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Everyone is making comments about Aaron's list at the Adepticon finals but the fact is that there is very little oversight of any lists at GTs.

With most people not using army builder anymore (and even then army builder has some issues) and with the amount of formations and how complicated lists are these days there are bound to be a lot of mistakes. Heck, most people do not even own the codexes that they are using for their armies.

First off, most GTs do not even require you to have a copy for each opponent you play against so there is no way to keep a list and check it after the tournaments to see if it is correct. Some lists are hastily scrawelled on a piece of paper a few moments before the tournament begins so there is no wonder that there are mistakes, and there is absolutely zero list checking.

Here is an example of the one list that I lost to at the LVO in January:



My phone battery died after this picture so I can't show you how really bad this list was. No points listed, just the number of models. He also had no transports listed so I asked him if his army is walking, and he informed me that the squads had rhinos, razorbacks and drop pods, but they were just not listed on his sheet.

Frontline Gaming does not even collect an army list for their events so even after the tournament there is no way to check to see if mistakes were made.

If someone wanted to, they can play with a different list each round, or be over a lot of points or have illegal lists, and no one would ever know.

How can we fix this? Is there a way people can upload there lists to a database prior to a tournament so they can be reviewed by the public? At the bare minimum you should have to turn in a list when you register for the event so if there is an issue later on there is a hard copy. Also tournaments should require players to bring a list for each of their opponents. That way you can check that what is on the table matches what is on the lists, and after the tournament you can check it for accuracy for points and legality.

We force everyone to send in the list digitally before the tournament. Everyone who does not do so until a fixed date is automatically eliminated from the tournament and matches will be rearranged accordingly, any entry fee will not be paid back. We then organize the lists and in every match give the list to the opponent, thus everyone is always ensured to have the enemy's army list.

You must play the army list you registered with, zero exceptions. If you forget to bring a model, you may not proxy it, if you accidentally bring a different model, you may not proxy it either. If you get caught fielding an illegal army (i.e. play a different army than listed), then the match is counted as a loss and if you cannot field the original army with the models you brought, you are eliminated from the tournament and if necessary, a judge will jump in to fill in the empty spot and play the game.

We make zero exceptions on this one and are extremely strict - not only because it's about cash in some tournaments, but also because, as you perfectly stated, having an army list is the bare minimum you should expect from a participant in a tournament. TOs who don't even enforce that basic rule should be ashamed of themselves.

After doing a quick bit of research, Adepticon and Nova Open do require a printed list for each of your opponents and one to turn in to the event organizers.

The BAO/LVO has nothing about bring any lists, or if it should be printed or not.

When being confronted with that "list" and your opponent telling you about models that were not on it, did you call for a judge?

I will say that a common annoyance I run into is that only 1/3 or so of my tourney opponents actually have a spare list to give out even though the tourney rules specify to bring one for each opponent. Admittedly not a huge deal though, could be worse.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I will say that a common annoyance I run into is that only 1/3 or so of my tourney opponents actually have a spare list to give out even though the tourney rules specify to bring one for each opponent. Admittedly not a huge deal though, could be worse.

Take a picture with your cell phone. That's what I do in such instances as I often do battle reports.

We take all copies of the list and stamp each, so players can't swap in new lists after check in. They do get reviewed, but it's a slow and painful process. The big problem is larger events aren't going to punish someone who spent thousands on army and travel just because they "forgot" to turn their list in or needed to change it last minute. So any rule is kind of a paper shield.

MVBrandt wrote:
We take all copies of the list and stamp each, so players can't swap in new lists after check in. They do get reviewed, but it's a slow and painful process. The big problem is larger events aren't going to punish someone who spent thousands on army and travel just because they "forgot" to turn their list in or needed to change it last minute. So any rule is kind of a paper shield.

Why not? They managed to handle their hotel and travel arrangements, why can't they be expected to handle their tournament arrangements?

skarsol wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
We take all copies of the list and stamp each, so players can't swap in new lists after check in. They do get reviewed, but it's a slow and painful process. The big problem is larger events aren't going to punish someone who spent thousands on army and travel just because they "forgot" to turn their list in or needed to change it last minute. So any rule is kind of a paper shield.

Why not? They managed to handle their hotel and travel arrangements, why can't they be expected to handle their tournament arrangements?

