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Hello! I was playing in a Warhammer Fantasy tournament. It was described by the organizer as a "100% competitive tournament that follows only the rules of the Warhammer Fantasy Rule book". I was playing Empire and had a unit with hated so that they reroll to hits, but I forgot about it until after the combat was over. I asked if I could reroll those dice I didn't do and he said no. My opponent then forgot the magic phase when he went straight to shooting, so in response to what he did first I did not give it to him. There were about 40 of us playing.

The tournament organizer heard about this, and said if I ever not give someone their phase they forgot, that I will be kicked out of the tournament and banned because it is "someone that is completely inappropriate to do in a competitive game, is unfair because it can cost someone a game,and completely unrealistic because wizards don't just forget to cast on the battlefield. He said pretty much the same thing to the other guy.

What do you guys think? Most tournaments I have been to forbid not letting someone have a phase or rule they forgot about because of realism purposes and competitive purposes. Do the rules in the book say anything about this?

I don't believe the rules say anything particular about this but I have ran into the same kind of situation before...I am usually fine with letting them have the rules back...unless it is something that we would have to "make up" how many times he missed...in that case I would have him redo the entire attack...but i see where you are coming from, the frustration of missing something and not being able to go back to it...i think its entirely a tournament organizers call and in this case you should allow them the redo

If you've totally shipped a phase, it's hard to go back. But if he'd just moved on, reminding him he skipped it would be good sportsmanship.

Ordinarily is always let someone to back (even if it's detrimental to me) but if they had already made it clear I couldn't fix an error I wouldn't be as flexible

Depends on how far the game has moved on. But if it was the start of the shooting phase and he forgot magic, of course i'd let him go back to magic. Even after what he did, losing re-rolls is nothing compared to losing an entire phase. It would only be good sportsmanship to let him. But if it was say, the start of your next movement phase, then it would be a much harder decision and if pressed for time, i would say no. So, by rule of thumb, if it's in the same turn, i'd let him go back.

Brandens wrote:
What do you guys think? Most tournaments I have been to forbid not letting someone have a phase or rule they forgot about because of realism purposes and competitive purposes. Do the rules in the book say anything about this?

I think this is a blatant double standard. If your opponent won't let you go back and use a rule that you missed you have absolutely no obligation to let them go back and use a rule that they missed. If forgetting a phase costs someone a game then too bad, maybe they should try not to forget something important. Declining to do use some of your units is a bad strategy, but not against the rules. IMO I would never go back to that tournament because it's clearly run by TFGs.

(Of course this is assuming that they actually skipped the phase, did some other stuff, and then realized that they wanted to go back and do something different. If they just said "ok, on to shooting, wait, on to magic I mean" then you aren't being reasonable.)

Peregrine, your view is one again very black and white. Calling a TO "TFG" and yet saying you wouldn't let your opponent go back to a phase he skipped...

These things are often grey areas. It all depends how far the game had advanced, what the exact situation was... but if it was reasonable, letting them have the phase is definitely the sporting thing to do.

It's a double standard, but not a complete one.

Trying to reconstruct a specific batch of dice rolls is difficult to impossible. You'd basically re-fight the combat, which if you rolled under average the first time, is a pretty sweet deal.

Going back to allow a complete activity to occur is easier to fit in. Sure, there's a possible advantage of seeing how a unit of shooting does before casting, but there's no real logistical difficulty to just allowing a caster to cast.

As Peregrine said though, depending on the nature of the skip, it's pretty lousy to allow casting when they missed their chance, especially in an environment that's sold as 100% competitive.

TL;DR: I would never think it's approprirate to reopen a specifric set of dice rolls, but I think its often good form to allow somebody to jump back a phase when its a discrete action.

To my mind, it depends how much hassle it is to go back, and whether it will affect decisions already made.

So, rerolling hatred dice might mean that you have to re-do the whole combat (how many strike back etc.) In a strict tournament, time matters. So, your opponent would have grounds to say no.

