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BOLS - brought up that article - because of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLQNz-Ps1-Q

Don't talk about the actual cheater, don't talk about the event in which this taken place


But this scale of cheating is nasty. Talk about the ways to spot it. ha.

The most common of cheating I have witness is people “innocently” misstating the rules to their advantage typically wargear. A lot people are not familiar with every codex, and when someone says that an item gives every one of their models within 12 inches plus one attacks instead of plus one to combat resolve most have nothing, but the sense something is off to refute the behavior.

About 3 or 4 times I had an inclination that some rule was just too good to be true and asked to see my opponent’s codex. Every time I was right but it required me to take time from the game to flip through an unfamiliar codex.

If you suspect someone of cheating then there is probably a good chance that they are. Gently informing the person that you suspect that they may have made an error may be the best way of curtailing cheating, “Are you sure that was only a 6 inch move?”. Just letting a person know that you are paying attention to the board will cause most people to play on the up and up. I believe most cheaters are operating at least partially subconsciously, and speaking up just makes them more observant to their own behaviors.

“Inadvertently” shaming also works. I once played against someone who would occasional bring a 20% point increase to his army (1900 points to a 1500 point game). I played out a friendly game without mentioning that his army seemed bloated. We finished the game and during the packing up period I asked if I could keep his army list as I planned on writing up the battle report. This freaked him out (he did not hide his guilt well), and he was unable to think up a decent reason for leaving the printout with me. So when I checked it out sure enough he was way over his point limit – I never confronted him on it, but the request alone shocked him in line. This way I halted his behavior without having to deal with any hurt feelings, defensive whining, or other unpleasantness.

Another good thing to have down is an understanding of distances. If you have to start 24 inches away from each other it is impossible for someone to take two 6 inches marches towards the enemy over then rapid fire on of your units that didn’t move. I once caught someone in that little logic trap, there is really no conclusion other then have him guess that somehow his guys moved 2 or 3 more inches then they should have.

Never thought about the measuring from one unit to another and then from the last unit to an enemy unit.

That video is pretty messed up though. My question is if a tourny judge saw any of that would the person actually get in trouble for cheating? It is all pretty crappy but does it actually constitute cheating under tournament rules?

Would it be considered cheating if a person can eye the distance of everything with at most 1 inch off?

I wouldn't think so but that is more of a talent.

That is clearly premeasuring with your eyeballs, so I'm going to have to insist you wear a blindfold for fairness.

RogueMarket wrote:BOLS - brought up that article - because of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLQNz-Ps1-Q

Don't talk about the actual cheater, don't talk about the event in which this taken place


But this scale of cheating is nasty. Talk about the ways to spot it. ha.

Having not played (or even seen) a game of 40K in years, can someone explain exactly what the fellow in this video is doing that constitutes cheating? I have my suspicions, but would love to know what others are seeing... Gracias.


G

Can someone who is really indignant about the player shown in the video walk me through all the instances he cheats?
Sort of like a "Where's Waldo" of cheating.

I imagine it would be relatively easy to say; "At x.xx he premeasures from the Walkers to their prospective targets", "at x.x he shuffles the Spiders forward" and so on.

I believe that would be very helpful in recognizing that sort of behaviour in the future.

Some cheating behavoir which I have encountered.

One guy who insisted on using his own "lucky dice" which turned out to be loaded.

Players who wont let you look at their list or codex to check rules and points values.

A bloke who would creep his miniatures forwards if he thought you weren't looking, or wouldn't notice.

Steelmage99 wrote:Can someone who is really indignant about the player shown in the video walk me through all the instances he cheats?
Sort of like a "Where's Waldo" of cheating.

I imagine it would be relatively easy to say; "At x.xx he premeasures from the Walkers to their prospective targets", "at x.x he shuffles the Spiders forward" and so on.

I believe that would be very helpful in recognizing that sort of behaviour in the future.

Seconded.

The only cheat I caught was at 2:16 he moves a model from the middle back of a unit to the front of the ones who moved before, making him move about 2" beyond his max movement. Not sure if all the premeasuring suspicions or model shuffling count.

