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While investigating other clubs abroad, I found one I was interested in playing with. However, they told me that for competitive events they do not allow digital codexes. The rep I spoke to claimed that they were too easy to alter and far too easy to distribute once so altered, so they just didn't allow them. Has anyone else ever heard of such a rule? I'd like to save a dollar and a dime, but now I'm worried that buying digital editions might prevent me from playing in tournaments.

To clarify, this way the policy of the club running the event, not the local store they play in.

No, I can't say I have, and that is an incredibly stupid line of reasoning from the part of the organizers.

Can't say I don't understand their reasoning... the things some people do to win...

I’ve heard that sentiment from the guy who runs my FLGS. I know for a while he didn’t allow dataslates. I think everything is OK to play now. It never really affected me, as I didn’t use anything besides my codex, which is the GW hardback.

One club I play at banned digital codices, not because of tampering, but because they didn't want people to bring laptopts, tablets, etc.. and break them on the premises (and hold them responsible).

They've since relaxed that rule.

If it's a well run tournament I'd expect them to have all the codexes to check whether you are doing something untoward. Personally I think that's poor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shandara wrote:
One club I play at banned digital codices, not because of tampering, but because they didn't want people to bring laptopts, tablets, etc.. and break them on the premises (and hold them responsible).

They've since relaxed that rule.

glad they've relaxed it because you wouldn't want a club to treat you like an adult.

Haven't heard of it, but it is a legitimate concern. I could easily alter any of my digital codex. I could also just as easily alter an army builder or battle scribe army list too.

Yes you could easily alter it. But hey, if the organizers have a copy they can check it. Like with any other codex.

I think the organizers are just a couple of guys, and they don't own all the dexes.

If I altered a codex you probably could see my hand writing compared to the typed font. Maybe you should just ban anyone who works in IT. That would leave only me and I might win a match for a change.

Never heard of it happening; seems as though if someone were trying to cheat so much, they should probably just be kicked out of the tournament.

I can't imagine this being enough of a concern to warrant any kind of rule against it. I ONLY have digital codex and rules so I guess I am out. Seems dumb to me.

This sounds ridiculous. Never heard of a rule like that

I'm very surprised by this.

I guess the one positive thing you can take away from such an odd ruling is that you know you should probably avoid playing there. Either the people who attend that event cheat so badly that they'd be willing to alter a codex in order to win, or the people running it are so paranoid about their player base that they have to go out of the way to impose insane restrictions.

Either way, it's a clear signal that this is an event you're not going to want to attend. They made it easy for you, in a way.

Yes, it's easy to modify a digital codex. It's also trivial to notice that it has been modified.

How do they verify army lists? Since they don't own all the codexes, do they just trust each army list is okay? Army Builder, Battlescribe, pen and paper, Word... there isn't an "official" method of generating army lists that doesn't allow tampering of the source files so there's literally no difference there.

With the quality of some of the digital offerings, I could see it easy to confuse official product with fan-made stuff. Especially when they are shoveling out loads of it. For a more casual setting, where people might not be 100% on top of what’s out there, I could see restricting it.

I’d like to think that nobody would go as far as to doctor digital files, but could see a “better safe then sorry” approach.

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve heard that sentiment from the guy who runs my FLGS. I know for a while he didn’t allow dataslates. I think everything is OK to play now. It never really affected me, as I didn’t use anything besides my codex, which is the GW hardback.

I have to ask... what does he do for people who's armies do not *have* a physical Codex?

 Psienesis wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve heard that sentiment from the guy who runs my FLGS. I know for a while he didn’t allow dataslates. I think everything is OK to play now. It never really affected me, as I didn’t use anything besides my codex, which is the GW hardback.

I have to ask... what does he do for people who's armies do not *have* a physical Codex?

I know SoB has been played without a problem. A lot of new stuff has been slowly incorporated into the “allowed” list. I think the sentiment (and statement) came from last year when there was just a lot of digital stuff being chucked out there. Overall, we’re slow adopters. When something new comes out, we like a little time to talk about it, evaluate it, and test it before giving it a stamp of approval and general OK for our friendly tournaments. It’s not just digital either, but things like FW, 2xFOCs (when that was an issue) LoWs, D weapons, void shields, massive fortifications, etc.

