Whenever a Dakka Discussion degenerates into "cheese/not cheese/OP!/IMBA!"- fights (see: broken armies of 8th edition thread) certain memories from my gaming days keep popping up... and of course, I have a screenname I should better represent, so here's the deal:

Broken or Brilliance? the dirty tricks you never thought of... while your opponent did!
In any Warhammer (fantasy/40k) player's gaming life, there will be a moment of shock, surprise, WTF! and "No effing waaaay!" followed by feelings of remorse, admiration and utter hatred for the guy who pulled that nasty trick on you. A ploy so unconventional and specific that it never would have occurred to you, or anyone you know (but that guy who just did it). It is all perfectly sound within the rules, not hinging on the roll of the dice nor on errors on your part, but a smart, nay, brilliant train of thought that utterly wrecked your battle-plan, best unit, greatest character or even all three!

So, after the ado: what was the Nastiest Ploy in Fantasy or 40k that an opponent used against you?

rules for posting:

- The ploy may involve some luck, but should not be about passing that crucial break-test, rolling that all important 6 to wound etc. The basis of the ploy must be well-conceived.
- No stories on cheaters, the ploy must be legal, but things that bend the rules to breaking point should be told by all means!
- you may post your own dirty tricks as well
- It should be a trick of unimaginable cunning!

As an example, I will, unlike I claimed previously, recount my tale of shock, admiration and deep felt hatred for a guy named Adri... for the very last time and I will make no further references on it from now on.

It was an informal FLGS 1500 points tournament run by and for the regulars (that's about 8 guys). I played my trusted Empire army.
In my first game I faced Adri, with his Lizardmen.
It involved a skink hero with the heart of woe and potion of strength, and a Slann mage priest who happened to get the spell apotheosis with uncanny regularity.

the Heart of Woe
Explodes when the bearer is slain, each model within a radius equal to the bearer's original W value takes an automatic hit at a S equal to the bearer +d6. A wounded model suffers d6 wounds

potion of strength
The same as today: +3 strength

Apotheosis High magic spell-remains in play
A friendly model gets reanimated/resurrected with his original equipment except for mounts and can be used normally while the spell remains in play.

So... The skink hero charges into battle against a unit of halberdiers at the centre of my line and quaffs his potion of strength. He kills a halberdier and is killed by the unit champion and another halberdier-> heart of woe explodes, carnage. but I'm glad it's over with... or is it?

Magic Phase: Slann casts apotheosis with the total power card (irresistible force) and brings back the skink hero who proceeds to my unit of 5 knights+general issuing a undeclinable challenge (no rear ranks to retreat to) after quaffing his potion of strength... On the one hand, I felt it would be stupid to have a skink hero tie up my units, on the other hand... there is a saying about a donkey, a stone and the word "twice"... I decided to -sigh- kill him again and hope that I'd get a chance to dispel further apotheoses... Nope.

To be short, Adri managed to suicide bomb me 3 times in a single game! I think he even managed to destroy my steam tank...

The guy won the tournament with this nasty trick.

so, go ahead, tell your tales of woe and unimaginable cunning... from any edition 40k or fantasy

final edit: extra conditions, see rules for posting

Well, I read an article on BoLS on how to do something that sounds illegal, but is a loophole. It is called "slingshotting", where if your unit (a) wants to assault enemy (c), but is too far away (14"-2 over assault range), you can have them move forward, and have an IC that is 2" in front of them join squad (a) so that they are now in assault range. With defenders react and pile in moves, you can get most of the models into assault. This just seems kind of dirty, and very hard to pull off, so you'd have to plan it in advance and make it a part of your list, which (IMHO) makes you a waac.

OK so it's not really what you'd call a dirty trick, just something I should have seen coming. My ten man company veteran squad got lashed out of cover and then battle-cannoned. Two models remained :(

This was the first time I'd come up against the lash and I won't soon forget it

model_bits_matt wrote:OK so it's not really what you'd call a dirty trick, just something I should have seen coming. My ten man company veteran squad got lashed out of cover and then battle-cannoned. Two models remained :(

This was the first time I'd come up against the lash and I won't soon forget it

enlighten me on this "lash-thing" please

Lash of Submission: It's a CSM psychic power which basically let's an opponent move a unit 2D6". Very, very annoying lol.

Lash of submission (aka fzorgle) is a Slaaneshi psychic power. It allows you to move an enemy unit a random distance.

You can reform, clump string them out, whatever, to get them where you want them.

In this case, clump them up and drop a str8 Battlecannon on them. Nasty.

It is versatile, and a goto for Chaos Space Marine lists.

How did the fzorgle name come about?

model_bits_matt wrote:How did the fzorgle name come about?

It's the noise a LoS makes.

Makes sense to me

model_bits_matt wrote:Lash of Submission: It's a CSM psychic power which basically let's an opponent move a unit 2D6". Very, very annoying lol.

skrulnik wrote:Lash of submission (aka fzorgle) is a Slaaneshi psychic power. It allows you to move an enemy unit a random distance.

You can reform, clump string them out, whatever, to get them where you want them.

In this case, clump them up and drop a str8 Battlecannon on them. Nasty.

It is versatile, and a goto for Chaos Space Marine lists.

Ooh, that's nasty... but if it's an obvious choice it's not a case of unimaginable cunning... only for those in the Dark about the secrets of the CSM dex...

Nah, it's okay, it would have surprised me for sure

i was shown the lash the hard way, i had a squad of twenty-five genetealer initates (conscripts with I4). they got lashed together and then devestator squaded apart.

