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We've all see that rules blunder during a tournament game. It's probably unintentional, and it's somewhat understandable since wargames have so many rules to keep track of--the main rules, your faction's rules, your opponent's rules, the tourney house rules, whether you should risk McDonald's for lunch or not, how upset your significant other will be when you come home later than you said you would....
As to the specific situation: I attended a tournament this past weekend, and observed several things that made me uncomfortable. It was a 40k tournament, but please give your insightful input if you've TOed for any system. So, a few questions. Please note that I am certain that all these instances were unintentional. The offending players were not trying to cheat or gain an unfair advantage.

When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers his own faction rules
I think that it is the sole responsibility of a player to know his own specific army rules very well, especially in a tournament setting. Slips still do happen, but there should be a high accountability level.
In the tournament, a Necron and a Space Marine played a round one game. The Necron player said his Monolith large blast was AP2, and so the Space Marine did not take Terminator armour saves against the weapon, which killed his whole squad. The game definitely would have had significantly different results if the Necron had correctly remembered that his blast was AP3, not AP2.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? I think the Necron player should offer and the tournament staff should enforce some sort of score penalty to the Necron and/or score bonus to the Space Marine. What sort of penalty/bonus could this be?

When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers the main rules
I think that all players should have a familiarity with the whole of the core rulebook. When those rules apply directly to their models, they should have it memorized. (Not word-for-word, but you know what I mean. They should be able to correctly explain, without consulting the rules, how a mechanic works in the game. For example, what dice-roll does a model need to hit his target?)
In the tournament, an Eldar and a Daemon played a round two game. On T1, the Daemon summoned multiple Bloodthirsters, which have the Flying Monstrous Creature unit type, described in the BRB. The Daemon then charged with his conjured units on T2; this is forbidden, for various reasons, in the BRB. Eldar do not have FMCs in their army, and so it's understandable that Eldar wouldn't be completely familiar with those rules; and yet, he should still have a passing familiarity with them, especially since it's such a common unit type at tournaments. (It's big and scary, and lots of people use them.) Those illegal charges killed a lot of the Eldar army, and substantially altered the course of the game. A few turns after that happened, a judge walked over, noticed what had occurred, and informed the players of the gaff.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? Once he realised his mistake, the Daemon immediately apologised and offered to concede the game and give full points to the Eldar. (I think that was commendable, and yet I don't think it was fair.) I do think that some sort of penalty/bonus should be awarded; but giving full points to the Eldar does not reward him for his skill, it merely rewards him because, randomly and coincidentally, his opponent made a serious rules blunder unrelated to the skill of the game played. is there a middle ground that doesn't over-reward the Eldar, and allows the game to play out as fairly as could be hoped at that point?

When a player unintentionally disregards a tournament house rule
One of the house rules was that all models had to be 75%+ GW parts. While I personally find this to be a silly rule, the TO can say whatever he wants, up to, "Losers will give their whole army to the winner." (I will not attend that particular tournament!)
I know of one player who didn't know about this rule until the night before the tournament. The TO said he would enforce it strictly, and so the player had to come up with a new army in that short span of time. (It also invalidated him for the painting prize, and he wasted a month of painting on models that suddenly weren't legal.)
At the end of the tournament, before rankings were announced, it was discovered that a player had been using an illegal model. While it did look quite good, it was only 33% GW parts, and thus illegal according to the house rules. This second player also had not known about the house rule, but he was slated to win first place (and $200).
BEFORE RANKINGS WERE ANNOUNCED, is there anything that can/should be done? Should the player be disqualified for missing a house rule? (I dislike this option, since it completely discounts his skill in the tournament.) Should the situation be ignored? (I dislike this option, since it would be completely unfair to the person who respected the TO's rule and had to come up with a new army.) Should the player suffer some sort of score penalty for fielding an illegal model? (I like this one, but how much of a penalty?)


Well, that was a long post! Thanks for reading, and please comment!

Why cant the BT charge T2 ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to saying the monolith attack was AP2 to me that's grounds for a DQ.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Why cant the BT charge T2 ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to saying the monolith attack was AP2 to me that's grounds for a DQ.

Summoned T1, as a FMC it enters via deepstrike and counts as "flying", turn 2 it enters "glide" but is precluded from assaulting the turn it goes from flying to gliding. The earliest a summoned BT could charge is T3.

There's nothing in the rules that he can't go to glide when he arrives.

Could we have the rules debates in a different thread? I'd like this to stay on topic.

Dozer, for the purposes of your feedback, just consider how it was ruled at the tournament a house FAQ on the core rulebook.

At a Tournament level?

If its possible aka literally just happens. and things can be placed back. then redo the move and give em a warning

Anything else should be a full points round loss.

Intentional cheating should be a straight boot to the face and expulsion from the tourny and such.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
There's nothing in the rules that he can't go to glide when he arrives.

