A pretty smart man (Samuel Johnson) once defined competition as 'the action of endeavoring to gain what another endeavors to gain at the same time.' When players enter a Warhammer 40k tournament, they're all trying to win, to gain 1st place, or perhaps 2nd or 3rd. This is how tournaments usually dole out prize support: Best Overall, Best General, Best Appearance, Best in Faction. There are titles and prizes for each 'Best' that players compete to get.
What I don't get is why anyone would want to attend a tournament if they don't think they'll be the 'Best' in one of those categories. A tournament is a competition, right? The point of a competition is to win, plain and simple. If you don't think you'll win, you're only there to be beaten, to pay an entry fee which goes to fill the winner's pockets. Sounds like a ton of fun. A small handful of players can actually expect to wrangle for the top spots in each 'Best' category. The rest of us are like Sisyphus, pushing the heavy rock of hope up a hill, only to have it come rolling back down on top of us.
All of the above is a pretty silly way to define a 40k tournament.
A good 40k event is one where everyone can have fun, from the guy who wins Best General and has a 5-0 record, to the guy who comes in last place and gets tabled in every one of his games. Yes, it's a great thing that we reward the 'Best' players in different categories: generalship, painting, sportsmanship, etc. We reward the 'Best' so we can give everyone ideals to strive for in the hobby. But if the only thing that makes a tournament enjoyable is the competition, the chance to be that 'Best' in whatever, a lot of people are going to walk away from an event quite unhappy. Every event has far more losers than winners.
You might object that I'm defining 'competition' too narrowly. After all, can't competition be about having close, hard-fought games of 40k, where the winner and loser are often determined by a single die roll or risky tactical decision on the last turn? Why does it matter who wins or loses, as long as each player is striving to do their own best at the hobby and having a blast doing it? That's healthy competition, right?
Sure, we use the word competition to describe that kind of atmosphere: close-knit, friendly gamers that challenge each other to do better. But I think we're using the wrong word when we call that competition. A competition is a struggle to determine who is stronger, smarter, better. Personally, I don't care so much about finding out who the 'Best' is: I'm interested in the struggle itself, the drive to improve myself in tactics, list-building, and painting, and the ways I can encourage others to do the same. That's not competition, that's community! Being the best doesn't matter, becoming better does.
From my perspective, that's what CAGE is all about: building community. Sure, there are prizes to be won by performing the 'Best' in different categories, but that's not the point of holding an Alabama 40k tournament, it's just a side effect. The point is to have fun, to become better as a community at the game of 40k, and to celebrate the hobby we've all invested so much time, money, and imagination in.
Only one person can win a competition, but the entire community can enjoy the game.
~Wraithdrad~
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