A Winner Is You! - Duh, Winning Edition

Weclome to another installment of "A Winner Is You"; this blog's version of "Grinds My Gears".  You know what really grinds my gears...

People who view wargaming tournaments as a way to validate their egos, or worse, generate income.  Take this lulztastic example of "DERF DERF DERF, ME AM BEST" over on Dakka Dakka:

Hey folks!

I wanted to share a couple of pictures (shameless pride!) and inspire everyone to step up their game to enjoy the rewards!

1. The Secret to my Tournament Success!


2. Things I haven't figured out to do with yet:


I've won a lot of stuff at tournaments over the last two years. The picture is what is still in boxes that I haven't poked around with yet.

Not pictured here (because they aren't shrink-wrapped anymore)

1. $480 worth of store credit at several stores that I haven't cashed in yet.

2. 1x Demolisher, 5x razorbacks, 3x las/plas predators, 6 landspeeders

3. The blisters back there are Njal Stormcaller, Mad Dok, and Mephiston

4. All 3,000 points of my Dark Eldar (entirely free through tournament winnings)

5. Two battlewagons, 30 Lootas, Snikrot, three Ork trukks, and two more Stompas (one of which was too big in the box to fit in my luggage for the flight home from a GT)

6. 30 tactical marines, a captain, and 24 assault marines.

7. 15 Missile Launcher devastators, 6 lascannons, two multi-meltas, 5 autocannons

8. 3 other Space Marine Dreadnoughts.

I think that's about it. Most of my Orks were also tournament winnings, but I don't remember which I bought and which I won, and a good chunk of my Tau were tournament winnings as well, but I traded them out for my Necron Army.

So practice! Work on those skills! My Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, half my Orks, and most of my Necrons were funded by playing. I've traded some of my winnings for things I need as well. Open your mind, think outside the box, and fund YOUR next army through tournament winnings.

And ENJOY yourself while doing it:
 

Insert golf calp here.  In fairness, sincerely, kudos on winning thousands of dollars worth of GW product.  That said...

First off, you should never, ever, under any circumstances be drinking the bilge marketed as Captain Morgan's Rum (though if you're grinding 40K tournaments to afford GW gaming, there's already something terminally wrong with you mentally).  Secondly, why on Earth are you drinking at 4:00 PM?

On, you're playing 40K.  Carry on then...

Having seen this locally (my roommate has paid for maybe 20% of his armies), it does bad, bad things to the tournament community.  Mostly because people get sick of paying money to play in an event only for it to go to "that guy".  You can harp on people to "step up their game, dude!" or "this could be you if you just ran different lists, man!"; but eventually, people just sick of playing you.

To say nothing of how you could be better investing all that time.

To quote one of the replies to his thread:

It's a nice stash of winnings, and absolutely fine to brag about it here. Where else are you going to get to brag?

Dash- 'Hey, how's it going?'

Woman at Bar- 'Um, fine.'

Dash- 'You know, I win a lot of toy soldier tournaments.'

Woman at Bar- 'Wow... what do you get for winning?'

Dash- 'Unopened boxes of toy soldiers.'

Woman at Bar- '...'

Dash- 'You should come see my dining room, the entire table is covered with unopened boxes of toy soldiers.'

Woman at Bar- 'I'm good.'

'Bout sums in up.

Wargaming: Yes, you can do it so hard you don't have to pay for it anymore.  That said, don't quit your day job.