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Just curious when you "forget" to do something is there a rule that you can not go back to do it? Usually people just say "thats your bad will have to remember next time" but in the last game I played my opponent charged my crusaders on an objective with 3 scouts (whatever those eldar things are called) and charged in 2 other areas as well. After the combat was finished with the 2 other areas was finished he conceded his turn to me, counted up my victory points for the turn (with that objective still contested and not counted) and started moving. Half way through moving i realized we never did that combat and my 5 crusaders probably would have killed his unit but he said i had forgotten and will just have to remember next time. As it was not my turn to begin with is this really my forgetting? especially since he could just have "forgotten" so he unit wasn't murdered and denied me points.

Just bringing this up because I tend to forget things at least once or twice during a match (usualy my psychic phase after i start shooting) and i just chalk it up as an oops my fault. How to others deal with missed actions?

This is a question of the local customs.

My friends and I have played together for *decades*. Wow the time flies. We are very willing to "go back" and fix something, especially if we both forgot. Hell, we try to remind each other if we're doing something stupid or forget to shoot with a unit before going to combat.

But I've played other places where it's like Chess... take your finger off it and it's done. In the harshest terms, *not performing actions* that you're supposed to is breaking the rules. They don't have rules for when you break the rules, because you're not supposed to.

It's one of those social agreement things where there are no hard and fast rules outside of a tournament (where often as not the ruling will be done by the judge being called over).


Many people often work by the maxim of once your hand is off the model its done. Much like in chess, once you've committed and done and handed the turn over or taken your hand off etc.. then whatever happened has happened.

If you forgot a step or stage an opponent might let you take it back; if they've already started doing things then chances are its less likely they will.



Again it depends, but sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet and realise that you've mucked up and learn from it for next time.



Honestly considering your example I'd have likely agreed with your opponent; the next turn had already started.

 greatbigtree wrote:
In the harshest terms, *not performing actions* that you're supposed to is breaking the rules. They don't have rules for when you break the rules, because you're not supposed to.

This is pretty much the RAW of it... also to add the point that in the Fight phase specifically, players alternate choosing units, so you're still involved. Can't really blame him for forgetting something that you forgot too, just because it was "his" turn, that doesn't automatically make it his responsibility to remember.

In real life? I'm quite forgiving and will always allow someone to go back and fix something, unless it's gone too far forward that making that change would have a significant impact on things that have already happened since (for instance, I've already fired with a unit that could have been destroyed in the previous turn).
OR, I'll be less inclined to be forgiving against someone that's already failed to show me the same courtesy.

Depends on the context, really.

In a friendly game at the store, it depends how much further you've moved on. If you rolled your hit rolls for the first combat, but then realize you forgot a single charge, I'll probably let you rewind a bit. If you've finished three combats already, and THEN realize you forgot a charge... No, sorry.

I'd expect at a tournament to not allow it at all.

+1 on context being important. If there's no financial prize on the line, I'm comfortable going back as far as not-changing-the-game-state allows. Finished combat but you forgot to shoot something at a unit that wasn't involved? No problem for me. If the only prize is bragging rights I'd rather go back and *still* beat you. Makes the victory even sweeter.

In a tournament, I consider that a form of gambling. We've all paid our entry fee, and there is a reward for winning that is *tangible*. Just like I wouldn't let someone go back and decide to go all-in in a Poker hand, after the cards are revealed, I wouldn't let someone go back in a tournament game... probably... sometimes I'm nice even when a prize is on the line... but I certainly would't count on it or expect it.

In this case it looks like it was the opponent "conveniently" forgetting, not just the OP. In this case I'd suggest to the opponent to either go back and do the battle or just move on but allow the OP to score the victory points as if the opponent's unit had been wiped out. He'd probably rather actually do the fight then. If he refuses, let a judge decide but make clear it was the opponent's turn and it was him "forgetting", which you are more than willing to go back and rectify.

It gets even more complicated if you forget to do something that the rules say you 'must' do, like charging with certain impetuous units.

As the others have said, it's generally up to whoever you're playing with and the circumstances, there's no definitive rule or citation as to what to do in this scenario.

Against a friend or even a stranger in a friendly game, yeah by all means I'd allow him to go back that much, and I'd expect a bit of leeway should I also mess up, in a quid pro quo fashion. I wouldn't allow it if it's more than a couple of phases ahead; I once had someone try to go back and Smite me after he had finished his turn. If it were the Shooting Phase I wouldn't care, but by that point it's gone on too far.

