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So recently I've been to a tournament and there was these players, well more or so just one guy since it was a doubles tourney.

1. Speaking really softly so that I don't know what the heck they were doing. I asked once or twice to speak up, but I felt rude to keep asking him to speak up...

2. Just started rolling dice and not really clearly says which unit is targeting which unit, I guess it has something to do with the above one.

3. Using really cool conversions but was completely misleading like cultists as firewarriors and pathfinders, they were tournie approved and looked amazing so whatever, but I was really confused for half the game, guess I just need more practice against proxies and stuff so I can keep track of what is what.

4. Breaking rules? Eg. Him not being in unit coherency and firing and when I called him out on it he said "So what do you want?", Having dreads fire the quad gun(noticed after the game was over, or at least if I remember correctly). So we didn't know some of the rules and they called us out on it, and I mean that's fair but I'm not really sure how to deal with players when they can't take it in return...

Most of these things I kinda didn't know what to do during the tournament since this was my first tournie and was kinda of in a daze already, in normal play I'd be like whatever but I guess when you are playing tournaments you should be stricter against everybody?

I just want to be more prepared on how to deal with players like this in my next tournament.

(Sending this to tournament discussions.)

I think your title is a bit misleading; it's much more "How do I deal with a bad opponent at a tournament."

Cheating and just being an all-around phallus?

After a couple of offenses, I'd have said "Sorry, not playing anymore", and packed my gak up. I don't really care if it pisses off tourney officials or whoever thinks they have some semblance of authority at a glorified chess match. I'd just stop before I got really mad.

I am assuming this was conquest, if so I suggest PMing Clarence about it if you had such a rough run in.

I personally hate count as for the same reason, making one mistake at the competitive level can cost you games and if I need to ask what everything is repeatedly that is a problem.

Could have been worse, you could have played the Russians and get only 2 or 3 turns in.

Honestly, in the end it's a game for fun to me so I'm not upset about it, and I mean I rather learn with how to deal with these players in general later on in my new gaming career rather than specific players.

Also, I don't really want to point names out since I don't really know them and they could be different in a normal gaming environment.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
Cheating and just being an all-around phallus?

After a couple of offenses, I'd have said "Sorry, not playing anymore", and packed my gak up. I don't really care if it pisses off tourney officials or whoever thinks they have some semblance of authority at a glorified chess match. I'd just stop before I got really mad.

I would tend to agree with this in theory. If your not having fun, stop playing the match. Other ideas:

1) Know the rules a little better. If your 100% sure your right on an issue, and your opponent still insists he/she is right, calmly put your dice down and go get whoevers running the event. You should always try and show your opponent the relevant rulebook section before getting a judge, though.

2) If someone isn't being clear about what they are doing, YOU need to be clear that YOU need to know what they are doing. The issue sounds like its partly your opponents fault for not speaking up, but the other side of that coin is that its your job to adamantly ask your opponent to speak up; 50, 100, 500 times if need be. I sympathize with you not wanting to seem like a jerk or come off as being rude. However, the social agreement for this hobby, especially at a competitive event, is that your opponent makes it clear what he's rolling for BEFORE they roll the dice. Period.

3) I've never packed up and left a game, but it would certainly make your point. There are a lot of gak heads whose soul source of enjoyment is to go to tournys and use every little trick to win. This can include being so confusing during game play that their opponent never knows what is going on. It sounds like you just ran in to one such individual.

4) Let the organizer know about the person's behavior privately after the game. Most of the time, they are already aware of this person pulling this crap. If nothing else, the assurance that its them, not you, can help you walk away from the experience with a more positive out look.

There are unpleasant folk in every hobby. Running into them is just an inherent risk you take in attending organized events.

1. They're being weirdos by not speaking in normal voice, or you're hard of hearing. Either way, the onus is on THEM to speak up, not YOU to hear it.

2. Not OK. Your opponent needs to be explicit about what you're doing. At this point you should be calling a TO to watch the game, because there is something going awry.

3. Nothing you can do about this.

4. Again, get the TO to watch the game. This seems to discourage this kind of thing.


Tourneys usually cost money. But even if you didn't pay, your opponent owes you a fair game at the very least, if you're going to give him one. In these situations, call a TO over and ask them to watch, or have a friend go get the TO so it's less conspicuous. Either way, you deserve a fair game. Unfortunately, with some people it's up to you to make sure you get it.

Ah, I guess getting the TO involved is probably the best idea, he was kinda busy with judging paint jobs and stuff.

But I guess I should have been way more stricter, and push for things.

What should I do if I catch him/her breaking rules after he did it?
Like not in unit coherency after he has shot? Because they spread out huge gaps just to dodge my flamers, and a lot of times they seemed to be out of coherency.

If your opponent is repeatedly breaking basic rules and engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct it is time to get a judge or the TO involved.

