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Please don't take this as a personal attack, I'm honestly curious about where you are coming from. Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament. That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me

This comes off like a lack of empathy, to be honest. It shouldn't be strange and alien to be ticked off when you see other people cheated. You shouldn't have to be personally affected to care when others are having a negative experience.

I say SB is just making a play for self promotion.

 Peregrine wrote:

Oh, so now I'm responsible for the accuracy of my opponent's understanding of the rules? If I make a mistake and it causes someone to break the rules, now I go on a blacklist?

There is a tremendous difference between not knowing your opponent's rules and deliberately making a false statement about the rules to bait your opponent into playing something incorrectly while you film it, and then promptly calling a judge to impose a penalty. In that situation you clearly know the correct rule (as you are calling a judge as soon as your opponent breaks it), and you are making false statements about the game state and/or rules to persuade your opponent to play incorrectly. IOW, you are cheating. Let's not pretend that everyone is too stupid to recognize this and apply the correct penalty to you instead of your opponent.

Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me. But planting a number in an opponent's head is not hard. There's a British comedian, Derren Brown, who's made a career of doing something similar.

As a thought experiment, try this sometime during a game. When someone is getting ready to roll for a unit but before they throw any dice, ask someone, "what do those, hit on 3s?" More often than not, that person is at least going to do a double take and agree with you before correcting to the right value. If you're any good at it, that opponent simply accepts that number and measures the outcome of the dice roll accordingly.

It's a perfectly natural question that comes up in just about every game I play. I'm pretty conscious of when I'm actually making a suggestion (but try not to) and watch other people do it all the time to each other. If you're telling me that's cheating, I want to know how you police that. If you're saying there's a worldwide audience who is going to be on the lookout, I'd be interested in seeing how 'community enforcement of natural language rule breakers' works. I suspect it involves a lot of drama, accusations, wasted time, and gets no one anywhere.

But I can think of a dozen other ways to push a player toward DQing themselves and believe, given an incentive via a zero-tolerance policy, players will gravitate towards this kind of skullduggery. That's why people pay money for NLP programs, it works and it's not very hard.

But there's this other question that comes to mind, based on something you said about players being "hopelessly uninformed." At what point do I stop being responsible for my opponent not knowing the rules for their army? A lot of people borrow armies for tournaments (I personally loan people entire Chaos armies for NOVA and LVO) and it would be very easy for someone to step into a mess where they're a little too confident about their command of an unfamiliar force. Am I supposed to keep from speaking for fear I might, unintentionally, mislead a player who is not sufficiently versed in the rules? Then am I supposed to not speak up when my opponent has broken the rules because I might have said something that lead them astray?

Personal responsibility plays a role in this. I could just be asking a question and have someone 'get confused.' I do not agree with the idea that is cheating, you have to be able to talk to your opponent and how they process that information is their deal. At the same time, a system that rewards people for playing on their opponent's doubts is just manipulative and depressing.

So, I see you pointing a lot of fingers about what is and isn't cheating but I don't see where you have a good grasp on what it means. You talk about how nice it would be to have a smaller group with great adherence to the rules and I think you understand perfectly well not everyone who attends tournaments is actually capable of putting together an error-free list. I don't have to be deliberately trying to make someone screw up on the rules and I'm pretty confident I could have them apologizing to me on their way out the door, so there's nothing black and white about these situations you are so quick to judge.

There's nothing exceptional about me, I know other people could (and would) do this to win some stupid trophy or be able to claim the status of best plastic toy soldier dice roller of the year. All you've come up with is a way to take a good-enough system and make it worse.

TheLongWar currently live streaming what happened at the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWtYs9Bq1GE

 techsoldaten wrote:
Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me.

Then why are you commenting on tournaments? What does your lack of concern for the rules in your casual games have to do with how situations should be handled in a tournament?

If you're telling me that's cheating, I want to know how you police that.

By pointing out the obvious on-camera statement saying "hits on 3s" followed by immediately calling a judge when the other player rolls it that way. That's very clearly a case of knowing the rule and trying to make your opponent break it, which is cheating.

At what point do I stop being responsible for my opponent not knowing the rules for their army?

When you stop trying to cheat by knowing the rule and encouraging your opponent to break it so you can DQ them. Saying "hits on 3s?" when you know that's wrong is cheating. Not noticing when your opponent says "5+ to hit" when it should be a 4+ is not cheating.

Am I supposed to keep from speaking for fear I might, unintentionally, mislead a player who is not sufficiently versed in the rules?

Yes, that's exactly what you should do. If your opponent does not know the rules then you should call a judge. If they are so ignorant about their own rules that someone has to hold their hand through the entire game then they should be politely removed from the event and encouraged to try again someday if/when they learn the rules better.

I do not agree with the idea that is cheating

Then you are wrong. You know that the rule is BS 4+, and you are deliberately stating that it is 3+ in an attempt to persuade your opponent to play it wrong. That is blatant cheating, and I have no idea how you could believe otherwise.

I think you understand perfectly well not everyone who attends tournaments is actually capable of putting together an error-free list.

No, I believe no such thing. Everyone is capable of putting together an error-free list. The problem is that some people don't give a about following the rules, whether through deliberate cheating or simply not bothering to try, and DQing them is the correct response.

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me.