I think in your particular scenario however, it's a compulsory action so yeah I'd expect him to go back and resolve it.

For me, if it was optional, then forgetting is tantamount to choosing not to do it. If it was. Compulsory, then you go back and do it if at all practical.

In this example, I see little reason the two of you couldn’t have resolved the combat and then took up where you left off.

Would you say its common in tournaments for people to "forget" rules their armies have in order to win? IE guard players moving their tanks more than 5 inches and still firing 2d6 from their cannon as the opponent doesn't realize its 2 seperate 1d6 shots that they only get both if they only go half speed

Vrigor wrote:

Would you say its common in tournaments for people to "forget" rules their armies have in order to win? IE guard players moving their tanks more than 5 inches and still firing 2d6 from their cannon as the opponent doesn't realize its 2 seperate 1d6 shots that they only get both if they only go half speed

Cheating in a tournament isn’t the same as forgetting in a pickup game.

I would never let a rock steal steal my glory...

Vrigor wrote:

Would you say its common in tournaments for people to "forget" rules their armies have in order to win? IE guard players moving their tanks more than 5 inches and still firing 2d6 from their cannon as the opponent doesn't realize its 2 seperate 1d6 shots that they only get both if they only go half speed

"Forgetting" to gain an advantage is cheating. I don't think it is that common. People are far more likely to honestly get it wrong. They are even more likely to honestly forget to do something, whether optional or required.

Given the scenario and the fact charging units all fight first (Still a thing right?) They "forgot" in hopes you would miss it. Would not be shocked to find other little "errors" falling their way throughout a match.

If it became a pattern I'd stop playing them/request a judge at every instance when forced to play them.

For me, it depends on the situation.

Forgot to do something that's mandatory? Go back and fix it if possible. If it may have affected player decisions, let them change their moves. This happens a lot with Morale and Command Point regen, in my experience.

Forgot to do something that's optional? In a casual game, I'd allow the player to go back if it's easy to fix. In a tournament game, I'd allow the player to go back if the game hasn't progressed past where it matters. Happens a lot with prayers/litanies, psychic powers and stratagems.

From the other side if I've forgotten something it's on me. I wouldn't expect my opponent to allow me to go back.

Maybe in a super casual friendly, maybe. But not really even then.

Yeah in ITC hobbytrack they added a clause that if an opponent decides to forgoe his combat with a unit you are allowed to just pick the unit up off the table in responce.

So if he didnt want to go back and do the fight, you could just auto-win it.

Since it was a new turn and nothing else was effected by going back that is how i would have suggested handling it.

I'm pretty sure this is a problem we all have and do on occasion. Looking at competitive streams games I see this happen occasionally even at the highest level of the game. It was the subject of the infamous LVO final 3 years ago when tony got tony'd.

In casual games I used to not bat an eyelid but then I found people asking for takebacks or rolling the gamestate back far too many times. I started implementing a soft rule/convo at the beginning of the game asking my opponent how they felt about takebacks. Then you're both on the same field.

Now I am practicing to play in a few more tournaments and have played in quite a few already, I go by the rule of no takebacks for me so I will learn by mistakes and for my opponent if it goes too far back to change the current gamestate its a no but otherwise sure go for it.

In any tournament or competitive league you have to expect someone to say no to you and respond accordingly

If someone denies you a solution that involves an easy backtrack in a casual game then you might want to re-consider who you spend time with.

In tournaments things get a little more dicey. In your scenario it sounds like nothing relevant has changed on the board that would effect that combat so it's easy to go back and finish it up. I'd always allow people to change their moves based on the result of that forgotten combat as well and I'd expect the same.

If it's even so small as a single battle round ago I'd probably not allow anything any backtracking. So many different decisions have been made since the mistake that it's almost impossible to recreate the gamestate accurately. If they would have killed you off an objective then almost everything changes and needs to be re-evaluated.

This is assuming everythings being done in good faith.
Call a judge if things get hairy.
Concede that a perfect game of 40k has probably never been played and carry on.

My rough guide for HIWPI

Casual - full backtracks
Soft tourney practice-full backtracks
Hard tourney practice-no backtracks

Tourney low-mid tables - backtracks where it doesn't interfear (e.g. i fired a shot but forgot my psychic phase just go back) I would also be more forgiving of musts than tactical errors. E.g. admech player forgets canticals as opposed to misspositioned a unit (although I usually confirm intention that gets round lots of these things).