A grave guard bunker charged my Slave Giant the other day,

Me: "Well, there goes the giant, but at least he'll do something fun."
Opponent: "My Vamp Lord has the Sword of Bloodshed, Eternal Hatred, and Red Fury."

For those not in the know, that means his Vampire Lord had 7 S5 attacks that always re-rolled to hit, and he gets an additional attack for every successful wound he causes.

Needless to say, my Giant fell over pretty quick.

His crazy vamp lord then went on to kill my Tyrant too. After the game(I beat him barely) he said he was surprised how much damage the Vamp Lord caused in CC. Really....

Using deployment to setup a first turn charge for my Savage Orc Warboss on Wyvern, getting the first turn, declare charge, call the Waaagh! Then suddenly, my opponent tells me that in his club, all Scenery is 'infinitely high' thus meaning my Large Target behind the wood it can normally see and indeed charge over (as per 7th Ed Fantasy rulebook) cannot now make his charge, leaving me slap bang in the vision of 3 Repeater Boltthrowers, instead of introducing his general's teeth to his general's ringpiece.

gakker.

Mr Mystery wrote:Using deployment to setup a first turn charge for my Savage Orc Warboss on Wyvern, getting the first turn, declare charge, call the Waaagh! Then suddenly, my opponent tells me that in his club, all Scenery is 'infinitely high' thus meaning my Large Target behind the wood it can normally see and indeed charge over (as per 7th Ed Fantasy rulebook) cannot now make his charge, leaving me slap bang in the vision of 3 Repeater Boltthrowers, instead of introducing his general's teeth to his general's ringpiece.

gakker.

Pretty sure you can't call the Waaagh! on the first turn(and I am not thinking about 40k either).

Oh you can indeed. Trust me on this one.

Mr Mystery wrote:Using deployment to setup a first turn charge for my Savage Orc Warboss on Wyvern, getting the first turn, declare charge, call the Waaagh! Then suddenly, my opponent tells me that in his club, all Scenery is 'infinitely high' thus meaning my Large Target behind the wood it can normally see and indeed charge over (as per 7th Ed Fantasy rulebook) cannot now make his charge, leaving me slap bang in the vision of 3 Repeater Boltthrowers, instead of introducing his general's teeth to his general's ringpiece.

gakker.

It's a cause for argument between you two, it's lame, but no dirty trick of unimaginable cunning neatly within the rules of play. This guy actually "invents" a completely bogus/lame rule on the spot if I take your post at face value.

The whole "how does terrain work" should be discussed before starting the game, heck, even before deployment! If not, then the BRB should be referred to (true LoS isn't it?). Also, it is unclear if you are actually AT the club or some place else, where he shouldn't even have the right to claim this rule to be in effect mid-game. while, if you were actually at the club, he should have informed you on the house rules/you could have inquired on them.

I was playing in a huge Apoc game a while back (back when I played World Eaters). I was fielding Angron and his retinue of seven Bloodthirsters (the formation from the old White Dwarf). It was a 6 on 6 game with 3000 points for each player. One of the players was fielding Daemonhunters.

I had never played against Daemonhunters before, so I did not know what to expect. Apparently, every wound caused by a Nemesis Force Weapon against a Daemon automatically kills it regardless of their immunity to Instant Death. He also told me they don't get saves from them.

I didn't find out he was bullshiting me until after the game. He was a member of our gaming club, and when he was confronted with it he tried to deny it. However, I was (and still am) a veteran of the club. They believed me and he was kicked from the club, and by default, banned from the store. We later found out he had stolen over 300 dollars from the club's funds.

model_bits_matt wrote:How did the fzorgle name come about?

Posted By Triggerbaby on 08/07/2007 1:46 PM

The rules for the Lash aren't entirely clear, but it looks like one might be able to target enemy units in close combat. And naturally, once somebody asks the question, Gav will immediately pipe up and give an enthusiastic albeit unofficial yes. Because he is a goddam sped.


But the possibilities for abuse are both game breaking and amusing!

Charged by my Beserkers? Fzorgle! You will be charged again next turn by my Furious Repeating Charge!
My Oblits are stuck in combat with Scarabs? Fzorgle! Not when the Scarabs love the great taste of leaving combat to jump into dangerous terrain on the lava tables.
I have been charged by your Slugga Boys? Fzorgle! I think you'll find they prefer to stand in a circle front of my Defiler.
And let's not forget that if normal targeting rules are superceded, you can always fzorgle independant characters out of attached units and into harm's way.

Even outside the balance issues, the lash is just a terrible idea. It adds more movement to the round, and movement is the most time-intensive aspect of game. Large units take a couple of minutes to move, particularly for players who are used to moving small units. Like Chaos players. And as mentioned before, it sanctions your opponent to put his greasy sausage fingers on your models. I don't want your Cheetos dust on my Talos, fatty, and I'm assuming the sentiment is mutual.

Oh, and I love how it forces a pinning test on top of the movement. It's like the designers weren't sure if anybody would want it. I envision the following: "All it does is move enemy units? Disgusted snort. Hey, stupid person, we're trying to get rid of the useless, fluffy wargear that so bothered everybody in the last edition. Fix it, post haste. Limpwristed dismissal accompanied by small fart."

