Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I agree with you brado, but at the end of the day soft scores exist. I agree with Killkrazy that it's worth trying to pump up your soft scores so long as it doesn't imperial your BP's, as he puts it, the tournament scoring metagame. If nothing else, questing for higher soft scores means questing for happier opponents, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

Ravenous D wrote:
There really wasnt much the IG player could do, really his options were 1) Spread out 2) Run across the table and get counter assaulted by a superior enemy. Either way it wouldnt have mattered because the marine player was going to get the points for the land speeder units, which I can only guess were 3 units of 2 tornados, sitting at 480pts meaning the marine player would only have to do 800pts of damage over the course of 6 turns to get a massacre in a 1500pt game. If it just ran on a simple win - lose - draw then it was over before it even started.

OK, now of course, as a guard player its always the marine player's fault. I've also been in the circumstance of playing Nids with opposing objectives diagonally across the board and the player doing a similiar shoot and end fo game scoot. In this instance, however, I have to take the side of the marine player. What is the marine player supposed to do exactly? 40K is rock paper scissors and this time the guard player drew scissors to his paper.

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you are playing in a tournament you should not expect your opponent to give you a chance to win. I am sure the IG could have done something rather than stand there all game.

G

This is a really good point. If the entire Marine army was truly out of LOS, why didn't IG guy move his army up to try to get all of it into the SM DZ? Even if there was enough size three terrain to hide two whirlwinds and 2 Tornados while crossing the entire board, there had to be places to move IG squads to shoot the tornados as they made their move.

I've played a lot of all infantry IG in my day, and there are some things to keep in mind:
1) All infantry IG is even more gimmicky than the SM list. Those who have played against it with an assault army on L shaped deployment zones know that it's basically an autolose. My point? That the IG player probably made somebody feel the same way in round 2.

2) Capturing objectives is a weakness for IG. Recon is the hardest mission in the book for IG to win. Even with all that, there are ways for the IG to hande the mission and at least have a chance. Deep striking vets, infiltrating squads, kroot, or just a horde of conscripts: these will all get men where you need them.

3) I've been in a similar situation. I drew a mechanized eldar player in a recon mission that could only be won through moving scoring units off a board edge, there were no VPs. There was no deep strike, so I simply told the TO and my opponent that there was no need to play the game. It was self evident. I offered to simply add VPs to the mission and play, and the eldar player agreed as did the TO. Yes, I felt like a wuss, but if my opponent played well, there was literally no way I could win. It wasn't a top table, so no big deal. Handling these sorts of things before hand can sometimes be better. Perhaps the mission could be amended, or the terrain not called all size three. In fact, that should be one of the unwritten rules for tournaments: "Discuss anything that bothers you before any dice are rolled."

40kenthusiast wrote:The marine player got tripped up by a subspecies of your common non-tournament player (henceforth NTP). In a tournament it's just as important to read your enemy as it is to read their list.

Was the IG NTP going to zero out the soft scores of anyone who beats him or just those who beat him without "giving him a chance"? If the former, the marine player played optimally, max BP's is the best you can get out of a sore loser or a spear carrier for another competitive player. If the latter, there was probably a way he could have let the NTP chuck some plastic without endangering his BP's. It usually doesn't cost anything to try and get some soft scores out of a NTP.

Counter assault with an assault squad that the IG player could have used his lances on (but that wasn't enough points to make up for the carnage from the whirlwinds) might have let him feel like he was in it to win it. Seizing on some inconsequential die roll and acting as though it cost the IG player the game might have let him pardner up with the IG player vs. the IG player's dice, saving his soft scores. It might have been necessary to exclaim over the paint/conversions on those Rough Riders, and ask for pointers as to how to improve his own list, lots of NTP's will hold court on their paint skillz given the least opportunity. It might even have been possible to shame him into it, or work sympathize with him about the vile mission objectives which cost the NTP his shot. Talk's cheap, engage your opponent and you might even find yourself enjoying the game more than as repetition #56 of how your optimized list stomp's all over your foe's freak show.