Whether you were right to refuse the magic phase depends on how far he had gone. If he had resolved all of his shooting and then remembered he had a wizard, you'd also be within your rights to say no. On the other hand, if he just nominated a shooting unit, picked up the dice and then said "oops, forgot magic phase" and you refused to go back, that would be out of order. (in my opinion)

However, in a strict tournament, each player should be aware of the rules as written and stick to them.

As far as the rule book is concerned, remember the most important rule is to have fun. By the letter of the rule book, your opponent accidentally broke the rules by skipping a phase.

doctorludo wrote:
To my mind, it depends how much hassle it is to go back, and whether it will affect decisions already made.

This, pretty much. If going back won't break the game, I generally don't have a problem with it.

It's really up to the players involved, though. If the players are both happy to go back (or not) then there's not really any reason for the TO to get involved.

If they denied your re-roll, you were perfectly within your right to deny their forgotten phase (if they had actually started rolling dice for shooting AND casualties had already been removed). In fact, in a tournament that should be the standard. The TO made a bad call threatening to kick both of you out. He should have told you both "live and learn".

If your opponent goes straight from movement to shooting, is it wrong to assume that they intentionally skipped the magic/pskyer phase?

Another scenario: Your opponent assaults in their phase, "forgets" a rule such as hatred which gives them a higher likelihood of not killing their target squad, thus being locked in combat during your phase, where they might win combat and be free in their phase. Would you assume they forgot said rule intentionally?

 RiTides wrote:
Calling a TO "TFG" and yet saying you wouldn't let your opponent go back to a phase he skipped...

I'm calling the TO a TFG because they are a TFG. One player forgot a rule and had to just deal with the consequences of forgetting, but when their opponent forgot a rule they were told to allow them to fix their mistake or get kicked out of the tournament. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the player who forgot their magic phase just coincidentally happens to be a friend of the TO.

These things are often grey areas.

No, there really isn't any gray area in this case. You forgot to do something, too bad, accept the consequences and don't forget it again. Your opponent might be generous and allow you to go back and fix it, but you should never act like you're entitled to do it. And a player certainly shouldn't face threats of being kicked out of the tournament for not allowing their opponent to go back and correct a stupid decision.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 rryannn wrote:
Another scenario: Your opponent assaults in their phase, "forgets" a rule such as hatred which gives them a higher likelihood of not killing their target squad, thus being locked in combat during your phase, where they might win combat and be free in their phase. Would you assume they forgot said rule intentionally?

I probably wouldn't assume that it was cheating, but I'd certainly make a note of it and start questioning their honesty if they had a history of "forgetting" rules at a convenient time.

Im usually pretty cool with it but no taking back what was done already. If you forgot something we can go back and do it then move foward from there.

Tonight I had a unit of Thousand Sons with Invisibility on them, and the appropriate card right next to them after it was cast successfully in my turn. When they got charged with 5 Thunder Wolf Cavalry and my opponent rolls some quick dice looking for 4+'s to hit, he'd better redo that batch again before rolling to wound..

Also, he went straight from Movement Phase to charging with the TWC and challenging with a Wolf Lord.

Sorry, no psychic phase. That's going back too far.

I am one of the most lenient and helpful people at the store, and I hope that I am a pleasure to play against.. But if you forgot something because you are blood thirsty, whatever phase we're in that's what we're stuck in.... No going back in time.

Similarly, if I jump straight into shooting, I don't ask to go back and do my psychic phase.. Even if I do have over 600pts in psykers.. Also, as soon as I say "Your turn" after my assault phase, I don't expect anyone to let me go back in time and declare that last charge I missed.

As far as I know, there are no rules in 40k or Fantasy that address this issue.

 Peregrine wrote:

I probably wouldn't assume that it was cheating, but I'd certainly make a note of it and start questioning their honesty if they had a history of "forgetting" rules at a convenient time.