The things you described are just super lame. In my experience you have to put up with this kind of crap more at 40k tourneys than fantasy tourneys.

Since it was your first tournament I can see why you were hesitant to take action but the guy was a douche bag. Seriously, dont put up with crap from people in a tournament it just encourages them to repeat the behavior if they get away with it.

Well coherency is an easy mistake to make, I played my first game of 40k in months the other night and my guardsmen kept scattering while staying well in command range of the sergeant...then I remembered I wasn't playing warmachine. I know that is unlikely to be the case in a tournament, but just throwing that one out there.

What did the rest of his army look like? I'd make it a point before the game to either list or memorize what his conversions are, as well as ask them to clearly speak up until they do.

Heya Makutsu,

Just to clarify, they were not proxying. They had a converted Dark Mechanicum "counts as'" Tau army. They used Cultists and Marine Scouts as the base of their models, but they were all pretty heavily converted to match the theme.

To answer your question - if behaviour like that bothers you, especially rules calls, you should NOT feel guilty in calling a judge. Yes, I was going around doing paint judging - but rules questions (players) always come first.

Also, I'd like to remind you that Sportsmanship (if that's what you're worrying about) does not affect your overall score at Conquest, so they can't affect your ability to win Overall or Best General.

In the past, I have staked by a table when player's could not get along. That's ok - don't be shy to call me over if that's the case. Hope to see you next time!

Clarence

 Makutsu wrote:

1. Speaking really softly so that I don't know what the heck they were doing. I asked once or twice to speak up, but I felt rude to keep asking him to speak up...

Report to a referee. Potential Yellow card offense.

2. Just started rolling dice and not really clearly says which unit is targeting which unit, I guess it has something to do with the above one.

Report to a referee. Yellow Card offense.

3. Using really cool conversions but was completely misleading like cultists as firewarriors and pathfinders, they were tournie approved and looked amazing so whatever, but I was really confused for half the game, guess I just need more practice against proxies and stuff so I can keep track of what is what.

Can't do much if they were officially approved by the TO, but bring the issue up again after the tournament.

4. Breaking rules? Eg. Him not being in unit coherency and firing and when I called him out on it he said "So what do you want?", Having dreads fire the quad gun(noticed after the game was over, or at least if I remember correctly). So we didn't know some of the rules and they called us out on it, and I mean that's fair but I'm not really sure how to deal with players when they can't take it in return...

Report to a referee. Red Card offense.

Those are very clear rule violations and had to be reported. Reporting is the best thing you can do in such situations.

Clarence wrote:

Just to clarify, they were not proxying. They had a converted Dark Mechanicum "counts as'" Tau army. They used Cultists and Marine Scouts as the base of their models, but they were all pretty heavily converted to match the theme.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I'm personally against these types of armies at tournaments...

Cultists and Scouts, converted to look like Mechanicus troops, using Tau rules... How can someone NOT be confused by this?

Well as to that I would need pictures to make the call. My concern with it is more that Tau are a fairly recent book and I wonder if the army was designed using Tau originally or simply swapped to use better rules.

If the person took the time to make this kind of army, its reasonable to expect them to take the time to create a couple of pages with photos of what the actual model they are using is, and next to it what the official model it counts as is.

i.e., a picture of his basic Fire Warrior conversion, and next to it, a picture of an actual GW Fire Warrior.

I think that Proxies are a bad thing at Tornaments full stop. Especially one as confusing as what was listed here. By the sounds of it the army had nearly nothing to do with tau. And so could swap and change his rules too suit who he is fighting.

If this ever happens again to you, I would request that he writes down what the units are on Paper, and put them next to the units.

I'd like to hear the other side of the story.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
I'd like to hear the other side of the story.

You might have to ask them to speak up.

Tournament etiquette is always a bit tricky as different gaming environments have different meta's and house rules.

My advice would be to have a couple of minutes before any dice are rolled for deployment etc to go through:

Terrain, what it counts as and how it effects cover and movement

Armies, whats in it and whats unusual, this gives you a chance to explain anything that is a bit non-standard in your army and ask if they know what it does/how it plays

Ask questions about their armies

By getting into the habit of doing this you are reinforcing (here comes a Jarvis phrase) the social contract of gaming, which is,

"I'm here to have a good time, I want you to have a good time while we curb stomp each other" It also means that you can avoid any BS later in the game when the cover save gets better etc.

I think having a counts as card would be great, but is a bit much, although if they go to that much trouble with the army then you would hope that they would have a suitably impressive/informative army list!

Thanks for all the advice!

It was my first tournament so I wasn't really sure what I was doing either and a lot of people helped me and my friend out.

They did have a really cool looking army so it was fair for them to use it since they put so much time into it. But alas it was confusing for me, maybe I should go to more tournaments to get used to these things.
If someone wants photos it's on one of the recent pages in the Toronto 40k thread since I'm not sure if I'm allowed to relink it or post their photos.
That army was really cool btw, I honestly wanted to convert something like that too.