Ultimately the soft scores of your opponents are something you can't control, but they typically represent the opponent's general enjoyment of the game. If they zero you it's likely that they had a bad time. If they aren't having fun you probably weren't either (I know I have a tough time enjoying a game my opponents isn't having any fun at), and that's not why you come to a tournament. Save the optimal blitz for fellow competitive players, and throw the NTP's a bone.

This is all so true, it sounds awful and it's too big to sig, but it's true. Especially the 'kid gloves' management techniques for handling the dreaded NTP softscores landmine in a tournament.

brado wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:In my opinion the SM player made a mistake by misreading the tournament scoring metagame. He might have realised that an easy massacre of the IG would lead to a bad sports score, so he should have given away a few kills to get his sports score jacked up. If he had played more cleverly, he could perhaps have achieved a massacre on the battlefield and top marks in sports as well.

Being penalized for trying to win doesn't make sense. That's why I find soft scoring to be extremely lame, aside from painting scores. It can be too objective. If someone is having a bad day and screws you on a sportsmanship score, that is out of your control. On the contrary, some very nice guy might just give someone a very high sports score even if they didn't deserve it.

May I see a copy of the metagame documentation please?

G

I agree with 40Ke. The marine player must have had some tac squads in his army, why not have one or two move forward and engage the guard? Especially if they were in a Rhino.
Same if he had an assault squad, move up and engage the Guard. Losing a tac or assault squad wouln't have cost him the game and at least the guard palyer would have got to do something rather then watch his army die.
If you want good soft scores, both people have to enjoy the game and if you can do something to help the other person enjoy the game do it, espeically if it won't cost you any BP's. If you can't, then enjoy bragging to your friends about how you totally kicked someone's butt while whining about how you didn't place because of the crappy soft score system.

1. In a tournament, a player doesn't owe his opponent a fair chance. The objective is to win, not to play, maintain the initiative, and force the opponent to play your game. The person who does that more effectively wins.

2. However, in a tournament, a player should be looking to maximize points, which includes maximizing both BP's and sportsmanship points. This requires a more complex read of your opponent and then the decision of whether the risk to your BP's is worth the potential risk to your gamesmanship scores.

However, to design an army that is made to sit and shoot and then be vindictive when the other player doesn't play to your army's strengths is plain stupid.

IMO...

In the IG player's defense, it is kinda sucky to really not be able to do anything.

In the Marine player's defense, it is even suckier that the IG player didn't seem to wanna adapt any of his tactics to even try.

Building a list to only play 1 way is just wrong. So, the best guard lists are the ones that stand there and shoot. Great. But when you HAVE to move and reposition yourself you should be able to do so without screwing yourself. This is why I keep playing my list with no heavy weapons in the platoons. If I need to get out there and capture an objective I can still do it, and my anti tank and fire support squads can be the ones staying still. Not only that, but you can have some pretty good drop troop units like vets with 3 melta guns to drop in behind the enemy whirlwinds and blow them to tiny bitz. If the guy's gonna spend the whole game hiding behind stuff, then you better do the same and at least get a cover save till the end.

Though, marines playing "defensively" kind of bugs me too though. Just seems unfluffy. You have power armor. Go out there and use it.

I wonder what kind of sportsmanship score the marine player gave the other guy.

Simple, straightforward answer. Hell no. That is abusive use of soft scores on the IG player's part. In fact, if it were me, I would ding someone on sportsmanship if I felt they WERE giving me an opportunity to win that I didnt earn by outplaying them.

Letting someone win, or "allowing a chance to win" is not sportsmanship, that is throwing a game. Sportsmanship, in my opinion, is treating your opponent with respect and allowing him a fair game. A fair game means you're not cheating...that is his chance to win. Showing your a** by being a sore loser or a cocky winner is poor sportsmanship. Playing to the best of your ability at a tournament and going for nothing short of the win is not poor sportsmanship. To make an analogy to soft score wins, should you intentionally mess up your painting to give less talented artists a chance to "win"? Of course not.