If my opponent wants to play a tighter game I match them don't let me backtrack then no backtracks for you its there right under the rules but I argue creates a less fun game so I don't advocate it by default.


Top tables - Assumed tight play no backtracks however I am always comfortable asking my opponent and if they allow me to get backtracks then they get back tracks.

- I remember one game vs innes Wilson where he thought a couple of my guardsman on the side of the match where dead when they weren't so i let him reposition because I knew had he realised he would have positioned accordingly.

A lot of this comes down to personal preference - what is unsporting though and you come across occasionally is someone who wants you to let them backtrack but then won't let you.

Since we have a few formerly competitive MtG players in our group we adopted something similar to the MtG tournament rules on forgotten triggers:
- If it's a full optional thing you forgot (like moving, bringing in reserves, using a stratagem), you are out of luck. An opponent has explicit permission to override this and allow it anyways. Some people do, some don't.
- If it's a mandatory thing you forgot, rewind the game to the point of the forgotten action and try to resolve it. If the game cannot be properly rewound, the action is skipped.
- If more than one full "proper" phase has passed you cannot roll back the game. A phase would not be considered "proper" if nothing or very little has happened - prime example is a psychic phase with few or no powers successfully manifested or a charge phase with no charges relevant to the issue being made.
- If the thing that was forgotten would have an impact on the choices that have revealed secret information, it cannot be undone.
- Dice rolls cannot be undone and therefore anything that would cause you to not roll certain dice/roll a different amount of dice cannot be undone. Only exception when rolling any dice becomes impossible (for example when a forgotten action wipes out a unit).
- In order to undo moves, both players must agree on where the models were before their move.
In general the idea is that, like in MtG, both players pay attention to the game and remind each others of rules and units that they might have forgotten.

So, in OP's example we would have handled like this
1) Fighting is not an optional thing, check if you can roll back the game.
2) Neither crusaders nor scouts have done anything in the meantime, so do their fight
3) Re-Do VP calculation
4) Continue movement

In addition, I suggest addopting the practice of quickly checking every single one of your units for things left to do at the end of every phase to prevent these "feels bad" moments. If you do it every phase in every game, you will stop forgetting things quickly.

How I tend to prefer to do it: If it's possible to correct so that it doesn't affect subsequent things fair enough. You say "okay psychics" and then remember you forgot to move something? Sure no problems. Forgot to cast defensive buff spell and remember midway shooting? No issue. Forgot to cast buff for your shooting and remember after you shot? That gets lot ickier if you already rolled relevant dices.

It's fairly subjective where the line is but generally I'm pretty relaxed. I prefer to win by outsmarting opponent than opponent forgetting which is all too easy with time limits and convoluted bloated ruleset like 40k is. Though I don't expect opponent to give same back nor complain. Nor do I even ask it always.

But no rules for doing redo's in rulebook so can't use it by the book.

tneva82 wrote:
How I tend to prefer to do it: If it's possible to correct so that it doesn't affect subsequent things fair enough. You say "okay psychics" and then remember you forgot to move something? Sure no problems. Forgot to cast defensive buff spell and remember midway shooting? No issue. Forgot to cast buff for your shooting and remember after you shot? That gets lot ickier if you already rolled relevant dices.

It's fairly subjective where the line is but generally I'm pretty relaxed. I prefer to win by outsmarting opponent than opponent forgetting which is all too easy with time limits and convoluted bloated ruleset like 40k is. Though I don't expect opponent to give same back nor complain. Nor do I even ask it always.

But no rules for doing redo's in rulebook so can't use it by the book.

Generally I agree with this, and it absolutely is subjective and would be determined case by case.

The defensive buff thing can be contentious though. If my opponent hasn’t activated a defensive buff and I’ve decided to target them, then they “remember” to activate the buff. It might be an honest mistake, and if my opponent is a friend I’d probably give the benefit of the doubt, but I’d expect to be allowed to decide if I want to change the target of my shooting/charge as I might have made a different choice had the buff been applied when it was supposed to be etc. If I was playing an opponent I don’t know well, it would feel pretty disingenuous.

IMO, that's way too late.
At that point many things that could have impacted his decision have been made, especially the knowledge that you would actually target that unit. You might even have moved differently if you had known that this unit is protected.
Against friends, a better solution would be helping them making sure their psykers have used all their powers and asking them if they want to use any stratagems at the end of movement (which is when most defensive buffs are used).
Prevent "feel bad" moments by reminding them of their window of opportunity. If they still don't use their defensive buffs then, it's a tactical error which is part of the game.

