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Cheating is when you know the rules the game is played by and deliberately evade them in some way for an advantage.

Making an honest mistake isn't cheating.

Cheats can conceal their cheating under the guise of mistakes.

Dice rolling etiquette isn't hard and everyone ought to do it.

My roommate accuses me of changing the rules for movement and refuses to properly wheel his units, easily giving him all the room needed to manuver. He also hates using: scatter dice, the 1" rule, or following the rules for Waagh. ("What do you mean I have to turn the unit towards the closest one? Moving towards your board edge gets me closer! I shouldn't have to turn! If I do that, I'll get bogged down in my own units!")

Even more beligerant, though, was the local we called "The Cheat" (of Strongbad fame). He would move a rhino 12. Then decide he wanted the side to the enemy, moving that side to the 12" line. Then change his mind, deciding that he wanted face first. (pivot on the spot, get an extra inch) nevermind, side (turn to the new line of the nose) Okay face (pivot) Side (turn) face (pivot) etc, until he had picked up at least 4 inches. When confronted, he would take his tape measure, measure 12" back from his current position, then adopt a hurt look. "See? 12"." He would gloss over the fact that this mark put him far past the deployment line in the first turn. He especially loved doing this with his 4e demon bomb or IW armies for chaos. Subtle, underpowered armies in desperate need of cheating in order to allow them to win...

BrookM wrote:Maybe more of a nitpick, but when people are supposed to roll the dice and instead just tip them into the lid we use for dice rolls. OH GEE, THAT'S A LOT OF SIXES AIT LAWL.

My friend does something like this constantly. I like to pick up my dice and give them a good shake, then a bit of a twirl as I toss them onto the battlefield (onto a nice, open area where they won't break anything, obviously). My friend tends to grab his dice, lift them about 2 inches off the table, and drop them straight down. He seems to roll a lot of 5s and 6s, hmm...

I havn't noticed anyone cheating with extra dice like that before. But that reminds me of some one cheating against me years ago...
Back in highschool my friends and I used to play Risk almost every day in the cafeteria at lunch(and the occasional skipped class...). One time when declaring an attack, the defender wouldn't take off enough troops(he'd lose two, so take off a horse, and put on four men, stuff like that). My friends all noticed this after a while(the attack for this one territory took a long time, it was a very large war of attrition), although they didn't say anything(they thought it was too funny). I eventually won the territory, and he told me afterward.

Most common I've seen is either measuring from the front of the base to the back of it (effectively gaining an inch of movement), or picking out the hits before you have a chance to see them.

Me personally I've done the extra dice one be accident on occasion, mainly forgetting things like my exarch has a two handed weapon (how I don't know, I almost always equip her that way). I'll normally pick it up in time and simply subtract one from what ever's most favorable to be (i.e. 1 less hit, wound, or take one less save), it's the quickest and fairest way to do it, doubly so when I normally have such poor luck that rerolling everything will probably turn out better than the first roll.

My mate on the other hand has a habit of cheating himself. He'd from time to time measure from the back of his base to the front, or quickly pick out the misses from a lot of dice and accidentally grab a few hits with them. Normally I'll laugh at him, call him an idiot and give him however many dice I think he cheated himself of.

I've cheated a lot in my life, but NEVER intentionally.

For example, on a tournament I faced another rather new player (like me). Well hwolf scouts infiltrated and then scout moved so he cheated 2 xD
I'd seen somewhere that if something was extremely high, you could reroll it. Now that's ofcourse if BS is high, but I couldn't figure out anything else but S
So everytime my broadsides shot a terminator or so I rerolled the wounds lol... Luckily, the second game was VS a better player who said I was doing quite a few things wrong...
I've also counted AP3 weaps as AP2 vs terminators, but hell he massacred me anyway...

Sometimes you're rolling dice and you notice your opponent isn't even paying attention cause he thinks he'll win anyway. Now that gets me irritated a LOT, but I don't cheat yet.
My fire warriors got enough shots to do the job without cheating

One tournament the others really took advantage of me being a new player though... When I said 'models UNDER the blast markers should be taken as casualties' he said no, absolutely intrue.
Next game I got blasted and the guy said 'you have to take the models UNDER the marker. Meant no shield drones. I still don't know what's true and what isn't

Anyway, my opinion on cheaters differs greatly. If a Necron player cheats, ok, unfair, but no problem. If a Blood Angel still has to cheat that guy is too lame for tournaments!