I feel that if you're not bringing your A game to a tourney then you're being condescending to your opponent, or simply a wimp. A friendly game where your trying to teach a beginner is a different matter of course.

A zero on Sportsmanship should have brought out the tourney organizer to ask why the marine player deserved a zero. If the IG player told me he gave the marine player a zero because the marines hid I would have had two choices based on my mood for the day.

1) Quietly change the soft score of the Marine player.

2) Ask, no tell, the IG player to leave.

I guess we'll never know since I rarely allow subjective sportsmanship scores in tourney's.

Kilkrazy wrote:In my opinion the SM player made a mistake by misreading the tournament scoring metagame. He might have realised that an easy massacre of the IG would lead to a bad sports score, so he should have given away a few kills to get his sports score jacked up. If he had played more cleverly, he could perhaps have achieved a massacre on the battlefield and top marks in sports as well.

Even with what I said I kind of agree with this statement. My problem with the IG player is zeroing out the guy. I really think the most sporting option for the Marine player to make would be to run some guys up the field so the opponent could take out a few guys and save face.

The IG player reminds of me of this:

Lol, nice, Iorek!

I love this question. It is something that a lot of people have differing opinions. A lot of this depends on perspective.

For me, I work towards having a competitive battle and winning the game, while handling rules questions ammicably, holding myself to be precise on movement, being consistent on dice rolling (ie: handling cocked dice), and various other things to ensure that my opponent has a fair game. I ask for the same from my opponent. That's pretty much all I want and will ask for. If my opponent wants to chat then great. If not then great.

I will inform my opponent of a potential problem that I see will happen just to avoid any conflict (ie: ensuring that they are out of line of site if they are clearly attempting to be, etc). However, I will not help them on every aspect of the game. Otherwise, I would just be playing a game against myself, which I did not pay $300 to $800 to do. Now, depending on the player, I will help coach them. But that is typically after a battle to provide constructive advise.

As far as this IG player, I call BS for not being able to do anything. I also call BS to the supporters on here for him. The IG player had options for every situation in the game. He could have maneuvered to force his opponents hand. Two whirlwinds and some landspeeders should not hold up an IG force. The IG player chose the poorest options available and thus suffered the consequence. The IG player's failure to act should not translate into a bad sportsmanship score his opponent.

The IG player is a sore loser.

I'm all for fun and friendly games, but not at the expense of my opponent playing like a moron.

The SM player did EXACTLY the right thing: he saw the matchup, the objective, and the terrain, and took the course of action to maximize any advantage that he had. Now, that's exactly how I would want my opponent to play.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that it raises some interesting questions about the difference between tournament games and casual games. Many posters here see very little, if any difference. Others see all tournament games as being ruled by two simple precepts: no cheating and no whining.

At first, the IG player seemed like a sore loser, using the soft scores to punish the SM player when all the SM player did was play a smart game to win based on the mission. In posts above I pointed out ways the IG player may have erred, and how the mission may not have been as unwinnable as he at first though, and how at the end of the day he had a fundamentally flawed list. I stand by this, and I re-iterate my policy that any person that dings sports after a bad loss in which his opponent was polite, not cheating, and at least tried to be fun is a bad sport himself.

As time passed, I began to do what I always do, which is try to figure out more of the story. We have a very limited set of facts here. We don't know the composition of either army outside of broad strokes. We don't know the exact mission, the nature of the terrain. We also don't know when and where in a tournament this was. Was it first round, with both players looking to win? Was it top table in round 3 with prizes on the line? Or was it a low table, with both players playing for pride?

