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 Peregrine wrote:
My opinion is that MTG gets it right by dividing rules it into two categories:

Mandatory rules are just that: mandatory. If a rule says "you must do X" then you must do it, and both players have an obligation to maintain a legal game state where X has been done. If you notice that X is not being done and stay silent because it gives you an advantage then you are cheating. Similarly, if your opponent asks you a question about something that is public knowledge (for example, the stats of your unit) you are required to give an honest answer to the question, and if you lie you are cheating.

Optional rules are just that: optional. If a rule says "you may do X" then it's perfectly acceptable for X not to happen and you'll still have a legal game state. If you notice that your opponent forgot to do X then you have no obligation to help them make a better decision.

Stupid decisions are just that: stupid decisions. If your opponent makes a bad decision then too bad for them, you have absolutely no obligation to help them plan their actions. Similarly if your opponent asks a question that is a purely matter of opinion (for example, "you'll probably win that assault, right?") then you are free to give whatever answer you like.

So, specific 40k examples:

Twin-linked is a mandatory rule on non-blast weapons. It says that you must re-roll misses, so if you knowingly allow an illegal game state where a missed attack has not been re-rolled then you are cheating and should be punished appropriately.

Twin-linked on blast weapons is an optional rule. It states that you may re-roll misses, so deciding not to re-roll a shot that hits nothing is a legal (though obviously stupid) decision and you have no obligation to say anything.

Declaring shooting against an Eldar Avatar with a unit with bolters and melta guns is just a stupid decision and you have no obligation to say anything until the unit has committed to shooting and the melta guns must be blocked from firing.

But Peregrine, we can't have that, enforcing it might improve the game and make it more enjoyable for everyone involved, why do we want that?

 Peregrine wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
In a tournament setting, why is it my responsibility to not only know your rules, but remind you when and how to use them?

Because if you knowingly allow an illegal action to occur then you are cheating.

Big difference. Screwing up rules can and will happen. That an opponent needs to monitor. But when someone forgets their own army's rules and it screws them, not my responsibility. When I plunk down money to play, I expect people to know what they are doing or know where to find out.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
But when someone forgets their own army's rules and it screws them, not my responsibility.

If they forget something in a way that creates an illegal game state and you decline to say something about it then you are cheating. For example, if you allow your opponent to forget about ATSKNF and remove their marines against a successful sweeping advance then you are cheating because ATSKNF is not an optional rule. You MUST keep the marines locked in combat whether you like it or not.

Of course, like I said previously, rules that are optional are entirely different. If your opponent forgets that their psyker is armed with a force weapon and doesn't activate it even though they have a warp charge available and it would benefit them to use it you have no obligation to remind them about it.

Sorry, Peregrine, but when an action is performed which results in an illegal game state, the only person who can be held responsible for cheating is the person who took the action. Not reminding your opponent about their own 'must do' actions is, while both unethical and perhaps amoral, not hard-and-fast, tournament-ejection cheating.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, it is my opponent's responsibility to do his own 'must do' actions, and to know his own rules. If I don't remind him of them, I am at worst a piece of filth. If anyone is guilty of violating the rules in that situation, its my opponent.

I'd love for there to be a way to make 'soft cheating' a form of hard cheating, but it's completely unenforceable, since the soft cheater will always have plausible deniability. Until then, it's underhanded at best, shameful at worst, but not a clear form of cheating.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, Peregrine, but when an action is performed which results in an illegal game state, the only person who can be held responsible for cheating is the person who took the action.

No, the person who allowed it to happen is also responsible. If you know that an action is illegal and allow it to happen anyway you are cheating.

Not reminding your opponent about their own 'must do' actions is, while both unethical and perhaps amoral, not hard-and-fast, tournament-ejection cheating.

Depends on the tournament. In MTG it would be "hard and fast" cheating. IMO 40k should work the same way.

I'd love for there to be a way to make 'soft cheating' a form of hard cheating, but it's completely unenforceable, since the soft cheater will always have plausible deniability.

Whether or not you can catch someone cheating doesn't have anything to do with whether it's cheating. If I bring loaded dice the fact that I could probably avoid getting caught doesn't magically prevent it from being cheating.

 Jimsolo wrote:
...I am at worst a piece of filth....

Um, so why would you want to feel this way about yourself? Why would you not choose to hold yourself to a higher standard?

And this crap about 'money on the table'? As if money is worth giving up your integrity? For one thing, we're talking about piddly-small amounts of money, these aren't poker stakes... But for another, you can always make more money. You can never get your integrity back. You want to be known as TFG, put money first. Put winning above being a decent human being.