Kern

Nagashek wrote:My roommate accuses me of changing the rules for movement and refuses to properly wheel his units, easily giving him all the room needed to manuver. He also hates using: scatter dice, the 1" rule, or following the rules for Waagh. ("What do you mean I have to turn the unit towards the closest one? Moving towards your board edge gets me closer! I shouldn't have to turn! If I do that, I'll get bogged down in my own units!")

Even more beligerant, though, was the local we called "The Cheat" (of Strongbad fame). He would move a rhino 12. Then decide he wanted the side to the enemy, moving that side to the 12" line. Then change his mind, deciding that he wanted face first. (pivot on the spot, get an extra inch) nevermind, side (turn to the new line of the nose) Okay face (pivot) Side (turn) face (pivot) etc, until he had picked up at least 4 inches. When confronted, he would take his tape measure, measure 12" back from his current position, then adopt a hurt look. "See? 12"." He would gloss over the fact that this mark put him far past the deployment line in the first turn. He especially loved doing this with his 4e demon bomb or IW armies for chaos. Subtle, underpowered armies in desperate need of cheating in order to allow them to win...

It always surprises me that people don't "call" this kind of blatant cheat, or take countermeasures, such as putting a mark by the left rear corner of the vehicle before it starts to move.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Nagashek wrote:My roommate accuses me of changing the rules for movement and refuses to properly wheel his units, easily giving him all the room needed to manuver. He also hates using: scatter dice, the 1" rule, or following the rules for Waagh. ("What do you mean I have to turn the unit towards the closest one? Moving towards your board edge gets me closer! I shouldn't have to turn! If I do that, I'll get bogged down in my own units!")

Even more beligerant, though, was the local we called "The Cheat" (of Strongbad fame). He would move a rhino 12. Then decide he wanted the side to the enemy, moving that side to the 12" line. Then change his mind, deciding that he wanted face first. (pivot on the spot, get an extra inch) nevermind, side (turn to the new line of the nose) Okay face (pivot) Side (turn) face (pivot) etc, until he had picked up at least 4 inches. When confronted, he would take his tape measure, measure 12" back from his current position, then adopt a hurt look. "See? 12"." He would gloss over the fact that this mark put him far past the deployment line in the first turn. He especially loved doing this with his 4e demon bomb or IW armies for chaos. Subtle, underpowered armies in desperate need of cheating in order to allow them to win...

It always surprises me that people don't "call" this kind of blatant cheat, or take countermeasures, such as putting a mark by the left rear corner of the vehicle before it starts to move.

I have called my roommate on his habits. The result? His actions continue, but he refuses to play me. When I pointed out what he was doing wrong in games with others, he has opted to stop playing IN FRONT of me.

And for the Cheat? I only play him in tournaments, call him on every wrong move, call him a cheat to his face (normally I just make jokes with friends if they mess up movement or misallocate attacks, calling it "ork inches" after a friend with shakey hands who couldn't see his own bases due to modelling. Calling anyone a cheat is not an accusation I make lightly) and generally make it as unpleasant as possible for him to continue his behavior, including asking the judge to watch. Even when he does cheat, I sometimes allow it. I take great satisfaction in the fact that even with changing the rules, movements, and army list to fit his own needs, he STILL can't beat me. After every game I tell him that if he learned how to actually play according to the rules he would have a better chance to beat me. Sadly he went well past the point that I felt he could be coached into cheating, and far beyond a few "simple, honest mistakes."

The Grey Knights may cause me to get back into 40k, and I will likely have to start playing him again. Hopefully he's grown up in the last 4 years. I prefer honest challenges.

Ascalam wrote:There was a marine player at our local tournament who had 4-5 near identical lists (same size units, different equipment) that let him tailor his army vs different forces (not a strict Wysiwyg event).

His meltas vs Guard and SM suddenly would morph to flamers vs orks and nids..

The look on his face was priceless when he got swept by my Nids despite this, but then he swept my brand new and beautifully painted (as best I can paint anyway) Trygon Prime off the table (by 'accident' but so hard it hit the floor 10 feet away in pieces) in a fit of pique. I don't think he's been back, but it was an expensive price to pay for it (still cheap to never see him again though )

Uhoh... i might be doing something similar then... didnt think it was cheating >.<
i usually carry 6k points of model when i go gaming and of course it provides models for my variant lists which i adjust depending who i play against...

I think i cheated

It isn't cheating to tailor your list to the opposition, unless there is a prior agreement not to tailor your list to the opposition.

It could be bad sportsmanship if the other player doesn't have the same ability to tailor his list that you have.