"If a Flying Monstrous Creature arrives via Deep Strike Reserve, it always counts as being in Swooping Mode." (BRB 477) Summoned daemons arrive via deep strike, they count as Swooping and so can't change to Glide mode until the next turn. They can't charge the turn they change from Swoop to Glide.

Edit: Sorry, I missed the OPs request about not debating rules.

The first two are tough decisions, not so much the third. The house rules one always bothered me and I would expect/give a ton of leeway.

On the first two, if the game was very close AND the misunderstanding had a significant impact on the game (not always to easy to determine) I would have to say that the player who made the mistake has to forfeit the round. That gets tougher if its discovered in later rounds. It might seem harsh, but it was the individuals fault, however, unintentional and the other player should not be penalized for his opponent not knowing his army. Plus, it helps reinforce to that player and others, that they need to know their rules.

I actually had this happen to me at adepticon. I ran up on a ruins with some tomb blades a ghost ark and some wraiths. My opponent told me the large blast hit multiple levels even though his Strength D large blast scattered off the tomb blades on the 2nd floor of the ruins and landed on the wraiths. I didnt challenge it and i lost half my wraiths a couple of tomb blades and the ghost ark on turn 1. The ghost ark warriors also fled off of the board. The judge clarified it later in turn 3 when i asked after another ruling he was there for. My opponent asked what we could to fix the situation. I made the decision to eat the mistake. I didnt challenge it and therefore I was part responsible for letting it happen. It could not be undone at that point as it changed the course of the game substantially. I could of pursued a forfeit but I didnt want to win that way. The best way to handle the situation is ask the judges if your unsure. That is what they are there for after all.

Replay the turn, if noticed within a short span.

If discovered after the game, then there are some hard choices to make by the organizers.....

-- if the mistake was not game altering (e.g. the mistake did not contribute to an otherwise overwhelming victory) then perhaps just a warning

-- if the mistake was game altering in a win (e.g. wiping out several squads, or the game was extremely close win) then a loss of some/all round points

Knowing if a mistake is intentional or unintentional is definitely a hard thing to determine. If it's a consistent mistake, repeated throughout the tourney even after having been corrected, then you could believe that it is intentional...and extremely punishable.

I'm going to try and answer the first two with my honest opinion. The third one will probably have a more of my personal feelings mixed into it, because I was there for the tournament and saw it happen.

1)Knowing your own factions rules would lie primarily on the person who is playing that army. I do think their opponent should have a high level knowledge of the opposing army, especially for tournament play. After the fact if it is discovered wrong I think the players should be responsible for coming to a resolution that both parties agree on. If this means forfeiting the round or giving points it should be worked out by the players. If that cannot happen then a TO should be involved to make the final call.

2)For general rules I believe it is on the players, both of them, to police each other. Unlike a codex everyone should have a BRB. Everyone has access to those universal rules. You should never be afraid to question a rule or have that rule be looked up. Can this delay the game? Yes. If this is being purposefully abused to take time from the game would I bring a TO in to it? Absolutely. But for anything that is a legit question your opponent should be able to back up those rules from the BRB.

3)To set it up a little the army in question that had to be rewritten was Tau. The other army that was discovered to be using an illegal model was GK. I can't say much about the conversions and non GW models that were in use for the Tau army, but from people I talked to it sounded like the majority of the army was converted. Most of these conversions came from battletech (or gundam?) models. Once again I did not see the army prior to the list being rewritten, and even then I saw it from across the room as we never played, so I only have hearsay. If you have any pictures of the army to set the record straight I would like to see them please. The GK player model in question was a single Scibor terminator being used as a GK librarian inside of the Cent star. There is probably no debate that he is a bastard for bringing a Cent star, but that's not why we're here. This model was brought as a center piece for the army. Not as a conversion for the majority of the army. Additionally, if it would have been brought up earlier than just before tourney winners were announced, a GW terminator librarian was available to be swapped out if the center piece was a problem.

Fair warning here is where I am really going to apply my personal side of this story so take it for what you will:

The only reason that anyone brought up the GK/Scibor model at all was because 3rd place was looking to DQ the person who took "first". He may have also been a little annoyed that he could not use his converted models, but, if that's the case, why would you wait until the end to bring that up? The tourney was supposed to be a 4 game tournament, but due to time(running behind, it getting late, or whatever other reason) the TO approached the two people who were still close enough in points to contest first place in the tournament. He offered them their fourth game leaving one as a clear first and the other as second place. The second option was they could split first place winnings and tie for first. They chose to split the winnings leaving two people in 1st place, hence the quotes earlier. So even if the GK had been DQ'd third would not have moved up to a larger prize pool as the other player still would have had first. Also, a replacement model was available to replace the Scibor if anyone had a problem with the model.

So for the third problem I think that the problem could have been avoided entirely if it was not brought up at the end of the tourney to try and DQ a player.

If the key model in the army was non qualifying, then it shouldn't have been allowed to be utilized.

If the TO's were allowing proxies (terminator librarian for standard librarian) then that would have been acceptable to substitute.

