Ramblings of the Reformed

..so, after bursting out of the gate with a mission statement regarding our man Morghoul2 and his delightful new tier, I've been silent for a few days. More than a few indeed. "Aha," you say, "clearly the man has been playtesting!"

Well.. about that.

Not so much. Sadly, real life has conspired to steal my opponents, and left me without games, or time to play them. That, and painting. But like any decent Warmachine player, I've been making lists, and checking them at least twice. The few games I've managed with Morghoul have taught me some interesting lessons - and now, we're onto a new approach, which is to try him as the worlds most unlikely Brick Warlock. More on that once I've manged a handful of games with him. To be honest, I might not stick with it, but something calls me in a list with three Gladiators, and two max Gatormans, especially with Grevious Wounds on tap.

Which leads me, in a mildly convoluted way, to a confession and the real focus of my ramblings today.

Yes, despite my previous mission statement, I played the Fist at an event. I played the Fist, and remembered all the reasons why I liked it, and the compelling reasoning as to why I came to loathe it.

For me, the Fist was a great way to begin my faction. I've never been able to get along with Morghoul1, and the artwork for Xerxis1 is cool. So cool in fact, that I took one look at him and stopped searching for another Warlock. For about three years.

 The Chuck Norris of Warmachine

Back then, our meta was kinda small. No one had really explored the idea of spamming models via tiers into their armies. We were all so jaded from being burnt by 40K, that Warmachine was our escape back into the wilds, where we could find our love for wargaming again. Playing the Fist in this environment was crazy fun, as I'm sure you can imagine. Before long, I was the guy to beat, with the silly list, where everything had weapon master or crazy strength, pretty much everything had reach, and everything had both more armour and more boxes than god.

The trouble is, once you start being that guy, you don't stop being that guy. The pressure gets to you, and you become both a negative play experience for other people, and a douchebag that desperately needs the win to keep the reputation. You don't in reality of course - but that's exactly how it feels, no matter how small or inconsequential your meta is.

Before long, I stopped even considering taking other lists to events, or building pairs that were not around the Fist, and its few shortcomings. It's an extremely potent list, which requires careful planning on the best way to beat it, and which some armies simply don't have. Any time I considered the possibility of playing without it, I just got stuck in the mindset that to not take the Fist was the height of lunacy.

This is where, in my opinion, Warmachine players can go wrong some times, and what lists like the Fist, along with the other potent net decks represent. I'm not against powerful lists, and players choosing lists that are similar to other peoples, and nor am I scornful of people that want to do well at events. We all do, obviously. No one enjoys playing games they don't win. But often in my experience, those same lists come with expectations, and (unintentionally) bad intentions and experiences.

Now for me, the mission statement of playing games is simple. Fun. Waramchine is my social outlet, an evening hanging out with my opponent, my weekend away with the guys, or my chance to meet new, likeminded people. I've made a lot of friends that way, and kept in touch with more, and have stories to remember and tell of the events I've been to for later years. By no means am I most the best player in the world, and never will be. And I'm not about to start playing a WTC winning list just to try and reach a few steps further up the ladder.

So that means that netdecks are out. Being a negative play experience becomes something I don't want to touch at all. I played Convergence for a year exclusively, spending seven months of the year eagerly waiting for Father Lucant - only to drop him after a handful of games because I saw how much he worked up my opponents. If there is a trap in this game, it is that we find something strong that works, and then get too scared to step away from it, because we might start losing again.

That's all wrong.

And that's exactly what I felt playing the Fist at a Journeyman In a Day event I went to last weekend. I played tight, cagey games, which were mostly very one-sided. And whilst wiping 50pts of Menoth off of the table in one turn during the last game was fun of sorts, I really didn't like the unease at remembering what it was to be that guy.

And there you have it. My confession. And the reason that I rarely, if ever, play with Molik Karn in my army.