Some time ago, we were thinking about the shiny syndrome in our hobby. You see, you fall in love, you buy, the pile of shame grows bigger and bigger. Today, I would like to talk about something different but more or less connected with the previous topic.
We play various games. Some of us play one title while others spread their interest to many systems and manufacturers. Some of us don't play at all and just focus on painting. Some just play and either do not paint or pay people to do it for them. Each and every of the above mentioned attitudes towards our hobby is ok.
I would like to focus today on the addiction to one game. In my case it is Warmachine by Privateer Press. As a small introduction I would like to point out that I own various tabletop games ranging from Warhammer through Bolt Action to Infinity. In the past I just bought the miniatures that I liked the looks of and painted them up. Since I started playing Warmachine I got totally immersed in the system. It is highly competitive but at the same time has a very well written fluff that expands and influences the miniatures as the time in Iron Kingdoms goes by.
I live in quite a big city when it comes to Polish standards and we have a small Warmachine & Hordes community that is actually quite experienced with many players having long years of experience in various tabletop games and Warmachine as such. I have joined the community more or less a year ago with no experience in tabletop games whatsoever. I just painted the miniatures and bought rule books. Immediately after my first game of WM&H I fell in love with the game. The people were great and had/still have patience towards me as a new player. I do not play a lot. A game a week at most and still learn but I caught the bait and after a few month went to my first tournament. Of course I lost all 3 games but had fun. Two months later I attended another tournament and lost all my games again but still I had fun. I still do.
Now, with the folks around here being highly competitive and me being a noob there is of course a huge experience gap that I will probably never be able to get through but this state has one major pron despite many cons. The good part is that thanks to the experience of my fellow gamers I can always ask them for some advice and they will always tell me what I did wrong during the game.This is actually great and allows me to learn quite quickly despite being beaten to death almost each and every game.
Now, the down side are. The guys know what they are doing and know exactly how to counter measure my units and not so yet sophisticated plans. They also posses most if not all of their faction's figures. Here I would like to make a brief pause and talk a bit more about the topic. I normally do not play with unpainted miniatures. There is a rule I like to stick to #PlayItPainted It not only enriches the game but also plainly looks awesome. Now, this means I do not own most of the models and to play the lists I like I need to do a lot of shopping and later paint all the stuff before I put it on the battlefield. This is where the addiction part kicks in. I have some models, they are in many cases useless because I bought them before I started playing just because I liked them. They were ok for a start but when I started playing tournaments it got obvious they are crappy. So what now? To proxy or not to proxy? I don't like to proxy. If someone does it I am fine with it on a friendly level but during tournaments it just sucks. Especially if you are a new player and still try to learn how different models look like and what they do. If you see the same unit three times and each and every time it is represented by something different it simply makes me confused. Now, do not get me wrong. There are various reasons for this and I am aware that someone can not be able either to afford a given unit or the models are being painted or someone has the rule book and plays with CD's and bases of various sizes named for the ease of reference. I do not do it so I try to build some lists and find models I need and do not have. So, what do I do? I buy them if I have some spare cash. I am a perfect PP customer. I buy more and more stuff and try to paint it up. In the mean time I buy more stuff because, for example I saw a cool list on on YouTube and I decide to build something similar so I buy more stuff. In the mean time the meta changes a bit and some of the models I ordered become meh and so I buy more different stuff that is cool now. As a result, being an adult that works, has to take care of the house and do other adult stuff I do not have as much time I would like to have for the hobby and so I immerse into one game. This leads to not paying attention to other games and miniatures of different manufacturers. I simply do not have time for them and so they lie in their boxes, sometimes assembled but not painted.
Now, sometimes I try to sit down and paint something else but I start and get back to Warmachine simply because I play it. I know I will not be able to play another game and at the same time still focus on Warmachine so I either have to give it up and change my focus or stay where I am and play the shit out of it.
To sum up. One game can be as addictive as the whole shiny syndrome them makes you buy all the crap you are not going to play anyway if you are actually a player and not a painter. So maybe it is a better option to focus on one system? What says thou? I say yay!
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