I label him as a douchebag based on the fact that he kept shuffling the unit after moving and using his forearm to "check LoS". I would not play against someone who needs such minor details in order to win at soldier toys.

ah thanks that reminds me ....
the cavalry extra movement cheat:
every cav unit usually gets a full march move woth of movement per game not because of cheating but just because of neglegance on the part of the player running them (well some do cheat this way) basically they try not to use a turn template and this results in free inches, the more turning the more free movement. ive seen a whole bretonion army move about 25, 26 inches into charges when the first move he said was only 8 inches in the first turm 8 plus charge is 24, but because of slight turns and not using proper methods he was able to charge into units that were set up about 2 inches back from the line. its not common that people do this for the purpose of cheeting , but demand to see that each move is done properly, and that the person understands that free movement though not cheating (per say)is common and should be checked. some of couse have problems with it, and refuse the template, but most dont.
on the same note this use to happen with nids as well becausethey move so far each tun.

Steelmage99 wrote:Can someone who is really indignant about the player shown in the video walk me through all the instances he cheats?
Sort of like a "Where's Waldo" of cheating.

I imagine it would be relatively easy to say; "At x.xx he premeasures from the Walkers to their prospective targets", "at x.x he shuffles the Spiders forward" and so on.

I believe that would be very helpful in recognizing that sort of behaviour in the future.

VIDEO 1

The person in question has his ruler extended at all times. That's pretty flagrant cheating. Just laying down a ruler extended to 6, 12 inches and "doing" something else, coming back to it and picking it up can give you plenty of time to "eye" how long the measurement is.

He also does stuff like leaving it on the table, pre-measuring constantly (holding the ruler over models and then not taking an action with the unit after).

Very old movement trick in measuring, moving the front models and then being very lax in the measurement of the back models, then shuffling one forward and moving a few forward when placing the other models down. It's easy to squeeze extra inches out that way.

The wave serpent and jetbikes were all measure to 12 inches, he then goes flat out with the serpent fudging an extra inch at the end of the move. He measured, then picked up the ruler as he placed the tank.

The bikes then did not move. Honestly not an issue there because their actions aren't impacted by being classified as moving, although that would be worse obviously if they had rapid fire weapons or something.

VIDEO 2

The fire dragons showed up about.... 6 inches outside the tank ... on the opposite side of the exit point.... and then it went flat out back to where it was a turn ago. That one was pretty hilarious no one caught it.

He then nudges the terrain forward jumping with the warp spiders. Minimal harm done. Shuffles them around, but within 12 inches. Sloppy play but not cheating.

The warp spiders, despite not moving their full 12 always had the ruler extended to 12 inches directly towards the death company(?). He used that to determine distance away from models that could potential charge the next turn. Not cheating, but again - borderline.

However, the next move is bringing the Warp Spiders back to their previous spot - then measuring out a similar way to a different spot. Under the guise of "changing his mind while still moving the active unit", he was able to determine the position of an enemy unit down to an inch and move accordingly. That's cheating.

That's pretty much the movement phases. I would have called a judge the second he kept on keeping his tape measure out. That's pre-measuring, and cheating. The sloppy movement fudges and constant moving units back and forth is another form of visual premeasurement.

I feel sorry for the grey-haired gentlemen. but honestly, if you're not savvy enough to beat a pretty obvious cheater, then you're probably not experienced enough to do these kind of tournaments.

Other things to watch out for...

Dice rolling trays: They keep the tray on the far side of the table and roll the dice in your direction, so they land out of your line of sight.

Forgetting wounds on their models: best way to avoid this is to bring your own little wound counters to use for thier models, if you rely on them using dice to track wounds, they will most definately pick them up when making a roll and not place them back.

when rolling for sets of shots from twin linked weapons (or other similar rerollable things) rolling 2 dice at a time for each shot. It doesnt sound bad, but when you consider the total number of dice rolled, and statistical averages, it works out in favor of the person rolling the dice. for example, i have a squad of marines with bolter drill from lysander, all shooting outside of rapid fire range. 10 shots, all twin linked. roll 10 sets of 2 dice, 20 rolls, and not miss a single shot. roll 10 shots, then reroll the misses (lets assume 3) you now have only rolled 13 dice and may have missed a shot or 2.

Also watch how your opponent rolls dice: having 2 dice that are always sitting on 1's and just grabbing them between your index finger and thumb and lightly tossing them about 1" above the table is not rolling, and I HAVE had opponents try this crap on me before.

Personally I don't see premeasuring as much of a problem. It only gives everyone an accurate view of the battle, that an experienced player has anyway. The only reason to premeasure is if you're still somewhat inexperienced at the game, and then why not. This game is supposed to be about tactics and maybe list writing, not who can guess ranges better.

Moving models forward or ridiculous dice rolling on the other hand is going to get a "What the heck are you doing?"

