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So I come across this a lot, and it makes any and all situations VERY awkward for me when this comes up.

I think the best way to explain this is as an example.

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I'm in a tourney, playing my Space Wolves against a Dark Eldar player who isn't very good but blames everything on DE being Underpowered. Just go with it.

Turn One he tries a sneaky turn 1 assault. He starts 24" away, moves 12", disembarks 2"+base size, fleets 2", and charges 6". He must have nudged the models farther than they should have gone, so it looks like they are within range. I point out that using math, you can see it is impossible that he should be able to charge, as 12+2+2+6=22, not 24. He accepts and we continue.

Later in the game I surround one of his vehicles completely in assault and wreck (not explode) it successfully. He starts to place models down on top of the wreck. I explain to him that because I wrecked it, he would have to disembark normally before we remove the vehicle, and therefore the entire unit inside would die. He argues, I show the rulebook. He brings in a TO, the TO agrees with me, he glares at me, we continue.

Now around turn 5, I am completely crushing him. He has about 3 vehicles (one without weapons and immobilized, the other two without weapons) left and a few squads. I have about half my army. I have 2 objectives to his 1. He goes to move a venom with 5 warriors inside it 24" to contest one of my objectives. He lands on terrain, rolls a 1 for his Dangerous test, and therefore wrecks himself.

Now at this point I think to myself "it is part of the rules, we have to follow the rules. I'm not doing anything wrong by calling this." At the same time however I am VERY uncomfortable with doing so because a) I've already done it so many times and b) I'm beating him at that moment.

As he goes to place the 5 warriors, I explain that if a skimmer moves flat out into terrain and immobilises itself (therefore wrecking itself), the passengers immediately die because they are not allowed to disembark because of the flat out move.

He nearly yells "Are you FETHING kidding me!?" and his expression says the same thing: he looking at me as if I'm just outright cheating. More arguing, no bringing in the TO this time, he just forfeits. He gives me a 1 for sportsmanship. When the tourney is finished, I have 3 wins and lose by 2 points to someone with 2 wins and a tie because of sportsmanship.

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Now that is over, I just want to say that this pisses me off to no end. I did nothing wrong. I tried to be as polite as I possibly could. I explained everything as objectively as possible. But in the end, I lose out because I apparently came off as an donkey-cave and a cheater by explaining rules that this person should know anyway.

Is there anything I did wrong? Is there anything I could have done differently? As it is now, the only thing I could have done is simply not followed the rules. That's just silly.

The follies of the sportsmanship score. Even calling a TO over wouldn't have helped. As you said, you were beating him handily, so if he reacted like that, he likely wasn't going to score you highly on sportsmanship anyway.

This is a perfect example of why sportsmanship should not figure into the tournament results for winner. I'm all for a secondary sportsmanship award, but it should have no bearing on the tournament winner.

@OP: I really sympathize. Stories like that are why I tend to avoid looking for pickup games and attending tournaments unless I know the people involved. It's very difficult to appear in the right when you continuously have to correct your opponent (especially when it's in your favor).

I can't really suggest any solutions unfortunately. I think it just boils down to the sad fact that not everyone plays the game according to the rules, and trying to correct such people in the middle of a match just makes you look like a WAAC rules-lawyer. I guess my only advice is to accept that this sort of thing happens and don't let such situations ruin your enjoyment of the game.

If your TO had any balls, he would have called DE player over and asked him to justify the 1 sportsmanship score. It's not fair to have players just get insane when they get called on rules. For the record this is not an example of rules lawyering. Basic game rules have to be followed.

Xca|iber wrote: WAAC rules-lawyer

Firstly, thanks for the sympathy, appreciated.

But this term I hate.

WAAC is the guy that makes 7" moves, "accidentally" rolls 17 dice instead of 16 for shots, picks up his dice as quickly as possible after rolling (making sure to grab some of those 3's when he's wounding on 4's) and so on.

A rules-lawyer wants to make sure the rules are followed, and uses some of the more obscure ones to his advantage (such as gaining 3+ cover saves on vehicles when the side is fully obscured). The rules-lawyer does nothing wrong, and deserves no less sportsmanship points than anyone else just because they don't know the rules as well as the lawyer. I am a rules lawyer. I am not a WAAC player.

Xca|iber wrote:@OP: I really sympathize. Stories like that are why I tend to avoid looking for pickup games and attending tournaments unless I know the people involved. It's very difficult to appear in the right when you continuously have to correct your opponent (especially when it's in your favor).

I have to do it even with a good friend. He tends to 'forget' when a rule will negatively affect him (like, in one game, I lost a Gargoyle due to landing in and moving out of a peice of terrain - I hadn't even placed them on it, and it wasn't area terrain, but I rolled with the punches. A few games later, he tried to land his Scourges on it and was annoyed when I told him to take a dangerous terrain test, and when I reminded him on the Gargoyle incident, he totally never remembered ever playing that game.