All of us should strive to make the game enjoyable for our opponents, and part of that is helping with the rules that you do happen to remember. You don't have a responsibility to know everything about their army, but when you do know something, share it. Whether it's legally required or not, because it's the right thing to do.

Just like what Peregrine said: optional rules, it depends on you if you want to be gracious or not and reminding your opponent is entirely up to you and is in no way cheating. Me, I usually remind friends or people I generally like if in a casual setting unless we specified that this is a serious practice game. In tournaments though, it's part of the sets of skills you need to know the rules of your army (and maybe even the rules of the opponent if you are so inclined) and if my opponent didn't remind me of my optional rules, that's my fault and I will give them no grievances.

Mandatory rules though are a different ballpark. I've lost games in M:tG because I pointed out those mandatory rules. And that's just fine. I don't want to win because of illegal moves, whether it was committed by me or my opponent. I want to win it fair and square, and reminding your opponent about mandatory rules, whether it benefits me or not, is the proper thing to do.

If both parties forget I wouldn't call it intentional cheating, but it is letting an illegal game state happen. In MtG you can be penalized for that in a tournament setting, and penalties can lead to automatic losses or being banned from official tournaments if you let them pile up. I don't think those would work in 40k, given that they're not governed by a single entity.

Peregrine wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, Peregrine, but when an action is performed which results in an illegal game state, the only person who can be held responsible for cheating is the person who took the action.

No, the person who allowed it to happen is also responsible. If you know that an action is illegal and allow it to happen anyway you are cheating.

Not reminding your opponent about their own 'must do' actions is, while both unethical and perhaps amoral, not hard-and-fast, tournament-ejection cheating.

Depends on the tournament. In MTG it would be "hard and fast" cheating. IMO 40k should work the same way.

Well I'll be darned. Underneath that cynical, callous exterior, Peregrin's an idealist after all! (Just kidding, Peregrine. No offense meant.) Really, though, while I agree that 40k SHOULD work the same way, there's no way to enforce that. The viewpoint that 'that's the way it should work' is great (in theory) but I can't see any realistic way to make it work in practice. (And incidentally, every Magic game I've ever seen, 'must do' actions are the responsibility of the controlling player, and the opponent cannot be ejected for the first player's failure to correctly play his own deck.) If there's a way to make this work in reality, please, I'd love to hear it. I've got a tourney that I'm running in the near future, and it would be great to be able to usher in a new era of accountability.

I'd love for there to be a way to make 'soft cheating' a form of hard cheating, but it's completely unenforceable, since the soft cheater will always have plausible deniability.

Whether or not you can catch someone cheating doesn't have anything to do with whether it's cheating. If I bring loaded dice the fact that I could probably avoid getting caught doesn't magically prevent it from being cheating.

No, but loaded dice can be proven. Whether or not you knew and understood that your opponent was not playing by the rules is a different matter, and in every functional instance (note the qualifer ) I cannot see any way of being able to prove it.

And being able to prove it is ABSOLUTELY what makes it hard-and-fast cheating.

Redbeard wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
...I am at worst a piece of filth....

Um, so why would you want to feel this way about yourself? Why would you not choose to hold yourself to a higher standard?

That's at worst. The worst types of this behavior (doing it in friendly games, doing it when you're winning, doing it when your opponent is new or inexperienced) are types I don't engage in. However, I DO think it's an underhanded tactic to keep in the playbook for competitive play.

When it comes to competitions, fair play is for opponents that either A) I don't need to use treachery to defeat and B) opponents who will reciprocate.

Here's an example. My first ever 40k tournament, I faced an orks player. A number of penetrating hits from my (in 5th edition) melta weapons failed to destroy his vehicles. Why? Because I wasn't adding the pluses from using an AP 1, melta weapon against an open topped vehicle. He knew damn well that those should have been added, and said nothing. (And he went on to place top 3, I believe.) Could I prove that he knew? Of course not. The inability to prove it is what makes it 'soft' cheating. It can't be actual, verifiable cheating unless there's some way to prove it.

Against THAT guy? I have no qualms about not reminding him that the Quad Gun is twin-linked. (In a tournament, mind you. Even against people who would do it to me, I will play ethically in a friendly game.)

And this crap about 'money on the table'? As if money is worth giving up your integrity? For one thing, we're talking about piddly-small amounts of money, these aren't poker stakes... But for another, you can always make more money. You can never get your integrity back. You want to be known as TFG, put money first. Put winning above being a decent human being.