Absent more facts, sometimes it's dangerous to assume that a person was reacting irrationally or wrongly. I began to wonder if there could be a way in which the IG player was, if not corect to ding sports, at least had a colorable claim. I came up with the following scenario: Assume both players had a win and a loss, and there was little chance either would win any prizes outside of soft scores. Its the last round of a local RTT with a small entry fee and no big prizes. Now, we know the SM player could keep his entire army out of LOS the entire game. That seemed odd, but what if the SM player aggresivly argued for more LOS blocking terrain before the game. What if they didn't talk about terrain (because they were tired), and the SM player insisted that all of his terrain blocked LOS after picking sides, or even once shooting began. It's not hard with those 1" hills to claim they are Size 2. What if the SM player was a local and the IG guy from out of town, and the judge simply agreed with the SM player? Under those circumstances, I began to see the IG player increasingly frustrated and upset. Sure, he brought a weak list and played crappy, but if the match up, the mission, and the terrain were all weighted against him, he might just play lousy.

This is all speculation, and like most cases the truth lies probably somewhere in between the IG player being a buffon and the SM player being a tool. What this did raise for me is the question the OP presented: do you owe your opponent a chance to win? To spin it another way, should you keep your foot on the gas at all times, or are there times when you can let up a little?

I don't think there is one clear answer. I think a simple division of "fun games are for fun, competitive games are about competition" works pretty well, but there are gaping holes in it. Games of 40k are a lot like sex: if both people have similar expectations it is often great. If the parties have different or contradictory expectations, there is going to be a lot of friction. The worst 40k experiences are always between somebody playing balls out and somebody playing simply for fun. The answer to our dilemma, of course, lay in communication. If the IG palyer wanted to play a fun cool down game for funsies, he should have told his oppoenent. Its the same way when a competitive gamer is tuning his Gt list: he wants a competitve game, so he tells people that.

The answer to the OP is thus no, I don't owe my opponent a chance to win. I owe my opponent a willingness to tell him how I want to play, and a willingness to try to accomodate how he wants to play. I'd keep in mind at all times that all tournament games have a presumption of competition, while all pick up games have a presumption of casual play. I would keep in mind context, and be more willing to play soft when sitting a 0-2 then I would at 2-0. Most of all, I owe my opponent an honest game, one in which I neither cheat nor shave points, and try to win while helping him have fun.

In a tourney, I don't owe my opponent a chance to win. I owe it to myself to play the hardest, toughest game that I can manage. If that rolls him off the board, so be it, because last round, I probably got smoked.

To me sportsmanship is - did he measure distance accurately, was he rolling dice (that I could read) and consistently re-rolling cocked dice, etc. If he was a great guy, that's bonus, but my expectation is: was it a legal army list and did he play by the rules are fairly (none of the "no, you can't see me." "You shot me last round." "Oh, yeah, well, then I guess you can maybe see me....").

The IG player is sour grapes. So, when you're standing still, getting shot by indirect fire, should you - continue to stand still and let them keep shooting you?

I'm going to assume this guy was relatively inexperienced, at least at tourney play, because most of my lists involve "something to go get the IG's basilisk hiding in his corner out of LOS." Indirect fire is less common now (Orks lost the bassie, Defiler lost indirect), but it still exists.

At a tourney a month or so ago (and a great one in Cincinnati, the CAG Con), my last round was me (drop-pod SW) vs. Eldar (with 3 wave serpents and like 3-5 vypers) in the 'get in the other DZ' mission. Now, I could have mailed it in, and just given up. I pulled a minor win by playing aggressive. First two turns, he runs up the board. I pod a few units that come in early, near him, shoot him up, take down his warwalkers, farseer, Maugna Ra, a wraithlord, and a few vypers. My late arriving units land in my DZ to hold it. And it worked. It was a horrible matchup for me, but because I actually used some tactics and tried to do something, I pulled out a minor win.

I would call that a blatant abuse of soft scores, and the reason I generally refuse to take soft scores at all seriously. To the extent that they are useful, soft scores are there to balance the human element (cheating, obnoxious behavior, game preparedness, hygiene), not a referendum on game tactics.

I wonder, what would this guard player have done against a fellow IG player, jacked up with three indirect firing basilisks? isn't that the same thing?