However....if it was WYSIWYG...then that player should not have been allowed to use either the non GW or the termie librarian (without paying the cost).

The issue with that one model *should* have been dealt with in the very first battle....

It sounds like a big failing on a number of people's part: 1) player for using inappropriate model 2) opponents for not recognizing the inappropriate model 3) TO's for not paying attention to player models close enough prior to engaging.

It does seem a bit of "sour grapes" on behalf of the one player that was making the dq attempt--but he was technically within his rights to call him out on the inappropriate use. If it was the first time he had observed that model, then that is a different situation.

The model was WYSISYG. It just was not a GW model. Also, if it was brought up in any other means then a DQ attempt thirty seconds before winners were announced, or to spite someone cause a player couldn't use their models it would not have been a big deal. The GK player would have just gone to his car and got the GW model.

People play rules wrong all the time, even at tournaments. No one cares, just play correctly from that point on and keep playing.

-If you are playing against a codex you are unfamiliar with (There are several that just aren't even utilized in the group of people I play with), it is always good to ask to see something. Usually AP1 or AP2, or some other rules like tesla and you think your terminators, riptides, etc are about to get messed up and blow apart a chunk of your army you should ask to see the entry in the back of the codex. That's easy and you can just open the back cover in most instances and check AP and str values on stuff.
-Technically, a summoned bloodthirster can change its flight mode the turn it comes into play. Since summoning happens in the psyker phase, then movement phase follows. Due to deepstrike rules it can't move, but it does have a movement phase so you should be able to change the flight mode. This is what it seems like by looking at my BRB under fmc, deepstrike, and summoning.
-I think the 75% gw parts rule is silly, but if the player did not know about the rule, and no one (not even the TOs) noticed it until they were about to reward the prizes; I really don't see what can be done. DQ-ing over a rule that he didn't know without first warning him like they did to the sour apples fella seems overkill. Also if he had a model to switch to he could have done that round 1 and still would have had the same outcome.

Where I hailed from, if you broke the core rules and your opponent failed to spot it in a tournament setting, you both got penalised.
Pull something illegal or put a force together that should not exist, and at the very least you'd find yourself sat out for that round with a wrist slap, along with anyone you played against who didn't notice. At worst, tourney over, go home.

You'd think it would have lead to seriously unpleasant rules-lawyering but it actually just meant people paid attention and took care in assembling their forces.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers his own faction rules
I think that it is the sole responsibility of a player to know his own specific army rules very well, especially in a tournament setting. Slips still do happen, but there should be a high accountability level.
In the tournament, a Necron and a Space Marine played a round one game. The Necron player said his Monolith large blast was AP2, and so the Space Marine did not take Terminator armour saves against the weapon, which killed his whole squad. The game definitely would have had significantly different results if the Necron had correctly remembered that his blast was AP3, not AP2.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? I think the Necron player should offer and the tournament staff should enforce some sort of score penalty to the Necron and/or score bonus to the Space Marine. What sort of penalty/bonus could this be?

First of all, the word cheating most certainly implies intent. I do not believe there is such a thing as unintentional cheating, and I personally hate when people refer to instances where someone screwed up the rules unintentionally as 'cheating' (had to mention it because of your thread title).

But anyway, in the example given above, nothing could/should be done abut the prior incorrect applications of the rules if any further game decisions have occurred that cannot easily be taken back and replayed. Most certainly if the game is over, then there is nothing that can be done. If the Necron player wants to voluntarily give up his win on his own, then that is his right, but the TO and judges cannot be held responsible for reversing the outcome of a game after the fact because a rule was misapplied, unless there is some clear indication of purposeful wrongdoing (which is very hard to prove).

Because if the TO/judges *were* in the business of making these kinds of calls to vacate wins based on misapplied rules, exactly where is the line drawn? One single rule misapplied/misremembered? Two? Three? Is the importance of the rule on the game the determining factor? There cannot possibly be a demarcation made that could be enforceable without being a giant clusterfeth.

Unfortunately, it is up to BOTH players to double-check the validity of every rule being played. If something doesn't sound right, then it is your duty as a player to ask your opponent to see their rules. Once you waive this option, you are complicit in agreeing to play the game under the presumption that your opponent knows what they are doing. That is a CHOICE you make when you decide to take their word for it, and YOU are equally to blame for allowing it to happen (as harsh as that may sound).

This is one of the big issues with the current 'rules bloat' in 40k. It makes it exceedingly hard to know when your opponent knows or doesn't know their rules and it means you should be taking the time to double-check their codex/relevant materials whenever you are unsure of something, even though that may slow the game down and even though that may cost your sportsmanship points. There just isn't any other way around the issue.