Lastly, I vote for calling our new friend the Fzorgle PrinceTM. It sounds stupid and makes absolutely no sense, just like the Lash Of Fzorgling itself.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/179282.page#180065

me----I have this rather big battlewagon for my orks. I put a nasty nob squad and a big mek with a Kff. Not only does my Wagon get a +4 cover save, my 60-90 orks that around the hull get it, and the Kan Wall in front of them do too. See the others players usually say "oh I got 3 large blast templates coming down and loads killing orks hahha" to "what the hell, why does everything get a cover save I hate you wahhhhhhhhhhh"

Also I use the strenguard drop pod trick, that pisses off many people.

The only really dirty trick done to me is lash, man I hate lash.

Ultrafool wrote:

Also I use the strenguard drop pod trick, that pisses off many people..

Oh do tell.

Yea tell it, never seen one before actually

Well you get a ten man sternguard with combi-Meltas, then you combat squad near tanks such as leman russ squads and blow them up first turn. One time one 5 man squad killed a squad of russes and and the other a hell hound.

Or you drop with 5 combi meltas and 5 plasmas, then drop near a land raider, shoot the meltas at raider, then rapid fire guys inside with plasmas (usually terminatiors). killing the scarest thing first turn, or slowing it down.

haha, that infinitely high terrain bit was a really dirty thing to pull! I'll bet if he was the one going over/through the wooded area it would have been TLoS.

There are always those times when someone tells you a rule and you just have to look it up for yourself before continuing, usually when someone is using Necrons, usually when they are using a Lord with wargear

Ultrafool wrote:Well you get a ten man sternguard with combi-Meltas, then you combat squad near tanks such as leman russ squads and blow them up first turn. One time one 5 man squad killed a squad of russes and and the other a hell hound.

Or you drop with 5 combi meltas and 5 plasmas, then drop near a land raider, shoot the meltas at raider, then rapid fire guys inside with plasmas (usually terminatiors). killing the scarest thing first turn, or slowing it down.

Is that legal? I thought that since you all shoot at the same time then you can't shoot troops inside a transport that has been wrecked by previous fire?

40k rulebook P67 says that a squad is taken to fire simultaneously so you can't shoot a tank with a lascannon and then finish off the occupants with the squad's bolters. Since combat squadding counts each 5 man squad as being entirely separate it looks like it's within the rules.

Ah...I didn't think about them deploying by drop pod...hmm, might have to try that one!

One I have pulled in a doubles tournie our army was IG and Eldar

Round One against BA and SM (Dawn of War) they had 1st turn and a Land Raider and Mephiston set up on the halfway line, we had a seer council hidden away.they move everything up full speed and fail to kill anything (nightfight for the win). Our turn one on comes my vendetta 12" and spotlights mephiston, on an angle comes my Psyker Battle Squad in chimera using 'weaken resolve' check for range oh there 31" away out of range for psychic hood shame. Eldar Farseer uses mindwar on mephiston who is now Ld 2 (weaken resolve reduces Ld by number of psykers in squad in this case 9) mephistons psychic hood can't stop mind war (now he's Ld2) and each player rolls a dice adding thier Ld and the difference is the number of wounds without armour saves the opponent has to take (in this case 8!) Mephiston goes pop (no invul save). Nice guys felt really bad pulling this on them.

I have used battlewagons to drive troops off of objectives before. The last time I performed this offense, I won though I only controlled one objective. I was, with my battlewagons contesting the other three. I kind of felt bad, it was my opponent's first time playing his Tyranids. Of course, he had demolished me with the combination of ten wraithguard, a warlock, a farseer and a wraith lord more than once, so it was sweet while it lasted. Next time we played, he'd finished his two Tervigons, so I went back to being his bitch. (It really hurts an Ork player to be outnumbered... )

The last time I applauded my opponent was as he used faithweaver daemons against me.
He used boon of mutation against my executioner (!), then bolt of tzeentch against a chimera and the flaming attack (dont know the english name, can be breath of chaos or something like this) against an infantry squad. After this he charged the executioner.

Well done, mate!

The one with psykers and mind war is nice too

My Favorite is from way back with my Wood Elves. Playing in a tournament, and the scenario has each player assigning up to 1000 pts of victory points on 3 pieces of terrain. You each place your little scraps of paper face down, under/in the piece of terrain. There was a large forest in the middle, so my Orc and Goblins opponent puts one under it, as do I. It was pretty clear by the way the game was going that he had put all 1000 pts on the forest one, and he had shut down my magic phase by early killing of my high lvl mage, leaving a lowly lvl 1. At the end of the game I move a unit up to try and "contest', but was one inch short. Last turn begins, he moves a unit of wolf riders next to the terrain, claiming it. Bottom of last turn? I cast Tree Singing on the forest, moving it towards my guys, for the many thousand point victory!

micahaphone wrote:Well, I read an article on BoLS on how to do something that sounds illegal, but is a loophole. It is called "slingshotting", where if your unit (a) wants to assault enemy (c), but is too far away (14"-2 over assault range), you can have them move forward, and have an IC that is 2" in front of them join squad (a) so that they are now in assault range. With defenders react and pile in moves, you can get most of the models into assault. This just seems kind of dirty, and very hard to pull off, so you'd have to plan it in advance and make it a part of your list, which (IMHO) makes you a waac.

I used to do this (2 editions ago) with a 23 man squad of Guardians (20 + Wep Crew+ Warlock) and the Avatar. Nothing like having the Avatar join combat from 1/2 table away. Don't know if the Avatar can still join squads in the current book though.

Jihadnik wrote:Ah...I didn't think about them deploying by drop pod...hmm, might have to try that one!

