Get ready folks...another major event and another group of players caught cheating. Word coming off the floor is that a team comprised of "some of the top 40K players in the country" was booted for cheating after round 5. Waiting with popcorn for more details
I was there, as a captain, I know most of the details.
Let's just say that some folks were not "happy".
I have heard that Shane and Co. were going to make a public statement about it though, and I respect them enough to wait for that before I speak anymore on it.
Well Tony G. was on this team as well just off the heels of the LVO incident. I'm just wondering when TO's are going to grow some and start banning people.
Somethings I will comment on, that's not related to this.
I was incredibly disappointed with the quality of some of the armies present. The paint job on some of these were atrocious. One army had literally been entirely sprayed blue, gold sharpie on the trim, and a random red splotch thrown here or there. Wasn't based or anything.
I played against a team who placed in the top 5 last year, and the guy was using unpainted toy models for custodes. There were numerous instances of Proxies, and numerous instances of "conversions" that were no where even close to reasonable represenations of what they were. An ork player had "KMK's" that were 1.5" tall, for crying out loud. They were about the same size as a terminator, when the actual KMK model is closer to the size of a rhino.
I was not pleased with the lack of enforcement on those rules.
It centers around using items that were not in the list (not paid for), getting caught, apologizing and then doing it repeatedly in games afterwards again. Also slow playing to a win (didnt make it past turn 2 in 3 hours), things like that. Laughing about getting booted from the event and general bad sportsmanship. This is a summary of snippets I am getting from my two FLGS teams that were there and are currently discussing.
In professional sports, players caught cheating are usually suspended for a number of games, or outright banned. We should have a system in place like that for 40k. At least for ITC tournaments.
quickfuze wrote: I'm just wondering when TO's are going to grow some and start banning people.
Never. We'll hear endless excuses for how nobody can prove it wasn't a mistake, I played that guy once and he was fun, bans are too harsh and might result in someone being upset after spending lots of money to travel, etc. Unless of course they aren't a popular member of the community, in which case they'll be banned forever because nobody cares about them.
djones520 wrote: Somethings I will comment on, that's not related to this.
I was incredibly disappointed with the quality of some of the armies present. The paint job on some of these were atrocious. One army had literally been entirely sprayed blue, gold sharpie on the trim, and a random red splotch thrown here or there. Wasn't based or anything.
I played against a team who placed in the top 5 last year, and the guy was using unpainted toy models for custodes. There were numerous instances of Proxies, and numerous instances of "conversions" that were no where even close to reasonable represenations of what they were. An ork player had "KMK's" that were 1.5" tall, for crying out loud. They were about the same size as a terminator, when the actual KMK model is closer to the size of a rhino.
I was not pleased with the lack of enforcement on those rules.
That last sentence is my major problem with "competitive" 40k. Any event with enough participants will have its fair share of people trying to cheat or game the system, or who think the tournament rules don't apply to them. I think that's just the sad reality of the situation. However, if tournaments would enforce their rules I think we'd see things like this start to disappear. Quoting from the ATC Model Policy: "ALL models, for ALL game systems must be painted to a 3 color minimum standard unless otherwise specified in the event rules. This means that an honest attempt to paint all models MUST be exhibited and that 3 colors have not been simply applied to circumvent this policy." Also, point 2 in that policy: "Units must always be represented by appropriate models. This is the single, most important rule." Assuming the info above is correct (and I have no reason to doubt it), we can pretty clearly see this policy is worthless.
The solution isn't rocket science. You make it absolutely clear to all participants in the run-up to the event that you intend to strictly enforce these rules. Then you do so. Yes, it's going to annoy people, probably quite a lot. You may have some angry gamers on your hands. But next year you won't. The same applies to using illegal lists and upgrades you haven't paid for. Especially in a team event there should be no excuse for having an incorrect army list - your own team can check its own lists to make sure everything is accurate. I hope that seeing a team actually getting disqualified might focus the minds of anyone else who thinks they can get away with cheating.
If anything the GW rules take it a step too far in my view with regard to subfaction official paint schemes. It kind of makes sense for marines since a proper chapter will have shouldepad icon differences and the like; but for most factions the "subfactions" are really just one or two rules differences and bonuses and nothing more. It's not the same as how space wolves are totally different to ultramarines.
Plus some "official schemes" are so similar its impossible to tlel them apart (Daughters of Khaine schemes, for example, are near identical and one that is the most different is based on skin tone and doesn't actually have any rules of its own anyway).
this year was a nightmare. So much so, I will not be going back, and many other teams said the same.
Cheaters caught year after year, and never getting more than a slap on the wrist. It is sad really.
So, if I was to say a high profile player was caught blatantly cheating, i mean 100% not a mistake, blatant cheating, what is the first name that pops into everyones head?
Yup, that's the guy.
meleti wrote: Well, I'm sure the online community will handle whatever happened with all our customary levelheadedness and reason.
Indeed
How sad is cheating at Warhammer, I mean at this point it's almost like Whose Line is it Anyway, the scores are all made up and the points don't matter.
Slap on the wrist? This team was kicked out. Given the parties involved, and past transgressions at other events, it's going to likely ruin some playing careers.
It's been less then 24 hours since the event finished up, and people are shooting off about how they're going to punish Dicehead about this, when Dicehead hasn't even been given a chance to tell their story.
I said slap on the wrist from a historical perspective. It is all they have ever gotten.
And to be fair, you left out the part where ATC said there was only going to be a "points reduction" and they didn't know how much, and kicked them out only after the backlash got more and more severe.
I'm basically amish and have limited internet during the weekends. Someone do a better job informing people on the who and what took place in all of this, please.
Cheating has been a time honored tradition of tournaments since there were tournaments. Its only now that cameras expose a lot of it that we see more and more of it.
Tournament players want to legitimize their tournaments then cheaters need a blacklist.
I said slap on the wrist from a historical perspective. It is all they have ever gotten.
And to be fair, you left out the part where ATC said there was only going to be a "points reduction" and they didn't know how much, and kicked them out only after the backlash got more and more severe.
The points reduction removed them from contention of winning, and then acted on their follow up statement that any further issues would result in being kicked out. I was at the table next to them in the following round, where they got kicked out. It had nothing to do with pressure, it was because they were still slow playing, and violating the rules.
There was a lot more going on behind the scenes, because Shane was right. That team was not the only one cheating. They were the only one people were calling for blood for on though. The only one ultimatums were being forced on. When other top 10 teams were cheating, no one else was reporting it to Shane. People just wanted blood on this one team.
The event had other issues, and I can see why they were trying to get this situation exactly right. Because when the London GT banned the guy who was cheating, all everyone did was say it was in an attempt to cover up their short comings. And then they've got the issues with Best Coast Pairings utterly failing throughout the event, making each day go hours longer then it should have, people already super angry about then, and then this popped up, you mean to tell me they weren't thinking about that?
I said slap on the wrist from a historical perspective. It is all they have ever gotten.
And to be fair, you left out the part where ATC said there was only going to be a "points reduction" and they didn't know how much, and kicked them out only after the backlash got more and more severe.
The points reduction removed them from contention of winning, and then acted on their follow up statement that any further issues would result in being kicked out. I was at the table next to them in the following round, where they got kicked out. It had nothing to do with pressure, it was because they were still slow playing, and violating the rules.
There was a lot more going on behind the scenes, because Shane was right. That team was not the only one cheating. They were the only one people were calling for blood for on though. The only one ultimatums were being forced on. When other top 10 teams were cheating, no one else was reporting it to Shane. People just wanted blood on this one team.
Man, you're kind of derailing the thread saying you won't say anything about the tournament and who it was but then give out snippets which creates more questions and will probably start rumors. You need to either lay it out or say nothing at all.
All to get that sweet tens of dollars in prizes that 40k tournaments are known for. I just don't get it, spending a ton of money on models, on travel, time off work in many cases.. all to cheat on a game when 40k has never been very competitive in all honesty (dubious rules, slow playing, arbitrary stuff like painting scores).
Fine, Team Happy, led by Tony Grippando, was kicked out of ATC after the 4th round due to members of the team cheating, and slow playing. After being caught on it in round 3, a significant penalty was leveled and a judge was permanently stationed at their table. Round 4, slow play continued to occur, and they were shown the door.
Kirasu wrote: All to get that sweet tens of dollars in prizes that 40k tournaments are known for. I just don't get it, spending a ton of money on models, on travel, time off work in many cases.. all to cheat on a game when 40k has never been very competitive in all honesty (dubious rules, slow playing, arbitrary stuff like painting scores).
Its more than that. Its internet fame. Internet fame is worth a ton to a lot of people.
djones520 wrote: Fine, Team Happy, led by Tony Grippando, was kicked out of ATC after the 4th round due to members of the team cheating, and slow playing. After being caught on it in round 3, a significant penalty was leveled and a judge was permanently stationed at their table. Round 4, slow play continued to occur, and they were shown the door.
Kirasu wrote: All to get that sweet tens of dollars in prizes that 40k tournaments are known for. I just don't get it, spending a ton of money on models, on travel, time off work in many cases.. all to cheat on a game when 40k has never been very competitive in all honesty (dubious rules, slow playing, arbitrary stuff like painting scores).
Its more than that. Its internet fame. Internet fame is worth a ton to a lot of people.
Well they're obviously doing it wrong then, in this case.
djones520 wrote: Fine, Team Happy, led by Tony Grippando, was kicked out of ATC after the 4th round due to members of the team cheating, and slow playing. After being caught on it in round 3, a significant penalty was leveled and a judge was permanently stationed at their table. Round 4, slow play continued to occur, and they were shown the door.
Man it seems that guy is well on his way to making his name forever synonymous with foul play. >.>
Re: the paint schemes, I've talked to a few people who were there. They said the team format may have contributed to the sub-standard quality of the armies on the tables.
In more than a few cases, people were unable to use their regular armies because of keyword restrictions for team members. Because they were not able to use models with the same faction keywords, they purchase some just for the tournament and put the minimum amount of work into the paint job to comply with the policy (since they don't care about the models.)
Sad to see this happen at another event. However, good to see tournament organisers wising up and acting on such poor behaviour.
I think points levels should be reduced so that games can come to a natural conclusion. The GWGT is going to play at 1750 pts so lets see how this develops.
Well yeah they got caught lol. From what I heard from our local team that was there, there was quite a bit of cheating or shady behavior going on, its just that that particular team for whatever reason was the target of everyone elses' ire.
Sad to see this happen at another event. However, good to see tournament organisers wising up and acting on such poor behaviour.
I think points levels should be reduced so that games can come to a natural conclusion. The GWGT is going to play at 1750 pts so lets see how this develops.
TOs have already said dropping to 1750 will not affect the speed of the game. They continue to keep these tournaments at 2000, even ETC which uses the BRB game missions. There's no reason these players cannot make turns 4-5 each game. They have played 100s of times and know the rules.
auticus wrote: Well yeah they got caught lol. From what I heard from our local team that was there, there was quite a bit of cheating or shady behavior going on, its just that that particular team for whatever reason was the target of everyone elses' ire.
Exactly. Which I'm still happy they got banned. They deserved it. But other big name teams were doing very similar things, it just wasn't brought up to the TO's.
And no, I will not name names on those, because it is not on the official record and I won't be rumor mongering.
Sad to see this happen at another event. However, good to see tournament organisers wising up and acting on such poor behaviour.
I think points levels should be reduced so that games can come to a natural conclusion. The GWGT is going to play at 1750 pts so lets see how this develops.
TOs have already said dropping to 1750 will not affect the speed of the game. They continue to keep these tournaments at 2000, even ETC which uses the BRB game missions. There's no reason these players cannot make turns 4-5 each game. They have played 100s of times and know the rules.
With 1 exception, my ork player made it to turn 6 each game. The one game he didn't, his opponent was also a horde army, and they were in each others lines turn 1, so dice rolling took forever. My Knight player played against a guy with more then 240 models in the last turn, that guy saw every game through to completion as well.
It's got nothing to do with the size of the armies. It can't get any clearer then that. It's got to do with people not playing fast enough.
The points reduction removed them from contention of winning,. I was at the table next to them in the following round, where they got kicked out.
As was I. Perhaps we were playing against each other! :-) But they were not shown the door then, it was only AFTER the day was over were they booted.
Now, to be clear here, they were NOT removed from contention due to points, as the entire venue was told "points will be deducted, but they did not know how much". Afterwards, they could deduct all they want, but to be fair, everyone continued at that point just being told "they will lose some points". Due to history, a slap on the wrist did not seem out of the question at that time.
That team was not the only one cheating. They were the only one people were calling for blood for on though.
this is just wrong. I am not sure where you were in the venue, but the four model issue from ANOTHER top team stoked the fire for what happened with Aaron. people were calling for both to be booted. But one of the players has a long history with bending the rules, so if they wanted him punished more, who is to blame them?
The event had other issues, with Best Coast Pairings utterly failing throughout the event, making each day go hours longer then it should have, people already super angry about then,
And the AC seemingly not working for stretches at a time did not help tempers much I am sure.
Either way, the result ended up with a disqualification, which should have happened immediately, not after people had a chance to get all riled up and looking to lynch someone. If it was immediate, people would have been put on notice, they would have respected the decision and ATC would be held up as an example of what to do. They had a chance to take the lead against this type of behavior and they dropped the ball.
Shame really.
Yeah, day 1 was rough with the AC issues. I did hear rumors about the 4 unit thing, but never heard Shane say anything about that, so I didn't want to raise that up. The other "cheats" I got from people who saw it first hand and told me about it, but again, they never raised it to the TO's. Made it pretty clear that Team Happy was the one people were gunning for.
Hey look I suspect that you are right. Even if games were at 1500, I am sure some individuals would find ways to lengthen games.
However, with a lower point count - I think this will become much harder to game (assuming TOs dont jam more games into the day). I have myself been the target of a slow player in 7th edition when the SM 'free point' armies were all the rage and objective based games become a bit ridiculous! I am all for combatting the insidiousness of this bad behaviour. I also look with interest the chess clock piece for LVO.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: How do you see someone cheat, not call a judge, but then bitch about it later?
Most people at events are extremely concerned with actually finishing the game on time. And unless you had a video camera out at the time, what good will calling a judge do when they didn’t get to see the state of the game until after the incident? One of the first things I think about it I need to call a judge or an HR rep for work is “can I prove this at all?” If not, they don’t have a lot of reason to do anything.
Sometimes you don't notice subtle things until after the event, of course after the event if you have no video to review you can end up with hazy memory causing you to miss-remember things in both a positive and negative light.
djones520 wrote: Somethings I will comment on, that's not related to this.
I was incredibly disappointed with the quality of some of the armies present. The paint job on some of these were atrocious. One army had literally been entirely sprayed blue, gold sharpie on the trim, and a random red splotch thrown here or there. Wasn't based or anything.
I played against a team who placed in the top 5 last year, and the guy was using unpainted toy models for custodes. There were numerous instances of Proxies, and numerous instances of "conversions" that were no where even close to reasonable represenations of what they were. An ork player had "KMK's" that were 1.5" tall, for crying out loud. They were about the same size as a terminator, when the actual KMK model is closer to the size of a rhino.
I was not pleased with the lack of enforcement on those rules.
My personal opinion on the model quality/proxy/paint issue at Tournaments is that this is an extension of GW's push for "Power Creep" and "FoTM" Gaming to sell models. I have seen repeated screaming deals on ebay because of the "win only matters, nothing else". For a while the quality of the miniatures painted and shown at Tournaments increased and then when Power Gaming became the global Meta that all started to change.
I mean you can't paint up a whole army, then paint it up next month when GW nerfs this and buffs that or releases a new power-creep codex to sell models. However competitive 40k is certainly keeping GW in the black with constant model buy and sells. It is undermining the hobby side of things. More the MOBA player vs the Model Train/Historic Army Player.
So this is just a continued expansion of that issue. Same with the cheating, though folks have always cheated, it is more common and more are doing it because it doesn't matter as long as you won the "competitive" 40k.
Let's not lose sight of the real take away here BOLS is fething garbage, and their "article" on the issue was literally saying nothing. Will be speaking to Aaron Aelong tonight after 8pm EST on Facebook live www.facebook.com/thedroppod I have also spoken to Allen Bajramovic, and will be speaking with others involved including the TO and judges. People can draw their own conclusions from all of that.
SlaveToDorkness wrote: How do you see someone cheat, not call a judge, but then bitch about it later?
This is a game full of nerds. Nerds, as a stereotype, tend to be meek, avoid confrontation, even in a competitive game setting. On one hand you have rampant passive-aggressiveness. On the other hand you have people guessing that their opponent maybe might have been possibly cheating, but they couldn't be 100% sure, and if they're not 100% sure, they don't want to slow their game down by calling a judge and end up being wrong. A lot of that comes from the game being overcomplicated, with too many overlapping rules, complex list-building, etc. If someone says they have a combi-plasma and the model is modeled with a combi-plasma, how are you supposed to expect otherwise? It might take you 2 or 3 precious minutes to scan their hand-written list to find exactly where that combi-plasma happened to be, and if it's not there, THEN you can call someone over... but what if it is? Then you've wasted 2-3 minutes of the game when you could be scoring super tight competitive points.
Even in professional sports, being called out for cheating is a slow matter. It can happen instantly, on the field, but puts a halt to the game and costs actual money. Often times its easier to just let the game go through and ban people after the fact.
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CardBoardKing wrote: Let's not lose sight of the real take away here BOLS is fething garbage, and their "article" on the issue was literally saying nothing. Will be speaking to Aaron Aelong tonight after 8pm EST on Facebook live www.facebook.com/thedroppod I have also spoken to Allen Bajramovic, and will be speaking with others involved including the TO and judges. People can draw their own conclusions from all of that.
I mean, that's BoLS.
Does anyone really expect any different from the site that redesigned their entire website to work WORSE and have even MORE ads?
We know that many of you are waiting to hear a statement from us concerning some issues this year's 40k event and that WILL happen soon. For now, thank you all again and we hope that everyone made it home safe!
-Shane & Chris
I have to say, given what I've heard so far, it definitely casts all their previous wins in a suspicious light. Were they legitimate, or were they cheating then as well?
Virules wrote: What were the other teams (who weren't punished) doing to cheat?
The only other major thing I'm aware of is Quality Control had 4 enginseers in one of their lists. When this was realized, the player was given an auto-loss on that round and for the remainder of the event he dropped units to replace one with a dominus to make the list legal. At the time it occurred, QC and the player said they would accept whatever ruling whether it be to play down a detachment or retroactive changes, etc.
It's really not a comparable situation. While it's everyone's responsibility to use a legal list, lists were available for crowdsourced checking ahead of the event. Additionally the player of that army has a spotless history, and he basically only plays at ATC each year. It was clear that it was an honest mistake.
Virules wrote: What were the other teams (who weren't punished) doing to cheat?
The only other major thing I'm aware of is Quality Control had 4 enginseers in one of their lists. When this was realized, the player was given an auto-loss on that round and for the remainder of the event he dropped units to replace one with a dominus to make the list legal. At the time it occurred, QC and the player said they would accept whatever ruling whether it be to play down a detachment or retroactive changes, etc.
It's really not a comparable situation. While it's everyone's responsibility to use a legal list, lists were available for crowdsourced checking ahead of the event. Additionally the player of that army has a spotless history, and he basically only plays at ATC each year. It was clear that it was an honest mistake.
How do you miss something like that though? You have months to prepare your army, you know there's a 3 datasheet limit... how do you accidentally put an extra of something into your list? I don't get it that one, but it was good that he was a good sport about it at least.
Virules wrote: What were the other teams (who weren't punished) doing to cheat?
The only other major thing I'm aware of is Quality Control had 4 enginseers in one of their lists. When this was realized, the player was given an auto-loss on that round and for the remainder of the event he dropped units to replace one with a dominus to make the list legal. At the time it occurred, QC and the player said they would accept whatever ruling whether it be to play down a detachment or retroactive changes, etc.
It's really not a comparable situation. While it's everyone's responsibility to use a legal list, lists were available for crowdsourced checking ahead of the event. Additionally the player of that army has a spotless history, and he basically only plays at ATC each year. It was clear that it was an honest mistake.
How do you miss something like that though? You have months to prepare your army, you know there's a 3 datasheet limit... how do you accidentally put an extra of something into your list? I don't get it that one, but it was good that he was a good sport about it at least.
My guess is that he might have often taken 4 of them before the rule and just got used to it. Also, the one negative of the crowdsourced rules is if nobody has finds your list illegal your more likely to not double check. But it sounds like they were sorry it happened and handled it correctly
I'd be in favor of 3 or 6 month bans from ITC events for cheaters, if you could get all the TO's at said events to enforce those bans and not let banned players play. In professional sports, players are given suspensions or even lifetime bans for cheating (like using steroids, etc.) or even just poor sportsmanship. We need to do the same with 40k cheaters and take a hard line against that kind of thing. Many on the internet seem to think the competitive 40k scene is a complete joke now, and it'll only get worse if cheaters continue to get off lightly for their behavior.
We’re very sorry that our admech player took 4 engineers instead of three and one dominus. He hasn’t played in many events in months and I hate to say it but we’ve been busy with other things and none of us checked it very closely.
When it was brought to our attention we gave up full points in the round and they asked him to drop his dunecrawler to make up the points difference of switching the enginseer for a dominus.
There was discussion of further sanctions such as our player removing an entire battalion in order to make the list legal instead. We voiced that we would be accepting of those terms if that was asked of us, as we felt extremely bad for letting the event down in such a way. And our player and team were willing to lose the 500-800pts if that was asked of us by the tournament organizers and other captains.
CardBoardKing wrote: Let's not lose sight of the real take away here BOLS is fething garbage, and their "article" on the issue was literally saying nothing. Will be speaking to Aaron Aelong tonight after 8pm EST on Facebook live www.facebook.com/thedroppod I have also spoken to Allen Bajramovic, and will be speaking with others involved including the TO and judges. People can draw their own conclusions from all of that.
No one takes BOLS seriously so it's pretty silly to claim that the real story is that BOLS is garbage. Your comment made me look at BOLS for the first time in about a year and their take on it is pretty reasonable. Not every problem can be solved by yelling "fake news" and that the real story is the story tellers.
We’re very sorry that our admech player took 4 engineers instead of three and one dominus. He hasn’t played in many events in months and I hate to say it but we’ve been busy with other things and none of us checked it very closely.
When it was brought to our attention we gave up full points in the round and they asked him to drop his dunecrawler to make up the points difference of switching the enginseer for a dominus.
There was discussion of further sanctions such as our player removing an entire battalion in order to make the list legal instead. We voiced that we would be accepting of those terms if that was asked of us, as we felt extremely bad for letting the event down in such a way. And our player and team were willing to lose the 500-800pts if that was asked of us by the tournament organizers and other captains.
We’re very sorry that our admech player took 4 engineers instead of three and one dominus. He hasn’t played in many events in months and I hate to say it but we’ve been busy with other things and none of us checked it very closely.
When it was brought to our attention we gave up full points in the round and they asked him to drop his dunecrawler to make up the points difference of switching the enginseer for a dominus.
There was discussion of further sanctions such as our player removing an entire battalion in order to make the list legal instead. We voiced that we would be accepting of those terms if that was asked of us, as we felt extremely bad for letting the event down in such a way. And our player and team were willing to lose the 500-800pts if that was asked of us by the tournament organizers and other captains.
- Sean not the captain of quality control
See, that's why I didn't want to talk on this one. I was told an entirely different team had been responsible for it. But I think because you guys were so conciliatory, that's why nothing more was made of it.
auticus wrote: Cheating has been a time honored tradition of tournaments since there were tournaments. Its only now that cameras expose a lot of it that we see more and more of it.
Tournament players want to legitimize their tournaments then cheaters need a blacklist.
As an longbeard that goes back to the first ever US GT...this is correct.
Of course, the stakes have changed. Where there was once a trophy and bragging rights, now there are cash prizes and world rankings and championships. And where there was once GW acting as a kind of unbiased governing body, now you have individual TOs acting in their own interests.
If they want their 40K 'sport'...fine! That's how some people like to play. But then you have to treat it as a sport, with a focus on fairness and real consequences for breaking rules. Too many of these TOs want to have it both ways, and you're going to see these kinds of controversies and drama until that dichotomy is better resolved.
I have no first-hand knowledge about the particulars in this case, so I'm hesitant to applaud the TO or throw mud at any players. Theoretically, I support a TO taking a no-nonsense approach where it's warranted, though.
The idea that cheating is only a point reduction or "correct it and keep playing" is a joke. Cheating, including an illegal list, should be an immediate DQ and removal from the event space. No playing, no watching your friends play, go sit in your hotel room and think about your failure. And in the case of multiple offenses it should be a blacklisting from all events. Stop going easy on cheaters and people will stop doing it.
Peregrine wrote: The idea that cheating is only a point reduction or "correct it and keep playing" is a joke. Cheating, including an illegal list, should be an immediate DQ and removal from the event space. No playing, no watching your friends play, go sit in your hotel room and think about your failure. And in the case of multiple offenses it should be a blacklisting from all events. Stop going easy on cheaters and people will stop doing it.
This is why we can't have nice things. List mistakes are generally just that, a mistake. There are a lot of crossed wires on how things work because of local metas, raw/rai, and gw itself sometimes not understanding how things work when it comes to list building. A draconian get out policy that also eliminates the majority reason for the hobby (social interaction) is such a heavy opening swing for adjustment it just makes sure adjustments aren't talked about. Like it or not it's fairly complicated and there should be an intent standard. I think that's mostly what got Happy hammered. Intent seemed high plausible from past interactions with some players on their team (not all). Where as Sean's team in general wouldn't have intent and a dude that plays once a year at this event very likely didn't. There is a difference.
No other game offers immediate DQ for breaking any rule. Things like that are reserved for extreme violations like the use of performance enhancing drugs or excessive unsportsmanlike conduct (I'm talking "stomping on a downed player" level here).
What we need is a codified list of penalties. If you do this, you get that points reduction, if you do it enough times within a certain period you get that harsher penalty, the following excessive violations are considered appropriate for a suspension, etc. etc.
Peregrine wrote: The idea that cheating is only a point reduction or "correct it and keep playing" is a joke. Cheating, including an illegal list, should be an immediate DQ and removal from the event space. No playing, no watching your friends play, go sit in your hotel room and think about your failure. And in the case of multiple offenses it should be a blacklisting from all events. Stop going easy on cheaters and people will stop doing it.
This is why we can't have nice things. List mistakes are generally just that, a mistake. There are a lot of crossed wires on how things work because of local metas, raw/rai, and gw itself sometimes not understanding how things work when it comes to list building. A draconian get out policy that also eliminates the majority reason for the hobby (social interaction) is such a heavy opening swing for adjustment it just makes sure adjustments aren't talked about. Like it or not it's fairly complicated and there should be an intent standard. I think that's mostly what got Happy hammered. Intent seemed high plausible from past interactions with some players on their team (not all). Where as Sean's team in general wouldn't have intent and a dude that plays once a year at this event very likely didn't. There is a difference.
This is what i mean about making excuses. The 0-3 rule is not ambiguous. There are only two ways to break it: cheating, and not giving a about playing a legal list and verifying it. As long as people keep complaining about "ruining their social experience" and refusing to DQ them list cheating/mistakes will continue to happen as there is little incentive to avoid them. DQ/ban and people will put the effort into not getting banned.
There's a difference between excusing a behavior, and mitigating the punishment for that behavior. Running an illegal list breaks a rule, but there is a range of actions a TO can do to remedy that rulebreaking.
You can look at things like any attempts to hide the rule breaking, the savviness of the offender, how beneficial that was, etc.
TO's main job isn't to enforce the highest level of competition, but rather host an event that's fun for all attendees. Being DQ'd for a dumb error is the opposite of fun.
Peregrine wrote: The idea that cheating is only a point reduction or "correct it and keep playing" is a joke. Cheating, including an illegal list, should be an immediate DQ and removal from the event space. No playing, no watching your friends play, go sit in your hotel room and think about your failure. And in the case of multiple offenses it should be a blacklisting from all events. Stop going easy on cheaters and people will stop doing it.
This is why we can't have nice things. List mistakes are generally just that, a mistake. There are a lot of crossed wires on how things work because of local metas, raw/rai, and gw itself sometimes not understanding how things work when it comes to list building. A draconian get out policy that also eliminates the majority reason for the hobby (social interaction) is such a heavy opening swing for adjustment it just makes sure adjustments aren't talked about. Like it or not it's fairly complicated and there should be an intent standard. I think that's mostly what got Happy hammered. Intent seemed high plausible from past interactions with some players on their team (not all). Where as Sean's team in general wouldn't have intent and a dude that plays once a year at this event very likely didn't. There is a difference.