I have seen the trick where a cheater holds one dice tight with the forefinger against their palm. Typically they will make a big show out of shaking their fist for a long time then they extend their fingers gently dropping the one die so it lands with the six up. This cheat dice roll typically is used to determine who goes first or an important invulnerable save.

All rolls for scatter should taken right beside where the model(s) landing (deepstrike etc.), not half way across the table. This prevent the cheater from skewing the direction of scatter.

Always keep an eye out for a dice that is only used once or twice in the game. For example, you shoot a squad and are planning to assault it then your opponent pulls out two magic dice, fails their leadership test (high roll) then fallback outside of your charge range (another high roll). The dice then disappear and are never seen again.

I don't have a problem with people rolling two dice for twin linked weapons but each roll should be made separate from the others, otherwise they can pick up all the hits by mixing all the dice together when in fact some of the twin linked double rolls may have both failed to hit.

Shooting around the corner of a building - I've seen this one quite often. The cheater pulls out their tape measure and it bends around the corner of a building as they check for line of sight.

If an opponent has lots of multi wound units the best thing to do is create a chart with rows (model) and columns (wounds) to keep track. You can also place a dice of marker beside each wounded model but I prefer the chart.

I like to use a dice tray as there is no cocked dice. The tray should be placed where everyone can see the results of the dice roll. I have seen people only pick up cocked dice to reroll when it helps them.

Fast rolls that are quickly picked up are always a sign that cheating is in progress.

G

hmmmm.... cheaters, how many play SM.

they stutter when they explain a rule, they ask you to repeat a question, try to change the subject.

they smile when you look down (if you're smart, you'll notice this through your peripheral vision.)

they refuse your looking at armylists/codex.

they refuse to let you check with a FLGS member.

they act like they didn't know they did it wrong, when you catch them out.

hope these help.

Edit: you're called by someone to help them, and they do the roll before you come, or they look at you with that smile that says "I'm so lucky I didn't roll that."

Or they walk away just after you roll and they can say, "hey I didn't see that" then brand you as a TFG cheater.

FTR, If I feel that someone didn't see it, If it's good enough I'll always offer to re-roll, just because I'm interested in having fun, not winning badly.

another thing I see in big games is people taking 6 LR saying it's Ok, because 3 of them are DT for Terminators, even though they know they can't give them to more then one of each type of terminators.

ALSO. Doesn't anyone else HATE it when people change their psykers rules.

RogueMarket wrote:BOLS - brought up that article - because of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLQNz-Ps1-Q

Don't talk about the actual cheater, don't talk about the event in which this taken place


But this scale of cheating is nasty. Talk about the ways to spot it. ha.

Why is it always the Eldar players?

Demogerg wrote:when rolling for sets of shots from twin linked weapons (or other similar rerollable things) rolling 2 dice at a time for each shot. It doesnt sound bad, but when you consider the total number of dice rolled, and statistical averages, it works out in favor of the person rolling the dice. for example, i have a squad of marines with bolter drill from lysander, all shooting outside of rapid fire range. 10 shots, all twin linked. roll 10 sets of 2 dice, 20 rolls, and not miss a single shot. roll 10 shots, then reroll the misses (lets assume 3) you now have only rolled 13 dice and may have missed a shot or 2.

I don't think this is a problem, unless they are playing deliberately slow, or pick'a'mixing

I play opponents who will, conveniently or otherwise, forget certain rules like checking for synapse or Chaos Dred frenzy. Easy to do but can have a big impact on the battle if you don't remember.

Because they forsee their loss, and are trying to change fate, clearly.

lol

I have seen a lot of people clearly cheating...

My favorite signs of a cheater are:

1) being agitated when you call them on rules.

2) using the rules wrong in the next game AFTER you've pointed it out to them they were wrong when they play your friend.

3) marking you down in sportsmanship for not letting them cheat

Ahem! (Army of salvation dude I played at toy wiz once)

Worst part is, I asked the guy via youtube to see if he would play a game to bury the hatchet/demonstrate it was just an off day... he outright ignored my request after he knew who I was :(... and I usually win best sportsman where ever I go

Green Blow Fly wrote:If an opponent has lots of multi wound units the best thing to do is create a chart with rows (model) and columns (wounds) to keep track. You can also place a dice of marker beside each wounded model but I prefer the chart.

Having just learned the rule stretch for wound allocation in multi wound units (knobs, battle suits) I think this a great suggestion, and i will be using this method in all upcoming games.

The thing i have biggest problem with, is fast dice rolling. I like to know what your troops stats are, therefore i know what you need, and i like to look at the rolls. Pre-measuring while very cheeky doesn't quite ruin a game like dice cheating. but thats just IMHO, if the pre-measure gets out of hand, then call it out.