Incidentally, I think that if you are planning to play hardcore, especially at your FLGS, you need to make that clear. Generally in friendly games I'm not going to jump all over someone for minor little things, like calling assault phase and then remembering they wanted to shoot with one more unit. I expect most games to be less intense than a large tourney, or something similar.

General Hobbs wrote:I watched a tournament game recently and here is what happened:

Shooty guard with rough riders and lots of heavy weapons vs Marines with 2 whirlwinds.Mission was recon, marine player also had several land speeders.

Shooty guard play deployed in the center of his zone, Marine player hid his army behind terrain.

Marine player used his whirlwinds to destroy enemy units, and at the end of the game he zipped out his speeders to get into the enemy deployment zone, and got the win.

The Guard player gave him a 0 on sportsmanship. His reason? A. The Marine player did not give him a chance to win by hiding behind terrain. B. It wasn't a fun game for him and C. That was a spank way to win a game.

He further went on about how 40K ( even in a competitive) setting is about 2 players having fun playing the game, and the way the Marine player played, he couldn't do anything.

Many comments, and no one has asked for the missing datapoint yet -

What did the tournament rules say on how to score sportsmanship?

I have been to tournaments where reason "B" is all that is necessary to justify a low or zero sports score.

You can't give someone a fair chance.
If it was given, they never had a chance to begin with.

my one ¢ent opinion

oh, and using soft scores to punish players that you lost to is poor form
poor use of meta game
like putting laxative in someones drink when they're not looking and then calling for a match-stall when they're in the potty

It's a tournament. People go to compete. Compete to win. If you lose and dogball someone, you should be tossed out of the nearest airlock you lousy frak. The tournament scene is a cruel mistress and not for the weak.

I don't play in tournaments.

What did the tournament rules say on how to score sportsmanship?

Yeah, I'd have to see how the sports score sheet was setup.

Agree with Red Beard too, triple objectives are the best way to give both players a decent game regardless of matchups.

By the sounds of it this was more the organizers fault then anyones. In a tournament, it is as much or more the TOs responsibility to ensure a fun game for all then each others opponents.

I find the zero injuist ok that you don't give him a really high score but a is unresenbal to give him a zero if you lose.
you are supposed to try and win as best as you can.
if you can't take a massacre than don't do competition.
oke I em youst to losing to massacres even in fun games ( over fluff my army when its for fun ::d but than I don't care that I lose I still had fun) but it a tactic like a other.
I woud like to enter a competition one's I will be out after the first round but its good for some experians.

3 words for the IG player. Drop Troops Doctrine. It isn't the fault of the SM player that the IG player brought a static gunline army. What would he have done if the table had little to no terrain? Would he have not fired his Lascannons at the Whirlwinds and Speeders since that would destroy them and give him a win? I seriously doubt it. I've been on the recieving end of low SPortsmanship scores before due to the fact my Wych Cult beat a SM army. His reason. "There is no way Dark Eldar should be able to beat my army so there must have been something wrong with how you played."

When playing a weekend pickup game against someone who is inexperienced, I'll move units that I know will get pasted just to give the new kid some teaching points. If it is another Vet or a rules lawyer, I won't be so kind.

I have a better one Boss GreenNutz. Massed Artillery Barrage.

If anyone is complaining it should be the marine when you drop three basi templates a
turn...

Just to go to an extreme here, if you are playing to win and you feel no compulsion to give your opponent a chance, wouldn’t soft scores just be another means to that end? If you are looking to take the top spot in a tournament, it would seem that tanking the soft scores of others would be an effective (and bastardly) way to accomplish that. So really, where do you draw the line?

I've gone easy on new players and such, moving things to where they've got a shot at taking it down and what have you. In a tournament? Forget that, they're toast.

I've played games where I lost horribly bad, and I make it a point to have fun with it. Even in a tournament I can be wiped to a man and laugh at it.

The problem stated by the OP is why I hate numerical sportsmanship scores. There's just so many ways they can go wrong. In the tournament I'm running next month, I'm going to go with a system of simply voting for your favorite opponent that you faced.