When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers the main rules
I think that all players should have a familiarity with the whole of the core rulebook. When those rules apply directly to their models, they should have it memorized. (Not word-for-word, but you know what I mean. They should be able to correctly explain, without consulting the rules, how a mechanic works in the game. For example, what dice-roll does a model need to hit his target?)
In the tournament, an Eldar and a Daemon played a round two game. On T1, the Daemon summoned multiple Bloodthirsters, which have the Flying Monstrous Creature unit type, described in the BRB. The Daemon then charged with his conjured units on T2; this is forbidden, for various reasons, in the BRB. Eldar do not have FMCs in their army, and so it's understandable that Eldar wouldn't be completely familiar with those rules; and yet, he should still have a passing familiarity with them, especially since it's such a common unit type at tournaments. (It's big and scary, and lots of people use them.) Those illegal charges killed a lot of the Eldar army, and substantially altered the course of the game. A few turns after that happened, a judge walked over, noticed what had occurred, and informed the players of the gaff.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? Once he realised his mistake, the Daemon immediately apologised and offered to concede the game and give full points to the Eldar. (I think that was commendable, and yet I don't think it was fair.) I do think that some sort of penalty/bonus should be awarded; but giving full points to the Eldar does not reward him for his skill, it merely rewards him because, randomly and coincidentally, his opponent made a serious rules blunder unrelated to the skill of the game played. is there a middle ground that doesn't over-reward the Eldar, and allows the game to play out as fairly as could be hoped at that point?

Nope, same point as above. There is absolutely nothing the judges/TO should do after the game or later in the game to the point where the issue cannot easily be replayed the correct way. There are simply to many variables in the rules to try to set a standard to say that when it is unintentionally broken it results in a finalized game suddenly forcing its victor to vacate his win.

When a player unintentionally disregards a tournament house rule
One of the house rules was that all models had to be 75%+ GW parts. While I personally find this to be a silly rule, the TO can say whatever he wants, up to, "Losers will give their whole army to the winner." (I will not attend that particular tournament!)
I know of one player who didn't know about this rule until the night before the tournament. The TO said he would enforce it strictly, and so the player had to come up with a new army in that short span of time. (It also invalidated him for the painting prize, and he wasted a month of painting on models that suddenly weren't legal.)
At the end of the tournament, before rankings were announced, it was discovered that a player had been using an illegal model. While it did look quite good, it was only 33% GW parts, and thus illegal according to the house rules. This second player also had not known about the house rule, but he was slated to win first place (and $200).
BEFORE RANKINGS WERE ANNOUNCED, is there anything that can/should be done? Should the player be disqualified for missing a house rule? (I dislike this option, since it completely discounts his skill in the tournament.) Should the situation be ignored? (I dislike this option, since it would be completely unfair to the person who respected the TO's rule and had to come up with a new army.) Should the player suffer some sort of score penalty for fielding an illegal model? (I like this one, but how much of a penalty?)

I know a lot of people who have a hard-line stance about these types of rules, but the reality is, from a TO's perspective, these types of rules are usually put in place to encourage players to paint/model a certain way, but are not typically enforced to the letter of the law because, especially in the case of big 2-day tournaments that people travel to, it is horribly bad business to start kicking people out or disqualifying their armies if they missed the standard just by a little bit.

Obviously the decision for this is up to the TO, whether to enforce their rules to the letter of their law, or whether to apply leniency based on circumstance. Its a decision that not everyone will ever agree on, even though the rule is crystal clear, but especially because you're talking about a SINGLE model, that still did have 1/3 GW parts.

Honestly, those types of rules (requiring GW parts) were usually on the books to make sure the event would get GW prize support, but even GW wouldn't revoke an event's support because one model in a winning army only had 33% of their parts. And to my knowledge, I don't even know if GW has any kind of rules like that for the prize support they do still offer. And if this event isn't bound by such a rule from GW, then they should really change that 'rule' to a 'guideline' that 'may be enforced at the TO's discretion' (to allow them to stop toys, etc, from being used as models if the TO wants to curtail that type of thing).

Drawing a solid encourages people to learn their codex rules better. Losing a whole term squad that should have been rolling 2+ is huge and most have been a low point for the player. You have to ask how long have they been playing.

It's very easy to make a unilateral decision, but things are more complicated.

This game has a lot of rules. Many players I have played over the years have had a firm grasp of their armies rules (90% or so-but not 100%) and a decent grasp on the core rules (80% or so.)

Given the above not being 100%, and that even if you have a firm grasp on the core rules- there are certain rules which are ambiguous and can be read in some various ways and still be correctly read. These things can lead to 'discussions'

that said the above examples are not really that. The first is questionable, the necron monolith large blast at one time did have an AP2 component, so it is possible they were thinking of old rules. Yes not only do you need to know the rules, but you must learn to forget the old rules...

The second example is obviously not a codex rule but a core rule, the Daemon player should not have been able to charge/assault turn 2 with the summoned units because of daemons=deep striking when summoned, FMC that are deep strike must be swooping, changing flight modes to assault takes a turn... Either the play did not know the rules or was hoping his opponent did not. This unfortunately smells foul. Most daemon players know the rules for FMC and summoning, but many players do not unless they play daemons or play against them a lot. However, who knows?

