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I'm really not complaining here. Overall, I'm pretty happy with Saturday's events if for no other reason then to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the day.

First my buddy and I drove about an hour and a half to go to this "free" tournament. After we get there, we are welcomed hardily and then promptly asked for our 20$ registration fee. I of course asked the manager, " I thought this was free?".
His response, "well you have to pay if you want to play." I'm a laid back guy. So is my buddy. We forked over the cash.

My first game was against a nidzilla list. The TO says, "alright, rounds are two hours, go."

This was a good game, the other player was goodhearted considering I was running rune priest and long fangs spam and basically shot him off the board. He cursed Jaws everytime it three 200-400 points of MCs down the toilet and I apologized. Overall, that was good fun.

The second game was against the owners son. This is where thing got hilarious. I'm just going to go over the highlights. Again, I didn argue, because I really don't care. Apparently, blood angels librarians can know three physic powers, and cast them all. When asked? He TO confirms, "yeah, there crazy" I shrug, whatever, I'm still going to pull a draw. Oh, and did you know, stormravens are literally bigger than thnderhawks. I seriously thought it was some kids toy of some sort, not a playable model. The other house rule which was endless entertainment? When an independant character does wounds to a squad, you take the models in base to base with him out first, thus ensurng that a powerfist will never hit your IC. Quote:"that is how they survive. Roflmao

The third game was against another 'nid player. Again, this is no complaint, but I liked this mission. If I was a 'nid player, lol. This game only lasts 3 turns. The gentleman playing against me had a bum leg you see, and kept having to sit down. The day was getting to him, and Jaws made him throw some of his dice and models at turn two, so, you know, I waited for him to pick him up. But that's okay, I'm totally raping him. It's only turn three. And we got 45 min left. I've destroyed most of his army and he's done very little to me. Wait, what's that? Oh yeah, he kills four rhinos, and 3 greyhunters. I only get 10 kill points. Break it down by victory points, and I've killed 1900points o' stuff. He's killed 170. I'm informed by my opponent we don't have time for turn four. (35 min left on a two hour limit. I look at the board at the single hive tyrant and tyrant guard and handfuls of termie and hormies, and then at my nearly complete army, laugh and shake his hand saying grats on the win. He flies into a rage cussing at me and such.

Math is fun and I show him why he won. He stews about that and then apologizes to me for his behaviour, profusely, over and over. I laugh again, because at this point I realize this experience taught me so much about 'ard boyz. I'm definitely going next year becaus this has been one of the funniest days I've had in a while. As for the semi slots? The bloodangels player and owners son with the uber librarian and 14in x 18in (not joking, I measures) stormraven took first. An ork player who's necron player rage quit in the third round was awarded the 24 point massacre and ended up in the top slot. The third place guy was the one I tabled in the first round. Me? Fourth place, haha, good times.

Name and location of store? Just so I can avoid it...

Sounds like typical "ard Boys BS. Tourny I went to wasn't "that" bad, but did have a couple interesting points.
Like in the second round, where the top 2 scores from round one (only ones with a massacre) decided they wouldn't actually play thier game and just give each other a "draw". That way they could both be in the running for first in the last round.

Judge let them and another pair do it and then let several pairs do it in the last round so they could give thier opponents a massacre to help thier scores.

Me, my dice sucked all day no matter what I did. Was one of those days.

Damn dude, that sounds like a crappy experience, sorry to hear that.

I'd wager a blister pack that this post + the store name and details e-mailed to GW customer support would see repercussions. Like, "Since you charged $20 per player, you can support the prizes on your own." I dunno...

Yeah, this sounds like a typical bullcrap 'ard boyz that basically makes the experience as fun as a day long kick in the crotch, but the charging bit really is something I would have made an issue about.

There is no way the TO or Storeowner could have taken 20$ from you without giving you a receipt in some way and then you can report them to GW as it is supposed to be 'free'.

Bad opponents, bad models and bad judges and angry arguments are just par for the course in crappy tourneys who don't require appearance and softscores it seems. I have never experienced anything even as close to the stuff I have witnessed at 'ard boyz ever when playing a fully painted and 'WYSIWYG' opponent.

