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Just got done convincing a friend of mine that he should try Warhammer 40k out. He loved it so much he's decided to collect a small Ork army. Well, not 30 minutes after we finish our post game discussion, I go out to get a drink and come back, and a different friend of mine, who I beat on a constant basis and for whom I held no ill will, is standing with our new Ork player, telling him not to play with me.

Why is he doing this? Is it because I don't bathe? No I shower every day. Is it because I cheat? I never cheat, and even call myself on mistakes I make. No, it's because I am a rules nazi. My friend actually said the following words, "Don't play with (name removed), it will take forever because he'll spend the whole time teaching you the rules. Any time he plays, he has to follow the rulebook to the letter."

I am sorry to have to use this forum as a vent, but If I don't I WILL go ballistic on someone or something and must get this out before I do something I'll regret. Hurt and anger are excellent descriptors of this event. Thank you, and I'm done ranting.

Tell your new 40k playing friend to disregard the other one because learning the ruleset is an integral part of playing the game. You don't play a game of football and sneak a basketball onto the field to throw downrange.

Tell your old 40k friend that you don't like being a rules nazi, and its about damn time that he read the rulebook and learned what was in it so that you didn't keep having to teach him the fundamentals of how to play the game.

ZombieKoolaid wrote:Just got done convincing a friend of mine that he should try Warhammer 40k out. He loved it so much he's decided to collect a small Ork army. Well, not 30 minutes after we finish our post game discussion, I go out to get a drink and come back, and a different friend of mine, who I beat on a constant basis and for whom I held no ill will, is standing with our new Ork player, telling him not to play with me.

Why is he doing this? Is it because I don't bathe? No I shower every day. Is it because I cheat? I never cheat, and even call myself on mistakes I make. No, it's because I am a rules nazi. My friend actually said the following words, "Don't play with (name removed), it will take forever because he'll spend the whole time teaching you the rules. Any time he plays, he has to follow the rulebook to the letter."

I am sorry to have to use this forum as a vent, but If I don't I WILL go ballistic on someone or something and must get this out before I do something I'll regret. Hurt and anger are excellent descriptors of this event. Thank you, and I'm done ranting.

Well there are a couple of ways to look at this. The first is how much of a friend is this person really if he is saying things like this behind your back? Maybe he does not see it as hurtful but he should be up front about it with you. Another way to look is inward. I don't think playing by the rules is a bad thing but are you obsessive about making people prove out everything they do by showing you the rules for their units etc even when they are correct. What I am saying is that do you slow the game down needlessly? Ask the guy what he meant. He may not have a leg to stand on but if you find out that everyone in the club thinks you are a pain to play there might be something to it. If no one else has a problem playing you and you only question thing that truly need questioning and don't nit pick every move and phase of the game etc. just ignore him and let him know what he was saying was unfounded and not cool with you.

It depends on the place you play. Some people aren't interested in playing competitively, don't care if they're following the rules to the letter, and just want to throw a few dice about to relax.

Sometimes I play like this, and it sours the aptmosphere when someone is always interrupting the action to interject with 'no, those terminators scattered and were destroyed, you must end the battle in anticlimax rather than letting it go' or 'grots can't do that, they don't have DCCW!'

Dashofpepper, thank you. Nice cat hat by the way.

Alas, however, as the first piece of advise you have given me is solid, the second being equally so, my old 40k friend has one major problem. Anytime anyone tries to explain in any way how he could possibly be wrong, he blows up and gets butt hurt. Or yells so he can be right by being loudest, THEN gets butt hurt.

And the problem is, with me being in the military, the few people in my 40k circle as there are, this guy has been sowing the seeds of dissent among my other friends for some time now. As the player with the largest army, now close to approx. 7000 points in SM, he has convinced them I'm a lame player because I can't win without that much diversity. When I disagree and offer to play the same list for a solid week, I'm lame because I can't win without using THAT list.

I'm at the point where I won't give up the hobby, but I may spend a good solid month just painting and basing units. My defeat comes at the hand of a backstabber. Had I a weaker man I'd quit, but George Patton said, "I'll never respect a man who loses and smiles, because the thought of losing is hateful to Americans."

I know, I probably butchered that quote to high hell, but the point is made.