I also don't think that this is what tneva meant. If you realize while picking your own unit to shoot that you have forgotten to buff them just a phase or two ago, I have no issue with people going back and doing that.

Generally speaking if "going back" means to undo some dice already rolled or have some kind of impact in the game then is a big no.

Did you forget your 6++ and 6+++ in the shooting phase and then the same unit also fought, now they're all dead but if they rolled correctly they could have survived? Too late, the unit's gone.

Imagine a mob of deathskullz boyz forgetting to roll their 6++ and they get wiped out by enemy firepower. One phase later the ork player can't say "Oh I forgot their invuln", he rolls some 6s, and then a few boyz are still in the game which means in the subsequent turn the entire mob could show up unscratched for 3 CPs. The opponent would have tried to wipe them out if they survived the batch of shots that killed them.

Did you forget your saves or other rules that could save a unit from incoming firepower and nothing else touched it or would have wanted to interact with it anyway before moral phase, when you finally remembered those rules? I'd allow to fix the mistake, as it had no impact in the game.

Your deffkopta suffered a couple of wounds thanks to a pot shot but you forgot to roll for its invuln. Since nothing went after that model in the following phases of the turn I'd allow to try to ignore those taken wounds even if we are way past the shooting phase.

Aash wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
How I tend to prefer to do it: If it's possible to correct so that it doesn't affect subsequent things fair enough. You say "okay psychics" and then remember you forgot to move something? Sure no problems. Forgot to cast defensive buff spell and remember midway shooting? No issue. Forgot to cast buff for your shooting and remember after you shot? That gets lot ickier if you already rolled relevant dices.

It's fairly subjective where the line is but generally I'm pretty relaxed. I prefer to win by outsmarting opponent than opponent forgetting which is all too easy with time limits and convoluted bloated ruleset like 40k is. Though I don't expect opponent to give same back nor complain. Nor do I even ask it always.

But no rules for doing redo's in rulebook so can't use it by the book.

Generally I agree with this, and it absolutely is subjective and would be determined case by case.

The defensive buff thing can be contentious though. If my opponent hasn’t activated a defensive buff and I’ve decided to target them, then they “remember” to activate the buff. It might be an honest mistake, and if my opponent is a friend I’d probably give the benefit of the doubt, but I’d expect to be allowed to decide if I want to change the target of my shooting/charge as I might have made a different choice had the buff been applied when it was supposed to be etc. If I was playing an opponent I don’t know well, it would feel pretty disingenuous.

You don't generally target enemy unit on HIS shooting phase though...Sorry if it's unclear. What I meant.

Player A psychic phase. Does stuff, declares over, starts shooting. "Oh damn I forgot to cast this +1 to my armour saves on this unit". Here I would be 100% fine with casting it. There has been no chance for me to actually attack that unit yet so he's not getting any real extra information here either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
I also don't think that this is what tneva meant. If you realize while picking your own unit to shoot that you have forgotten to buff them just a phase or two ago, I have no issue with people going back and doing that.

Yeah that.

Obviously when whole turn has changed and it's now your turn it's opponent shooting at you it's different because then there's additional info to have gained and it could have affected your actions as well. That's way way way too late.

For helping remember I do that when I can but there's sooooooooooooo many sources and whatnot that I find it hard to keep track off let alone remember what spells opponent MIGHT have. I'm having hard enough time remembering my own army let alone how many spells opponents psykers know and can cast :(

Generally I take it for granted. Sometimes I get curious and check and for example now I'm struggling to find out what if any gave opponent's wraithseers character protection ignoring d-cannon or did he mean "sniping" as in "i'm going to snipe your units from out of LOS safely" so wasnt' sniping as in "I can target your characters". Made doubly fun because there's literally 2 different d-cannon rules with same weapon name. One with S10 doesnt' ignore LOS and one with S12 ignores LOS with same name on weapon and both found in 40k app....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Too many sources of rules.

tneva82 wrote:
For helping remember I do that when I can but there's sooooooooooooo many sources and whatnot that I find it hard to keep track off let alone remember what spells opponent MIGHT have. I'm having hard enough time remembering my own army let alone how many spells opponents psykers know and can cast :(

[...]

Too many sources of rules.

