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I watched a tournament game recently and here is what happened:

Shooty guard with rough riders and lots of heavy weapons vs Marines with 2 whirlwinds.Mission was recon, marine player also had several land speeders.

Shooty guard play deployed in the center of his zone, Marine player hid his army behind terrain.

Marine player used his whirlwinds to destroy enemy units, and at the end of the game he zipped out his speeders to get into the enemy deployment zone, and got the win.

The Guard player gave him a 0 on sportsmanship. His reason? A. The Marine player did not give him a chance to win by hiding behind terrain. B. It wasn't a fun game for him and C. That was a spank way to win a game.

He further went on about how 40K ( even in a competitive) setting is about 2 players having fun playing the game, and the way the Marine player played, he couldn't do anything.

I have seen the same arguement and complaint made by a Chaos player in last years GT who lost to Greg Sparks...Sparks apparently lashed his units, pulled them forward and gunned them down. The losing player complained that the game sucked because he didn't get to use any of his units and didn't kill any enemy models.

So what is your opinion? Should you design your army and play in such a way so as to give your opponent a chance to win? Even in a tournament? Or are these guys just bad sports?

I think it takes a read on the situation.

For example, one time I played a tourny, and a very similar thing to this occurred. I had shooty Marines, the other guy had Necrons. The tourny organizer specifically said "on this mission, because there are objectives, I don't want people sitting back and hiding, get out there and play the game and have fun. This is a fun event."

The other guy did exactly that, sat back and hid, and then jetted Destroyers in to grab objectives, even as I did things I wouldn't normally have, in order to respond to the organizer's direction.

So that was pretty friggin lame, I thought. I still gave the guy decent sports, because he seemed really guilty at the end.

In a more competitive event, hey, you're playing to win. If the event is competitive, not only do you not have to give your opponent a chance to win, you should try not to. I guess I'd say that if you paid anything more than $5 to get into the event, you've got reasonable cause to win by any means within the rules (I'm sure there're exceptions, but you get the idea).

IG player is a sore loser. Simple as that.

General Hobbs wrote:His reason? A. The Marine player did not give him a chance to win by hiding behind terrain.

Are Guard not allowed to move in Tournaments?

This is often a problem when two shooty armies meet up... They both sit back and wait for the other to move first, in the hope of getting off the first shot. Complaining that the other guy didn't move is only really even remotely justified if you did.

If the extent of your strategy is 'sit back and hope that something walks into your gunsights' you might want to question whether or not the tournament scene is really for you...


(Those 'you's are in the generic sense... not aimed at anyone, by the way)

It is a jank way to win but that's just the way it works out sometimes. The fault is probably on the organizer for having enough terrain to hide an entire army behind

The only time I will pull punches at a tournament is when I'm playing a total noob.

The IG player was way off for marking down the SM player. His/her loss shows poor tactics and an unbalanced army.

You can bet the IG player would show no mercy if the SM army had marched into range of his/her wepons.

HFN

The problem here isn't that the SM player didn't give the IG guy a chance to win, it's that the IG player expects a chance to win without changing his game plan.

It's pretty clear what went down: the IG list has two huge weaknesses, claiming objectives and dealing with indirect fire. The mission draw was a bad beat, but seeing as even IG have ways to mitigate both weaknesses, it's more the players fault then his opponents. And If the IG player wanted to take a highly themed list, well, thems the breaks. If you hit a mission/army match up that's a natrual foil to your army, take the lose gracefully.

To answer the broader question, I think that it's a duty of a player in a pick up or fun game to try to help their opponent have a good time. Winning or losing huge because of a bad matchup isn't fun for either side. In a tournament, it's the job of the TO to try to prevent unwinnable missions. It's infuriating to lose a mission because of "Wacky" rules that bone your army, nor is it highly satisfying to win because you picked a good army for the mission.

This situation doesn't seems like the mission was partularliy broken. It's an objective gathering mission, and IG need to be able to play those. Seems to me that there was a poor sport, and it wasnt necessarily the SM player.