Then why are you commenting on tournaments? What does your lack of concern for the rules in your casual games have to do with how situations should be handled in a tournament?

I play by the rules. Suggesting I cheat in games is low, even if I know how to.

I know a lot of TOs and competitive players and have sympathy for them. The hyperbole and distortions in this thread are annoying and counter productive.

 Peregrine wrote:

If you're telling me that's cheating, I want to know how you police that.

By pointing out the obvious on-camera statement saying "hits on 3s" followed by immediately calling a judge when the other player rolls it that way. That's very clearly a case of knowing the rule and trying to make your opponent break it, which is cheating.

If it's so easy to spot, tell me how this guy gets this woman to say what she says:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-OuAoR3jA

He's not reading her mind. Here's a more relevant example with numbers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P32VcwwyFg

 Primark G wrote:
I have a question about plasma pistols in general. Say for a Space Marine character you use a holstered pistol - that would be okay right?

Opinion from someone with Zero Tournament experience. This is fine if every holstered pistol on a Space Marine in your army is a plasma pistol. Otherwise, no dice.

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me.

Then why are you commenting on tournaments? What does your lack of concern for the rules in your casual games have to do with how situations should be handled in a tournament?

Wait a fething minute. In previous threads you have defended the right to complain about 40k if you don't play. But now it's not okay to have an opinion on tournaments if you don't go to them?

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me.

Then why are you commenting on tournaments? What does your lack of concern for the rules in your casual games have to do with how situations should be handled in a tournament?

I play by the rules. Suggesting I cheat in games is low, even if I know how to.

I know a lot of TOs and competitive players and have sympathy for them. The hyperbole and distortions in this thread are annoying and counter productive.

 Peregrine wrote:

If you're telling me that's cheating, I want to know how you police that.

By pointing out the obvious on-camera statement saying "hits on 3s" followed by immediately calling a judge when the other player rolls it that way. That's very clearly a case of knowing the rule and trying to make your opponent break it, which is cheating.

If it's so easy to spot, tell me how this guy gets this woman to say what she says:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX-OuAoR3jA

He's not reading her mind. Here's a more relevant example with numbers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P32VcwwyFg

Quoted for truth and such forth.

 alextroy wrote:

 Primark G wrote:


I have a question about plasma pistols in general. Say for a Space Marine character you use a holstered pistol - that would be okay right?

Opinion from someone with Zero Tournament experience. This is fine if every holstered pistol on a Space Marine in your army is a plasma pistol. Otherwise, no dice.

I don’t use a lot of specialist pistols and sometimes I might convert a model to have one gauntlet do something different. So I overall agree with your assessment and if I had any narstee pistols in a holster I’d inform my opponent before the game began.

I think this thread has run its course.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Wait a fething minute. In previous threads you have defended the right to complain about 40k if you don't play. But now it's not okay to have an opinion on tournaments if you don't go to them?

It depends on the reason for not doing the thing. The person I'm quoting doesn't play in tournaments because they dislike the entire concept of a tournament. So why should their opinion that tournaments don't do the things they like have any value? On the other hand, if someone else didn't play in tournaments because the local TO is a TFG, or didn't play in 40k tournaments but did play WM/H tournaments, etc, then their opinion might be relevant. Same thing with 40k in general. Don't play 40k (much) because you don't like the current state of the game, but want it to be better so you can play? Sure, have an opinion. Don't play 40k because you hate the concept of miniatures games and would never play it no matter what GW does? Why should anyone listen to you?

 Primark G wrote:
I have a question about plasma pistols in general. Say for a Space Marine character you use a holstered pistol - that would be okay right?

Well consider the fact that Cl Iron Hand Straken has a plasma pistol on his wargear list and on his model it is holstered.




Holsters are fine in my book, the bigger issue is when the model is holding an item that they shouldn't be.

Peregrine, I've been following this thread with some interest, and I have a couple of questions - do you consider there to be any difference, philosophically, between unintentional rule-breaking and deliberate cheating, and do you think that (leaving aside how you tell the difference) they should receive the same punishment?

 Peregrine wrote:

If you're telling me that's cheating, I want to know how you police that.

By pointing out the obvious on-camera statement saying "hits on 3s" followed by immediately calling a judge when the other player rolls it that way. That's very clearly a case of knowing the rule and trying to make your opponent break it, which is cheating.

At what point do I stop being responsible for my opponent not knowing the rules for their army?

When you stop trying to cheat by knowing the rule and encouraging your opponent to break it so you can DQ them. Saying "hits on 3s?" when you know that's wrong is cheating. Not noticing when your opponent says "5+ to hit" when it should be a 4+ is not cheating.

Hypothetical situation: You're judging a tournament. Player A comes to you in the middle of round 3. They tell you that their round 1 player, who was using Space Wolves, used the wrong BS for a unit of Blood Claws.

When you ask about it, they show you a video their friend - who's putting together a video about the tournament for YouTube - took of the moment.

It shows Player B declaring some shooting by saying "Blood Claws into that last Nurgling base." There's no question of range, and Player A says "I'm toughness 2, so that's 3's then 2's, right?" Player B, who was flicking through their Stratagems, gives a quick nod and rolls, scoring 3's as hits. The whole thing takes maybe 5 seconds.