However, list tailoring can go into an infinite spiral. It's better to agree a balanced match-up and stick to it.

.Kern. wrote:One tournament the others really took advantage of me being a new player though... When I said 'models UNDER the blast markers should be taken as casualties' he said no, absolutely intrue.
Next game I got blasted and the guy said 'you have to take the models UNDER the marker. Meant no shield drones. I still don't know what's true and what isn't

Wounds are allocated regardless of the source being a template, blast or normal shooting. You do not have to take the models under the template.

I've seen a lot of misinterpretted scatter dice, and a couple of players who roll dice en-mass and then pick up all their hits or wounds very quickly out of the mass so I'm never really sure if it was actually a 5 before he picked it up for instance. Like, out of 30 dice, I can tell exactly how many 5's and 6's were rolled, then he just starts picking up his 'hit' dice so he can roll then for wounds - never really check but I had a suspicion that due to the speed he picked them up, not all of them were actually hits. I haven't played against that guy in a couple of years but when I did, I was always kind of on-edgy about it because he was a regular at FLGS and I felt like even if I did outright catch him BS ing, if I said something it would lead to political drama.

We have a gentleman in Florida who has a reputation of cheating and just being a piss poor person to play against. I shall not name him but he's banned from stores from JAX to Palm Bay on the east coast and Panama City to Sarasota on the West Coast and everywhere in between.

His trick is to use dice that have symbols on them. The symbols will be either on the 6 or the 1 and he will tell you they're all 6's. So you'll see a bunch of dice rolled and tons of symbols and while you're trying to figure out what is what he's being loud and obnoxious.

His reputation preceeds him and many times he will be banned the first time he steps into a store. He's an old dog that won't unlearn his tricks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:It isn't cheating to tailor your list to the opposition, unless there is a prior agreement not to tailor your list to the opposition.

It could be bad sportsmanship if the other player doesn't have the same ability to tailor his list that you have.

However, list tailoring can go into an infinite spiral. It's better to agree a balanced match-up and stick to it.

I've seen that happen and I laughed when it back fired against the guy. I saw someone put an ork army on the table and hand the list to his opponent. His opponent didn't look at the list but saw the orks. He handed his anti ork Dark Eldar army list and started deploying. The first item on the table was a land raider. Thinking it was a looted land raider he goes that will give me some trouble. Next item on the table, a second land raider. His response was orks can't have two looted land raiders. To which he responded, yes but the space wolves can. Read my army list. The guy freaked out and started saying that he wanted to pack his stuff up or play another army list as it wasn't fair at all that he wasn't playing orks. To which the guy responded back thats fine but I will count this as a win for the league. He stood there and in a huff decided he would try for a draw by not engaging him with his dark eldar. The Space Wolf player backed him into the corner and pretty much destroyed him down to a man. He told him moral of the story is to have a balanced army for a league game (this guy was notorious for not playing you unless he knew your army so he could tailor his army to defeat you). It was funny and we all had a good laugh at the fact he didn't pay attention to the army list that was handed to him.

Theres no point in cheating, we're all here to have fun

There is a guy who plays at my FLGS ocassionally and seems to have a very curious lack of knowledge about the rules, considering the fact that he has been playing for years, claims to be a competitive player and makes a habit of calling other people on missteps. I played against him in a small tournament at the store a few weeks ago, but only after he played my father. My Dad came with me that day because it something we can both enjoy doing together (I'm 21 so the activities that reach that criteria are few these days).

Because we were both participating in the tournament I could not watch over him as he played. Was maybe his 5th time playing the game at all - and the first ever playing in a competitive environment where he could not totally rely on his playing partner to help with rules. I realized talking to my Dad afterwards how horribly he had been cheated. Despite a very deep desire not to have to play this guy again, I ended up getting matched to him for the 3rd and final round. I was playing Chaos SM and he was IG.

Among his list of PLEASE DO NOT USE PROFANITY ON DAKKA:

1. Would not allow me to move infantry which I successfully lashed (he did it for me). This turned out to deny me a following assault by less than half an inch.

2. Got into a verbal arguement with me to the point of calling the tournament judge based on whether or not his vehicle gains a cover save when my predator shot it through a piece of area terrain with two trees on either side (firing between terrain pieces rule < 50% coverage rule).

3. Assaulted a squad of his into a squad of mine which was partially in terrain, ignoring the movement order required by Assaults so as not to require his troops to take a difficult terrain test for the assault.

4. An issue as mentioned above, quite consistenly managed to "interpret" the scatter die to his favor, especially after Morbo came in.