It all depends on the social context. I’ve been in plenty of games with my tyranids where I’ve held a dominant position with a turn or two left, and could have bunkered up and secured the win. But in the interests of the game and to follow the instincts of the hive mind I’ve decided to maintain the assault, and it has turned a few wins into draws and losses.

But those were not tournament games.

A heavily focussed list like the IG player’s will take an advantage into every game where its strengths can be properly used, but at the expense of finding the odd situation where the list is next to useless. It’s the gamble you take. It is unreasonable to take that gamble, benefit from your specialisation in most games, but insist when your weakness is exposed that the other player should go out of his way to put you back into the game.

Polonius wrote:The problem here isn't that the SM player didn't give the IG guy a chance to win, it's that the IG player expects a chance to win without changing his game plan.

Amen.

I, for one, believe that in casual games it is best to get both players engaged in the game. In tournament games, it is not my responsibility to make sure that you get so much of my force... on the contrary, if your army has a glaring weakness and my army can exploit it - then by all means I will. And it's not my fault for doing so.

General Hobbs wrote:The Guard player gave him a 0 on sportsmanship.

So what is your opinion? Should you design your army and play in such a way so as to give your opponent a chance to win? Even in a tournament? Or are these guys just bad sports?

I think there are a lot of problems here.

First I think the Guard player was well-justified in giving a ZERO. When weedy Guardsmen are played as more manly and brave than Marines, the Marine player isn't playing properly.

An army should be built with some care and played with a nod to the Fluff, so at least the opponent has fun. Not necessarily to let them win, but at least let them *play*.

In a tournament, if Sports and Comp are factors, then the objective should be to win a fun, tight game - not to massacre.

A lot of this lays at the feet of the TO. Stop scoring VPs that encourage lame play. Score only objectives that encourage bravery and sacrifice.

In that case the marine player absolutely deserved a low score for sportsmanship, as long as it doesnt effect painting and comp scores then it’s fully in the IGs player right.

There really wasnt much the IG player could do, really his options were 1) Spread out 2) Run across the table and get counter assaulted by a superior enemy. Either way it wouldnt have mattered because the marine player was going to get the points for the land speeder units, which I can only guess were 3 units of 2 tornados, sitting at 480pts meaning the marine player would only have to do 800pts of damage over the course of 6 turns to get a massacre in a 1500pt game. If it just ran on a simple win - lose - draw then it was over before it even started.

I dont know, but getting bitched in a supposedly fun game even in a tournament is lame. Yes tournaments are competitive but there should be a sense of honour about it, because if not then why even bother playing? What is the ultimate goal? To what? Get a crappy trophy and have the recognition of nerds? Even if you're playing for money, be a hard ass yes, but being a complete and utter tosspot?

There is no sport in that, its like hunting rabbits with a fully automatic .50 cal machine gun and then putting the corpses on your wall and saying you earned it. Being able to best your opponent in a fair fight is something to be proud of, but not even giving him the dignity of that just makes you a pu**y with a big gun.

There's only one person who deserved 0 sportsmanship and that's the IG player, who was obviously a really sore loser.

Sportsmanship is about whether your opponent was friendly and helpful to play? Did they remind you about a unit you had forgotten to move, play quickly and efficiently, not be a rules lawyer?

If he did, then he was a sporting player - you can't mark him down for having a winning tactic.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:There's only one person who deserved 0 sportsmanship and that's the IG player, who was obviously a really sore loser.

Sportsmanship is about whether your opponent was friendly and helpful to play? Did they remind you about a unit you had forgotten to move, play quickly and efficiently, not be a rules lawyer?

If he did, then he was a sporting player - you can't mark him down for having a winning tactic.

There in lies the problem.

Sportsmanship to some people is conduct in game play, and to others its just about how easy going on the rules they are. Sportsmanship is about both, it is simply the conduct in which the person acts. Because sportsmanship is an opinion based catagory it is completely up to the person scoring what he decides is more importent, conduct in game play or conduct with rules. Short of having a complete check box break down there is no way of enforcing both in an opinion based score.