YEAH! This is how I do it.

Its usually pretty easy to go back and do it. I personally always remind my opponent of anything they forget, as winning due to a technicality is not winning at all in my opinion.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'm calling the TO a TFG because they are a TFG.

Ah, that clears it up

As I said:

 RiTides wrote:
Peregrine, your view is once again very black and white.

The OP's post is just one side of the story. I had a TO intervene at my table in a GT once, and my opponent posted his side of the story online, which happened to be very different from how I viewed it! We ended up talking about it, in conjunction with the TO, and resolved things... but from that initial post, I would've felt about the opposite from what was written. You really have no idea about the circumstances here, and things tend to get blown up after the fact in situations like this. You even made this caveat:

 Peregrine wrote:
(Of course this is assuming that they actually skipped the phase, did some other stuff, and then realized that they wanted to go back and do something different. If they just said "ok, on to shooting, wait, on to magic I mean" then you aren't being reasonable.)

You are, as you say, assuming, and have no idea if they "did some other stuff" or not. To quote the OP:

Brandens wrote:
My opponent then forgot the magic phase when he went straight to shooting, so in response to what he did first I did not give it to him. There were about 40 of us playing.

He might have simply declared he was now in the shooting phase for all you know from this statement. Therefore, your declaring the TO was unilaterally "TFG" goes against even your own earlier caveat, that it depends on the circumstances and would only be reasonable to not let them have the phase if they "did some other stuff" first.

You don't know those circumstances, and only have one very brief side of the story. What would be really interesting would be if it was a TO that posted on here, and could come on and give their account. If you have assumed (as you said) wrongly here, would you at least apologize? Because you are definitely making assumptions that aren't even in the OP. "Went straight to shooting" could mean anything.

 timofeo wrote:
Its usually pretty easy to go back and do it. I personally always remind my opponent of anything they forget, as winning due to a technicality is not winning at all in my opinion.

That's a very good statement.

At the same time, the best opponents are ones that recognize when they win by such a technicality and offer a rematch next time. Not saying that the best opponents ATTEMPT to win by technicalities, just that the nicest people understand what it is and don't brag about it if it happens. lol

 RiTides wrote:
You even made this caveat:

I did, but that doesn't mean that I think it's very likely that it happened that way. Remember that the TO's justification for allowing the OP's opponent to go back and have their magic phase was that not getting a magic phase would hurt their chances of winning too much, and it wouldn't be realistic to have wizards not casting their spells. If it had been a case of the OP's opponent saying "ok, now on to shooting, I mean magic" then the TO probably would have just said "no, he didn't actually skip the magic phase, stop being stupid".

If you have assumed (as you said) wrongly here, would you at least apologize?

Only if it turns out that the OP had blatantly lied about everything. Remember, this is a TO that threatened to kick the OP out of the tournament for not being willing to let their opponent take back a mistake. And also threatened that ban for any future incidents, in terms that pretty strongly imply that it includes any situation where a phase is missed, not just a case of "skipping" it and immediately fixing the mistake.

In a Tournament setting, it is the responsibility of the player to remember his rules. If they forget to do a phase, that is on them. If they lose the game because of it, that is their fault. It's easy to think of Warhammer, 40k specifically because that is what I play, as your soldiers. Your army. You are in command of the models and in charge of their movement and attacks. If a commander of something that matters forgets to call in artillery in war, artillery isn't called in. They don't call a cease-fire to go back to shooting artillery at one another. Even in a game, especially where the goal is to win and win more, the player should remember how to play the game correctly. They mess up, it's their fault. I know there are rules in 40k that state something has to be done at a specific time and if missed or forgotten, they can not be done retroactively. Jink is a good example. I like those rules.

In a casual game, that's where sportsmanship comes into play. Reminding a player or even going back to hit something forgotten. Especially with new armies or even newer players.

