're not playing to win if you're still using the Chaos Codex, though... :p
@ Von - My 'Chaos' Marines tend to use either the Vanilla or Space Wolf Codex these days ;-)
ReplyDeleteanother problem people have when theming armies is piocking things that are fluffy for the sake of being fluffy rather than picking things which aren't not fluffy but may make their army more balanced. as an example how many salamanders players out there will take anything with a melta or flamer or thunderhammer but never consider taking a dakka pred. no fluff suggests they esue their use but due to the lack of flamer they dont take them a lot of the time despite their tactical value
ReplyDeletethe other wat of making things fluffy is the conversion route such as my rough riders made out of scout bikes as lets face it a horse has no place on cadia but a bike hell yes. what makes a WAAC is just one of those guys who end up not playing unless they pay for a game (torney)
ReplyDeleteWhile I love that Garreth's army has its own background and even lists like Mike's imperial fists etc fit into 'fluff' but are effective there is something wonderful (to me at least) about reading a story and then having the ability to make that story live with your models (to an extent).
ReplyDeleteI fully concede that BLINDLY following fluff is not the way to go and you can have other units (hence my long long justification of dreadnoughts in soul drinker list). But still for me fluffy lists are more fun, then i have the issue of tweaking to make them more effective, hence why my win\ loss ratio is so much in the red :P
that's my semi relevant two cents
p.s. Paul Dini 90's batman FTMFW!!
@ Citizenwilliams - I think between us we managed to make your Soul Drinkers army both effective and Fluffy (Even if we did have to have giant mutants as Dreadnoughts)
ReplyDeletei completely agree its why i love them :D
ReplyDeleteGood article worth recycling for the HoP. Plus, best possible picture choice. :)
ReplyDelete