For one thing? Sudden rules\format changes, like the LVO had, can change what people want to\are allowed to bring. Really, it depends on what date you require the lists to be brought in by, and if you expect format\FAQ changes right before the event.

 Swampmist wrote:

skarsol wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
We take all copies of the list and stamp each, so players can't swap in new lists after check in. They do get reviewed, but it's a slow and painful process. The big problem is larger events aren't going to punish someone who spent thousands on army and travel just because they "forgot" to turn their list in or needed to change it last minute. So any rule is kind of a paper shield.

Why not? They managed to handle their hotel and travel arrangements, why can't they be expected to handle their tournament arrangements?

For one thing? Sudden rules\format changes, like the LVO had, can change what people want to\are allowed to bring. Really, it depends on what date you require the lists to be brought in by, and if you expect format\FAQ changes right before the event.

Im sure if everyone knew about the Skatach moving 18" it would have been in more lists and easier to prepare against.

Im sure if everyone knew about the Skatach moving 18" it would have been in more lists and easier to prepare against.

Uhm...if any TO catches someone cheating and the decides to not act upon it, then you are an absolutely terrible TO and a shame for all other proper TO out there. /If/ what you say is true.

The game simply doesn't function for a competitive format without modifications, modifications that event organizers largely have not wanted to impose.

The game makes no pretence of balance, and the rules for playing a game are basically an RPG holdover for sandbox imagination play with toy soldier collections, as opposed to a coherent ruleset for a tactical engagement game.

TO's need to have standards set out for army lists, and they need to review such army lists. To make this possible with limited resources, ultimately I think that detachment and allies allowance are going to have to be restricted and limited to reduce the amount of possible mistakes, loopholes, unintended synergies, and sheer volume of work to go through.

Bringing a fully detailed and printed army list for opponents to see, and having it reviewed before the event by TO's, used to be standard operating procedure for a reason.

Blackmoor, why didn't you bring your opponent's lack of a list to our attention at the event instead of posting it here on Dakka where nothing can be done about it? You have a responsibility as a player to inform a judge if there's an issue with your opponent's list. We can't be everywhere and do everything, obviously, and if you don't let us know there's a problem how can we possibly fix it?

Some people just don't know any better, or it's their first GT, or whatever. We had a gentleman come to the BAO with no list at all, lol, he had it all in his head. We had him write one out of course, but some folks just aren't aware of the protocol.

There is a list requirement for the LVO, of course, there always has been. No one reads the dang policies anyway, lol.

@SIgavtr

Your suggestion only works in a vacuum, it doesn't work in practice. You aren't going to tell someone they have to go home or can't play because they didn't submit a list, that's silly. These events are about having fun, not imposing some draconian policy that would cause people to get (justifiably) incredibly upset and have a terrible experience.

@Ravenous D

That was a last minute rules question submitted by an attendee about the Skatach, and our TO staff answered the question. It was hardly a policy statement. When you're under the gun trying to get everything ready for the event and you're getting bombarded with last minute rules questions, the TOs have to make a call so people can finalize their lists.

@Coldsteel

Are you seriously implying that I would try to influence a TO help a teammate? If you are, you are way out of line. That is extremely offensive, on par with me spreading lies about you that you are unethical without a shred of evidence to support the claim.

The TO in question reached out to me because 3 of the top 5 armies had some type of list error and asked for some advice on how to handle it. I told him to do what he felt was best, to alert the players in question as to their mistake (if there was one) but that he couldn't go back in time and change what happened. These types of errors occur frequently in 7th ed as this edition is so crazy. It's easy to goof, we all do it. At the LVO 2015 I ruled against our team captain, InControl, to cause him to lose a game as it was the right call to make. I would never, ever, show favoritism and you implying that I would seriously pisses me off. If you want to be a part of the tournament community, you need to think about how your words in these matters reflect on you and will impact your reputation, because slandering others is a low class move.

And the fact that you keep asking for prize money and points to be given to you despite losing the game, makes you look even worse. Dude, you lost a game of 40k, big deal, get over it. Stop insinuating that everyone is out to get you, or cheated you, or whatever, it's low class.