All of us should strive to make the game enjoyable for our opponents, and part of that is helping with the rules that you do happen to remember. You don't have a responsibility to know everything about their army, but when you do know something, share it. Whether it's legally required or not, because it's the right thing to do.

The former governor of Minnesota once said, "win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat."

I'm never going to advocate actually breaking the rules. (Allowing my opponent to do so out of ignorance is both another thing and entirely on him.) When it comes to a competition, I don't put money down for a 'no, after you sir, no after you sir,' ice cream social. That's for friendly games. There's a reason that we call tournament style play something other than a friendly game. Because it isn't friendly. If I step in the ring with Mike Tyson at a paying venue and he crushes my orbital socket because I expected a friendly sparring match, that's my own damn fault.

My integrity? Intact. I play friendly and helpful games, with impeccable ethical standards, designed to entertain all parties as well as to teach new players. And at competitive events, I play competitively. If that means I'm up against a bigger, meaner gladiator, and I have to throw sand in his eyes to get the upper hand? So be it.

 Jimsolo wrote:
(And incidentally, every Magic game I've ever seen, 'must do' actions are the responsibility of the controlling player, and the opponent cannot be ejected for the first player's failure to correctly play his own deck.)

You can't be ejected (at least for just a single incident) and the penalty for missing your opponent's actions is less than the penalty for missing your own, but you get a penalty along with your opponent. It's been a while since I've read the tournament rules for MTG, but IIRC it was something like a game loss for the person who broke the rule, and a warning for the person who didn't correct it. There's an element of judge's discretion involved, but the fundamental point is that both players have the responsibility to maintain a legal game state at all times, and it is cheating to allow your opponent to do something illegal just because it benefits you.

No, but loaded dice can be proven.

Only if you're stupid enough to make them obviously loaded. Dice that are a bit skewed in the right direction are undetectable for all practical purposes because nobody is going to test-roll your dice enough times to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not properly random. But that doesn't mean it isn't cheating to use them.

Against THAT guy? I have no qualms about not reminding him that the Quad Gun is twin-linked.

Since when does cheating justify more cheating? If I was running that event and I knew what had happened I would have removed both of you and seriously considered banning you from any future events.

I'm never going to advocate actually breaking the rules.

But that's exactly what you're doing. Allowing your opponent to do something that breaks the rules as long as it benefits you is breaking the rules. If you know that, say, a die has to be re-rolled then you have an obligation to ensure that it is re-rolled.

If I step in the ring with Mike Tyson at a paying venue and he crushes my orbital socket because I expected a friendly sparring match, that's my own damn fault.

That's a bad analogy. What you're talking about is more like arranging that boxing match, hiding a knife in your glove, and stabbing him to death so that you "win".

If that means I'm up against a bigger, meaner gladiator, and I have to throw sand in his eyes to get the upper hand?

So it's ok to cheat as long as you're up against a difficult opponent?

There's a problem here that was cleared up by my first day in Magic's Judge Program. People are concerned with "proving" that somebody is cheating. What you need to know is that a tournament is not a US court of law. I don't need overwhelming evidence of cheating to issue an appropriate penalty. I just need to be pretty sure. It can take a long time to get judges to a state of being good and accurate with their 'pretty sures' but running out the cheaters grows and legitimizes the game and is absolutely worth it.

I understand you have a different point of view than me about this, and that's okay. I'm not going to convince you at this point, and you aren't going to convince me, so there isn't any point going round and round on it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
(And incidentally, every Magic game I've ever seen, 'must do' actions are the responsibility of the controlling player, and the opponent cannot be ejected for the first player's failure to correctly play his own deck.)

You can't be ejected (at least for just a single incident) and the penalty for missing your opponent's actions is less than the penalty for missing your own, but you get a penalty along with your opponent. It's been a while since I've read the tournament rules for MTG, but IIRC it was something like a game loss for the person who broke the rule, and a warning for the person who didn't correct it. There's an element of judge's discretion involved, but the fundamental point is that both players have the responsibility to maintain a legal game state at all times, and it is cheating to allow your opponent to do something illegal just because it benefits you.

I do have a couple of questions about this, though. (I haven't played MtG since the Urza's Saga, so I'm obviously not up on the way things are done currently.) It seems like this opens up the door for even worse things, though. If I'm reading you right, a player can (theoretically) be penalized for a violation they were unaware was happening. (Which, of course, someone who was letting it happen would always claim was the case.) However, when it comes to violations that one player allows to happen because it isn't an effect under their control (soft cheating) versus violations that arise from one player legitimately not being aware of the violation (ignorance) I think that violations of ignorance are always going to be more common than violations of intent.