This is what i mean about making excuses. The 0-3 rule is not ambiguous. There are only two ways to break it: cheating, and not giving a about playing a legal list and verifying it. As long as people keep complaining about "ruining their social experience" and refusing to DQ them list cheating/mistakes will continue to happen as there is little incentive to avoid them. DQ/ban and people will put the effort into not getting banned.
You and I have been down this road before so I won't totally rehash the myriad of reasons your attitude is terrible for the hobby in general. I'll agree to disagree with you. Thanks
Never. We'll hear endless excuses for how nobody can prove it wasn't a mistake, I played that guy once and he was fun, bans are too harsh and might result in someone being upset after spending lots of money to travel, etc. Unless of course they aren't a popular member of the community, in which case they'll be banned forever because nobody cares about them.
I think right there is a valid concern, that certain people get the "burn the heretic" approach when caught cheating, vs other players who are more in "the click" so to speak caught cheating and its "hey now, no one is perfect"
We’re very sorry that our admech player took 4 engineers instead of three and one dominus. He hasn’t played in many events in months and I hate to say it but we’ve been busy with other things and none of us checked it very closely.
When it was brought to our attention we gave up full points in the round and they asked him to drop his dunecrawler to make up the points difference of switching the enginseer for a dominus.
There was discussion of further sanctions such as our player removing an entire battalion in order to make the list legal instead. We voiced that we would be accepting of those terms if that was asked of us, as we felt extremely bad for letting the event down in such a way. And our player and team were willing to lose the 500-800pts if that was asked of us by the tournament organizers and other captains.
- Sean not the captain of quality control
In case anything else needed to be said here, I was Captain of the team facing Quality Control when we discovered that one of their lists were illegal. Once it was discovered, the game was ended as if my player immediately tabled them. The other four games that round were very friendly, and finished on time. There was certainly no aura of hostility that we "caught them cheating" or any instance them trying to get away with it. I truly don't think it was anything intentional, and I don't think they would try to cheat on something so checkable. Lists were up for over a week before the event, and not a single one of the hundreds of players who read the lists noticed until we played them. I would guess that the ETC players on the team were more concerned with their own lists and ETC teammates and therefore didn't check the details of their ATC teammate. Its unfortunate and careless, but didn't come off as remotely malicious.
The penalty seemed appropriate to me, as it turned a tightly contested game into a ~30 point win for my teammate, which forced the match into a draw as we didn't outscore them by the required margin. They very well could have won if not for that error, which affected their final standing measurably. My team did not get to play Team Happy, but from everything that I heard and saw at the event, it seemed that when confronted by accusations they tried to deny it, weasel out of it, and lied to the TOs while being overall disrespectful to players and event staff. It's unfortunate that both of these situations happened at the same time, but I think that they are worlds apart in intent and the punishments they deserved.
An illegal decklist, which is the closest equivalent to an illegal army list, is a game loss, not even a match loss.
Considering Warhammer doesn't do boX a game loss is actually harsher then Magic does it.
In case anything else needed to be said here, I was Captain of the team facing Quality Control when we discovered that one of their lists were illegal. Once it was discovered, the game was ended as if my player immediately tabled them. The other four games that round were very friendly, and finished on time. There was certainly no aura of hostility that we "caught them cheating" or any instance them trying to get away with it. I truly don't think it was anything intentional, and I don't think they would try to cheat on something so checkable. Lists were up for over a week before the event, and not a single one of the hundreds of players who read the lists noticed until we played them. I would guess that the ETC players on the team were more concerned with their own lists and ETC teammates and therefore didn't check the details of their ATC teammate. Its unfortunate and careless, but didn't come off as remotely malicious.
I don't usually post in the Tournament Discussion threads, but this is something that is becoming far, far, far too frequent. I'm genuinely curious as to how it is that if lists are up for "over a week before the event" nobody catches these things? Do you guys not read each others' lists? Does nobody bother to do even a cursory check with a physical book? We saw this with the whole Cadian Relic thing when the Guard book first dropped and still we're having issues with people doing basic list checks?
In case anything else needed to be said here, I was Captain of the team facing Quality Control when we discovered that one of their lists were illegal. Once it was discovered, the game was ended as if my player immediately tabled them. The other four games that round were very friendly, and finished on time. There was certainly no aura of hostility that we "caught them cheating" or any instance them trying to get away with it. I truly don't think it was anything intentional, and I don't think they would try to cheat on something so checkable. Lists were up for over a week before the event, and not a single one of the hundreds of players who read the lists noticed until we played them. I would guess that the ETC players on the team were more concerned with their own lists and ETC teammates and therefore didn't check the details of their ATC teammate. Its unfortunate and careless, but didn't come off as remotely malicious.
I don't usually post in the Tournament Discussion threads, but this is something that is becoming far, far, far too frequent. I'm genuinely curious as to how it is that if lists are up for "over a week before the event" nobody catches these things? Do you guys not read each others' lists? Does nobody bother to do even a cursory check with a physical book? We saw this with the whole Cadian Relic thing when the Guard book first dropped and still we're having issues with people doing basic list checks?
We do, and many errors were caught. But it was 370 lists to go through. Easy to cast stones when you're not involved in that daunting process.
Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
We do, and many errors were caught. But it was 370 lists to go through. Easy to cast stones when you're not involved in that daunting process.
And yet basic things like "they had 4 instead of 3" got through.
I would understand things like the Cadian Relic on a Primaris Psyker, that involved someone actually having to know their book and how Relics work--but 4 instead of 3? That shouldn't be too hard to catch.
That is why the onus should not be on you but on the player and there needs to start being repercussions. I am sick of these it's just for fun, people make mistake arguments. The person that made the mistake should not matter. TO's should be thinking about the people affected not the person that caused the issue. If you have a restaurant and your cook sends out a subpar dish do you tell the customer hey I will dock him a dollar pay for your meal!?! No! you make it right with the people affected. This backward thinking that we don't want to hurt the feelings of the person that screwed up needs to stop. As far as list building goes there is no excuse for showing up with an illegal list. excuses for that need to stop too.
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
I did, in fact, read and summarize every single list going into the event. But, this was 73 other teams with 5 lists each, I went through them with an eye for competition not legality. I counted number of Onagers and thought about how quickly they could kill my Carnifexes, and about how their Knight Castellan wouldn't be able to shoot down our 90 Plaguebearers. I saw enginseers and thought basic slot fillers, I didnt count four out until we were actually playing them on Saturday. Plus, "Q" is pretty far down the line of teams and by the time I got there, a lot of lists were starting to look the same and I was skimming. Picking out one illegal battlescribe list out of 375 that I read in a week is pretty damn hard when I'm comparing each of the 375 to five lists of my own, and thinking about how I will pair against it.
However, with that being said, there were many illegal lists submitted for ATC. Most of them were caught by the community in advance, this was the only one that to my knowledge was not. If this was a TO-only system of checking, you'd be hearing about five teams being penalized. Crowd-sourcing the lists certainly reduces the problem even if it didn't eliminate it entirely.
EDIT: Since the comments are coming fast here, I just want to note that there were repercussions for both teams in question. QC, with their illegal list, was penalized a game that ended up turning a potentially winnable round into a draw. They then edited the list and played well under points for the remainder of the event. Team Happy was initially penalized points as well, but after repeat offenses was then shown the door.
jifel wrote: I did, in fact, read and summarize every single list going into the event. But, this was 73 other teams with 5 lists each, I went through them with an eye for competition not legality. I counted number of Onagers and thought about how quickly they could kill my Carnifexes, and about how their Knight Castellan wouldn't be able to shoot down our 90 Plaguebearers. I saw enginseers and thought basic slot fillers, I didnt count four out until we were actually playing them on Saturday. Plus, "Q" is pretty far down the line of teams and by the time I got there, a lot of lists were starting to look the same and I was skimming. Picking out one illegal battlescribe list out of 375 that I read in a week is pretty damn hard when I'm comparing each of the 375 to five lists of my own, and thinking about how I will pair against it.
However, with that being said, there were many illegal lists submitted for ATC. Most of them were caught by the community in advance, this was the only one that to my knowledge was not. If this was a TO-only system of checking, you'd be hearing about five teams being penalized. Crowd-sourcing the lists certainly reduces the problem even if it didn't eliminate it entirely.
Please bear in mind that I'm not specifically saying your team cheated or anything. I'm an outsider looking in when it comes to the tournament scene--but I'm exceedingly tired of the drama that spills over into other aspects of the game when it comes to this kind of silliness.
I don't understand why you're looking "with an eye for competition not legality". One would think you'd look for legality before competition if illegal lists get you DQ'd.
jifel wrote: I did, in fact, read and summarize every single list going into the event. But, this was 73 other teams with 5 lists each, I went through them with an eye for competition not legality. I counted number of Onagers and thought about how quickly they could kill my Carnifexes, and about how their Knight Castellan wouldn't be able to shoot down our 90 Plaguebearers. I saw enginseers and thought basic slot fillers, I didnt count four out until we were actually playing them on Saturday. Plus, "Q" is pretty far down the line of teams and by the time I got there, a lot of lists were starting to look the same and I was skimming. Picking out one illegal battlescribe list out of 375 that I read in a week is pretty damn hard when I'm comparing each of the 375 to five lists of my own, and thinking about how I will pair against it.
However, with that being said, there were many illegal lists submitted for ATC. Most of them were caught by the community in advance, this was the only one that to my knowledge was not. If this was a TO-only system of checking, you'd be hearing about five teams being penalized. Crowd-sourcing the lists certainly reduces the problem even if it didn't eliminate it entirely.
Please bear in mind that I'm not specifically saying your team cheated or anything. I'm an outsider looking in when it comes to the tournament scene--but I'm exceedingly tired of the drama that spills over into other aspects of the game when it comes to this kind of silliness.
I don't understand why you're looking "with an eye for competition not legality". One would think you'd look for legality before competition if illegal lists get you DQ'd.
I certainly made sure that my five lists were legal, but I am a college student who works full time. I do not have time to check all 375 lists for legality against their respective codexes, FAQs, and indexes, and then think about how all of the 375 lists pair against my own. I noticed one illegal list when I was reading, and reported it to the TO. It was fixed well before the event, and the team got to play with no penalty. This one slipped by me, because at 2 am on a skype call with my teammates, I was more concerned with which of my players would beat the list than with how many Enginseers were in it.
That being said, I am also sick and tired of illegal lists, cheating, and the like. One offense should not lead to the death penalty though. If this player had an illegal list at last Adepticon, and then cheated at the London GT, and THEN showed up to ATC with an illegal list we have a different situation. If this same player goes to the LVO in the future and has an illegal list, I'd be in favor of banning him. Hopefully this event will encourage people to double-check, peer review, and be more careful when checking lists in the future.
Polonius wrote: There's a difference between excusing a behavior, and mitigating the punishment for that behavior. Running an illegal list breaks a rule, but there is a range of actions a TO can do to remedy that rulebreaking.
You can look at things like any attempts to hide the rule breaking, the savviness of the offender, how beneficial that was, etc.
TO's main job isn't to enforce the highest level of competition, but rather host an event that's fun for all attendees. Being DQ'd for a dumb error is the opposite of fun.
You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
And there's the issue. Battlescribe isn't great.
I just had a quick look (did up a quick Admech list) and it looks like Battlescribe doesn't use "The Datasheet Rule of Three"
Probably because it's still a suggested limit for an organised play event?
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
And there's the issue. Battlescribe isn't great.
I just had a quick look (did up a quick Admech list) and it looks like Battlescribe doesn't use "The Datasheet Rule of Three"
Probably because it's still a suggested limit for an organised play event?
Yeah, but given that Battlescribe seems to be considered "the tournament choice"--you'd think they'd put it there.
Arachnofiend wrote: No other game offers immediate DQ for breaking any rule. Things like that are reserved for extreme violations like the use of performance enhancing drugs or excessive unsportsmanlike conduct (I'm talking "stomping on a downed player" level here).
What we need is a codified list of penalties. If you do this, you get that points reduction, if you do it enough times within a certain period you get that harsher penalty, the following excessive violations are considered appropriate for a suspension, etc. etc.
Actually track currently has hardcore immediate DQ’s for a false start. Usain bolt has even been hit by it.
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
People use BattleScribe now... AB is in the toilet now in terms of supporting the building of 40k army lists. The thing is they are not perfect. Even the TOs and their crew did not catch it.
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
And there's the issue. Battlescribe isn't great.
I just had a quick look (did up a quick Admech list) and it looks like Battlescribe doesn't use "The Datasheet Rule of Three"
Probably because it's still a suggested limit for an organised play event?
auticus wrote: Back in the day when I was tournamenting... this was about 15 years ago now... we used Army Builder files to validate lists for any event I was a TO at. Made things a lot easier on us.
Something for modern day TOs to consider. Some kind of software army builder that will make your life a ton easier.
Battlescribe was the required software for everyone to use.
Battlescribe data is crowdsourced through github and can be easily manipulated locally. Someone could modify a few values or a few subtle keywords with their local checkout, print that out for the tournament, and potentially get away with it. Someone may forget that a typical Ghostkeel build is 197, or is it 199, or is it 205?
I could see it being an immediate Loss for whatever game you're playing with an illegal list. If you somehow got to round 3 with an illegal list, then all 3 rounds are 0 point losses and your opponent (assuming there were no problems with their stuff) gets max points. Fix the list and submit it to a judge for evaluation before going into the next game.
This does two things. A. it discourages cheaters that try to get an edge with sneaking things into their lists without removing people that make an honest mistake from the social aspect of the game. And B. it gives the opponents an incentive to pay attention to their opponent's lists to make sure the lists are legal. Most tournaments require that you submit a list beforehand, but even then, they will be evaluated by judges that are human, and could easily miss a point difference.
When it comes to other kinds of cheating, like moving models, picking up and throwing too many or too few dice, adjusting terrain, saying your list has something when it doesn't, those are, in my mind, more serious. Still should be punishable by a 0 point Loss with your name put in a book. If your name's in that book more than once, you're heading for a DQ and a ban.
The reason that bans aren't the first things that TO's go to is because this is a big, convoluted game with a lot of confusing rules interactions. It's easy to get confused, even in counting dice when you're talking about a lot of modifiers (positive and negative) re-rolls, and other things. Someone might legitimately make a series of mistakes.
It's when they get a warning and CONTINUE to make those mistakes that you know you have a cheater on your hands. And in the case of ATC, you had a whole team of them, cheating in different ways. We don't know if it was because their local meta flubs a lot of rules, or if they really just wanted the edge that badly, but when you do have that sort of evidence, however circumstantial, then it comes to the TO's to make a more drastic call, which is what people want out of all of this.
If you're really upset with the way these tournaments are run, run your own and follow these guidelines. TOs typically run these events without being paid, with minimal staffing and in addition to a full-time job. There's no formal structure for this overall (other than ITC), and it's awfully difficult to prove cheating in many instances.
As has been brought up before, it's often been difficult to spot cheating when it happens in a game if you're the opponent. There's also often no proof that cheating happened; the best you can do is see if you can get a judge to babysit the rest of your game (which sucks for everyone involved).
I'm aware this doesn't cover things like illegal lists. Again, if you don't like the way this is run, create your own tournament. The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament. They are the ones putting all the time and effort into running these, and in the end the only way you can really protest is by not going. The other players who do attend are voting with their attendance as well, and as long as these tournaments are well-attended, I don't foresee any changes like this.
If you're really upset with the way these tournaments are run, run your own and follow these guidelines. TOs typically run these events without being paid, with minimal staffing and in addition to a full-time job. There's no formal structure for this overall (other than ITC), and it's awfully difficult to prove cheating in many instances.
As has been brought up before, it's often been difficult to spot cheating when it happens in a game if you're the opponent. There's also often no proof that cheating happened; the best you can do is see if you can get a judge to babysit the rest of your game (which sucks for everyone involved).
I'm aware this doesn't cover things like illegal lists. Again, if you don't like the way this is run, create your own tournament. The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament. They are the ones putting all the time and effort into running these, and in the end the only way you can really protest is by not going. The other players who do attend are voting with their attendance as well, and as long as these tournaments are well-attended, I don't foresee any changes like this.
Good points that I agree with, but criticism can be a helpful tool, so I don’t agree with the sentiment of “run your own or stay silent.”
Drama aside, we (Team Zero Comp) had a great time at ATC hanging out with friends and playing games. There were some hiccups but that did not ruin our experience in any way. Thanks to Shane and his crew for running a great event and to all of our very fun opponents, even the ones that whipped my behind, lol!
Sad to hear painting standards are continuing to slide. The entire argument about meta shifts is idiotic by the way. Your basically admitting to having better quality models painted, but because you would rather score higher on battle points you chose to show up with sub standard models, this is the definition of WAAC gaming. Manage your time better and get things painted, or heaven forbid you play with a unit choice that's not currently in the top tier lol.
If you're really upset with the way these tournaments are run, run your own and follow these guidelines. TOs typically run these events without being paid, with minimal staffing and in addition to a full-time job. There's no formal structure for this overall (other than ITC), and it's awfully difficult to prove cheating in many instances.
As has been brought up before, it's often been difficult to spot cheating when it happens in a game if you're the opponent. There's also often no proof that cheating happened; the best you can do is see if you can get a judge to babysit the rest of your game (which sucks for everyone involved).
I'm aware this doesn't cover things like illegal lists. Again, if you don't like the way this is run, create your own tournament. The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament. They are the ones putting all the time and effort into running these, and in the end the only way you can really protest is by not going. The other players who do attend are voting with their attendance as well, and as long as these tournaments are well-attended, I don't foresee any changes like this.
Good points that I agree with, but criticism can be a helpful tool, so I don’t agree with the sentiment of “run your own or stay silent.”
I think Lorek is understating his point, as a gentleman does.
All lot of the criticism in this thread is quite misguided. Most people don’t want super strict officials, because most improperly played 40k is unintentional. Even slow play is very tough to tease out from deliberate play.
Rules are important, but they are not important in and of themselves. At least, not in a tournament. What’s important is what the rules are designed to do: have a reasonabley fair game. You need to balance being fair with understanding that mistakes happen, even absent intent to cheat.
40k is a complicated game. Between list building and even three games, even a savvy player is likely to make errors.
If you're really upset with the way these tournaments are run, run your own and follow these guidelines. TOs typically run these events without being paid, with minimal staffing and in addition to a full-time job. There's no formal structure for this overall (other than ITC), and it's awfully difficult to prove cheating in many instances.
As has been brought up before, it's often been difficult to spot cheating when it happens in a game if you're the opponent. There's also often no proof that cheating happened; the best you can do is see if you can get a judge to babysit the rest of your game (which sucks for everyone involved).
I'm aware this doesn't cover things like illegal lists. Again, if you don't like the way this is run, create your own tournament. The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament. They are the ones putting all the time and effort into running these, and in the end the only way you can really protest is by not going. The other players who do attend are voting with their attendance as well, and as long as these tournaments are well-attended, I don't foresee any changes like this.
That's a pretty crap attitude. it's to hard to run a tournament where cheaters are dealt with, or the organizers actually enforced their own rules, so just don't go or start your own!?! cool. good to know accountability should not be expected.
Drama aside, we (Team Zero Comp) had a great time at ATC hanging out with friends and playing games. There were some hiccups but that did not ruin our experience in any way. Thanks to Shane and his crew for running a great event and to all of our very fun opponents, even the ones that whipped my behind, lol
So who cares about the people that had to play this team and did not have fun? Yeah some people had fun that is what is supposed to happen. When you get the right order at McDonalds do you go inside and give the manager a pat on the back? That is not what this thread is about.
I am paying with my wallet and have stopped going to the big events or if I do I play the smaller games. I am not the only one, and there will be a lot more, if TO's don't start caring about the attendants that deserve it.
Alan Bajramovic AKA "PJ Pants" playing for team "Has Been's" at the ATC declined to talk about anything through a video, and wishes not be seen as an instigator and does not take that stance. There was a brief confrontation with Alan and Aaron Aelong involving a verbal disagreement and display of frustration and alleged unsportsmanlike conduct. He did however give me permission to quote him from our earlier conversation and here was his take:
"The truth is Shane was going to Ban then after round 3[Team Happy] against Kamikazes already cause there was issues every round with only their team. But I guess Shane thought if they loose he would not have to deal with it and then they where in contention to win the whole thing again in 3rd the last round so he finally just knew he had to DQ them and wrapped it around some bs about models. I had nothing to do with the decision I think it was excessive for sure. I think it was not timed well and not carried out the right way. The penalties should have been clear and transparent right when infractions happened not the next day and not about models. Half the people there have converted weird models and even though I made fun of Aaron's rough riders I would never complain about them or get anyone kicked from an event."
"My only issue with Happy was the fact that 2 games went to only turn 4 and 1 my game with Aaron went to 3 and it was clear he intended this to happen
He played well
He did not cheat
His list was SOLID"
"I know Wobbly Modelers and Kamikazies teams had much larger issues that I was NOT present for so I dont want to comment but if what I heard is true then I understand why Kelsey and 12 teams threatened to leave if action was not taken."
At Alan's suggestion I will reach out to Kelsey from Wobbly Modeler's Frankie from Frontline Gaming Team Zero Comp, or Tony Malave / Mitch Tucker from Kamikazies as well.
#Competetive40K #40K #ATC
I think this discussion needs to be toned down a touch. I understand people are frustrated at this incident but it’s no excuse to fly of the handle at people who share the same interests and hobbies as you. I think one of the big issues is that the issue of cheating is being muddied by people using the incident as a platform to rail against other issues which are objectively not cheating. I also think there is a failure to distinguish between the severity of different infractions. TO’s are doing a good job in difficult circumstances and I’m sure discussions are under way to curb some of the issues we are seeing. I also think there is a failure to understand that people have different expectations of the hobby and that’s okay.
TO’s are doing a good job in difficult circumstances and I’m sure discussions are under way to curb some of the issues we are seeing.
The person quoted above is a major tournament player, played the team in question, and does not think the TO did a good job.
my game with Aaron went to 3 and it was clear he intended this to happen
He played well
How is that not considered cheating?
Shane thought if they loose he would not have to deal with it
If that is true it is complete bull. how many people had a bad experience playing this jerk because the TO did not want to do something about it. This is exactly what people have a problem with.
I guess GW isn't the only one that needs to tighten its rules. Which sucks because I usually attend tournaments just to have some fun, play against the newest hotness and get my marine butt kicked...
If there is a painting/modeling requirement it needs to be enforced and not just against people that you don't know. Penalties for violating the rules need to be laid out. "Models not up to a table top standard or with significant conversions/counts as will be removed from the battlefield at the sole discretion of the TO. If there is any doubt please submit pics before the start of the event."
As much as I hate the idea of them chess clocks seem to be a necessary evil. There is little reason for "pros" to have a game that only goes to turn 3. Completing turn 4 should be a req for high level play and the only way it seems that can be accomplished without arbitrarily penalizing the opponent of the guy slow playing is through chess clocks or having an official at every table.
Same with list construction. Any games played with an illegal list should result in a major victory of the opponent and going forward the illegal components of the list will just be removed from the list. No substitutions or changes possible.
In game rules violations (applying wrong rules, cheating) IF REPORTED TO A TO shall result in a warning and point deduction if deemed intentional. A second offense REPORTED TO A TO shall result in a DQ of that player. If the infraction is not reported DURING THE GAME then no penalty will be enforced but a TO will monitor that players next game and any cheating will be grounds for a DQ (or your opponent will be notified you have been warned and encouraged to consult with a TO if they observe any dodgy [for the brits] behavior)
It's hard to make up rules on the spot and the TOs seemed to be in a bad position. But they created that situation by trying to apply gentleman's agreements to a competitive setting. With hard and fast rules set-up BEFORE the event with punishments laid out it makes their job (which is hard as hell and they must be applauded for their dedication to this hobby which we all enjoy) that much harder.
I say all of this as an outsider who was no where near the tourney but would love to attend an event like this in the future. I feel at a team event this would be easier as the stigma of calling the TO seems lessened when you can feel you are doing it for your team rather than just being TFG. Maybe it's something that you could tell your captain about and they can be tasked with dealing with the TOs, like in most organized team sports?
For the more "open" tournaments (BAO, LVO, SoCAL open, whatever passes for tournaments for you east coast troglodytes) maybe these rules should be enforced day 2 at the undefeated tables (list review those with a chance to win, take a look at their armies and put chess clocks on the table). So as to not ruin fun for the filthy amateurs who just show up to these things for fun?
There have been a ton of rumors and misinformation surrounding what was actually done and said this past weekend in relation to the team that was removed from our 40k event. Following is our official statement regarding the issue. We hope that you will read it completely and help share the facts and not the rumors.
July 16th, 2018
This press release is in regards to Team Happy being asked to leave this year's ATC. Any article, podcast, blog, etc. that states otherwise is misinformed and inaccurate in their information and should be disregarded.
The ATC has clearly stated policies on our website and mission pack. It is our responsibility to follow these guidelines in fairness to all players involved. The statements below reflect that we did just that. We also want to take this opportunity to say that it was made obvious to us this year that our slow play, some model policies and our penalty system are in need of a revision. Those revisions are already in the works and in future years will be much stricter.
What happened at the ATC 2018 event concerning Team Happy:
After Round 3 a player with an illegal model was brought to our attention.
According to our policies we issued the player in question a retroactive Round 1 warning and a current round 2 game loss. The model issue had been corrected after game 2 and was not used in round 3 so there was no need for any action in regards to that model in round 3.
As to the question of "Why was a specific points penalty/loss not announced immediately?" Our response is that we had an event already running late and a room full of players who continued to bombard us with their concerns, giving us no chance to think it through clearly. We needed and wanted to make sure that we had the time and clarity to make the right penalty that would have an actual impact on the team penalized and we knew that anything less than a complete removal of the team (at that time) was not going to affect the next round pairings, so we kept the event moving and applied the penalty during rd 3 once we had a few mins to take action.
Also, during round 3 another player on the team had an issue with his opponent which led to a situation with our head judge. Both players were running on high emotions and attitudes were in poor form. The original rumor regarding what had actually happened was found to be false and grossly over-exaggerated on the floor. The truth of the matter was confirmed by our head judge. The over exaggeration that was sweeping the room was that the player had told our head judge to go F*** himself, when what was truly said was "I'm not going to do that" (in regards to the judge's suggestion to resolve the controversial game issue at hand). The issue was resolved by the players once the TO's came on the scene and as per our policy, a warning was issued to the player (first warning to that player) and team captain. We want to be clear that had the player actually said that to any of our staff, they would have been immediately ejected and banned from the event. We have a zero tolerance policy for such behavior and we immediately went into a 30 minute conversation with the team captain with full intention of removing the player from our event. Once the truth was discovered, the warning was issued instead of player removal.
During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event. We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).
As another layer of enforcement and to be proactive, we also posted our head judge as a permanent judge at the team's tables for the rest of their event.
After round 4 there were questions of slow play brought against the team.
This was reviewed and checked against our slow play policies/guidelines.
After review, all game lengths had met our requirements (minimum 4 turns completed), there was no pattern of games not meeting the required number of rounds and our judges had not seen proof of any "slow play tactics" during the round. Again, we understand that our slow play policy is in need of revision.
After round 5 there was a model conversion infraction brought to our attention.
We addressed the issue and ultimately the team was asked to leave our event, with no games played in the final round.
The team did not argue to try and stay in the event, they were courteous to take our request and in order to not create more delays, they waited until the final round was underway to come and discuss all of the details. The team left after a very reasonable and respectful conversation with our staff and TO's and there were no confrontations of any kind.
We want the community to know that we do not take these situations lightly. What we do at the ATC sets a precedent and a certain standard. A decision like this is no small thing, and no TO ever wants to have to eject someone from their event, let alone five players. We always want to make our decisions with a clear head, in accordance with our policies and guidelines, with integrity and fairness to all players involved.
We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate. We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources.
In the end, we learn every year what we could have done better, where we failed and where we excelled, we listen to our players input and we adjust from there.
That's the best we can do, for you, for us and for the community.
We are ready to move forward to better days, higher player standards and the best ATC event ever in 2019 and we hope that you will move forward with us!