Sounds like you might need to find a new place to play that is more in line with how you want to play. If your current group is sucking the fun out of the game for you it is time to move on. Plus it is really sounding more and more like he is not much of a friend. Just saying...

Talk to the FLGS owner then. With the other person present. Explain everything you just said about this individual person sucking the fun out of the game and attempting to destroy the local gaming group.

If you dont like the rules why play? some people are lax with them some arnt tell your friend this but yes it is best to learn the rules. When I play I also follow my codex to the letter. Some people try to throw in their own special rules sometimes when they have units that have special rules that they made for it um nope if I decide the rule that they want to put into play with their model is unfair I wont let them play the rule only the ones from the codex for that model.

I have the same issue dude.

The problem with games like this (well all games really), is that there are rules set out. Some of the rules suck, some of them are really good rules, but whether you like it or not you have to play by the rules presented, which creates people like us, 'Rules Nazis.'

I made a post awhile ago about some kid having the biggest case of nerd rage I've ever seen about a tabletop game, to the point of him removing his army from the table because he didn't want to declare his saves in a complex unit. He acted like this wasn't a big deal, but it is a big deal when I'm shooting lascannons at his Broadside unit, but that is a specific story for another day.

The rules are presented to create a game that is fair (or as fair as intended) and if you pick and choose you'll have an incomplete game being played.

My advice is to tell the friend trying to start beef to stop being a girl and get over his issues, and start to play the game as intended or quit. Tell your new friend that he can either play with you teaching him the rules, or borrow your rulebook so he can read the rules himself; and explain to both of them that this game is supposed to be about fun not egos (sadly it turns into peen wars though).

kaptaink wrote:The problem with games like this (well all games really), is that there are rules set out. Some of the rules suck, some of them are really good rules, but whether you like it or not you have to play by the rules presented

No you don't. Who's forcing you to? Houserule the stuff that sucks, the Rules Police aren't going to swoop down on you.

Rube wrote:

kaptaink wrote:The problem with games like this (well all games really), is that there are rules set out. Some of the rules suck, some of them are really good rules, but whether you like it or not you have to play by the rules presented

No you don't. Who's forcing you to? Houserule the stuff that sucks, the Rules Police aren't going to swoop down on you.

Then don't whine about people wanting to play 'by the book' vs people who want to 'house rule.' I play by the book, if I didn't want to play with the rules presented I wouldn't play.

He's starting with Orks, right? What's the problem, I think Ork-players (which I am proud to be) are playing by the rule just because we have great rules! We are the only players who laugh when our trukks fall apart because they are ramshackle. We are the only ones who giggle when our Tankbustas Glory Hogs the Sentinel when we would rather have them stick a stool pill up the Leman Russ. And by God, when my Big Mek get's teleported by his Shokk Attack Gun into the midst of Assault Termies, I say bravo! Why? Because it's fun!

What were we talking about again?

I'm a rules nazi myself.

I had an argument with a good friend of mine durring our last game about wound allocation. I guess he either never truely understood how it worked or it was never an issue, but when I caused eight wounds on his five model unit he tried applying all eight wounds to only the two models my firing unit could see. When I corrected him he tried arguing it to the point of exhaustion. Even when I read the excerpt from the rulebook, he persisted on arguing it.

Bottom line... There's nothing wrong with being a rules nazi. We're the ones that see the rules of the game are followed.

kaptaink wrote:

Rube wrote:

kaptaink wrote:The problem with games like this (well all games really), is that there are rules set out. Some of the rules suck, some of them are really good rules, but whether you like it or not you have to play by the rules presented

No you don't. Who's forcing you to? Houserule the stuff that sucks, the Rules Police aren't going to swoop down on you.

Then don't whine about people wanting to play 'by the book' vs people who want to 'house rule.' I play by the book, if I didn't want to play with the rules presented I wouldn't play.

I wasn't 'whining' about anything, thank you. I said that his club might not be interested in playing 'by the book', so he probably shouldn't play the rules nazi there.

If someone wants to follows the rules to the letter, they'd read the rulebook. It's not hard to do. If you have to constantly correct your fellow gamers of the correct rules, chances are they don't care. If they didn't care enough to read the rulebook, they're not going to suddenly care when you correct them. And you're probably not making any friends by slowing the action down.

