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You see your opponent has a drop pod/deep striking army. He has first turn. You put your army in reserves. He then infiltrates along your table edge.

As the game goes on, you lose some units, but you finally tank shock onto the table...if you have vehicles. If not, you've just been tabled.

What sportsmanship score would you give on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being good....

I love the story behind this one! The image of the smug mofo who pulled it off is even better:



I'm afraid the story is old hat, but I'd probably give the guy a 1 for sportsmanship. Then again, your fault for doing an all-infiltrating gimmick.

Well, tactics are a weapon too

Can't complain because you got served.

So why a 1. Not to argue, just interested...

A tactic is a tactic.....

You leave yourself open, you sure as hell better expect your opponent to try to take advantage of it. It's not bad sportsmanship if it's making the obvious move.

I'd base the score on his actual sportsmanship rather than a brilliant display of tactics. It's not poor sport to see a challenge and counter it with ease. If you wanted a proper game then you wouldn't make that mistake against an army with a high amount of infiltrators

In fact it's probably a good idea to try to build a list with at least a way around something like this if it happens. Doesn't need to be a huge amount of the list, simply enough to punch a hole through for the others.

If that WS player had a Landspeeder or two he wouldn't have automatically lost and would probably have been able to clear space for the rest of his army. He would have equally have been in trouble if it was an objective game and the opponent placed theirs up on the third floor of a building for example, placing it over 3" away from any of his bikes making it impossible for him to capture it.

No more of a gimmick than all reserves. I'd say full points, all other things equal.

wow, apparently many of you do not know what it means to be a good sportsman, and what it means to have sportsmanship.

here:

–noun
1.
the character, practice, or skill of a sportsman.
2.
sportsmanlike conduct, as fairness, courtesy, being a cheerful loser, etc.

as many of you are pointing out; his practice or skill is not in question! And there is already a scoring system for this and its called best general. But, defiantly his fairness and courtesy.

What does it mean to be fair and courteous? Well, fair is NOT only playing by the rules, but allowing your opponent to have a chance even if you can take it away, imagine a duel (fencing) between swordsmen, and one swordsman dropped his sword. Yes, the other guy could just go for the win and be well within his right, or out of fairness he could also allow him to pick it up so the duel could continue out of fairness. And courtesy, to be courteous is similar to being fair, but it shows respect to your opponent and respect for the game not just the achievement of winning.

So, no, it is not sporty. Yes it is a win by the rules. But if there is a sportsmanship score, I would score it low. Don't get me wrong. Its not an automatic 1, as you take everything into consideration. As in his conduct, if he said sorry he had to win like that and shook my hand and was genuine, then I would still score him low but defiantly not a 1. On the other hand, if all he wanted was a win, and was a complete jerk, yeah a 1 for sure.

However, the player who put everything into reserves was not being very sporting himself - he was denying the drop pod army a turn of shooting/etc.

The reason he put everything in reserves was to ensure that his force survived the initial round intact, and could then come onto the table wherever he wanted in order to deal with the threats which had appeared.

Not a hugely sporting move in of itself, and well countered by the tactics of the drop pod player.

SilverMK2 wrote:However, the player who put everything into reserves was not being very sporting himself - he was denying the drop pod army a turn of shooting/etc.

The reason he put everything in reserves was to ensure that his force survived the initial round intact, and could then come onto the table wherever he wanted in order to deal with the threats which had appeared.

Not a hugely sporting move in of itself, and well countered by the tactics of the drop pod player.

no, those are 2 entirely different scenarios.

1. The game with the all reserve army will be an ENTIRE game. With turns and everything, and both players enjoying themselves. With all reserves, you only lose 1 turn not 5 or more turns.

2. The Daemon army IS an all reserve army by default. It is fun and allows for a different game than the average "everyone lines up and shoots".

The scenario presented by the OP is one that ends the game on turn 1 with NO interaction at all by the opponent. This is not being courteous or respectful to the game or your opponent. Who like you (not you, the plural you) payed good money, tons of hours, and probably a long drive to enjoy a tournament or just a good game.

Again, all reserve armies still play the WHOLE game. This is entirely different. And all reserve armies are FAR from being unfair, they are just as competitive as any other list.

There was interaction between the players, he chose to leave everything off the board and simply lost because of that. Your swordsman example, is pretty good, but this is more akin to dueling someone then putting your sword away and saying "you can't hit me now".

Please do not rush into places assuming a person's understanding of certain concepts as there is always a posibility that you yourself may misunderstand, I find it slightly offensive. If I lost against this I wouldn't mark it low as it is actually a really smart play and I'd simply learn from the experience and move on. Then I'd score based on his conduct. If I would lose to such a tactic it would be my own fault and be spiteful for me to simply vote low because of it, that would make me a bad sportsman and deserving of the low score.

Holding back on tactics like this is to show true disrespect to the opponent as you consider them hardly worth the effort. It's not about WAAC, but respectfully putting up a challenge to the opponent so that they at least have a chance to learn. They might have thought of that tactic as imposible and thought it would never come up, now that it has they will improve and possibly teach them that they weren't as prepared as they thought. Plus they might start to think about more interesting tactics themselves.