Thank you,
- Shane, Chris and the ATC staff
This is ATC's official statement on the events this weekend. Take from it what you will.
TO’s are doing a good job in difficult circumstances and I’m sure discussions are under way to curb some of the issues we are seeing.
The person quoted above is a major tournament player, played the team in question, and does not think the TO did a good job.
my game with Aaron went to 3 and it was clear he intended this to happen
He played well
How is that not considered cheating?
Shane thought if they loose he would not have to deal with it
If that is true it is complete bull. how many people had a bad experience playing this jerk because the TO did not want to do something about it. This is exactly what people have a problem with.
1. It’s a quote of a quote so i think it’s a bit dangerous taking it as gospel.
2. I wasn’t really referencing that particular incident however until there is specific rules against slow play it’s poor sportsmanship not cheating which limitis the TOs ability to respond
3. The TO was under inordinate pressure and this wasn’t the only thing occupying his mind. Hindsights 20/20 no one has the complete facts of the case. Could of it be handled better, maybe but you don’t know what information the TO had when making the decision and I’m sure they made the decision they though was in the best interest of all players and the hobby.
Lorek wrote: . TOs typically run these events without being paid,
No, they are paid a great deal. Where do you think the entry fees go?
Venue and prize support generally.
Don't be so naive.
I'm not, I run a mid-sized event and I know where my entry fees go. To further clarify, I'm not the only organizer I know who is in this same boat. My event usually breaks even (especially given the cost to update terrain and mats yearly).
It must be the era but 40k, 8th especially, is damned far from complicated.
Hell, old adeptus titanicus was variable more complicated than 40k. But the billion of stupid rules duplications isn't helping folks confusion, neither are bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Players at tournaments in 3rd didn't find things very confusing or complicated. I was there. Same for 2nd, whose this and card tokens of doom would probably fry the modern 40k player's mind to track them all. Most older war games were complicated token festivals.
I can't take seriously the idea of modern 40k as complicated. Unnecessarily confusing due to rules duplications, yes. But it isn't complex anymore.
I don't know how today's players would handle unlimbering for artillery, following fire, heroic melee combat, jam dice, and tables, tables galore! I mean they couldn't handle things like templates, cover, scatter dice, tables, and vehicle fields of fire listed in degrees, instead of Death Blossom mode for vehicles.
So, not complicated, but naff rules and confusing crap.
If you're really upset with the way these tournaments are run, run your own and follow these guidelines. TOs typically run these events without being paid, with minimal staffing and in addition to a full-time job. There's no formal structure for this overall (other than ITC), and it's awfully difficult to prove cheating in many instances.
As has been brought up before, it's often been difficult to spot cheating when it happens in a game if you're the opponent. There's also often no proof that cheating happened; the best you can do is see if you can get a judge to babysit the rest of your game (which sucks for everyone involved).
I'm aware this doesn't cover things like illegal lists. Again, if you don't like the way this is run, create your own tournament. The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament. They are the ones putting all the time and effort into running these, and in the end the only way you can really protest is by not going. The other players who do attend are voting with their attendance as well, and as long as these tournaments are well-attended, I don't foresee any changes like this.
That's a pretty crap attitude. it's to hard to run a tournament where cheaters are dealt with, or the organizers actually enforced their own rules, so just don't go or start your own!?! cool. good to know accountability should not be expected.
Drama aside, we (Team Zero Comp) had a great time at ATC hanging out with friends and playing games. There were some hiccups but that did not ruin our experience in any way. Thanks to Shane and his crew for running a great event and to all of our very fun opponents, even the ones that whipped my behind, lol
So who cares about the people that had to play this team and did not have fun? Yeah some people had fun that is what is supposed to happen. When you get the right order at McDonalds do you go inside and give the manager a pat on the back? That is not what this thread is about.
I am paying with my wallet and have stopped going to the big events or if I do I play the smaller games. I am not the only one, and there will be a lot more, if TO's don't start caring about the attendants that deserve it.
Lorek wrote: . TOs typically run these events without being paid,
No, they are paid a great deal. Where do you think the entry fees go?
Venue and prize support generally.
Don't be so naive.
I agree, $28K in entry fees did not go to just prize support and the Venue
Venue includes terrain costs, meals for staff (in most cases and possibly lodging), and there are other assorted costs. That said I'm not here to prove the point, think what you like. You clearly know better than me and know that tournament organizers are in it to line their pockets.
I agree with the no tolerance policy. You can't remove them from a venue because it's a 'social event'? People are they to play their opponent, you shouldn't be having a chat with your friend while he's playing. Its not a convention, its a tournament.
And I don't agree with the 'well shut up or make your own tournament' way of thinking either. Nobody anywhere in the history of forever is immune to criticism, and if so many people outside the issue can see the problems with it, then it really REALLY needs fixing.
"but its hard to TO" "but they don't get paid much" "but its just a game" "but you're an armchair ____" Is a lot of talk that really makes people completely uninterested in joining the tournament scene if this is how the people responsible are talking like.
edit: not saying anyone here is responsible, im just saying its not putting faith in people's minds that tournaments are even a good idea
Zero tolerance was common going all the way back to before there were tournaments in the US and Games Days was it. Games Day was zero tolerance. Hell my first tournament I almost caught a perma-ban for voicing that I thought the official measurements that decided the win loss on game three were off. Wasn't loud about it but was discussing it with my opponent who was of a similar mind to me and mostly didn't care win or lose because it was a damn well fought game but the TO overheard us and came down on me like a ton of bricks. No bitching rule in play, the Upire's judgment was not open to discussion or question. The Ump was always right,even when he was wrong, just as in a sports game. Argue with the umpire and he will toss you out of the game.
Don Savik wrote: I agree with the no tolerance policy. You can't remove them from a venue because it's a 'social event'? People are they to play their opponent, you shouldn't be having a chat with your friend while he's playing. Its not a convention, its a tournament.
And I don't agree with the 'well shut up or make your own tournament' way of thinking either. Nobody anywhere in the history of forever is immune to criticism, and if so many people outside the issue can see the problems with it, then it really REALLY needs fixing.
"but its hard to TO" "but they don't get paid much" "but its just a game" "but you're an armchair ____" Is a lot of talk that really makes people completely uninterested in joining the tournament scene if this is how the people responsible are talking like.
Lorek wrote: The tournament organizers lay out these rules in advance, and if you don't like them, don't attend the tournament.
I've never seen any repercussions listed out for cheating listed in any tourney packs or primers... ever. Expectations aren't managed. No where has it/they said "don't cheat". RAW right?
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Don Savik wrote:I agree with the no tolerance policy. You can't remove them from a venue because it's a 'social event'? People are they to play their opponent, you shouldn't be having a chat with your friend while he's playing. Its not a convention, its a tournament.
And I don't agree with the 'well shut up or make your own tournament' way of thinking either. Nobody anywhere in the history of forever is immune to criticism, and if so many people outside the issue can see the problems with it, then it really REALLY needs fixing.
"but its hard to TO" "but they don't get paid much" "but its just a game" "but you're an armchair ____" Is a lot of talk that really makes people completely uninterested in joining the tournament scene if this is how the people responsible are talking like.
edit: not saying anyone here is responsible, im just saying its not putting faith in people's minds that tournaments are even a good idea
Bravo Sir!
meatybtz wrote:Zero tolerance was common going all the way back to before there were tournaments in the US and Games Days was it. Games Day was zero tolerance. Hell my first tournament I almost caught a perma-ban for voicing that I thought the official measurements that decided the win loss on game three were off. Wasn't loud about it but was discussing it with my opponent who was of a similar mind to me and mostly didn't care win or lose because it was a damn well fought game but the TO overheard us and came down on me like a ton of bricks. No bitching rule in play, the Upire's judgment was not open to discussion or question. The Ump was always right,even when he was wrong, just as in a sports game. Argue with the umpire and he will toss you out of the game.
Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.
Chess clocks aren’t the answer. Horde armies are to powerful in 40k period. This is why there were several 120+ model armies on every team. GW needs to quit penalizing large models, and players need to quit whinnning when a 400+ pointed model is ‘too good’. Magnus and titans should be crushing infantry squads not running in fear of them.
bananathug wrote: I guess GW isn't the only one that needs to tighten its rules.
...
As much as I hate the idea of them chess clocks seem to be a necessary evil. There is little reason for "pros" to have a game that only goes to turn 3. Completing turn 4 should be a req for high level play and the only way it seems that can be accomplished without arbitrarily penalizing the opponent of the guy slow playing is through chess clocks or having an official at every table.
But that’s not something GW ever did or likely wants for 40K.
This newfangled idea from the “competitive” scene that games a) always must go to turn 5/6 and b) both players ought to have exactly equal time is, love it or hate it, not a thing 40K was built around.
You can look up literally hundreds of games on GW’s Twitch, all streamed unedited, so you can clock them, if you like.
Games from various WHW tournaments, games including the game designers and rules writers, games including their community/marketing guys, etc..
Not a single one goes to “equal time for both players” and many of them just go to turn 3 or so, and it’s not a problem. Nobody even comments on it. If it is Orks against Knights or something like this, of course the Ork player will need 3x the time of the Knight player.
That is simply how 40K works. If GW had designed their best-selling sci-fi miniatures game with rules/design-goals of “it needs to finish 5 turns in time x” and “both players should use equal time”, it would be a very different game indeed. Arguably, physically vastly different armies such as 300 models of Orks vs. 3 Models of Knights wouldn’t even exist. Or there would be other limits like equal no. of activations, independent of models, or something along those lines.
If you are serious about making “every game must go to turn x” and “both players get equal time” a requirement, you will realistically have to change a lot more with 40K to make that work: cap model-counts perhaps, enforce dice-apps analogous to chess clocks for unequal dice, probably simplify rules for time-intensive phases like CC,... etc.
You cannot just throw chess clocks and arbitrary houserules on play time at an even moderately (as games go) System not design for it and expect it to work without a hitch.
For normal 40K, being flexible enough to easily deal with armies (and players) of different speeds and having missions like most BRBEW missions, which are as easily scored at the end of turn 2 as they are at the end of turn 7, is a feature, not a problem.
Changing that to the new “play-time-paradigm” most competitive types aspire to cannot happen by simply saying “that’s how it works now and any any hiccups this requirement causes with a game. Of designed for it is just “cheating”.
Just like you cannot go in and just say in football “equal time of ball possession for both teams is now a requirement and if you’ve played it differently, you’ve been cheating” You’ll need to change a lot more to make that new rule work.
If that’s what you want for the 40K(based-game) of tournaments, you’ll need to change a lot more of the game’s core to make it work under that timing-dogma.
Don't think of the clocks around to enforce equal time, think about them as a way to enforce maximum time.
Who cares how much time your opponent uses but in order for this game to work in tournament you have to be able to deploy and play 4 turns with your army in under 90 minutes. I'm pretty sure that's longer than they are really giving but it seems like a necessary evil. You could even get creative and give a time bonus to the player with more models (>50% more models time goes to 100 to 80?)
And an evil it really is. I've lost units because I've not taken the time to space them out properly because I'm not that competitive of player and am mostly around to have fun at a tournament but if I were going for top table please believe I'd have my measuring sticks with 1.25", 1.5" and 2" to make sure I could get proper distance between my guys quickly.
But that seems impossible if you are trying to move/measure 200 dudes and I don't know if there is an answer for that other than reducing the number of games per day (2 4 hour games would always go to some conclusion I'd wager) or just make it a super long, terrible experience (3 3.5 hour games. No breaks, 9:30am to 8 pm...).
Movement trays are difficult with terrain, I guess more gentlemanly agreements would work "yo, my guys are 1.5" apart and 10" from your unit" but then that's hard to enforce, leads to arguments and all it takes are a couple jerks to ruin it.
I don't know if there is a good solution (hopefully we'll see how chess clocks do at BAO) but it seems like the least bad option. I think games ending turn 2 or even turn 3 are a direct result of intentionally slow playing when the contest is between two people that know the rules/their armies. I guess you could call that a meta and could be something you must design your army around but it just seems sleazy and underhanded.
I equate it to soccer when an opponent goes down, there's no rule that says you have to stop play but most professionals do the right thing but there's always TFG out there that pushes what is acceptable especially when they feel they have the advantage...
This newfangled idea from the “competitive” scene that games a) always must go to turn 5/6 and b) both players ought to have exactly equal time is, love it or hate it, not a thing 40K was built around.
Not a single one goes to “equal time for both players” and many of them just go to turn 3 or so, and it’s not a problem. Nobody even comments on it. If it is Orks against Knights or something like this, of course the Ork player will need 3x the time of the Knight player.
Just like you cannot go in and just say in football “equal time of ball possession for both teams is now a requirement and if you’ve played it differently, you’ve been cheating” You’ll need to change a lot more to make that new rule work.
1. Games were certainly designed to get to turn 5/6, but not in 2.5hrs. They certainly didn't plan missions that would end mid game to determine a winner. If that was the case then make games end in 4 turns so that players can plan around that.
2. Disagree somewhat. If you had Ork vs Ork they would get the same amount of time. Therefore they should be able to play against a Knight player in the same amount of time.
3. The difference with most sports is that the player is forced to give up possession i.e. tennis or can have possession taken away from them i.e. football.
1. Games were certainly designed to get to turn 5/6, but not in 2.5hrs. They certainly didn't plan missions that would end mid game to determine a winner. If that was the case then make games end in 4 turns so that players can plan around that.
2. Disagree somewhat. If you had Ork vs Ork they would get the same amount of time. Therefore they should be able to play against a Knight player in the same amount of time.
3. The difference with most sports is that the player is forced to give up possession i.e. tennis or can have possession taken away from them i.e. football.
Again, if 40K really was designed with that in mind, why do hundreds of Warhammer TV twitch games (including tournament games and games by the game designers) deviate from this "intention" or "design" and basically none of them conform to it? (not to mention that no word on equal play time is dropped in any rule book of 40K in any edition past or present)
And if ATC, ITC & co truly wanted to follow GW's "design", why are they actively and explicitly choosing a different approach to bring down game times than GW does for their GT, Throne of Skulls, etc..?
You can do what you want with chess clocks & co. But claiming they align with the original design of the game is just ludicrous and wilful ignorance of everything you can see and read about the game from GW.
Primark G wrote: An illegal list is a bigger deal in 40k as compared to a card game.
Your comment shows you don't really understand how much larger MTG is compared to 40k in a competitive sense, it's not just a "card game". It's a game with $100,000 prizes. 1 card out of 60 is somehow less impactful than 5pts in 2000? 1 card drastically alters the probability of winning.
About MTG: it's important to note that there are two kinds of illegal decklists: a deck that is legal in the format but doesn't match your official submitted decklist, and a deck that is not legal in the format (for whatever reason). An illegal decklist doesn't necessarily have any impact on the game because it might still be a legal deck and merely a paperwork error in submitting the list. Or maybe you dropped a card last round, and you're playing a 59-card deck with a random card missing. That random card has no effect on the game because it's random, equivalent to being on the bottom of the deck and never drawn (at least in most cases). But if you show up with a blatantly illegal deck, using cards that aren't legal in the format, I suspect you're going to find yourself DQed for cheating and not just given a game loss.
Red Corsair wrote: Sad to hear painting standards are continuing to slide. The entire argument about meta shifts is idiotic by the way. Your basically admitting to having better quality models painted, but because you would rather score higher on battle points you chose to show up with sub standard models, this is the definition of WAAC gaming. Manage your time better and get things painted, or heaven forbid you play with a unit choice that's not currently in the top tier lol.
It's not WAAC. If you've got two armies and one is stronger you take the stronger one to the competition which is built around the idea of taking strong armies to win. At a competition you kind of expect people to play with good lists, especially those who hope to have a chance at winning the competition.
The only way you could change that is to run a secondary competition alongside with an equal half share of the prize pool and accolades which is based around the painting and modelling quality of the whole army. That would give people reason to take higher quality painted models to tournaments; although on the competitive scene it might also put more pressure on them to consider using commissioned painters, which isn't what the hobby wants to encourage.
Note I don't mean that commissioned painters are bad, but at the competitive end you don't want people winning and claiming a prize for painting that is not their own work.
There’s a lot of disagreement over how to hold players to account on here. I’ll throw in my 2 pence as a teacher, as I deal with students trying to push boundaries and get away with things all the time (and this works for adults as much as it does teenagers):
In a school you have a clear behaviour policy, typically starting with a warning then progressively moving through more serious consequences. The key thing is that this is clear, widely disseminated and most importantly - consistently applied. If someone breaks a minor rule they’re warned and they don’t have a leg to stand on as the rules are everywhere, all the time. If is progresses, all the way through to removal etc, again it’s clear. In short, to make enforcing rules easier TOs should make a clear, easy to read set of consequences with clear indications of how they will be applied. Just like in a school, major infractions obviously skip up to more serious consequences - but everyone knowing this is the key. If you do this consistently, you don’t have issues.
Last point. As much as I appreciate the ‘zero tolerance’ for any infraction POV, ultimately if you become too draconian people won’t want to be in that that room and you’ll hurt the relationships you’ve built. Clear, consistent, cool headed approaches to enforcing rules work best.
Primark G wrote: An illegal list is a bigger deal in 40k as compared to a card game.
Your comment shows you don't really understand how much larger MTG is compared to 40k in a competitive sense, it's not just a "card game". It's a game with $100,000 prizes. 1 card out of 60 is somehow less impactful than 5pts in 2000? 1 card drastically alters the probability of winning.
But cheating has a far bigger swing in either game, 'Pro' Magic cheats make the worst of 40k shenanigans look like mild casual garage misplay
Is it just me or is that statement from the ATC a little strange? One incorrect model, an argument with a judge and they're kicked over a proxy in round 4. No slow play, no abusive language - seems a little excessive punishment or is the statement missing a number of key facts? One player said they only got to T3 and ATC said all their games got to T4 so are players exaggerating or is the official statement poorly constructed ....
Peregrine wrote: About MTG: it's important to note that there are two kinds of illegal decklists: a deck that is legal in the format but doesn't match your official submitted decklist, and a deck that is not legal in the format (for whatever reason). An illegal decklist doesn't necessarily have any impact on the game because it might still be a legal deck and merely a paperwork error in submitting the list. Or maybe you dropped a card last round, and you're playing a 59-card deck with a random card missing. That random card has no effect on the game because it's random, equivalent to being on the bottom of the deck and never drawn (at least in most cases). But if you show up with a blatantly illegal deck, using cards that aren't legal in the format, I suspect you're going to find yourself DQed for cheating and not just given a game loss.
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg3-4/
Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.
Ordana wrote: Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.
Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?
Ordana wrote: Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.
Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?
For a first offense? yes, because that is what the rules stipulate.
By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.
Ordana wrote: Penalty: Game Loss
These are the major cases where the decklist has to be modified. An illegal deck, is a deck with not enough cards; too many cards in the sideboard, ambiguous cards names, or cards that are illegal for the format.
Yes, like I said, multiple types of offense combined into one. Do you honestly think that, in a high-level event, a player blatantly cheating (rather than having a random weak common from an old set shuffled into their deck by mistake) with a clearly illegal deck will just get a game loss penalty instead of being DQed?
Yes, that's what the rules say. You may not agree with the punishment but the rules are clear. Intent is irrelevant, as far as this rule goes.
That is the main problem with tournament 40k at the moment, I think. There don't seem to be clear, easily enforceable rules with penalties laid out. In order to even begin to deal with potential cheating we need to define what it is, and not in some colloquial "well, y'know, it's sort of like...having a wrong list and...uh...rolling dice badly?" kind of way. We already have standards for list building (2k points, Rule of 3, painting guidelines, etc) but we also need rules for conduct within a game, and not just things covering sportsmanship, but things like dice etiquette, use of wound markers and slow play, for example. Only once we have a decent set of rules for this can we then look at applying penalties.
In most sporting events intent isn't taken into account when rules infractions occur, at least at first. All that matters is an infraction is spotted and the required penalty applied. The MTG rule above is a good example of this. There can be further penalties if the offense is deemed to be more severe or if a player constantly breaks the same rules but I think the most important thing is having something to refer to in the first place that can be enforced.
Arachnofiend wrote: By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.
Yeah, because that's definitely comparable to DQing someone for cheating...
Arachnofiend wrote: By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.
Yeah, because that's definitely comparable to DQing someone for cheating...
Be careful, some players may deliberately invalidate their lists for such an opportunity ...
Arachnofiend wrote: By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.
It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.
It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.
It’s the (armchair) TOs or tournament’s fault if they invite everyone and their dog to a free-for-everyone, fun gaming weekend, take money from everyone that wants to attend and proceed to turn around and pretend it’s some kind of high level sporting thing going.
Imagine you’re doing a basketball tournament with all tournament attendance rules and requirements as they are for ATC, or Nova, LVO,whatever. Just 40K switched for basketball. Everyone 10 years and up can attend for a few bucks. Proceeds may goto charity as with Nova. Hundreds of participants there to have a good weekend. No tiers,handicap-system or different leagues to separate players.
And than LeBron James shows up, hammers the first two 12-year-olds he’s paired with to pulp for maximum points like it’s for final minutes of an NBA final, cause hey, it’s a tournament and only winning matters, so turning on sociopath-mode is a.o.k. before arguing some obscure regulation in the third round to get his opponent disqualified on a technicality? What do you think would happen?
That’s not how the real world works and as long as that sub-section of the 40K-competitive crowd that pulled this weird Scientology-mind-trick on themselves of fooling themselves into believing that mentality will fly, “because it’s a tournament! Just git god!”, doesn’t change, things’ll continue to deteriorate.
It's not the TO's or the tournament's fault if the player makes a mistake. If you don't want to be DQ'd then don't make a mistake? It's pretty easy since most players manage to create lists without failing. Honestly there are way too many top players that keep making this error. Perhaps if there were actual CONSISTENT consequences people would make lists correctly.
It’s the (armchair) TOs or tournament’s fault if they invite everyone and their dog to a free-for-everyone, fun gaming weekend, take money from everyone that wants to attend and proceed to turn around and pretend it’s some kind of high level sporting thing going.
Imagine you’re doing a basketball tournament with all tournament attendance rules and requirements as they are for ATC, or Nova, LVO,whatever. Just 40K switched for basketball. Everyone 10 years and up can attend for a few bucks. Proceeds may goto charity as with Nova. Hundreds of participants there to have a good weekend. No tiers,handicap-system or different leagues to separate players.
And than LeBron James shows up, hammers the first two 12-year-olds he’s paired with to pulp for maximum points like it’s for final minutes of an NBA final, cause hey, it’s a tournament and only winning matters, so turning on sociopath-mode is a.o.k. before arguing some obscure regulation in the third round to get his opponent disqualified on a technicality? What do you think would happen?
That’s not how the real world works and as long as that sub-section of the 40K-competitive crowd that pulled this weird Scientology-mind-trick on themselves of fooling themselves into believing that mentality will fly, “because it’s a tournament! Just git god!”, doesn’t change, things’ll continue to deteriorate.
So, an event I’m at soon, has all the lists (well practically all) of them already loaded on the BCP app. 70 players in total. I’ve gone through all of them bits at a time and out of the 67 viewable lists I’ve picked up on 5 lists with errors in them – and that’s without doing a full in depth dive in. It’s not taken me a lot of time to go through them either.
Some of the mistakes are easy to fix and genuine mistakes like missing off the selected <regiment> or counting CP totals wrong, but others seem to have genuine points costs wrong (one list is like 29 points over 2000) and another is running a battalion but only taking 1 HQ.
I get that list building can be convoluted at times, especially with soup lists, but, having an incorrect list is 100% on the player submitting it, but also a responsibility lies with the TO to arrange ways for the lists to get checked and then the opponent to do a quick scan at the start of the game.
The issue then comes when something gets picked up in game mid event, that was missed throughout the entire pre-event checking etc. It then becomes an issue of “Intentional or not?”, which, is something that is incredibly difficult to decide on.
I think, ITC and BCP need to integrate a “strike list” which the TOs can access. If an issue is raised at an event, it can get uploaded on BCP and registered as a “strike” against the players name and account. This can then be used to see if there is a pattern of undesirable behaviour in the players past and would help determine the “intentional or not?” question. Once a certain amount of strikes is reached, then there should be an official ITC guideline on punishments, eventually leading to a full on ban.
Unfortunately, players need to accept that they have a responsibility to play to the rules of the game, regardless of their own level of ability. With more games, ability levels will increase, but, the onus has to be on the players themselves to abide by the rules of the EVENT and the game.
I'm more concerned over the standard of painted armies in the ATC more than anything.
From the sounds of it, hordes of unpainted plastic, rattle an colour or a very shoddy job of "3 colour minimum" that just makes me sad.
I'm in no way an ace painter, just neat and tidy myself with a wash or two. But the lack of pride in one's army just sticks in my craw.
So now people are saying ATC is purposely glossing over things that other teams reported, in an attempt to bury the truth and pretend it was no major deal.
ITC seems to have no balls to act, in this regard. Every single time something like this happens it's "They are good guys and great players" and just ignoring any of the issues. FLG had a Chapter Tactics podcast this morning that says words to that effect, just acting like oh it was no big deal.
Wayniac wrote: So now people are saying ATC is purposely glossing over things that other teams reported, in an attempt to bury the truth and pretend it was no major deal.
ITC seems to have no balls to act, in this regard. Every single time something like this happens it's "They are good guys and great players" and just ignoring any of the issues. FLG had a Chapter Tactics podcast this morning that says words to that effect, just acting like oh it was no big deal.
I expect nothing less from you know who. The "official" press release reads like a whitewash to downplay the extent of multiple issues that occurred at the event. I know the majority of NC teams have said they will not be attending again. No reason to pay that much money to attend a "premier" event, if it is going to be ran like a garage league. As a community we need to establish a council of major hobby contributors to act as a "governing body" like sports has. TO's will still be free to use or not use the recommended roster, like a fighter banned in vegas can still fight in atlantic city. BUT, at least it would be there and would be available to be announced, "for this tournament the Worst Coast Players (see what I did there?) will be in effect."
Of course alot of thought has to go into how to determine appropriate punishment, what are the burdens of proof, etc.
Dr. Mills wrote: I'm more concerned over the standard of painted armies in the ATC more than anything.
From the sounds of it, hordes of unpainted plastic, rattle an colour or a very shoddy job of "3 colour minimum" that just makes me sad.
I'm in no way an ace painter, just neat and tidy myself with a wash or two. But the lack of pride in one's army just sticks in my craw.
I'll be honest, that bothers me too. For the rest of us that are not the top 5% of the field, I want a competitive game against two painted armies. I don't care if it's professionally painted, I just want a little effort put into it. I guess that is a big part of my enjoyment of the game in a tournament setting. Among pick up games, I'm totally cool with proxy or unpainted plastic, but at tournaments I expect some effort.
As an infrequent tournament organizer, it's hard to catch before the games start since people are unpacking their armies sometimes as the first round is starting. I have never seen an army pulled, but maybe a solution to keep the WAAC players honest is have a score added/deducted from the total : was the army painted or not? This doesn't have to be best painted award driven, but at least deducts those offenders.
Red Corsair wrote: Sad to hear painting standards are continuing to slide. The entire argument about meta shifts is idiotic by the way. Your basically admitting to having better quality models painted, but because you would rather score higher on battle points you chose to show up with sub standard models, this is the definition of WAAC gaming. Manage your time better and get things painted, or heaven forbid you play with a unit choice that's not currently in the top tier lol.
It's not WAAC. If you've got two armies and one is stronger you take the stronger one to the competition which is built around the idea of taking strong armies to win. At a competition you kind of expect people to play with good lists, especially those who hope to have a chance at winning the competition.
The only way you could change that is to run a secondary competition alongside with an equal half share of the prize pool and accolades which is based around the painting and modelling quality of the whole army. That would give people reason to take higher quality painted models to tournaments; although on the competitive scene it might also put more pressure on them to consider using commissioned painters, which isn't what the hobby wants to encourage.
Note I don't mean that commissioned painters are bad, but at the competitive end you don't want people winning and claiming a prize for painting that is not their own work.
You clearly missed the point in my post entirely. There are excuses that float around and are even in this thread that claim a meta shift is a valid reason to go out an buy stronger units in a rush without having time to paint them to the tournaments standard, They claim that this is somehow OK because they just want the best possible list. That is WAAC gaming. You sign onto a tournament with the agreement to follow it's rules and standards, no body but the player at fault should be penalized because they couldn't get their models painted in time. It's even more egregious when those same "pro" players have multiple collections and finished stuff but would rather play with unfinished stuff because it is better ATM. This isn't even me pushing higher paint standards, it's me pointing out that the minimum is being ignored now.
Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.
Well, Umpires (and their role) were more acceptable because of the outgrowth from 1st-3rd was not far enough removed to forget about the fact the game used to have a GM whose role was similar (even in "non-competitive" games).
Frankly the Big TOs need to run Umpires at the tables. Ump becomes LAW, regardless of correct or not. If the number of tables is too large for that then maybe 2 tables per Ump or three. But Ump on call doesn't work the same as far as restraining cheating. Hell there are Umps all over major sports and players still try to pull fast ones.
Honestly, none of this is helped by the modern codexes or power creep and the associated and often SILLY rules fudging needed by GW to shoehorn in the next big seller.
I can't recall a version of the Game that had a core rule changed mid-version like 8th did ( like with deep strike). I could have told them day one (and DID tell GW) that their version of deepstrike would be a problem and wouldn't work. Same thing with the need to shoe-horn fixes to Smite because of Mortal Wound abuse. I could have said day one (and I had in several public places and during feedback from GW), that Mortal Wounds would be bad and would be abused to death. Oh look, they were.
The point is these gakky rules make it that much harder for TOs because the system is almost engineered to be FoTM, WAAC, because the drive is model sales and not a working game. Same reason why much of the problems with previous versions were Codex Creep and NEW RELEASE SPAM (3/3 Eldar Jet Bikes were a huge imbalance but they needed to move those models and make money... Also, knights, I am looking at you).
Frankly the Big Boys already alter rules and at this point should just throw out the baby with the bathwater and just craft a set of Tournament Rules, even so far as to make alterations to codexes to remove power-creep and the model selling changes that throw the game into a tail-spin and making tournaments very hard to be both smooth and fair. ITC has been wrenching on rules for a long time and I've told them, the issue isn't your wrenching on the rules, it is that your not doing ENOUGH. Time for a Frame Off Restore, not just bolt on power adders. Can't build a house good house on a rotten foundation.
I have watched all these problems now for years and watched it get worse and have had solutions but no one wants them. I don't peddle them anymore because people DONT WANT SOLUTIONS. They want GW to make the solutions rather than take personal responsibility and make the game work. ITC has always danced around the problem because they feel they CAN'T make the changes needed to make the Tournaments more fun, more balanced, faster, and fair. Not because some higher power says no but because of player push-back.
I still play 7th with my local folks, who, when they can play with me will play 7th over 8th.. mind you... MY VERSION of 7th. It really wasn't hard to fix, streamline, and take out all the rules abuse and ambiguous rules. The local meta opinion is my version of the game is more fast, more fun, and more fair and can really be played with a bring whatever you want and have fun. I don't share them outside the local anymore because I've found that people don't want fixes, they want new loopholes that they know about and no one else so they can abuse them for wins. I still remember the first time I said talked with the internet folks about an "Extensible Rules System that uses inheritance". It got even worse back in 7th when I told them how to fix the "abuse" that everyone was complaining about. No! Can't do that. Fix it but DON'T FIX IT! Fix it by not fixing it! Don't touch my sacred cow!
Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.
Well, Umpires (and their role) were more acceptable because of the outgrowth from 1st-3rd was not far enough removed to forget about the fact the game used to have a GM whose role was similar (even in "non-competitive" games).
Maybe that. Arguably more importantly, sportsmanship and other "soft scores" and far more meaningful painting scores were the norm, even more so than they are in their current version of GW events/tournaments. It was much more accepted that "competitive" meant competitive across all aspects of 40K (e.g. painting as well as playing the game, etc..).
The 'Ard Boys format, which did away with with most of that prominently (though smaller events predating 'Ard Boyz probably did too) kinda changed the tune and has poisoned the scene to this day.
Arachnofiend wrote: By the will of Peregrine, if you are caught making a mistake in list building you are required to have your balls forcibly removed by hand. Similar forms of genital mutilation may be accepted when balls are not available.
It is a fair point for peregrine to make.
We have had "top uber super cool kids club competitive players" cheat and have illegal lists, win tournaments with said list, and have 0 repercussions get it hand waived off as "a mistake anyone can make" and get to keep prizes ect.
Meanwhile, when some pleb "makes a mistake" they are awful cheaters who not only get dq'd/ kicked /banned, they also get lambasted by various sites (almost always without being consulted/interviewed) that trash their name/reputation.
Find that in writing anywhere from 5th edition to now.
Well, Umpires (and their role) were more acceptable because of the outgrowth from 1st-3rd was not far enough removed to forget about the fact the game used to have a GM whose role was similar (even in "non-competitive" games).
Frankly the Big TOs need to run Umpires at the tables. Ump becomes LAW, regardless of correct or not. If the number of tables is too large for that then maybe 2 tables per Ump or three. But Ump on call doesn't work the same as far as restraining cheating. Hell there are Umps all over major sports and players still try to pull fast ones.
Honestly, none of this is helped by the modern codexes or power creep and the associated and often SILLY rules fudging needed by GW to shoehorn in the next big seller.
I can't recall a version of the Game that had a core rule changed mid-version like 8th did ( like with deep strike). I could have told them day one (and DID tell GW) that their version of deepstrike would be a problem and wouldn't work. Same thing with the need to shoe-horn fixes to Smite because of Mortal Wound abuse. I could have said day one (and I had in several public places and during feedback from GW), that Mortal Wounds would be bad and would be abused to death. Oh look, they were.
The point is these gakky rules make it that much harder for TOs because the system is almost engineered to be FoTM, WAAC, because the drive is model sales and not a working game. Same reason why much of the problems with previous versions were Codex Creep and NEW RELEASE SPAM (3/3 Eldar Jet Bikes were a huge imbalance but they needed to move those models and make money... Also, knights, I am looking at you).
Frankly the Big Boys already alter rules and at this point should just throw out the baby with the bathwater and just craft a set of Tournament Rules, even so far as to make alterations to codexes to remove power-creep and the model selling changes that throw the game into a tail-spin and making tournaments very hard to be both smooth and fair. ITC has been wrenching on rules for a long time and I've told them, the issue isn't your wrenching on the rules, it is that your not doing ENOUGH. Time for a Frame Off Restore, not just bolt on power adders. Can't build a house good house on a rotten foundation.
I have watched all these problems now for years and watched it get worse and have had solutions but no one wants them. I don't peddle them anymore because people DONT WANT SOLUTIONS. They want GW to make the solutions rather than take personal responsibility and make the game work. ITC has always danced around the problem because they feel they CAN'T make the changes needed to make the Tournaments more fun, more balanced, faster, and fair. Not because some higher power says no but because of player push-back.
I still play 7th with my local folks, who, when they can play with me will play 7th over 8th.. mind you... MY VERSION of 7th. It really wasn't hard to fix, streamline, and take out all the rules abuse and ambiguous rules. The local meta opinion is my version of the game is more fast, more fun, and more fair and can really be played with a bring whatever you want and have fun. I don't share them outside the local anymore because I've found that people don't want fixes, they want new loopholes that they know about and no one else so they can abuse them for wins. I still remember the first time I said talked with the internet folks about an "Extensible Rules System that uses inheritance". It got even worse back in 7th when I told them how to fix the "abuse" that everyone was complaining about. No! Can't do that. Fix it but DON'T FIX IT! Fix it by not fixing it! Don't touch my sacred cow!
Great post. I've received the "don't worry about it" response as well.
Rule violation reprocussions should be in place and clear for GTs. I wont pay travel money and dedicate my valuable time until the GT scene starts taking cheating more seriously. Dudes winning and in the top 5s at these events know what they are doing and not doing. Newbs don't finish tops or dominant tables in GTs.
From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.
These are facts:
Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.
Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue
What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.
The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATCTO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.
This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.
There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.
emperorprotectsall wrote: From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.
These are facts:
Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.
Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue
What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.
The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATCTO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.
This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.
There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.
It's nice to get another perspective. As someone who wasn't there, my initial reactions to your post are 1) even if Team Happy was singled out, if they knew they were already so disliked and such a big target, they should have been extra careful to make sure their lists and game times and tournament conduct was beyond reproach so that other people wouldn't have any ammo, and 2) I'm curious why the Has Been's weren't punished or discussed in this saga since the problems you're mentioning sound pretty severe.
emperorprotectsall wrote: From someone who was at the event and knows what happened and not what was “heard”, there is so much wrong with this thread that I don’t know where to start. Several top teams had issues and they are listed below in order of severity.
These are facts:
Has Been’s: Points over, several list issues and inconsistency’s, WSYWIG problems, Illegal 6th man interacting with games and interfering with other teams.
Quality control/Team happy: List/model issue
What happened to Happy at ATC this year was totally unfair and inconsistent with the treatment of other top teams. Happy, being the previous three years champions, was targeted in a extremely dishonorable way from the very start by certain individuals.
The way it played out is that a syndicate of players that included individuals that are either on or commonly associated with the following teams/organizations Has Been's, Wobbly modelers, The Long War, Spikey Bits and other top teams/organizations used mob intimidation, lies, false rumors and several other underhanded disgraceful tactics to try and force the ATCTO’s hands into changing the penalties assessed to Happy throughout Saturday.
This shameful behavior reached a crescendo Saturday night after the other teams realized that Happy would be playing for and most likely win their fourth straight championship. The massive bombardment of toxic rhetoric directed towards the TO’s put them in an impossible position and ultimately led to the early Sunday morning disqualification of only Happy for a conversion violation.
There was no cheating, just some few simple mistakes by top teams that are unfortunately common at tournaments. This thread should have been about the shameful, toxic, vile actions of the individuals who are commonly associated with the before mentioned teams and organizations and how bad their toxic behavior is for the hobby.
It's nice to get another perspective. As someone who wasn't there, my initial reactions to your post are 1) even if Team Happy was singled out, if they knew they were already so disliked and such a big target, they should have been extra careful to make sure their lists and game times and tournament conduct was beyond reproach so that other people wouldn't have any ammo, and 2) I'm curious why the Has Been's weren't punished or discussed in this saga since the problems you're mentioning sound pretty severe.
Or you know... It could be that the whole team has history of issues and people are tired of it getting the hand wave and so the tolerance for that particular team was less than others...
It's easy to look at stuff like this and get upset about the state of things, but the truth is all of this stuff is just the growing pains associated with a maturing competitive community. Yeah, it would be great if none of it was necessary, but if the community learns and improves from it, its an overall positive sign.
Chess clocks, more involved TOs, better list building software, codified rules of conduct and penalties for players and judges are some of the many positive things that can come out of scenarios like this if the player base seizes the opportunity. Bringing these situations to light and coming up with solutions for them is the best way to make tournaments that strive to be as casual as possible. We just need the proper safeguards in place to keep things running smoothly.
There have been a ton of rumors and misinformation surrounding what was actually done and said this past weekend in relation to the team that was removed from our 40k event. Following is our official statement regarding the issue. We hope that you will read it completely and help share the facts and not the rumors.
...
We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate. We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources...
This is ATC's official statement on the events this weekend. Take from it what you will.
The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
There have been a ton of rumors and misinformation surrounding what was actually done and said this past weekend in relation to the team that was removed from our 40k event. Following is our official statement regarding the issue. We hope that you will read it completely and help share the facts and not the rumors.
...
We also want to make it very clear that mob mentality and threats of not coming back to our event were absolutely not a factor in our decision, in fact they hindered us from making the decision sooner as it added an entire other layer of issues to our already full plate. We understand that players were upset; they had every right to be, especially if what was being said around the room was true. We were extremely upset as well and if the situation was what it had been rumored, then we would have removed players immediately, but by taking the time to go to every player directly involved on both sides and getting the facts, and then taking it all and putting it all together, we were able to do our job correctly, clearly and fairly, without anger and influence from outside sources...
This is ATC's official statement on the events this weekend. Take from it what you will.
The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.
There should be harsh repercussions for cheating, and they should extend beyond just the one event. If someone's caught cheating at a tournament like this, there should be at least a one-year ban, not just from the event in question, but others like LVO. And repeat offenders should absolutely be permanently banned from these events. It's grossly unfair to have people pay an entrance fee, buy a plane ticket to the event, hotel rooms for the weekend, etc., all of whom come expecting a level playing field, only to have them cheated at the table. I have sympathy for the people who make an honest mistake, like four Enginseers, but there should absolutely be a Zero Tolerance policy. If you're an honest player, then check and double check your list over again to be certain you meet all the guidelines and have others check it over for you and you'll be fine. I was looking up the people in question, and they were the winners of past events. That begs the question, how many times in the past did they cheat? How many honest players, who laid out all that money, time, and effort expecting a fair playing field, did they screw over? How many separate events and outcomes were tainted by their presence?
So yeah, a Zero Tolerance policy is the best policy. If the competitive scene is to grow, it has to foster a legitimately competitive atmosphere, one of genuine competition in which all participants play fairly, not excuse or ignore cheating or poor sportsmanlike behavior. As for the cheaters, if they were in fact cheating, continued to cheat after they'd been caught, and have a history of cheating or otherwise poor behavior in the past, then the major TO's should put them on a list banning them from their events in the future. The vast mass of players who attend these events deserve far better than to have the competitive event they attend tainted by cheaters and bad actors.
techsoldaten wrote: The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.
Mmm hmm.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
techsoldaten wrote: The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.
Mmm hmm.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
The rumor was the player told the judge to F themselves. The judge reported differently which is why nothing was done.
Interesting bit from FtN:
The players had been arguing for 25 min over whether something could charge.
This is one of those things that requires a cultural shift in the players to start treating judges as a resource. The instant there's a disagreement you call the judge; not to blame the other player, but simply to get a neutral answer immediately and keep the game going.
One of my favorite memories at a GT some 15 years ago.
Necrons vs space wolves.
Necron player deep strikes the monolith in and attacks everything.
Space wolf player throws a very large tantrum (red faced, voice cracking, high volume) and states the monolith cannot attack all of his bikes because they are "models" and nothing has the "model" rule.
Judge tells necron player he's fine. Space wolf player raises his tantrum to the next level. Judge concedes to space wolf player that technically bikes don't have the model keyword so cannot be targeted.
I kid you not. This happened. At an official GW tournament.
And this is why judges need to be firm and not passive.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where TOs are treated like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where I should treat the TOs like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
That's..... pretty much how it has to work unfortunately. That said, its very helpful to have an appeal/escalation policy in place at larger events with multiple judges. Overall though, the judges job is to provide the best answer they can to keep the game going with as little delay as possible. Their answer needs to be law, but by the same token, that places the burden or gameplay errors on their shoulders.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where I should treat the TOs like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
That's..... pretty much how it has to work unfortunately. That said, its very helpful to have an appeal/escalation policy in place at larger events with multiple judges. Overall though, the judges job is to provide the best answer they can to keep the game going with as little delay as possible. Their answer needs to be law, but by the same token, that places the burden or gameplay errors on their shoulders.
Why? That's impossible.
Putting absurd expectations on volunteers who are organizing events for you out of the kindness of their hearts does not make better tournaments. It just puts the drama and rumor mongering on a bigger and stupider stage.
techsoldaten wrote: The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.
Mmm hmm.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
This is not what happened, please stop spreading false information.
The facts are:
The Team Happy player was what he considered being grossly slow played. After half the game time was up and already exhaustively trying to work it out at the table, he did what the tournament packet suggested and called a judge to his table.
He explained to the judge that he was concerned that the game would not make it through turn 4 and requested to play through the judge because his opponent was completely uncooperative at this point.
Then after a additional 15 - 25 minutes was wasted by his opponent with the judge present, the conversation got a little heated and he refused to be bullied by his opponent and declined the judges suggestion to dice off a clearly evident situation.
The game moved on from there in accordance with the ATC statement.
All other accounts of these events are categorically false.
The game was not close at any point and all claims about slow play by the Team Happy player are completely false and made up. The entire situation was because the Team Happy player wanted to get through 4 or 5 turns, so that he did not receive a time penalty and his opponent simple did not.
For the record the Team Happy's player's two previous games versus guard went 4 and 6 turns respectively.
To summerize:
The game was not close.
There was no real rules disputes.
The team Happy player was worried about getting a time penalty.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where TOs are treated like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
.
It doesn't matter what they recall, in order to keep things moving, their determination is law. You can put an appeal process in place if you want, floor judge to head judge or whatever, but to simply say no I'm not going to do that should be grounds for immediate dismissal.
Your passive aggressiveness is cute, so is your attempt at pseudo intellectualism. I can see that you are going to white Knight this no matter what, so wasting time on you is no longer productive to the discussion.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where TOs are treated like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
.
It doesn't matter what they recall, in order to keep things moving, their determination is law. You can put an appeal process in place if you want, floor judge to head judge or whatever, but to simply say no I'm not going to do that should be grounds for immediate dismissal.
Your passive aggressiveness is cute, so is your attempt at pseudo intellectualism. I can see that you are going to white Knight this no matter what, so wasting time on you is no longer productive to the discussion.
Withdrawing is a good defense from reason. Call people thieves and liars then tell others their points don't matter when you get called out on it.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where I should treat the TOs like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
That's..... pretty much how it has to work unfortunately. That said, its very helpful to have an appeal/escalation policy in place at larger events with multiple judges. Overall though, the judges job is to provide the best answer they can to keep the game going with as little delay as possible. Their answer needs to be law, but by the same token, that places the burden or gameplay errors on their shoulders.
Why? That's impossible.
Putting absurd expectations on volunteers who are organizing events for you out of the kindness of their hearts does not make better tournaments. It just puts the drama and rumor mongering on a bigger and stupider stage.
No its not. Plenty of game systems get the job done. Good judges make for good events.
It would of course be idea if they were compensated properly for their work. Realistically there's not a lot of money available to do so beyond something likes meals and occasionally lodging. I'm not sure what entry fees would have to start looking like to change that, but I doubt it would go over well.
techsoldaten wrote: The official press release from conference organizers calls out the problems with the mob mentality and how inaccurate it is. The conversation on Dakka becomes more persecutorial with no attempt to correct the record. Accusations that TOs are trying to "line their pockets" - which is absolutely ludicrous - go unchallenged.
Searching for problems under a microscope and making it sound like a huge cheating scandal exists really delights some people. Tournaments don't appeal to me precisely because of this aspect. Happens even at the smallest events, no win is actually a win until the Inquisition are done running their mouths.
ATC is a fine event, no one cheated and the people complaining about it don't have their facts straight.
Yeah like Shane would actually come out and say "our event was garbage and we handled this wrong". The fact is it wasn't as Rosey as Shane wants to make it out, and probably not as bad as the internet "mob" is making it. But if you're taking that whitewash "official" statement as gospel, that's very naive. And...TOs do make money off these events.
Mmm hmm.
So I guess the people from Team Happy were going around telling TOs to F themselves, TOs were giving themselves a few thousand each to make it worth it, it was all done to screw the hundreds of poor, defenseless players that were stupid enough to register, and all the other garbage in this thread actually happened.
Do you know how stupid that sounds? I mean, if you stop for a moment and think about it, there are a lot of outrageous claims being made. What are the odds even one of them could prove to be true, much less the dozens people are spouting off about?
No I don't believe that they told the judge to go f themselves. I believe what was said is as reported. The player said, I'm not going to do that to the judges ruling. The opponent tired of having his round time eaten, decided to just let it go and the team happy player received a warning for his actions. Let that sink in there... The judge made a ruling and the player said nahhhh. Again, the claims on here are not that outlandish and neither is the necessity for a more solid code of conduct with penalties and enforcement necessary for competitive 40k.
This is not what happened, please stop spreading false information.
The facts are:
The Team Happy player was what he considered being grossly slow played. After half the game time was up and already exhaustively trying to work it out at the table, he did what the tournament packet suggested and called a judge to his table.
He explained to the judge that he was concerned that the game would not make it through turn 4 and requested to play through the judge because his opponent was completely uncooperative at this point.
Then after a additional 15 - 25 minutes was wasted by his opponent with the judge present, the conversation got a little heated and he refused to be bullied by his opponent and declined the judges suggestion to dice off a clearly evident situation.
The game moved on from there in accordance with the ATC statement.
All other accounts of these events are categorically false.
The game was not close at any point and all claims about slow play by the Team Happy player are completely false and made up. The entire situation was because the Team Happy player wanted to get through 4 or 5 turns, so that he did not receive a time penalty and his opponent simple did not.
For the record the Team Happy's player's two previous games versus guard went 4 and 6 turns respectively.
To summerize:
The game was not close.
There was no real rules disputes.
The team Happy player was worried about getting a time penalty.
Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. TOs should be able to instantly recall details covering the entire 40k ruleset, make decisions on the spot that players automatically have to abide by, and receive no compensation for the effort. All while withstanding criticism at the event and worldwide afterwards, to the point where I should treat the TOs like liars and thieves.
That makes perfect sense. You are very persuasive.
That's..... pretty much how it has to work unfortunately. That said, its very helpful to have an appeal/escalation policy in place at larger events with multiple judges. Overall though, the judges job is to provide the best answer they can to keep the game going with as little delay as possible. Their answer needs to be law, but by the same token, that places the burden or gameplay errors on their shoulders.
Why? That's impossible.
Putting absurd expectations on volunteers who are organizing events for you out of the kindness of their hearts does not make better tournaments. It just puts the drama and rumor mongering on a bigger and stupider stage.
No its not. Plenty of game systems get the job done. Good judges make for good events.
It would of course be idea if they were compensated properly for their work. Realistically there's not a lot of money available to do so beyond something likes meals and occasionally lodging. I'm not sure what entry fees would have to start looking like to change that, but I doubt it would go over well.
Great. Tell us what those game systems are. For that matter, tell us why simply having good judges means you are going to have a good event.
I would say Adepticon or NOVA have the best judges. Not everyone has a good time at those and people still love to go off about all the "cheating."
If there's one thing that would improve the 40k tournament system, it would be enforcing a policy of "assuming the best" amongst participants, judges and the like. If I were a TO, I would be identifying some of the people spreading lies and misinformation in this thread and making sure they never attend any organized event again.
Seriously, the only thing ATCTOs have not been accused of (yet) is murder. Why hasn't anyone checked the crime blotter yet to match physical descriptions and called the cops?
Yeah I would be wary of what is being said by new accounts. They may well be right and truthful but they could just as easily be those punished trying to create a false narrative.
Polonius wrote: There's a difference between excusing a behavior, and mitigating the punishment for that behavior. Running an illegal list breaks a rule, but there is a range of actions a TO can do to remedy that rulebreaking.
You can look at things like any attempts to hide the rule breaking, the savviness of the offender, how beneficial that was, etc.
TO's main job isn't to enforce the highest level of competition, but rather host an event that's fun for all attendees. Being DQ'd for a dumb error is the opposite of fun.
You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.
That literally happens in no sport, you know ones with real money involved.
I can shoot myself in the foot at a USPSA match, get DQ'd and still stay to watch the other competitors. Quit talking nonsense about banning them from the tables.
Polonius wrote: There's a difference between excusing a behavior, and mitigating the punishment for that behavior. Running an illegal list breaks a rule, but there is a range of actions a TO can do to remedy that rulebreaking.
You can look at things like any attempts to hide the rule breaking, the savviness of the offender, how beneficial that was, etc.
TO's main job isn't to enforce the highest level of competition, but rather host an event that's fun for all attendees. Being DQ'd for a dumb error is the opposite of fun.
You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.
That literally happens in no sport, you know ones with real money involved.
I can shoot myself in the foot at a USPSA match, get DQ'd and still stay to watch the other competitors. Quit talking nonsense about banning them from the tables.
Ever since he got banned from every Red Lobster in the state for the "incident". He just wants revenge on the world.
I think the saddest part of the whole thing is the constant defense of the behavior by FLG, the ATC crew, and effectively the rest of the 40k talking heads. Once you're one of the cool kids you're in, cheat all you like, you won't be punished and instead you'll be defended as 'a great guy who just had a lapse in judgement'.
Farseer_V2 wrote: I think the saddest part of the whole thing is the constant defense of the behavior by FLG, the ATC crew, and effectively the rest of the 40k talking heads. Once you're one of the cool kids you're in, cheat all you like, you won't be punished and instead you'll be defended as 'a great guy who just had a lapse in judgement'.
This is pretty far from the truth. Several members of team happy are pretty prevalent in the gaming scene and they got hit. QC has a guys that are pretty prominent in the scene and they took a loss based on an error made by a guy who plays twice a year. Granted Happy has a player or two with an unfortunate reputation which is likely to draw more ire than any other team out there.
Farseer_V2 wrote: I think the saddest part of the whole thing is the constant defense of the behavior by FLG, the ATC crew, and effectively the rest of the 40k talking heads. Once you're one of the cool kids you're in, cheat all you like, you won't be punished and instead you'll be defended as 'a great guy who just had a lapse in judgement'.
This is pretty far from the truth. Several members of team happy are pretty prevalent in the gaming scene and they got hit. QC has a guys that are pretty prominent in the scene and they took a loss based on an error made by a guy who plays twice a year. Granted Happy has a player or two with an unfortunate reputation which is likely to draw more ire than any other team out there.
Are there any other penalties being levied against anyone from Team Happy? Is their behavior being actively discouraged?
Primark G wrote: I think there is a lot of truth to it. The explanation given by ATC read like they had a gun held to their head.
Which would be wierd. The ATC can run a tournament without any of the top players being there. They can't run a tournament with everyone else being gone instead, because they won't have the numbers.
But yes, their statement feels off compared to comments from other people at the event.
Out of curiosity, the BOLS article mentions something about a guard player cheating by combining different regiments...I can be paranoid and I plan on running two different detachments with different regiments, would like more details to make sure i am not screwing up
JmOz01 wrote: Out of curiosity, the BOLS article mentions something about a guard player cheating by combining different regiments...I can be paranoid and I plan on running two different detachments with different regiments, would like more details to make sure i am not screwing up
I would guess he used models all painted the same way for two different regiments. If you have the two regiments clearly identified (Painted differently, different regiment models, etc.) it will be easy for you and your opponent to keep track of who's who.
Primark G wrote: An illegal list is a bigger deal in 40k as compared to a card game.
Your comment shows you don't really understand how much larger MTG is compared to 40k in a competitive sense, it's not just a "card game". It's a game with $100,000 prizes. 1 card out of 60 is somehow less impactful than 5pts in 2000? 1 card drastically alters the probability of winning.
This. How about we play, but I get to double up on my choice from the Restricted list. Or maybe slip in a single Banned card, perhaps just a single P9 card in a limited format. Sure, it's 1/60, but I guarantee that extra card can have a HUGE impact if I draw it. If I have search/filter, the odds become *much* higher yet again. Heck, anyone remember how Necropotence worked?
Team Happy response regarding the issues at ATC, from Facebook:
Team Happy response to the issues at ATC this weekend:
First off, I want to congratulate Beast Coast—that team is full of great guys and great players, and for their part, we know they didn’t want to win this way. They absolutely deserve the win, no questions asked.
I’m going to walk through the event from our perspective with as little bias as I can manage—you’ll note that this will match up more or less perfectly with the ATC organization’s version of events from yesterday, but we wanted to get this out there from both sides to cut down on rumors.
For their part, we feel that Shane and Chris were very civil toward us—we obviously disagree with the decision to ask us to leave, but we have no personal issues whatsoever with them or the event. They’re amazing guys and they run an amazing event—we feel like so much of what happened here was outside of their control. I’ll outline the source of our disagreements and our opinions on the matter at the end; first, let’s walk through the event:
In Rounds 1 and 2, a team member was using a Plasma Pistol that was not in his list. As soon as this was brought to his attention by his second round opponent, his first round opponent was also notified. We were informed of the event’s decision on a penalty (a battle point deduction) following Round 3. (Note: We were extremely supportive of the event’s decision, and firmly believe a penalty was warranted)
In Round 3, there was an extended argument between a Team Happy player and one of our opponents regarding rules. Our player took the action that had been advised to us by the event staff and actively sought out a judge to arbitrate the remainder of the game. The conversation between the two players remained heated, but the game was finished with assistance from the judge. After the game, a sportsmanship warning was assessed. (Note: Again, we feel we were absolutely treated fairly here—the event took into account that our player was the one who asked for the judge, but also still felt things went to a bad place and a warning was fair)
Rounds 4 and 5 completed with no further issue. After Round 5, we were tied for second place, and were notified that our penalty regarding the Plasma Pistol was being increased to a game loss. This moved us to third, but we were still in a position to play for the potential win the following morning.