The third rule I have no comment on because although I see stores that run tournaments wanting to support a product line, from a gaming perspective if you can tell what the model is and its WYSIWYG who cares. Ultimately this one is entirely the judges fault. If they are going to set that up as a rule they need to vette models before the game not during the last round of the game or when the tournament is over and scoring is being done. If they pass armies to play to that point it is their fault, not the players.

The problem with this is you usually have no idea of the intent of the person, are they ignorant of some rule? Are they cheating? Who knows. It is not necessarily fair to make them forfeit a match over such a thing unless it is obviously cheating- at which point they should be removed from the tournament altogether.

Druid13 wrote:

The only reason that anyone brought up the GK/Scibor model at all was because 3rd place was looking to DQ the person who took "first".

I'm not sure why it was necessary for you to bring up so much detail surrounding this situation, since it doesn't in any way help solve the dilemma that occurred. However, since you did bring it up, I'll clarify things a bit, since you are misinformed and speaking from a place of ignorance.

Unless you're the 3rd place person (which I'm sure you aren't), it's quite arrogant to speak on his behalf, when you yourself have no idea what he was thinking since you never spoke to him. Just because you would act out of grasping avarice in that situation doesn't mean anyone in that position would. So please, don't throw about accusations unless you can back them up with facts rather than specious speculation. It just shows you're a mean-spirited person, making accusations with no legitimate grounding in reality.

The actual reason it was brought up was for fairness's sake. The TO claimed the 75% rule would be "strictly enforced." It was not. This was unfair. Tournaments should be fair. It seems pretty straightforward. The problem was not the model (because, as I mentioned in the OP, it was quite pretty). The problem was the way the TO applied rules arbitrarily to different players. This should not occur at tournaments.
To further prove that fairness, rather than personal gain, was at the heart of things, I'll tell you this: the person who won third place actually should not have, based on points. He noticed this error himself, reported it to the TO, and nearly got his prize rescinded. The TO decided that the scoring error was not the player's fault, and graciously allowed him to keep the money, despite the score error.

With so many rules changes (for example less than 2 years between editions) it is very easy to artifact an old rule into a new edition.

Sometimes this is because a new rule is similar yet not the same and it is easy to mistakenly switch things around in your head.

Most of this stuff is inadvertent and may even be commonplace.

My only real issue is with the GW composition of parts in models. Since GW doesn't support tournaments anymore what does it matter? If the army is cool and correct then let it in I say. When GW starts pony-ing up the support and actually deserves the promotion that using GW only models gives them, only then will it be an issue.

I agree with Yak on all accounts. There is just too many rules and more importantly too many combinations of rules to remember. If we started to just ban people or DQ because a simple mistake... the line goes pretty far and into the extremes of he said she said type debates.

Just look at the Mephiston model for example and I always forget his initiative value and some of this other various rules.

For example, he is Initiative 5 but if he is in this certain detachment he goes to 6. If he is selected as a warlord he has adamntium will. Let alone Quicking and jumping all over the place. He can get rage if he goes into another type of formation and this is just for one model.

If a hard line stance would be taken... you might as well not play.

This:

 yakface wrote:

Spoiler:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers his own faction rules
I think that it is the sole responsibility of a player to know his own specific army rules very well, especially in a tournament setting. Slips still do happen, but there should be a high accountability level.
In the tournament, a Necron and a Space Marine played a round one game. The Necron player said his Monolith large blast was AP2, and so the Space Marine did not take Terminator armour saves against the weapon, which killed his whole squad. The game definitely would have had significantly different results if the Necron had correctly remembered that his blast was AP3, not AP2.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? I think the Necron player should offer and the tournament staff should enforce some sort of score penalty to the Necron and/or score bonus to the Space Marine. What sort of penalty/bonus could this be?

First of all, the word cheating most certainly implies intent. I do not believe there is such a thing as unintentional cheating, and I personally hate when people refer to instances where someone screwed up the rules unintentionally as 'cheating' (had to mention it because of your thread title).

But anyway, in the example given above, nothing could/should be done abut the prior incorrect applications of the rules if any further game decisions have occurred that cannot easily be taken back and replayed. Most certainly if the game is over, then there is nothing that can be done. If the Necron player wants to voluntarily give up his win on his own, then that is his right, but the TO and judges cannot be held responsible for reversing the outcome of a game after the fact because a rule was misapplied, unless there is some clear indication of purposeful wrongdoing (which is very hard to prove).

Because if the TO/judges *were* in the business of making these kinds of calls to vacate wins based on misapplied rules, exactly where is the line drawn? One single rule misapplied/misremembered? Two? Three? Is the importance of the rule on the game the determining factor? There cannot possibly be a demarcation made that could be enforceable without being a giant clusterfeth.

Unfortunately, it is up to BOTH players to double-check the validity of every rule being played. If something doesn't sound right, then it is your duty as a player to ask your opponent to see their rules. Once you waive this option, you are complicit in agreeing to play the game under the presumption that your opponent knows what they are doing. That is a CHOICE you make when you decide to take their word for it, and YOU are equally to blame for allowing it to happen (as harsh as that may sound).