Tournies are actually usually a place to have good games- it's why I prefer to play in them. There are always going to be "bad apple" games, although there are 2 sides to every story... I got called out on Dakka for being a power gamer myself, when most of my friends would say this is far from the case. I think there are always ways to improve interaction... and in the end, sometimes I choose Not to call someone on something, because I want to have a good game.

But then I'm in this for fun, and have learned from experiences that it's better not to end up on the internet as I'm doing these things to have a good time, not necessarily to win the thing.

I think it'd be easier with a clearer ruleset, or maybe it's the gaming culture, I don't know. But I think it's best to try to have a good time of it... if I go in too competitively, I end up not having fun and having these arguments, and that's not what I'm playing for.

Last thing- I've been in the wrong and the right on critical rules arguments. It's the nature of the beast... in examples on the net, it always seems one-sided, but there usually is another side to the story. So... to the OP, since you ask, I would say: from your telling, there is little to nothing that you did wrong. However, only you can know of further details that maybe indicate what you could have done differently (not necessarily right/better) to make things turn out a bit better.

In my case, where I really antagonized my opponent, I realized a few things. 1) I was being somewhat smug about a rule I knew that he didn't 2) I was being too dull about his army-specific rules that I Didn't know, and kept asking about, when I could have inferred some or just let him go with it 3) More than anything, I should have realized he was getting upset, and let the game flow faster. Finally, I did realize this, but I think it was 50/50 my fault and his that it came to a head.

However, if I'd come and posted on the net about it right afterwards, I would have said it was 90/10... and from what I've seen, the 90 isn't usually the person speaking . So, that's my feedback: sleep on it a bit, see what you could have done in interacting to not let it get to that point... there really is usually a way to avoid it, I think, and to have it actually be a good game.

Glass half full and all that

zeekill wrote:

Xca|iber wrote: WAAC rules-lawyer

Firstly, thanks for the sympathy, appreciated.

But this term I hate.

WAAC is the guy that makes 7" moves, "accidentally" rolls 17 dice instead of 16 for shots, picks up his dice as quickly as possible after rolling (making sure to grab some of those 3's when he's wounding on 4's) and so on.

A rules-lawyer wants to make sure the rules are followed, and uses some of the more obscure ones to his advantage (such as gaining 3+ cover saves on vehicles when the side is fully obscured). The rules-lawyer does nothing wrong, and deserves no less sportsmanship points than anyone else just because they don't know the rules as well as the lawyer. I am a rules lawyer. I am not a WAAC player.

Oh I agree completely. What I meant in my post is that people sometimes tend to associate "enforcing the rules and playing correctly" with "trying to use exploit loopholes in the rules in order to cheat." In other words, rules-lawyering can make people think you're a WAAC gamer even though you're just trying to have a fair game.

@Loki: That's even worse. It's hard to be both a good friend and a friendly opponent to somebody who plays like that.

Xca|iber wrote:

Oh I agree completely. What I meant in my post is that people sometimes tend to associate "enforcing the rules and playing correctly" with "trying to use exploit loopholes in the rules in order to cheat." In other words, rules-lawyering can make people think you're a WAAC gamer even though you're just trying to have a fair game.

My group is heavily into soft scores... and even we have ditched sportsmanship scores for the most part.

Painting and comp by judges are much, much better soft scores than sportsmanship. (often you see either painting / comp / battlepoints OR battlepoints / sportsmanship, rarely do you have all 4).

At least painting and comp can (or should at least, if the TO is competent) have rubrics to so you can see what happened and why.

zeekill wrote:WAAC is the guy that makes 7" moves, "accidentally" rolls 17 dice instead of 16 for shots, picks up his dice as quickly as possible after rolling (making sure to grab some of those 3's when he's wounding on 4's) and so on.

Be careful with this, though... people tend to see Other people's moves as too far, and maybe they really Did just pick up an extra dice by accident, or roll quickly due to having a horde army and wanting to finish games, etc.

Rules lawyering in a game is really a bummer at tournaments. You've got to be able to go with the flow... imo, if that means not stopping to look up a rule and getting your full game in instead, sometimes that's what it takes.

It's really a bummer if someone is arguing only things that help them- I do think that borders on poor sportsmanship. Being equally careful about All rules, that both help and hurt a player, is rarer... that is a good trait, but again at a tourney you have to be able to agree on rulings quickly with your opponent, and won't always have time to look it up to prove a point, or to compare, etc. There's always D6'ing it when it really comes to it!!

Xca|iber wrote:@Loki: That's even worse. It's hard to be both a good friend and a friendly opponent to somebody who plays like that.

