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insaniak wrote:

synchronicity wrote:What was he supposed to do? Make them start over? How would you have resolved it, as a ref?

In a tournament game where a ruling hadn't been made before the game began, IMO the best solution would have been to either go with one of the non-destroyed options (which means not just handing the game to the other player as a reward for exploiting a loophole) or ruling that it counts as destroyed for the rest of the tournament but to start the game over now that both players are aware of the ruling.

While some of those I could definitely see working, it's also worth mentioning that the White Scars player goofed twice: once in bringing an invalid HQ for the tournament, and once when not seeing the impending infiltration. Now, I could see being a good sport with just the infiltration move and sorting it out then, but the fact that he had two minuses against him makes me less inclined to be nice about it, as a ref. In that case, the rules for allowable HQ's had been posted already, and should have been seen.

But we all make those kind of mistakes here and there. Two refs would have called it two different ways. I don't think I would have let him slide because of the additional HQ goof, which invalidated his reserve strategy in the first place. Should have given that up once the HQ ability was out. Additionally, any result that does not include the White Scars becoming destroyed would likely swing the game largely in his favor, because the Tau player is in a compromising, spread out position. He shouldn't be punished for making an legal (albeit sigh worthy) move, when the other player makes two silly mistakes. Just my opinion though.

synchronicity wrote:While some of those I could definitely see working, it's also worth mentioning that the White Scars player goofed twice: once in bringing an invalid HQ for the tournament, and once when not seeing the impending infiltration.

Sorry, but I'm not seeing the relevance of the first.

If he brought an invalid list, the TO had the option of not letting him play, or of allowing him to play anyway. If he was allowed to use the list he brought, then that's the issue dealt with. It shouldn't be later brought back up and held against him on any rules issues that might crop up during the game.

Either let him use it, or don't. Don't let him use it and then say that rulings should go against him because he brought something that you have let him use.



And again, not seeing the infiltrator block was not really a goof, since there were no rules in place to deal with it. Players can and should be expected to plan for whatever tactics their opponent may bring to bear within the rules of the game. They shouldn't be expected to plan for their opponent utilising a loophole to bring the game to a crashing halt.

I agree with Insaniak - the ;legality or otherwise of the players HQ has *nothing* to do with the situation at hand. If the judges really thought the HQ was an issue then it would have been sorted out earlier - it is independent of this issue and should have no bearing on how THIS issue was resolved.

And again - IF a ruling on Infiltration had been made *before* AND had been *published* then yes, it should have been noted by the player - however it seems it wasnt, so they should not be expected to plan for a houserule being decided against them and handing the game to the other player.

I would possibly rule a do over, however from the sounds of things there was a long discussion first, before the TO was involved. This probably menas there wouldnt be time for a do-over - in which case allowing tghe white scars player to move on, straight into assault makes the most sense.

If you have an army with no skimmers, tanks, outflankers or deep strikers and put it all into reserve against an opponent with lots of infiltrators then this is what will happen.

You really have to do it to yourself.

As for a ruling, personally I'd have the units arriving go back into reserve. Doesn't help the all bikes white scar player but that's tough for him.

synchronicity wrote:What was he supposed to do? Make them start over? How would you have resolved it, as a ref?

I would have put them back into reserve for 1 turn and let the player reroll for that reserve unit and walk on the player's board edge or let that unit outflank (The unit finds some other way to get onto the battlefield); since there is no rule to cover it, destroying a game because of the lack of a rule is not good judgement. Again, I always apply the principle of: Dont damage a game or penalize a player because the rulebook is ineptly written, do the least damaging possible result and let the game move forward.

In order for a destructive and damaging result to be reasonable, there would have to be an affirmative rule (not ruling a >RULE< which clearly states that "The unit is destroyed because the opponent blockaded that board edge". Since there is no affirmative rule, and since the rulebook is completely tacit on the subject, apply the previously mentioned principle and keep the game flowing forward.


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synchronicity wrote:because the Tau player is in a compromising, spread out position. He shouldn't be punished for making an legal (albeit sigh worthy) move, when the other player makes two silly mistakes. Just my opinion though.

Uhh, I disagree with your logic... He isn't being punished... If you let the units go back into reserve to come in on some other board edge (Back edge for out flankers and side edge for normal reserves) then no one is being punished... This isn't a subjective term... The player chose to spread his units out... that was his strategy, if he chose that strategy then he thinks its going to win... If he makes a dumb strategy and loses... whatever, it was the one he chose.

