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Seeing how much traffic went through the 'model molester' thread, I was curious to hear folks tales of woe as they related to poor sportsman/gamesmanship...


I've personnally encountered a kid during an in-store GW tourney (Geneva Commons, approx 10 months ago) whose Tyranids had every upgrade he needed, exactly when needed.
His list was a hastily scrawled on crumpled notebook paper and was just numbers, not letters.

In the end I let it go, but still pulled a draw. I'm in my 30's and challenging a kid over his list isn't really going to teach him anything... but neither would him winning in my opinion.
I got lower end blister pack out of it, and he cried after the final 3 way match until he got one too. Black Shirt was a big softy, bless him.



On the other end, I heard an urban legend of sorts. At a GD tourney maybe back around 98-99, during the final match, a player was taking way too long in his movement phase. Allegedly staring at the table for several minutes before making any moves.

His opponent didn't care for this and allegedly placed an innapropriate item on the table top... one that could be followed with 'indecent exposure' charges.

Anyone else ever hear of this?? Any validity?



Another one, a high school kid was outplayed and out-rolled. Flat out routed. And so he went into some sort of a barely controlled nerd-rage! He knocked several boxes of models off the shelves before a good Red-Shirt friend of mine had to take him outside and talk him down from what looked like a manic episode or anxiety attack... Coincidently, he was playing Blood Angels, so it could have just been the Black Rage!



Edited once because I'm a big dummy.

I would say the worst in my experience was during a local tourney when a necron player failed every 'we will be back roll' and armor save for almost a whole turn grabbed up all his dice, and some of the other players dice that was too close ran out side the store and threw them all onto traffic screaming and cursing the whole way. When he returned he picked up his monolith and smashed it to the ground. The true irony of this is that he had done something similar when he played in a local roleplaying group he threw his dice so hard it cracked a window.

He has since been informed to find another venue to play at.

The best sportsmanship I have seen was when after a large tourney the winner, a guy bout 17-19 gave up his free battleforce box to a new player so he could get better started in his army.

I saw a guy playing IG against Death Guard in 3rd in a city fight game, fail to do any damage shooting in four turns. So upset was he he stomped on a unit og guard and threw his basilisk against the wall. Shortly thereafter, he bought some glue and went to fixing that mistake.

The worst i have seen would be a 13 year old kid i played casually. He got so mad when i blew up his only hammerhead he picked up all his stuff and called his mommy and never returned to the store. The best is a guy who helped explain his army before i played him how it worked. I then almost beat him had i taken out more of his skimmer tanks. Then after he helped me by telling me what i could do to build a better list.

my very first game of warhammer 40k when i was younger i lost horribly with my beloved orks barely taking out 5 of his genestealers.
he also used these rules i didnt understand at the time i started tearing up and all the modles that died i would put back in my box

It's kind of nice when someone destroys you, but takes time after the game to say "Hey, I noticed you did this but against an army like mine, you might want to try THIS instead."

Worse example was a Tau player who lost horribly against an Eldar player and later in the day decided to steal the Eldar player's army as revenge (someone saw him leave with the armycase). He never showed up to the store again and pretty much was banned and later got tossed out of basically every gaming store in the area for stealing not only merchandise but one other player's army.

Elthrai wrote:The best sportsmanship I have seen was when after a large tourney the winner, a guy bout 17-19 gave up his free battleforce box to a new player so he could get better started in his army.

That truly is impressive. Bravo to him.

JonnyDelta wrote:On the other end, I heard an urban legend of sorts. At a GD tourney maybe back around 98-99, during the final match, a player was taking way too long in his movement phase. Allegedly staring at the table for several minutes before making any moves.

His opponent didn't care for this and allegedly placed an innapropriate item on the table top... one that could be followed with 'indecent exposure' charges.

Anyone else ever hear of this?? Any validity?

That is no urban legend. I can verify this as both an attendee and witness from a few tables down. Mike Mutscheller and I were playing in the Chicago GT 1998. I was on table one and Mike was on table two. The inappropriate item was placed on table four or five for the exact reason indicated. In two hours, they had only got through 2 1/2 turns of play. All anyone heard in the area was "Oh yeah - well why don't you suck on this!!!" Overall - not a good site at our first GT.

Like the birth of Slaanesh - that incident was the birthing pains of sportsmanship, which was added the following year as part of the scoring for the events.

EDIT: BTW - I now feel old knowing that I was witness to an urban legend. And I'm only 36!!!