And honestly, I think I would prefer to play where 'soft cheating' violations of intent than play in a world where violations of ignorance are punished. I don't think players should ever be penalized for not knowing their opponent's rules. My apologies for not clarifying that. (Seriously, my bad.) In order to realistically (and fairly) enforce a system like this, there would have to be a way to do it without punishing any innocent parties, and THAT'S where I think it breaks down. (Unless I'm missing something, of course.)

 Jimsolo wrote:
However, when it comes to violations that one player allows to happen because it isn't an effect under their control (soft cheating) versus violations that arise from one player legitimately not being aware of the violation (ignorance) I think that violations of ignorance are always going to be more common than violations of intent.

The point is that if you're playing in a major tournament you're expected to understand the game well enough to notice if your opponent is failing to do something they are required to do. But yes, ignorance is possible which is why the penalty for missing your opponent's mistake is less severe than the penalty for making the mistake. IIRC it's just a warning, so it only becomes a problem if you have a pattern of minor offenses.

And honestly, I think I would prefer to play where 'soft cheating' violations of intent than play in a world where violations of ignorance are punished. I don't think players should ever be penalized for not knowing their opponent's rules. My apologies for not clarifying that. (Seriously, my bad.) In order to realistically (and fairly) enforce a system like this, there would have to be a way to do it without punishing any innocent parties, and THAT'S where I think it breaks down. (Unless I'm missing something, of course.)

Yes, enforcing the rule is difficult, but the question here was "is this cheating" not "can we punish this appropriately". Cheating is still cheating even if it's not practical to catch and punish the cheaters.

 gardeth wrote:
I've always been in favor of reminding people of non-optional rules they have, for fun or in tournament play. 40k is a complicated game and not everyone has enough time or mental real estate to dedicate to this game to get all the rules right all the time. Plus it feels nice to win because I outplayed my opponent and not because he forgot a rule. Also, I recently suffered a minor stroke and my memory has been a little shaky so I can hope that a little karma will come back my way regarding remembering all my rules...

Exalt!

In a friendly game if i notice they forgot them i will remind them. In a competitive game it is their responsiblity to know their rules, i don't have time to go back and correct them in a timed event.

This is during tourney games.
it all comes down to: I am not playing your army. I may or may not know your rules. If you do something that is cheating you, I am going to let you. I am not your mommy and I will let you fail. There isn't a sportsmanship score at most events no so being your mommy doesn't help me. If you ask me I will tell you the truth. I may not know the right answer for your army so I won't volunteer the possibly wrong answer.

Be sportsman like. War gaming is a gentleman/woman's culture. Don't be a dweeby weener.

 Las wrote:
Be sportsman like. War gaming is a gentleman/woman's culture. Don't be a dweeby weener.

I appreciate courtesy and give it as often as possible. However, at a tournament, I am not going to play my opponent's army as well as my own. I have been in enough pool tournaments to know that your.opponent is not your friend while sharing a table. Same with any gaming tournament, we spent.money to play for prizes, I don't intend on handing a game to my opponent.

Talking strictly in the sense of rules being broken, not optional rules being forgotten - It's not cheating but nor is it competitive play.


It's ridiculous to label something that is strictly a process of human thought as breaking the rules, it's completely impossible to prove and therefor irrelevant to any ruleset effective to the table of play. But if you proceed to share your knowledge with your opponent (or anyone else involved in the tournament at all really) of all his beneficial yet illegal plays that contributed to your victory, you should not act too suprised if you get DQ'd for cheating. At best you didn't adhere to the global rules of the tournament, at worst you were manufacturing game results and tournament standings.


But when competing at the highest level you can assume this question will not even be relevant. If your time is spent playing at a level under the highest tier (probably all of us), use of your opponents making mistakes on rulings as a tool to win matches is just taking an advantage not available at the actual competitive level of play and abusing it to try to win games. Just to spell it out: this is not equivalent to competitive play. This might help you place higher in your current tournament. This is taking advantage of the fact that the rules wizard isn't watching every table at once. This will do no favours toward your level of skill, Playing competitively is not winning a tournament against people who haven't yet grasped the rules of the game fully to such an extent that it has a noticeable affect on the outcome of a game. In fact if you need to use anything further than your army list, your brain, and the correct GW rulings to beat these people I'd say you are playing quite far from competitively, unfortunately.