This is one of the big issues with the current 'rules bloat' in 40k. It makes it exceedingly hard to know when your opponent knows or doesn't know their rules and it means you should be taking the time to double-check their codex/relevant materials whenever you are unsure of something, even though that may slow the game down and even though that may cost your sportsmanship points. There just isn't any other way around the issue.

When a player misunderstands/misapplies/misremembers the main rules
I think that all players should have a familiarity with the whole of the core rulebook. When those rules apply directly to their models, they should have it memorized. (Not word-for-word, but you know what I mean. They should be able to correctly explain, without consulting the rules, how a mechanic works in the game. For example, what dice-roll does a model need to hit his target?)
In the tournament, an Eldar and a Daemon played a round two game. On T1, the Daemon summoned multiple Bloodthirsters, which have the Flying Monstrous Creature unit type, described in the BRB. The Daemon then charged with his conjured units on T2; this is forbidden, for various reasons, in the BRB. Eldar do not have FMCs in their army, and so it's understandable that Eldar wouldn't be completely familiar with those rules; and yet, he should still have a passing familiarity with them, especially since it's such a common unit type at tournaments. (It's big and scary, and lots of people use them.) Those illegal charges killed a lot of the Eldar army, and substantially altered the course of the game. A few turns after that happened, a judge walked over, noticed what had occurred, and informed the players of the gaff.
LATER IN THE SAME GAME/BEFORE THE NEXT TOURNAMENT ROUND IS STARTED, is there anything that can/should be done? Once he realised his mistake, the Daemon immediately apologised and offered to concede the game and give full points to the Eldar. (I think that was commendable, and yet I don't think it was fair.) I do think that some sort of penalty/bonus should be awarded; but giving full points to the Eldar does not reward him for his skill, it merely rewards him because, randomly and coincidentally, his opponent made a serious rules blunder unrelated to the skill of the game played. is there a middle ground that doesn't over-reward the Eldar, and allows the game to play out as fairly as could be hoped at that point?

Nope, same point as above. There is absolutely nothing the judges/TO should do after the game or later in the game to the point where the issue cannot easily be replayed the correct way. There are simply to many variables in the rules to try to set a standard to say that when it is unintentionally broken it results in a finalized game suddenly forcing its victor to vacate his win.

When a player unintentionally disregards a tournament house rule
One of the house rules was that all models had to be 75%+ GW parts. While I personally find this to be a silly rule, the TO can say whatever he wants, up to, "Losers will give their whole army to the winner." (I will not attend that particular tournament!)
I know of one player who didn't know about this rule until the night before the tournament. The TO said he would enforce it strictly, and so the player had to come up with a new army in that short span of time. (It also invalidated him for the painting prize, and he wasted a month of painting on models that suddenly weren't legal.)
At the end of the tournament, before rankings were announced, it was discovered that a player had been using an illegal model. While it did look quite good, it was only 33% GW parts, and thus illegal according to the house rules. This second player also had not known about the house rule, but he was slated to win first place (and $200).
BEFORE RANKINGS WERE ANNOUNCED, is there anything that can/should be done? Should the player be disqualified for missing a house rule? (I dislike this option, since it completely discounts his skill in the tournament.) Should the situation be ignored? (I dislike this option, since it would be completely unfair to the person who respected the TO's rule and had to come up with a new army.) Should the player suffer some sort of score penalty for fielding an illegal model? (I like this one, but how much of a penalty?)

I know a lot of people who have a hard-line stance about these types of rules, but the reality is, from a TO's perspective, these types of rules are usually put in place to encourage players to paint/model a certain way, but are not typically enforced to the letter of the law because, especially in the case of big 2-day tournaments that people travel to, it is horribly bad business to start kicking people out or disqualifying their armies if they missed the standard just by a little bit.

Obviously the decision for this is up to the TO, whether to enforce their rules to the letter of their law, or whether to apply leniency based on circumstance. Its a decision that not everyone will ever agree on, even though the rule is crystal clear, but especially because you're talking about a SINGLE model, that still did have 1/3 GW parts.

Honestly, those types of rules (requiring GW parts) were usually on the books to make sure the event would get GW prize support, but even GW wouldn't revoke an event's support because one model in a winning army only had 33% of their parts. And to my knowledge, I don't even know if GW has any kind of rules like that for the prize support they do still offer. And if this event isn't bound by such a rule from GW, then they should really change that 'rule' to a 'guideline' that 'may be enforced at the TO's discretion' (to allow them to stop toys, etc, from being used as models if the TO wants to curtail that type of thing).

And this:

xraytango wrote:

Spoiler:

With so many rules changes (for example less than 2 years between editions) it is very easy to artifact an old rule into a new edition.

Sometimes this is because a new rule is similar yet not the same and it is easy to mistakenly switch things around in your head.