5. Tried to argue that the top floor of a ruined building did not confer my obliterators a cover save, despite us going over terrain before the game began and agreeing that it counted as 4+ area terrain.

6. He had those lovely dice with symbols, which I never knew the difference between 1s and 6s for.

7. Lastly, though this may not technically be cheating, he had what I consider to be a lousy attitude when it came to movement order and turn procedure. For example: I go . . hmm, shooting phase. 3. . 2. . 1. . no wait, forgot one move. Move it. Shooting phase. He has a problem with this and I end up just saying, fine, whatever, I won't move it, and put it back.

While granted it was a tournament, it wasn't 'Ard Boyz either - and I had yet to proceed with any actions actually related to the shooting phase. I just considered it poor sportsmanship I guess.


On the bright side, I didn't let this guy swindle me. I beat him for 5 of 6 available points. He earned only 1, a result which moved him from what would have been 2nd place to 5th, while I got myself into a tie for 2nd. Probably the most morally satisfying 40k victory I have yet experienced.

I hate those symbol dice. I played a tournament this weekend,and half the guys there had them. The 1 and 6 results were both little gold squiggles, and look pretty alike, especially on an amber background, and my vision isn't the best. Its amazing how often they wind up being 6's...


There should be a rule- all dice should be NUMBERS- not pips, not blanks with sharpie drawings- numbers!

There was even one guy using only vehicle damage dice, but at least you could figure the rolls if you know the damage table

I don't really cheat as such,it's more of a case of "Oh shoot I forgot to cast Warptime at the start of this turn,or I forgot to roll for my deep stirking Prince",and usually my opponent lets me just make the roll then.

Ascalam wrote:I hate those symbol dice. I played a tournament this weekend,and half the guys there had them. The 1 and 6 results were both little gold squiggles, and look pretty alike, especially on an amber background, and my vision isn't the best. Its amazing how often they wind up being 6's...


There should be a rule- all dice should be NUMBERS- not pips, not blanks with sharpie drawings- numbers!

There was even one guy using only vehicle damage dice, but at least you could figure the rolls if you know the damage table

I use stylized dice for my Wolves, but the only change is that the 6 side is a Wolf head. And I usually go over it with my opponent beforehand if they're unfamiliar with the dice - just show 'em one, show that there's clearly a 1 side and a Wolf side in place of a 6.

My FLGS seems to have a large number of people who "interpret" the scatter die quite loosely...I've seen a few that were a good 50 degrees off at times.

Sometimes the scatter diece problem is accidental. I've seen some of my friends misread it too. We always try to roll scatters next to the objects of question now, but I can definately see how thats "gaining an advantage".

Scatters that are not rolled next to or as close to the unit in question as possible will be asked to be rolled closer next time, especially if by some miracle the unit is unhurt because the shot "missed".

I've never cheated intentionally; there was a time back in 7th where I nuked an Empire General with a Runesword using Rule of Burning Iron, thinking it was D6 hits instead of 1 (he agreed, as did two veterans observing, even with the relevant RB page open on the table >.< and it wasn't until later that we realised (in all fairness, I wasn't allowed to use Cupped Hands vs my snake eyes miscast because the internet at the store was down, so I had no access to the FAQ saying I could use it - So it balanced out a bit when I lost my Slann on turn 2...)

Times i've been cheated include my first ever tournament which was also my first ever competative game (and what put me off the hobby for ~1 year), where it was my CSMs vs Nids during 4th edition; my terminators dropped down near his carnifex and genestealers, ready to flame the stealers and beat down the fex) and naturally scattered a bit (but they were still far from being within the range to mishap on the carnifex).

He argued that they were too close, and all died. Having done deepstriking in my final beginner tutorial, I corrected him and pointed it out. he argued further and asked me to fetch a tape measure from the nearby table. I did so, and upon returning, could've sworn my terminators were closer (my heavy flamer was also pointing towards the carnifex, when I placed it pointing towards the stealers). Despite this, I was still out by a hair's breadth on my closest terminator.

He continued to argue, and demanded that I fetch the store manager (who was moderating the tournemant). I reutrned to find them even closer, and it was ruled that most of the unit was now dead (including my lord, but not including combi-flamer and heavy flamer). I killed 3 of the stealers with the flamers and then got eaten by the fex.

That lost me the game, since the stealers ran around and ate everything else. I was around 12 at the time, and he was 15-16 and a well known veteran, so I didn't want to cause a fuss. It was a slight win for me, however, when I learned that he was a known cheater, and despite the fact that he got through to the final, it was there that he got his arse handed to him by a pure GK list.