After arriving in the morning for Round 6, we were immediately told we were disqualified and would not be allowed to play the final round. The reason given was a conversion (Rough Riders) was substandard and being interpreted as modeling for advantage.
We left the building, allowed time for the round to begin (in order to not cause any distraction for the other teams), and then came back to have a conversation with Shane and Chris once the games had started.
Again, we feel this conversation was constructive—ATC has a great organizational team, and we just wanted to speak directly and honestly to them about how we feel the situation was handled, and what we disagreed with. There’s no need for that conversation to remain in the shadows—reasonable adults can disagree without further drama between them—so here is our version of why and how things ended up where they did.
The primary issue we have with the stated outcome from ATC is that the pressure from the other teams was not a factor in the decision. From a simply human standpoint, we fail to see how dozens of people constantly badgering them about perceived issues with our team could NOT affect them in some way. From a practical standpoint, if a meaningful number of teams are raising issue with a single team, it may absolutely seem like the healthier choice for your event to have the single team removed.
To clarify further, even if this pressure from other teams WAS a factor in asking us to leave (effectively the sole difference in opinion between us and the event organizers), we hold no ill will toward Shane/Chris over it.
What we would like to focus on instead is the source of that pressure from other teams.
In the short minutes after our departure, I found myself most upset with the teams at the event we’d had no interactions with at all—we only played 5 teams (3 of which I know, beyond all doubt, had absolutely no role in any of this) which meant the vast majority of teams complaining to the organizers had no interactions with us at all. Why are dozens of people we’ve never met and never interacted with asking for us to be removed?
Having had 48+ hours to gather additional information, I no longer hold any ill will toward those teams either—I instead believe they were being intentionally misled by a small, toxic group of players whose sole intent was to see us removed from the event.
I’m now going to outline what occurred from that perspective, but first want to make very clear that I am not going to name these people under any circumstances. Speaking with other captains has made it very clear who this group was, but the goal here is to clarify—to start a whole new witch hunt would only serve to make the situation more toxic, and the community has had enough of that as of late.
Shortly after Round 3, we were informed by people we trust that a small group of people had begun directly approaching other captains, asking them to threaten to boycott the tournament and walk out if we were not removed. We do not have a real idea of how many people agreed to this, but the number was definitely higher than the amount of teams we had played (see above regarding teams we had no interactions with).
We believe this, then, had a direct role in the unexpected change in our penalty regarding the Plasma Pistol at the end of day 2. We still believed a penalty was warranted, but were concerned that the penalty was being increased based on pressure from the mob.
As a secondary note, in a vacuum and with further time to reflect, the second penalty is likely the more fair one—the increase to a game loss made the penalty equivalent to the teams who were found to have illegal lists (which included 2 of the top 5 teams at that point) which is the most analogous situation—in either case, using wargear in-game that you failed to pay for accurately on your list. Again, we accepted the penalty as warranted, but raised concern that from our perspective the decision appeared to have been made based on the opinions of the other teams.
As stated earlier, Rounds 4 and 5 completed with no major issues. The head judge had been posted at our tables to ensure any issues could be dealt with quickly and accurately, and their staff did an amazing job at doing so. (I personally tracked down their head judge after our disqualification and thanked them for handling everything without bias, given how toxic the environment felt otherwise, we were genuinely impressed by their judging staff not being affected)
When we arrived for Round 6, we were disqualified due to a conversion issue.
This one requires a lengthier explanation; in my experience as a player, judge, and organizer of large events, here are the penalties I’ve personally seen assessed for a conversion (modeling for advantage/line of sight profile reduction) issue:
1. Consider the model to be in LOS to all enemy models at all times (A lenient penalty for very minor issues)
2. Remove the model from play immediately and for all subsequent games (The most fair and most common penalty)
3. Remove the model from play immediately, and the player is assessed a point penalty (A harsher penalty for extreme issues)
4. Remove the model from play immediately, and all prior rounds are a loss (An extreme penalty—I’m not actually certain I’ve ever seen this occur for a conversion issue)
Removing the player from the event is not in the same ZIP code as these discussions. I’ve never even heard that suggested as a conversion penalty. Removing a team of FIVE players over such an issue is not even in the same solar system—this, from our perspective, was an outrageously harsh ruling with no basis on the actual offense.
So again, we end up feeling as though the pressure from other teams must have played into the decision, and are not going to be allowed to play our final game. We leave the event until things have calmed down and games have started.
Upon returning to the event to say our goodbyes to our friends, I had an interesting occurrence—while speaking to a friend (linking Jared Friedman here) I sparked up a conversation with his opponent, who was a complete stranger to me, about his perceptions of us and why he thought we were removed.
Everything he said matched up perfectly with what I’d been hearing rumors of, from both other players and even from people off-site messaging me about the drama at the event.
I then approached a small handful of other people (all complete strangers) to have a similar discussion with them, and in all cases, they had identical stories about why we’d been penalized and removed. Their stories were, unfortunately, completely untrue. I’ll outline them here:
1. Our team continued using the Plasma Pistol after being alerted to the mistake after Round 2.
2. During the altercation in Round 3, our player was verbally abusive to a judge.
3. We were constantly in violation of the event’s slow play/minimum turn guidelines but not being punished for it.
None of these statements have any basis in reality, yet they were the opinions held by a likely majority of the people attending the event—a majority who had had no direct contact with us period. So the question becomes: How did ~300 people all come to believe the exact same incorrect version of multiple events?
From what I’ve been able to gather since, the small group of people asking other teams to sign up to boycott the event was purposefully misleading other teams about the nature of our infractions, and directly lying to them about the penalties assessed so far in order to rile up an angry mob to assist in having us removed.
Out of fairness I do want to point out again that Shane and Chris deny the opinions of other teams weighed into their decision at all—this is entirely from our perspective, and from our perspective, we fail to see how it could not have been a factor.
The situation ended up fueling itself—I was being contacted by people who presumed the rumors were true, as our penalties were so extreme, they could not see how we’d have been asked to leave if they weren’t true. Somebody (or a small group of somebodies) on-site at the event was sparking fires, spreading rumors, and handing out pitchforks. As our penalties increased (with no further problems) and our disqualification became public, the general perception was that the rumors must have been true.
This is what led to ATC posting their clarification yesterday—which we were appreciative for, again Shane and Chris have been very direct and fair with us—as they’d seen by that point that the rumors had taken over and very few people had an accurate picture of what happened.
We feel that anyone who reads this statement alongside the ATC statement will come away with the correct version of the events as they actually transpired.
Again, the extremely toxic nature of the event seems to have been set in motion by an EXTREMELY small number of individuals—the overwhelming majority of people we interacted with were great toward us, and we have no remaining hard feelings toward the event or even the teams who signed up to the boycott, as they likely did so under false pretenses.
The only message I have for the other players (and particularly captains) at the event is this: If you were asked to join the boycott, or provided any of the known-incorrect information I’ve outlined above, I want you to think very hard about the person who you were speaking with at the time. Ask yourself whether or not that person may have had an ulterior motive, or anything to gain from our team being removed. Then, taking into account what’s been explained here, come to your own conclusion as to whether or not our removal was warranted.
Thanks for reading,
--Justin Curtis on behalf of Team Happy
Things on dakka tend to spiral a bit out of control, as given the nature of internet anonymity nobody really feels any requirement to be civil in the least, but I'll be checking in every now and then to answer any serious questions anybody may have.
We really appreciate those of you who weren't jumping to conclusions and trying to assess whether or not the penalties were warranted on their own merit, even here on dakka. Thanks guys.
I've been slowly watching the conspriacry theory in this thread grow from 'They were probably the only ones caught' to 'there is a secret cabal that decides who wins major US torunaments and the plucky rebels of Team Happy had to be stopped.'
Has anyone considered Lizard People? Maybe the Russians? The cabal could be a plot of the DNC...
So, to anyone on Team Happy: were you informed by ATC staff that any further infraction would result in your team voluntarily withdrawing from the tournament?
The statement from Justin seems to imply that rumors, rather than this preexisting agreement with Shane and the ATC staff, was the reason for their withdrawal.
meleti wrote: So, to anyone on Team Happy: were you informed by ATC staff that any further infraction would result in your team voluntarily withdrawing from the tournament?
There absolutely was an agreement--following the sportsmanship warning, we agreed if there were any further issues along those lines, we would immediately withdraw from the tournament.
From our perspective, this meant sportsmanship issues/excessive arguments with other players, of which there were none.
We did not expect this to extend to the point of an uninvolved third party bringing issue with our models (which, for reference, we do not consider to be problematic--but that argument is not really necessary for this context) before the final game being enough to have us removed.
meleti wrote: So, to anyone on Team Happy: were you informed by ATC staff that any further infraction would result in your team voluntarily withdrawing from the tournament?
There absolutely was an agreement--following the sportsmanship warning, we agreed if there were any further issues along those lines, we would immediately withdraw from the tournament.
From our perspective, this meant sportsmanship issues/excessive arguments with other players, of which there were none.
We did not expect this to extend to the point of an uninvolved third party bringing issue with our models (which, for reference, we do not consider to be problematic--but that argument is not really necessary for this context) before the final game being enough to have us removed.
Would you be able to post a picture of the models in question?
Farseer_V2 wrote:I think the saddest part of the whole thing is the constant defense of the behavior by FLG, the ATC crew, and effectively the rest of the 40k talking heads. Once you're one of the cool kids you're in, cheat all you like, you won't be punished and instead you'll be defended as 'a great guy who just had a lapse in judgement'.
Pretty much what has been the result over the years.
Primark G wrote:Pretty much so unless they catch you on twitch.
Ive done that. It still didnt matter. Just more spin.
To those so perplexed on why players not directly exposed to the "cheating" voiced their opinions its obviously clear. Cheating is stealing. Money, prizes, etc... they paid fees. Everybody in the room is a stake holder. TOs should remember this.
bogalubov wrote: Would you be able to post a picture of the models in question?
Absolutely--we were going to add this to the FB post, but it was locked before I was able to (probably the right call by the group admins) but it's actually a good idea to have this out there somewhere.
They're not my models so I'll have to track down pictures and it's been about eight years since I posted any images on dakka so I might screw it up a few times, so give me a few minutes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Adding images of the models in question.
These models were an attempt by one of our players to convert Catachan Rough Riders--being a jungle planet, he didn't figure they'd have horses. Note also that GW also does not currently produce Rough Riders (which is why they weren't in the Codex) so conversions are your only means to field them.
To make the units distinct for tournament play, one unit rides alligators, and one unit rides turtles. The spears were intended to be extra long (particularly on other models, some of whom were placed next to their mounts rather than on top of them) to account for horses being taller/longer than the alligators and turtles.
Keep in mind that the models pictured were the final cause for 5 people being removed from a tournament they'd invested thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and a week away from their families for.
bogalubov wrote: Would you be able to post a picture of the models in question?
Absolutely--we were going to add this to the FB post, but it was locked before I was able to (probably the right call by the group admins) but it's actually a good idea to have this out there somewhere.
They're not my models so I'll have to track down pictures and it's been about eight years since I posted any images on dakka so I might screw it up a few times, so give me a few minutes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Adding images of the models in question.
These models were an attempt by one of our players to convert Catachan Rough Riders--being a jungle planet, he didn't figure they'd have horses. Note also that GW also does not currently produce Rough Riders (which is why they weren't in the Codex) so conversions are your only means to field them.
To make the units distinct for tournament play, one unit rides alligators, and one unit rides turtles. The spears were intended to be extra long (particularly on other models, some of whom were placed next to their mounts rather than on top of them) to account for horses being taller/longer than the alligators and turtles.
Keep in mind that the models pictured were the final cause for 5 people being removed from a tournament they'd invested thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and a week away from their families for.
Primark G wrote: How do you know which card game to which I was referring?
Because the very post before your response ONLY referenced MTG and you responded to that context? It's okay to admit you didn't know what you were talking about :p
7. Scratch built models and conversions can be used for units, but must adhere to the following
guidelines:
Models may NOT contain significant elements of pre-assembled and/or pre-painted models or
toys.
Taken directly from the modelling rules made available for every captain, and player.
bogalubov wrote: Would you be able to post a picture of the models in question?
Absolutely--we were going to add this to the FB post, but it was locked before I was able to (probably the right call by the group admins) but it's actually a good idea to have this out there somewhere.
They're not my models so I'll have to track down pictures and it's been about eight years since I posted any images on dakka so I might screw it up a few times, so give me a few minutes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Adding images of the models in question.
These models were an attempt by one of our players to convert Catachan Rough Riders--being a jungle planet, he didn't figure they'd have horses. Note also that GW also does not currently produce Rough Riders (which is why they weren't in the Codex) so conversions are your only means to field them.
To make the units distinct for tournament play, one unit rides alligators, and one unit rides turtles. The spears were intended to be extra long (particularly on other models, some of whom were placed next to their mounts rather than on top of them) to account for horses being taller/longer than the alligators and turtles.
Keep in mind that the models pictured were the final cause for 5 people being removed from a tournament they'd invested thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, and a week away from their families for.
Leaving out a core issue here, not getting approval prior to using the models from the TO's which was required as per ATC rules. Others using conversions got prior approval and it was fine, since ATC has rules against pre-painted toys (which they are). Less crying, more rule following IMO.
djones520 wrote: Taken directly from the modelling rules made available for every captain, and player.
So... how were they wronged?
Again, we don't want to focus on the nature of the conversions themselves (which is why this was not included in the main post). We did not dispute this point--they do have a written policy on conversions, and we did not follow it to the letter.
We're willing to accept the standpoint that these models were not acceptable (I'm only including them because we've been asked repeatedly, and wished to explain the reasoning of the player who brought them) as was the case in our official statement.
The issue we have is with the punishment not being equivalent to the infraction.
djones520 wrote: Taken directly from the modelling rules made available for every captain, and player.
So... how were they wronged?
Again, we don't want to focus on the nature of the conversions themselves (which is why this was not included in the main post). We did not dispute this point--they do have a written policy on conversions, and we did not follow it to the letter.
We're willing to accept the standpoint that these models were not acceptable (I'm only including them because we've been asked repeatedly, and wished to explain the reasoning of the player who brought them) as was the case in our official statement.
The issue we have is with the punishment not being equivalent to the infraction.
Welp... I think best policy is agree to disagree at this point. Not selling me for half a second that the plasma usage was a mistake, and this was just one more rule violation, stacked onto the other issues. Now if there is one thing I will say I didn't like about how the ATC crew handled this, was that it was only you guys they nailed on the poor conversion issue. There were a ton of armies that were in clear violation of that rule, and should have been penalized as well.
Primark G wrote: How do you know which card game to which I was referring?
Because the very post before your response ONLY referenced MTG and you responded to that context? It's okay to admit you didn't know what you were talking about :p
I was referring to games like Go Fish and Uno actually. But yeah you can obviously read my mind which is quite amazing TBH.
djones520 wrote: Welp... I think best policy is agree to disagree at this point. Not selling me for half a second that the plasma usage was a mistake, and this was just one more rule violation, stacked onto the other issues. Now if there is one thing I will say I didn't like about how the ATC crew handled this, was that it was only you guys they nailed on the poor conversion issue. There were a ton of armies that were in clear violation of that rule, and should have been penalized as well.
This is entirely fair--like I said, the bare minimum we're asking from people is to make their own conclusions rather than believing the rumors alone and deciding based on that.
I'm a judge at a few of the major US tournaments--I know exactly how serious that Plasma Pistol issue is, which is why we were entirely on-board with the penalty, even when it was increased to a game loss (aside from the perception of the mob potentially being the cause, as noted).
An illegal list penalty is absolutely the right call, as the impact is identical--as if he'd put the Plasma Pistol in his list and paid 0 points for it. As noted, two other Top 5 teams had illegal lists on their teams, and that was the same penalty they received. This seemed entirely fair.
If you're of the opinion that the three stated issues across the team (the Plasma Pistol, the sportsmanship warning, and the conversions) are enough to warrant the removal of the entire team, I'm not going to admonish you for that belief--people are definitely expecting higher penalties at events right now--but from my perspective (obviously a bit biased) it went too far, and certainly miles beyond what would have been expected.
"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.
I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.
"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.
I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.
Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
techsoldaten wrote: Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
I'm on board for free ice cream.
As far as the previous opinion regarding mass DQs for every infraction, I say this from the standpoint of someone who's been involved in organizing major events (rather than someone who was just DQ'd from a major event), but it's just not feasible.
People see things like Vegas and Adepticon and NOVA from afar and they end up with this perception of high-end 40k being like a major sport, but it's just not. The top 1% of players make mistakes, but those are just the top 1%--everybody else makes metric tons of mistakes, and if you start throwing them all out, you very quickly won't have an event left. This is still a hobby, not a sport or a job, and the focus from organizers' perspective is still on making things enjoyable for 500 people, not overly restricting every tiny facet of gameplay to drill down on the 2 people playing for the win at the end.
We're starting to get more headway in adapting to the latter without harming the former--with things like stricter slow play enforcement on top tables--but it's got a long way to go.
I think one key aspect to keep in mind is that a lot of sports have fairly simple rules; plus many have multiple viewers. Many top sporting events have not just a ref, but multiple people on the lines and even lasers and other tech to help ensure fair play and that the rules are followed.
Even the slow-replay feature is another key tool as is having multiple camera angles. A ball going past two posts and into a net sounds simple; but confirmation or a near miss/goal can require some investigation and whilst there is only one ref; he's backed up with a team.
Warhammer games lack this nad most events appear to struggle just to get enough TO to cover the tables; let alone cover all the tables with an official for every single game.
Further whilst the game has very precise rule elements, reality often defeats them such as
a) The way GW writes rules can make it very easy to miss-remember and that's before you throw in multiple previous editions which can easily cause an experienced player to miss-remember a rule.
The way GW writes also means that sometimes even checking the books can't give a clear answer or the answer isn't where you think it is.
b) Measuring should be accurate, but in reality there is room for error and perception variation. Even if you are trying to be 100% accurate if you've got a rearing dragon filling most of the base and going up several inches you are not going to perfectly measure "to the middle o the base" because your measuring stick is already several inches up in the air working over the head of the dragon.
c) Not every match can be recorded and even if they are sometimes the angle might not give the best view of a situation.
d) Laser stuff is out there but not mandatory and even when it is brought in its not a be-all-end-all of issues.
In the end I think this s why many people argue for tighter rules and enforcement; but at the same time want to see many issues debated and weight up case by case. Intent is part of this game where the rules and mechanics are complex.
Clearly things like weighted dice are not accidents, but many other things can be.
I think logging reports and pooling information is the best way forward; at least then it can track what is going on and actually work toward giving some hard data to common errors/probems/issues not just at a player level; but at a community level. Such data might show how our perceptions of mistakes might be correct OR could be totally wrong.
techsoldaten wrote: Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
I'm on board for free ice cream.
As far as the previous opinion regarding mass DQs for every infraction, I say this from the standpoint of someone who's been involved in organizing major events (rather than someone who was just DQ'd from a major event), but it's just not feasible.
People see things like Vegas and Adepticon and NOVA from afar and they end up with this perception of high-end 40k being like a major sport, but it's just not. The top 1% of players make mistakes, but those are just the top 1%--everybody else makes metric tons of mistakes, and if you start throwing them all out, you very quickly won't have an event left. This is still a hobby, not a sport or a job, and the focus from organizers' perspective is still on making things enjoyable for 500 people, not overly restricting every tiny facet of gameplay to drill down on the 2 people playing for the win at the end.
We're starting to get more headway in adapting to the latter without harming the former--with things like stricter slow play enforcement on top tables--but it's got a long way to go.
You hit the nail on the head.
Tournaments are not professional 40k. There is no such thing. Tournaments are hobbists getting together to play games.
Seems a loud minority are trying to raise expectations to the level of a professional grade sport. The assumption of good faith is being thrown out the window in favor of a zero tolerance policy. You have to know your army inside and out and know the rules to the point of perfection or you go home, no excuses.
That's not a game, that's a job you don't get paid for. If you really listen to the complaints, that's what the mob is demanding.
techsoldaten wrote: Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
I'm on board for free ice cream.
As far as the previous opinion regarding mass DQs for every infraction, I say this from the standpoint of someone who's been involved in organizing major events (rather than someone who was just DQ'd from a major event), but it's just not feasible.
People see things like Vegas and Adepticon and NOVA from afar and they end up with this perception of high-end 40k being like a major sport, but it's just not. The top 1% of players make mistakes, but those are just the top 1%--everybody else makes metric tons of mistakes, and if you start throwing them all out, you very quickly won't have an event left. This is still a hobby, not a sport or a job, and the focus from organizers' perspective is still on making things enjoyable for 500 people, not overly restricting every tiny facet of gameplay to drill down on the 2 people playing for the win at the end.
We're starting to get more headway in adapting to the latter without harming the former--with things like stricter slow play enforcement on top tables--but it's got a long way to go.
The thing is, and at risk to jinxing myself I will say it on behalf of the 99%: I have never brought an illegal list to a tournament. I’ve stayed up late nights to paint/model to the published tournament standards and paid exorbitant markup to print at the hotel cause I lost my required 8 copies of my list. We do all these things because they’re the standard, and up until recently it was probably assumed that the “top players” also played by the rules.
You guys (the 40k celebrities) have an obligation to be better than the pitiful excuses you offer. If you want your tournaments to mean something, you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard, because otherwise frankly there is no justification for the TO/player collusion that sees your kind at the top tables every GT.
"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.
I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.
Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
The best possible solution is for cheaters to be removed from the event.
"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.
I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.
Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
The best possible solution is for cheaters to be removed from the event.
Totally see where you are going Peregrine and agree with you, it's time to prune all the undesirables.
I would be down with dealing harshly with cheaters so long as we also do something about all the people using recast models. GW's IP needs to be respected otherwise the game goes away. For that matter, proxy models. Everyone else put the resources into getting a real army, it's time to stop coddling the people trying to get away with something less and take the rest of us down.
For that matter, we should also git rid of the people participating in online mobs. They add nothing to events and promote a toxic culture. And they are predominantly white males, there's no reason everyone else should have to deal with all that privilege.
Which leads to getting rid of those who don't show sufficient respect for marginalized communities. There's a reason tournaments lack diversity. We should also be looking to build more inclusive tournaments and eliminate the misogyny that often exists at the tables.
TOs, for that matter, need to do more to share the space with new and less experienced players. They should not be leading the tournaments they organize, they should be using the event to promote the needs of those who are disadvantaged. I would love to see some of the Feminist40k people getting a chance to speak up about more important issues than games.
First step, of course, is dealing with all those cheaters infesting the top tables, which is an incontrovertible fact. I'm just as sick as you with all the cover ups and lies and look forward to achieving a more just and equitable tournament scene. All we need to do is start telling TOs how to run their events and we can finally fix some of these problems.
Things on dakka tend to spiral a bit out of control, as given the nature of internet anonymity nobody really feels any requirement to be civil in the least, but I'll be checking in every now and then to answer any serious questions anybody may have.
.
What are your thoughts on the fact that your team or members of your team are unpopular or disliked to the point where they want you removed.
Is it because you guys are good and people always want to knock you down a few pegs. Or does your team, or members of your team, exhibit behaviors or reactions from people that are not good for the hobby.
greyknight12 wrote: The thing is, and at risk to jinxing myself I will say it on behalf of the 99%: I have never brought an illegal list to a tournament. I’ve stayed up late nights to paint/model to the published tournament standards and paid exorbitant markup to print at the hotel cause I lost my required 8 copies of my list. We do all these things because they’re the standard, and up until recently it was probably assumed that the “top players” also played by the rules.
You guys (the 40k celebrities) have an obligation to be better than the pitiful excuses you offer. If you want your tournaments to mean something, you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard, because otherwise frankly there is no justification for the TO/player collusion that sees your kind at the top tables every GT.
I agree with this all the way. I peak behind the curtain and its an ugly baby. The dismissive replies don't help at all. I'll keep my hobby money local for the time being.
You guys (the 40k celebrities) have an obligation to be better than the pitiful excuses you offer. If you want your tournaments to mean something, you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard, because otherwise frankly there is no justification for the TO/player collusion that sees your kind at the top tables every GT.
Mistakes happen even at the highest level. Just apply the punishment accordingly. In this case from what I have read they did so. What you are asking for is a change of policies. That is fine too and it appears organisers are going to look at it.
You guys (the 40k celebrities) have an obligation to be better than the pitiful excuses you offer. If you want your tournaments to mean something, you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard, because otherwise frankly there is no justification for the TO/player collusion that sees your kind at the top tables every GT.
Mistakes happen even at the highest level. Just apply the punishment accordingly. In this case from what I have read they did so. What you are asking for is a change of policies. That is fine too and it appears organisers are going to look at it.
The problem is this isn't an isolated occurrence. The punishment does fit the crime when you look at the past history of abuses and disrespectful behavior. As far as a mob is concerned, there was no visible anger or maliciousness shown to Team Happy at any time during the weekend. There were a large number of teams upset at the behavior and the history of the offenses.
You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.
That literally happens in no sport, you know ones with real money involved.
I can shoot myself in the foot at a USPSA match, get DQ'd and still stay to watch the other competitors. Quit talking nonsense about banning them from the tables.
In MLB, NHL, and NFL, if you get ejected from the game, you are required to leave the playing area and become restricted to the locker room.
The problem is this isn't an isolated occurrence. The punishment does fit the crime when you look at the past history of abuses and disrespectful behavior. As far as a mob is concerned, there was no visible anger or maliciousness shown to Team Happy at any time during the weekend. There were a large number of teams upset at the behavior and the history of the offenses.
The mob: the spreading of unsubstantiated rumors and collusion to vote against them. It was not directly visible to them but they got word of it. It was certainly malicious.
There was a policy and it was adhered to. In fact the only reason they got told to leave was because the team volunteered to as stated by the TO and the team statement.
Like I questioned Justin above, they are part of the problem. This will blow over and things will improve.
Overread wrote: I think one key aspect to keep in mind is that a lot of sports have fairly simple rules
That is patently untrue. Golf, Baseball, Football - all of the major league sports have huge rulebooks that amend with changes every year.
Adding to that, the rules for MLB are 184 pages, NHL is 229, NBA 66, NFL 93. Each of those sports also has a lot of vagueness in which refs make on the spot decisions. Again it seems like comments are being made about "other games being simpler" when they don't understand other games. The fact is 40k isn't the most complex game and the rules CAN be followed if you actually want to follow them.
The argument against Pro sports being a job doesn't hold water either when you consider these SAME games are played at college and highschool level with much of the rules intact.
thejughead wrote: As far as a mob is concerned, there was no visible anger or maliciousness shown to Team Happy at any time during the weekend.
This is an odd stance for someone who isn't directly involved to take, but I'd be interested to hear how you feel you can justify that statement.
I've attended dozens of these events, and I've never felt anything quite like what was going on around us this weekend. Again, my entire decision to look further into the rumors was sparked by a complete stranger confronting me during a conversation with a friend, and everything he said about me was verifiably untrue by all accounts. I also had a person approach me and tell me I should cut my teammates completely out of my life--not stop playing 40k with them, not find a new team, literally stop speaking to them or they would "poison my life." Malicious is a pretty accurate word from my point of view.
thejughead wrote: There were a large number of teams upset at the behavior and the history of the offenses.
I'm trying to be as transparent as possible here, and this kind of gray vagueness does nobody any good--please provide details about what you mean.
Again, my concern is that the "teams upset about the behavior" were upset about behavior that did not occur, based entirely on lies from a motivated group of individuals.
I would also be interested to hear about the "history of offenses"--what exactly were our issues at previous ATCs, in your opinion?
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Smirrors wrote: What are your thoughts on the fact that your team or members of your team are unpopular or disliked to the point where they want you removed.
Is it because you guys are good and people always want to knock you down a few pegs. Or does your team, or members of your team, exhibit behaviors or reactions from people that are not good for the hobby.
Are you part of the problem?
Forgot to comment on this Smirrors--first off, I'm not willing to speak on behalf of other people on my team being "disliked," as that's pretty personal and would be for them to respond to.
From my end, I've never had any issues at these events--an opponent shouted at me at a previous ATC (two years ago), but the consensus was that he was in the wrong and later apologized. Even at the time I was pretty understanding as I've seen much worse as a judge, and know how heated people can get. We had no problems during our game and the issue only arose while filling out score sheets. I've had no other issues in ~10 years of playing tournament 40k.