@Thread

So, we agree that list collection and verification is important. No one wants to play against a list that has errors, if it's intentional or not. However, checking every list in a 300+ event is silly, it won't fix much. Adepticon collected lists and they still missed Aaron's list errors. It happens.

So, we've been working on a solution with Best Coast Pairings to collect lists digitally either before or during a event to post up on line for crowd sourced verification. It's the only realistic way to do it without list building software that automatically verifies it. That way not only will create excitement seeing who is playing what, but it also provides a way to catch errors prior to an event starting.

Having all players turn in lists a week or so before the tournament and posting them online for other players to spot any mistakes is a really good way of weeding out illegal lists. Crowdsourcing is the way to go here.

I run tournaments that have 40-50 players, so I can manage it by just having players e-mail me their lists and copying and pasting them on a forum. For an american style 200+ player GT that would be way too much work, but it could probably be automated into a website where you submit a list and could only edit it if the TO approved the changes (usually only to correct mistakes).

Reece you are obviously as much of a colluding cheater as I am

As the OP noted, I think public review is the only feasible advance review mechanism at the moment. Post everything up on a website/DropBox/something beforehand, and let anybody who cares to bother take a look and note problems. This oversight has always taken up a lot of TO time, but I think the game is just too complicated now for one or a couple individuals to accurately do all the review. There are so many source books, formations, etc., that it's not realistic to ask most TOs to be on top of all of it in the same way that a community as a whole can be.

Public advance review would also at a minimum essentially force typed lists. Commenters additionally then also note lists that are so fast & loose as to be useless for someone unfamiliar with the faction. That's typically a major shortcoming even with a good advance review: There's limited oversight that what hits the table is what's actually in the submitted lists. If an opponent hands me an undetailed, casual list for a faction I barely know, it can be pretty hard for me to tell exactly what I'm supposed to be looking at. Pushing for detailed lists would help with that.

Note that this only works if the TO prints and hands out lists, as otherwise the player could submit one list for review and bring another to hand out. Even if mismatches at the top of the ranks might get caught eventually, it's vastly better to prevent problems as there's limited ability for recourse once you're into the event itself (you can dock prizes, etc., but what about all the affected opponents?).

MVBrandt wrote:
Reece you are obviously as much of a colluding cheater as I am

I literally laughed out loud. Nice one.

My one and only suggestion for this would be for the top lists at the end of day one to be combed through for errors to insure those players moving on to day(s) 2/3 are playing lists that are above board. As a side, and really unrelated note, all those players playing for top spots should also be using dice that are provided for them by the GT. Just my $.02 I don't run events I just play in them so take it for what you will.

 Reecius wrote:


So, we've been working on a solution with Best Coast Pairings to collect lists digitally either before or during a event to post up on line for crowd sourced verification. It's the only realistic way to do it without list building software that automatically verifies it. That way not only will create excitement seeing who is playing what, but it also provides a way to catch errors prior to an event starting.

This is an interesting solution, I'm very curious as to how it will work out, kudos for thinking out of the box.

Uh I don't know what to say about people who yell at TOs about cheating lists - with maybe the obvious exception of if it's their best friend or whatnot.

Usually there is 1, maybe 2, people at a 64+ tournament who might have the knowledge needed to actually parse lists from every codex and properly check them without blowing multiple days of back checking. At the smaller ones, it's likely there's no one with that deep of a knowledge pool.

Look I've given Reece and others grief about other things. But you have to remember this is a game. And your TO's aren't being paid something to do this. They do this because they're a part of the game's environment and want to help steward it for you. Now, if they make a mistake and give a thumbs up to someone's list ahead of time, there is the obvious problem on how to rectify this. Clearly you have a rules violation now, but also you DID say yes to this person ahead of time, they built an army around it, and you can't just pick up another army on the fly going into a major tournament you (most likely) traveled for.

TOs are happy to enforce their will when they think/know they are right. But they're also human and they're not about to cut off someone who has spent significant time/money/vacation hours to participate because of a mistake made by both parties. They will try and get inventive and work with the player on a face saving method, but you're out of your mind if you think they're going to disqualify that person if the list was already looked at and ruled on ahead of time by tournament staff.