Player A explains that after the game, he was chatting with another player, who mentioned Blood Claws are only BS 4+. When you speak to Player B, he seems surprised, and when you show him the video he apologises and says he was momentarily distracted thinking about what to do in the Charge phase. He also mentions it was late in the round and there was a little bit of time pressure.

Nothing in this scenario is unrealistic, and it could be that it was an honest mistake, it could be that Player B was cheating, or it could be that Player A noticed that Played B was distracted and pulled a swift mind-trick that worked out.

What is the appropriate response from the judge here?

My point here is that sometimes things aren't as clear-cut as people often claim in this sort of discussion, and advocating an extreme zero-tolerance policy is likely to result in people getting angry over false positives, people angle-shooting to cause their opponents to be penalised, or both.

Unfortunately wasn't able to check in on the thread today for personal reasons, but wanted to provide updates on a couple things (as this has mostly devolved into a discussion of how to handle tournament penalties):

I saw somebody asked about the "mixed regiment benefits" issue on a prior page while skimming through. This is absolutely untrue, and we're not even sure where it came from, as we never even heard that rumor on-site mixed in with the other absolutely untrue stuff. This allegation materialized out of thin air in the BoLS article, as far as we can tell.

I'd also like to thank Aelyn for the writeup above regarding how "rules mistakes" look very different than "cheating" when you put them into the context of how the game actually works. People are becoming very cutthroat over mistakes lately; I actually wrote an article for Nanavati's website (no idea if it still exists now that he changed sites) shortly after the London drama to attempt to explain how these things look from a judging standpoint, but your hypothetical example does just as good of a job in a few sentences as I did in a dozen paragraphs.

This, in my opinion, is the main disconnect between the actual tournament community and the online community that has sprung up around it--and is also a fair explanation of why the online community is so gung-ho over "zero tolerance" policies. They don't see how badly this would affect everyone in the community, because they don't see how frequently these sorts of mistakes occur.

We've arrived at a situation where a meaningful number of people are willing to believe that 3 out of 5 of the top teams at ATC knowingly brought illegal lists. As in, five people got together, cooked up lists, decided "I bet we can get away with this under strict scrutiny, and will almost certainly lose the tournament if caught" and decided an extra piece of <10 point wargear was worth it.

That seems outrageous to me, but again, people are currently willing to believe it. I don't know if that's just the usual lack of empathy on the internet speaking, a general dislike of tournament players right now, or people just being so absolutely confident that list building is "simple" and therefore mistakes will never be made.

I'm not attempting to be entirely dismissive; I'm just asking Peregrine (and the group of people who share his opinions) to explain that viewpoint further--you genuinely see no wiggle room at all when it comes to illegal lists, every case was intentional, and every player should be banned? If so, you should see the first drafts of lists that get submitted for tournaments like these (as I've often been in the position to do) where it feels like 10% of the field gets rejected and re-written.

I'd like to restate that I'm absolutely in favor of harsh penalties for illegal lists (as is the norm almost universally right now), I just think you're going a step too far (and taking it to a personal place) by assuming this was intentional in all cases. The risk/reward on even attempting to do so just doesn't add up.

Aelyn wrote:
Peregrine, I've been following this thread with some interest, and I have a couple of questions - do you consider there to be any difference, philosophically, between unintentional rule-breaking and deliberate cheating, and do you think that (leaving aside how you tell the difference) they should receive the same punishment?

Of course they should receive different punishments. But I would introduce a third category: rule breaking that occurs because a player doesn't care about trying to follow the rules.

What is the appropriate response from the judge here?

No immediate response, but add both players to the watch list. It is impossible to separate out what the cause of the violation was: player A making incorrect statements about the rules and creating an illegal game state, or player B deliberately taking advantage of an opponent letting them get away with cheating. But in this case player A deserves the greater share of responsibility for the violation because they explicitly stated what they would like the roll to be, while player B simply went along with player A's incorrect statement about the rules. Player A's rules knowledge is in doubt, but they already suffered a self-inflicted punishment for making the foolish mistake of declaring rules statements without knowing the rules they're talking about so there isn't much point in punishing them more.

My point here is that sometimes things aren't as clear-cut as people often claim in this sort of discussion, and advocating an extreme zero-tolerance policy is likely to result in people getting angry over false positives, people angle-shooting to cause their opponents to be penalised, or both.

Of course it should be noted that the cases where I've advocated a zero tolerance, immediate DQ and removal from the event policy are cases where the situation is black and white. If you bring an illegal list you are 100% unambiguously at fault. There is nothing unclear in, to use the example that happened at this event, the 0-3 limit on copies of a single datasheet. The list was clearly illegal, with no possible argument that it wasn't. And there is nothing preventing them from putting in the effort to get it right. The player either cheated deliberately or didn't give a about following the rules, and in either case they should be removed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DJ3 wrote:
"simple" and therefore mistakes will never be made.I'm not attempting to be entirely dismissive; I'm just asking Peregrine (and the group of people who share his opinions) to explain that viewpoint further--you genuinely see no wiggle room at all when it comes to illegal lists, every case was intentional, and every player should be banned?