So no, I don't personally believe my behavior to be part of the problem--and I'm sure there's some element of wanting to "knock us down a few pegs," given that we had won all three prior ATCs up until this point, as that's just human nature. We know teams practice extra hard against our lists, and spend extra time strategizing pairings against us.
What we did not expect was a much darker side to all of this to come to the surface, where if we appeared to be in a position to win for a fourth time, a small group would attempt to have us removed at any cost. That goes far beyond anything we could have possibly seen coming, and led to a lot of confusion until the pieces started to fall into place from the chaos and rumors immediately after the event.
Overread wrote: I think one key aspect to keep in mind is that a lot of sports have fairly simple rules
That is patently untrue. Golf, Baseball, Football - all of the major league sports have huge rulebooks that amend with changes every year.
You just gave me war flashbacks to every argument I've had about what constitutes successfully catching a football...
Speaking of the NFL, that organization has a very similar problem to one of the things we're seeing here: inconsistent application of penalties. For unsportsmanlike conduct and other offenses that call for a fine it can feel like the commissioner is throwing a dart at a board to decide how harsh the penalty will be; codifying specific penalties for specific offenses would do a lot of good here and there.
techsoldaten wrote: Totally see where you are going Peregrine and agree with you, it's time to prune all the undesirables.
I would be down with dealing harshly with cheaters so long as we also do something about all the people using recast models. GW's IP needs to be respected otherwise the game goes away. For that matter, proxy models. Everyone else put the resources into getting a real army, it's time to stop coddling the people trying to get away with something less and take the rest of us down.
For that matter, we should also git rid of the people participating in online mobs. They add nothing to events and promote a toxic culture. And they are predominantly white males, there's no reason everyone else should have to deal with all that privilege.
Which leads to getting rid of those who don't show sufficient respect for marginalized communities. There's a reason tournaments lack diversity. We should also be looking to build more inclusive tournaments and eliminate the misogyny that often exists at the tables.
TOs, for that matter, need to do more to share the space with new and less experienced players. They should not be leading the tournaments they organize, they should be using the event to promote the needs of those who are disadvantaged. I would love to see some of the Feminist40k people getting a chance to speak up about more important issues than games.
First step, of course, is dealing with all those cheaters infesting the top tables, which is an incontrovertible fact. I'm just as sick as you with all the cover ups and lies and look forward to achieving a more just and equitable tournament scene. All we need to do is start telling TOs how to run their events and we can finally fix some of these problems.
Yep, really proving my point here about "competitive" 40k being a joke. You're seriously comparing expecting people to follow the rules to nonsense about banning people who don't spend enough money or replacing tournaments with Feminist40k speeches. I never thought I'd see the day when "competitive" players defend cheaters to the death, and insist that we need to accept cheating as part of the game or we're all the worst TFGs.
And yes, it is incontrovertible fact that cheaters exist. FFS, we have someone from one of the top teams admitting to cheating (illegal list) in this thread.
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DJ3 wrote: People see things like Vegas and Adepticon and NOVA from afar and they end up with this perception of high-end 40k being like a major sport, but it's just not. The top 1% of players make mistakes, but those are just the top 1%--everybody else makes metric tons of mistakes, and if you start throwing them all out, you very quickly won't have an event left. This is still a hobby, not a sport or a job, and the focus from organizers' perspective is still on making things enjoyable for 500 people, not overly restricting every tiny facet of gameplay to drill down on the 2 people playing for the win at the end.
This is just absurd. We're talking about competitive tournaments, complete with all the associated bits for a competitive sport: competition-focused game design, national rankings, celebration of champions, etc. It's a tournament, not 40k night at your local store. But apparently we're supposed to discard all of this, and just accept that the rules will be broken and we don't want to force people to play by the rules. What's the point in even having a tournament then? Just admit that you aren't playing a competitive game, call it "let's all get together and play some casual narrative games this weekend". At least that would be being honest about the kind of game you're advocating.
I'm trying to be as transparent as possible here, and this kind of gray vagueness does nobody any good--please provide details about what you mean.
Again, my concern is that the "teams upset about the behavior" were upset about behavior that did not occur, based entirely on lies from a motivated group of individuals.
I would also be interested to hear about the "history of offenses"--what exactly were our issues at previous ATCs, in your opinion?
You do seem to be going to great lengths to avoid the simple obvious explanation for events and instead construct a paranoid conspiracy theory here. It is not a good look.
Certain members of your team by their known, verified and well documented behaviour in previous events have painted a massive target on themselves. Trust once lost is very hard to regain and if you as a member of their team did not understand this before you went into the event then you were fooling nobody but yourself. Once a person has a dirty reputation they need to be cleaner than clean if they are going to continue to be accepted in a community.
So instead of telling us about this nameless, faceless cabal of malign actors against your fine upstanding team perhaps you can consider that what happened is a natural and normal reaction of a community to people of ill repute. That does not mean that none of you can play again but it does mean that for a time those players cannot expect any "mistakes" to be regarded as in good faith - so they had better double down on making really sure they do not make mistakes or engage in any questionable behaviours.
I'm trying to be as transparent as possible here, and this kind of gray vagueness does nobody any good--please provide details about what you mean.
Again, my concern is that the "teams upset about the behavior" were upset about behavior that did not occur, based entirely on lies from a motivated group of individuals.
I would also be interested to hear about the "history of offenses"--what exactly were our issues at previous ATCs, in your opinion?
You do seem to be going to great lengths to avoid the simple obvious explanation for events and instead construct a paranoid conspiracy theory here. It is not a good look.
Certain members of your team by their known, verified and well documented behaviour in previous events have painted a massive target on themselves. Trust once lost is very hard to regain and if you as a member of their team did not understand this before you went into the event then you were fooling nobody but yourself. Once a person has a dirty reputation they need to be cleaner than clean if they are going to continue to be accepted in a community.
So instead of telling us about this nameless, faceless cabal of malign actors against your fine upstanding team perhaps you can consider that what happened is a natural and normal reaction of a community to people of ill repute. That does not mean that none of you can play again but it does mean that for a time those players cannot expect any "mistakes" to be regarded as in good faith - so they had better double down on making really sure they do not make mistakes or engage in any questionable behaviours.
The thing is, and at risk to jinxing myself I will say it on behalf of the 99%: I have never brought an illegal list to a tournament. I’ve stayed up late nights to paint/model to the published tournament standards and paid exorbitant markup to print at the hotel cause I lost my required 8 copies of my list. We do all these things because they’re the standard, and up until recently it was probably assumed that the “top players” also played by the rules.
You guys (the 40k celebrities) have an obligation to be better than the pitiful excuses you offer. If you want your tournaments to mean something, you have to hold yourselves to a higher standard, because otherwise frankly there is no justification for the TO/player collusion that sees your kind at the top tables every GT.
So, I agree with this 100%, as I am sure many others do. As I said previously, the onus must be on the player to get their list correct and legal prior to submission. With the number of free tools and people out there and various sites (including this one with an entire army list sub-forum), no one has the excuse of it being a mistake, let alone a repeated mistake with different lists at different events. (not accusing anyone related in this whole incident as doing so, but, these “mistakes” do happen far too often)
Personally, I think, if you play with a model using wargear not paid for, then that game results in an automatic max point win for the opponent and the offending model/unit gets removed from the list for all future games. If used in previous games at the event in the same way, then those games also result in a max win for the opponent. In all cases, the offending player would come away with 0 points.
Issues with conversions NEED to be addressed day 1, ideally prior to game 1. This has a split responsibility. The player using a conversion that drastically differs from the original GW/FW model needs to clear it with the event PRIOR to turning up. If in question/as a backup, the TOs should ideally have a list of all conversions and double check them prior to round 1. Any issues would result in the model being removed from the event. Any “undeclared and questionable” conversions used would get automatically pulled from the event (note a “conversion” wouldn’t be something like putting a catachan body on cadian legs with a vanguard head, but more akin to the issue seen in this thread by swapping horses for an alligator). It is also the responsibility of the opponent to raise any potential issues with the TOs about conversions prior to the game starting. Failing to raise a potential issue simply means, you, as an opponent, agree to play against said models and find no issue with them. If someone in game 5 complains, but there were no issues from opponents in games 1-4, then there would be no impact on games 1-4 but potentially on games 5+.
Mistakes in game are completely different however. The heat of the moment, the pressure of a major turn, the excitement of getting a lead, the nerves, the rushing etc etc. As much as everyone likes to presume they are infallible in this regard, mistakes are going to happen. Is this an excuse? No, of course not, but, it must be considered and dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately, it then falls to the TO to determine whether it was intentional or not, and whether it has been a repeated mistake throughout the event. A set table of punishments would then be referred to.
In regards to submitting illegal lists, it would have to depend on the issue. If you are over points, models/units costing 100 points are removed from your list for every 50 points over you are (so, if your list is 2001 points, you effectively lose 101 points). The models removed are taken from Troop units first, and must be taken from the same unit until the points cost is reached or the unit is completely removed, at which point you move to the next unit. These are removed from the highest CP detachment first. If this results in an illegal detachment, and cannot be swapped to a different detachment, then the new detachment becomes akin to a patrol detachment and awards 0 CP for the rest of the event.
If you take an incorrect CP farm relic, then, the relic is removed and you have half CP for the rest of the event. If used in previous games, they revert to a max point to 0-point win for the opponent.
Incorrect wargear/not wysiwyg results in the model/unit being removed from the event.
Etc etc
The more I was typing this up, the more I am tempted to just put together a full, definitive list of policies and guidelines for 40k event issue resolution which would then be submitted as a standard, after review, as it clearly feels like there is currently no such thing, and, as a result, everyone is suffering because of it.
happy_inquisitor wrote: You do seem to be going to great lengths to avoid the simple obvious explanation for events and instead construct a paranoid conspiracy theory here. It is not a good look.
Certain members of your team by their known, verified and well documented behaviour in previous events have painted a massive target on themselves. Trust once lost is very hard to regain and if you as a member of their team did not understand this before you went into the event then you were fooling nobody but yourself. Once a person has a dirty reputation they need to be cleaner than clean if they are going to continue to be accepted in a community.
So instead of telling us about this nameless, faceless cabal of malign actors against your fine upstanding team perhaps you can consider that what happened is a natural and normal reaction of a community to people of ill repute. That does not mean that none of you can play again but it does mean that for a time those players cannot expect any "mistakes" to be regarded as in good faith - so they had better double down on making really sure they do not make mistakes or engage in any questionable behaviours.
This is outright ridiculous and I was not planning to respond to it, but here we go.
So once a player has earned a "bad reputation," a rather nebulous determination, they should retreat into the woods and not attend tournaments until a randomly determined amount of time? You'd prefer the court of public opinion be allowed to hand out arbitrary, universal bans to the players they dislike?
And if they dare show their faces, they be chased out by a torch-wielding mob?
You genuinely see no issue with the community that would foster, and aren't just using an extremely overstated means to say "you got what you deserved"?
This is far more the dakka I was speaking about previously--not a realistic representation of what actually occurs at major tournaments, where the overwhelming majority of interactions between players are positive, but instead the sort of hyperbole that exists solely on the internet slung about by people with no stake in the matter but who expect their anonymous internet comments to have a direct impact on matters.
If an event wants to ban a player, the event will ban the player. We don't rely on the will of the mob to make these decisions, which is sort of the entire point. You're making it very clear why it was so easy to manipulate opinion at the event.
If you disagree with the content of what I'm saying, don't make comments about cabals of lizard people, look into the matter yourself--ask a handful of people who were there what they heard. If you have any presence in the tournament community at all, you almost certainly know many people who were there. Then consider if you'd expect wild rumors to line up so perfectly across nearly 400 people.
Speak on the matter from an informed place, and I'd be happy to accept your disagreement in a more constructive manner, as I have with others who have had similar opinions.
happy_inquisitor wrote: You do seem to be going to great lengths to avoid the simple obvious explanation for events and instead construct a paranoid conspiracy theory here. It is not a good look.
Certain members of your team by their known, verified and well documented behaviour in previous events have painted a massive target on themselves. Trust once lost is very hard to regain and if you as a member of their team did not understand this before you went into the event then you were fooling nobody but yourself. Once a person has a dirty reputation they need to be cleaner than clean if they are going to continue to be accepted in a community.
So instead of telling us about this nameless, faceless cabal of malign actors against your fine upstanding team perhaps you can consider that what happened is a natural and normal reaction of a community to people of ill repute. That does not mean that none of you can play again but it does mean that for a time those players cannot expect any "mistakes" to be regarded as in good faith - so they had better double down on making really sure they do not make mistakes or engage in any questionable behaviours.
This is outright ridiculous and I was not planning to respond to it, but here we go.
So once a player has earned a "bad reputation," a rather nebulous determination, they should retreat into the woods and not attend tournaments until a randomly determined amount of time? You'd prefer the court of public opinion be allowed to hand out arbitrary, universal bans to the players they dislike?
And if they dare show their faces, they be chased out by a torch-wielding mob?
You genuinely see no issue with the community that would foster, and aren't just using an extremely overstated means to say "you got what you deserved"?
This is far more the dakka I was speaking about previously--not a realistic representation of what actually occurs at major tournaments, where the overwhelming majority of interactions between players are positive, but instead the sort of hyperbole that exists solely on the internet slung about by people with no stake in the matter but who expect their anonymous internet comments to have a direct impact on matters.
If an event wants to ban a player, the event will ban the player. We don't rely on the will of the mob to make these decisions, which is sort of the entire point. You're making it very clear why it was so easy to manipulate opinion at the event.
If you disagree with the content of what I'm saying, don't make comments about cabals of lizard people, look into the matter yourself--ask a handful of people who were there what they heard. If you have any presence in the tournament community at all, you almost certainly know many people who were there. Then consider if you'd expect wild rumors to line up so perfectly across nearly 400 people.
Speak on the matter from an informed place, and I'd be happy to accept your disagreement in a more constructive manner, as I have with others who have had similar opinions.
Aaaaaaand you missed his point and proved it all in one tirade. Good job.
quickfuze wrote: Aaaaaaand you missed his point and proved it all in one tirade. Good job.
I'm not seeing any actual facts or even opinions come out of this last group of responders--just quips about conspiracies and one-liners.
Please tell me what you believe to be so fantastical about the following sequence of events:
1. A group of people was approaching teams, asking them to boycott the entire event if we were not removed. This is absolute fact.
2. The same group of people was providing a wildly incorrect version of events to the teams they approached, who obviously had no idea of the real facts, because they were not directly involved. This can be corroborated by dozens of captains from the event.
And you believe that the concept that tying these two pieces of information together to the conclusion that the aforementioned group of people was actively attempting to have us removed constitutes an unbelievable conspiracy?
Realistically, the only jump in logic I'm making there is that the people pushing for us to be removed was the source of the rumors, but regardless, somebody was actively spreading misinformation about us and somebody was using that information to ask for us to be removed. From what information I was able to gather after the event, it started to become clear that they were the same people.
I'm trying to have an honest conversation about the situation, but that's frequently hard to do on an anonymous internet forum. I genuinely want you to tell me what issue you have with the points I'm presenting there, not provide sarcastic responses intended only to provoke and demean.
So there are a lot of things to process here. It's good to get the extra details from DJ3 who obviously has a bit more information on this than the masses. I'm slightly concerned, however, that after the first conversation regarding issues with your team even though you claim to accept the TO's decision about any further problems leading to a DQ you're now disputing the reason for the DQ despite what was clearly a violation of the rules on proxies/conversions. I'd agree that on its own a DQ for that infringement is extremely harsh, but that's not actually what happened in this context. It was simply the final infringement after a previous warning. It has already been demonstrated by people here that these models broke the rules of the tournament. Additionally, it doesn't seem to be in dispute that a member of Team Happy refused to go along with a judge's call, which is completely unacceptable. The fact this incident happened after a 25 minute argument between two players should be cause for concern too, and that's on both players, not just the one from Team Happy. These are the sort of things that cause people to question your attitude, along with some of your player's reputations preceding them. In an ideal world we'd judge people on their behaviour in the here-and-now but as an adult you should be aware that previous conduct can have an effect on current perceptions.
As far as the wider issues, I'll reiterate what I sad before, and what Kdash pointed out, which is that competitive 40k absolutely needs consistent, enforceable rules covering player behaviour and rules infringements. I don't think we need to immediately DQ anyone who breaks these rules (and kill their puppy while we're at it) but we do need clear penalties for these offences and for them to be applied consistently. It would probably also be a good thing to have some way to keep track of this kind of thing so if someone is consistently found to be using an illegal list, for example, further penalties can be applied. Having said that, I do find the attitudes of some players to be worryingly blasé about things like lists being incorrect. I've attended a lot of tournaments and, to my knowledge, I've never used an illegal list at any of them. It's not rocket surgery people, you're adding a list of small numbers together. It takes, at most, 10 minutes.
What we're seeing right now with competitive 40k is the cracks starting to appear in the system. I honestly don't think the game, in its current form, is fit for purpose as a competitive game at the level a lot people would like it to be. The fact some tournaments have prizes with significant cash value only exacerbates this. The rules are too imprecise, the system too needlessly bloated and there is something wrong with the attitudes in the competitive community. I think the last point actually follows from the first two in many ways. When the game itself is too complex and the rules too woolly it leaves the game open to exploitation by the unscrupulous. Every competitive community has its share of people willing to push the limits of etiquette and sportsmanship but most competitive games prevent this by having a solid, tight system at their heart. I contrast the competitive 40k scene with competitive X-Wing and the difference is night and day. To be clear, the biggest X-Wing tournaments are the same size as the big 40k events, and some of them have prizes that include free travel and accommodation to Worlds and Invitationals, so there's a fair amount riding on the games. Of course not every player is whiter than white but the reputation of the competitive X-Wing community is a hell of a lot better than that of 40k. I believe part of the reason is the much tighter rules in X-Wing, which leads to less opportunity for exploitation, but the game has also worked hard to foster a friendly, welcoming community. I think competitive 40k could learn a thing or two from that.
quickfuze wrote: Aaaaaaand you missed his point and proved it all in one tirade. Good job.
I'm not seeing any actual facts or even opinions come out of this last group of responders--just quips about conspiracies and one-liners.
Please tell me what you believe to be so fantastical about the following sequence of events:
1. A group of people was approaching teams, asking them to boycott the entire event if we were not removed. This is absolute fact.
2. The same group of people was providing a wildly incorrect version of events to the teams they approached, who obviously had no idea of the real facts, because they were not directly involved. This can be corroborated by dozens of captains from the event.
And you believe that the concept that tying these two pieces of information together to the conclusion that the aforementioned group of people was actively attempting to have us removed constitutes an unbelievable conspiracy?
Realistically, the only jump in logic I'm making there is that the people pushing for us to be removed was the source of the rumors, but regardless, somebody was actively spreading misinformation about us and somebody was using that information to ask for us to be removed. From what information I was able to gather after the event, it started to become clear that they were the same people.
I'm trying to have an honest conversation about the situation, but that's frequently hard to do on an anonymous internet forum. I genuinely want you to tell me what issue you have with the points I'm presenting there, not provide sarcastic responses intended only to provoke and demean.
I think the point that was trying to be made, is, at what point does it go beyond "honest mistake" to "continual, intentional mistakes"?
If you had a player on your team that got called out in a tournament for a list issue, then, sure, it is possibly an honest mistake and you give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
But, what if he then gets called out at another event a few weeks later for another similar issued? And then again a month later at another major event? And then a 4th time for something completely different etc etc.
The problem is, that, this is happening more and more (supposedly) with a few well known "celebrity" players. The issue that the majority of the community see, is that nothing really gets done about it. Sure, they might get called out about it, but, nothing is being done to stop it in the first place. It gives the impression that certain people can get away with certain things, and it 100% gives the impression that it goes well beyond the "honest mistake" often portrayed by certain groups and people, into "this is now either clearly intentional, or the person committing these offences just doesn't know how to play the game".
Unfortunately, this is eventually going to mean that someone will get metaphorically lynched as an example of "yes we are dealing with the issue", and it'll likely be someone who doesn't deserve it while the more "celebrity" offenders quietly stop their antics for a bit.
Transparency and clarity have been severely lacking over the past few years, and as a result, trust between some groups of the community has suffered, but, at least it is something that can be addressed. The question is though, are people prepared to grow the balls to actually start enforcing certain rules and to stop parroting the "honest mistake", "nice guy" lines because they know the people or they are a "prominent" player. Of course, this isn't aimed at everyone and every event. Most events are perfectly fine and very very rarely have any issues that explode into mob vs TO vs 40k vs casual vs competitive etc, but rather it is those few "failures" that result in the largest amount of publicity and outcry simply because people don't understand what went on, WHY it went on, and how it is allowed to continue to go on.
I do applaud you though, for taking the time to try and explain the situation and answer questions/comments on the matter. I just hope we get to the stage of accepting that some things are unacceptable regardless, and that it starts getting addressed.
This also goes for the people that were spreading the initial fake, toxic, unsportsmanlike comments that caused this whole thing to explode in the first place. I just hope that they to, get called out about it and suffer some form of punishment/monitoring.
I think a major problem most people are missing is that Tournaments are NOT competitive 40k. I probably speak for AdeptiCon incidentally, but in speaking for NOVA, the format is built to enable every player type and skill level to have a really fun time and pursue what they're into. The only people putting so-called celebrities on a pedestal are the people making up conspiracy theories between TOs and regular con goers.
At the invitational, which IS explicitly just for competition, we'll have table refs and chess clocks on every single game. In the GT, which is decidedly structured for all 256 players and not the top 16, we'll enforce game losses and permanent list penalties as we always have, and we're strengthening our policies in light of the need to protect our attendees and charitable goals from the fury of terrible people on the faceless internet who have no idea what an event actually ends up feeling like. But we aren't going to restructure the entire thing to target what the internet thinks is a celebrity and slaughter the fun of the entire rest of the event in the process.
Ultimately the manner in which you play the game is far more likely to cause notoriety than celebrity, and the very last thing any TO wants is for their event to be won by the cool guy who cheated or to only be about the top players. Proposing that there's literally ANY benefit to a TO "helping the celebrities win" shows such a dramatic naivete that I feel awful for the future of our online community.
It appears very few people really understand what a tournament is or why most of us run the big ones. In any event, without commenting on Happy or ATC (because as a fellow organizer it's really not my place), I would say only that those who claim conspiracy theories with competitive 40k are sounding neither logical nor well informed.
Without quoting their whole posts, I want to say that I appreciate the comparatively well though-out responses from Kdash and Slipspace above--again, I'm welcoming opinions that disagree with our stance, I just want those opinions based on the actual facts of the matter.
Slipspace wrote: I'm slightly concerned, however, that after the first conversation regarding issues with your team even though you claim to accept the TO's decision about any further problems leading to a DQ you're now disputing the reason for the DQ despite what was clearly a violation of the rules on proxies/conversions. I'd agree that on its own a DQ for that infringement is extremely harsh, but that's not actually what happened in this context. It was simply the final infringement after a previous warning.
This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines. We agreed and had a very direct conversation with our teammates that we'd have zero tolerance for things like that going forward.
The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues." From our perspective, this may have sent people on a scavenger hunt for the straw that would break our camel's back.
Kdash wrote: I think the point that was trying to be made, is, at what point does it go beyond "honest mistake" to "continual, intentional mistakes"?
...
The problem is, that, this is happening more and more (supposedly) with a few well known "celebrity" players.
I think it's important to point out for the wider gallery who may not have the full context (given that we aren't using specific names in these discussions) that the player being implied to be a problem "recently" in many of these posts (primarily by people who are not familiar with the details) was absolutely not involved in any of the three real problems that occurred (the Plasma Pistol, the argument with an opponent, and the conversion). I don't mean to call out Kdash's post specifically, but it keeps being implied, and it is incorrect.
Kdash wrote: I think the point that was trying to be made, is, at what point does it go beyond "honest mistake" to "continual, intentional mistakes"?
...
The problem is, that, this is happening more and more (supposedly) with a few well known "celebrity" players.
I think it's important to point out for the wider gallery who may not have the full context (given that we aren't using specific names in these discussions) that the player being implied to be a problem "recently" in many of these posts (primarily by people who are not familiar with the details) was absolutely not involved in any of the three real problems that occurred (the Plasma Pistol, the argument with an opponent, and the conversion). I don't mean to call out Kdash's post specifically, but it keeps being implied, and it is incorrect.
I didn’t mean to imply that one particular person was responsible for all the occurrences etc, and I apologise if it came across in that way.
The majority of my post was referring to the wider take on the situation as a whole, not just what happened at the ATC. The problem is, is that people always tend to hear about the repeat offenders, the major offenders etc and not the everyday, one off offenders.
As a result, people begin to question the term “honest mistake” a lot more than they should, simply because it gets used over and over again, and always seemingly in regards to a select few people in the community. Don’t get me wrong, 95% of all errors could very well be honest mistakes, due to the faqs, changing meta, new codices etc etc, but, it does get to be a bit of a worn-out excuse that can feel weak.
If I am honest, when the lists got published for the London GT and I heard that a couple of players were going that were previously, and repeatedly, noted for making list mistakes were attending, I deliberately checked their lists repeatedly to ensure that nothing untoward was going to happen. To me, I think this is a bad direction to take, but, because of what had happened previously I felt like I needed to take those steps to make sure. Nothing untoward was there and there were no issues with the lists, but, because of the current perception, I felt compelled to check.
With both you, the team and the ATCTOs trying to be more transparent about the current “incident”, I believe it is a good step in the right direction. The problem we all face overall though, is ensuring it continues and others follow your lead in the future.
People want to understand, but, they also don’t understand why certain things seemed to be “allowed” in the past. It is because of that, that a lot of people don’t have a lot of faith in it being changed in the future and then leads to the overall outcry when another incident comes to light.
It isn’t a case of, “oh it has happened again, big surprise”, more of a “it feels like it has happened again and is happening continuously”.
Absolutely--the hobby has been receiving a lot more press recently (particularly after Vegas and London), and streaming of games has been on the rise, which is shining a light on problems in competitive play that the wider community was otherwise ignorant of.
From the standpoint of the existing competitive community, the response has been a bit "yeah, what's new?" which has understandably been offputting to those unfamiliar with the situation.
But that is nonetheless the reality of the situation--40k is an incredibly complex game, and these mistakes always happen, and always have happened. They're gathering more and more backlash recently, but from the perspective of someone who's been judging these high-end events for most of the past decade, things aren't any worse than they always were. That's obviously no reason not to fight for changing things for the better, but it's also important to try to be realistic and not interpret mistakes as evidence of a Good Old Boy's Club at the top of the 40k universe picking winners and losers from among the known "celebrity" players, which I believe is what Brandt was speaking to on the prior page.
For instance, a poster a few pages ago noted that he could not believe these top players still have illegal list problems (again, if you count our Plasma issue, 3 of the top 5 teams at ATC had illegal lists on their team) because he's attended lots of tournaments and never had an illegal list.
My response to that would be: Are you sure? How many people had any reason to scrutinize your list? Kdash noted above that he personally felt compelled to check the lists of certain "celebrity" players going into London. How many people do you think checked your list? What if it was wrong? Do you honestly think top players bring illegal lists on purpose, because they think some buddy-buddy situation with TOs will protect them? That obviously isn't the case.
I think having an open, transparent discussion about these situations is probably what we need as a starting point, as well as the aforementioned rules and regulations. It's very easy to get caught up in the hyperbole and rumour-mongering that goes on after these kind of events and my own opinion has changed a little as more info has surfaced. Having such discussions allows us to determine what needs to be done to fix any problems.
As for the illegal list issue? I was a much more prolific WH tournament player than 40k but I do happen to have copies of every WH tournament list I've ever used saved to a hard drive somewhere. I'm going to go back over them and see if I was as 100% legal as I thought.
DJ3 wrote: Absolutely--the hobby has been receiving a lot more press recently (particularly after Vegas and London), and streaming of games has been on the rise, which is shining a light on problems in competitive play that the wider community was otherwise ignorant of.
From the standpoint of the existing competitive community, the response has been a bit "yeah, what's new?" which has understandably been offputting to those unfamiliar with the situation.
But that is nonetheless the reality of the situation--40k is an incredibly complex game, and these mistakes always happen, and always have happened. They're gathering more and more backlash recently, but from the perspective of someone who's been judging these high-end events for most of the past decade, things aren't any worse than they always were. That's obviously no reason not to fight for changing things for the better, but it's also important to try to be realistic and not interpret mistakes as evidence of a Good Old Boy's Club at the top of the 40k universe picking winners and losers from among the known "celebrity" players, which I believe is what Brandt was speaking to on the prior page.
