Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Fly casually

or why I should stop playing x-wing competitively.

Background

Last weeks I have been reading the meta, tinkering and testing my dual phantom plus Soontir list for the regionals which had been the main focus of the last entries on this blog.
Regionals are gone now and everything seems quiet in the western front (actually there is a second regional at the end of this month, but that is another story).
Also this last week, my local group was considering to play a Epic Game. They wanted to go for 200 points each players, tournament style and four players.
Here, I was the calm voice saying things like: we have never done it before, we have limited experience with the CR90 corvette and all that energy stuff, maybe 120 points per person with a lot of time for the game will be better, we play quite and nicely, relax, checking the rules, discussing the game as it progresses and so on. So, I was the calm down voice.
What happened? Well...

Reality

We prepared the teams, discussed strategies, met for the game, did the set up, took some pictures, set the dials for the first round and I managed to destroy the whole mood of the game and ruin the whole concept.
Rickbane and me we were playing imperials, Rombic and darth messenger were playing rebels. As more experienced player, messenger was in charge of the CR90 corvette and Rombic was playing the normal rebels ships, which included an Prototype A-wing (PS 1) and three other craft with PS 2.
The four ships were deployed in formation and he wanted to move them a 2 turn, all of them and made then focus. However, with all the talking and the fact that he was having another A-wing which was supposed to do a 3 turn, he put the two dials of the A-wings on a 3 turn, which will disrupt his formation.
When he was revealing the dials he was saying aloud his intentions, namely all 2 turns and focus, but the dial was showing a 3 turn. We pointed this to him, he turned the other A-wing dial and surprise it was also a 3 turn, however he just keep doing the intended 2 turn which was fine, we were playing casually and for fun, right ?

Not really...

He had moved already other two ships after the "misplaced" A-wing, I was still talking about something else or about this particular movement when something, I don't know what or why just snapped in me. I just turn to him and said something like:
sorry, you need to move back those two other ships and move the A-wing a 3 turn which is what is in the dial, so is the rule (yes, the rule, the tournament rule) and, by the way, I am serious about it.
Death silence for a second.
Mood completely spoiled and the whole idea of the game, learning and having fun gone; just because of me being a [please insert here appropriate insult].
Maybe it was the fact that I played a tournament the weekend before, that I am having some stress in my life at the moment or that I am completely out of my mind, but the truth is that I was completely out of line.

Yes, sure, a few minutes later, during the second round, a little voice in my head said to me what a moron I was and I apologized to him, and he was so nice not to hold a grudge about it and the rest of the game was (more or less) fine and that they win and destroy my two ships before the fourth round (I think this was karma coming back); but that is not the point, those are amendments which needed to be done after my performance.

My point
I am trying to learn from this and trying to learn to fly casually and no be a moron with/about this game. Hope you never encounter someone displaying out there a behaviour as stupid as the one I did.

Fly casually and see you around.



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