That's exactly what I'm saying. If your list is illegal in any way you are DQed and removed from the event property. Go cry in your hotel room over all the travel money you just wasted. There is no wiggle room at all, and intent does not matter. Either:

1) The player cheated deliberately, bringing an illegal list and knowing that even if someone looked carefully enough to spot the violation the penalty wasn't that severe.

or

2) The player made a deliberate choice to not give a about following the rules and didn't bother to check their list sufficiently to avoid bringing an illegal list.

So that's either cheating or complete disregard for the rules, and neither is acceptable.

If so, you should see the first drafts of lists that get submitted for tournaments like these (as I've often been in the position to do) where it feels like 10% of the field gets rejected and re-written.

I'm not sure what your point here is. Bad behavior being common doesn't make it acceptable. In fact, this should be a mark of shame on the community and everyone should be lobbying for stricter punishments to get that 10% to stop cheating and/or not caring about the rules.

I agree that it can sometimes be difficult to determine the difference between intentional and unintentional, it is a very very wonky line and will always rely on a decision made by a 3rd party human being. (at an event anyway)

The more I’ve been reading this thread, the more I think I’ve either been completely, massively lucky in the events and games I’ve taken part in, here in the UK, or, that there is a massively different cultural take on tournaments here compared to in the US – especially in the more competitive events.

I’ve been to several big events here in the UK now, and, from my experience if there is an issue, it gets picked up and dealt with. If you try to cheat, it gets dealt with either during the game, or after. I genuinely think the “social contract” side of things has a greater respect here. I AM NOT saying this is true for every event in the US vs the UK, but, at events classed as majors. The only instances I’ve seen of issues in the UK have been at 1 GW heat (and let’s face it, currently it feels like GW don’t have a clue what they are doing competitive event wise right now), and then at the London GT which I think was just generally handled badly.
Every other 50-80-man event I’ve been do has been enjoyable and highly competitive, but, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone DQd from the events, or, attempting anything that would require them to be DQd. Has there been instances of poor sportsmanship? Yes, but, I’ve yet to see an instance of blatant cheating. Generally, if there is any doubt, the question gets asked, and people ask the players around them for clarification. Are there instances of cheating? Probably, likely. But, I think most are given the benefit of the doubt and it gets stopped after being called out.

As i’ve said many times already. There is no excuse for an illegal list or not knowing what you have personally put into the list you’ve built.

Though, I’m also getting the impression that I am a different kind of player to the vast majority. In that I put in a level of effort that far too many people don’t bother with. If I see a list that doesn’t contain any plasma pistols for example, and then, suddenly I’m getting shot by one, then, I’m going to notice that and call it out. We are, usually, at most, talking about 25 units tops. It doesn’t take long to check a physical list, mid game, given to you before the game begins.


Primarch G – I generally think that holstered pistols depends on the model. If it is on a model that also has additional war gear that is modelled instead, then, as long as the model is easily identifiable as the one carrying the pistol, then it’d be fine. If you put a unit of 5 identical marines down and said 1 has a plasma pistol, I’d ask you, “which one?” and then ask that you mark it somehow to ensure it doesn’t get accidently mixed up later on. I wouldn’t suggest that you’d intentionally do this, but, it just makes it easier for everyone involved. However, I’d argue that the vast majority of models that can take specialist pistols do so at the expense of their standard war gear. So, having a bolt pistol and chainsword modelled instead of a plasma pistol becomes more of an issue of WYSIWYG rather than “you literally can’t model everything this guy has, unfortunately”.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

DJ3 wrote:

I'm not attempting to be entirely dismissive; I'm just asking Peregrine (and the group of people who share his opinions) to explain that viewpoint further--you genuinely see no wiggle room at all when it comes to illegal lists, every case was intentional, and every player should be banned? If so, you should see the first drafts of lists that get submitted for tournaments like these (as I've often been in the position to do) where it feels like 10% of the field gets rejected and re-written.

Ok, so, an illegal list, is an illegal list, intentional or not. I think that this needs to be said, and accepted by everyone before moving on.

Failure to submit a legal list by the player, is, the players fault. End of. No ifs, or buts.
Failure to spot an illegal list that has been submitted for a tournament is the TOs fault. Again, end of. No ifs, or buts.
Failure to recognise an illegal list in a game that somehow slipped through the above steps, is the opponents fault. End of.

Now, the players have plenty of options available to them when building their lists, to ensure they have a correct and legal list.
The TOs also have options available to them when checking lists.
The opponents don’t always have options available to them, BUT, with the way things are currently being done with crowd sourcing/early upload to BCP, then, it is becoming more frequent that the opponents have the tools as well.

As you can see, the initial buck stops with the player submitting the illegal list, and there are 2 “fail safes” in place to try and pickup any illegal lists – accidental or otherwise.

If there is a continued trend in illegal lists slipping through the safety net, then, steps 2 and 3 need to be looked at and addressed to see where and how they are failing.

In instances where an illegal list is picked up by the system, then, it goes back to step 1 and the responsibility goes back to the player, who, would now have a reduced time frame to fix their list and would be subject to further scrutiny at point of list submission and potentially subject to penalties (that have to mean something) prior to game 1 beginning, if they failed to address the issue.

In regards to the ATC, I have some questions.
How many players were involved?
How many “staff” did the ATC have?
What was the time frame between final list submission and event day?

Again--discussion of penalties is fine, but the point I'm making is that intent should be irrelevant.