Stepping your game up is playing competitively. Relying on your opponent's to bring their own game down is not.

The "punishment" for allowing an illegal game state is essentially non-existent unless there's patterns of it at a specific event. If you consistently "forget" to remind your opponents to reroll twin linked shots, it's not lack of knowledge. That's why both players get some form of punishment - it really is both players fault.

Now, the person who failed to do the reroll gets the worse punishment, but it's both players' fault.

I see deliberately and knowingly not playing by any rule as cheating. It doesn't matter if it is to your benefit or not....it is cheating.
Come to think of it, it is the very definition of Winning At All Costs.

It doesn't mean that you have to "coach" your opponent;
"You do know that your unit can Hit-And-Run, right?"

It does mean that you have to follow the rules;
"No, don't just remove those models. You have an Invulnerable Save!"


...

 BladeTX wrote:
Wow this forum is all just replays now. Isn't it? Just in the short time I've been here it's all too apparent that people don't know what a search function is.

Heh! I had a quick look and couldn't see a related discussion, also I think it's reasonable enough question, especially as this is an opinion-based question (no right or wrong answers really) though there is definitely a sort of consistent response.

Steelmage99 wrote:
I see deliberately and knowingly not playing by any rule as cheating. It doesn't matter if it is to your benefit or not....it is cheating.
Come to think of it, it is the very definition of Winning At All Costs.

It doesn't mean that you have to "coach" your opponent;
"You do know that your unit can Hit-And-Run, right?"

It does mean that you have to follow the rules;
"No, don't just remove those models. You have an Invulnerable Save!"


...

I think this is probably pretty close to my view. I think it also depends a lot on the opponent as well, so for example my first opponent was a really friendly guy, we had a great chat (knew some mutual friends through the club) and I was happy to coach him during the game (for example telling him to fire the HBs, not the Lascannons at full BS at my horrors, admitly after he'd shot the vendetta, but hey I'm only human). Where as my last opponent was significantly less friendly and the stakes had been raised by the final game, so I'm much less prepared to help him out (so reminding him about counter-attack for example). Definitely interesting to read what people think.

At daboyz gt last year I played against a necron with assault pretorians... he tried to assault my flamers of tzeentch (back when they were broken!) and basically the overwatch killed him.... He lost 400points to my overwatch...

I told him what they did at the start of the game... he made the choice to assault... should I have told him not to assault?

I think he would have felt insulted like i was telling him i was superior at the game... when clearly it was just the fact i had a unit that was way undercosted and had he done that maneuver vs any other army there he would have been fine?

How about the time I played dash of pepper at NOVA? BTW, he was one of the top 10 best players I've ever played against (AND a good sport for most of it!). Should I have told him rules like, you could have *not* fired a certain model so he could deny me a cover save when a unit of 4 models with blasters was about to shoot?

I think the rule should be "don't do to your opponent what you wouldn't like them to do to you"

IMHO...
1) ask them if they know what your army does
2) address anything they don't know/directly ask
3) if they know nothing give them the basic run down of stats/pass your rulebook to them for them to look over during your turns (so as not to slow the game down)
4) relax its just a game


4)

 frgsinwntr wrote:
I told him what they did at the start of the game... he made the choice to assault... should I have told him not to assault?

I think he would have felt insulted like i was telling him i was superior at the game... when clearly it was just the fact i had a unit that was way undercosted and had he done that maneuver vs any other army there he would have been fine?

Literally nobody is suggesting that you should ever offer strategic advice to an opponent in a competitive setting. What many of us are saying is that, had you forgotten about Wall of Death with the Flamers, he should be obligated to remind you to take your overwatch shots.

I personally remind my opponents of most things, but I wouldn't call them cheaters or anything close to it for not reminding me of something.

 CaptainJay wrote:
Where as my last opponent was significantly less friendly and the stakes had been raised by the final game, so I'm much less prepared to help him out (so reminding him about counter-attack for example).

Which, again, is cheating. Using the Counter Attack USR is not a decision that your opponent makes, it is a mandatory effect that is triggered as soon as a unit with the USR is charged. You are required to make the LD test and, if successful, roll the additional attacks. If you allow your opponent to skip either of these mandatory actions then you are participating in creating an illegal game state and cheating. And if I was a TO I'd seriously consider blacklisting you from any event I run since you admit to cheating.