It also depends on how many points are awarded for sportsmanship, if it was out of 10 then a zero is excessive because you could evenly split the 2 conducts down the middle, if it is only at of 3 though then a 0 represents a poor game that you wished you had not even bothered playing, I still think zero is excessive in that case but you're not going to hand the guy perfect scores when his attitude is "screw this guy Im not going to let him lift a finger against me".

Sore losers. Nuff said.

Ravenous - I understand where you're coming from, but its nigh on impossible to interpret sportsmanship 'in-game'

There are a number of conflicting and overlapping issues here.
1. Its a 'military simulation' in the loosest sense of the term. In all such situations you would attempt to complete the mission objective with as little loss as possible.
2. In-game fluff. If you had a Night Lords themed chaos army that pounded you from range, waiting for your nerve to break before pouncing on you with swift assault/firefight units you could argue that you were 'roleplaying' the army well.
3. The definition of 'contest' in the game. There are many who would argue (particularly in a tournament setting) that army design and deployment are just as tricky and just as much of a factor in winning as what happens after the game starts.
You will sometimes run across a build that causes you problems irrespective of how good yours is (i.e. Nidzilla will always have problems when facing Lascannon spam)


The problem is defining the point where the deployment and employment of in-game units stops being good play and starts being unfair, even assuming you beleive such a point exists.

Agreed, its those points that matter it such a muddy matter that cannot be resolved easily if not at all.

Ive run into pretty much all types of gamers and sportsmanship means something different to every person. Some people even judge sportsmanship and comp as the same thing, the variables are immense.

For me its just really about respect, is my opponent going to just come in, treat me like a whore and leave, or are they going to try to make sure we both get something out of it. I dont mind getting massacred so long as I started out with a fighting chance and me losing comes from my mistakes/crap luck rather then abstraction in the ruleset.

If you are playing in a tournament/competitive game, then you never let up, and never give your opponent a chance.

The reasons why are:
#1. In tournaments you need to maximize your victory conditions if they give more points for bigger wins.
#2. You might not be doing as well as you think you are doing.
#3. Once you lose the initiative and give your opponent a chance, sometimes it snowballs and you can’t stop it and then they end up winning.

The problem with the IG player was a design flaw in his army. The SM player saw the flaw, and just sat back and the IG player could do nothing about it. The IG player was a sore loser because he must of never been up against that build before (it is a rare build) and did not know how to counter it. You need to account for everything, (or at least not draw a bad match-up) in take-all-comers settings. How would the have turned out if the IG player had a basilisk or two in his army?

In my opinion the SM player made a mistake by misreading the tournament scoring metagame. He might have realised that an easy massacre of the IG would lead to a bad sports score, so he should have given away a few kills to get his sports score jacked up. If he had played more cleverly, he could perhaps have achieved a massacre on the battlefield and top marks in sports as well.

IMO the IG player is in the wrong.
Your playing a tournement game you need to expect people to win no matter what. Sorry that you got beaten by prity much a superior army list.
When I was at GW last week they where playing new rules. When I saw that I had to capture objectives and when I saw how my IG oponent set up and warned him saying I am playing to win sorry.
I think I was a good sportsman for saying I am going to play like a git and apologised after I won for playing like a git.
I would let him move and shoot units that he forgot about. I would be generous if he could of couldnt see a unit.
I wouldnt go to a GT and be drawn up to a scissor when im a paper and start complaining saying 'He should of let me have a better chance'

rock-paper-scissors...
When you make an army out of nothing but PAPER you shouldn't complain about being beaten by an army made of SCISSORS.

The ig dude is an hypocrit and doesn't realize the problem is his own fault, his own monochrome army build that's designed to handle a few situations very well and fail miserably versus someting else.

Ravenous D wrote:In that case the marine player absolutely deserved a low score for sportsmanship, as long as it doesnt effect painting and comp scores then it’s fully in the IGs player right.

