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I would still be careful about the label... as a new fantasy player, I once went to a tourney and was accused online of being TFG afterwards for some rookie mistakes. Having been to a Lot more tournies now, it's my opinion that calling someone TFG based on limited information is Also a rookie mistake, and something to avoid doing in almost all circumstances. Otherwise, you risk enforcing (or trying to) your style of play on others, who have every right to be at an event like this, too.

Another solution to the problem of this matchup is for Matt to have a "hammer time" list ready to go, too. Rather than folks assuming the guy who ran a strong list (possibly with a limited model selection) was TFG, why not break out your own Archaeon or the like and go to town? This is the only way a veteran of AoS could ensure a fairly balanced game, imo (other than not playing, which seemingly you wouldn't want to do having gone to an event).

Seems to me the gist of a lot of posts about balance and fun boil down to "try, but don't really try".

Games are more often than not competitions. There's a winner and a loser. Whether you play baseball, soccer, laser tag, foosball, checkers, hungry hungry hippos, pin the tail on the donkey, etc., you want to win. You want to beat your opponent.

And that mentality doesn't appear in AoS. If you want to win, it means you're "that guy". The object isn't to win, like in any other game, it's to have a fun play time in the sandbox with your army men. AoS is the equivalent of everyone getting a participation trophy even when they come in last place.

When AoS first launched, everybody complained that without points, TFG would just place down a bunch of expensive units - and isn't what this guy did? I mean, yeah, I guess it could be a rookie mistake to bring 20 of the same model, each individually costing $20, each painted to at least tabletop standard - Maybe his local FLGS had a pile of them they were practically giving away, and maybe his friend offered to paint them for him, so maybe he didn't spend $400 on those models and countless hours painting them ... I'm sure it was just a coincidence that his army was composed entirely of the strongest Dwarven units done in the most exploitative manner possible. Accidents happen.

Sqorgar, if you see my example from last page, it's that different metas / stores / player groups play at different power levels. Maybe in his group, nobody fusses about with taking infantry - why not take heroes instead, and treat it as a true skirmish game with each activating individually?

I'm not saying he took a nice list - I'm saying, the only counter to this is to be prepared to have a strong list of your own, given that in AoS you can adjust what you're going to play during the deployment phase (or in the case of this event, during the pre-game discussion, as well).

To say that a player is "TFG" or "WAAC" because they bring a strong list is assigning intent, which again, I've found is a rookie mistake. In 40k tournaments, new players sometimes say this about the top players since they get absolutely crushed by them (and their very strong lists)... but I've personally found that top players are some of the most enjoyable to face (usually) because they know their rules inside and out (even if they stomp my army).

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Now, this doesn't look like it was an enjoyable experience, but in the pre-game discussions, the OP could:

1) Not have agreed to let the slow dwarf army be the defender
2) Upped the power level of his own list to match that of his opponent's
3) When the opponent placed over 30 models, discussed whether the warmachine crew counted towards the model limit or not (and brought over an event organizer to clarify if needed)

In a game predicated on adjusting power-level pre deployment, or even during deployment, I think being ready to do the second (adjusting power level) will be important for AoS players going to events to have a good time and not feel they were steamrolled by an army they had no chance against.

Obviously, the opponent could also tone down his list, but since there are no clear guides to doing this (unlike a historical scenario where one side intentionally has double the units of the other, etc) the only way to be ready for this kind of situation is to be able to adjust the power of your own list accordingly to match the range of opposing armies you might face.

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All that said, by far the best solution would be for the event organizer to somehow account for this (or at least, for real mismatches). For a friendly event, perhaps they could look over the lists and make sure there's nothing too crazy, and only allow people to field what they've listed (or less). It would be a lot of work, but it seems like this army would have easily thrown up some red flags during such a check, and the organizer could make sure it were adjusted appropriately to the event. Again, I think the AdeptiCon 40K Friendly could really give some good ideas on how to run an event like this