Except that you can only put one unit into a transport. If you combat squad a 10 man unit into two five man units....you now have two units - both of them cannot go into the drop pod, only one of them.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Jihadnik wrote:Ah...I didn't think about them deploying by drop pod...hmm, might have to try that one!

Except that you can only put one unit into a transport. If you combat squad a 10 man unit into two five man units....you now have two units - both of them cannot go into the drop pod, only one of them.

You may want to read the drop pod rules where it states that you combat squad when it lands.

Not one of mine, but in apocalypse, using fzorgle to force the enemy's most expensive unit to walk into a vortex grenade.

OMG THE HORRROR! fzorgle VORTEX OF DOOM!

Goliath wrote:Not one of mine, but in apocalypse, using fzorgle to force the enemy's most expensive unit to walk into a vortex grenade.

That's standard practice in Baton Rouge, honestly.

It's harder to pull off these days, but I used to pull the "assassin sitting next to the army" ploy.

(posting so I can check back later, will edit when I get back)

Dashofpepper wrote:

Jihadnik wrote:Ah...I didn't think about them deploying by drop pod...hmm, might have to try that one!

Except that you can only put one unit into a transport. If you combat squad a 10 man unit into two five man units....you now have two units - both of them cannot go into the drop pod, only one of them.

Incorrect Dash - the squad splits at deployment or at the point when it exits the drop pod. See P51 of C:SM, the drop-pod is explicitly mentioned.

This also means you cannot combat squad while in reserve and put one half of the squad in a razorback, another common error.

Scott-S6 wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Jihadnik wrote:Ah...I didn't think about them deploying by drop pod...hmm, might have to try that one!

Except that you can only put one unit into a transport. If you combat squad a 10 man unit into two five man units....you now have two units - both of them cannot go into the drop pod, only one of them.

Incorrect Dash - the squad splits at deployment or at the point when it exits the drop pod. See P51 of C:SM, the drop-pod is explicitly mentioned.

This also means you cannot combat squad while in reserve and put one half of the squad in a razorback, another common error.

Yeah most people think that I am pulling their legs by doing that.

If you put a liby with teleporting power, you can shoot the crap out the unit, if the unit lives, they will usually assualt the strenguard squad. You think your stuck in combat for the rest of the game, but then you use the libys power to get out of combat, and shoot unit that assaulted you. Thats always fun. (for you)

When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

LOL was he mad afterwards?

Ultrafool wrote:

If you put a liby with teleporting power, you can shoot the crap out the unit, if the unit lives, they will usually assualt the strenguard squad. You think your stuck in combat for the rest of the game, but then you use the libys power to get out of combat, and shoot unit that assaulted you. Thats always fun. (for you)

Even better when you use a homing beacon on the drop pod so you don't scatter

ShivanAngel wrote:When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

I love the look of someone who just discovered fanatics the hard way! Such a rare and wonderful sight! I once had three of them take out a friend's Khorne knight Deathstar. Honestly though, if I had any idea he didn't know what Fanatics did, I probably would have warned him...probably

My most recent dirty trick was moving a unit that was well within charge range back so that I just made combat. This forced the target unit to pile-in, pulling them off the objective they were claiming and winning me the game since they were no longer within three inches of their objective.

ShivanAngel wrote:When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

Dude, that is outright cheating in my book.

So, the liar is calling you out for being a liar?

Sidstyler wrote:So, the liar is calling you out for being a liar?

QFT!

There is also putting Logan Grimnar with a Long Fang squad in a drop pod . . . Drop them down next to some nice juicy tanks, use Relentless (From Logan), and then shoot down 2 different vehicles within melta range (using the awesomeness of Long Fang's Pack Leader)

Mwa Ha Ha!

Oshova

I've had some people give me a dirty look like I was cheating when I tank shocked them, but that's to closest I've come.

HAHA! Have these people played before?

What you want to do is tank shock them to clump them up, then land some templates on them =p

Oshova

Mr Mystery wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

Dude, that is outright cheating in my book.

It was open list....

Mr Mystery wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

Dude, that is outright cheating in my book.

Its only cheating if they hit the table.

First turn of a game, my daemons against imperial guard, my opponent charges a 20 man unit of daemonetts with four sentinels. At first, I thought he was making a huge mistake, however not only did he succeeded in holding the unit for two turns, the exploding open-top walkers killed 16 of my daemons.

ShivanAngel wrote:

It was open list....

Even so this was underhanded. I've played open list & I never remember my opponents whole list. That and I don't want to slow the game by asking to see his list every turn. Honestly if you did that against me I would simply refuse to play you again.

skrulnik wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:When i was running a night goblin heavy list I Had 12 fanatics sitting on the corner of the table...

My opponent was very cautious of those blocks.

(truth be told, the list had zero fanatics in it)

Dude, that is outright cheating in my book.

Its only cheating if they hit the table.

I'm sure I read a GW article promoting this tactic for dwarf miners.

My opponents are really strict about not showing lists beforehand, so our group expects this kind of skulduggery; they only find out if I've brought miners on my second turn. I never bring out the models until I need them in either case.

Re: the night goblin player, it seems fair enough. The whole point of fanatics is that they are kept secret. The alternative is that he pulls them out of his box half way through the game. Anything else gives too much away.

It's what Sun Tzu would do if he was a Night Goblin player

still... it's dubious, but a prime example of applying the "art of war" to warhammer fantasy.

Its even more fun when you have 4 units of night goblins and have 3 fanatics.

You tell your opponent, "There are 3 fanatics in this list, they are all in the same unit." (dont do this if its a lie)

Watch as the tread cautiously around all your units of night gobbies.