As for those who show up with broken lists and didn't ask ahead of time, well sucks to be them and that really is part of the deal. The lesson for everyone should be to get your list checked out WELL IN ADVANCE. Especially if you have a questions. These big tournaments don't come out of the blue, you can send in questions for months and still get a refund if you don't like your answer. So do it and get the same advantage Aaron got because a rule call went your way. Or don't, but at least you won't lose the tournament because you bought an illegal list. Either way Aaron ran an approved list, he did his due diligence ahead of time, and doesn't deserve to be kicked for it.

Anyway, just my .05 cents (One too many paragraphs for .02 cents) but let's all try and calm down about this. It was a bad call, but any one moment of bad rolling could have swept this list back out to sea and we wouldn't even have this conversation.

 Reecius wrote:

@SIgavtr

Your suggestion only works in a vacuum, it doesn't work in practice. You aren't going to tell someone they have to go home or can't play because they didn't submit a list, that's silly. These events are about having fun, not imposing some draconian policy that would cause people to get (justifiably) incredibly upset and have a terrible experience.

It has been standard practice at our bi-annual cash prize and the annual Grand Tournament for over 4 years now. So far, we only had 2 cases of people not submitting lists in time and who were, subsequently, denied to attend. In one case, said person didn't show up, in the other case, the other person showed up, apologized and asked if we could make an exception we did not do. We offered him to pay his entry fee back if he instead of playing would support the rest of the team and he accepted. He helped out for a few hours and then played with other guests at a side table.

Granted, we don't have as many attendees as nation-wide tournaments do, clocking in at 30-40 attendees. The feedback we get, however, is really positive and people especially appreciate us handing out (laminated) lists for each match on each table in order to avoid confusion or cheating.

Be advised that we don't just quietly wait until the list deadline is over. The deadline usually is 1 day before the event and we send out 2-3 mails remembering people to send in their lists on time, the last one 24h before the deadline.

@Reecius

I have lost many games of 40K and will lose many in the future. I have not asked for any money or points as it relates to the cheating in question. Perhaps you are confusing me with another player. You just need to know that the way things went down looks very suspicious. This is by your choice... you had input in the resolution and chose a position which supported a cheating teammate. Own it. I've been told that warnings have been given to other regional TOs about the player(s) in question, so that should help. And it's good to have a forum like this where tournament players can share experiences and hopefully be better prepared in the future. Thanks for all you do, and thanks to GW for this great hobby which we love!

I suppose that cheating is a natural consequence of the higher stakes involved at some of these tourneys. At your FLGS it's beer and pretzels, maybe some pride. In bigger events it's cash, prizes, ITC points, maybe even a shot at the ETC. The loose (and exhaustive) rules and 'pressure' lead us to push the envelope in list construction and rules interpretation. But it's just toy soldiers.

@Reece: Forgot to add an important piece of info, we are playing 5th, not 7th and KoW, so list building is FAR less complicated and thus easier to look over.

What still baffles me, however, is that you, as the TO, take responsibility for the players's lists. Why? Make it clear that everyone is reponsible for his respective list and should it contain errors, then the player is to fully take the blame for it. It's much less hassle for you and it's shifting responsibility to where it belongs: the player. Playing with an illegal list could yield to immediate disqualification and elimination from all ranks with other players stepping up. It's your tournament, naturally, I am just curious and confused as to why you guys take the blame for other people's faults.

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
As a side, and really unrelated note, all those players playing for top spots should also be using dice that are provided for them by the GT. Just my $.02 I don't run events I just play in them so take it for what you will.

Again unrelated, but I agree with this 100% and think it's something that needs to be addressed. I'll admit that I'm probably being paranoid, but whenever I see my opponent using non-homogenous dice part of me assumes they're cheating, even unconsciously Why? Because at some point you bought enough dice for this game or pillaged 25 games of Risk, so why are there 3-4 dice from 5 completely different sets/sizes there? Maybe you picked 5 from your set of gray dice cause they roll a lot of 6s, and 4 from the red ones cause they always work for your leadership tests. Manufacturing isn't perfect, and an individual dice within a set can be unbalanced leading you to believe they are "lucky"; or perhaps you are more malicious and picked the "good ones" out of each set. Either way, it's something that doesn't help goodwill between players if someone is rolling hot for an entire game and if someone is cheating it's almost impossible to catch cause they'll play a different player every time.