There really wasnt much the IG player could do, really his options were 1) Spread out 2) Run across the table and get counter assaulted by a superior enemy. Either way it wouldnt have mattered because the marine player was going to get the points for the land speeder units, which I can only guess were 3 units of 2 tornados, sitting at 480pts meaning the marine player would only have to do 800pts of damage over the course of 6 turns to get a massacre in a 1500pt game. If it just ran on a simple win - lose - draw then it was over before it even started.

I dont know, but getting bitched in a supposedly fun game even in a tournament is lame. Yes tournaments are competitive but there should be a sense of honour about it, because if not then why even bother playing? What is the ultimate goal? To what? Get a crappy trophy and have the recognition of nerds? Even if you're playing for money, be a hard ass yes, but being a complete and utter tosspot?

There is no sport in that, its like hunting rabbits with a fully automatic .50 cal machine gun and then putting the corpses on your wall and saying you earned it. Being able to best your opponent in a fair fight is something to be proud of, but not even giving him the dignity of that just makes you a pu**y with a big gun.

So would a Tau player who uses SMS from behind terrain and jump shoot jump tactics that also denied the opponent shooting also deserve a zero? Is it different because the OP example was Marines?

Ravenous D wrote:I dont mind getting massacred so long as I started out with a fighting chance and me losing comes from my mistakes/crap luck rather then abstraction in the ruleset.

And in this case, the Guard player had a fighting chance. He presumably had the same points allocation as everyone else in the tournament.

If what he chose to do with it leaves him with a list that suffers against certain opposing builds, surely that's his own mistake rather than the fault of his opponent?

Part of the challenge of a tournament setting is building a list that can compete against all comers, or at the very least do well enough in the majority of games to offset the times you get whalloped by the dreaded counter-list.

if your opponent is new and not quite sure of things (in otherwords his first game or so) I would coach them and give them every opportunity to learn.

In a tournament, hell no. It's a tournament, not a place to throw a game because your opponent is a whiner.

I've been in the hobby for around 5 years, but have played few games, prefering to coach myself up against a friend.

I'l be going to a Gaming Club tonight, now i've got more time and a few good armies painted up. But to be honest, it's up to my opponent there whether he wants to pull punches or not at my inexperience.

At my place if either side is getting stressed at the match, we'l finish the turn and go chill somewhere, I guess this can't be done at tournements so its solely up to the players to remain chirpy towards each other.

Frankly so long as the SM player was pleasant throughout the match, the IG player should've grinned and beared it, as said before.

I place the blame entirely on the tournament organizer. Maybe I'm spoiled playing around Chicago, but all our missions use the Adepticon-style Primary/Seconday/Tertiary objectives.

In such a situation, the Marine player may still have got the primary with this tactic, but would most likely have failed to get any others and would have knocked himself out of running by playing like this.

Having good missions prevents this sort of thing.

That said, in the scenario described above, the Marine player was smart. Marines are not just super-human killing machines, they're also expertly trained soldiers and if the opportunity exists to defeat an opponent without risking any casualties, I see no reason, fluffwise, that they wouldn't do so.

insaniak wrote:And in this case, the Guard player had a fighting chance. He presumably had the same points allocation as everyone else in the tournament.

Part of the challenge of a tournament setting is building a list that can compete against all comers, or at the very least do well enough in the majority of games to offset the times you get whalloped by the dreaded counter-list.

True. And obviously there is no massive deficiency in the IG armylist that makes getting to indirect firers impossible. Hell, currently drop troops is free and you can throw any number of melta and even plasma over there to cook off light indirect vehicles if you need it to happen. As Insaniak said earlier, there's always the movement phase too .........

To echo Insaniak and state the obvious, a huge part of competitive 40k comes in the List Design Phase before the game begins. I personally find this an unattractive aspect of competitive 40k and so my CSM remain only quasi-competitive, but then even I have built in options to be able to handle indirect weapons (terminator suicide squads) at the casual level I play at. I hate to side with the twerp who hid all game like a pu$$y, but that 0 sports was uncalled for and the IG player should either re-evaluate his list, his tactics or why he's playing at a tournament.

