Cult Of Games XLBS: Enjoying Wargaming…Even If You Suck At It!
July 5, 2026 by crew
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Happy Sunday CoGs, OTTers and most importantly, Backstagers!
Years ago I was deep in the competative scene. I was ‘ranked’ and oarticipating in international games. I don’t know why exactly but one day I just stopped caring. I remember going to a tournament and taking an all metal old Orc and goblin army. My team and weekly playmates were asking ‘what are you doing’? Orcs and goblins are too unpredictable and way too random. It was the first game I had REALLY enjoyed for years. The thrill of wondering if my army would do anything I wanted it to do was amazing.The fact that all I could do was hold on tight and go along for ths ride made me realise that whilst I was great at competative play and winning games, I sucked at having fun games You want to enjoy a game you suck at? remember it’s a game and play for fun.
Woot! A great round of butt dinging for all as told by the crew for reaching out and touching dice.. or others.. or ourselves even (?) and sharing tips (phrasing?). Anywhat, to play and even lose repeatedly is a fine thing if people are then introduced to new games that they find fun and continue to play. Huzzah for everyone reaching out and playing with each other!
Are we still doing phrasing @horati0nosebl0wer ? – Archer
Just have fun. It’s really not more simple than that. I didn’t even watch the show.
thanks for making me laugh.
I needed that 🙂
Hello Sunday
00:00 KoW
03:00 Instant regret by @johnlyons NO REGEEERDS!
04:00 CLIP THAT! SOMEONE!
05:00 Don’t fall for that @zoidpinhead he just wants to know what you choose to counter you more better!
07:30 But who edits the editor?!
08:15 summon the double fisted taco holder thing
21:00 Legally distinct Mr. Zulo
21:45 Can’t set a sword to stun @brennon ? Just use the hilt to whack someone over the head!
25:00 It’s the Windy of the week
30:00 Team does hobby? Weiiiird.
32:30 NOT THE BEES!
42:00 Never Win?
55:00 Magic the blathering. Never got the appeal of that game. Endlessly spending money.
1:04:00 MORE BEEEEEES
1:13:00 Well, actually, I think … oh to hell. it was funny XD
1:14:00 Oh noes, correction needed: most of the minis gifted to me via the community from @gorram and no detol was used. Just 99% Iso. But: Huzzah! I iz winning!
Time for breakfast.
Probably, but that’s part of the fun. I’m going with the Stillman approach, partly down to available resources (time and money) so I might as well get ready to face armies who know what I’ve got. I’m hardly keeping what I’m doing secret 😀
“Well actually” its not Ducos who gets his hat shot off by Harper its the Spanish counts evil brother in episode one. I used lost Heresy for the Russians great character models
they all look alike
there are a few reasons why i absolutely suck at games, the first is bad dice rolling…honestly its shocking, but the main reasons are down to the way i play. I dont spend hours pouring over army lists, working out the best units, the best combination of abilities and buffs i just look at a model and think “does it look cool” and if so, its going onto the battlefield, or even if it sounds cool, i will always take snipers, or units with orbital strike abilities and stuff like that, because i just love the idea of them, they could be the worst units in the game…i will still take them.
The other reason i suck is the stuff i do in the game, and i think i can explain it best with a quote from Gimli in Return of the King, “Certainty of death? Small chance of success? What are we waiting for?”. Most people will play tactical, play the objectives, analyse the best units for their units to engage in combat in kill, and whilst i do do that a little bit, i tend to focus on the “cool” moments and the “high risk high reward”.
Does it make sense for my weak Skaven Chieftain to charge a Bretonnian Lord on Pegasus? No it doesn’t, but that Lord is sitting on the objective smack bang in the middle of the table, if my chieftain can tie that objective up for a couple turns, i can scrape a draw, and hell if i can kill that lord, not only do a win but it was an epic underdog fight.
Does it make sense to drop a large template weapon on an enemy thats very close to some friendly units? Hell no, but my units are weak and theirs are strong, if i can wipe out those enemies and not kill my own, then my units can push forward and deal with an objective, or an enemy that they CAN kill.
Does it make sense to, in the final turn of the game, have a huge aggressive surge, and charge all my units forward and engage as many opponents in melee? Sometimes yes to be fair… but either way…what an epic final turn that was even if i did lose because of it.
So essentially the reasons why i suck at games (apart from the dice rolls) are also the reasons why i have so much fun, im fielding the models i love, with a list idea that i love the sound of, and in the game im doing epic and/or narrative things will probably go wrong..but if they go right…damn they will go right
What also helps to enjoy the game though is playing against the right people. Last year i went to a Bolt Action event for the new edition release, i only got one game in….which i did win!! But i didnt enjoy playing it. If i was playing against my usual friend, it would have been a great laugh. But the guy i played against, whilst he was perfectly nice, he was very competitive focused and whilst theres nothing wrong with that…that’s not my mindset so I didnt enjoy the game as much as i should have
The only game i’ve quit because i kept losing is 40k, and it’s not because im bad at it (although i am) But any game where you can spend £100s, spend hours painting and modelling, writing the best list you possibly could, just to turn up, spend an hour setting up and then losing before youve even touched a model……that is not a game. If you can lose a game just because you lost the initiative roll?…whats the bloody point. And then factor in the ridiculous prices for 5 models, the fact that your codexes are redundant before you’ve even bought them, the newest model is always the strongest until enough people have bought them at which point they get nerfed….just what is the point of playing that game? And i know a lot of people reading this will enjoy 40k immensley, in which case, fair enough, you like what you like, keep going! But it’s not for me.
Winning doesn’t matter to me. I’m more worried about giving my opponent a fun and challenging game (although my analysis paralysis can counter that by slowing the game down too much).
I enjoy list building, but don’t follow the meta. In general it’s what can I do if I ever built any of my stuff or using a historical\narrative theme.
Happy SUNDAY…..
Just watcbing Ben’s hobby, think he and his friends have built a faboulous Necrominda table, and as he cant win a Golden Button, I therefore award him a prestigous Bob’ No Prize ,well done sir.
Congratulations @brennon on being the inaugural winner of this prestigious award -very well earned
Huzzah to that. Huzzah!
Huzzah! And another zah!
Hah much appreciated
Lovely episode – great to see you all sharing a laugh with us. I’m pleased to have instigated some interest in KoW and Champions. I’m looking forward to giving it a go and am quite sure that as a newbie I’m going to suck. That’s not particularly important to me – I enjoy playing games and the enjoyment of playing isn’t outcome dependent.
Great set of GBs this week. Lovely projects everyone, well done.
I hope we can enjoy a game sometime then, so we can both suck and laugh at it!
Thanks for the GB. Soldiers of Napoleon is my current Napoleonic game of choice, but I’ve based things so they should be good for most rules, from Black Powder to GdA. My infantry are on 20x25mm bases. The extra depth helps squeeze four figures on, as a lot of the marching figures have quite long puddle bases.
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Never cover your eyes wasn’t the lesson I was expecting to learn on a Monday morning but here we are… you never disappoint McCabe!