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So, here be a couple of players who decided to organise their own little unofficial tournament. Simply the rules as written. Bring whatever you want, but take no more than 50 Wounds in total.

Then, of course, one player thinks he is very clever, and arrives to this tournament with but a single Tomb Kings Tomb Swarm. He sets up normally, meaning he has nothing on the table as the Tomb Swarm is using its Underground Scuttlers ability.
Now suppose there is a clever Lord as his opponent present, who then calls for the tournament director, and declares a turn-1-victory. The tournament director isn't fully convinced, until fine reasoning and proof are delivered. Once the other players heard why, the now rather sad Tomb Kings player didn't win a single match, and is very likely to be called That F-fing Guy, never to be able to show his face with an 'army' shenanigan like that near reasonable people, trying to win a tournament 'that way'.

His true reactions are not quite SFW, so I'll spare the details. The other players had their fun.

He should have deployed a Carion instead

Had to re-read the rules for victory. I guess you CAN win without killing a single model.

Wait a minute, this is not rules as written . Both forces are still at 100% strength and the AoS rules uses differences in model % between the start and the endgame., so the opponent can't declare even a minor victory. It's a draw by default. If there's a tournament procedure for a draw it should have been followed.

% of casualties are only used if the game has no major victory which is defined as one side not having any models on the table.

Of course it doesn't say when that condition is checked.

Demandread wrote:
% of casualties are only used if the game has no major victory which is defined as one side not having any models on the table.

Of course it doesn't say when that condition is checked.

It says nothing about "models on the table". It says –,

with one side able to claim
victory because it has destroyed its foe
or there are no enemy models left on the
field of battle.

You would have to define the field of battle as just the surface of the battle, the sky, but not underground, which is arbitrary and a houserule. And even if you were to play it that way, the creature has never arrived to the battle, so there can't be any models "left", as technically it's not a left over.

Ok, a really quick reply here. OP's tournament organiser is right, he ruled it correctly, the Tomb King player had an epic fail.

The Big Idea - the Tomb King player takes advantage of the Sudden Death rule, choosing Endure (have at least one model at the end of the sixth battle round). By trigger Sudden Death by having fewer models (in his case, just 1 model) that could bury itself in the ground like the Tomb Swarm and never come out, it technically can never die. That's what he was going for.

The Big Flaw - except that strategy is not an instant-win, it's an instant-lose, due to 2 rules:

In the Mortal Realms battles are brutal
and uncompromising – they are fought to
the bitter end, with one side able to claim
victory because it has destroyed its foe
or there are no enemy models on the
field of battle.  The victor can immediately
claim a major victory and the honours
and triumphs that are due to them, while
the defeated must repair to their lair to lick
their wounds and bear the shame of failure.

That Tomb Kings player may have had a model, but it was technically NOT on the field of battle. It was deployed underground, inactive. In case there's any confusion, the Tomb Swarm rules describe it as "instead of setting up a Tomb Swarm on the battlefield, you can place them to one side and say that they are set up beneath the ground." It literally says you are not setting them up on the battlefield, therefore they are not on the field of battle. Then if that's not enough, a 2nd rule:

Endure: Have at least one model
which started the battle on the
battlefield still in play at the end of the
sixth battle round.

Again, that Tomb Swarm never started on the battlefield, by definition. That player tried to be clever, but every game he was handing over a Major Victory, plus he even broke the very rule he tried to exploit.

---

I mention this not to embarrass anyone, but to WARN everyone of players trying EXACTLY this trick, but it actually works against them.

This Tomb Swarm trick started on the Internet somewhere, but it's a gross mis-reading of the rules, but it spread over blogs and other forums, then players saw what they wanted to see. It doesn't work as RAW, because the Tomb Swarm player has NO units on the battlefield, thus gives up a Major Victory. No Minor Victory, no percentages. No models on battlefield = instant loss.

OP, thanks for sharing this story. I knew someone would try this on the tournament, clearly the RAW actually works against it. I also strongly suspect this player read this trick on the Internet. Why? If he had come up with it, by himself, he would have chosen Prince Aphopas (because in case he had to counter an opponent who also has a Turn 1/1 Model Victory trick, this Named Hero had a better chance than a Tomb Swarm).

Again, in that case the model never arrived to the battlefield. A model that never arrived, cannot be left over, so he still forces a draw.

TBM wrote:

Demandread wrote:
% of casualties are only used if the game has no major victory which is defined as one side not having any models on the table.

Of course it doesn't say when that condition is checked.

It says nothing about "models on the table". It says –,

with one side able to claim
victory because it has destroyed its foe
or there are no enemy models left on the
field of battle.

You would have to define the field of battle as just the surface of the battle, the sky, but not underground, which is arbitrary and a houserule. And even if you were to play it that way, the creature has never arrived to the battle, so there can't be any models "left", as technically it's not a left over.

Sorry but it's a house rule to say that "not on the table" is in anyway on the battlefield, not the other way around. I don't think you will convince anyone otherwise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Literally the only model that is on the field by its own deployment rules but immune to everything is a Carrion, unless I'm missing something.

Demandread wrote:

TBM wrote:

Demandread wrote:
% of casualties are only used if the game has no major victory which is defined as one side not having any models on the table.

Of course it doesn't say when that condition is checked.

It says nothing about "models on the table". It says –,

with one side able to claim
victory because it has destroyed its foe
or there are no enemy models left on the
field of battle.

You would have to define the field of battle as just the surface of the battle, the sky, but not underground, which is arbitrary and a houserule. And even if you were to play it that way, the creature has never arrived to the battle, so there can't be any models "left", as technically it's not a left over.