But I will notify the TO during the game next time if such an event were to arise.

And thanks Clarence, I wasn't really worried about the sportsman ship but rather to have a better understanding of how to deal with players as such in the future. Thanks though!

PhantomViper wrote:

Clarence wrote:

Just to clarify, they were not proxying. They had a converted Dark Mechanicum "counts as'" Tau army. They used Cultists and Marine Scouts as the base of their models, but they were all pretty heavily converted to match the theme.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I'm personally against these types of armies at tournaments...

Cultists and Scouts, converted to look like Mechanicus troops, using Tau rules... How can someone NOT be confused by this?

I can't tell an actual Fire Warrior from a Pathfinder without checking with my opponent first, so I guess I don't really see the problem. Most Xenos weapons are also a mystery to me. Oh that's a twin-linked Devourer? A Splinter Cannon? Sure, why not. I just ask "what's that?" and then I remember. Since most tournament armies have so little unit variation, this is not very hard to do.

I understand the 'fair play' ethos behind wanting standardized models, but think you lose more than you gain enforcing a policy like that. So long as an army is consistent (especially regarding weapons), with distinguishable units (e.g. can you tell a Scout/FW and a Cultist/PF apart), then I think it's tournament-ready. Requiring a document identifying which unit is which seems like a good compromise. Really, people playing counts-as armies should be considerate enough to have already done this themselves, but some won't, so it would be fair for TO's to require it. But banning flavorful, unique, lovingly converted armies (which most counts-as forces I've encountered are) altogether because they might cause some confusion seems a complete waste.

It does sound like the OP's opponent behaved very poorly. The only way to deal with that is to be more assertive yourself. If you can't hear them, tell them to speak up until you can. If your opponent is rolling dice without explanation, ask them to explain. If their models are confusing to you, again, ask them to explain (and, later, maybe talk to the TO about a reference sheet). And if they are misplaying rules, of course you must correct them. If this goes on and on through the first few turns, and shows no sign of stopping, get a TO before it's too late. It's a shame to draw a bad opponent, but all you can really do is grit your teeth, stand up for yourself, and know that your next game probably won't be against a D-bag.

It does sound like you got a poor player.

Never be afraid to ask questions. Even when my opponents army isn't converted but I don't know them I will keep asking :What's this model? What is the rules for this?

At a tourny, you will run into these people, you just have to make sure you know the rules. The moment I catch someone who is "bending" the rules, I make sure I watch them 100%. If they just start rolling dice, I'll stop them and ask them what the roll was for, if they continued I'd ask them to stop, tell me what they are rolling for and make them re roll it.

You have to wath at tourny's. Conquest is a great tourny and 99% of the players are great. However there is always TFG. I ran into guys like that last year but it didn't stop me from comming back.

Just try to pay attention to everything they are doing. And remember to just keep asking questions!

I can only repeat what has gone before. Ive played at 100s of tourneys and only come across a (very) few TFGs. TBH most problems arise from different rules interpretations, or rather from different approaches to rules, ratherthan dow right cheating. Many people who dont play at tournies regulalry are far more relaxed about rules than they need to be at a tourni.

However, TFG only gets away with it if people say nothing. ALWAYS call them on shenanigans. Do it politely, always give them the benefit of the doubt, but be firm, be persistent, and don't let it slide. If you need a judge standing beside your table for the whole game so be it (to be clear in 100's, maybe 1000's of tournament games, this has only happenend 2 or 3 times).

It's not going to be a lot of fun - but then again the game wasn't going to be fun anyway. If it gets to this stage think about it as a teaching experience - teaching TFG that he's not getting away with it.

Also, IMHO dont quit the game. That's just re-enforcing their bad behaviour, it's giving them what they want.

EYIG

Regarding the speaking up: some people simply talk more softly when they are nervous. Might be because they aren't sure of the rules, overwhelmed by the environment or could be that their mother beat them into submission... Regardless, politely asking to repeat what they said is totally acceptable.

Not saying what they are doing before rolling: politely stop them and ask them to start over. I know I've done this a couple times myself when I wasnt clear with my opponent with what I was doing. In one case I started rolling all sorts of dice to shoot his squad, then stopped myself after asking him to make x number of saves because the unit I was shooting with was stuck in close combat. We both laughed about it.

On the rules part: the best thing for you to do is learn them. Sometimes people forget things in the middle of a game, even those who normally should know exactly what they are doing. You need to be watching and be able to quickly point out any issues you see. I've been on both sides of this. Personally, I'm happy if someone points out something I am doing wrong. By the same token I may let little things slide on my opponents part just to keep things moving. For example, units that should have been in cohesion but were just slightly out of it.