I'm also a fan of letting the units that are deploying from reserves assault as they move on; I honestly see nothing wrong with that and see it as a much more favorable result than destroying the unit by fiat, again, by principle, one ought to apply the least destructive course of action when figuring out what to do when there is a gap in the rules.

And finally, punishing a player because he made a mistake about his HQ choice completely defies the ethos of a judge.


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nosferatu1001 wrote:I agree with Insaniak - the ;legality or otherwise of the players HQ has *nothing* to do with the situation at hand. If the judges really thought the HQ was an issue then it would have been sorted out earlier - it is independent of this issue and should have no bearing on how THIS issue was resolved.

Completely agree, using the information about his HQ choice when making a ruling on this scenario is completely abhorrent.

Scott-S6 wrote:If you have an army with no skimmers, tanks, outflankers or deep strikers and put it all into reserve against an opponent with lots of infiltrators then this is what will happen.

...but only at an event where this Houserule is in place.

And thats the point - IF this was known about beforehand - then its the players fault. However it seems like it was an on-the-spot ruling, and as such destroying th game for one person through a ruling, when there are many other possibiliites? Not good.

visavismeyou wrote:
... that was his strategy, if he chose that strategy then he thinks its going to win... If he makes a dumb strategy and loses... whatever, it was the one he chose.

And here we have the true point of the opposing arguement......
The WS player clearly CHOSE to keep his entire force in reserve, Hoping to deny his opponant any shooting. He THOUGHT he was going to win.

The Tau Player made a Valid deployment of his infiltrators, choosing to deny his opponant access to the field of play.

At this point we have, in effect, a stalemate. However, since only ONE player had models on the field of play, and the other had no Valid/legal way to bring his forces on then he:
A) Planned poorly and should not be granted a favorable decision
B) Played poorly and should not be granted a favorable decision
C) CHOSE Poorly and.......

Helgrenze - except the game has no Rules to back the situation up, meanin ghte TO made a HOUSERULE that destroyed on opponent.

The only equitable thing to do is rule that the game is a do over, as you have reached a stalemate that the RULES do not cover, despite many oppurtunities for them to do so.

Destroying one persons game on a houserule, one that you decided on during the game? Not good.

There is no "poor planning" if it reuires a HOUSERULE to end the game.

Ok then the ruling should have been...

DRAW!

At that point its a stalemate. Neither side is going to move, one because it cannot and the other will not.

Thus, the only decent ruling would be a Draw. No-one wins or loses.

This rewards the player that chose to not deploy and penalises the player that did choose to deploy.

One point though, must be considered.... WE do not know what victory conditions were in effect.
Were points awarded for models ON THE TABLE?
Were points awarded for taking objectives?
If the answer to either of these is Yes, then its not a Draw.

Unfortunately, there is no other head-to-head style competition where one opponant can block another from the field of play that can truely be used for comparrison

No, the best result is a do over - the game could not continue, so you reset and start again. This of course assumes enough time to do so.

Thus you have neither rewarded nor penalised *either* side.

Or perhaps a redo at, say.. half the points?

Or roll for each sides units, all of them, 1-3 they can be used, 4+ unit destroyed (for VP only) and cannot be used.
From the pic of the Tau/White Scars match we can estimate how many units the WS player had. (I believe his whole army is visible.) But not the Tau player.
Would this lead to an unbalanced match? Probably.

Fact is, This can be discussed until everyone is dead and buried and no real concensus will be reached.
All the points brought up are valid, logical, and mostly well thought out.
Yes, there is no rule for this situation.....

Oh wait... There is.......

On page 2 of the core rulebook..... At the top..... TMIR.

Dice it off and move on.

helgrenze wrote:Yes, there is no rule for this situation.....

Oh wait... There is.......

On page 2 of the core rulebook..... At the top..... TMIR.

Dice it off and move on.

So what is stopping this situation then?

WS Player: I think all my Bikes should be Strength and Toughness 10
Tau Player: No
WS Player: TMIR! Dice Off!

Tau Player Wins

WS Player: I think all my Bikes should be Strength and Toughness 9

etc

Helgrenze - except all of those arent as fair as simply redoing from the start. E.G. VPs are usually used for ties on battle points, so by redoing at half the points total both players are penalised.

By simply redoing *neither* player is penalised - assumgn that a redo is ok time wise.

TMIR has no place in this sort of rules discussion, as it is a Deus Ex Machina type affair - the TO should have bit the bullet and called for a do over, but EARLY in the discussion to make sure there was sufficient time.

visavismeyou wrote:
Uhh, I disagree with your logic... He isn't being punished... If you let the units go back into reserve to come in on some other board edge (Back edge for out flankers and side edge for normal reserves) then no one is being punished...

