London 40k GT - Save the Date for the Largest 40k Singles event in Europe

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**niv-mizzet**

Shotgun wrote:
As someone who worked on Adepticon staff in the early years, he couldn't be taken a more incorrect approach.

Adepticon is not successful because it is large. Adepticon is large because it is successful. The amount of weekends we put in on terrain building alone. The help we accepted from local clubs to get all of the tables up to snuff. The planning for the next year that begins almost immediately after the last box is put away from the current year.

There are lessons to take from Adepticon. "Size" is not one of them.

"It's not how big it is, but what you do with it"

**Nithaniel**

An Actual Englishman wrote:
Fair play to Alex for coming on here and defending himself. Not the easiest thing to do I imagine.

I've seen a lot of noise about this and to be honest it does seem a lot like a distraction technique. Which is absolutely bogus.

I haven't watched the videos and I'm not going to, to me they are kind of irrelevant. Only Alex knows if he intentionally cheated and that's all that matters for me. Anyone can brain fart and make a mistake (or series of mistakes), particularly when they've had no sleep.

This whole debarcle is really negative for 40k, not just the alleged cheating but also the way it's been handled, the rules lawyering from both parties on stream and the awful terrain at the event. I can imagine why someone who is new to the game but interested in competitive events would be entirely put off by this whole affair. That is the crime here - between Alex, Geoff, the London GT organisers and the myriad of people commenting on various media outlets about this (including myself now) we have actively put people off the hobby and have tarred the reputation of its players, the game and the competitive scene.

There is no better summary than this. Only he will know what he did and the rest of us can spout our opinions and the relevance is lost because we are all internet nobodies here. Kudos to Alex for coming on and facing the hate. I however have watched the video and have made my opinions clear on this in another thread and the way the London GT handled this was just poor. It does just leave a bitter taste to what should have been a landmark event for the UK scene. I live in London and was sorely disappointed that I didn't get a chance to go but now I'm kinda happy I didn't. I will probably try and make it next year but Zach's attitude in this whole debacle seems to be shocking. They need to make an unreserved apology to Alex for the way they handled this even if they choose to maintain the ban.

**tneva82**

Corrode wrote:

All of this is as expected. I listened to the Allies of Convenience episode with the organiser Zach and all I can say is that I think he's delusional. Everything he says is focused on getting a bigger event as fast as possible, and every time the host tries to bring him back to reality he dismisses it with 'we'll just work harder!' or 'maybe... but we want to be as big as Adepticon!' I have very little faith that the event will be an better run next yesr.[/quote

Sigh. That's what you get when you get illusions of grandeur and think bigger is automatically better.

**Red Corsair**

tneva82 wrote:
exploited751 wrote:
Primark G wrote:
It is impossible to know if some posters are posting these lengthy diatribes like exploited751 due to some grudge - as such they do not really carry any weight.

My grudge is:

One, he played Tau and cheated, I play Tau.
Two. He cheated.
Three. Its hilarious to watch someone defend himself on the internet so lets just say that removes one grudge point due to the LOLs that this has cause.
Three again see above. It brings shame to the community.
Four. He cheated a lot
Five. He is literally doing the exact same thing he claims the Event Organizers are doing. He claims he is a scapegoat because the event was so disastrous, meanwhile he is using the event's disaster as a scapegoat to mitigate thoughts on his cheating.

I have never participated in an ITC event to date (although I am signed up for one in August) and I have never been to England and I have never met this dude, so clearly I have a personal vendetta against him due to the atrocities of the War of 1812 when the UK 9/11'd the 'muricah White House.

The only thing I know is what were in those videos on twitch.

I mean for christ sake you are claiming him deliberately cheating extra marker light hit when it gains him nothing(literally. Seeker missile hits on normal BS. Very useful when you don't have any seeker missiles to shoot!). That's stupid.

I have no dog in this fight, but actually 2 marker hits is the difference between being able to use the stratagem Uplinked Marker Light for a potential +3 hits (additional d3 free hits) and gaining +1 to hit on his entire army, and well, not getting that opportunity. So claiming there was literally no possible gain by him at the very least demonstrates he doesn't know his army. I don't even play Tau and I am aware of that combo.

**Primark G**

He didn't play Tau prior to this event.

**Big Mac**

this is what Geoff, Alex's opponent in the finals, has said about the event and his opponent; link to podcast just beneath the laughing baby pic.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2018/05/28/chapter-tactics-68-how-to-overcome-cheating-in-40k-tournaments/

Summary: Geoff had to tolerate some mega 'silent deaths' in the first day of the event due to being crowded like sardines; the terrains were viable LOS blocking terrain, but ugly as F! About 6-12 players came up to Reece to bad mouth Alex, Alex doesn't think Geoff is a quality opponent after he demolished him in the previous round(with cheating without knowing the rules), this came back to Geoff and his competitive blood starts boiling.