Many moons ago, at the first GW in Toronto Canada, the then manager was a megalomaniac who ruled the store like his own personal fief. He was the worst loser ever. He'd lose to someone and then ban them from the store on some BS shoplifting accusations, etc. He made a 13 year old kid cry because he bought the then new Rat ogres at another shop and nick-named him "Little Horus:the Traitor". He was a real piece of work. Anyway, there is one example that stands out in my mind. The store had a Bloodbowl season and during the play-offs, he was playing in what ended up being his last game. One of his linemen failed to tackle a guy, he picked him up off of the board, yelled "You failed me for the last time!" threw the figure to the floor and ground it into the floor with his boot. When he lost the game, he went into the back and smashed every single figure on the team. No one was allowed to play Bloodbowl for one month in the store after the finals game. What a tool.

As a general rule, I have found that there are more "good" sports than "bad". If it were the opposite, I don't think anyone would play.

lolz, never heard of anyone literally whipping their gak out on the table. That's amazing.

Worst sportsmanship I'd ever seen was when I was playing my Dark Elves against against Slaaneshi WoC. He managed to maneuver into my left flank with a big block of Warriors lead by Sigvald. He flank charged my Hydra which was anchoring and was getting ready to roll up my army. He put 7 wounds on the Hydra and I passed all my Regen saves then ate his front rank. My opponent then calmly put down his dice, shook my hand and forfeited the game because my Black Guard were poised to roll him up. Afterward we had a pleasant discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of WoC, then played another game to a draw.

worst sportsmanship i've ever seen was done by me....

I was playing my new necron army. My opponent decided it would be fun to play against me with his nidzilla army. I was fighting 5 monstrous creatures with 2+ saves, and 3 with 3+ saves. of course, I have nothing that can do jack to this, so i'm loosing badly. my nightbringer takes out out, then he tries to shoot it with a tyrant... he does 5 wounds... I fail 5 saves. Nightbringer is dead.

So I calmly say good game, and start to pack up my stuff. My opponent says "dude, its not over! you can still win! don't worry!"

so at this point I kinda snap. I say "oh? I can win? OK THEN! feth YEA! CLOSE COMBAT NECRONS FOR THE fething WINNNNNN" and charged all his fexes with my necron warriors. I then was wiped out completely, and finished packing up.

yea... it was a wierd game. and the last time I ever played my necrons.

hinch1 wrote:It's kind of nice when someone destroys you, but takes time after the game to say "Hey, I noticed you did this but against an army like mine, you might want to try THIS instead."

Like in the UFC, after two guys bloody the mat with eachothers faces - they hug it out.

Fascinating and honorable.

inquisitor_malice wrote:Like the birth of Slaanesh - that incident was the birthing pains of sportsmanship.

Slaanesh... that quote works on So Many levels in this instance lol...

And don't feel bad I'm 32, and heard about it days after it happened... Even though I live less than an hour away. Knew I should have gone!

Best Sportsmanship involved when me and an opponent of mine (Didn't know him personally) were playing a game, he was new to his Wood Elves, and I personally showed him what he should do in a certain situation (I.E. So you see that my Corsairs are threatening your Glade Guard? What you want to do is interject a unit of Glade Riders, or some other type of fast cavalry unit, and when the Corsairs charge, elect to flee)

In turn, he was a much better painter than me and I received many helpful tips.

The worst sportsmanship I had was another Fantasy player, who played High Elves (I played Dark Elves, ironically) and he kept abusing the rules (I.E. My Character has a 1+ save, unless you have S4 you can't hurt him.

Good sportsmanship is when they wanna go halfsies on the pizza.

Alcohol+Warhammer=Nerdfight

Cryonicleech wrote:Best Sportsmanship involved when me and an opponent of mine (Didn't know him personally) were playing a game, he was new to his Wood Elves, and I personally showed him what he should do in a certain situation (I.E. So you see that my Corsairs are threatening your Glade Guard? What you want to do is interject a unit of Glade Riders, or some other type of fast cavalry unit, and when the Corsairs charge, elect to flee)

In turn, he was a much better painter than me and I received many helpful tips.

The worst sportsmanship I had was another Fantasy player, who played High Elves (I played Dark Elves, ironically) and he kept abusing the rules (I.E. My Character has a 1+ save, unless you have S4 you can't hurt him.

To be fair to the High Elf player, he would have been right three editions ago. He might have been trying it on, or he might have just been out of date.

Absolute worst Sportsmanship I've ever witnessed? Probably when our local TFG actually put on feinting, following an illadvised parking of a Bretonnian Bus next to a unit of Chaos Dwarf Blunderbuss (Blunderbi?). When the smoke cleared, the whole unit had been killed. TFG clutches his head, whimpers, and keels over. We just pointed and laughed.