IG with Daemon Hunter allies. Callidus assassin.
Use Word in Your Ear to clump a unit for those first turn blasts. Add a Psyker Battle (preferably 8 psykers) squad with Weaken Resolve to make any survivors run off the table.
When the Callidus shows up, cast Weaken Resolve on the unit she comes in by, her Neural Shredder (an AP1 flamer template) now wounds on a 2+ and causes Instant Death to models in that unit. Oh, and start her behind them so she can still assault them after they fail their Morale and now they have to take a Morale test on a LD 2 or be destroyed. Sure, some rules/units get around this, but against many it's devastating.

Where I used to play in PA, it got ruled that the Calidus moves the entire unit in the same formation. So clumping, etc was out.

we used in a acop game a DH character and did voic in your ear to turn a giant sqiggoth backwards. the rules made itt take two turns to turn it! this was a few years ago.

Not legal anymore, but yeah, I remember the old days, I'd attached my great unclean one to my Chaos Marine Squad, and slingshot that bad boy also across the table. One game my GUO went over 53". These days the best I do is take a flying lash sorcerer, attach him to squad just like on BOLS, and pull huge orc mobs on me., of course the powerclaw nob gets pushed either far away or very near so I control where that enemy powerfist hits me or if it does. Usually I'm running a raptor squad, but I love the shenanigans when I pull it off with a foot base squad. Doesn't happen to often, most opponents don't help me out by getting anywhere near close unless its a dedicated close combat unit.

keezus wrote:

micahaphone wrote:Well, I read an article on BoLS on how to do something that sounds illegal, but is a loophole. It is called "slingshotting", where if your unit (a) wants to assault enemy (c), but is too far away (14"-2 over assault range), you can have them move forward, and have an IC that is 2" in front of them join squad (a) so that they are now in assault range. With defenders react and pile in moves, you can get most of the models into assault. This just seems kind of dirty, and very hard to pull off, so you'd have to plan it in advance and make it a part of your list, which (IMHO) makes you a waac.

I used to do this (2 editions ago) with a 23 man squad of Guardians (20 + Wep Crew+ Warlock) and the Avatar. Nothing like having the Avatar join combat from 1/2 table away. Don't know if the Avatar can still join squads in the current book though.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:

It was open list....

Even so this was underhanded. I've played open list & I never remember my opponents whole list. That and I don't want to slow the game by asking to see his list every turn. Honestly if you did that against me I would simply refuse to play you again.

I think that's going a bit far. If that is under-handed, then we might as well go whole hog and say doing things like saying, "Oh, are you sure you want to do that?" in a faux-confident, gleeful voice when your opponent makes a move is under-handed. It's a move if used against someone new to the game, but otherwise I say it's totally fair.

The slingshot used to really annoy me though. The first time someone told me about it (didn't even use it against me, just told me it was possible) I started re-evaluating if playing 40K was right for me.

I don't know what the rule is now, but back in the old days of 3rd ed you could have night goblin units with as few as 5 goblins, but still have them hiding three fanatics in there somewhere. This was hilarious but completely stupid, because you could just shoot the five man units, easily force panic tests and watch them all run, spilling their fanatics among the goblin ranks.

But the clever trick was to take five man units but don't put fanatics in them - your opponent didn't know so he had to shoot them all to be sure. I spent a full game shooting dozens of these 12.5 point night goblin units, letting the bulk of his army reach my lines unaffected.

The other trick was to bring out the fanatic units in special missions. A lot of the old scenarios allowed for reserves to come on from the flanks of the board. There was normally a rule to say you couldn't charge straight away, but it didn't say anything about moving close enough to release fanatics. One time a mate packed his full 1,000 point reserve list with five strong night goblin units each with three fanatics, you can fit 29 fanatics into that... After one turn of decent reserve rolling there was about 18 fanatics spinning around my ranks, come the next turn the only thing saving me from further destruction was him having little space to deploy more of his night goblin units - a couple even got destroyed before they could release their fanatics - crushed by other fanatics. It was a dark day for the noble elves of Ulthuan.

Ah, the days of old editions, when all regiments had a minimum size of 5 and could include whatever possible upgrades with barely any restrictions!

10+ Unit size, pft, cheap marketing trick

Herohammernostalgia wrote:...what was the Nastiest Ploy in Fantasy or 40k that an opponent used against you?...

Well this one time, I was playing WHFB and my opponent didn't disclose his army list and this combo he kept secret was really effective it was...

Every single game of WHFB I have ever played.

Which is why I play 40k and not WHFB anymore. The entire point of WHFB army creation can be to use the 'surprise' hidden magic item (or special rule) to essentially reverse the tactical situation and win the game. The more people who think that is' brilliant' or 'good tactics' the worse the game becomes.

At least in 40k you know what your up against. I'd stop short of better, as it's hard to account for what people want ina game, but it's inherently more fair.

That's not something solely for 40K or WHFB, that is something that should be constantly made clear. We always play open lists, and I always ask about things I don't know what they are. With so many items and special rules you can't be expected to know about everything.

Oshova

My hated dirty tricks was from awhile ago, Skaven players would hide their jezzail guns next to a 40 strong clan rat unit. I couldn't target them with my archery until I had wiped out the unit.

For current rules I can't wait to see the Wizards with lore of the beast change into massive creatures of destruction.

Oshova wrote:That's not something solely for 40K or WHFB, that is something that should be constantly made clear. We always play open lists, and I always ask about things I don't know what they are. With so many items and special rules you can't be expected to know about everything.

