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My son and I regularly battle it out with me playing space marines and him playing tyrannids. (He usually wins in part because he is so good at knowing and remembering ALL the rules). Last game I surprised him by bringing the Inquisitor, Coteaz with me. He hadn't run across him before. So, when he did a Deep Strike with his tyrannid transport and unloaded a bunch of bugs, all within 12 inches he was quite surprised to find that I could do an out of order shooting attack and do some lethal damage before he could shoot. He called "foul". According to his protocol I should have briefed him on the merits of this new character before we started to play or, at the least as he placed his deep strike vehicle on the board, certainly before I got to get my first shots off. Thoughts?

You should have told him. The first thing you should do in any game is have both players exchange lists and quickly run through what each unit is, so there's no confusion about what each model on the table represents. Surprising someone with a unit/rule your opponent isn't aware that you have is generally considered TFG behavior.

It really depends on the player, and the setting.

For casual gaming, though, unless we have a general 'try to surprise the other player' style thing going on, yes, I would generally check before a game if an opponent is familiar with my army's rules.

Yeah, really every player should have all the infos, it's more fair and more fun.

I prefer to ambush them fast and take advantage of the shock of a new unit with new capabilities that my opponent does not know.
Take advantage because in a few games they will learn and realise that this shocking new unit is no OP monster but just another over priced garbage can of an IG selection and I will be back to square one.

The generally done thing (as far as my experience goes) is to brief your opponent on your list before the game starts. Losing because you have no idea what your opponent's units are capable of can be very frustrating.

Of course, it can add a bit of spice to have hidden information (infinity), so at the end of the day, it depends on what you and your son enjoy.

Ah a fellow Canadian who plays with there kids, congrats.

As for crying foul, first thing I would say is "suck it up buttercup" because that is life. To me depending on how he said it, that could be whining. So suck it up buttercup.

Now I don't think this is the case so, if anything, I would let him redo. After all there is so many units, so many rules with so many abilities, it's hard if not impossible to know them all for the common person.

After all what are you teaching your boy? How to be tricky and just pull one over you? Remember as I said with my "suck it up butter cup because it's life" you can be teaching him how to be sneaky behind your back, the "what you don't know won't hurt you" thing.

So yeah unless the game is upfront of "you can be surprised" I wouldn't do it and let him have his redo. I am seeing with my boy now, who doesn't care for 40K no more and is interested in Magic. He is always telling me this card can do this or that can has this ability so when I do play him I won't be surprised on what he can do.

TL;DR Unless his attitude was whining or bad sport I would say "suck it up" but if he was seriously shocked and you guys play for fun, I would let him redo his move.

Honestly in the internet age a player has the ability to look up what every unit does more or less. I always give a copy of my list to my opponent and will usually warn my opponent about FW stuff since that's a little rare.

But Coteaz is from a mainstream codex and has done the same trick since fifth edition, he's not new and he's not rare.

I see no foul

You are obligated to share your list with your opponent. You are obligated to show him the rules for your stuff if he asks.

If he doesn't ask then that's his fault. You aren't obligated to spoon feed your opponent how your army works and what your plans are.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You are obligated to share your list with your opponent. You are obligated to show him the rules for your stuff if he asks.

If he doesn't ask then that's his fault. You aren't obligated to spoon feed your opponent how your army works and what your plans are.

Exalted

I agree 100%. You hand them your list and say "if you have any questions ask away" . I certainly ask my opponent questions, if they don't ask me any question about my list I'm under no obligation to suggest proper target priority. I think asking for re-do's is bs. In a game with gotcha stuff like interceptor, you'll learn lessons the hard way but remember them all the more because of it.

Re-do's are an absolute no go unless a misinterpretation on my part is involved. An opponent simply making poor choices isn't my fault. I have no problem helping opponents ensure units movements bring them into or out of los of any of my units but I draw the line at letting the wookie win on every rule issue simply because of fee fee's. There's nothing nice or fun about a direct demolisher cannon hit on 5 terminators. Nothing will be fun about that. It doesn't make the player with the vindicator a bad person or poor sport. If it leads to accusations that the marine player should have told them what the vindicator did when they were deep striking there, that's someone you probably don't want to play against again.

I was docked sportsmanship for not allowing a marine player to take back his deep strike within 12 inch's of my landspeeder storm. He plays the damn army, he should know better and if he's new and doesn't know the army fully he should ask about the unit he's unfamiliar with before the game. This same player, after making the mistake of dropping a pod near said storm, literally did so again the next damn turn and again asked for a re-do. I'm not scrooge here to steal your fun, but god dammit you're my age, take some responsibility. I wasn't in any way rude to the guy, but got docked all the same for not allowing him to break the rules. Failure is essential and to be expected, it's part of learning. If a game is casual or practice in nature, fine, if it's a tournament, a little stoicism will go a long way.

It all depends on what you and your opponent want to do. Some people demand as much knowledge as possible, while others prefer a little "fog of war"; the surprise is part of the fun (although if I were fielding something new, I'd offer to show the rules when the model is deployed, in case my opponent hasn't seen them before). Usually we know what faction we'll be playing against, though.

You can go further if you want; some people will map out their deployment or put a screen across the board so both sides deploy without seeing the enemy.