- Salvage

Playing to the mission and playing to win are not bad sportsmanship. If it’s obvious from turn one that it’s a terrible matchup and probably a massacre, it might be worth an EXTRA HIGH sportsmanship score for the marine player to play more aggressively and give his opponent a fighting chance.

But that would clearly be going above and beyond. I would never expect him to do that. His playing the game smartly was certainly not worth a zero, and unless he was personally obnoxious and/or cheated, the IG player has definitely shown himself to be the poor sport.

I actually did this in one of my games at the 2004 Boston GT. In round 2 my Dark Angels were up against an Ork army in Patrol. It was VPs, with the L-shaped deployment zones in opposite corners, open terrain, and some stuff in Reserve. It was clear from deployment that I could shoot him up at my leisure and he would never get far enough across the board to do any real damage. I would miss one of the bonus points for getting a unit in his deployment zone at the end, but I was virtually guaranteed the win. My opponent was clearly very unhappy at his luck, so I chose to play semi-aggressively, throwing a Rhino squad and my speeders forward to try to do some more damage and take a shot at grabbing his DZ. He played smart, had good dice, and got the Draw from me. At the end of the tournament I had 3W, 1D, 1L, came in 9th overall, but also won one of the Sportsmanship awards (with all max scores and two fave opponent votes). So I was not unhappy with the outcome, though I might have come out better in the Overall standings had I played the mission to win.

The marine player got tripped up by a subspecies of your common non-tournament player (henceforth NTP). In a tournament it's just as important to read your enemy as it is to read their list.

Was the IG NTP going to zero out the soft scores of anyone who beats him or just those who beat him without "giving him a chance"? If the former, the marine player played optimally, max BP's is the best you can get out of a sore loser or a spear carrier for another competitive player. If the latter, there was probably a way he could have let the NTP chuck some plastic without endangering his BP's. It usually doesn't cost anything to try and get some soft scores out of a NTP.

Counter assault with an assault squad that the IG player could have used his lances on (but that wasn't enough points to make up for the carnage from the whirlwinds) might have let him feel like he was in it to win it. Seizing on some inconsequential die roll and acting as though it cost the IG player the game might have let him pardner up with the IG player vs. the IG player's dice, saving his soft scores. It might have been necessary to exclaim over the paint/conversions on those Rough Riders, and ask for pointers as to how to improve his own list, lots of NTP's will hold court on their paint skillz given the least opportunity. It might even have been possible to shame him into it, or work sympathize with him about the vile mission objectives which cost the NTP his shot. Talk's cheap, engage your opponent and you might even find yourself enjoying the game more than as repetition #56 of how your optimized list stomp's all over your foe's freak show.

Ultimately the soft scores of your opponents are something you can't control, but they typically represent the opponent's general enjoyment of the game. If they zero you it's likely that they had a bad time. If they aren't having fun you probably weren't either (I know I have a tough time enjoying a game my opponents isn't having any fun at), and that's not why you come to a tournament. Save the optimal blitz for fellow competitive players, and throw the NTP's a bone.

If you are playing in a tournament you should not expect your opponent to give you a chance to win. I am sure the IG could have done something rather than stand there all game.

G

Kilkrazy wrote:In my opinion the SM player made a mistake by misreading the tournament scoring metagame. He might have realised that an easy massacre of the IG would lead to a bad sports score, so he should have given away a few kills to get his sports score jacked up. If he had played more cleverly, he could perhaps have achieved a massacre on the battlefield and top marks in sports as well.

Being penalized for trying to win doesn't make sense. That's why I find soft scoring to be extremely lame, aside from painting scores. It can be too objective. If someone is having a bad day and screws you on a sportsmanship score, that is out of your control. On the contrary, some very nice guy might just give someone a very high sports score even if they didn't deserve it.