1 or lower, it removes the game element of the game.

Therefore, the player would have no conduct during the game. No conduct=Bad conduct.

THis isnt a "tactic", as it breaks the game - the game ends as you cannot resolve it within the rules, or you houserule it.

So, if *before* the game you were told that reserves unable to enter are destroyed - fine. Its STILL a dick move, but at least there was fair warning.

However in MY tournament, or any where I know the TO, I try to get them to rule differently: you can assault ono the board if the board edge is blocked, or, if outflanking you turn up on the opposite edge. That way BOTH players get a game, and hopefully the "wonderful" person that tried to block the edge will see how poor a "tactic" it really is.

Given that this "tactic"* effectively tries to deny a game between two people, I would drop their score low - it is the equivalent of finding a low wall betwen you and the opposing army and shouting obsceneities and hoping they can't work out a way to get to you....


*it isnt an *actual* tactic, as it requires that a houserule is played your way - any other way and either the game stops (no houserule) or you get assaulted. It isnt an actual tactic...

Units can't move through other units. Units in reserves by the end of the game count as destroyed. It is actually covered by the rules, outflanking like this isn't.

Skimmers and such move over them thus they would come on ignoring the kroot and easily shoot them up. It's good when it works, but not the hardest thing in the world to beat. It simply defeats the unprepared.

I'll agree though that it is nowhere near as fun as a game actually would be.

But, every army has access to either a skimmer or some sort of outflanking, simply including one of those completed destroys this tactic. I'm not saying you should expect it as it should be a rare thing, but getting caught up by it is simply your own fault. Even keeping a single unit out of reserves defeats it. So just remember if you see a bunch of Infiltrators, or not as it would have been better to deploy a decoy unit or two as you'll have slight control over where the opponent Deep Strikes everthing in this case, never leave everything in reserves as it's just like walking those Kroot up out in the open to fight a Dakka Pred or even a LR

guy is a douch. I would give him a max of 1 and if possible a 0. Sportsmanship is primarily letting your opponent have fun. Do you really think they kid who has the white scars is having fun?

Doesnt matter the tactic. Sportmanship is about having fun not winning. Finding loop holes isnt exactly good for the game.

Ursa wrote:guy is a douch. I would give him a max of 1 and if possible a 0. Sportsmanship is primarily letting your opponent have fun. Do you really think they kid who has the white scars is having fun?

Doesnt matter the tactic. Sportmanship is about having fun not winning. Finding loop holes isnt exactly good for the game.

And vice versa, does an opponent who has to face a nonexistent army for one or two turns have fun?

As others have said, no one forced the WS player to keep his army in reserve, especially when in this case he wasn't facing the likes of a drop pod army or CD army.

His tactics didn't particularily enhance the game for the Tau player, and he got served for it. IMO if 1 is bad and 10 is good, then I'd rate the game at 5 as neutral.

Andrew

Wouldn't affect his sportsmanship score any more than using heavy weapons to target vehicles, using assault troops to assault, etc etc. It's a valid tactic IMO.

And I'm the reverse from noseratu, I point out to TOs that the one time GW has said anything about this (way back when, SW Scouts OBEL), they said the unit was destroyed if unable to enter the rear table edge due toa 'picket fence'.

Lol that guys face is funny...

EagleArk.

I'm confused at what people think sportsmanship is. Sportsmanship is playing by the rules and acting in a courteous manner. Simply enough.

Now the White Scars player placed his army in all reserves. Why? So he wouldn't be shot before he could move and so he would know that whenever his units came on the board, he would be able to move and shoot first.

How does that hold any less sportsmanship than the tactic to deny him the ability to place his reserves? By the same token, if I was playing against IG with a foot slogging army and they blasted 3/4 of my army away with artillery on the first round, could I give the other person a low sportsmanship because he denied my ability to play the game through his tactics and strategy? Of course not. People would just say I made a stupid decision to play how I did...

The White Scars had the same chance to play as anyone else. He had the chance to play and gave it up by taking a risky all reserve approach. That's his own fault. If I have the ability to win, I'll take it if it's not cheating. Doesn't mean I'm unsportsman. Just that I take advantage of situations given to me. Had this been a friendly game, we would have laughed and just replayed. But this is a tournament. It's not unsportsman at all if he wasn't a prick about it.

And to the OP, a drop pod army doesn't have to worry about this. You can still get units on the board. The White Scars player just made bad decisions. You can't penalize opponents for someone else's stupidity.

n0t_u wrote:Units can't move through other units. Units in reserves by the end of the game count as destroyed. It is actually covered by the rules, outflanking like this isn't.

Except it iS NOT covered by the rules - the rules *require* that you move on immediately, the modfels in the way prevent you doing so. The game stops until you find a resolution - you never ever *reach* the end of the game to destroy the reserves.

