The truth is out there

Let me tell you about my Saturday Night. I attended Blood in the Sun a 50 player WFB tourney here in my area this weekend but not as a WFB player...I showed up at 8 pm Saturday Night to meet some pals and play Warmachine on the tables for the open gaming they had going on.

Considering I knew many players there, it was certainly weird showing up a Warhammer tournament and not playing Warhammer, and I had to explain myself to at least 3 people. But this is the world I now find myself in. I was a registered player and attendee of this event and planned on playing all the way up until probably the last week of June. When an odd series of occurrences somewhat snowballed into all 3 of us (myself and the two guys I was riding over and rooming with from our club) having serious issues with attending the event. For me it was a quick but mandatory overnight, out of town work trip getting in way and not allowing me to be there Friday night as planned. Instead making me head out early Saturday morning for the 10am game one. While not the earliest table call I've ever had but if my 730 am flight home touchdown was late (and when you count on those things they always are) with a 45 min+ drive to the venue.. I was screwed.

On top of that I also to face up to the reality this had become a major tournament with alot of notable regional players and I had played exactly ONE game of WFB since Adepticon. My knowledge of the 8th ed rules is still muddled with 7th ed hold overs that my brain isnt letting go..I know zero about, nor I have played a game against 8th ed version of Orcs, Tomb Kings or even VC,or Dwarfs..8th ed incarnations. The cool terrain contest aside, spending a few hundred bucks to get rolled all weekend suddenly became less than appealing. With 10 person wait list with a couple diehard players I know on it...I did the right thing and bowed out (in fact all three of us did). in favor of people that should be there.

As a result I was glad I did because the first thing I hear when I show up besides people are shocked that a Bretonnian player with one Trebuchet is running the tables and way ahead ( he goes on to win B.O.- so congrats guy whomever you are!) The other talk is that they changed the blood & glory scenario and (there was only one)..so when you lost your banners you didnt lose the game, just couldnt use your general or BSB any longer. Considering I signed up for this event after Adepticon, on the talk that alternate means of scoring where being considered, including Blood and Glory on numerous scenarios. I would have seriously been bummed out to find out the day of how the scenarios actually shook out. (They did not release the scenarios before the event)

I am sure they did this because of pressure from the status quo to go with the flow, that "flow" being the horribly annoying way Warhammer is currently being organized. The result being standard "by the book" scenarios with B&G neutered so people didn't whine. Outside of confirmation for myself in that I made the right decision, this event looked super well organized and well run by some great guys.(They even had the scores up tonight! ) If I only I liked the game in its current state, I surely would give this event a big thumbs up. IF you are digging 8th edition and its current tournament application then do put this event on your list next year for sure. Unfortunately for me, it was only again confirmation, with an outside looking in revelation that there will be no Warhammer Fantasy Battles for me in the foreseeable future.

We must take these changes in life in context. For me context is everything. I am one of those people who sees something under a different context and its just not the same. Regardless if its outward appearance remains unchanged. A great example I like to use to illustrate my mindset is the TV show from the 1990's the X-files. I loved this show when it aired for probably 5 years, (Coincidentally the same as my love affair with WFB) My girlfriend (now wife) and I planned our social lives around watching this show, (because my VHS recordings of it at the time looked like crap) and used to get together with a group of friends on Friday nighst to watch it religiously (kind of like our current "club night") As its almost decade of seasons rolled on, and of course like any show its quality deteriorated, I became aware of what an utter contemptuous d-bag David Duchovny apparently was in real life how he didn't particularly like the show, and it was just a paycheck until he could get some "real movie work" . While a normal person can separate things like that from the their enjoyment of it, I just cant and eventually there came a point when I watched the show and all I could think about was how insincere he actually was (I guess people call that acting?) and soon after I ceased giving a shit about the show, stopped watching it and life went on.

A funny anecdote I must add here in that many years after the show was off the air somewhere around 2007..I met Gillian Anderson a few times as she and I shared the same taste in restaurants and I kept seeing her at a particular place I like to eat near my work...eventually I was seated next to her and her husband and small child, while I with my wife and small child. we exchanged pleasantries, and eventually saw and repeated the episode again with some more chit chat. While very charming and nice, her comments on the show in our brief conversations where akin to hey it was "cool" but it was again "a paycheck".

Games Workshop is like the X-Files to me, I can still appreciate it to a certain point but in the end I am finding it hollow and insincere because of antipathy it has for it customers and too many of its customers obliviousness or acceptance of that antipathy. While one shouldn't obsess about thing you can have no control over and just enjoy what you can, there is no disputing GW's variety of offenses of late really pushed some buttons with me, that have had an impact on me as a player.

When you invest a ton of time and money or emotion into someone else product you want it to be as important to them as it is to you, but in life that often just not the case. its just a "paycheck".

There are just too many of other great games out there to sit there and say "I want to believe" when as a guy with all kinds of miniatures not just my 5000 points of painted Empire the miniatures/wargaming hobby keeps chugging along and getting bigger and better all the time.

So that was my Saturday night I sat at tables of a Warhammer tournament I wasnt playing in -playing Warmachine and actually did wonder if any of guys were upstairs watching reruns of the Xfiles.