I’m not saying it’s good to ban all digital products with a sweeping statement. To be honest, I’m not sure anything has ever been turned down once it’s been shown to be legit and given a once over. But I know the concept of “I’m not sure what’s what out there anymore, let’s stick to books we can see” is not unique. With most things of this nature, education and exposure make people more comfortable with the rules. But I can see someone running a game not wanting to be blindsided with something new, and only have the say-so of someone showing them a print out to work with.

I'm also a little curious, what would happen if you printed out a copy of your digital codex? Other than GW losing another lawsuit, of course.

I mean, you'd have a paper copy, just like they wanted.

 Simo429 wrote:
If it's a well run tournament I'd expect them to have all the codexes to check whether you are doing something untoward. .

That's fine for those rules issues that actually wind up with a judge being called.

From my experience, the vast majority of tournament rules issues that aren't settled by one player saying 'It works like this and the other player saying 'ok!' are handled by a quick showing of the relevant codex page or FAQ.

So the TO's copy would only ever come into it if it escalates beyond that.

This represents the current state of affairs at the only FLGS in Hong Kong. No digital copies of ANY RULES are allowed in tournaments, physical copies only, and print outs of digital editions are not allowed either. This makes it particularly difficult to play LotD, as I am inclined to do.

Their reasoning is not only along the lines of people doctoring the digital codices (which as stated by others posts is idiotic and easily spotable - BS6 on your Firewarriors? Haaaaaaang on a minute........) but they also do it to stop illegally downloaded codices being used. This has always struck me as a bit odd, as they are essentially taking upon themselves to do GWs police work for them when they have no need to. I guess GW might threaten to stop supplying the store if they found out that majority of codices used were illegal downloads, but that seems unlikely in the extreme.

A more cynical me might have suggested that it is more fiscally self serving policy than anything else. 'Want to play in the only FLGS in HK? Buy our codices. Got the digital one? Great - you know what compliments that perfectly? A physical copy! Yay! Hell, we'll call it 'import' and charge you 100% markup too'.

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm also a little curious, what would happen if you printed out a copy of your digital codex? Other than GW losing another lawsuit, of course.

I mean, you'd have a paper copy, just like they wanted.

Last I checked, Black Library said it was okay to print out a single copy of a digital codex, and if you print another one you have to destroy the first one.

But that was like a year ago.

 Iapedus wrote:
This represents the current state of affairs at the only FLGS in Hong Kong. No digital copies of ANY RULES are allowed in tournaments, physical copies only, and print outs of digital editions are not allowed either. This makes it particularly difficult to play LotD, as I am inclined to do.

Their reasoning is not only along the lines of people doctoring the digital codices (which as stated by others posts is idiotic and easily spotable - BS6 on your Firewarriors? Haaaaaaang on a minute........) but they also do it to stop illegally downloaded codices being used. This has always struck me as a bit odd, as they are essentially taking upon themselves to do GWs police work for them when they have no need to. I guess GW might threaten to stop supplying the store if they found out that majority of codices used were illegal downloads, but that seems unlikely in the extreme.

A more cynical me might have suggested that it is more fiscally self serving policy than anything else. 'Want to play in the only FLGS in HK? Buy our codices. Got the digital one? Great - you know what compliments that perfectly? A physical copy! Yay! Hell, we'll call it 'import' and charge you 100% markup too'.

For a shop, it does make sense though. It's a business that lives on people buying their stuff from them. For their bottom line, it's irrelevant if you bought your codex directly from GW, got it from a torrent, or your 战锤 is from 淘宝. They can't tell you how to live your life, but they can enforce what's allowed at their shop to maximize revenue. After all, you can hardly expect a niche shop to subsidize the hobbies of non-customers.

Of course, it doesn't mean that what they're doing is good for business, but you shouldn't be too salty about it. Have you tried talking to the manager about how you'd like to shower him with dollars for LotD models, but won't, since you can't use the army?

 Pouncey wrote:
Last I checked, Black Library said it was okay to print out a single copy of a digital codex, and if you print another one you have to destroy the first one.

But that was like a year ago.