Big'Uns wrote:Good sportsmanship is when they wanna go halfsies on the pizza.

Alcohol+Warhammer=Nerdfight

Totally off-topic, but a fine user-name sir =D

While someone throwing a little tantrum or being a rules nazi might be annoying.
Every time I play a model gets broken, someone gets angry and eventually someones Un's end up on the table.
wanting to eat pizza that you did not pay for however is just downright rude.

How's that off topic?

And I challange you to contest my Nerdfight formula.

1 drink per player turn and see if you can make it through a whole game without an argument.

Free food for me = good !

avantgarde wrote:Worst sportsmanship I'd ever seen was when I was playing my Dark Elves against against Slaaneshi WoC. He managed to maneuver into my left flank with a big block of Warriors lead by Sigvald. He flank charged my Hydra which was anchoring and was getting ready to roll up my army. He put 7 wounds on the Hydra and I passed all my Regen saves then ate his front rank. My opponent then calmly put down his dice, shook my hand and forfeited the game because my Black Guard were poised to roll him up. Afterward we had a pleasant discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of WoC, then played another game to a draw.

How is that poor sportsmanship? That guy actually sounds like quite a good sport to me, especially if your discussion after the match was truly pleasant. If you've clearly lost a game, it's good manner to concede, especially if it means that you'll be able to play another game instead of drawing out the current one. In a tournament situation, especially one with secondary objectives, conceding the match is undesirable, but in a friendly game it seems preferable.

14 year old in my club who throws dice when he loses.

This is followed by a two-week suspension (during which he is not welcome to attend the club). He used to do this regularly - I saw him perhaps 6 times last year (we meet weekly).

This is the "soft" penalty. We hire a local sportsclub boardroom for our club meets. Were a club rep to see it, he would be banned for life.


A good sport buys ME a beer when he is losing.
A better one buys me one when I'm losing.

Fetterkey wrote:

avantgarde wrote:Worst sportsmanship I'd ever seen was when I was playing my Dark Elves against against Slaaneshi WoC. He managed to maneuver into my left flank with a big block of Warriors lead by Sigvald. He flank charged my Hydra which was anchoring and was getting ready to roll up my army. He put 7 wounds on the Hydra and I passed all my Regen saves then ate his front rank. My opponent then calmly put down his dice, shook my hand and forfeited the game because my Black Guard were poised to roll him up. Afterward we had a pleasant discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of WoC, then played another game to a draw.

How is that poor sportsmanship? That guy actually sounds like quite a good sport to me, especially if your discussion after the match was truly pleasant. If you've clearly lost a game, it's good manner to concede, especially if it means that you'll be able to play another game instead of drawing out the current one. In a tournament situation, especially one with secondary objectives, conceding the match is undesirable, but in a friendly game it seems preferable.

Yes, I'd say that he was being a good sport. I see no problem with him conceding if he knew he had no chance whatsoever at even pulling a minor loss, and I know what it's like to lose something that important in a game and give up; it's happened a few times when I was playing MTG and lost my three most important cards that my whole deck was centered around in one turn and had no chance of retrieving them, nor could I have pulled anything good out of my deck. I just sighed and conceded.

Be thankful he wasn't the rampaging kind of loser.

Big'Uns wrote:

How's that off topic?

And I challange you to contest my Nerdfight formula.

1 drink per player turn and see if you can make it through a whole game without an argument.

I think he meant his statement about your name was offtopic

Oh.. apparently my forum ettiquete has dissolved over the past decade.

The punishment I get for going outside...

Netiquette is the proper term

Oh no... It's getting worse...

One lousy post and i have thrown this thread completely off topic.

I'm going back outside

Big'Uns wrote:Oh.. apparently my forum ettiquete has dissolved over the past decade.

The punishment I get for going outside...

Yeah, you got it, no issue at all with what you had to say =) As for going outside, it happens to the best of us at times ;-)

Many years back I was playing a game with my IG against Orks, I knew the guy from school but we were more aquaintences than friends, I got suspicious when he said we had to keep our dice seperate, he was rolling a lot of sixes and i was getting a lot of ones. Turned out he had loaded dice. When i worked this out and challenged him, he threw a tantrum and stormed off. Tit.

Once long ago this guy was beating an Ork player pretty badly in 40K. He then proceeded to take out the guys Warboss and began the over-exaggerated dry hump of the table while loudly saying "CAN....YOU.....FEEL.....THAT! DO....YOU....LIKE....THAT!"