Most of this stuff is inadvertent and may even be commonplace.

My only real issue is with the GW composition of parts in models. Since GW doesn't support tournaments anymore what does it matter? If the army is cool and correct then let it in I say. When GW starts pony-ing up the support and actually deserves the promotion that using GW only models gives them, only then will it be an issue.

And finally, this:

 DarkLink wrote:

Spoiler:

People play rules wrong all the time, even at tournaments. No one cares, just play correctly from that point on and keep playing.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

Druid13 wrote:

The only reason that anyone brought up the GK/Scibor model at all was because 3rd place was looking to DQ the person who took "first".

I'm not sure why it was necessary for you to bring up so much detail surrounding this situation, since it doesn't in any way help solve the dilemma that occurred. However, since you did bring it up, I'll clarify things a bit, since you are misinformed and speaking from a place of ignorance.

Unless you're the 3rd place person (which I'm sure you aren't), it's quite arrogant to speak on his behalf, when you yourself have no idea what he was thinking since you never spoke to him. Just because you would act out of grasping avarice in that situation doesn't mean anyone in that position would. So please, don't throw about accusations unless you can back them up with facts rather than specious speculation. It just shows you're a mean-spirited person, making accusations with no legitimate grounding in reality.

The actual reason it was brought up was for fairness's sake. The TO claimed the 75% rule would be "strictly enforced." It was not. This was unfair. Tournaments should be fair. It seems pretty straightforward. The problem was not the model (because, as I mentioned in the OP, it was quite pretty). The problem was the way the TO applied rules arbitrarily to different players. This should not occur at tournaments.
To further prove that fairness, rather than personal gain, was at the heart of things, I'll tell you this: the person who won third place actually should not have, based on points. He noticed this error himself, reported it to the TO, and nearly got his prize rescinded. The TO decided that the scoring error was not the player's fault, and graciously allowed him to keep the money, despite the score error.

It's a stupid rule, and it's a pretty douchey move to dq someone who didn't know about it, and it would be a super douchey move to try and dq the guy to bump your* personal standing. I wasn't there and obviously don't know if either is the case, but your implied rigid views on sticking to the letter of the law and your aggressive response isn't too encouraging.

The best tournaments run on the philosophy of 'don't worry, be happy'. It's really as simple as that. I've played in plenty of events with strict, nitpicky rules and TOs, and it makes them notably less fun.

*not you, specifically, but in general. Don't mean to accusing anyone of anything.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Drawing a solid encourages people to learn their codex rules better. Losing a whole term squad that should have been rolling 2+ is huge and most have been a low point for the player. You have to ask how long have they been playing.

No it doesn't.

All it does is piss some people off and create a whole lot of extra work for the TO and his crew.

If you're going to take a hardline stance, chances are you will see your tournament attendance dwindle while at the same time, you are going to be up to your eyeballs in rules/post-game arbitration. And while you are doing that, the whole tournament is going to run late, thus further making the tournament a more unpleasant experience. Believe me, allow for post-game reversals (or even in-game reversals at times) and you will have a line of players who felt that they were wronged "unintentionally" in their games.

It just isn't practical for any TO to do so and it's got a huge potential downside in terms of losing potential tournament-goers due to having bad experiences.

#1 and #2: no penalty after the game is over, but watch the player to make sure they don't "accidentally" make the same mistake in a later game. It sucks to be on the wrong end of a rules mistake like that, but once both players accept it and the game moves on you can't rewind history and fix the mistake. Any future score adjustment is going to be completely arbitrary and based on nothing more than the TO's personal opinion about what is "fair", and you should never have the TO's personal opinion deciding the outcome of games.

#3: this is a stupid rule that should never have been included in the first place. There's no clear definition of what "75% GW parts" means, so the rule is not enforceable. Is it 75% by number of pieces? By weight of plastic? By percentage of the visible area of the model? By how prominently the pieces are featured? What about green stuff/plastic card/etc? Is GW green stuff a "GW part", while non-GW equivalents are not? There's no way to objectively tell if a model is 70% GW parts and legal or 80% GW parts and illegal, so it's going to come down to the TO's personal opinion about whether or not a model is "GW enough". However, if you're going to have the stupid rule then the consequence should be, at minimum, forfeiting all previous games and having to remove the illegal model for all future games and could potentially be disqualification. But if you as a TO choose to enforce such a stupid rule you should expect the event to be the last one you ever run because nobody is going to want to play with such an unreasonable person.

Some rules are harder to keep track of than others. I feel if it's known a TO will go easy on mistakes it could encourage others to take advantage - not that anyone necessarily would but the potential is there. And of course some things are worse than others with respect to the consequences of mis-applying a rule.

I wrote a rather lengthy post in a different thread a while back (about the number of rules ballooning due to dataslates/supplements/etc) that is relevant to this discussion; I lay out my opinions on who bears the responsibility for knowing the rules in a tournament game from the various perspectives of TO/judge/player. I also go into a bit of the reasoning as to why it has to work that way and what players should be doing to ensure they don't get cheated.