Geoff had a problem with the wound dice counter mix up mainly and that Alex doesn't take accountability for his actions, its always someone else out to get him. I even suggest to use color matching dices instead of using bag of clown dice to help curb future mishaps, his reply was a deflection.

**Red Corsair**

Primark G wrote:
He didn't play Tau prior to this event.

So? Neither have I yet I still demonstrated why the additional hit would matter without needing to think very hard.

**Process**

Primark G wrote:
He didn't play Tau prior to this event.

This is a complete joke;

The guy won the LVO, and has multiple posts on his competitive gaming website about the construction and tactics of his Tau army long prior to the event. If there was a rules breach regarding codex wording, it was 100% intentional, Period. no excuses.

Why are people defending a guy who obviously knows what he's doing playing the defense of "ohhh sorry i diditn know the rules of the army i chose specifically for the rules i was trying to exploit"

**Primark G**

This is what Nick Natvanti had to say:

As a disclaimer, it’s worth pointing out that I do not know Alex well—I’ve met him once or twice at larger GTs, and never been directly involved in his games as far as I’m aware.

The first issue is a rules mistake, a misplay regarding For the Greater Good and Hammerheads. Again, to describe this as “cheating” is both disrespectful to Alex and incredibly presumptuous on the part of anyone pretending they’ve never made a similar mistake (which is incredibly easy to do on Twitch chat or in the comments of a Facebook post).

What amazed me as a judge is they were actually presented with the opportunity to correct this mistake directly. That’s an incredibly rare luxury. Under normal circumstances, the game would have progressed beyond the ability to do anything beyond playing the rule correctly in the remaining turns. But due to a scheduling issue with the venue, the game was stopped shortly afterwards and finished at a later time, which allowed them to actually roll back the misplay and resolve the rule correctly. This cannot be expected under normal tournament conditions but was interesting given the situation.

The remaining issues—a bumped water bottle, a misplaced wound counter, and an erroneous measurement, are borderline absurd from the perspective of someone who’s seen dozens and dozens of these games. These issues are only being made notable due to the relatively new capability of 40k to have a “spectator” class, watching and armchair judging from home, with no stake in the event and no expectation of civility or reasonable discourse.

**Audustum**

Primark G wrote:
This is what Nick Natvanti had to say:

As a disclaimer, it’s worth pointing out that I do not know Alex well—I’ve met him once or twice at larger GTs, and never been directly involved in his games as far as I’m aware.

The first issue is a rules mistake, a misplay regarding For the Greater Good and Hammerheads. Again, to describe this as “cheating” is both disrespectful to Alex and incredibly presumptuous on the part of anyone pretending they’ve never made a similar mistake (which is incredibly easy to do on Twitch chat or in the comments of a Facebook post).

What amazed me as a judge is they were actually presented with the opportunity to correct this mistake directly. That’s an incredibly rare luxury. Under normal circumstances, the game would have progressed beyond the ability to do anything beyond playing the rule correctly in the remaining turns. But due to a scheduling issue with the venue, the game was stopped shortly afterwards and finished at a later time, which allowed them to actually roll back the misplay and resolve the rule correctly. This cannot be expected under normal tournament conditions but was interesting given the situation.

The remaining issues—a bumped water bottle, a misplaced wound counter, and an erroneous measurement, are borderline absurd from the perspective of someone who’s seen dozens and dozens of these games. These issues are only being made notable due to the relatively new capability of 40k to have a “spectator” class, watching and armchair judging from home, with no stake in the event and no expectation of civility or reasonable discourse.

Nick is right that it's largely possible because we have a spectator class, but that doesn't invalidate it. It's time to start bringing precision to 40k.

That said, lifetime ban for the first event offense is a bit too harsh in my book.

**Primark G**

"The mob rules when you listen to fools."

**gorgon**

It's incredibly hypocritical for top competitive players and leading TOs to be loud proponents of/leading forces behind transforming miniatures wargaming into a competitive 'sport' -- complete with live coverage -- AND simultaneously decry scrutiny and criticism from the masses.

It has to be one thing or the other. I get that players want to have their 'club' AND all the accolades and benefits. And I get that the TOs have a substantial financial interest in having their events be both hardcore affairs AND a bunch of dudes just casually pushing minis around the table.

But it can't work like that. You have to choose, and accept the downside that comes with the upside of that choice. You want the world rankings, the live coverage, the cash prizes, etc...then yeah, folks are gonna criticize some gak, often loudly, and freak out a little when they perceive a 'sport' to have shenanigans going on. That's part of being a 'sport'.

**Primark G**

Well said Gorgon!