For the last few pages, people seemed to be riding the "yeah! screw you, tournament players!" train right to "illegal lists are always intentional attempts at cheating"-town. You appear to be backing away from that stance a bit now, but it's worth noting the huge difference that makes. The penalties should be unchanged, but attempting to turn mistakes into deliberate cheating does nothing but exacerbate the toxic environment that's been developing lately.

Kdash wrote:
In regards to the ATC, I have some questions.
How many players were involved?
How many “staff” did the ATC have?
What was the time frame between final list submission and event day?

ATC had ~76 teams, ~380 players.

I would guess their actual "staff" count (specific to the 40k tournament, they have other events) is around 10, at least on-site. Maybe double that if they have volunteers helping out before the event that aren't on-site, but that's a pretty common number for even a major tournament.

Lists were due 2 weeks before the event, and released ~10 days before the event, if I recall correctly.

Again, two teams that would likely fit your definition of "celebrity" had written list mistakes. Nearly 400 people had two weeks to catch these, and they were not identified until the second day of the tournament.

I think there's a bit of armchair quarterbacking going on regarding how "easy" it is to catch list mistakes when you're talking about that volume of lists, and the huge number of rules in 40k.

On lists it is not always possible for the TO to check all the lists and I wouldn't expect them to. The only realistic way forward is for players to submit lists in advance and they be published so the community can police the system - if you're in the tournament or concerned generally about the way in which the community grows then it should be relatively easy for people to review a couple of lists now and again. If the ones checked can be flagged then the TO only needs to concern themselves about those that haven't been looked at. For instance, I would be easily able to check a Nids or Crons list, but no way can I quickly check all the weapons upgrades in a Tau list - some one experienced in Tau needs to do that.

All models should be WYSIWYG and all proxies/conversions need to be approved by the TO in advance, no exceptions. Turn up at a tourney with a proxy the TO hasn't seen - it's off the table. A list of conversions approved should be easily accessible so players can check in first game and we don't have the problem of issues being raised after games have been completed.

This should all be non-negotiable.

The in-game stuff is a little more subjective but if we get the basics right in that players turn up with a legal list and legal models then we are some way towards a better tournament environment.

On DQ, I don't see why we can't let players continue to play games albeit that they won't score points or be eligible for any prizes, it is a hobby after all. Any complaints on future games though after that should result in them being tossed though. TOs also do need to share details on players who have received warnings iro in-game behavior. I know some won't like it, but it stops players just taking their bad play to another area once they've exhausted local tournaments and forces them to improve their behaviour or stop playing. We need to move away from rumour and hearsay to actual reporting/recording of incidents.

I agree with Kdash about the different cultural approach to tournaments. The kind of things I see from tournaments in the US are completely alien to me here in the UK. Having said that, my main tournament game is now X-Wing and you don't see similar behaviour at those tournaments regardless of where they take place so perhaps there is something to blame in the game itself too?

As far as penalties for things like illegal lists go, I still think a game loss is appropriate. I can think of 2 roughly analogous situations in other games/sports that are much more competitive than 40k. In MtG, as has already been mentioned, an incorrect deck list is a game loss. In golf, having too many clubs in your bag results in a hole loss or 2-shot penalty, increasing to a maximum of 2-hole loss or 4-shot penalty. I'll point out again that I believe we need some baseline penalties to work with but TOs should be given discretion to apply harsher penalties if they see fit. But if those two games, which take competition much more seriously than 40k, have decided these scenarios don't warrant immediate DQ I assume there's a reason for that and I assume it's related to calibrating the harshness of the penalty to the nature of the infringement. For people who are trying to win the tournament that automatic loss is likely to put them out of contention. For the more casual player, making a mistake at least allows them to continue playing, which I think is a better outcome than an immediate ban as far as growing the tournament scene is concerned.

Finally, I said I'd look over my old lists for accuracy, as DJ3 contended I might be surprised to find I wasn't as correct as I thought. Having looked through 13 old WH lists (that was the GW game I was most involved with at tournament level) I found 0 errors. I stopped checking after 13. None of the X-Wing lists I checked were incorrect either.

 ruminator wrote:
On DQ, I don't see why we can't let players continue to play games albeit that they won't score points or be eligible for any prizes, it is a hobby after all.

Because then the penalty is minimal unless you're one of the top players. If you aren't expecting to be in the top few spots and be eligible for prizes anyway then it doesn't matter what your record says, you play your games and have the same experience. Getting booted out of the event is a more significant punishment and provides more incentive to avoid the error in the first place.

DJ3 wrote:

Kdash wrote:
In regards to the ATC, I have some questions.
How many players were involved?
How many “staff” did the ATC have?
What was the time frame between final list submission and event day?

ATC had ~76 teams, ~380 players.

I would guess their actual "staff" count (specific to the 40k tournament, they have other events) is around 10, at least on-site. Maybe double that if they have volunteers helping out before the event that aren't on-site, but that's a pretty common number for even a major tournament.

Lists were due 2 weeks before the event, and released ~10 days before the event, if I recall correctly.

Again, two teams that would likely fit your definition of "celebrity" had written list mistakes. Nearly 400 people had two weeks to catch these, and they were not identified until the second day of the tournament.