I agree. I do more general checks to make sure no one forgets anything because most stratagems and power actually follow some sort of pattern. I just ask the same things every game and it will catch the vast majority of "damn, I forgot to..." problems. Obviously, if your opponent is a seasoned veteran who plays perfectly, you don't need to annoy them with asking stupid questions.
In any case, you have lot less on your mind when it's not your turn.

- Remind them of scoring and generating a CP in the command phase
- At the end of movement, check ruins for forgotten units and any units that have remained stationary without an obvious reason to do so
- At the end of movement, ask opponent if they have any reserves
- At the end of movement, ask if they have used all stratagems they were planning on using
- Psychic phase actually got easier with 9th, just make sure they use all casts before moving to the next psyker
- At the end of the psychic phase check all enemy casters if they have done something. I'm not doing that for GK or TS though
- At the beginning of shooting, ask if any model has any abilities that are used during the shooting phase
- At the beginning of the shooting phase, tell your opponent that you assume everything will be shot at the same target unless stated otherwise
- Keep track if a unit has shot all weapons visible on the model(s) itself. Models rarely have less guns modeled than they can shoot
- After every charge, ask them if they want to do any more charges. People tend to go directly to fighting if "the important charge" has succeeded and forget about the troops trying to contest an objective
- After all *your* charges have been completed, ask your opponent for any heroic interventions
- Before moving onto moral, check any place on the board where models are touching if everyone has fought. Pay special attention to characters
- At the end of combat, ask whether anything wants to fight a second time
- Check *all* units for moral checks. If your opponent doesn't properly mark casualties, mark them for him
- Check for any VP scored through actions

In my experience, this will catch the vast majority of things people forget.

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
For helping remember I do that when I can but there's sooooooooooooo many sources and whatnot that I find it hard to keep track off let alone remember what spells opponent MIGHT have. I'm having hard enough time remembering my own army let alone how many spells opponents psykers know and can cast :(

[...]

Too many sources of rules.

I agree. I do more general checks to make sure no one forgets anything because most stratagems and power actually follow some sort of pattern. I just ask the same things every game and it will catch the vast majority of "damn, I forgot to..." problems. Obviously, if your opponent is a seasoned veteran who plays perfectly, you don't need to annoy them with asking stupid questions.
In any case, you have lot less on your mind when it's not your turn.

- Remind them of scoring and generating a CP in the command phase
- At the end of movement, check ruins for forgotten units and any units that have remained stationary without an obvious reason to do so
- At the end of movement, ask opponent if they have any reserves
- At the end of movement, ask if they have used all stratagems they were planning on using
- Psychic phase actually got easier with 9th, just make sure they use all casts before moving to the next psyker
- At the end of the psychic phase check all enemy casters if they have done something. I'm not doing that for GK or TS though
- At the beginning of shooting, ask if any model has any abilities that are used during the shooting phase
- At the beginning of the shooting phase, tell your opponent that you assume everything will be shot at the same target unless stated otherwise
- Keep track if a unit has shot all weapons visible on the model(s) itself. Models rarely have less guns modeled than they can shoot
- After every charge, ask them if they want to do any more charges. People tend to go directly to fighting if "the important charge" has succeeded and forget about the troops trying to contest an objective
- After all *your* charges have been completed, ask your opponent for any heroic interventions
- Before moving onto moral, check any place on the board where models are touching if everyone has fought. Pay special attention to characters
- At the end of combat, ask whether anything wants to fight a second time
- Check *all* units for moral checks. If your opponent doesn't properly mark casualties, mark them for him
- Check for any VP scored through actions

In my experience, this will catch the vast majority of things people forget.

This is a very good ethic, and one I subscribe to. The competition is on the tabletop, remembering the rules and not missing things is kind of a team game. If I see my opponent hasn't moved or charged something that he probably wanted to, then I remind them. I once had my opponent forget his assassin every turn, I may as well have been playing the assassin myself He was a very good assassin though, as he was left on the board by mistake, and was still there 2 days later when we went back to find him - the board was being used for someone else's game as well!

I would say it depends.

If the wording of the rules is "When X, do Y", then I'd say an effort should be made if possible to resolve it and apply the change to the present game state, If that's not possible, then it was forgotten and we have to remember it next time.
If the wording of the rules is "When X, you may do Y", then I'd say you forgot and should not forget next time.


In casual play, we usually let people go back and resolve something if you haven't actually rolled for something else yet. IE: if you forgot to cast a psychic power, and then announced you were moving to your shooting phase, I'd let you say "wait, hold on, I forgot a psychic power" and resolve it as long as you hadn't actually resolved shooting for anything yet.