Oshova

But open lists defy the point of Fantasy. Every combat is a statistical gamble, no matter how much of a 'sure thing' it appears. It takes more skill to allow for random boosts and the unexpected than it does to know exactly what your opponent is capable of.

Mr Mystery wrote:

Oshova wrote:That's not something solely for 40K or WHFB, that is something that should be constantly made clear. We always play open lists, and I always ask about things I don't know what they are. With so many items and special rules you can't be expected to know about everything.

Oshova

But open lists defy the point of Fantasy. Every combat is a statistical gamble, no matter how much of a 'sure thing' it appears. It takes more skill to allow for random boosts and the unexpected than it does to know exactly what your opponent is capable of.

I concur with Mr Mystery, it has always been a staple for fantasy to play "secretly". It adds to the atmosphere of the game and some rules would be exploited if the lists were open. Like the beastmen's magic item destroyer (I can't remember the name at the moment).

The only thing you need to know is what Spells your opponent has, this is part of the rules. Fantasy is game of using your army as more than the sum of it's parts.

Not really, it's a game of pretending like its a sophisticated block movement, set up, order of operations risk gamble game and then winning with a concealed surprise that reverses the expected critical results.

Not a lot of skill there. Just hide your dirty trick(s) and hope its effect is greater than the other guys.

Kind of invalidates the point of a block movement game and all the 'important position and timing' when you can 'hide' a magic banner that makes you win anyway...

Here are some examples brutal reveals:

Dark Elves and Bretonians:

Charged a unit of Dark Elf executioners into a Bretonian Knight unit (last ed), set up after a baited failed charge versus my black riders. Beat them in melee by total of 3. Unit revealed the Magic Banner of Ignore rank bonus and reversed the melee, I fail a morale check and rout. General leaves with unit. Lost game.

Empire Versus Chaos:

Have an engineer with the magic item that switches stats with your opponent (Magic Mirror?) Bloodthirster charges into lines, Engineer charges Bloodthirster, reveals item, kills demon. Cannons do the rest. Demons loose.

Empire Versus Vampires:

(Also did above versus Vampire Counts, got to the point where guy wouldn't play vs. that item anymore.)

Dark Elves Versus Beastmen:

Set up a generic dark elf shooty line army with some units, beastmen ambush. Beastmen reveal Brayhorn, blow it and come on from reverse board edge. Dark elf units get rear charged and destroyed, Dark Elves loose.

None of those are good 'tactics' or 'brilliant' moves. That's all just skull duggery, and shenanigans.

All areas don't play closed lists, even GW runs open lists for their stuff. So really what's your point? Is it that people in your area are little sneaks? Closed lists aren't a rule so really it's up to your opponet to decide how it is. Sorry if you don't see it the same way as them, but that doesn't mean the whole game is crap.

WarWizard91 wrote:All areas don't play closed lists, even GW runs open lists for their stuff. So really what's your point? Is it that people in your area are little sneaks? Closed lists aren't a rule so really it's up to your opponet to decide how it is. Sorry if you don't see it the same way as them, but that doesn't mean the whole game is crap.

Indeed.

I haven't looked at the new version to see if it addresses the closed list issue.

Also I wanted to be explicit about the point, closed list tricks are not good tactics.

Semi-Finals of 'Ard Boyz 2009, making it the Canadian Finals essentially, a trip to the finals on the line...

Game 3 of the day I draw a Chaos opponent with some rhinos of zerkers and some of plague marines. He has the dinky pintle bolters on each one, no havoc launchers, awesome!

Well as his rhinos scream forward over the first few turns and disgorge troops i set to killing the troops, until he tells me that his rhino is shooting my Land Raider crusader.

I laugh and ask what can a bolter do? He says he purchased a 'combi-bolter' and it can have a single shot of melta/plasma AND/or flamer, thus getting one shot of each.

I tell him no. He brings out his rules and in a very annoying manner shows me all the relevant reference pages where it clearly does not say he 'can't' do it that way.

I'm fed up, the day is near over, I'm not in contention to win overall by now, so I tell him to cheat if he must, he does, insisting he's right.

End result he near tables me and gets a massacre for him. That gets him 3rd overall and a nice prize of product.

I go home, annoyed and pissed off and he gets a treat for cheating, love the game...hate the player...ughh

Ignore me. I need to work on my reading comprehension.

But that's compeltely wrong, horrid, and broken!

It's a combi-bolter, that's a bolter with combined bolter . . . would he say a combi-melta could get 2 melta shots for one turn?

You should have called over a referee to get it cleared up.

That's not a dirty trick, it's just plain cheating.

Oshova

Mr Mystery wrote:

Oshova wrote:That's not something solely for 40K or WHFB, that is something that should be constantly made clear. We always play open lists, and I always ask about things I don't know what they are. With so many items and special rules you can't be expected to know about everything.

Oshova

But open lists defy the point of Fantasy. Every combat is a statistical gamble, no matter how much of a 'sure thing' it appears. It takes more skill to allow for random boosts and the unexpected than it does to know exactly what your opponent is capable of.

So you fully advocate hiding items and interactions but are completely against misleading your opponent into thinking you have something when you do not? Seems a little inconsistent... Could I then just sit across from you with the rule book out asking you if you have each item individually and you would be required to correctly answer?

Fearspect wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:

Oshova wrote:That's not something solely for 40K or WHFB, that is something that should be constantly made clear. We always play open lists, and I always ask about things I don't know what they are. With so many items and special rules you can't be expected to know about everything.