The biggest cheat i've come across, is when someone plays an army you just aren't familiar with, and they give themselves cool made up wargear.

I used to play WHFB with my bro, and a couple regulars at the local shop, back in the day, you had to spend so many points on troops, characters, etc etc, so the guy that we played that always cheated, used to buff up his army list by 100 pts, and used to give his characters more allocated points than he leagally could. We all knew this, but he always always lost, he even lost to my Skaven.... a lot. It was one of those things we all picked up on, and noticed that it didn't really help him out at all.... and we all knew to expect it. We never really called him out on it, because we didn't have too many options for opponents and he play three different armies. sad but true.

Defiler wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:Can someone who is really indignant about the player shown in the video walk me through all the instances he cheats?
Sort of like a "Where's Waldo" of cheating.

I imagine it would be relatively easy to say; "At x.xx he premeasures from the Walkers to their prospective targets", "at x.x he shuffles the Spiders forward" and so on.

I believe that would be very helpful in recognizing that sort of behaviour in the future.

VIDEO 1

The person in question has his ruler extended at all times. That's pretty flagrant cheating. Just laying down a ruler extended to 6, 12 inches and "doing" something else, coming back to it and picking it up can give you plenty of time to "eye" how long the measurement is.

He also does stuff like leaving it on the table, pre-measuring constantly (holding the ruler over models and then not taking an action with the unit after).

Very old movement trick in measuring, moving the front models and then being very lax in the measurement of the back models, then shuffling one forward and moving a few forward when placing the other models down. It's easy to squeeze extra inches out that way.

The wave serpent and jetbikes were all measure to 12 inches, he then goes flat out with the serpent fudging an extra inch at the end of the move. He measured, then picked up the ruler as he placed the tank.

The bikes then did not move. Honestly not an issue there because their actions aren't impacted by being classified as moving, although that would be worse obviously if they had rapid fire weapons or something.

VIDEO 2

The fire dragons showed up about.... 6 inches outside the tank ... on the opposite side of the exit point.... and then it went flat out back to where it was a turn ago. That one was pretty hilarious no one caught it.

He then nudges the terrain forward jumping with the warp spiders. Minimal harm done. Shuffles them around, but within 12 inches. Sloppy play but not cheating.

The warp spiders, despite not moving their full 12 always had the ruler extended to 12 inches directly towards the death company(?). He used that to determine distance away from models that could potential charge the next turn. Not cheating, but again - borderline.

However, the next move is bringing the Warp Spiders back to their previous spot - then measuring out a similar way to a different spot. Under the guise of "changing his mind while still moving the active unit", he was able to determine the position of an enemy unit down to an inch and move accordingly. That's cheating.

That's pretty much the movement phases. I would have called a judge the second he kept on keeping his tape measure out. That's pre-measuring, and cheating. The sloppy movement fudges and constant moving units back and forth is another form of visual premeasurement.

I feel sorry for the grey-haired gentlemen. but honestly, if you're not savvy enough to beat a pretty obvious cheater, then you're probably not experienced enough to do these kind of tournaments.

While this isn't quite what I asked for, I certainly commend you on your work.

I too noticed the strange disembarking of the Fire Dragons, and the subsequent All Out move by the Falcon.


None of his dice rolling seems exceedingly fast at all.

Video 1:

At 0.05 we notice that he has his ruler extended most of the time.....but is that really cheating?
If I had an army mainly consisting of Warp Spiders (two squads), Jetbikes (four squads), a hoverboard mounted fast squad (Small Seer Council? ) and a Falcon, I too would have my ruler extended to 12" most of the time.
I might even go so far as cutting a red whippy stick down to 12" and have that laying around. This has been suggested as an anti-cheating device elsewhere, but I cannot even shorten that.

At 0.22 he measures the movement allowed for a Warp Spider squad (called A). He should be moving those, but he doesn't. A tournament opponent would be well within his rights to claim that Warp Spider squad as has indeed "moved" (a total of 0") as soon as he picks another squad to move as happens at 0.36.
He obviously checks how far the Spiders move, so they don't block his solitary walkers LOS.

At 1.05 he moves his Seer Council. While he does shuffle them around a bit, he doesn't appear to exceed his allowed movement.

At 1.58 he returns to Warp Spider squad A. Those too he shuffles around, but notice the distance measured at 2.02. In the end he doesn't exceed that. Even with the shuffling, nudging and tripping of models, he doesn't exceed the maximum move.