Sorry but it's a house rule to say that "not on the table" is in anyway on the battlefield, not the other way around. I don't think you will convince anyone otherwise.

It doesn't matter which way it's played. The worst he can do is draw if it's RAW. Kommissar Waaaghrick conveniently removed the "left" part of the victory condition. If no models ever arrived to battle, you can only win by ignoring the bolded part of the victory condition:

with one side able to claim
victory because it has destroyed its foe
or there are no enemy models left on the
field of battle.

I pasted that straight from the rules. "left" means something was there but isn't anymore. By definition "nothing left" is a reduction in number from more than zero to zero. And technically this guy's army numbers zero to begin with.

Just confirming, in copying from the PDF, there were some weird symbols, and I did indeed cut out the word thinking it was some weird typo from model. That wasn't intentional, just trying to make the text readable. My bad.

I see where you're coming from with "nothing left" and why you're arguing with everyone.

I, too, can see why the discussion resolves around having any models 'left' at the end of the battle.
Of course, the offending player tried to abuse some loophole in the rules, we can all agree to that.

Had he been using the Sudden Death rules correctly, he would have been giving away major victories anyways, as the Endure condition clearly states that the enduring model had to have been on the table from the start of the game anyways. He would have to deploy the Tomb Swarm on the table, then bury them, and he would have none left. With 0 models on the table, the Endure sudden death condition cannot be chosen.

As for the draw...
If this shenanigan were to stand, neither side would likely have any casualties, as both players wouldn't have had a chance to harm the opponent's warriors. One player sets up underground and pops up in the sixth battle round, and the other player would have no targets for six turns. So the casualty percentages would likely be 0% and 0%.

But as we are talking about how things are written in the rules precisely, the rules present a bold faced "major victory", as well as a bold faced "minor victory". There is no mention what so ever of a "draw" as a win/loss option, bold faced or otherwise. RAW, there is no mention of a 'Draw' when the armies have lost an equal percentage of their models, wounds, units or any other measurement of losses. I guess the tournament director couldn't assign a draw then, as it is not in the rules anywhere, and chose to give the field to the more sportsmanship-like players who fielded more regular armies, making moves, rolling to hit and to wound, suffering battleshock tests, and thus the tournament director showed that being TFG doesn't pay off?

I think the TD declared the outcome of the battle as quite obvious. No casualties on either side, but a very clear numerical advantage with one army over the single Tomb Swarm. In such cases the percentages are moot and no minor victory can be given as the outcome is obvious (which is such a vague term by itself, only gaining definition by context). It was a TD-level decission which all but one of the players agreed to.



And then there is the Carrion indeed. They are actually 'set up' and then declared out of reach, as opposed to being set aside instead of setting up. Makes me wonder how the TD would have handled that one in a RAW environment?

Of course none of this matters at all, since any tournament that ruled a win for this kind of blatant douchebaggery would be committing tournament suicide for the future. Nobody would ever attend again.

Not that age of sigmar is tournent playable to begin with. Especially RAW.

Frankly this argument shows that AoS is capable of generating exactly the same kind of tournament shenanigans, rules lawyery and YMDC problems as WHFB, all things that its simple structure and "no points" approach were supposed to avoid.

Exactly as I predicted.

Well done, GW.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Frankly this argument shows that AoS is capable of generating exactly the same kind of tournament shenanigans, rules lawyery and YMDC problems as WHFB, all things that its simple structure and "no points" approach were supposed to avoid.

Exactly as I predicted.

Well done, GW.

Yep. It's funny how when you make a game with no points, that people will still resort to the primitive side. Would you really expect a kid in a candy store to not over indulge? This sort of stuff is going to happen, but now, instead of just an older age group doing it, you'll be getting lectured by a 10 year old about how his army is fair 'because'. Though, at least that's a more direct answer than what the adult version would be.

Regardless of age, trying to win a miniatures game by deploying no minis and declaring victory is stupid, as circumventing the actual playing of the game in the pursuit of victory defeats the entire purpose of playing the game in the first place. Any decent TO would simply answer attempts to do something like this with 'No.'

Also, anyone who tries this in any setting should be getting no games, and leave in a huff. This kind of thing is best regulated socially rather than with rules.

Orock wrote:Of course none of this matters at all, since any tournament that ruled a win for this kind of blatant douchebaggery would be committing tournament suicide for the future. Nobody would ever attend again.

Except that this was a case where the TO ruled against the obvious abuse of a special rule, and gave major victories to the players that were original and sportsmanshiplike enough enough to bring normal armies, with troops that stayed on the battleground, walked towards each other and started making attacks left and right. I would have to agree, though, that any tournament, both unofficial such as this one, and any possible future official ones, would kill the game if such appearances of TFG weren't regulated somewhat. The TD and the other players made this a fun experience. There was just this one TFG.

overtninja wrote:Regardless of age, trying to win a miniatures game by deploying no minis and declaring victory is stupid, as circumventing the actual playing of the game in the pursuit of victory defeats the entire purpose of playing the game in the first place. Any decent TO would simply answer attempts to do something like this with 'No.'
Also, anyone who tries this in any setting should be getting no games, and leave in a huff. This kind of thing is best regulated socially rather than with rules.

It was indeed regulated socially. The Tomb Swarm player excepted, when all players grinned and declared their major victories against him as supported by the TO, everybody had a fun time while trying the new rules. The other players weren't free of constructive criticism about AoS, but they were there trying to make the best out of it. The tournament was, after all, just an unofficial tournament. There were three players and the Tournament Director who already knew eachother, and three 'strangers' of which one turned out to be TFG with his Tomb Swarm.