For instance, a poster a few pages ago noted that he could not believe these top players still have illegal list problems (again, if you count our Plasma issue, 3 of the top 5 teams at ATC had illegal lists on their team) because he's attended lots of tournaments and never had an illegal list.
My response to that would be: Are you sure? How many people had any reason to scrutinize your list? Kdash noted above that he personally felt compelled to check the lists of certain "celebrity" players going into London. How many people do you think checked your list? What if it was wrong? Do you honestly think top players bring illegal lists on purpose, because they think some buddy-buddy situation with TOs will protect them? That obviously isn't the case.
In regards to list checking, it of course gets harder and harder with the more people going to an event, but, I always try to get through as many as I can. Not only to double check things, but, because it gives me a chance to plan what I might do against each of those lists if I come up against them. I doubt most people check lists at all.
For instance, I’m at an event in 2 weeks’ time. 70 players, and I’ve checked all the available lists. But, I have no idea if anyone has checked mine. From doing that I identified issues with 6 or 7 lists, ranging from not including which Regiment a battalion was from, to missing points, wrong war gear and, in one case, completely messed up points totals that put them 29 points over 2k.
All I can do, personally, is repeatedly check my list vs battlescribe, the codices I’m using, potentially post it up on dakka etc. Beyond that I’m hoping someone else at the event is checking lists as well.
As a result, I think my attitude in regards to illegal lists is harsher than most peoples. I accept full responsibility to ensure my list is correct, and I put in the effort weeks before the deadline submission date making sure I am as confident as possible that everything is correct. I owe it to the event and the people I’m going to be playing to do so. I expect the same from others, but, I know, in reality, it’s just not going to happen.
Mistakes are super easy to make during list building, especially if you are relying just on battlescribe, and I can fully understand why some people make the mistakes as they rush to chase the meta etc, but, I still think it shouldn’t happen. #livinginadreamworld.
I know this is going to frustrate some TOs, but, I truly believe, that if they do not have the ability to double check every list submitted, then, they should reduce the number of people attending the event so that they can. Sure, they can crowd source it as well, but, for the integrity of their event they really should be doing the checks themselves as well.
The buck should always ideally stop with the player, but, the TO has to accept some responsibly overall for it as well.
I'm heading to sleep (I work nights) but wanted to say again that I appreciate the majority of the people in here for being constructive, even in their criticisms. There's obviously a handful of people trying to stir things up but I feel for the most part people have been accepting to our attempts to get actual information out there, even if they don't accept some of our conclusions.
I'll check into the thread again tonight to see if there are any more reasonable questions about the tournament and what transpired.
My suggestion would be to anyone using a non GW Model, is to ALWAYS prime and repaint them yourself.
Those ARE painted. The judges seemed to have ruled the models violated the 'Models may NOT contain significant elements of pre-assembled and/or pre-painted models or toys." policy. The base size may have incurred a greater issue with the Modelling for Advantage as they SEEM to be lot smaller than the standard cavalry bases.
While I do agree that the final verdict and judgment on the team was a bit harsh, you do have to understand as players/team of Team Happy's caliber/profile you will always be put on higher scrutiny, and because of that, I think it is the team's responsibility to portray higher degree of sportsmanship and adherence to policies than required for no-name gamers.
"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.
I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.
Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.
Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.
The best possible solution is for cheaters to be removed from the event.
have you never watched or participated in a sport whatsoever? This argument is nonsensical.
This is outright ridiculous and I was not planning to respond to it, but here we go.
So once a player has earned a "bad reputation," a rather nebulous determination, they should retreat into the woods and not attend tournaments until a randomly determined amount of time? You'd prefer the court of public opinion be allowed to hand out arbitrary, universal bans to the players they dislike?
And if they dare show their faces, they be chased out by a torch-wielding mob?
You genuinely see no issue with the community that would foster, and aren't just using an extremely overstated means to say "you got what you deserved"?
This is far more the dakka I was speaking about previously--not a realistic representation of what actually occurs at major tournaments, where the overwhelming majority of interactions between players are positive, but instead the sort of hyperbole that exists solely on the internet slung about by people with no stake in the matter but who expect their anonymous internet comments to have a direct impact on matters.
If an event wants to ban a player, the event will ban the player. We don't rely on the will of the mob to make these decisions, which is sort of the entire point. You're making it very clear why it was so easy to manipulate opinion at the event.
If you disagree with the content of what I'm saying, don't make comments about cabals of lizard people, look into the matter yourself--ask a handful of people who were there what they heard. If you have any presence in the tournament community at all, you almost certainly know many people who were there. Then consider if you'd expect wild rumors to line up so perfectly across nearly 400 people.
Speak on the matter from an informed place, and I'd be happy to accept your disagreement in a more constructive manner, as I have with others who have had similar opinions.
That is not what I said at all and I think that if you were in a calmer frame of mind you would see that.
Repairing a damaged reputation is not an easy thing - one of the first things you must do to start on that path is to make a determined effort at being trustworthy in order to regain trust. Clearly you are not in a very receptive mood to listen to anything that does not fit with your state of mind so I will just leave you with an apposite quote from someone older, wiser and richer than myself.
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.
That literally happens in no sport, you know ones with real money involved.
I can shoot myself in the foot at a USPSA match, get DQ'd and still stay to watch the other competitors. Quit talking nonsense about banning them from the tables.
In MLB, NHL, and NFL, if you get ejected from the game, you are required to leave the playing area and become restricted to the locker room.
In these sports you only get ejected if you basically attack other players in the refs.
quickfuze wrote: Aaaaaaand you missed his point and proved it all in one tirade. Good job.
I'm not seeing any actual facts or even opinions come out of this last group of responders--just quips about conspiracies and one-liners.
Please tell me what you believe to be so fantastical about the following sequence of events:
1. A group of people was approaching teams, asking them to boycott the entire event if we were not removed. This is absolute fact.
2. The same group of people was providing a wildly incorrect version of events to the teams they approached, who obviously had no idea of the real facts, because they were not directly involved. This can be corroborated by dozens of captains from the event.
And you believe that the concept that tying these two pieces of information together to the conclusion that the aforementioned group of people was actively attempting to have us removed constitutes an unbelievable conspiracy?
Realistically, the only jump in logic I'm making there is that the people pushing for us to be removed was the source of the rumors, but regardless, somebody was actively spreading misinformation about us and somebody was using that information to ask for us to be removed. From what information I was able to gather after the event, it started to become clear that they were the same people.
I'm trying to have an honest conversation about the situation, but that's frequently hard to do on an anonymous internet forum. I genuinely want you to tell me what issue you have with the points I'm presenting there, not provide sarcastic responses intended only to provoke and demean.
None of those are facts. Those are just statements by you. Opinions are not facts.
thejughead wrote: As far as a mob is concerned, there was no visible anger or maliciousness shown to Team Happy at any time during the weekend.
I'm trying to be as transparent as possible here, and this kind of gray vagueness does nobody any good--please provide details about what you mean.
Again, my concern is that the "teams upset about the behavior" were upset about behavior that did not occur, based entirely on lies from a motivated group of individuals.
I would also be interested to hear about the "history of offenses"--what exactly were our issues at previous ATCs, in your opinion?
History:
2016 - Adepticon, missing pistol on Character, Lone Wolf issue,
2016 - ATC - Illegible lists for ATC, When confronted told our captain to f**k off and that he was going to stab him in the face.
2016 - ATC - The opponent screamed at you, "CHEATER" (i assumed its you since you referenced earlier in the thread) and threw a water bottle into the stands.
2018 - LVO - Unsportsmanlike in game actions against another player on video.
2018 - LVO - Round 1 slow play documented against another top player
2018 - ATC - What this thread is about.
Perceived Mob:
At the event you had no further incidents after round 3 per your teams statement. There were no visible physical assaults or verbal altercations. Having a few people discuss concerns or mention comments is not a Mob.
If you believe you have had ZERO fault for any past discrepancies and that the reaction of the other teams was to take you down a peg, then you and your team are oblivious to the reality of the experience your opponents have had around the members of your team. Other teams being being upset is a direct correlation to other confrontations outside of ATC. The reaction is not part of a vacuum.
The reality is 90% of people don't care if you win. They care how you play and carry yourselves. You have failed in this regard.
techsoldaten wrote: Totally see where you are going Peregrine and agree with you, it's time to prune all the undesirables.
I would be down with dealing harshly with cheaters so long as we also do something about all the people using recast models. GW's IP needs to be respected otherwise the game goes away. For that matter, proxy models. Everyone else put the resources into getting a real army, it's time to stop coddling the people trying to get away with something less and take the rest of us down.
For that matter, we should also git rid of the people participating in online mobs. They add nothing to events and promote a toxic culture. And they are predominantly white males, there's no reason everyone else should have to deal with all that privilege.
Which leads to getting rid of those who don't show sufficient respect for marginalized communities. There's a reason tournaments lack diversity. We should also be looking to build more inclusive tournaments and eliminate the misogyny that often exists at the tables.
TOs, for that matter, need to do more to share the space with new and less experienced players. They should not be leading the tournaments they organize, they should be using the event to promote the needs of those who are disadvantaged. I would love to see some of the Feminist40k people getting a chance to speak up about more important issues than games.
First step, of course, is dealing with all those cheaters infesting the top tables, which is an incontrovertible fact. I'm just as sick as you with all the cover ups and lies and look forward to achieving a more just and equitable tournament scene. All we need to do is start telling TOs how to run their events and we can finally fix some of these problems.
Yep, really proving my point here about "competitive" 40k being a joke. You're seriously comparing expecting people to follow the rules to nonsense about banning people who don't spend enough money or replacing tournaments with Feminist40k speeches. I never thought I'd see the day when "competitive" players defend cheaters to the death, and insist that we need to accept cheating as part of the game or we're all the worst TFGs.
And yes, it is incontrovertible fact that cheaters exist. FFS, we have someone from one of the top teams admitting to cheating (illegal list) in this thread.
Well, the point of all that was to outline a few of the different agendas vying to shift the Overton window of what we find acceptable as players participating in tournaments. There's a lot of them at the moment, as there always has been, as well as a lot of screeches for zero tolerance from those who would have you believe they are fighting for our "best interests."
The vitrol tournament organizers and other players are subjected to in this effort is the only thing that's new. It's nasty, all the lies, exaggerations and hard-line stances being taken, and makes me wonder why anyone would subject themselves to this cesspit.
Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.
Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.
These probably nots do not amount to a reason to change the tournament system, impose stricter penalties, create a database of banned players, villify people on social media, etc. Adding salt to all that by claiming tournament organizers are pocketing money, collusion is happening between judges and top players, people's reputations are "harming" the game, etc - those are all base-level lies meant to elevate the actual impact of these slights to some insidious level that's not supported by the severity of what actually happened. It becomes impossible to put anything in perspective with all this garbage floating around and eventually anyone will accept anything in the name of removing all the "cheaters," or whatever label some social manipulator is floating to get people to settle on a normality they find acceptable.
I don't play in tournaments anymore but I've been around the tournament scene since Rogue Trader. The one consistent fact about tournaments is there are always problems and a lot of drama generated by people who don't have anything better to do. That's one of the reasons I won't play in tournaments anymore, a good portion of the people who show up are a little too invested in what other people are doing and not enough in their own army.
This modern expression of the drama-urge is louder and less honest than what came before. It's still as meaningless as the terms "40k celebrity" and "competitive" player, which are really just a way of conveying one's own desire for status as the best toy solider dice roller in the world. Neither really means anything, that's not why people go to tournaments and it would be a shame to shape the scene around these petty expressions of jealousy. People who win tournaments are dorks like the rest of us, there's no reason to treat them otherwise.
Tournaments are about finding friends, playing games, and being happy if you win. If you feel the need to wrap yourself up in intrigue over rules violations, come with facts and be reasonable in what you ask for without trying to demolish everyone around you. Otherwise you're really just putting your own defects on display.
DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:
This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.
ATC states that:
During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.
Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?
Similarly you claimed that:
The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."
ATC states that:
We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).
Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?
In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).
When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.
Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.
My suggestion would be to anyone using a non GW Model, is to ALWAYS prime and repaint them yourself.
Those ARE painted. The judges seemed to have ruled the models violated the 'Models may NOT contain significant elements of pre-assembled and/or pre-painted models or toys." policy. The base size may have incurred a greater issue with the Modelling for Advantage as they SEEM to be lot smaller than the standard cavalry bases.
Yea, they are painted... the same paintjob from whatever gift shop at the Zoo they came from. I do think it is a cool conversion though. Theres even a female Catachan! C'mon!
deviantduck wrote: Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.
What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.
Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.
Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.
While I largely agree with fitting the punishment to the severity of the crime I do take issue with a couple of things here. Specifically, when discussing possible types of infringements you repeat "The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game". That's incorrect. The question is, is it against the rules? When it comes to applying an initial penalty intent is irrelevant. Intent might be relevant when assessing whether a harsher penalty is required but the only thing that matters is if the rules were broken. If my list is 2001 points, I have broken the rules and a penalty should be applied. It doesn't matter if breaking the rules affected the outcome of the game. There's a rule, and a penalty for breaking it - in this case a warning, followed by a game loss. If it later comes to light that this is a pattern, or rather than being 1 point over because of a miscalculation, my list is actually 150 points over and I'm blatantly trying to cheat I may well be met with a full DQ and possible future ban from the event but that's the only point where intent should enter into it.
Alpharius Walks wrote: DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:
This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.
ATC states that:
During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.
Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?
Similarly you claimed that:
The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."
ATC states that:
We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).
Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?
In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).
When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.
As one of the Team Captains, that agreement was not disclosed to us, as best as I can remember.
deviantduck wrote: Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.
What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.
I don't think you understand how WYSIWYG works. If he didn't list the PP on his sheet and didn't pay for it, but it is on the model, he broke WYSIWYG policy, period. The fact that he used it just demonstrates the need for that rule to begin with.
Alpharius Walks wrote: DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:
This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.
ATC states that:
During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.
Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?
Similarly you claimed that:
The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."
ATC states that:
We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).
Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?
In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).
When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.
As one of the Team Captains, that agreement was not disclosed to us, as best as I can remember.
The ATC statement also says they didn't inform anyone else. Which makes sense. If you tell the room that your kicking out team X next time there is an issue. Someone is going to find a reason to have an issue.
My only concern is this. The plasma thing, you agreed you messed up. Ok, but where is the "we apologize" seriously. The dude from BOLS DQed himself and did a self imposed ban and said sorry a lot. Where is Team Happy's sorry
It seems like an attempt to play the victim. Suddenly this is all about mob justice when it should be about congratulating the ATCTO's for being the first major event organizers to step up and show some balls. I think they could have done a better job initially with their policies, making them more clear and much tighter. I also think they should have gotten in front of this a bit sooner, but that's hard to do from an event. That said it's nice to see they stood up for the event.
The key points are very straight forward. There were multiple infractions, perspective can be spun any way you like because they admit to being in the wrong and accepting the judgements. They also AGREED to withdraw if ANY other issue arose. One did, they were ASKED to leave and now they are acting as though the judgement was too harsh.
They agreed to follow there judgement and now are spinning it like they were wronged. What I find most disturbing is the lack of personal responsibility and integrity. He started off saying he respects and agrees with the TO and that they respected the call only to speak out of the other side of their mouth and imply the TO was talked into a decision that was not their own by a mob. You can't have it both ways, you either respectfully accept the ruling and move on, agree or disagree with the severity. Or you are calling the TO out on their integrity and credibility. If your calling them out at least have the spine to do just that, but they are trying to have it both ways.
I think this one should just have a pin put in it already. The TO made the right call, this doesn't mean other issues may not have been present with other teams, but in this instance it is clear that it wasn't the one issue day two, it was everything combined.
Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.
Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.
While I largely agree with fitting the punishment to the severity of the crime I do take issue with a couple of things here. Specifically, when discussing possible types of infringements you repeat "The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game". That's incorrect. The question is, is it against the rules? When it comes to applying an initial penalty intent is irrelevant. Intent might be relevant when assessing whether a harsher penalty is required but the only thing that matters is if the rules were broken. If my list is 2001 points, I have broken the rules and a penalty should be applied. It doesn't matter if breaking the rules affected the outcome of the game. There's a rule, and a penalty for breaking it - in this case a warning, followed by a game loss. If it later comes to light that this is a pattern, or rather than being 1 point over because of a miscalculation, my list is actually 150 points over and I'm blatantly trying to cheat I may well be met with a full DQ and possible future ban from the event but that's the only point where intent should enter into it.
"Crime." You lose me when you use that word.
I see where you are coming from with all this, the question I ask is how the introduction of new rules improves the results, the tournament system or the outcomes of any particular game. Nothing about what you said encourages me to think more rules make tournaments better in any sense of the word.
Let's say Team Happy had all it's models approved beforehand, removed the unfortunate plasma gun, and somehow got to Turn 5 with horde lists. Did they enjoy success because of those factors, or did they enjoy success because they are better players? The answer is likely the later.
If you honestly feel the only way they succeed is cheating, that's great. But this list is technicalities, I would be embarrassed to say something there caused me to lose. They don't have much of an impact on the game outside sportsmanship (mine included.) Saying there's a "crime" when a player did not conform 100% to a rather long set of rules makes me think we're losing perspective on why anyone even plays in a tournament. It's asking a lot for TOs to assume the worst in people and enforce a zero-tolerance policy, they're basically being turned into cops and players into snitches.
Pause and think about the forms of cheating that actually affect the outcomes of games. Adding extra models to your lists, giving you lists with points-costs adjusted downwards, using dice rolls to reposition models, cupping dice to add a few 6s, rolling into a pile and choosing the best dice, looking at a book and quoting rules that don't exist, telling opponents they must to roll higher than what they actually need, mismeasuring, adjusting position with rulers, repositioning terrain, double movement / shooting / psychic actions, fixing the decks, overcounting command points, using food / beverages as distractions at key points, etc. There's a long list of worse behaviors that actually impact games. Were I of a mind to, I could do all this in a game without you knowing unless I told you. If I really wanted, I could probably get you to apologize and thank me for being so patient with your poor play after I win.
This thread is calling out Team Happy over technicalities. Many participants are demanding systemic change and making wild accusations about TOs and players being in cahoots / lying / cheating / stealing / etc. People are lawyering statements from players and trying to trip them up on language. There's a lot of talk about zero-tolerance, and lists and bans.
Isn't that a little odd? Isn't that a lot of effort to go to over alligators, plasma guns and sluggish play? Is this really about how we punish people who violate the rules, or is something else going on?
For that matter, tournament organizers do a lot of unpaid work to set up tournaments. Not all of them work out as well as we wish, but I've never met a TO who was out to get rich from doing this. Every one I've ever met put in a lot more into organizing the event than they received in return.
Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?
Reading the official statement from the ATC, the things they did merit a DQ.
1. Using mixed regiment traits they didn't have access to (lots of people do this and in the age of soup its very difficult to track properly, easy to pull off and people get away with this all the time).
2. Using wargear they didn't purchase (this is blatant cheating)
3. Modeling for advantage (hard to judge without seeing the model, but you know it when you see it, and i trust that it was egregious enough to be a "third strike.")
Ultimately if you're willing to fudge this kind of stuff then you're probably cheating in other ways. I hope this community can get cleaned up.
djones520 wrote: I am so freaking sick of the "well what impact did the cheating have" mentality.
Yeah that’s definitely not the kind of mentality that should be used when evaluating whether something was legal or not.
The one thing I am interested in getting clarification is whether there was slowplay or not. I’ve seen posts from people that were there that claimed they slow played but the official statements from the TOs say otherwise. Do we have anyone who is a third party/opponent who ACTUALLY witnessed their games not go past turn 3? If there was no slow playing I think the DQ might have been a little more than it should have been. Most of the other stuff should have been brought up much earlier (alligator models) or were minor enough to warrant game losses which should have probably put them out of contention.
Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?
Where do you get anyone is making organizers the enemy? To answer your question, the organizers are providing a service that people are paying for. They want to couch that under the banner of it is just for people to get together and have fun. That is fine, it is why I go to them, but as JY3 stated we spend thousands of dollars, vacation time, time away from family, etc. to do this and your attitude is we should just let shoddy players get away with it because it is to much effort to do something about it!?! I am the customer, I am spending good money and time to go these events and it is the organizers responsibility to insure I enjoy myself. The person that followed the event rules, the person that can write a legal list, the person that plays with models that are WYSIWYG so he can tell if his own model has a friggin Plasma gun or not, and the person who is not a jerk to people he is playing toy soldiers with. The organizers responsibility should not be to let it slide for people that can't get their crap straight. Team Happy negatively effected people they played, and from their own admission people they did not play, and we should not just let it slide. They want to call it mob mentality I think it is more that people are fed up and are not going to just let it slide anymore. If you don't get that there is no point in talking to you.
deviantduck wrote: Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.
What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.
I don't think you understand how WYSIWYG works. If he didn't list the PP on his sheet and didn't pay for it, but it is on the model, he broke WYSIWYG policy, period. The fact that he used it just demonstrates the need for that rule to begin with.
That's the same thing. WYSIWYG doesn't just go one way you say it does. If your miniature isn't modeled with a PP, then you can't say on the list the mini is equipped with a PP. If your miniature is modeled with a PP, then you MUST say on the list mini is equipped with PP.
If he represented it on the mini but didn't put it on his list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG. If he didn't represent it on the mini but put it on the list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG.
The infraction most likely involved the player attempting to represent a WYSIWYG mini with a PP, but "forgot" to add to his list. So it wasn't WYSIWYG at the end of the day.
The reason why WYSIWYG is actually not a rule anymore is because of the theoretical 'Thousand-Bolter Thundercannon' shenanigans, because if you were actually able to modela thundercannon with thousand bolters, you were still technically allowed to use it.
dredgejosh wrote: My only concern is this. The plasma thing, you agreed you messed up. Ok, but where is the "we apologize" seriously. The dude from BOLS DQed himself and did a self imposed ban and said sorry a lot. Where is Team Happy's sorry
This is my big concern, too. I think they’ll write this off as mob mentality and massive overreaction, and then we’ll have another thread about a similar issue with some of the same players in six to twelve months.
Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?
Where do you get anyone is making organizers the enemy?
ChainswordHeretic wrote: To answer your question, the organizers are providing a service that people are paying for.
That wasn't the question, but sure. At some level, that's true.
ChainswordHeretic wrote: They want to couch that under the banner of it is just for people to get together and have fun. That is fine, it is why I go to them, but as JY3 stated we spend thousands of dollars, vacation time, time away from family, etc. to do this and your attitude is we should just let shoddy players get away with it because it is to much effort to do something about it!?! I am the customer, I am spending good money and time to go these events and it is the organizers responsibility to insure I enjoy myself.
So this isn't about outcomes, this is about whether or not everyone is 100% in compliance with a set of rules. That helps me to understand where you are coming from, I appreciate you for offering that.
Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Please don't take this as a personal attack, I'm honestly curious about where you are coming from. Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament. That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me, it's almost like hearing tournaments are a competition to see how closely people can confirm with a checklist more than a chance to play games and meet new people.
It's been years since I played in a tournament, and there was a time I kind of felt the same way. It changed for me when I realized just about everyone has a problem with their list, the rules, etc. Instead of looking at 90% of the gaming community as cheaters, I would prefer to focus on sportsmanship.
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy? That is the policy a lot of people are calling for, and I think that situation would a lot harder to deal with than whether or not someone else went over by 15 points or so. And while you might feel that doesn't apply to you, it would affect to a lot of other people who also have families, budgets, jobs, etc.
If that's what it takes for you to enjoy yourself, that's fine, but that might be a good idea to consider what that looks like when it's consistently and evenly enforced across a set of tournaments over time. Part of me thinks people would start calling for that rule to go away, but the part of me who knows how tournaments work knows people would just stop coming while TOs double down on those rules.
ChainswordHeretic wrote: The person that followed the event rules, the person that can write a legal list, the person that plays with models that are WYSIWYG so he can tell if his own model has a friggin Plasma gun or not, and the person who is not a jerk to people he is playing toy soldiers with.
How many games have you played in a tournament against someone from Team Happy or someone who is otherwise cheating? How much did that impact the outcomes of the games?
I realize you probably don't think this matters, but I'm curious because I've been in games with a lot of people who are actively cheating in more significant ways. The way I would react is different than running to organizers, but it would help me to know more about how this has personally affected you before I go into that. I realize you may have had a bad experience that kept you out of the top tables and don't want to be insensitive.
ChainswordHeretic wrote: The organizers responsibility should not be to let it slide for people that can't get their crap straight. Team Happy negatively effected people they played, and from their own admission people they did not play, and we should not just let it slide. They want to call it mob mentality I think it is more that people are fed up and are not going to just let it slide anymore. If you don't get that there is no point in talking to you.
There's definitely a mob in this thread who are grossly distorting fact and expressing faux outrage. I really appreciate you for sharing your perspective and hope you do choose to continue this conversation.
While I see only see downsides in the zero-tolerance rules you present and believe (were we facing each other in a tournament) I could use them to get you kicked out and banned from future events very easily, I am totally open to having my mind changed.
skchsan wrote: The reason why WYSIWYG is actually not a rule anymore is because of the theoretical 'Thousand-Bolter Thundercannon' shenanigans, because if you were actually able to modela thundercannon with thousand bolters, you were still technically allowed to use it.
That's ass-backward, and you should know it.
WYSIWYG says the models must accurately represent what's in your list.
Not you get to play wahtever your model looks like.
If there are no rules for a Thundercannon with 1,000 bolters, then you don't get to use it as such.
deviantduck wrote: Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.
What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.
I don't think you understand how WYSIWYG works. If he didn't list the PP on his sheet and didn't pay for it, but it is on the model, he broke WYSIWYG policy, period. The fact that he used it just demonstrates the need for that rule to begin with.
That's the same thing. WYSIWYG doesn't just go one way you say it does. If your miniature isn't modeled with a PP, then you can't say on the list the mini is equipped with a PP. If your miniature is modeled with a PP, then you MUST say on the list mini is equipped with PP.
If he represented it on the mini but didn't put it on his list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG. If he didn't represent it on the mini but put it on the list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG.
The infraction most likely involved the player attempting to represent a WYSIWYG mini with a PP, but "forgot" to add to his list. So it wasn't WYSIWYG at the end of the day.
The reason why WYSIWYG is actually not a rule anymore is because of the theoretical 'Thousand-Bolter Thundercannon' shenanigans, because if you were actually able to modela thundercannon with thousand bolters, you were still technically allowed to use it.
So.. you're in violent agreement? I was saying if a person's army is true 100% WYSIWYG then when you say you're firing your plasma pistol your opponent can go... "what plasma pistol?" and then you go, "oh my bad. good catch." If the list and the model match on paper and on the table this kind of thing doesn't happen nearly as often. I've seen way too many 'plasma' models holding melta guns this edition even though every tournament states your models must be WYSIWYG... But then gets us back to the enforcing of the rules by the TOs.
At this point there's not much to be gained in finding or defining blame. What happened happened and the important thing is what we can learn to make sure it doesn't happen again. TOs need to take lessons from this event and discuss ways to respond better to what happened. The players involved need to see the things that brought them under scrutiny and do better next time. The community needs to respond better to these kinds of issues and find ways to make problems easier to identify and resolve before they get out of hand.
Ultimatley, we're in a period where lines are being crossed while they're being drawn. 40k is playing catchup to other systems where the creators have held onto the responsibility of governing the community. It would be great if GW would take charge on the matter, but failing that, the community really needs to see all the steps that have been taken elsewhere and work together to get to a place where these situations are consistently dealt with appropriately.
Cheaters should be black listed by TOs. They should be suspended from a number (x) future circuit tournaments. Repeat offenders permanently banned. Period.
- There should be rules on legibility and completeness of lists. Tourney point penalty of (p) if not compliant.
- Top lists should be vetted. If not compliant, disqualified from tourney + Black Listed for a number of (x) future tourneys.
- To track cheating add anonymous "Black Dot" to traditional sportsmanship thumbs up / thumbs down. Added Black dot indicates SUSPECTED cheating. TO can then "hover" over that player's table for future games.
- WYSIWYG should be agreed upon before hand. Discrepancies pointed out.
- Your personal customizations always go in opponents favor for cover etc) or lack thereof if he/she calls for it.