 Peregrine wrote:

 CaptainJay wrote:
Where as my last opponent was significantly less friendly and the stakes had been raised by the final game, so I'm much less prepared to help him out (so reminding him about counter-attack for example).

Which, again, is cheating. Using the Counter Attack USR is not a decision that your opponent makes, it is a mandatory effect that is triggered as soon as a unit with the USR is charged. You are required to make the LD test and, if successful, roll the additional attacks. If you allow your opponent to skip either of these mandatory actions then you are participating in creating an illegal game state and cheating. And if I was a TO I'd seriously consider blacklisting you from any event I run since you admit to cheating.

Over-react much? There's always got to be one drama queen on the internet preaching hellfire and damnation.

Also notice I said 'less prepared to' rather than 'didn't'. The point I was trying to make is the friendlier you are more likely are your opponent will want to help/assist you.

There was actually some serious cheating going on the tournament, one of my club mates played some-one who claimed all the symbols on his die were 6's (discovered half-way through the game this wasn't the case) called the ref over, who awarded him (my friend) +3 KPs for the error (it was purge the alien) but my friend still lost the game, too much damage already done I think.

 RiTides wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:
I'm with Gardeth. There's a difference between reminding an opponent of something he could choose to do, and something that's non-optional. If someone is forgetting to re-roll their twin-linked guns, it's just decent sportsmanship to remind them.

If they're choosing not to hit&run out of a combat, well, that's on them...

This is the distinction as I see it, too

I agree.

If you want to go farther and offer tactical advice, that is very good sportsmanship, but really people ought to know the rules in order to enter competitions.

The issue I see with needing to remind my opponent of his rules (his armies rules) is to what extent am I expected to know them? I usually will remind people, but just to keep with the twinlinked gun example.

So say I play against a space Marine bike army and I don't know that he has twin linked bolters...if I don't remind him to re-roll that is cheating?

Or is it only cheating if I know he has them and don't say anything?

At which point penalties on me forgetting my opponents rules are unenforcable. If you are going to penalize me for not knowing every rule an opposing model may have I probably won't show up.

At some level opponents need to know their own rules.

That is why I draw the line at Base rulebook rules, I should be expected to know those and make sure they are followed. I should not be required to know every armies rules and make sure they get followed.

IF my opponent is playing Daemons for example and I have never faced them before, do I need to know that he must roll warp storm? Or is that on him?

Like I said if I remember the rule I'll remind my opponent. But I am hardly cheating if I cannot remember his armies rules if he does not.

Obviously this is not enforceable for the reasons you state Breng77, no one can expect you to know all the rules (although many top-level players do), and no one can prove whether you didn't remind someone because you didn't know, versus didn't want to.

I don't think anyone here has claimed that the onus is on you to know all your opponent's rules and remind them of all of them, because that would be ridiculous. To suggest that's what is in question is a clear strawman argument.

That said, I have to say that I've played plenty of top-flight players, and watched others play, and none of these players have taken the approach that they won't remind an opponent of rules (not choices) in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Meaning that those of you who are arguing that it's competitive play to let an opponent forget something that you do remember are probably not looking at the big picture.

The only way that one can improve is by pushing yourself against better opponents. If you win games against opponents who forget things, then you're not learning to play your best. While this might mean that you sneak an extra win here or there, it also means that when you play someone who doesn't make those forgetful errors, you're at a disadvantage.

When you consider the big picture, what you're thinking of as "competitive play" is actually a losing long-term strategy, and therefore, not the best competitive play. It's not just good sportsmanship to remind your opponent of rules that are to their advantage, it's also the best way to improve your own game, and that's the goal of the true competitive player.

I agree entirely, if I remember something that my opponent does not I will remind him, because I want to win following the rules. However, there are people on this thread claiming that if I don't remind him I should be warned for cheating because I am allowing Illegal actions to take place.

What I am saying is that everyone should be expected to remind each other of base rules should they be forgotten because that is in the realm of things every player should know.

If you know the rules for your opponents models you should remind them if they forget to use them. But there should be no expectation that you will remind them.

Essentially, my feeling is that you should know your army better than I do. If you don't remember your rules there is no fair expectation that I do.

I completely agree with you on sportsmanship, and the ethics that you should always follow the rules to the best of your ability.

What I don't agree with is that this "reminding" people or in fact "forgetting" rules should generally be policed as cheating, unless a pattern is established (player A is reminded of how the rules work, continues to play them wrong.)


Also you would be really surprised how often in playing top players I find that they do not in fact know all the rules.