Opening Remarks

Hello, World!

My name is Brandon Cating, a gamer with strong opinions on popular games ranging from  table top miniature games such as Star Wars: X-Wing and Warmachine/Hordes to video games like League of Legends and Hearthstone. I'm beginning this blog for three reasons. Firstly, typing ideas provides moments of more concentrated reflection, which I hope will lead to further insights and discoveries. Secondly, I hope to engage like-minded and similarly interested individuals in discourse through this blog. Lastly, I hope to rectify my lack of engagement with the competitive gaming communities on the internet. As a prominent player in the Warmachine/Hordes community (#humblebrag), I've remained silent on most issues. That ends now.

So why read this blog? What are my credentials as a competitive gamer? Why feed my burgeoning ego? Continuing the not-so-humble bragging, I've been a long-time competitive gamer. Like many other tabletop gamers, I began my road to nerd-dom as a wide-eyed child entering the doors of a Games Workshop. From there, I started playing Magic: The Gathering competitively at the age of 14, devoting a lot of time and energy to the game from the Timespiral-Lorwyn block till the rotation of Scars of Mirrodin. A lot of my competitive mentality arose from those days competing for cash prize FNMs. It wasn't long before my GW history caught up with me, and a close group of friends taught me how to play 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy. Those friends trained the young me to be (as they still fondly joke) a "cold-blooded killer" in gaming. With army choices like Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, and Skaven, it wasn't long before I created a lineage of power-gaming that entailed many long hours of poring over rulebooks and army codices in order to understand list building strategies and abusing poorly written rules. It wasn't long before the golden days of 7th edition (rest in pepperonis) faded into the casual-catering abomination of 8th edition. With that, I needed a new outlet for my competitive spirit, and my good friend, Travis, was more than willing to teach me how to play Warmachine.

And the rest is history. I spent about a year playing Warmachine within my local meta before I decided to start travelling to large conventions to play in large tournaments. I've achieved some notable successes. During my first year of travel in 2013, I took second place in the Iron Gauntlet qualifier, losing to Keith Christianson in the first game Privateer Press live-streamed. I went on to place fourth in the Iron Gauntlet 2014 Invitational, losing to Jason Watt in the semi-finals.  I've taken two second place finishes at Warmachine qualifiers, including the Las Vegas Open 2014 and Store Wars 2014 - the latter of which qualified me for the Warmachine Weekend 2014 Invitational which would then become my first major tournament win. I recently started playing X-Wing in the summer of 2014 and have started playing in local tournaments fairly recently, and have yet to travel to any regional events.

As for the video game side, I've been playing video games since I was a wee-lad. My favorite game is Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, now known as The Lion's War). A majority of my early gaming revolved around Starcraft and Warcraft III, the latter dealing with the early MOBAs such as Aeon of Strife and DoTA: Allstars. I primarily play FPS, MOBAs, RTS, and non-MMO RPGs. As for League of Legends, I've been playing since Season 2. My highest rank was Diamond 3 during the most recent season, and I'm hoping to rise to a high diamond this year. Most of my posts on video games will likely revolve around LoL and Hearthstone.

As the blog's name suggests, I'm a highly critical and unabashedly opinionated gamer that believes you can take little toy soldiers and space ships seriously while still enjoying the game. Though at times it may sound like I'm attacking or discrediting a game, please keep in mind I only do so because I truly love this hobby.

Sincerely,

Brandon Cating