At 2.31 he checks which armourfacing he is going to hit. This he does with the use of his arm. Is that cheating?
He could also take a step back, bend down a bit, close one eye and eyeball it....but as we are already accusing him of slow-playing (the original article is, anyway), then quickly using the arm works for me. At 2.48 the models are in their final position an inch short of their allowed movement.

At 2.57 he starts to measure the movement for a Jetbike squadron (called D). The same issue pops up as it did with the Warp Spiders...

As he, at 3.21, decides to move the Falcon instead (although he never moves Jetbike squadron D, so its OK). The movement of the Falcon seems OK. Maybe half-an-inch too long, I dunno. He is of course allowed to premeasure his movement to his hearts content, which he does.

Can someone analyse the dicerolls of his shooting with his walker squadron. I can't quite get to grips with it.

Video 2


At 0.01......The infamous long-distance disembarking.

At 0.25 he starts to measure the illegal All-Out move for his Falcon, which is of course impossible to do after having disembarked passengers. That aside he seems to gain about an inch and a half as he moves it back.

At 1.25 he feels the need to adjust the position of his Fire Dragons.

At 1.27 he can't help himself and need to fondle them again.

At around 2.38 I noticed that he seemed to gain half-an-inch by first moving the second Warp Spider squad in one direction, and then putting them back (not quite in the correct position) and then moving them in another direction.

At 3.30 he, completely unmotivated, moves the rearmost Spider of squad 2 to the front of the squad.

At 3.57 he gains an inch and a half by moving his Jetbikes (called A) back and forth. At 4.25 he then chooses to completely nullify that "advantage" by Turboboosting in the other direction.

At 4.35 please notice how one member of the Turboboosting Jetbike squad A is in front of a member of another Jetbike squad (called C). At 4.45 he moves Jetbike squad C and at 5.00 he, again completely unmotivated, moves Jetbike squad A back towards the edge into the position previously held by squad C. Perhaps to bring him out of range of the TL-lascannon Razorbacks. I can't tell.

At 5.12 he starts to reposition his Warp Spider for a third time. While this is indeed a dickmove, he is still well within the allowed movement (shown at 2.03).


Have I missed anything?

You've heard of having cards up your sleeve but what about models up your sleeve!?

I saw someone cheating once, they had ork boyz up their sleeve and was cunningly deploying them when his opponent wasnt looking, its hard ot notice an extra boy in about twenty after all.

Ussualy it's scummy movement and fudging the rules of a dex. I collect IG and another IG player at our club had been grouping together a 50-man combined squad of Guard AND chucking his platoon command (with medic in tow) in there as well, giving about 55 models Feel No Pain. When I found out about this I pointed him to the rules that pretty explicitly said you can't do that. IMO the guy is also a bit shifty with his movement, but I don't really think he cheats.


BTW, malfred won this thread from the start.

@Steelmage99

There seems to be a lot of outrage at this guy. If I were playing him in a friendly game I might remind him about the disembarking and full-out move but otherwise not mind. Doesn't seem as malicious as people make out. At a tournament, however, I think people expect better.

That's the issue, it is a tournament. Pre-measuring is against the rules and you certainly shouldn't shuffle your models around constantly, especially after moving a different squad......

mattyboy22 wrote:That's the issue, it is a tournament. Pre-measuring is against the rules and you certainly shouldn't shuffle your models around constantly, especially after moving a different squad......

That's exactly what I was getting at.

In a casual game, sure. These things *do* happen (sometimes with certain people, more often than not...), and it's relatively no big deal. I don't mind things like this to some extent. Sloppy play, bad hand-eye coordination, trivial cheating - it's all the same and you shouldn't really sweat those things.

However, in a tournament with presumably with money or prizes in some form on the line, I would expect much better. I'm not a tournament player by trade anymore, but I'm a razor sharp gamer compared to this guy. And he wins best general?

It's hard to believe everyone tolerated his sloppy and suspicious play. You don't let things slide in tournaments, that's not being a bad sportsman - it's playing by the letter of the rule. Tournaments are not casual play and you can expect opponents to call out your infractions as well.

ruler extension is pre measuring. which is against the rules. Using his forearm too. who knows.


meh

Eldar Own wrote:You've heard of having cards up your sleeve but what about models up your sleeve!?

I saw someone cheating once, they had ork boyz up their sleeve and was cunningly deploying them when his opponent wasnt looking, its hard ot notice an extra boy in about twenty after all.

Thats classy cheating. I like it..

Also my new sig is now from this thread.