**Fenrir Kitsune**

I remember this bunch from their first event. It’s good to see they’ve failed to take any feedback in the pursuit of “bigger = best”

Their claim to be the biggest club in London was laughable at the time and now. Most amount of “yes, I’ll attend” from spods on a website isn’t the same as amount of regular attending players. If I remember right, they were based in Covent Garden then moved out to somewhere.

**ArbitorIan**

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I remember this bunch from their first event. It’s good to see they’ve failed to take any feedback in the pursuit of “bigger = best”

Their claim to be the biggest club in London was laughable at the time and now. Most amount of “yes, I’ll attend” from spods on a website isn’t the same as amount of regular attending players. If I remember right, they were based in Covent Garden then moved out to somewhere.

I think they were based in UCL, and used Meetup instead of Facebook groups, so nobody had ever heard of them. Their claim was to be the Biggest Club in Central London, which was a cunning trick - as anyone in London knows, Central London (say, Zone 1) is quite a small area with really high rents so they're also the ONLY club in Central London!! Clubs like South London Warlords, HATE and Overlords (at the time) were way bigger, but not in 'central' London!!!

**jim30**

There are a few Zone 1 clubs, but mostly historicals - if memory serves there is the London Exiles, Cross Gaming Club, the Central London Wargames Club and at least one other - so I'm not even sure if their claim to be the 'largest' is correct.

**Fenrir Kitsune**

ArbitorIan wrote:
Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I remember this bunch from their first event. It’s good to see they’ve failed to take any feedback in the pursuit of “bigger = best”

Their claim to be the biggest club in London was laughable at the time and now. Most amount of “yes, I’ll attend” from spods on a website isn’t the same as amount of regular attending players. If I remember right, they were based in Covent Garden then moved out to somewhere.

I think they were based in UCL, and used Meetup instead of Facebook groups, so nobody had ever heard of them. Their claim was to be the Biggest Club in Central London, which was a cunning trick - as anyone in London knows, Central London (say, Zone 1) is quite a small area with really high rents so they're also the ONLY club in Central London!! Clubs like South London Warlords, HATE and Overlords (at the time) were way bigger, but not in 'central' London!!!

Had a look and they are picking up 30 odd players a session, so reasonably doing well. Now, if only they played games other than GW, I might be interested in paying a visit!

**StraightSilver**

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
ArbitorIan wrote:
Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I remember this bunch from their first event. It’s good to see they’ve failed to take any feedback in the pursuit of “bigger = best”

Their claim to be the biggest club in London was laughable at the time and now. Most amount of “yes, I’ll attend” from spods on a website isn’t the same as amount of regular attending players. If I remember right, they were based in Covent Garden then moved out to somewhere.

I think they were based in UCL, and used Meetup instead of Facebook groups, so nobody had ever heard of them. Their claim was to be the Biggest Club in Central London, which was a cunning trick - as anyone in London knows, Central London (say, Zone 1) is quite a small area with really high rents so they're also the ONLY club in Central London!! Clubs like South London Warlords, HATE and Overlords (at the time) were way bigger, but not in 'central' London!!!

Had a look and they are picking up 30 odd players a session, so reasonably doing well. Now, if only they played games other than GW, I might be interested in paying a visit!

30 players per session is perfectly reasonable but compared to HATE that's a quiet Sunday session, lol. HATE on a Wednesday is usually considerably more than that.

And HATE plays EVERYTHING.

**Valkyrie**

StraightSilver wrote:
Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
ArbitorIan wrote:
Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I remember this bunch from their first event. It’s good to see they’ve failed to take any feedback in the pursuit of “bigger = best”

Their claim to be the biggest club in London was laughable at the time and now. Most amount of “yes, I’ll attend” from spods on a website isn’t the same as amount of regular attending players. If I remember right, they were based in Covent Garden then moved out to somewhere.

I think they were based in UCL, and used Meetup instead of Facebook groups, so nobody had ever heard of them. Their claim was to be the Biggest Club in Central London, which was a cunning trick - as anyone in London knows, Central London (say, Zone 1) is quite a small area with really high rents so they're also the ONLY club in Central London!! Clubs like South London Warlords, HATE and Overlords (at the time) were way bigger, but not in 'central' London!!!

Had a look and they are picking up 30 odd players a session, so reasonably doing well. Now, if only they played games other than GW, I might be interested in paying a visit!

30 players per session is perfectly reasonable but compared to HATE that's a quiet Sunday session, lol. HATE on a Wednesday is usually considerably more than that. And HATE plays EVERYTHING.

Tried HATE last night and it was very welcoming, much easier to arrange a game, and seemed to be more casual play too. I got the gist that the other group were more competitive, possibly more cliquey than HATE, didn't really feel that welcome as a new player.