You mean other than his opponent who now has units that do not have the Outflank rule suddenly doing so?

Actually, one can also proceed with the game following the tenet of breaking the fewest rules as possible.

If the reserves cannot be deployed, they simply remain in reserve and the game proceeds. The only rule destoying anything is if units are in reserve at the end of the game. This does mean that for any army with no vehicles or skimmers the units will eventually be destroyed.


This choice breaks one rule, the deployment rule...which is the rule in question at the time and is already being broken by the playing conditions of the game. For a decision made on the spot this would be the one that warps the game the least.

While redoing the game might be attractive in some ways, it is not going to be a realistic possibility in a tourney setting.

While allowing assault from outside the table might be appealing in some ways, it radically changes the nature of the game.

While allowing reserve units to keep moving to find a nonblocked table edge on a later turn might be appealing, it raises a whole host of issues. How many turns to seek a new edge? Does it matter how fast the unit can move? Does it matter if the unit was already outflanking?


The reserve rule is broken by this scenario, while it would be ideal to already have house rules in place to deal with the situation, thats not always the case. When making a ruling *at the time* one needs to try to break as few rules as possible to keep the game moving so that the entire tournement isnt bogged down.



Sliggoth

Redoing the game breaks NO rules, especially as nothign has been decided by dice rolls apart from first turn - which you dont need to redo.

My initial reaction was "kudos to the tau player." After reading this thread, I see it a little more from the White Scar player. I have to mull over the topic a little more, but I think the best answer is to give the players the option of having either a Draw, or setting up and replaying quickly. If they can't agree, and I was the judge, I'd be inclined to give them both a Draw.

Personally, I think the Tau player made a smart move. And one that has been discussed on multiple threads and sites over the internet. Plus, the INAT FAQ has tackled the issue. So, I have some background knowledge. The White Scar player may or may not have that. And the 40k rulebook doesn't state what happens if a unit cannot deploy from Reserves. I can see where the White Scar player would feel like he got robbed on the game.

helgrenze wrote:

visavismeyou wrote:
... that was his strategy, if he chose that strategy then he thinks its going to win... If he makes a dumb strategy and loses... whatever, it was the one he chose.

And here we have the true point of the opposing arguement......
The WS player clearly CHOSE to keep his entire force in reserve, Hoping to deny his opponant any shooting. He THOUGHT he was going to win.

The Tau Player made a Valid deployment of his infiltrators, choosing to deny his opponant access to the field of play.

At this point we have, in effect, a stalemate. However, since only ONE player had models on the field of play, and the other had no Valid/legal way to bring his forces on then he:

No, actually, we dont have a stalemate, we have one player who made a completely legitimate and unarguably valid move of reserving his army... The other one was trying to abuse a loophole in the rules and would have been banned from ever playing the game again or had other punitive action taken against him if we were talking about Magic the Gathering.

You couldn't be misunderstanding this situation more; you're talking about a contrived response to a valid and effective strategy; reserving your army is in no way shady... Trying to block the access to the game board to play upon an obscure rules hole and upon knowledge of some inept judge's previous decision to attempt to abuse that inept ruling is borderline cheating...

God I wish I could tell you all the banhammers I put down for people who did stuff like this during my Magic the Gathering judging days. I can give a brief overview of one.. bear with me, you'll see the correlation.

In MTG, the turn is made out of several phases, inside the combat phase there are several steps, if both players agree to move to the next step, you cannot go back (talking about highly competitive tournament play). The combat phase has "Declare attackers" and "Declare blockers" as two of the steps (only two which are relevant to my analogy). So, the attacking player declares all of his attackers first and then the defending player declares all of his blockers, simple enough. Now there is a casual form of play and there is a correct form of play; the casual way is for the attacking player to declare an attacking creature and the defender to instantly declare a defender, then repeat. This is completely wrong, but some people still do it and they dont mind going back and forth and allowing changes etc. Anyway, what happened was that this was the last few minutes of a decisive game and if the attacking player attacked with every creature he had then the defending player would have no chance of winning; both players knew this, it was very obvious, most players would have conceded in the defending players position; if the attacking player did not attack with everything, the defender would have won (complicated reasons which are non important).

Throughout the game, to my later chagrin, both players tacitly agreed to play the casual way, they would declare an attacker and then assign a blocking creature, declare another attacker and assign another blocking creature and so on; in this decisive turn... The attacking player (the rube) declared his first attacking creature, the defending player (the cheater) assigned a defending creature and as soon as the defending player made any acknowledgement of the defending creature, the cheater said "Oh ok, so you're done attacking and we're in the declare blockers step now... So you only attacked with one creature" he promptly called a judge over and explained that because the attacking player only attacked with one creature in the declare attackers step that only one creature would be dealing damage and that the defending player would be able to survive another turn.

