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Something happened at a recent tournament and I wanted to get a variety of opinions on it.

I was using tau sniper drones in a low point game and I provided my list to all of my opponents and then said 'do you have any questions? are you familiar with tau?' My opponent said 'yes' and then parked a squad of destroyers 30" from my snipers and tried to shoot them - not realizing he had to spot them. He naturally missed and then got blown off the table and I cleaned up the game (he made other mistakes and he could have won a secondary mission if he was paying attention). I ended up taking first in the tournament so this actually did matter.

Would you consider this beardy? It wasn't my intent to be a bad sport - I just wanted to get the game moving and if he says he understand Tau I don't feel I need to remind him to drive closer in order to spot me.

Your thoughts?

This is fine, he didn't ask so you didn't have to spell it out for him

Same thing happened to me a couple months ago, hadnt seen the sniper drones til than.

Not really a rules issue. Moving to discussions.

You asked, he made a bad assumption, and paid for it. He has only himself to blame for that.

He said he knew Tau. I'm sure he assumed all the obvious stuff. Most people I think don't know that Sniper Drone teams have stealth fields. His fault for not asking.

Agreed, I wouldn't feel bad for someone else s stupidity. Though it says something about your person that you would worry about your sportsmanship. Good for you.

Though admittedly the mistake was costly, it was still just that - a mistake. He should have asked but didn't, and it cost him, though he'll be sure to remember it for next time he faces a squad like that.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Though admittedly the mistake was costly, it was still just that - a mistake. He should have asked but didn't, and it cost him, though he'll be sure to remember it for next time he faces a squad like that.

On the one hand how would he know that your snipers had stealth fields? For example I didn't know about it and it would not occur to me to ask such a specific question.
On the other hand he did say he knew Tau so there is not a lot else you could have done. On the basis of his response it was reasonable to assume that he knew of the sniper drone rule.

If he asked, "What do those drone things do?" and you omitted to mention the spotting issue then you would be a jolly rotton egg!

Give a guy a loaded gun. Ask him if he knows how a gun works. He says yes then proceeds to inspect the gun and casually shoot himself in the face. He later claims that he didn't expect that to happen. Obviously he didn't know how a gun works. Had he have said no I don't know how a gun works, the entire situation would have been avoided.

In short, no, you're in no way at fault for anything.

I feel bad when I play newish players who have never face IG, tell me they don't need help, and I proceed to dump a pieplate on them and wipe out entire squads. Still, they said they didn't want help, soooooo "MERCY IS FOR THE WEAK" MODE ACTIVATED and all that.

My guess is the guy was rushing things, and didn't know or didn't bother to care how tau work (tau at a tourny? PREPOSTEROUS!).

You took sniper drones. Can't get much more sporting than that.

If you handed him a list that indicated that there was a stealth field... that was his opportunity to ask a specific question about an unfamiliar item.

If there was no indication of the gear/power on the list... then that's a bit different to me, but in the end it is his responsibility to ask questions.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Though admittedly the mistake was costly, it was still just that - a mistake. He should have asked but didn't, and it cost him, though he'll be sure to remember it for next time he faces a squad like that.

On the one hand how would he know that your snipers had stealth fields? For example I didn't know about it and it would not occur to me to ask such a specific question.
On the other hand he did say he knew Tau so there is not a lot else you could have done. On the basis of his response it was reasonable to assume that he knew of the sniper drone rule.

If he asked, "What do those drone things do?" and you omitted to mention the spotting issue then you would be a jolly rotton egg!

This, essentially.

since it is tournament play he either had to have a general of what the unit does or ask it. I think you were just playing as someone should be.


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Since it is tournament play he either had to have a general of what the unit does or ask it. I think you were just playing as someone should be.

You totally gave him a chance to find out about it, but he said he knew already. Absolutely not your fault. You can't blame yourself for other people's willful ignorance. Plus, I probably would have tried doing the same thing, even though I have the Tau Codex.

Yep, you offered to explain, he turned it down. His mistake.

At least he'll ask in the future!

It was on him to ask to read the entry if unfamiliar or ask if it had any unusual rules or powers.

You did fine. You don't hold people's hands at tournaments. In a friendly game, I would have reminded one of my friends "These guys have stealth..." but that's 100% different.

Usually, I say if you have to ask...

but in this case you have nothign to feel bad about. Fog of War and all that.

Eh, if i'm unfamiliar with an army, I'll ask questions as I go...

but I always ask things like, "does this unit have anything that makes them more survivable?"

and you'd answer "yes, stealth fields"... then I'd look it up more.

But yea, ignorance is no excuse.

It not your fault, you gave ample opertunity to give help at the start, but you can't be expected to hobble yourself in a game, escepially during a tournement.

Avatar 720 wrote:You took sniper drones. Can't get much more sporting than that.

Ha! It was a local version of an adepticon CP where AV 13 and 2+ is illegal. Snipers are the only legal heavy support I could take, and they actually did amazing at that point level. I appreciate the comments, I brought this up cause I was explaining my games to a few friends at the club they got leery that I pretty much took advantage of a newer player and that got me thinking.

It was an army builder list so it said it right in the print out - just good to see I didn't do anything wrong.