Second time was fantasy, and I actually stood my ground. Fanatic scatters, scatter dice points it neatly into his gobbos... so he angles the movement into my skinks ~5 inches to the left. I get the store manager (keeping an eye on the table) and he rules in my favour. Didn't do much, but how he thought he could get away with that much of a deviation...

We have a guy at our store who has some ... interesting techniques.

He plays mechanized Eldar and Guard and in almost all the games I've played him during my shooting phase when I have an advantageous shot with something he suddenly says, "Oh, I didn't mean to leave this vehicle facing like that." and proceeds to change the facing so whatever is shooting is now in a different, more difficult arc. He then has a very interesting interpretation of what vehicle facing of mine he is shooting at (i.e. side arc when clearly it's in the front). It's obnoxious, but if he feels the need to cheat at toy soldiers to feel like a big man.....

Ascalam wrote:I hate those symbol dice. I played a tournament this weekend,and half the guys there had them. The 1 and 6 results were both little gold squiggles, and look pretty alike, especially on an amber background, and my vision isn't the best. Its amazing how often they wind up being 6's...

I can understand that, but I use only symbol dice (the Dakka Dakka dice). Before each game, I randomly grab one, show him that the symbol is on the six and then show him the "one" pip on the opposite side. I also volunteer to allow my opponent to use my dice as well.

Never had a problem.

Lorek wrote:

Ascalam wrote:I hate those symbol dice. I played a tournament this weekend,and half the guys there had them. The 1 and 6 results were both little gold squiggles, and look pretty alike, especially on an amber background, and my vision isn't the best. Its amazing how often they wind up being 6's...

I can understand that, but I use only symbol dice (the Dakka Dakka dice). Before each game, I randomly grab one, show him that the symbol is on the six and then show him the "one" pip on the opposite side. I also volunteer to allow my opponent to use my dice as well.

Never had a problem.

I played in a tourny where an opponent said the symbols were all 6s... but then turns out some of them were 1s!

there's a good chance it was on purpose... but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt

This actually augurs for rolling fewer dice sometimes. I use a brick of dice that I picked up from Gettysburg called "Civil War Dice" ... which just means 6 of them are grey, and 6 are blue, and they're fairly good size ... not huge, but not the little chessex standards.

If I have to roll 24 dice, I'll roll those 12 twice, and everyone knows I only have 12 of those dice in the first place, 6 and 6 ... so it's easy to count the total that I roll, yatta yatta. If necessary for speed or whatever other reason, I have a metric buttton of GW red and black dice that can be used, but in a tournament situation where I'm not lacking in time, and in friendly games, I generally will only use my Civil War dice. It just makes it easier for my opponent to see what I'm doing, and it makes cheating even by accident a much more difficult proposition.

Cheating against a new player is really, really sad.

Being 1 of 2 players using Eldar at my FLGS, I was accidentally misusing my Swooping Hawk grenade packs.

I thought I could either use the normal detonation or a haywire grendade when they yo-yo'd.

Oops.

I think most people make honest mistakes, especially with scatter rolls, but there's still no excuse for cheating.

Mostly I've seen the rubber tape measure problem. Also TLOS is causing me untold heartache. The only dice issues I've ever had is with a player who's long gone. He would fast roll. By that I mean roll his dice and pick up all the hits or wounds before you could see what the results were.

.Kern. wrote:
For example, on a tournament I faced another rather new player (like me). Well hwolf scouts infiltrated and then scout moved so he cheated 2 xD

That's legal. You can infiltrate either 12" (out of LOS) or 18" (in LOS). You can then Scout up to the 12" mark (or sideways or backwards, etc)

Not cheating, but apparently I've been playing difficult terrain wrong for years and no one called me on it until a tournament last weekend. I played that only the guys going through the terrain slowed down. Wow was that embarassing.

The worst, and only I'm glad to say, case of cheating that I've encountered was when playing a tyranid guy on vassal. I typically do pretty well against 'Nids (have the codex, and read it so not much takes me by surprise) but this guy was tough... and he had lots and LOTS of big shooty bugs.

I barely scratched a win off of him, as he made some huge errors that I was able to capitalize on (outflanking in such a way that he split his army into 4 bite sized chunks).

Showing the list to my friends, the nid player amongst us took a good hard look at what he had, and how they acted and was able to guestimate that this guy had brought a 2900 point list to the game...

Like I said however, this is the only cheating I've seen so far