Report the 20$ thing to GW. I would have packed up and went home.

I've played in three years of `Ard Boyz, and have gone on to Semis before as well, and never seen the kind of crap people seem to want to associate with this particular tournament. The only person who was ever a problem, behaved the same way in every tournament, and the majority of non-tournament games. And everything described in the OP was about the store, not the event itself. Even Adepticon had a cheating controversy this year, but I don't see people posting that it's what you expect from it and shouldn't bother going, so I don't know why `Ard Boyz gets such an undeserved rap.

Did you print the Ard Boyz rules from the GW website? The free cost is right on the first page. I would not be saying "what a larf" and shrugging my shoulders...

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with the tourney itself. The store in question is the issue, (I'm not naming it cause I don't like to badmouth anybody, especially on the intrawebz.) the good news is that my local GW store manager is already steps to fix this particular problem, as well as having reimbursed me and the other club member with store credit. I'm honestly very happy with that, and like I said, I think the whole situation is funny.

Yea, I think there were stores last year that charged for it. I believe they got reported and in trouble.

I would definitely report them.


Finally, don't blame your bad experiences on it being ard boyz. The same thing would have happened if it there were soft scores. Except it probably would have been worse because then they could have manipulated your soft scores as well.

Truth. A poorly run event with biased TOs is going to trump any other factor involving the structure of the event itself.

I think clams said it all.


On a side note, if that BA players libby was mephiston, then he does know and can use 3 powers -_-

On the issue of stores charging for the tourney. A local store was charging 5 buck entries, they were extending the prizes beyond 1st-3rd. GW contacted them telling them no way, last week they announced that they would not charge for the tourney, so prizes just are top 3.

This is always a problem with again letting every single store run prelims.. 95% of stores run good events, but since you have a thousand stores running it .. seems like you get a fair bit of awful TOs who want to exploit their players

Or torture them for fun? lol

If I were TO I would make it very very clear that any evidence of game rigging would result in BOTH players getting zero points.. Cheating only cheapens the experience for the others. At my prelims we had something similar where a group came together, and during the 3rd round we had one of the player's child? Who was around 12 years old playing an adult from the same group.. Midway through the game the adult appeared to just give up and let him get max points thus putting the child in 2nd place

It was fairly obvious to me but the point of it seemed to be to more innocent in that the parents took pictures of the kid getting 2nd, and all that.. It was nice in a way, but it did skew the results for others.. So we didnt press the issue at all, not gonna ruin the fun for the kid

Lunchmoney wrote:The store in question is the issue, (I'm not naming it cause I don't like to badmouth anybody, especially on the intrawebz.)

Then why did you start this thread? As far as I'm concerned you'd just be doing everyone a service by giving us the name, and whatever "badmouthing" happens as a result is well-deserved.

Sidstyler wrote:

Lunchmoney wrote:The store in question is the issue, (I'm not naming it cause I don't like to badmouth anybody, especially on the intrawebz.)

Then why did you start this thread? As far as I'm concerned you'd just be doing everyone a service by giving us the name, and whatever "badmouthing" happens as a result is well-deserved.

QFT

Most Passive-Aggressive Thread EVAAAAH!!!!

Really, bitch about it on-site or live with it. Whining on the internet after not attempting to correct the several issues at the store is fairly useless. Doubly so without mentioning the store name.

Because it's obviously a screwed up store that needs to either have some real players come in and show them the rules or needs to be dropped from any Ard Boyz consideration.

If you don't tell US, at least tell GW. A phone call from his area rep may fix the problem. And who knows, a GW outrider might even drop by next year at the 'ard boyz. There's an outrider that used to stop by our store "just to see what was happening" and we found out years after the store closed that it was due to a complaint. We weren't even aware of any problem and it was a great store, but the complaint was bad enough to warrant GW's personal attention apparently.

Wait,wait,wait.... an OUTRIDER (unpaid hobbyist) had the authority to shut down an independent retailer?! Sounds like someone with delusions of grandeur.

AFAIK the Outrider program was dropped several years ago and they were mainly people they paid in product to set up and help out at events.