I think there's a bit of armchair quarterbacking going on regarding how "easy" it is to catch list mistakes when you're talking about that volume of lists, and the huge number of rules in 40k.

Please don’t take this as aimed at anyone. This is simply me breaking it down logically and containing my own views and expectations based on experience.

So, looking at it practically, with a 10-person staff… Each person had to check 38 lists each within 14 days.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fair amount of lists… But…

I accept that catching mistakes requires you to be looking for them, and know what to look for, but, if I can check 66 lists over the course of 2-3 days and feedback to the TO the issues I’ve picked up on, then, those invested in running the event don’t really have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to not checking lists properly.

If I was going to run an event, with a team of staff around me, then, I would make sure something is in place to ensure all the lists were checked by at least 1 member of “staff”, in addition to using other options like crowd sourcing the list checking.

It wouldn’t matter if the event was for 20 people, or for 300 people. 14 days is a LOT of time, especially spread over 10 people (plus volunteers). I accept that work and life will further restrict this on a person by person basis, but it definitely can’t be used as an excuse not to check.
It takes 1-5 minutes to upload a written list into battlescribe. It takes 20 seconds to check whether the detachments are legal. It takes 10 seconds to double check CP values. It takes 10 seconds to check whether the rule of 3 is being followed. It takes 10 seconds to check each detachment has a “chapter”. It takes 10 seconds to check for a warlord (if required). It takes 20 seconds to double check relics (again, if required). Let’s say each list takes a total of 10 minutes to check. This works out at 6 hours and 20 minutes of list checking per person. Which, overall is essentially less than half an hour a day of checking.

Catching list mistakes is easy. Any arguments otherwise, simply hints at a lack of understanding of what to check for and how. If something doesn’t look right at first glance, then, chances are you are probably right.

Please don’t take this personally, but, based on those staff numbers and time frame alone, if the TO and staff were not able to ensure that all the lists were adequately checked, then, they were either not running the event properly or they simply over reached themselves with the number of participants.

I don’t think I’ve referenced “celebrity” players in my last few posts when talking about the general situation on illegal lists. Illegal lists and the inability to correctly address them is aimed at everyone. But, in regards to the “celebrity” players, they need to ensure they step it up. They are the face of many US ITC events/shows/online presence, they are the people that a lot of other people copy, follow and look up to. They, whether they like it or not, set an example for other people.

If you want to run an event to a time frame, you need to be prepared, and understand, what you need to do and when you need to get it done by.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want to talk about “fair and just” punishments for an illegal list, this is how I would break it down (if I was going to go out and publish event guidelines).

Over pointed list.
If the list was found to be over the set event point limit, the following would happen.
1. All previous games played with the list would result in automatic losses, with the offender scoring 0 points and their opponent scoring max points.
2. The TO/Judges would remove models/units from the offenders list until it is in line with the event points limit.
a. They would remove points in the following manner.
b. Identify the detachment providing the largest amount of CP.
c. Remove models from the detachment in the following order –
i. Troops
ii. Elites
iii. Fast Attack
iv. HQ
v. Heavy Support
vi. War Gear
vii. Lord of War
d. If the detachment then becomes “illegal”, it is changed to the most relevant detachment with a lower CP value. (I.E. A Brigade would drop to a Battalion).
e. If the detachment becomes “illegal” and cannot become another detachment, it immediately becomes an “Unauthorised Patrol Detachment” and will contribute 0 Command Points to the player for the rest of the event.
3. In addition, the player would suffer further points penalties based on the amount of points over the limit the list was.
4. For every 50 points over the list (0-50, 51-100 etc) the TO/Judge would remove, at a minimum, an additional 100 points of models/units. These would be removed in the same way as in point 2.c. (yes, would suck to be a pure Knight player going over the limit!)
5. The player would be issued with an event/sportsmanship warning.
6. Finally, the player would be added to an ITC/ETC/Event register to monitor for repeated occurrences, which would be made available to TOs should they request it.
7. ITC/ETC/Event would then reserve the right to issue bans and warnings based on their judgement. (Which would be another central, agreed, list.)

Essentially, this allows the tournament to progress without too many issues (such as organising byes or having previous results impact on the final standings), whilst substantially affecting the offending player.


Ugh – can’t get Dakka to format the list with spaces or tabs etc :(

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me.

Then why are you commenting on tournaments? What does your lack of concern for the rules in your casual games have to do with how situations should be handled in a tournament?

Wait a fething minute. In previous threads you have defended the right to complain about 40k if you don't play. But now it's not okay to have an opinion on tournaments if you don't go to them?

Peregrine is right to call me out on this.

Tournaments don't appeal to me because I don't enjoy playing take all comers lists. Building to defend against Flyrant spam and mandatory Guard detachments doesn't do it for me, I would rather be tailoring my army for each opponent.

But there's also the 'drama' that comes up, people go overboard with the accusations towards other players and TOs. Putting up with that requires a certain kind of patience I do not always have, listening to people who just met talk trash about each other isn't how I want to spend a weekend. It's hard to walk away when someone is passionately upset about some perceived wrong, but it's painful when I hear the other side of the story and realize I wasted a couple hours listening to someone blow a very trivial thing way out of proportion.

I am not the only person who feels this way. Maybe I don't go to tournaments anymore, but I talk with others with the same complaint and that makes it very relevant to this discussion.