Oshova

But open lists defy the point of Fantasy. Every combat is a statistical gamble, no matter how much of a 'sure thing' it appears. It takes more skill to allow for random boosts and the unexpected than it does to know exactly what your opponent is capable of.

So you fully advocate hiding items and interactions but are completely against misleading your opponent into thinking you have something when you do not? Seems a little inconsistent... Could I then just sit across from you with the rule book out asking you if you have each item individually and you would be required to correctly answer?

No you're just being a pedant because you lost, or couldn't be bothered to look for usefull combos. Half the fun of Warhammer is not knowing what items a unit has, and the case remains that open lists aren't a given. The only knowledge of your opponants list should be the number of units (and type if not wysiwyg), characters and spells. If you get turned over by a mirror effect or the like it's up to you to come up with a counter

Captain Jack wrote:Half the fun of Warhammer is not knowing what items a unit has, and the case remains that open lists aren't a given. The only knowledge of your opponants list should be the number of units (and type if not wysiwyg), characters and spells. If you get turned over by a mirror effect or the like it's up to you to come up with a counter

Jack, I can understand this logic. After all if a player had to disclose which unit his dark elf assassin was 'hiding' in, then it wouldn't be any use as the enemy player could avoid it, and that would take the assassin mechanic out of the game! All of which is made possible by hidden lists.

...but...

What about 'hiding' things like flaming swords or magic banners? Isn't the point of those they are famous and obvious and terrible because the enemy sees them?

It's one thing to obfuscate something for a theme as an ability, like the assassin, and quite another to play a shell game with a system that allows for freedom of army design don't you think?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Joyous_Oblivion wrote:Semi-Finals of 'Ard Boyz 2009,..., love the game...hate the player...ughh

+1 that's one of the worst I have heard, sorry.

Augustus wrote:
Jack, I can understand this logic. After all if a player had to disclose which unit his dark elf assassin was 'hiding' in, then it wouldn't be any use as the enemy player could avoid it, and that would take the assassin mechanic out of the game! All of which is made possible by hidden lists.

...but...

What about 'hiding' things like flaming swords or magic banners? Isn't the point of those they are famous and obvious and terrible because the enemy sees them?

It's one thing to obfuscate something for a theme as an ability, like the assassin, and quite another to play a shell game with a system that allows for freedom of army design don't you think?

I agree, units with the specific rule "Hidden" then ofcourse you don't declare where they are. But a banner or a flaming sword or whatever, is going to be pretty obvious. How could you not see that Lord running towards you with a flaming sword of doom!?

Oshova

Augustus wrote:
Have an engineer with the magic item that switches stats with your opponent

I hope this was last edition. This edition, Engineers can't take magic items.

Oh yea, that was an old one

I havent played WHFB for years

Captain Jack wrote:No you're just being a pedant because you lost, or couldn't be bothered to look for usefull combos. Half the fun of Warhammer is not knowing what items a unit has, and the case remains that open lists aren't a given. The only knowledge of your opponants list should be the number of units (and type if not wysiwyg), characters and spells. If you get turned over by a mirror effect or the like it's up to you to come up with a counter

Wouldn't a pedant be best exemplified by a person that purposely uses obscure vocabulary?

Anyway, I fully endorse your idea that anyone that disagrees with your personal view on how to play the game is obvious just terrible at it.

In 40k, the Dawn of War mission allows for some seriously fun chicanery. Typically the first player wants to put something at the 24" mark to push you back in your deployment zone. At a 1500pt tournament. I had the pleasure of being forced to go 2nd on a DoW mission against a heavy foot black templar player. His army had 2 x 20 black templar units, with powerfists, an emporers champion/marshall, landraider and some other stuff. Anyhow he lined up both 20 man units on the 24" mark. While it seemed like he had me in a pickle, I was happy to know that on my turn, I had planned to shoot the crud out of the first 20 man unit with most of my army, and the other 20 man unit, after he rushed forward, and then came forward after I shot him. I had just enough distance to walk 10 banshees and yriel into the 20.. err 17 man unit. The banshees got the powerfist in combat on a far end, and yriel went into the center of the unit, and popped his eye patch. It worked out great, none of my banshees was in the area of effect, and 11 templars died. The unit was stubborn, so I killed them all on his turn. Two banshees died.

Another game, at a 1000pt tournament, I was playing a guy who's become a friend. Tau vs my Chaos. I won the roll for turn 1, and made him go first. He put a devilfish on the 24" mark loaded with fire warriors. I deployed a slannesh DP, and 2 x 5 nurgle troops. He reminded me of steal the initiative, so I rolled it.. got a 6. So I walked the rest of my army on the board, one unit was 5 havocs with 4 plasma guns... in a rhino. I drove them up the center of the board, spun that puppy around, dropped off the kids at the pool, and splashed double tapping plasma love on the fish. It blew up gloriously. In the meanwhile, I was fielding two slannesh demon princes, so one was at the 18" mark, the other was at the 12" mark. I lashed the firewarrior unit nice n close, and then lash it again with the other demon prince to get them in position. After my turn 1, I had a 5 man nurgle unit and both demon princes in the middle of the board. (and behind a building).

Gotta love Dawn of War.

Not really sure it was a dirty trick, but in 4th edition with the removing of casualties and preventing certain models from fighting. The first time I encountered it I cried a little. Then I learned quickly and my friend and I were doing it to each other. Made for some fun games.