I'll add that I don't like Monopoly/Risk dice because it's hard to roll large numbers of them and square edges make it easier to throw a dice trying to achieve a specific result (I'd personally prefer the 36-packs of small chesex dice). Also, it's really, really confusing when some dice have an alternate symbol for the "6" and others have it for the "1"; some dice have both and when you're rolling 20+ at a time it's super confusing especially with mixed sets.

I guess that's more like $0.10 though.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Reecius wrote:

@SIgavtr

Your suggestion only works in a vacuum, it doesn't work in practice. You aren't going to tell someone they have to go home or can't play because they didn't submit a list, that's silly. These events are about having fun, not imposing some draconian policy that would cause people to get (justifiably) incredibly upset and have a terrible experience.

It has been standard practice at our bi-annual cash prize and the annual Grand Tournament for over 4 years now. So far, we only had 2 cases of people not submitting lists in time and who were, subsequently, denied to attend. In one case, said person didn't show up, in the other case, the other person showed up, apologized and asked if we could make an exception we did not do. We offered him to pay his entry fee back if he instead of playing would support the rest of the team and he accepted. He helped out for a few hours and then played with other guests at a side table.

Granted, we don't have as many attendees as nation-wide tournaments do, clocking in at 30-40 attendees. The feedback we get, however, is really positive and people especially appreciate us handing out (laminated) lists for each match on each table in order to avoid confusion or cheating.

Be advised that we don't just quietly wait until the list deadline is over. The deadline usually is 1 day before the event and we send out 2-3 mails remembering people to send in their lists on time, the last one 24h before the deadline.

I think a lot of this depends on the scale of the event. For events that are local, or at least a reasonable distance you can maybe make this work. At smaller events it is also far easier to check lists. Back when I used to run a lot of 40k events I would ask for and check lists for all attendees, with little difficultly, but that was for 20 or so people not 200. But at an event like NOVA or LVO where maybe someone has flown in from say a different country for a bunch of money, and paid for a hotel and a convention pass to play your 3 day event, are you really going to tell them. Sorry go home? That is terrible for buissiness.

It's not just terrible for business, it's extremely difficult to do if you're a decent human being. And enough mistakes are genuine that you cannot fairly try and decide who is or isn't being genuine.

This isn't MTG. The people who run these events do so often at a monetary loss and almost exclusively for love of the hobby, charity, and/or to give their peers a fun time. Talk of telling people to get out of your tournament (sorry for languagebypass) because they screwed up is basically a non starter.

MVBrandt wrote:
It's not just terrible for business, it's extremely difficult to do if you're a decent human being. And enough mistakes are genuine that you cannot fairly try and decide who is or isn't being genuine.

This isn't MTG. The people who run these events do so often at a monetary loss and almost exclusively for love of the hobby, charity, and/or to give their peers a fun time. Talk of telling people to fvck right off because they screwed up is basically a non starter.

a good poast. Tabletop gaming aims to be more inclusive than exact.

Crowd sourced list verification is the only method I've thought up that could work in this instance; have talked about this a bunch.

Not only do you leverage the people watching events, but you also engage people and provide record keeping digitally as well.

The trick though, is it's not as easy as it might seem at first blush. Without some key pieces, you can easily turn the error checking into more of a burden than a boon, as a lot of folks will probably review lists incorrectly. Gotta eliminate the chaff in order to get accurate reviews.

We always check lists and try to have 100% verified before the first game.

At one event I saw almost every Chaos Space Marine list was incorrect because Army Builder was wrong.

At another, someone was caught hacking the AB files to get extra points for their Eldar force.

Not only is checking lists a simple affair, it makes sure the staff are knowledgeable about the latest rules which helps with and questions about rules.

I have seen numerous posts over the past few years that very large events cannot handle the staff requirements. Either get more staff or find a way to fix things.

I use a large bonus point category for turning your list in early and in the proper format (typed out like it appears in the codex and not some 3rd party app). It encourages players to get them in ahead of schedule and take some pressure off the organizers.


Edit>>

We also follow GW's old policy for illegal armies/rules, we have a house army available for a player to use.

 Tironum wrote:

I have seen numerous posts over the past few years that very large events cannot handle the staff requirements. Either get more staff or find a way to fix things.

This is not a serious proposal. Many staff are volunteers, and most participants aren't willing to pay additional entry fees required for this staffing.