Tourney Talk: That's WAAC yo.

Juan Solo is the face of  WAAC

Juan Solo is so much win I can't even begin to describe it. He took something cool and went over the top. But he doesn't take himself too seriously. He looks like a fool but he won at any cost.

So I was reading on the FFG forums and found a thread asking a question about whether or not avoiding the opposing ships was an unsportsmanlike act. First let me give you a situation:

Here's the setup:  We were running an informal mini-tournament at the local store.  I was running a 4 green list all with PtL and 3 with concussion missiles.  I played against a guy running 4 golds with ion turrets and whatever droids he could fit in the list.  Initial contact happens and all four of my greens are at range 3 on one of his golds.  I took it out with 2 concussion missiles and primary fire from the other two A-wings.  Only 2 of his remaining ships have a range 3 shot at me.  They knock a total of one shield off of one greens. 

At this point, I realized that if I could avoid confronting the remaining Y-Wings in a group, I was pretty much assured of a win.  I was already up by enough points for a full win.  I knew that my maneuverability could keep me away from their turrets if they all stuck together.  The only way my opponent could cover enough board for the turrets to hit me would be if he split the remaining ships apart.

So, I figured my opponent had two choices.  He could keep the ships together and I would avoid contact thereby giving me a win when time ran out, or he could split them up in an attempt to engage me and I could pick his ships off one by one.

He chose to keep his ships together.  I successfully avoided contact with him for 6 or 7 turns before my opponent decided to concede the game.  He was generally gracious about his defeat, but suggested that winning by running away wasn't exactly sportsmanlike.

I felt that since we were playing a strategy game, I had found a perfectly viable strategy to win in the given situation.  Obviously, my opponent disagreed.

What do you think?

I am a tourney player an have been for a long time. I love competition. When I played 40k I went to tournaments about twice a month and played all the time. My mentality was when you are at home or playing with your friends you play with goofy stuff and try out less optimized lists just for the heck of it or for the lols. But when you went to a tournament (where you are paying money) you bring your A game and your best list. The group I played with put a lot of stock into tournament placings and the better you do at a tournament the more "street cred" you had within the group at large. I liked this because I am a fencing coach and fencing is a lot like table top war-gaming. Two people matching wits and mistakes could be critical. Also your emotional state in both events are critical to success. If you give in to anger or frustration you will make even more mistakes. You will tunnel vision in on certain things even if they are not winning you the game/bout.

In both instances you must adapt your tactics to your opponent and the situation. You will lose if you don't.

Unfortunately, there is a vein of thought running through war-gaming that winning at any cost is a bad thing. It even has an acronym WAAC. It has the odor of being a dick when you play the game. In fencing you win without breaking the rules, you salute your opponent, the ref and the audience before and after every single bout and you shake hands with your opponent and say "Good Bout" or something equivalent. You may be pissed off and ready to scream with the pressure or grab your opponent and bash his head in but you don't. You don't throw your mask or your weapon. You don't scream and yell. You deal with it like a man. You lost. You made mistakes. What could you have done better? How do you eliminate those weaknesses. How do you strengthen your skills? You compete. You analyze. You train. This is the training cycle. It is how you get better. It is how you get better at anything, including war-gaming.

In the original guy's post he brought a very fragile but maneuverable A-wing list and used that maneuverability and its initial alpha strike to win.Going head to head with Ion-Ys would have been to place himself at a disadvantage. The Y-wing guy could have split his forces an forced an encounter but that would have placed him at a disadvantage. They both played to their strengths and the Y-wing lost. The onus is not on the guy that is ahead but on the guy that is behind. In an Epee bout in fencing if you are ahead on points there is no reason for you to go on the attack. You can bounce around and wait for your opponent to come after you. The opponent is behind the onus is on him to make something happen if he wants to win. The fencer who is ahead has no responsibility to make the bout fun for the other guy but to win.

Tournaments aren't about fun. They are about winning or accomplishing your goals for that day. My fencers have a goal for their tournaments. Usually it is about scoring a certain number of points or winning a certain number of bouts or getting into the 32 or the 16 or the top 8. Their goal isn't necessarily to win overall but to do better than they did at the last tournament and to learn from their mistakes. To become better fencers. When I go to a tournament, of any sort, I have the same mentality. Winning or losing isn't important. Learning for your mistakes is.

The guy's opponent in the OP who complained that he was unsportsmanlike was blaming his failure to adapt on his opponent instead of manning up and taking responsibility for his loss. Instead of looking at the match and trying to figure out what he could have done to win. He blamed the other guy for winning in a fashion that played to his own lists weaknesses. Tournaments show you where the weaknesses are in your game and give you an opportunity to learn and adapt.

Losing is learning. Training is winning.

At a recent tournament I had an opportunity to do the same thing this guy did. I was playing Bobby (he had a Shuttle with Vader and two bounty hunters. I blasted the shuttle with my 4 interceptors right off the bat. I could have avoided contact and won the game. I didn't. I smelled blood in the water. I charged in. I died a horrible death.

My loss was totally my fault. I could have played to the strengths of my faster and more maneuverable fighters and done better.

Now I am a big guy. I am 6'3" and 260 lbs. I have always been big. Subtlety is not my strong suit. I rush in and beat face. I am a slayer. I am a tank. That is my weakness. I know this and try to minimize it but I cannot change who I am. Once I smell blood I am lost to the berserker's rage. Fencing and War-gaming have taught me to manage that rage better. I have learned because I have lost. 

Tournaments are an opportunity to learn your list and to learn about yourself. If you fail to learn from a loss, then you have failed to win in life.