- Slow play should be penalized with chess clocks.
After reading the majority of this thread I have to say I agree with the punishment handed down. It seems like many teams made a mistake at some point.... but it seemed to be A mistake. Team Happy seems to be the only team making not 1 but 3 rules violations. IMO 3 strikes and your out. It seems like the TOs did a good job with the punishments and I agree that after 3 its just time to say "no hard feelings but tighten it up and come back next year".
Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Is it 100% of what effects my enjoyment, no. Is it part of it yes, definitely. If I am following the rules laid out I expect the other attendants to do the same.
Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament.
I am a fan of conversions, if the alligators where modeled on the correct base and he was not doing line of sight shenanigans I would have appreciated it. On the inverse if the Tourney says they are no good I am cool with that also. their tourney their rules. Bottom line, as people have said in other threads, get them approved before you bring them. The plasma gun I would have had an issue with I can't see that being anything but deliberate cheating and I think it was handled well by the TO's.
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy?
First of all most people are not asking for a zero tolerance policy but to answer your question zero problem, years ago at Adepticon I brought an illegal list to Combat patrol. Models had a two wound max and I brought a three wound model. When I discovered my mistake I contacted the judges and told them to zero my previous games and award my opponents max points. I was offered the chance to sub in something else but I did not bring any other models. After further discussion I decided to remove myself because I did not think it was fair to make someone play a list that was effectively down 1/4 of it's points. I would have been fine letting people club me but I decided it would detract from their fun and it was not fair to my potential opponents to continue.
To address your belief that people want a zero tolerance policy. I don't think anyone is under the delusion a game of 40K can be played 100% correct. That is why people are saying their needs to be a scaled punishment for certain incidents, which I believe the ATC crew did, and good on them. If some one is caught blatantly cheating, lets say loaded dice or moving a model when his opponent is not looking, yeah DQ. For things less nefarious sliding scale but for things in the rules packet, yeah they need to be followed, and you can't complain if you didn't and get called on it.
techsoldaten wrote: Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Yes. If I go to a tournament to play 40k (or whatever other game) I expect to play 40k, not some vaguely 40k-like game where everyone ignores the rules and makes it up as they go along. It's a tournament, not meeting your friends at the FLGS for a casual narrative game.
Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament.
So cheating is ok as long as you don't happen to play against the cheater that day? I guess it just sucks to be the people who did have to play against them, since you don't seem to care about their experience.
That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me, it's almost like hearing tournaments are a competition to see how closely people can confirm with a checklist more than a chance to play games and meet new people.
Yes, that's what a tournament is. You are expected to follow the rules. If you want to meet people go play casual games or whatever. For example, NOVA has some nice casual/narrative side events at the tournament.
It changed for me when I realized just about everyone has a problem with their list, the rules, etc. Instead of looking at 90% of the gaming community as cheaters, I would prefer to focus on sportsmanship.
Good sportsmanship includes following the rules, and accepting the penalty for breaking the rules instead of whining about how unfair it is. It's appalling to me that you (and others) accept "90% of the gaming community" cheating as just the natural state of the game, something we have to accept so that the cheaters can have fun.
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy? That is the policy a lot of people are calling for, and I think that situation would a lot harder to deal with than whether or not someone else went over by 15 points or so. And while you might feel that doesn't apply to you, it would affect to a lot of other people who also have families, budgets, jobs, etc.
Of course it would suck, and that's the point. When there's no penalty for cheating there's no incentive to stop cheating. If you know that the penalty for bringing an illegal list is sitting alone in your hotel room trying to see if you can change your airline tickets to fly home early then you're going to be really careful to ensure that your list is legal. The result is that very few, if any, people would suffer the penalty because they would put the effort into avoiding it.
Also, there's a difference between cheating and plausible mistakes. An illegal list is cheating, the situation is black and white and there is no excuse for failing to bring a correct list. Making the wrong roll for a unit could be a mistake by both players (for example, forgetting that a unit moved and has the -1 penalty to its heavy weapons), and the penalty wouldn't be a DQ. But if you're consistently trying to use your BS 4+ unit as BS 3+ then yeah, that's a DQ. Either you're cheating, or you're so hopelessly uninformed about the rules of your own army that you don't belong in a tournament.
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy?
First of all most people are not asking for a zero tolerance policy
To address your belief that people want a zero tolerance policy. I don't think anyone is under the delusion a game of 40K can be played 100% correct.
I, for one, would be OK with a "zero tolerance" policy. I'm not a cheater, so I have nothing to fear.
I would be delighted to see a team of cheaters get kicked out of the tournament, names named, videod to YouTube, the whole nine yards. Permanent global shaming and blacklisting. No punishment can be too severe for a team of cheaters.
techsoldaten wrote: Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Yes. If I go to a tournament to play 40k (or whatever other game) I expect to play 40k, not some vaguely 40k-like game where everyone ignores the rules and makes it up as they go along. It's a tournament, not meeting your friends at the FLGS for a casual narrative game.
Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament.
So cheating is ok as long as you don't happen to play against the cheater that day? I guess it just sucks to be the people who did have to play against them, since you don't seem to care about their experience.
That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me, it's almost like hearing tournaments are a competition to see how closely people can confirm with a checklist more than a chance to play games and meet new people.
Yes, that's what a tournament is. You are expected to follow the rules. If you want to meet people go play casual games or whatever. For example, NOVA has some nice casual/narrative side events at the tournament.
It changed for me when I realized just about everyone has a problem with their list, the rules, etc. Instead of looking at 90% of the gaming community as cheaters, I would prefer to focus on sportsmanship.
Good sportsmanship includes following the rules, and accepting the penalty for breaking the rules instead of whining about how unfair it is. It's appalling to me that you (and others) accept "90% of the gaming community" cheating as just the natural state of the game, something we have to accept so that the cheaters can have fun.
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy? That is the policy a lot of people are calling for, and I think that situation would a lot harder to deal with than whether or not someone else went over by 15 points or so. And while you might feel that doesn't apply to you, it would affect to a lot of other people who also have families, budgets, jobs, etc.
Of course it would suck, and that's the point. When there's no penalty for cheating there's no incentive to stop cheating. If you know that the penalty for bringing an illegal list is sitting alone in your hotel room trying to see if you can change your airline tickets to fly home early then you're going to be really careful to ensure that your list is legal. The result is that very few, if any, people would suffer the penalty because they would put the effort into avoiding it.
Also, there's a difference between cheating and plausible mistakes. An illegal list is cheating, the situation is black and white and there is no excuse for failing to bring a correct list. Making the wrong roll for a unit could be a mistake by both players (for example, forgetting that a unit moved and has the -1 penalty to its heavy weapons), and the penalty wouldn't be a DQ. But if you're consistently trying to use your BS 4+ unit as BS 3+ then yeah, that's a DQ. Either you're cheating, or you're so hopelessly uninformed about the rules of your own army that you don't belong in a tournament.
Dude, you always freak me out when we're on the same page.
Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Is it 100% of what effects my enjoyment, no. Is it part of it yes, definitely. If I am following the rules laid out I expect the other attendants to do the same.
Great! That sounds pretty reasonable and in-line with what most people expect.
Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament.
I am a fan of conversions, if the alligators where modeled on the correct base and he was not doing line of sight shenanigans I would have appreciated it. On the inverse if the Tourney says they are no good I am cool with that also. their tourney their rules. Bottom line, as people have said in other threads, get them approved before you bring them. The plasma gun I would have had an issue with I can't see that being anything but deliberate cheating and I think it was handled well by the TO's.
Great! So it sounds like you are saying the ATC situation was handled properly and the TOs did the right job. In a way, Team Happy at least had the sense to throw in the towel when it made sense. Is that accurate?
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy?
First of all most people are not asking for a zero tolerance policy but to answer your question zero problem, years ago at Adepticon I brought an illegal list to Combat patrol. Models had a two wound max and I brought a three wound model. When I discovered my mistake I contacted the judges and told them to zero my previous games and award my opponents max points. I was offered the chance to sub in something else but I did not bring any other models. After further discussion I decided to remove myself because I did not think it was fair to make someone play a list that was effectively down 1/4 of it's points. I would have been fine letting people club me but I decided it would detract from their fun and it was not fair to my potential opponents to continue.
Good for you. Hoping you stuck around and still played games, only not competitively.
I don't go to NOVA anymore but live near where they hold the event. I get in more games off-site the week before and after than I would if I went there. It's funny, for me the tournament experience is better without the competition. I hate the pressure it makes people feel and the lengths they go to for a win. There's no drama, it just dorks, dice and extremely optimized lists.
ChainswordHeretic wrote: To address your belief that people want a zero tolerance policy. I don't think anyone is under the delusion a game of 40K can be played 100% correct. That is why people are saying their needs to be a scaled punishment for certain incidents, which I believe the ATC crew did, and good on them. If some one is caught blatantly cheating, lets say loaded dice or moving a model when his opponent is not looking, yeah DQ. For things less nefarious sliding scale but for things in the rules packet, yeah they need to be followed, and you can't complain if you didn't and get called on it.
This I disagree with. There are at least 30 posts in this thread calling for a zero-tolerance policy. Gencon is now enforcing one.
You sound like a pretty reasonable person and I respect you for clarifying your comments. When I first read them, I had the sense you were saying all competitive players are trash and nothing but a zero-tolerance policy would make a tournament enjoyable. From my point of view, there is a range between minor infractions up to disqualifying events. While we probably don't agree on what they are, we agree that range exists and it's not just a hard-line, black-and-white situation.
The problem I had with that is a zero tolerance policy is an invitation to abuse. Were I still going to tournaments, I would be tempted to go for the DQ it any time I ran into a particularly hard list. Or maybe even to win the tournament by way of DQs every turn, the odds of getting someone to violate the rules are better than actually rolling dice.
My experience has been, when you suggest to an opponent that their units are better than what they are, most players will go along with it. I don't know if the number is 4-in-5 or 2-in-3, but if someone is getting ready to roll the dice and I tell that person they need 3s to hit and they really need 4s, that many will go with my suggestion over their own personal knowledge of their army. And I've got a cell phone and can get some witnesses to back me up when I take that to a TO as evidence of cheating. And if that doesn't work, there's a few other things I can think of to make it happen.
The fact I can see this means other people can too and I'm not exactly some master manipulator. I just wonder if it's actually worth it to put in the time to create that range of offenses / punishments, or if TOs already have a lot on their plates. It feels like the status quo is the practical solution.
techsoldaten wrote: Were I still going to tournaments, I would be tempted to go for the DQ it any time I ran into a particularly hard list.
That makes no sense. How do you "go for the DQ" if your opponent doesn't cheat?
My experience has been, when you suggest to an opponent that their units are better than what they are, most players will go along with it. I don't know if the number is 4-in-5 or 2-in-3, but if someone is getting ready to roll the dice and I tell that person they need 3s to hit and they really need 4s, that many will go with my suggestion over their own personal knowledge of their army. And I've got a cell phone and can get some witnesses to back me up when I take that to a TO as evidence of cheating. And if that doesn't work, there's a few other things I can think of to make it happen.
At which point you're on camera telling your opponent "3s to hit", and not only are you DQed for cheating you're blacklisted from ever playing in a tournament again and your name is all over every 40k community as a shameless TFG.
Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.
Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.
While I largely agree with fitting the punishment to the severity of the crime I do take issue with a couple of things here. Specifically, when discussing possible types of infringements you repeat "The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game". That's incorrect. The question is, is it against the rules? When it comes to applying an initial penalty intent is irrelevant. Intent might be relevant when assessing whether a harsher penalty is required but the only thing that matters is if the rules were broken. If my list is 2001 points, I have broken the rules and a penalty should be applied. It doesn't matter if breaking the rules affected the outcome of the game. There's a rule, and a penalty for breaking it - in this case a warning, followed by a game loss. If it later comes to light that this is a pattern, or rather than being 1 point over because of a miscalculation, my list is actually 150 points over and I'm blatantly trying to cheat I may well be met with a full DQ and possible future ban from the event but that's the only point where intent should enter into it.
"Crime." You lose me when you use that word.
You know I was using a common turn of phrase, right? I'm not literally conflating an illegal tourney list with murder.
If you honestly feel the only way they succeed is cheating, that's great. But this list is technicalities, I would be embarrassed to say something there caused me to lose. They don't have much of an impact on the game outside sportsmanship (mine included.) Saying there's a "crime" when a player did not conform 100% to a rather long set of rules makes me think we're losing perspective on why anyone even plays in a tournament. It's asking a lot for TOs to assume the worst in people and enforce a zero-tolerance policy, they're basically being turned into cops and players into snitches.
I'm not advocating a zero-tolerance policy. The post of mine you quoted actually states that pretty clearly. I'm suggesting more of a sliding scale, starting with some baseline penalties for easily verifiable infractions.
Pause and think about the forms of cheating that actually affect the outcomes of games. Adding extra models to your lists, giving you lists with points-costs adjusted downwards, using dice rolls to reposition models, cupping dice to add a few 6s, rolling into a pile and choosing the best dice, looking at a book and quoting rules that don't exist, telling opponents they must to roll higher than what they actually need, mismeasuring, adjusting position with rulers, repositioning terrain, double movement / shooting / psychic actions, fixing the decks, overcounting command points, using food / beverages as distractions at key points, etc. There's a long list of worse behaviors that actually impact games. Were I of a mind to, I could do all this in a game without you knowing unless I told you. If I really wanted, I could probably get you to apologize and thank me for being so patient with your poor play after I win.
The possibility of different forms of cheating shouldn't stop us from trying to prevent the things we can deal with more easily. To answer your other points with one general comment: impact on the game is irrelevant. We have rules. Follow them. If the tournament is 2000 points you don't get to take 2001 points and then claim there was no impact. How do we know? Maybe that free plasma pistol took the last two wounds from a model before it could turn the tide of the battle. Maybe having an extra Marine in your Devastator squad was the difference between getting an extra Lascannon shot and not. It's difficult to know for sure but my whole point is we shouldn't have to make that judgement. We have rules and restrictions that are supposed to be adhered to. Most other people at the tournament managed to do it, possibly making some sacrifices in list building to stay within the points limit. Why should someone get a free pass because it might not matter? If it doesn't matter you should have no trouble following the clearly laid out tournament rules. I'm genuinely confused how anyone can disagree with the basic principle that someone spending more points than they're allowed to at a tournament shouldn't have some sort of penalty applied. Once again, I'm not saying someone with a 2001 point list should be instantly kicked out and banned for life. I'm suggesting a clearly laid out penalty is applied, with possibly more severe penalties if the TO believes the infringement to merit it.
Slipspace wrote: I'm not saying someone with a 2001 point list should be instantly kicked out and banned for life.
If someone is 1 point over, they should be DQd immediately. Math is not hard. If you're that afraid of a math error, only bring 1900 points to a 2000 pt game.
Slipspace wrote: I'm not saying someone with a 2001 point list should be instantly kicked out and banned for life.
If someone is 1 point over, they should be DQd immediately. Math is not hard. If you're that afraid of a math error, only bring 1900 points to a 2000 pt game.
I disagree. I think a more proportional penalty would be a game loss for every game you used an illegal list, followed by the TO adjusting the list as they see fit to make it legal. I don't think draconian penalties really benefit anyone and could do more harm than good. I do think we should probably be keeping track of penalties across events though and if a player keeps making the same "mistakes" further action should be taken.
Illegal list is illegal. It's probably the easiest thing to get right - just post it to Dakka for free checking. No excluse for that. Automatic DQ and walk of shame.
Slipspace wrote: I disagree. I think a more proportional penalty would be a game loss for every game you used an illegal list, followed by the TO adjusting the list as they see fit to make it legal. I don't think draconian penalties really benefit anyone and could do more harm than good. I do think we should probably be keeping track of penalties across events though and if a player keeps making the same "mistakes" further action should be taken.
The point of a "draconian" penalty is to keep people from bringing an illegal list in the first place. If the penalty is just a retroactive game loss you might not care so much, especially if you know you're not going to win the tournament anyway. If the penalty is an immediate DQ and removal from the event property you're probably going to decide that spending a bit of effort to make sure that your list is legal is better than taking the risk of crying alone in your hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel costs. There's simply no excuse for failing to have a legal list, and the penalty should reflect this.
techsoldaten wrote: Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?
Yes. If I go to a tournament to play 40k (or whatever other game) I expect to play 40k, not some vaguely 40k-like game where everyone ignores the rules and makes it up as they go along. It's a tournament, not meeting your friends at the FLGS for a casual narrative game.
That's great as an ideal. Can't argue against that.
Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament.
So cheating is ok as long as you don't happen to play against the cheater that day? I guess it just sucks to be the people who did have to play against them, since you don't seem to care about their experience.
Define cheating. This sounds like a very black-and-white definition, you offer a much more situational one below.
Because if we're talking about alligators as cavalry or an extra plasma gun, that wouldn't even register with me.
If we're talking about purposefully lowered points on a list, sleight of hand with the dice, pretend rules, etc, that's worth talking about.
That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me, it's almost like hearing tournaments are a competition to see how closely people can confirm with a checklist more than a chance to play games and meet new people.
Yes, that's what a tournament is. You are expected to follow the rules. If you want to meet people go play casual games or whatever. For example, NOVA has some nice casual/narrative side events at the tournament.
That's an interesting perspective to say a tournament is complying with a checklist. If this is why people go to tournaments, why actually play games at all? Maybe there are other checklist enthusiasts in your area you can get together with to fault one another?
It changed for me when I realized just about everyone has a problem with their list, the rules, etc. Instead of looking at 90% of the gaming community as cheaters, I would prefer to focus on sportsmanship.
Good sportsmanship includes following the rules, and accepting the penalty for breaking the rules instead of whining about how unfair it is. It's appalling to me that you (and others) accept "90% of the gaming community" cheating as just the natural state of the game, something we have to accept so that the cheaters can have fun.
My opinion about this would be different if I didn't think the majority of people don't know the rules, don't even shoot for WYSIWYG, have problems with their lists, etc.
If you are talking about a strict enforcement of the rules, i.e. all cheaters get bounced, tournaments would be very small and unenjoyable.
If you are talking about situational enforcement, which is what TOs are doing now, that's a lot more reasonable. Which begs the question, why all the drama about ATC?
How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy? That is the policy a lot of people are calling for, and I think that situation would a lot harder to deal with than whether or not someone else went over by 15 points or so. And while you might feel that doesn't apply to you, it would affect to a lot of other people who also have families, budgets, jobs, etc.
Of course it would suck, and that's the point. When there's no penalty for cheating there's no incentive to stop cheating. If you know that the penalty for bringing an illegal list is sitting alone in your hotel room trying to see if you can change your airline tickets to fly home early then you're going to be really careful to ensure that your list is legal. The result is that very few, if any, people would suffer the penalty because they would put the effort into avoiding it.
Also, there's a difference between cheating and plausible mistakes. An illegal list is cheating, the situation is black and white and there is no excuse for failing to bring a correct list. Making the wrong roll for a unit could be a mistake by both players (for example, forgetting that a unit moved and has the -1 penalty to its heavy weapons), and the penalty wouldn't be a DQ. But if you're consistently trying to use your BS 4+ unit as BS 3+ then yeah, that's a DQ. Either you're cheating, or you're so hopelessly uninformed about the rules of your own army that you don't belong in a tournament.
To be clear, there are penalties for using an illegal list already. Do I understand you correctly, you are just saying the penalties need to be more severe?
My point was a little more nuanced and gets back into the distinction of different kinds of cheating. Let's actually call it rule breaking, since that phrase describes non-intentional violations.
I'm pretty confident in my ability to goad opponents into breaking the rules in a clear and visible way. Does that make that opponent hopelessly uninformed or a cheater? For that matter, does that make me a cheater or just someone who knows how to work the rules? Where's the line between my intent and my opponent's?
All I know is the rules of the tournament say I don't have to play a game if I find enough fault with my opponent's army or playstyle. I have an incentive to lay out that problem in a way where it's clear to TOs and there's a lot of situations where that would be better than actually playing a game. If there's some action I can take that encourages that happening without making me look bad, there's a good chance it's going to happen.
If you're saying that TOs need to determine if the rule breaking is intentional or not, I would argue that's what is happening right now and doesn't require a change in the current tournament format. If you are arguing that there needs to be more of a zero-tolerance policy, I say that's going to be counter-productive as people will treat it like any other rule and learn to exploit it. Call it the 7 Flyrant Principle, 40k players exploit rules to their advantage.
So stop skirting the line. Should penalties be situational or strict?
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Peregrine wrote: At which point you're on camera telling your opponent "3s to hit", and not only are you DQed for cheating you're blacklisted from ever playing in a tournament again and your name is all over every 40k community as a shameless TFG.
Oh, so now I'm responsible for the accuracy of my opponent's understanding of the rules? If I make a mistake and it causes someone to break the rules, now I go on a blacklist?
That's wonderful logic you have there. Makes perfect sense as a way to conduct tournaments.
techsoldaten wrote: Because if we're talking about alligators as cavalry or an extra plasma gun, that wouldn't even register with me.
How would those not register? The alligator cavalry, while an ok conversion in many situations, was indisputably in violation of the event's rules (whether or not those rules are good is a separate question). And taking an extra plasma gun is blatant cheating, I don't know how you wouldn't care about it. Unless you're saying that it wouldn't register because your opponent would successfully exploit your trust and sneak in the illegal list without you noticing?
That's an interesting perspective to say a tournament is complying with a checklist. If this is why people go to tournaments, why actually play games at all? Maybe there are other checklist enthusiasts in your area you can get together with to fault one another?
Because "complying with the checklist" is a mandatory prerequisite for participating, not the entire event?
If you are talking about a strict enforcement of the rules, i.e. all cheaters get bounced, tournaments would be very small and unenjoyable.
No, they would be small and enjoyable because everyone would be following the rules. And I don't think they'd be as small as you claim, because people who want to participate would put more effort into learning and following the rules.
To be clear, there are penalties for using an illegal list already. Do I understand you correctly, you are just saying the penalties need to be more severe?
That's exactly what I'm saying. If you are cheating with an illegal list or can't bother to put in even the most basic level of effort towards following the rules then you don't play. Immediate DQ and removal from the event property.
I'm pretty confident in my ability to goad opponents into breaking the rules in a clear and visible way. Does that make that opponent hopelessly uninformed or a cheater? For that matter, does that make me a cheater or just someone who knows how to work the rules? Where's the line between my intent and my opponent's?
It makes you a cheater because you are deliberately making false statements about the game state and/or rules. This is not complicated.
All I know is the rules of the tournament say I don't have to play a game if I find enough fault with my opponent's army or playstyle. I have an incentive to lay out that problem in a way where it's clear to TOs and there's a lot of situations where that would be better than actually playing a game. If there's some action I can take that encourages that happening without making me look bad, there's a good chance it's going to happen.
And that can only happen if your opponent is cheating, in which case their DQ is the correct outcome of the situation. If your opponent does not cheat then you can't do anything to get a "free" win.
Oh, so now I'm responsible for the accuracy of my opponent's understanding of the rules? If I make a mistake and it causes someone to break the rules, now I go on a blacklist?
There is a tremendous difference between not knowing your opponent's rules and deliberately making a false statement about the rules to bait your opponent into playing something incorrectly while you film it, and then promptly calling a judge to impose a penalty. In that situation you clearly know the correct rule (as you are calling a judge as soon as your opponent breaks it), and you are making false statements about the game state and/or rules to persuade your opponent to play incorrectly. IOW, you are cheating. Let's not pretend that everyone is too stupid to recognize this and apply the correct penalty to you instead of your opponent.
Just going to throw this out there... Team happy is a top tier competition team and there is ZERO chance that the player didn’t know that he didn’t pay for the plasma gun. I’m barely competitive (played in two ITC tournaments this season) and I sure as hell know what upgrades I’ve put into my list and what I didn’t have points for. Especially when lists are submitted early, locked in, and then used in multiple practice games.
That is the difference to me. A player useing a borrowed list in a 30 person local tournament might not realize his models dude doesn’t actually have plasma, but the top competitive team for 3 years running knows exactly what is in his list and decided to try to sneak a fast one by his opponents knowing they would assume he is WYSIWYG at this level.
Killermonkey wrote: Just going to throw this out there... Team happy is a top tier competition team and there is ZERO chance that the player didn’t know that he didn’t pay for the plasma gun. I’m barely competitive (played in two ITC tournaments this season) and I sure as hell know what upgrades I’ve put into my list and what I didn’t have points for. Especially when lists are submitted early, locked in, and then used in multiple practice games.
That is the difference to me. A player useing a borrowed list in a 30 person local tournament might not realize his models dude doesn’t actually have plasma, but the top competitive team for 3 years running knows exactly what is in his list and decided to try to sneak a fast one by his opponents knowing they would assume he is WYSIWYG at this level.
Actually Team Happy is well known for using borrowed armies - its part of how they keep up in the meta and it's not unusual for the ATC due to it's faction keyword rule.
Forge the Narrative has an almost hour long interview with the ATCTOs that sets a lot of things straight. It's worth a listen.
I was gonna go to a tournament this weekend. Played a practice game a few days ago, realized there was no way in hell I wanted memorize everything I would need to memorize in order to get everything right in a 2 hour, 15 minute , 2000 point game, even playing Tyranid monsters. Decided not to go.
Shrug. Your local FLGS isn't a travel tournament of course, but the bar for entry is getting really high for this kind of thing. A $1000 of models, hundreds of hours painting, memorizing what amounts to a short textbook that constantly changes. Hats off to those who can do it I suppose, but 40K would be a lot bigger if the competitive scene was more accessible I think. Those who do go through all that have a right to good games.
kestral wrote: I was gonna go to a tournament this weekend. Played a practice game a few days ago, realized there was no way in hell I wanted memorize everything I would need to memorize in order to get everything right in a 2 hour, 15 minute , 2000 point game, even playing Tyranid monsters. Decided not to go.
Shrug. Your local FLGS isn't a travel tournament of course, but the bar for entry is getting really high for this kind of thing. A $1000 of models, hundreds of hours painting, memorizing what amounts to a short textbook that constantly changes. Hats off to those who can do it I suppose, but 40K would be a lot bigger if the competitive scene was more accessible I think. Those who do go through all that have a right to good games.
Dude. Flashcards. I didn't start playing until eighth but I carry 4 flashcards with the top four things that make me run to to the rulebook/codex. For nids, it was a flashcard for Zoanthropes, 1 for Hive tyrants, 1 for my chapter tactic and another with top FAQ items about my strategems (along with a note that Biovores don't get overwatch)
For my DeathWatch it's SIA, Mission Tactics (and their names), Hellblasters, and Redemptor Dreadnoughts.
“I borrowed this army therefore I’m using wargear I didn’t pay for” isn’t a very good excuse. In fact, there isn’t a single good excuse for using an illegal list like that. What you should do is apologize, accept the penalty whatever it is, and try your hardest to not end up with a list issue like that again
I don't know about other people, but if I'm borrowing models the necessary first step is going to be unpacking them and using the written army list to separate them into units. If there's a model with a plasma pistol in the box it's not going to make it onto the table unless the written list says "model with plasma pistol" and I have to find something in the box to represent it. Nothing at all sounds plausible about borrowing an army and somehow being able to separate it into units without ever looking at the written list and noticing that there is no plasma pistol.
ChargerIIC wrote: I know this is throwing fuel on the fire, but Rob Baer of the Spikey Bits team is self-banning due to points violations in their winning list:
While I dislike Spikey Bits for other reasons, I will give credit for this. This seems like a case of an honest mistake, but then owning up to it and returning the trophy is a good move. Could be argued that the self-ban isn't really necessary, but I get the point he's trying to make.
ChargerIIC wrote: I know this is throwing fuel on the fire, but Rob Baer of the Spikey Bits team is self-banning due to points violations in their winning list:
While I dislike Spikey Bits for other reasons, I will give credit for this. This seems like a case of an honest mistake, but then owning up to it and returning the trophy is a good move. Could be argued that the self-ban isn't really necessary, but I get the point he's trying to make.
Yeah, hard to use your platform to cast stones, if you're unwilling to take the heat for your own issues. Smart move on his part.
Stopping himself from going to more tournaments this year feels excessive and completely unneeded. But considering his platform lives on his reputation I can understand why he went overboard.
about playing a legal list and verifying it. As long as people keep complaining about "ruining their social experience" and refusing to DQ them list cheating/mistakes will continue to happen as there is little incentive to avoid them. DQ/ban and people will put the effort into not getting banned.