I'm including it below, but the TL;DR and answer to the original question is that due to the nature of judging and running an event, it's your responsibility to ensure your game is played correctly, and under no circumstances should a tournament ever change the result of a finished game for anything less than outright cheating (fixed dice/illegal lists/etc).

As a TO, the first responsibility lies with the owning player. You will see this reflected in every rules packet for every major GT. You are to have all of the rules for every unit in your entire army, and those rules are to be available to every opponent (or a judge) by request.

As a judge, the first responsibility always lies with the opposing player. It is every player's responsibility to know (or ask questions if they don't know) the rules. That will always be true, as there will never be enough judges to have one standing at each table making sure the game is played correctly. The fact is, you are the only one with an actual stake in making sure your opponent does not cheat, and are therefore the only one qualified to make sure that it doesn't happen. If you come to me after a game and tell me that Bobby convinced you Tactical Marines can move 30" and they all have Meltaguns, that's not my fault, and it's not Bobby's fault--it's your fault for believing him. That is the truth of how judging a large event works--you cannot go back and change outcomes after the game has progressed beyond them (outside of literal, physical cheating--such as cheat dice or something similar) because doing so would up a whole Pandora's Box of other problems.

As a player, I play with that exact mindset, but that's likely because I'm also a judge. If I let my opponent play a rule wrong and it costs me the game, I don't end up mad at him, I end up mad at myself for letting him get away with it. But again, the overwhelming majority (which can be learned by standing around a hallway during a GT and listening to people complain about how they got cheated) would likely have the opposite opinion.

Now an important distinction has to be made--saying it is your responsibility to "know the rules" does not mean you are expected to memorize every rule in all of 40k. That has obviously long-since gone completely out the window, with the huge scope of rules that currently exist. As a judge I can tell you even the top-tier competitive players never know "all of the rules" (or anywhere close to that) even going back to the comparatively tame days of 5th. It is probably more accurate to say it is your responsibility to ensure the game is played correctly. That consists of three concepts, in descending order:

1). Try to know the rules
2). If you don't know the rules, ask your opponent to show you the rules
3). If you aren't satisfied, ask a judge

If you get cheated without performing all three of these steps, then it is your fault. You can try to blame whoever you want, but the resources were available to you to avoid it, and you did not make use of them. Again--these are unchangeable facts, until you find yourself a tournament that can assign a top-level judge (of which I know about four or five in the whole country) to every single table.

So the question is, where is there an opportunity for change to occur?

And I can tell you pretty easily: change needs to happen at the level of the player.

Currently, players are practically terrified of asking their opponent to see rules. It's like some weird combination of admitting you don't know and accusing them of cheating; some people view it as both shameful and aggressive. People will gladly stand by with just a cursory "are you sure?" and then let things happen, regardless of how absurd--and trust me, as a judge, you hear all the absurd things that happened (in past tense, when people are expecting you to go back and fix it for them) because people just took someone else's word for it without checking.

That is, above all else, what really needs to change--it's also the primary flaw in the argument you seemed to be making, as you seemed to imply that every player would need to own every piece of rules documentation. No--you need to own your rules documentation, and you need to sack up and ask the guy to see his, as necessary. You cannot fathom how many problems that would solve.

Again, every tournament builds that fact into their core rules. As a TO/judge, if some guy shows up with some weird unit that was published in an Imperial Armour that came out in 1982 and his opponent asks to see the rules for it and he cannot produce them? I would gladly throw that unit out of the game immediately, and ensure he does not use it in later rounds. Showing up with a unit and expecting someone to just take your word for how it works is outright disrespectful to your opponents and would not be tolerated by any serious event.

I had this issue come up in a tournament.

I was playing against tau and was running GK with a IK ally. It was turn 3 and I was in perfect position to stop his fusion suit drops. I had smoke blown on my undamaged LR, and I had Invis up on my knight and all my DK had sanctuary up - he had no ideal target.

The tau "forgot" to roll for his reserves. I didnt catch it until about the end of his moving phase. I brought it up to him before he shot anything and he said - oh well I get I can't roll now because I have to do reserves before the movement phase. I tried to explain to him that he must roll anyways because this is actually an advantage for him. He called the TO over.

The TO said roll off on it on a 4+. ofc the tau won the roll off and his suits were allowed to stay off the board without rolling for reserves. Needless to say I was pretty angry about it but played through. It turned what would have been a near turn 4 tabling into a marginal win because those suits dropped the next turn and destroyed my knight when I failed to cast invis.

I don't think this situation was handled right. I think he should have been forced to roll reserves because the previous movements had literally no interaction with his deep strikes.

What do you guys think?

 Xenomancers wrote:
The TO said roll off on it on a 4+

(...)

What do you guys think?

Wrong.

Considering the current state of the 40k rules, it's difficult to have solutions for everything, but the tournament organizers should at least try.