As someone who showed up to play at 'Ard Boyz and got a royal dicking by the TO while watching the locals take all the prizes last year, I can fully understand the desire/need to at least throw the story out to the community. Considering the good-natured lack of whinebitch in the OP, I don't think it's passive aggressive at all.

Spellbound wrote:And who knows, a GW outrider might even drop by next year at the 'ard boyz.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Wait,wait,wait.... an OUTRIDER (unpaid hobbyist) had the authority to shut down an independent retailer?! Sounds like someone with delusions of grandeur.

AFAIK the Outrider program was dropped several years ago and they were mainly people they paid in product to set up and help out at events.

What SlaveToDorkness said, Outriders were unpaid volunteers that were promoting the game because they loved it. They had no power and didn't actually work for GW.

The program was also shut down 5-6 years ago, so it's a moot point to begin with.

I would also E-Mail GW, and mention the $20 and 2 hour game time. At the very least they wont be giving them a 'Ard Boyz next year, and it may not be to late to stop them from getting the Semis this year.

Grotsnik wrote:Sounds like typical "ard Boys BS. Tourny I went to wasn't "that" bad, but did have a couple interesting points.
Like in the second round, where the top 2 scores from round one (only ones with a massacre) decided they wouldn't actually play thier game and just give each other a "draw". That way they could both be in the running for first in the last round.

Judge let them and another pair do it and then let several pairs do it in the last round so they could give thier opponents a massacre to help thier scores.

Me, my dice sucked all day no matter what I did. Was one of those days.

And this is why I pestered the hell out of Dakka to make sure our event wasn't "that event"

Points (Probably covered already, but I'll go over them again)

OP, Post the name of the store, AND CALL GW. You can find their Customer Service number right on their homepage. The event was explicitly stated to be free, in the 'ard Boyz rules.

Also sounds like you had a poor TO that obviously can't read. Rounds are two and a half hours. About the BA thing, I THINK that one of the SCs can do the three powers thing, but I would have had him show me in the book. I find that's one of the most important things when making calls, is to always always always look at the rules in question, even if you are 100% sure about it.

@Grotsnik I don't allow that Magic crap in my tournaments. You don't play a game? Loss and ineligibly for prizes, period. I had it happen in one tournament (given, I was still very new at this, hell I still am!) and I allowed them to do it since I did not have the rules in place. That night I explained the change in rules, and I haven't had that problem since then. I see the whole "drawing so we can both win" as borderline cheating. It's no different than throwing a game.

The outrider didn't shut down the store, it just closed. The Outrider just came by to watch the tourney. We didn't know they were unpaid hobbyists - hell I didn't till just now. His presence there supposedly was to whip things into shape by giving the big brother impression.

Like I said we never even saw anything wrong, and thus didn't notice him really doing anything - he was just there, apparently, because someone had a problem there before.

Please post the store so it may be removed from semi's if it requested a slot.

This violates a bunch of stuff that GW can get in trouble for so they will take care of it, trust me on that. They are masters of protecting thier own butts.

Hell post the store as a warning to those in your area that might get scammed by this TO.

If you don't do it for GW then at least do it for your fellow Dakkites.

I cant believe that TOs let people throw games and that players think its okay and condone it during some events..

People get thrown in jail for that kind of stuff in the real world when dealing with pro sports

There should be no concessions allowed unless its like turn 5 and no way the other player can do anything

I was the buddy in question, and I can respond to a few points:

1) We have contacted GW about it, and our manager, a good guy, has said he'll make sure that it's rectified.
2) The BA librarian in question wasn't Mephiston. I also played the BA player, but didn't call him on it during the game because I don't know the BA codex very well - I assumed the preferred enemy buff was from wargear, and Blood Lance and Shield of Sanginius were psychic powers.


There were also several questionable rulings. One player argued that he could draw LOS through a wrecked rhino, another tried to tell me he could teleport through a monolith and then turboboost...

Basically a negative experience.

Sounds like that TO was full of fail on multiple levels.


I sometimes visit the great north wet and would like to know the name of the store to avoid it

There were also several questionable rulings... another tried to tell me he could teleport through a monolith and then turboboost...

This IS a legal move.