The first tournament I attended was in the 90s, the last one was during 6th edition around the time the Eldar Codex was released. This drama has always been there, people have always been clamoring for harsher punishments, and the people that win have always been taking a lot of heat from the people who didn't win (and, to be fair, probably could not have.) Those times we rise above the pettiness to focus on other aspects of the event are great, but I can't think of a time I went to one and didn't come away thinking at least a few people were obsessed with taking down anyone who did better than them.

If it were me, I would put cheating in the backseat for a while and focus on the bickering. It feels like someone is creating a shitposting thread after every tournament and it's getting more and more personal. TOs should have a better way of communicating with players that puts the focus on community and less on winning. Maybe one way to do this is by giving attention to all participants throughout the tournament to make them feel important. Maybe sponsors are part of the solution and want to offer other sorts of value for attending in the form of swag and workshops. Maybe players want to adhere to a code that emphasizes assuming the best about your fellow players and recognizing TOs for the hard, unpaid work that goes into pulling everything together.

Maybe another solution is to identify the people stirring up garbage like this thread and strongly encourage them to explore better ways of entertaining themselves than the tournament scene. I realize it's hard to track people across different events and social media platforms, but compare that to the actual harm being done to what they are trying to build. My perspective is TOs are very patient people who give a lot of themselves to build tournaments for the enjoyment of others and deserve a lot better than being kicked in the face after all that work. If there was something deserving of a ban, it's the attacks on the hard work of organizers, not technicalities over lists, alligators and excess plasma pistols.

At some point, I would like to go back to a tournament. I looked at the Gencon packet yesterday and I thought about it for maybe 5 minutes. They have a zero tolerance policy on cheating and I'm pretty sure I could run roughshod over that just to prove a point. Something I've been saying throughout this thread is the stuff people are complaining about as cheating is trivial compared to what I've seen. I'm better than average at spotting attempts to gain advantage by breaking the rules and have treated it as an opportunity to learn something about slight of hand, psychology, odds, confidence, distraction, fudging game mechanics, etc. for decades. Under a strict zero-tolerance policy for cheating, I'm pretty confident I could get at least a few opponents to DQ themselves without doing anything obvious that points to me.

But that is completely insane and not worth my time.

I do not like the persecutorial tone I see in the rules packets for tournaments these days, it feels like we're systematizing gossip and rumor in a way where sophisticated cheating could flourish. It really doesn't matter how harsh the policy is, people are going to complain that TOs are conspiring with players and winners are cheating no matter what. Because that's another way to fill the time when you lack the skills to succeed. The fact I see this going on means other people do too. I'm certain, within a few years, the recognized best plastic toy soldier dice roller is going to be someone who attended a couple Tony Robbins seminars and is building a history of winning against opponents who were DQed for failing to follow the rules.

Is that what we're really trying to do? Who actually enjoys all this drama? Are tournament rules supposed to favor players that are good at getting their opponents to screw up? Are tournaments getting better because of all the complaints online?

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Oh, so now I'm responsible for the accuracy of my opponent's understanding of the rules? If I make a mistake and it causes someone to break the rules, now I go on a blacklist?

There is a tremendous difference between not knowing your opponent's rules and deliberately making a false statement about the rules to bait your opponent into playing something incorrectly while you film it, and then promptly calling a judge to impose a penalty. In that situation you clearly know the correct rule (as you are calling a judge as soon as your opponent breaks it), and you are making false statements about the game state and/or rules to persuade your opponent to play incorrectly. IOW, you are cheating. Let's not pretend that everyone is too stupid to recognize this and apply the correct penalty to you instead of your opponent.

Well, fortunately for the community, tournaments do not appeal to me. But planting a number in an opponent's head is not hard. There's a British comedian, Derren Brown, who's made a career of doing something similar.

As a thought experiment, try this sometime during a game. When someone is getting ready to roll for a unit but before they throw any dice, ask someone, "what do those, hit on 3s?" More often than not, that person is at least going to do a double take and agree with you before correcting to the right value. If you're any good at it, that opponent simply accepts that number and measures the outcome of the dice roll accordingly.

First of all, he's not really a comedian, he's a...whatever the hell he's decided to call himself nowadays. He usually describes himself as an illusionist/mentalist/showman. The reason he's famous and rich is because he's incredibly good at combining persuasion/mentalism with illusion and magic. It's not something the average tournament goer will be proficient in. I'd wager it's not something any tournament player would be able to pull off (unless Derren Brown is secretly a gamer). I'm willing to bet you can't get a tournament player to go along with your suggestion that their Space Marines hit on 4+, not 3+, through your amazing power of suggestion. To think you can is delusional.

 techsoldaten wrote:
But I can think of a dozen other ways to push a player toward DQing themselves and believe, given an incentive via a zero-tolerance policy, players will gravitate towards this kind of skullduggery. That's why people pay money for NLP programs, it works and it's not very hard.

I'd be interested in hearing those dozen methods because I think you're talking rubbish. Stop and think about what you're saying and how ridiculous it sounds. You're talking about using pseudo-hypnotism to get people to cheat in order to have them disqualified. Even if that was possible (which it isn't) that's Batman villain levels of convoluted and crazy. All this to win a game at a 40k tournament. I think the level of risk you're talking about here is sufficiently low to be dismissed out of hand.