That one wasn't even that annoying. He likes to measure movement from the front of bases to the backs of bases, getting extra movement, and also likes to skew scatter rolls to his favor. Even when the scatter die lands near the placed marker, when he moves the measure tape to the marker, he rotates it slightly so it won't his his stuff, or so it will hit my stuff. And swaers blind that the die right next to the measure tape and the angle he has the tape is is totally the same.

I put up with it because he is really a good enough guy to have a game with most of the time. He's also the person I get the most chance to play, and even with that, I'd rather play him than some random at the store.

-Loki- wrote:Even when the scatter die lands near the placed marker, when he moves the measure tape to the marker, he rotates it slightly so it won't his his stuff, or so it will hit my stuff. And swaers blind that the die right next to the measure tape and the angle he has the tape is is totally the same.

Again, I've never seen anyone who says they do this or that they have an opponent who measures it perfectly straight . It's natural to think this way, and maybe it's true... but maybe he just has a bad eye for it?

I'm just saying, it's easy to see flaws in an opponent's play... much harder to see flaws in your own play! But much more useful, as that's something you can actually change to improve situations like laid out in the OP... you can't do anything about your opponent, but most players are actually quite decent.

Despite playing against guys that others I know would swear are the dreaded "WAAC", I have yet to meet someone that I would describe that way. Imo, it truly is an internet scare term, and usually applied to the person who someone just played against and had a really, really unfun / incompatible game against...

RiTides wrote:

-Loki- wrote:Even when the scatter die lands near the placed marker, when he moves the measure tape to the marker, he rotates it slightly so it won't his his stuff, or so it will hit my stuff. And swaers blind that the die right next to the measure tape and the angle he has the tape is is totally the same.

Again, I've never seen anyone who says they do this or that they have an opponent who measures it perfectly straight . It's natural to think this way, and maybe it's true... but maybe he just has a bad eye for it?

I mean, the die was about 6" from the marker, and he's rotated it so it's off by 2-3". Not a small error, deliberately moving it off his models, or onto my models. Once I even got another measuretape and sat it near there so he could see how ridiculously he'd rotated it, he slyly grinned and said yeah, fine.

He knows he does it. What's funny is he rarely beats me even doing all of this. That's why I just roll with it.

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:If your TO had any balls, he would have called DE player over and asked him to justify the 1 sportsmanship score. It's not fair to have players just get insane when they get called on rules. For the record this is not an example of rules lawyering. Basic game rules have to be followed.

This pretty much, at all the tournaments I have been to any time anyone gives less than a 4 (out of 5) they are expected to justify it to the TO. If its something like this where someone is raging for no legitimate reason then the TO would just overule them and give you a 5 (and on the other side you could probably legitimately hit him for sports for being immature and not following the rules).

However I should probably point out that the first turn charge might have actually been possible if he did it right. 12" move + ~2.5" disembark (allowing for base size its nearly 3") + 3" run + 6" charge is just out of range, but assuming he was in a Raider he can get another ~3" from deploying sideways and pivoting to face forward, which would put him easily in range. Not saying this was the case, particularly as you mention he thinks Dark Eldar are underpowered (LOL) but theoretically he might not have been cheating here.

And that's the silly thing about most of the cheating we hear about - it rarely has much of an effect except to make the cheater look like dick.

Me I don't mind errors in rules, damn I struggle remembering stuff after 25 years of 40k rulesets, but the OP opponent was really pushing it. I would suggest that he would have tanked your sportsmanship no matter the game, shame the TO didn't do anything about it.

There's a good part of the designers notes on the Kampfe Groupe Normandy rulebook to the effect that if you are worried about fractions of an inch on assaults or moves then you really might want to consider your perspective since it will make for a better game. I'm all for this approach but the OPs opponent was clearly taking the piss.

helium42 wrote:This is a perfect example of why sportsmanship should not figure into the tournament results for winner. I'm all for a secondary sportsmanship award, but it should have no bearing on the tournament winner.

This!

In a tourney-setting, people should really know the rules in detail!
As a casual gamer, I dont see the need to throw a fit over something like this. So you didnt know the rule! Tough luck, get over it and learn from it!

zeekill wrote:Turn One he tries a sneaky turn 1 assault. He starts 24" away, moves 12", disembarks 2"+base size, fleets 2", and charges 6". He must have nudged the models farther than they should have gone, so it looks like they are within range. I point out that using math, you can see it is impossible that he should be able to charge, as 12+2+2+6=22, not 24. He accepts and we continue.

12" (move) + 2" (disembark) + 1" (base) + 2" (fleet) + 6" (Assault) = 23". Given that Dark Eldar vehicles can easily pivot to gain at least another two inches, you were wrong here. It is not impossible, using math, for him to get off a first turn charge.