BL can say what they want. If it's for personal use* and you don't distribute, you can print to your heart's content.

*Laws may vary from country to country. Usually, personal use includes family and friends (limited to 10 persons).

 Thud wrote:
Of course, it doesn't mean that what they're doing is good for business, but you shouldn't be too salty about it. Have you tried talking to the manager about how you'd like to shower him with dollars for LotD models, but won't, since you can't use the army?

This shop is already my sole supplier of models, of which I have bought plenty to help with their 'bottom line'. The fact they feel the need to try and sting me for an extra copy of a codices I already own gives me more than enough reason to be salty I think - in this case, it meant buying a hard copy of the BRB, SM Codex, Sentinels of Terra Supplement, Tau Codex and of course LotD supplement which wasn't possible. Don't get me worng though, I am more than happy to support them by buying my GW products from them, as they are very friendly people, helpful in the extreme and provide a great environment for gaming - I have also managed to get around the LotD issue as their stats are in the SM codex anyway.

As for not being good business, you are quite right - this practice would probably have driven me into the arms of a competitor if one existed. That is, if the non existent competitor also allowed digital codices. Which it probably wouldn't have, if it existed. Which would have left me in the same situation. If it happened. Which it didn't.

And they probably wouldn't have had such nice scenery to use either.

 Jimsolo wrote:
While investigating other clubs abroad, I found one I was interested in playing with. However, they told me that for competitive events they do not allow digital codexes. The rep I spoke to claimed that they were too easy to alter and far too easy to distribute once so altered, so they just didn't allow them. Has anyone else ever heard of such a rule? I'd like to save a dollar and a dime, but now I'm worried that buying digital editions might prevent me from playing in tournaments.

Shops here dont accept armies played with those either, because the modfication problem and the fact that every digitial codex bought is one not bought at the store.

 Thud wrote:
Of course, it doesn't mean that what they're doing is good for business, but you shouldn't be too salty about it. Have you tried talking to the manager about how you'd like to shower him with dollars for LotD models, but won't, since you can't use the army?

Aren't LotD direct only now? So they might be able to get them in for you but they wouldn't make much money off them. I stopped buying direct only stuff from my FLGS because he said it was barely worth it for him and time and again they took several weeks to come in. I just stick to buying paints, tools and non-direct only models from my FLGS now.

I don't let people use them in big events for many reasons.

1) They are easy to alter or strait up fake.
2) The owner of the store we are playing at makes no money off of E-books so it is a big middle finger to him.
3) In long events like a RTT the batteries may run out so the rules specific to a model or unit can not be checked.
4) Liability: if you bring one and someone else breaks it or it gets dropped or any of a hundred things happen to it while your at an event I am running I or the store I am running the event at may be held liable for the damage.
5) army lists, lets face it you can make a ton of lists on a pad and break out the one that best suits the army you are facing. That is a LOT harder to pull off if your using a piece of paper that the TO can sign off on.

So while the one reason given here is easy to attack it is by far not the only reason to an these at events. The most important thing to remember is this. It's their event and as such they get to set whatever rules they want. If you think it is unfair or not a good rule, talk to them, and if your not satisfied run your own event and use whatever you want as rules.

But that's just my $0.02.

So since I play sisters, I can't play in your events barko. Thanks.

 curran12 wrote:
So since I play sisters, I can't play in your events barko. Thanks.

I want to be clear I am not banning any army just a type of publication. If your army is excluded because of that I'm sorry, but I can't make exceptions just because GW doesn't like your army enough to give it a printed codex. Also I am not banning armies or E-pubs from friendly play.

And I want to be equally clear that all of the reasons you gave are either fallacies, or are nonsensical. But hey, let's just do it one by one:

1. Care to show us some examples of faked ones? And exactly how many events have faked ones? And why is it that your events do not have the resources to check them?

2. Do your store owners also ban any models or supplies not purchased in their store as well for events?

3. Matter of personal responsibility, not a failing of the publication. After all, I can spill coffee on my codex and ruin it as well.

4. And the thousands-of-dollar value model collections?

5. And how is that any different from going on paper? Plus, this isn't even a matter of the publication, that's a matter of having an army list done electronically.