Mayday, Miss Marcy! Talking About Talking It Out, Painting Possibilities, and Holiday Humdrum

Welcome back to the Mayday Before Christmas! This week, we've got a new selection of three questions, but before we get to those, here's last week's piece, in which we covered everything from buying a wet palette to mom's dating. As we get very close to the holidays, actually so close you can taste them, we'll be wrapping up our holiday questions, but if you have any last minute ones you need to get in, make sure to send them in for next week's X-mas week edition!

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What You Talking Out, Willis?

Good Morning Miss Marcy!

I've just started playing 40k in local RTTs after taking my sweet time building up to 2000 points and I've generally been having a great time. My bugbear is talking games out, especially if I'm playing against someone newer than I am and there's a lot of stuff left on the table. I always feel like there's a mismatch in expectations, my anxiety spikes, and I generally just end up letting my opponent do whatever for fear of stepping on toes, especially if I'm playing someone in their 'home store'. Clearly I need to advocate for myself better or be willing to call a T.O. if I'm not sure, but I don't want to be perceived as 'that guy' and it'd help if I had a clearer idea of what 'talking it out' is supposed to look like, as it's by definition outside the rules structure that I know a lot of us are more comfortable within. Any chance we can get a quick rundown?

Thanks, Tongue-tied at the Talk-out

Dear Tongue-tied,

Thanks for writing in! I decided that I should forward your question to someone who has far more experience than I do with RTTs and situations like this, our very own Rob "TheChirugeon" Jones, so take it away, Rob!

Rob: Hi Tongue-tied,

Talking it out can be complicated and it's not uncommon for players to overreach when doing it. In those situations where you are unsure or you think there's too much uncertainty left, you are well within your rights to just ask to play more, or to have a judge or TO join your game and help you and your opponent work through it. Even if it may feel like it, you are never "that guy" for calling a TO, and anyone who tries to make you feel that way is a bad actor. Calling a judge isn't an accusation and every judge and TO everywhere would rather you call them to help resolve an issue rather than have a bad experience you regret later.

Marcy: From my experiences in the Magic the Gathering competitive sphere overlap here a bit so I will just tag on to say that I 100% agree with Rob: If someone is upset you asked a Judge/TO for clarification or otherwise, that person is not acting in good faith, so never hesitate to do that, and don't let yourself be talked into losing so you aren't "that guy." Be the guy that wins.

Color Me Interested

Dear Miss Marcy,

I have been recently enamoured of the White Scars and intend to build an army using their general iconography. However, while I am actually looking forward to the challenges of doing a good white on Space Marines (I have a method in mind, even) I have been considering how to variate on their design and colors to be My Guys, since half the fun or more of Warhammer 40,000 ™ is the joy of having your Guys.

My questions are thus two.

For the specific one - if I was replacing RED in the White Scars color scheme, what might make a good replacement? My best thought is ??? blue?? and you may know better than I.

For the general one - what would your general advice be for people who want to homage a classic look with an individual twist that will avoid looking like garish and tacky bullshit? (Garish and tacky would, of course, be appropriate for ECs.)

For the Khagan, Aspiring Space Mongol

Dear Aspiring Space Mongol,

I had an initially kind of negative reaction to blue, which you suggested, which then cooled down slightly after Jack and Rob showed off some decent White and Blue models; that being said, I do kind of think White Scars and "Blue" feel like an odd choice, as the blue highlight might just make people assume you've got some form of Ultramarine. Of course, these are Your Guys, so you can do whatever you want, but if I had to pick a few options, I think I would stick to some of the options related to White Scars. That means White, Yellow, and Red, and... Well, White and Yellow seems maybe not great, but could work with very good applications of yellow highlights.

So, I then thought a bit about it in terms of other color options, and figured that you could likely get away with a compelling scheme that uses "Yellow" in "Gold", particularly metallics, or darker shades of yellow. I think this could be a slick look to your guys, and you could even add in some touches of red highlights if you wanted to, but ultimately, I think that you could do something very cool by blending your white paint with a metallic accent to bring out their "White Scar" identity without going more general.

As for your second question, or second part, I think it follows in line with what I just suggested: I would look for parallel designs that could run next to the "classics". For Ultramarines, for example, experimenting with shades of blue is a great option, as could be yellows instead of gold; Blood Angels with more accented red, or yellow over gold, are good options too. I think that following some solid diversions from classic palettes will get you further than trying to reinvent the wheel, and will also make people more able to go "Oh, Whitescars!" on the table. As you said, these are "Your Guys", so you can paint them whatever you want, but I applaud you for trying to think of "outside of the box" ways to put a new spin on things.

Holiday Humbug

Miss Marcy,

I'm not exactly what one would call "Christmaspilled". I don't really celebrate or enjoy the holidays for various reasons, and more importantly, they put a big damper on my hobbying because most of the people i play with are, rightfully, busy.

i don't want to sound like a petulant child but what should i do about this? obviously it happens every year, and i've not found a great solution yet.

cheers,

not quite scrooge

Dear Not Quite Scrooge,

I think what you're feeling is valid, as not everyone "loves" the holidays. Even for myself, someone that is often called "Christmaspilled" as you say, the holidays are often a stressful and exhausting time. I think you'd probably find that many of your friends or opponents are actually wanting to play games, but likely can't, due to the various obligations they are having to fulfill. If anything, I think it is less the holidays you resent, and more the lack of availability that they create in people's schedules; in some ways you could even say you're being mindful that people seem to be stretched thing. Less politely, you are being selfish, but I don't know if I could read it as petulant entirely.

I think a big suggestion would be to try to refocus the Winter/Holiday season as a time for you to renew your hobby in some way. Perhaps, if you know that it will be a period in which you are unable to play a lot of games, it should become your time to build, paint, and prep your armies for future play. If you want, it could even be the time you take to learn a new army or work on a new project ahead of the upcoming year, something new or different to bring to the table when people are more available and you've got the time and place to play.

There's nothing wrong with "not liking" holidays, unless you're doing so for a hateful or otherwise exclusionary reason; don't let that be the thing that clouds you from the fact that your real issue is you lack available playmates at the time, and thus don't know what to do with your free time (and possibly excess free time) at the end of the year. Screw Spring, make Winter your time to try new things!

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Tags: mayday miss marcy