It requires a houserule to continue, and I loathe the "theyre destroyed" idea - it makes a mockery of tha game, and IS bad sportsmanship (esserntially putting the judge in a horrible position - kill the game for one player, or have a mess as you have assaults half on the table as I suggested) as it requires you to bank on a houserule to go your way inm order to prevent someone actually playing the game (remember the game deosnt start till after deployment, see step 5 )

Don - I know we have our differences on this, I just dont consider this tactic to be valid, as it is the only tactic that (can) force an end to the game without a shot being fired.

As to those saying the WS player was doing something equal - entirely the opposite. At most they were stopping 1 turn, and taking the risk that reserves will turn up in dribs and drabs. As opposed to not even gettign a game? Not even close to being equal.

Why would there be poor sportsmanship...the player that reserved everything was an idiot.

This is an open list environment game, where everything is known, if they can't see that this would be a possibility and the TO rules that inability to enter is death...then I'm sorry, but you can't score poor sportsman for something that is obviously the move to make.

Guys, play to win; it's a freaking tourny.
What's next, I'm not gonna shoot my railgun at the Land Raider full of Termies heading towards my Fire Warrior gunline because he can score me down.

feth that. feth soft scores...there's no other way to describe it IMO.
Note: if the soft score were on the side and do not determine the top dog winner, that's acceptable IMO. But feth them anyway.

If you want to play with self-imposed rules and etiquitte fine, but don't expect others to act the same way...why handicap yourself for nothing...?

San ctjud - that is only true IF they houserule this *before* the game. During the game it is NOT known that they will houserule this way.

I hate soft scores deciding anything other than "best sportsman" or "you cant win as you're an idiot" anyway - soft scores (painting, sportsmanship, anything else) should be entirely removed from deciding who wins. (but can be used to prevent someone from winning if they are an idiot repeatedly)

Brother SRM wrote:I love the story behind this one! The image of the smug mofo who pulled it off is even better:



I'm afraid the story is old hat, but I'd probably give the guy a 1 for sportsmanship. Then again, your fault for doing an all-infiltrating gimmick.

I'd give them maximum sportsmaship and comp. If they are playing kroot they deserve to win.

Real men play absolutely unwinnable armies and laugh as they do it!

nosferatu1001 wrote:San ctjud - that is only true IF they houserule this *before* the game. During the game it is NOT known that they will houserule this way.

I hate soft scores deciding anything other than "best sportsman" or "you cant win as you're an idiot" anyway - soft scores (painting, sportsmanship, anything else) should be entirely removed from deciding who wins. (but can be used to prevent someone from winning if they are an idiot repeatedly)

That's why for the GW US GTs we always settled this one and several others weeks in advance. Course, I don't know if the judges for that event did so or not.

So,
From what I am reading the two commanders looked out over the battlefield and concluded a few things.

Commander A saw an enemy who could shoot him up on turn one and chose to delay his advance into the fight in order to save troops.

Commander B saw that C.A. delayed his troop employment and moved to block his entry onto the battlefield.

C.A. saw that he can't get onto the battlefield, and by the rulebook- lost the chance to gain objectives.

What I see is C.A. tried to outsmart C.B. and got his *** handed to him. Seems to me C.A. should have been able to foresee this possible outcome, or should I say downside, to his tactical employment and done something about it. Failing to plan and then blaming the enemy is a standard defensive tactic dating back to Cain.

It would be like a boxer wearing glasses into the ring and saying, "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?" and then getting knocked out...AND THEN blaming the other boxer that he hit a guy with glasses...and that's not fair.

Amazing feedback in this thread, and I have to absolutely disagree with pretty much of all it.

Having this happen to you can be prevented through the use of a single model. ANY model. ANY MODEL in ALL OF 40K can prevent this from happening to you by making the kroot have to infiltrate 12-18" away. Its like the 4-move checkmate in chess. Any novice can prevent it from happening, and if it does happen to you, you deserve to have lost.

...and again, that is predicated on a Houserule making this a valid "win button" in the first place.

It has never been a general rule for 40k, despite a number of editions where it has been possible.

Dashofpepper wrote:
Having this happen to you can be prevented through the use of a single model. ANY model. ANY MODEL in ALL OF 40K can prevent this from happening to you by making the kroot have to infiltrate 12-18" away. Its like the 4-move checkmate in chess. Any novice can prevent it from happening, and if it does happen to you, you deserve to have lost.

Or with the inclusion of a single unit of scout bikes, in this case.

Would you score sports low if the Tau player allowed the WS on the table before blowing them to crap? My Opinion..... The Tau player probably knew that the bikes would be a difficult kill for his troops.

One should ALWAYS ensure that their reserves has some way of getting on table. Bad Sports to the WS player for not considering all his options and a 6-8 for the kroot for out thinking his opponant.

Full sports. Both players. Barring other extenuating circumstances.

How does the saying go...

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

Well, good scores for both sides because it is just a game and this is just one of many ways to win.

Also, I want to add, I agree with the idea of "you deserve to lose if this was your entire strategy". I agree that winning isn't everything and having a good game is important but if you tried that with me, I would have tabled you as well.