Tournaments need sportsmanship too.................
Generally I remind people of rules and phases and expect them to do it for me.

As long as nothing signifcant has happened I usually have no problem going back.

For example if I declare "Your turn" and before you do anything remember I wanted to assault that is fine.

That is a general guideline but I am more flexible on it.

Peregrine are you missing where the OP said the TO said pretty much the same thing to his opponent re: kicked from future events for not allowing the go-back? What double standard are you referring to?

The tournament organizer heard about this, and said if I ever not give someone their phase they forgot, that I will be kicked out ... He said pretty much the same thing to the other guy.

Exactly... to speculate that the OP's opponent was a friend of the TO / he was playing favorites is not born out by the text here. Re-read the OP, he seems to be more asking if allowing "mulligans" is normal in competitive events. He is nowhere saying the TO treated him differently from his opponent, as MVBrandt shows in the quote above- he said the same to them both!

You're just speculating here with no more facts than anyone else has; the facts we do have indicate the TO gave both players the same "talk" regarding their game, and treated them similarly, not that he was playing favorites.

As for the reason for the talk, maybe the game got heated, and he's just asking them to show one another more courtesy / better sportsmanship.

I'd say that in a strictly competitive setting there's no do-overs. There's a lot to be said for sportsmanship, but that works both ways, and sometimes just having to suck it up when you missed something that you should have done is part of it.

For instance, in a situation where all charges are declared, then acted upon, I once got ahead of myself and moved the first charging unit into a fun, but not tactically important combat. At that point I needed my second charging unit to clear the objective they were charging in order to turn a loss into a win. As soon as I moved into the first combat my opponent pointed out my mistake and I conceded that I had in fact just cost myself the game according to the letter of the rules.

We played it out to see what would have happened, and remembering that one simple thing would have won me the game, but when we talk about it now, I don't tell the story of how I should have lost the game. I tell the story of how I should have won the game but didn't because of one little memory lapse.

That's an excellent point, hungryp, and a great example of sportsmanship on your part!

This is one of life's little tests. If you are the kind of person who feels comfortable getting a win because your opponent forgets a rule or obvious action, then you would likely be happier playing online computer games. To me, a trophy on the wall where "dude forgot his entire shooting phase because he was tired" doesn't have the same value as one where I pulled a maneuver at a key time to win game five. Personally, I would rather win through tactics and a dash of luck, but everyone has to make their own choice on this issue. But I think it says something about the person if they are knowingly sitting their taking advantage of their opponent forgetting automatic rules to win a game.

Having said that, there are guys who I have seen intentionally rush the opposing player so that they miss or forget things, usually combined with slow play on their part. I am not saying that is what the OP did here, but it is something to consider.

The real question to me is: Did your opponent already start shooting? If yes, then no he doesn't get his missed phase. Reason being is stuff has already happened, and if he gets his desired results for his missed phase it would probably mean it would have changed the results of his shooting ect. Meaning you would have to redo shooting possibly replacing models on the table that died before. Most likely when he remembered he was doing poorly. He probably wanted a chance at some rerolls with better results. If he had granted you a chance to reroll for what you missed, then maybe I would allow it because he would essentially be doing the same thing as you. But to give him a "do over" and not you? No. Just no. The rules should apply equally to everyone. Had this been a non-tournament game then that would be a horse of another color. Honestly I think in tournaments if you miss something then tough. It is not his responsibility to remind you of what you have and can do, and it is not your responsibility to do the same. In a tournament setting if you miss something, even a phase, then tough. Doing things this way just keeps everyone honest.

Its all subjective. If my opponent forgets to roll reserves after the move phase but before he has started shooting, no issue. If he already started shooting, I have a bit more of an issue with it.

If we are in the assault phase and my opponent forgets he has an additional attack or something, but we moved past that combat, no worries, roll that extra attack. If there was an IC or odd wound allocation in the unit, it becomes a little more tricky and issues pop up.