I actually agree with you that an immediate DQ for breaking the rules is too harsh in a lot of cases but this line of "reasoning" is really not helping your case.

Well, I am sure all of us have faced the WAAC player that has gone to epic levels to win.
Mind games and justifying their behavior that if the other player "does not know their rules" so deserve what they get.
The good old loud confident voice "quoting" rules that do not exist.
Tournaments bring us the odd "best of the best" of these folk, so "comic book villain" behavior is really not all that surprising.
They also get real upset when placed with a competitive gamer who knows their rules cold.
Then they are looking for even the smallest chink in the armor to "prove" the other player is every bit the liar and cheat they are.

Incredibly hard to safeguard a tournament from folk like this: they live in the grey-zone and like to try to prove why the rules do not apply to them but should for others.

Anyway, the issue of saying intentionally incorrect hit rolls is pretty silly, especially with 8th edition getting the BS skill to represent what it means like a BS of 3 is actually a 3+ to hit... my poor since 2nd edition brain can even remember this stuff.
Tournaments is all about taking the rules to the max, it is always a great exercise to see if the rules are "broken".
Sometimes these events seem to be run like "Survivor" where all is fair for the $1 million... er, a few dollars of prizes.

And this... this right here is EXACTLY how I feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vZ8AWRUHE

So for a member of Team happy to come on here and say the person in question had NOTHING to do with the issues, when all along he was the cause of 2, if not ALL 3 of the problems, is just lies.

Oh man - so the plasma pistol only 'appeared' when he needed it for a clutch kill? This is getting shadier and shadier.

Really puts all his previous achievements in question.

Yeah, so that account of what happened is a bit damning and it sheds a bit of light on the ATC account that was a bit vague on details about the model conversion issue and why it ended up being the last reason they were asked to leave. If Team Happy didn't get the models approved and then claimed they did, it's a double wammy of not getting them approved per the rules and then lying about the fact.

And as cool as I think those Rough Rider models look they are about half as tall as rough rider models actually are. The old GW proper models are probably around twice as tall and the FW DKoK Deathrider models are taller than the original GW ones. Base size looks correct to what has come with rough rider models before but as far as that is concerned GW/FW has provide several different sizes and shapes over the years so that is more up in the air.

The whole plasma pistol incident seems rather indicative of the reason people from that team often place first or in the top three at tournaments. Moments like the one described where a model lives unexpectedly and just needs one or two more shots to be dealt with are often the moments games get decided. If they cheat at those moments it easily explains their success.

DJ3 wrote:
Again--discussion of penalties is fine, but the point I'm making is that intent should be irrelevant.

For the last few pages, people seemed to be riding the "yeah! screw you, tournament players!" train right to "illegal lists are always intentional attempts at cheating"-town. You appear to be backing away from that stance a bit now, but it's worth noting the huge difference that makes. The penalties should be unchanged, but attempting to turn mistakes into deliberate cheating does nothing but exacerbate the toxic environment that's been developing lately.

Using wargear unpaid for in a game is cheating. Intent is irrelevant as it cannot be determined. Quality Control apologized to the community. Rob Baer apologized to the community. After each case of cheating, in game bullying, and rude behavior there has NEVER been an apology from anyone on your team. The community has had enough, shape up or get out.

Since its was buried, I'd like to you response to your history as individuals and team members(those below are eyewitness accounts):

History:


2016 - Adepticon, missing pistol on Character, Lone Wolf issue,
2016 - ATC - Illegible lists for ATC, When confronted told our captain to f**k off and that he was going to stab him in the face.
2016 - ATC - The opponent screamed at you, "CHEATER" and threw a water bottle into the stands.
2018 - LVO - Unsportsmanlike in game actions against another player on video.
2018 - LVO - Round 1 slow play documented against another top player
2018 - ATC - What this thread is about.

So now we have a bit more information. Assuming the Long War account of events is true, that paints things in a different light and also explains how the issue of a mob mentality might have come about. We've had DJ3 claim that the TO decision that one more issue would see the team kicked out was communicated to the other teams by the TO and we have another team captain and the TO themselves claiming that wasn't communicated.

This is where reputation comes into it. Team Happy seem to have a particularly bad reputation and that means they don't get the benefit of the doubt in situations like this. The FLG podcast about the ATC included an anecdote about one of the hosts playing a Team Happy member at the LVO (Aaron, the same player who had the plasma pistol issue). As soon as the pairing was announced the host requested a judge to watch his game. When asked why by the judge he told him who he had been drawn against and the judge agreed, apparently fully understanding why a judge might be needed. That's pretty damning if true and probably tells us everything we need to know.

If a significant number of people in the room were keen to see another team kicked out I can think of only three reasons.

1. They were jealous of the team's success and figured they could improve their own chances of winning by removing a rival

2. They believed, erroneously, that the team were cheating, possibly based on the reputation of its members.

3. They believed, correctly, that the team were cheating, possibly based on the reputation of its members.

If the answer is either 2 or 3 (even partially) then the team members have a reputation problem which, given the number of teams involved in this "mob", would seem to be based on more than just hearsay. Perhaps Team Happy should address that problem as a matter of urgency.