Obviously, this is cheating and I couldn't hit him with the ban hammer quickly enough; I did, however, give the rube a penalty too, he had been playing incorrectly the entire round...

Anyway the point is that the cheater set up the rube, while the rube agreed to play incorrectly, and was wrong and was dumb, he by no means was the cheater. Back to Warhammer, the guy who blocked the board edge... was cheating, we dont ever need to even talk about his opponent... period... once a thief steals your car, the thief is responsible and goes to jail, just because you left your keys in the car does not mean that you go to jail because you left your keys in the car and someone stole it...


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don_mondo wrote:

visavismeyou wrote:
Uhh, I disagree with your logic... He isn't being punished... If you let the units go back into reserve to come in on some other board edge (Back edge for out flankers and side edge for normal reserves) then no one is being punished...

You mean other than his opponent who now has units that do not have the Outflank rule suddenly doing so?

Still not a punishment.... The fact of the matter is that breaking the fewest rules possible is the best way to do it and there is no other way of dealing with the blockading player's choice without breaking a ton of rules (or just banning him as I would have done... I mean, with fiery vengeance too, like The-Hand-of-God-Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style Ban Hammer, and I would have posted his picture on the wall to ridicule and humiliate him; cheating is like a virus, it spreads if given an inch.) If you JUST put the reserved units back into reserve, and the other player doesn't move his troops, then each successive turn the reserved units will still not be able to come on and will just be destroyed at the end of the game, thus that is not much of a resolution to this quandary.

visavismeyou wrote:

No, actually, we dont have a stalemate, we have one player who made a completely legitimate and unarguably valid move of reserving his army... The other one was trying to abuse a loophole in the rules and would have been banned from ever playing the game or had other punitive action taken against him if we were talking about Magic the Gathering

But we're not talking about some card game, are we? We're talking about 40K. Was the Infiltration done illegaly? No. So why should he be punished? Has this ever come up before? Yes. Has GW ever ruled on it before? Yes, as I've already pointed out more than once, referencing the old SW OBEL. Have major tournaments ever ruled on it before? Yes, both US and (IIRC) UK GTs have addressed it in the past, and then of course the INAT. So, given all that, one would think that any player who is going to compete at that level (European Championship, right?) would know about this issue and know the likely result if it came up. So if he doesn't plan ahead and deploy one sacrificial squad to prevent his board edge from being blocked, it's his (the WS player) fault. It's not the fault of the Tau player who happened to know how this situation is commonly handled, and may have known that this particular tourney had a ruling in place.

I do agree with one thing you said. We're not talking about a stalemate. A ruling was made in accordance with history and precedence, game over.

I think the only objection to this is when a tournament does not explicitly use a FAQ that covers this and a judge must make a ruling that essentially decides the game.

Provided it is not a 'gotcha!' situation, like the other player says "Yeah you can just come in on the nearest free table edge" and then calls a judge over to rule it destroyed, then the ruling is what the ruling is.

In general it might be a good idea to clarify this before reserving your whole army or significant portions of it in a tournament.

If I were a judge I would slap the Tau's wrist for being a smart alec, offer a do-over and if refused say you can move on from either table edge nearest your own, no more than 1" from a blocking model.

Stupid nonsensical rule.

@ Visa Certainly hope that your MTG rulings were better than the idea you propose for 40k. Banning someone from every playing again because they block a table edge? If a player decides to keep his army fully in reserve he is doing that in order to gain an advantage, at least that would clearly be the case here. One would have to accept that there are risks with that stategy, it should be obvious to anyone that with bad reserve rolls the opponent could cross the playing field and place his units whereever he wished. It should be apparent that it would be quite possible to box reserve units into a small segment of the board....would allowing the opponent just enough room to deploy one unit from reserve be enough to not be banned? Would leaving reseve units enough room to cram in two units be enough?
One player is using a tactic to try and obtain a decisive advantage (reserving his entire army). There are risks with trying to create such a huge advantage for one's army, as well there should be. The player blocking the deployment edge has made a completely legitimate and unarguably valid move. Its as much a loophole as is the idea of fully reserving an army to deprive an opponent of his first turn. You couldn't be misunderstanding this situation more; you're talking about a valid and effective strategy; trying to block or restrict acces to the game board is in no way shady...its done all the time to restrict the effectiveness of infiltrators and deep striking units.
Banning a player for playing entirely by the rules is...perhaps a wee bit of a miscalculation on the part of any judge.