Oshova wrote:I agree, units with the specific rule "Hidden" then ofcourse you don't declare where they are. But a banner or a flaming sword or whatever, is going to be pretty obvious. How could you not see that Lord running towards you with a flaming sword of doom!?

Oshova

Yeah, my preference has always been for the two players to tell each other about banners but leave magic items hidden until used. I mean - you'd see the banner...

It does open the door for a lot of shenanigans but that's okay, at some point you just have to trust other players won't build their armies around goofy tricks.

40k vs Fantasy, thread jack edition.

I've had HK missiles used on my Boyz Mob with Large Blast Templates.
I have had to take the fearless LD rule to see if I take extra wounds even after I won combat.
I have had people tell me my Lootas on top of a hill don't get BLOS as long as I have troops on the ground in front of them.
Just lot's of stupid things that people abused on me in a tourney ran by locals and they're favoritism tricks.
So me being a noob and learning how to play wrong, back fired horribly until my true local gaming store, showed me otherwise.

The_Savior wrote:I've had HK missiles used on my Boyz Mob with Large Blast Templates.

Ha! Sorry, that's just so flagrant that it's kind of awesome.
"Oh, yeah, they can totally do that, it's on page mrmmmbllerrmmbl."

plastictrees wrote:

The_Savior wrote:I've had HK missiles used on my Boyz Mob with Large Blast Templates.

Ha! Sorry, that's just so flagrant that it's kind of awesome.
"Oh, yeah, they can totally do that, it's on page mrmmmbllerrmmbl."

No I dont have the codex, but i know my own army (in a very offended tone)

I wasn't playing the game, but I was watching it at the local GW.

A Eldar player and a Dark Eldar player begin a game of planetstrike. After a bit of argument, the Eldar player grudgingly agrees that his evil cousins must be the Attacker. The Eldar player then proceeds to not put any terrain on the table and places in entire army in reserve. The DE player's Firestorm has nothing to hit and his force is deployed onto the terrainless table. Eldar player then proceeds to slaughter the coverless DE army.

The Strange Dude wrote:One I have pulled in a doubles tournie our army was IG and Eldar

Round One against BA and SM (Dawn of War) they had 1st turn and a Land Raider and Mephiston set up on the halfway line, we had a seer council hidden away.they move everything up full speed and fail to kill anything (nightfight for the win). Our turn one on comes my vendetta 12" and spotlights mephiston, on an angle comes my Psyker Battle Squad in chimera using 'weaken resolve' check for range oh there 31" away out of range for psychic hood shame. Eldar Farseer uses mindwar on mephiston who is now Ld 2 (weaken resolve reduces Ld by number of psykers in squad in this case 9) mephistons psychic hood can't stop mind war (now he's Ld2) and each player rolls a dice adding thier Ld and the difference is the number of wounds without armour saves the opponent has to take (in this case 8!) Mephiston goes pop (no invul save). Nice guys felt really bad pulling this on them.

That is just mean!










I love it

Back when i used to play Guard in 2nd ed . i say guard as my army would consist of landraiders filled with ogryns ..rhinos filled with beastmen and human bombs ..harlequins in a landraider...a commissar load a teleporter and a vortex grenade. and a marine libby so only 1 human in the whole army . was a suprise to my OPS when the vehicals are raced forward to close combat and instead of lil str3 ws2 chaps he got abhumans of doom coming at him ! then the centre of his army is sucked into the warp with my kamikaze commissar teleports into them ..

oh and if you were playing space marine renagades hideing your 3 dreadnaughts in rhinos and chargeing them in to combat ..

and my fav was the stratagy cards that you could play at the start of the game ....virus out break basicly every model of the enermy that wasnt in powered armour or hadnt paid 3pts per model for a rebrether was dead on a 4+ nice !

Wow, that was a long time ago. Heh, I remember some of that too...

I only played it 6mths ago havnt played any games in years but was clearing out the attic and found the books so had a game with a mate who started with 4th ed and got him hooked ...ok it took 3hrs for a 2000pt game but with all the lil rules and the combat system where you role each atack and parry got you so into the models perspective it was like playing a game 3rd person wheres nowdays its like comand and conquer.

was great for example poweraxe =+1str
powerfist normal atacks or 1 str10
swords you could parry a atack on a 6
chainswords st4 etc
not to mention the countless pistols lol

Oh sure! I remember the COMPENDIUM!



Here's a 20 year old trick lads...

On super nasty tricks: From that list, I had a buddy take a Techmarine, a jump pack, and a lascutter (has become a servo harness in the current edition). The Lascutter rules said D20 wounds to any target in 2 inches!

He used it to Las Cutter a Bloodthirster in half in one go doing 16 wounds!

(I think the lascutter was intended for use versus static targets, like walls and such but that's not quite how the rule was written.)

Tzeentchling9 wrote:A Eldar player and a Dark Eldar player begin a game of planetstrike. After a bit of argument, the Eldar player grudgingly agrees that his evil cousins must be the Attacker. The Eldar player then proceeds to not put any terrain on the table and places in entire army in reserve. The DE player's Firestorm has nothing to hit and his force is deployed onto the terrainless table. Eldar player then proceeds to slaughter the coverless DE army.

That seems totally fair on *both* sides of the table.

LOL and dont forget you could have upto 5 techmarines as one slot ! each one able to take 50pts off wargear so you could have 3 with that and one with a refactor sheild which had a 6inch bubble and one with a comlink so you can close suport them with orbital bombadment ! lol danger close !