Competitive Conundrum

So here we go. My Blood Angels (list mainly here - in the middle of the post, not the Asscannon army, I say mainly as this is not the final list – I am keeping that a little quiet for now as I’m really happy with it but don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet) have been doing incredibly well at the LGS. They have only lost once to Daemons (yes, I know – I killed 1200-ish points out of 1500, but ran out of turns (ended turn 5) to zoom across and contest the plaguebearer-held objective FTW) and drew to Eldar – great player and very weird local tournie mission.

Yesterday I got in 3 games at 1500 vets night. Black Templars, spearhead, capture & control…tabled turn 3.

I didn’t lose a model.

Mech Eldar plus Pathfinders, turn 5 we called it with 3 Howling Banshees and a Farseer left on the table, surrounded by 6 fully operational BA tanks…

I lost one Rifleman dread.

Ultramarines capture and control, over by T5. Below 25% casualties.

Am I in danger of running out of dudes who’ll play? The Black Templar guy stated after the game that he won’t play the Mech BA again. Others have the psychological cloud that they’ll be “steamrolled”…

But I need to practice. My movement is becoming very precise and fields of fire, cover and all the ranges of weapons are spot on to my eye now. I’m doing great on tactics and ideas against a wide variety of opponents and armies.

The UKGT (in whatever format it takes, TBA soon) is this autumn and its my first GT. I regularly get to discuss in person ideas with 2 ex-GT winners but I am a noob when it comes to the tournament atmosphere etc. so I feel my game needs to be as tight as possible.

But what do I do in the mean time? There are a good number (6-7) of guys locally that are tournament players and a number of very good players (3) that don’t play at tournies but give me a good game.

However, these guys are not around every week, 3 or 4 are, but the nature of pick up gaming states that I am more than likely going to be matched up against some one who is not playing an optimised, stripped out and wolf-lean army.

This then becomes no fun for either player. I have read a lot recently on the ‘social contract’ of wargaming and subscribe to this principle/theory. I may play tough, but I do it without being an asshat.

But this said, do I need to run a softer, fluffier army for the guys that don’t play in GT’s, or do I get in as much practice as possible, not being a tosspiece, to ensure my own goals are met sufficiently? I can still almost guarantee GT-level games once a fortnight, is this enough prep time?

Any thoughts would be appreciated? Mainly if you have played a lot of Tournaments? As I said, there are dudes I can talk to at the store, who are all in tournament prep mode, which leads me to believe that I should be too?