ZombieKoolaid wrote:Dashofpepper, thank you. Nice cat hat by the way.

Alas, however, as the first piece of advise you have given me is solid, the second being equally so, my old 40k friend has one major problem. Anytime anyone tries to explain in any way how he could possibly be wrong, he blows up and gets butt hurt. Or yells so he can be right by being loudest, THEN gets butt hurt.

And the problem is, with me being in the military, the few people in my 40k circle as there are, this guy has been sowing the seeds of dissent among my other friends for some time now. As the player with the largest army, now close to approx. 7000 points in SM, he has convinced them I'm a lame player because I can't win without that much diversity. When I disagree and offer to play the same list for a solid week, I'm lame because I can't win without using THAT list.

I'm at the point where I won't give up the hobby, but I may spend a good solid month just painting and basing units. My defeat comes at the hand of a backstabber. Had I a weaker man I'd quit, but George Patton said, "I'll never respect a man who loses and smiles, because the thought of losing is hateful to Americans."

I know, I probably butchered that quote to high hell, but the point is made.

I know exactly what you are talking about, I have a few friends who are on short fuses when it comes to losing or rules translations. It really bothers me because
1. Its just a game.
2. They ruin everybody's good time.
3. Maybe their units are getting killed because they are an arsehat with absolutely no strategic intelligence.

I guess I have experienced the other side of this sort of thing.

I have a very good friend who is also a long time 40k player, he is a great guy but absolutely has to win regardless of the situation. I rarely get a game in (sometimes months between games) therefor it is only natural that my grasp of the rules is basic, when he does offer to play me I remind him of the fact I am a little shakey with the rules so to bear with me.
Now I appreciate that it is up to me to get to know the rules, but reading a book will only take you so far, practical experience is key.
As such we normaly agree that we will take things slowly and he will help me out. This usualy happens up until turn two or things look like I may actualy be getting somewhere. At this point he will use a combination of being deliberately obtuse when I ask for guidance down to a very creative interpretation of both general and codex specific rules to ensure he has the other hand.
I have asked other mutual friends about this and they have all said that he is the same with them so they just don't play him any more.
I feel bad because he enjoys gaming but at the same time I really can't stand playing against him, not because I always lose but because I know before setting up there is almost no chance of winning.

To the OP, I think that it's great that you take the time to talk through the rules with less experienced gamers, regardless of what house rules you want to use and which book rules you choose to enforce or ignore everyone has to learn the rules as they are written first, otherwise we would just be lining up our armies and shouting "pew pew" whilst we let the flip of a coin decide the outcome of a battle.

@OP: Tell your friend to wind his head in and to stop killing your local gaming group. It's hard enough to find players as it is.
To an extent, you need to be a rules nazi with new players, because they need to learn the rules. I my local group, I've recruited a few friends of mine, and the easiest way I've found to get the rules nailed down is to constantly police them on them. the rules have been made to work well, the least you can do is use them.

ZombieKoolaid wrote:
Alas, however, as the first piece of advise you have given me is solid, the second being equally so, my old 40k friend has one major problem. Anytime anyone tries to explain in any way how he could possibly be wrong, he blows up and gets butt hurt. Or yells so he can be right by being loudest, THEN gets butt hurt.

And the problem is, with me being in the military, the few people in my 40k circle as there are, this guy has been sowing the seeds of dissent among my other friends for some time now.

Punch your "friend" in the face... hard.

If he complains that it hurt alot, call him a whiner.

If he threatens to take legal action against you (civil or criminal), call him a rule nazi and a hipocrite.

Hopefully he will get the point and understand that RULES exist for a reason.

I have rather unique policies on rules lawering. If it is in the codex, it is maleable, does the DH book really have that many stupid contradictions? If it's a house rule, fine, proxies?as many as you like, going against the core rules? NO. If they are new, I will introduce them into the headache that is 5th ED wound allocation, aloww them to either re-roll it, or I let them choose wich models they remove themselves. If they do it again, I choose what models get removed. Learn your core rules, pepole! I am a forgiving guy, I like to think, and I have played so much that, really, I could beat just about anybody in the store with almost any army 60% of the time, to say nothing of my own forces, like hell I need to even build a competitive list any more, let alone be an unrelenting pedant about everything. I have enough reasons for pepole not to play me, being a jerk hardly needs to be added.
Wait, what was the topic again?

