Playing like a champion

A lot of posts on the blogs tend to look at tactics, essentially tips & tricks on how to win the game. Today I wanted to post about what I believed made a game enjoyable to play, as in player conduct at the table which is conducive to a good play experience for both players.

I posed this question to the Malifools a few weeks ago and a recent post on a Wyrd Place about “expectations on a Tournament Organiser (TO)”. The later was pretty self-entitled; luckily cooler heads (fingers?) prevailed and put forward some good points about attendance of events.

But having never been one to be quiet I thought that I would share some of my own thoughts, so being on the topic of etiquette put on your finest smoking jacket and grab a glass of brandy (or tea) as we discuss etiquette for tournament play.

At events

Set up – Arrive early if possible, we all can get stuck in traffic but try to be at the event but if you aim to get to the event at the start of registration I find this gives plenty of time in case of traffic. It’s the often great if you can offer to set up some tables for the TO. Even if they just then need to tweak the setup this is going to be a great help. If there is spare time is often a great opportunity to catch up with a few people on the scene

Respect the round timings – it can be tempting to play for that one more turn or to ask for an extension but this really isn’t fair on the TO or your opponent. The opponent has expected the game to go to a certain length and may have started to play an end game strategy when the last turn time warning was announced. The TO equally needs to get your result in so that they can get on with doing the draw for the next round.

Take down – offer to do some help in getting boards put away and cars loaded, ideally before the TO does the prize draw. It really helps the poor TO who has already given up a lot of their own time to put on the event and gives them a shorter day after they have dedicated a lot of time making your day awesome.

At the table

Stay positive – We’ve all had that game, your fate deck hates you, somehow your opponent has smuggled in some kind of master race of models with hard counters to your plans, you’re next to the window and the wind keeps blowing your stuff across the venue (all of this has happened to me). But remember to try and stay positive about the game, your opponent still wants to enjoy the game and getting into a sulk isn’t very fair to your opponent. Try to take it with good humour and if your struggling to understand where your losing then speak to your opponent at the end and ask where it went wrong. Most people will be happy to discuss it with you. If you’re having issues with the table/board you’re playing on (such as being on the same table twice or three times) just ask the TO move you and majority if now all will be accommodating.

Explain your crew – After you reveal your crew I believe it is polite to check if the opponent has played against the crew before. Malifaux is a big game and it is not reasonable to expect every opponent to know your crew as well as you know it. Even some of the most experiences tournament attenders I know have not had the chance to play against every master/crew. Make it clear which upgrades are on which models (I’ve had this go both ways once where I surprised my opponent by not making it clear and once where I’ve not used the upgrade as the opponent wasn’t clearly aware of the upgrade). I’m not suggesting you lay out your hand book of tricks but try to give them an idea of the key actions that the model might do (this one hits really hard, this one has a nasty ability, this one has leap etc…). It will cut of any feelings of “what the f*ck did I just see?” from occurring.

Discuss the terrain – I learned this one from Joel Henry, but it is in the rules as well. Make it clear what the mutually agreed the traits and height of the terrain on the table, it will head off any arguments and makes sure that you are playing on the same page. Once I started doing this I have never looked back and I even do it when not playing Malifaux now.

Be clear with what you are doing – I am terrible for this so allow this to be a public apology for the times when it gets to turn 3 and my brain is trying to keep on top of all of the things that are going on I can often fail to take the time to clearly explain what I am doing with my crew. There are a lot of interactions available in Malifaux so it can really benefit people to make it clear what is going on. For example I was once playing James Doxey and one of his Mechanical Spiders moved next to one of my models and in his words “did a little dance”. I thought that he meant pass, at the time it was confusing but I didn’t understand what he meant. Turns out he was interacting with my model for cursed object, which won him the game by 1 point. Equally it’s important to make it clear what actions your model is performing, especially if your opponent has never played against those models before.

Just a few suggestions of how to make your games more fun for yourself and the people that you attend tournaments with. If you’ve got more, drop them in comments or tweet me!