Right... and I've been in this situation before. Totally sure about a rule, but wrong (or at least, there being a good chance of being wrong). That's why it's good to give the opponent the benefit of the doubt... it's usually ignorance, or perhaps a bit of gamesmanship, rather than outright "cheating". Or, maybe they're right...

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:If your TO had any balls, he would have called DE player over and asked him to justify the 1 sportsmanship score. It's not fair to have players just get insane when they get called on rules. For the record this is not an example of rules lawyering. Basic game rules have to be followed.

This. The problem is not with soft scores, the problem is with bad players and TOs who don't handle their gak.

When a table begins to go 'wrong' like this, a judge should have stuck close to make the rules calls. Then it isn't you VS him, it is the judge clarifying the rules. A good TO would have had a talk with the player and explained this is how the rules work and you were not doing anything wrong. I see good TOs do this all the time to 'irregular' sports scores, that is kinda why they are there to help identify problems with the players and what to keep an eye on for future rounds.

A lot of times in statistical analysis, you discard the lowest and highest data point. It may help to do that with sportsman scores. That way, people don't feel like they have the right to be TFG, but you won't get tanked by one bad score.

Sympathies. Even in a heated match playing by the rules is no excuse to ding someone for sports. I am grizzled in the world of GT"s, but re-learning 40K. So I expect to make mistakes. I even try to remember to tell my opponents that, and suggest "hey, if I make a blunder call me on it, but reference the rule book we can pull it out, involve the TO, but don't gimp me."

It leaves me open to be gimped, but going to a GT I expect to run into players who know the rules. As your example above, you clearly know the rules well. I don't see a issues with calling out a player.

Question is: if you knew you'd win, did you let the player take the move back? At that point does it matter? That's the only suggest i'd have. However, your opponent seems to have been corrected on the same issues time and time again. That's on him, don't get down on yourself for that. I lost a GT by sportsmanship. It sucked. Later, I even talked to my wife who really made me re-think things

"In any situation did you know you were going to win, and realized you could just be the bigger person? Would that have helped your sports." 2nd point "Could you have done anything to your army to have improved your paint score."

Both of those were a yes. Reflection in anything is good, it helps us learn. It sucks, but you learned a lesson. Maybe there's a better way to handle things. Maybe early in the game when TO was involved you could have said "hey, skimmers are kinda wacky, their rules cause a lot of disagreements, do you want to go over the rules with me, i could use a refresh too." The way things are posed spells volumes on how its perceived. This applies to gaming and life.

Sportsmanship - where the logical solution is to give your opponents '1' so that you maximise your chances of winning...

I think you made a mistake on the disembarking as if models can't disembark normally they are still allowed to do emergency disembark which means DE player could still place his models on top of the vehicle unless there were enemies 1" away.

helium42 wrote:This is a perfect example of why sportsmanship should not figure into the tournament results for winner. I'm all for a secondary sportsmanship award, but it should have no bearing on the tournament winner.

This.

I never understood the point of combining them as you will always get the people who score you a 1 because you're actually playing by the rules. Student Nationals last year had one guy who did this to every opponent but myself. Gave them 1s because he lost and wasn't always right. The only reason he didn't give me a 1 is because I looked at him and flat out told him that marking me down for his 35 minute deployment shenanigans and for bad tactical decisions on his part (Let's charge a large block of 30 Saurus with Spears, with a character in tow with 8 HE Swordmasters! Surely we'll kill the 5 ranks we need to break Steadfast....) would get the TOs involved. And it was only the first game of the weekend.

One guy he marked down won it...and my god that was the best game we'd ever had as it was that damn close. Yes, I did end up on the top table and if the score had been one margin closer I would have had an easy second.

I haven't been to any tournys but any time i call somebody on the rules and they seem to get disgruntled I just jest it's just a game and we need to play by the rules in the book, if we don't we may as well just stand there making machine gun noises with our mouths and shake our models at one another until somebody gets tired/bored first.

illuknisaa wrote:I think you made a mistake on the disembarking as if models can't disembark normally they are still allowed to do emergency disembark which means DE player could still place his models on top of the vehicle unless there were enemies 1" away.

6-EXPLODES you can place models in the crater, but you may not disembark on top of a 5-WRECKED, so if you are surrouned, you are done. Emergency Disembark doesn't allow you to disembark on top of a wreck, you just may disembark out the side of any edge of the transport. The model is still a functioning model until the diembarking is done.

I do hate the concept of sportsmanship scores for a tournament. Casual pickup games are where to go if you're looking to relax and have fun. Tournaments are where you go to test your skills and winning is the only goal.

I also think judges should be much more liberal in disqualifying or penalizing players. "Your opponent had to call me over because you were trying to claim a cover save when more than half of your squad was in the open? That's a yellow card, your HQ unit dies."

Well you did say you were arguing and 'trying to be polite' - maybe there was more argument than politeness as far as the other chap was concerned.