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:Punch your "friend" in the face... hard.

If he complains that it hurt alot, call him a whiner.

If he threatens to take legal action against you (civil or criminal), call him a rule nazi and a hipocrite.

Hopefully he will get the point and understand that RULES exist for a reason.

Are you seriously suggesting that he get arrested for assault... to prove a point about rules? Not to mention that this makes no logical sense whatsoever. The law and 40k rules have nothing in common. The law exists to stop people from punching you in the face, and 40k rules exist so you can relax and have a bit of fun throwing dice about. If you have more fun following the rules only loosely you're perfectly entitled to do that, because the 40k rules only ever existed for you to have fun with, unlike the law.

You guys must've spent a lot of time standing in the corner at parties, muttering becaues no-one is following your carefully laid-out list of activities for the evening.


editted to be less needlessly offensive :O

As long as you're not TFG when it comes to rules, the advice that everybody else has given is pretty good.

For example: My local group lets me run my BT Land Raiders as if they had the Assault Vehicle rule. House-rule? Totally. Makes sense? Yes. No problems.

On the other hand, we're pretty strict with the rest of the ruleset.

I believe in the letter AND spirit of the rules. I don't think it's necessary to play the 'loophole' game that's what I consider rules lawyering, then the letter is imprecise but the spirit is obvious.

Short of that, it is a steep learning curve for a newcomer, so of course games will be long and drawn out as you explain certain concepts to them before they make their move and guide them towards understanding the game. I do not see that as a problem. Ever put a metal dreadnought in a sock and thwacked someone on the head with it? Just a thought for how to handle your old-schooley bud while still having attention to teach the new guy. It's a quick fix. Probably don't do that but it's a funny thought. nerds don't hit back...

Rube wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting that he get arrested for assault... to prove a point about rules? Not to mention that this makes no logical sense whatsoever. The law and 40k rules have nothing in common. The law exists to stop people from punching you in the face, and 40k rules exist so you can relax and have a bit of fun throwing dice about. If you have more fun following the rules only loosely you're perfectly entitled to do that, because the 40k rules only ever existed for you to have fun with, unlike the law.

You guys must've spent a lot of time standing in the corner at parties, muttering becaues no-one is following your carefully laid-out list of activities for the evening.

If his friend would honestly press charges for assault, then he isnt a friend at all.

If your friends would press assault charges against you for punching you in the face when you were being an ass, then you don't have many tru-

It's a lesson, it's a metaphor, call it what you will, it is a way to gut check donkey-caves. I'm not saying "punch him in the face whenever he disagrees with you", I'm saying the "Punch in the face" lesson works best for people who don't understand why rules are important (not just in 40k).

Let me spell out the example for those who don't seem to get it.

Billy, Jack, and Martin are part of a group. Billy has a clear understanding of the rule book. Jack has read most of the rule book, but he plays to win, and as such, will fudge the rules now and then when its adventageous to him. Martin is brand new.

Billy tells Martin to read the rules to have a clear understanding, Jack says not to worry about it and just play him instead of wasting time reading a "book of guidlines" (anyone who calls the BGB a series of Guidlines is most likely just trying to cheat, personal pet peeve of mine.) A few hours later, Martin tells Billy Warhammer is not for him, due to how badly Jack crushed him. After discussion, Billy realises that Jack specifically omitted some very important rules that would have probably helped Martin. (Such as Hull Down, TLoS. Certain Specific USRs, etc). Martin gets pissed "Really, people intentionally CHEAT in this glorified 'Chess game' especially against a BRAND NEW PLAYER.' and storms off. Billy asks Jack why he refuses to follow the rules, and if he is unsure about something, to at least look it up. Jack says "You are a rules Nazi, some rules were meant to be broken, besides, its not like it hurt anything". Billy says, "Assault is against the law" Billy then punches Jack in the face... Hard. Jack says "Wtf man, that hurt!" Billy just smiles.

Moral of the story? When you arbitrarily break the rules when you see fit, someone will inevitably get hurt.