On a different note, calling for a redo of the entire game might be appealing, but delaying a tournement for one game is not being even slightly fair to the many other players. Disrupting 10, 20 or 50 other players is not a viable option for a TO.

While destroying any reserve units that cannot be deployed that turn (and is not the option I would use locally) it certainly is a valid ruling by the TO, it does have some (old) precedent. It certainly is the harshest ruling for the reserving player, but it is a valid choice for the TO.



Sliggoth

The Tau player is a tactical genius akin to Creed and should be rewarded as such.

If there was a website called, "Great Moments in 40k History", then that photo should be on the front page.

Tactics is one thing, an illegal army composition is different. When the individual with 3 HQ units where his codex FOC allows only 2, *should* have been caught when the army was checked into the tourney. As soon as it was, I would think he should have been allowed to correct the army if the tourney had not started or deploy only two, his choice, from that point on.

Homer

Suppose the Tau player had deployed his kroot so that there was a small "corridor" 2" wide by 8" long. Then 2 bikes out of a (presumed) 5 bike unit would have room to move onto the board.
What about the rest of the bike unit? Destroyed? Put back in reserve?
Would you then expect the TO to tell the Tau player, "No fair! You have to re-position your kroot to allow room for the entire bike unit to come on"?
The WS player used the rules to deny the Tau player the first two turns of shooting.
The Tau player responded by using the rules to deny the WS player a board edge to bring his reserves on.
Point. Set. Match.

Time Wizard - as has been *repeatedly* pointed out - what was decided was NOT a "Rule", but a "houserule".

BIG difference.

Homer - the guys illegal HQ or not is NOT relevant to this situation. By not picking it up at registration and not making an issue later on, there is a tacit "all is good". Still doesnt alter that THIS situation required a hosuerule.

Hmmm, oddly, this is being discussed elsewhere, and in one of those posts, it was mentioned that (supposedly) the tau player warned the WS player what he was going to do when the WS player was declaring his units to be in Reserves, ie he gave him a chance to do otherwise and not place everything in Reserves. If this is true (and I have no reason to believe it's not, just as I accepted Nos' declaration that the 'houserule' was decided at that time) then the WS player truly screwed up. Not knowing the possibility is one thing, but to have your opponent warn you in advance and still go ahead. That's just idiotic. I would at least have gotten the ruling from the judge BEFORE declaring everything in Reserves.

really? So the WS player knew this could happen? Gah, indeed an idiot...

yes, in that case then getting a ruling *first* would have been the prudent course!

visavismeyou wrote: God I wish I could tell you all the banhammers I put down for people who did stuff like this during my Magic the Gathering judging days.

Makes me wonder..... I used to run a M:tG Thunder and Lightening deck... Loaded with Eather Flash and Thundermares. Created a very similar situation against "breeder" decks. EF did automatic damage to any creature as it came into play, 2 pts iirc. Breeder/generator decks relied on 1/1 creatures being generated every turn to power them. First turn I pop EF and my opponant cannot do anything with the breeder/generator.

Do I get banned for playing my deck and disallowing my opponant to play his?

visavismeyou wrote:God I wish I could tell you all the banhammers I put down for people who did stuff like this during my Magic the Gathering judging days.

... Magic the Gathering story here ...

I was on the recieving end of what I feel was a similar situation in my formitive years playing competitive chess at my first school.

Having spent the afternoon looking for the quickest way to get e checkmate with other members of the chess team someone eventually revealed knowledge of the standard 4 move checkmate involving the King's Pawn, Queen, and King's Bishop.

Once the other school arrived and we started the actual games (which involved our 5 members being paired off against their 5 members for a single game) I couldn't help but feel inclined to try it, not realizing how common knowledge it was and assuming I could abort my maneuver if he showed signs of seeing it coming.

It worked, I was just like "lolwut, games over?" and, not wanting to ruin this kid's afternoon since he had come to play chess I just go "look, that's the game, want to just play a friendly game now while we wait for everyone else?" so that's what we do, but I didn't think to call someone over and show them my checkmate.

We come to the end of our friendly game (which I lost) and someone comes over to record the results I inform them that I won and the game they were seeing infront of them was just a friendly game to pass time while we waited, my opponent denies this, claiming that this was our only game and the one that counted. I was screwed.

It taught me the important lesson that when the results are important you shouldn't trust anyone in a competitive environment, I can still trust people, but I'm atleast more aware that, the other guy would oftentimes do anything to win.