I'm not going to strike my friend, but after my post I did come up with a simple solution. I went with him to our FLGS and he ASSUMED we would be playing each other there. Upon entry, I immediately challenged one of the red shirts to a 2k game, since he was off work that day but in the store to hang out. He accepted, and we commenced play. My friend found a game himself on the adjacent table.

Our particular play group is know to be engaged in "nerd fights" over the rules. Well, the red shirt and I were both excellent sportsman the whole game and had a fantastic battle, (his Chaos vs my salamanders), and we did not argue once during the entire game, which tied at 9 to 9 kill points.

In contrast, my friend ended up playing a game and watching as all these things he said about me were proven WRONG. I plan on repeating this particular strategem as many times as neccessary until the following words exit his pie hole, "Why don't you play with me any more?"

At this point I will calmly explain his child like behavior and basically tell him if he doesn't fix himself, I'm not going to do it for him. I'll just find different folks to play with, no matter the cost.

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:

Rube wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting that he get arrested for assault... to prove a point about rules? Not to mention that this makes no logical sense whatsoever. The law and 40k rules have nothing in common. The law exists to stop people from punching you in the face, and 40k rules exist so you can relax and have a bit of fun throwing dice about. If you have more fun following the rules only loosely you're perfectly entitled to do that, because the 40k rules only ever existed for you to have fun with, unlike the law.

You guys must've spent a lot of time standing in the corner at parties, muttering becaues no-one is following your carefully laid-out list of activities for the evening.

If his friend would honestly press charges for assault, then he isnt a friend at all.

If your friends would press assault charges against you for punching you in the face when you were being an ass, then you don't have many tru-

It's a lesson, it's a metaphor, call it what you will, it is a way to gut check donkey-caves. I'm not saying "punch him in the face whenever he disagrees with you", I'm saying the "Punch in the face" lesson works best for people who don't understand why rules are important (not just in 40k).

Let me spell out the example for those who don't seem to get it.

Billy, Jack, and Martin are part of a group. Billy has a clear understanding of the rule book. Jack has read most of the rule book, but he plays to win, and as such, will fudge the rules now and then when its adventageous to him. Martin is brand new.

Billy tells Martin to read the rules to have a clear understanding, Jack says not to worry about it and just play him instead of wasting time reading a "book of guidlines" (anyone who calls the BGB a series of Guidlines is most likely just trying to cheat, personal pet peeve of mine.) A few hours later, Martin tells Billy Warhammer is not for him, due to how badly Jack crushed him. After discussion, Billy realises that Jack specifically omitted some very important rules that would have probably helped Martin. (Such as Hull Down, TLoS. Certain Specific USRs, etc). Martin gets pissed "Really, people intentionally CHEAT in this glorified 'Chess game' especially against a BRAND NEW PLAYER.' and storms off. Billy asks Jack why he refuses to follow the rules, and if he is unsure about something, to at least look it up. Jack says "You are a rules Nazi, some rules were meant to be broken, besides, its not like it hurt anything". Billy says, "Assault is against the law" Billy then punches Jack in the face... Hard. Jack says "Wtf man, that hurt!" Billy just smiles.

Moral of the story? When you arbitrarily break the rules when you see fit, someone will inevitably get hurt.

Ketara wrote:

ya got meh!

You were a little too obvious about it Ren.

I'm still laughing that Rube fell for it though. You can tell when someone's new to the internet.

a moderator wrote:No swearing in pictures please.

Wow. Well, I hope your strategy works and that your friend eventually thanks you for trying to teach him the rules (and the importance of following them). Hey, you're in the military dude so there are a bunch of scenarios you could throw at him if he keeps being an idiot (mine would be "Hey man, if the SSgt told you to do this, would you pretend to do it and then just find a way to skate the rest of the day out? No. Because you'd get an asschewing.").

It just boggled my mind that a fellow military member would say stuff about another serviceman who is *gasp* following the rules. Our entire military existence is governed by rules. Get a haircut every week. Shave every morning. Go PT every other day (or whatever the Platoon Sgt says). This guy should have no problem following the rules.

I am not gonna call your friend a dirt-bag because I don't know him but jesus christ.

Firesolved wrote:Get a haircut every week. Shave every morning.

WTF?!?! You have to do that and get shot at?!? Screw the goverment they're asking WAY too much much of our boys...