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 Ulf wrote:
@JNA: He was more or less OK with the idea that he could sell beginners starter armies before they left. Plus I guess these Guard guys were regulars who spent a LOT of money there, judging by what they put on the table. But that's mostly speculation on my part. I never really frequented the store.

Wow... F those guys. If I was in the area, I'd muscle my way in and take the tables early with a larger group of friends and play nothing but apocalypse all day and all night.

One of my more uncomfortable moments came in 3rd edition during a mega-battle (pre Apoc). This was about a week after GW released new rules in white dwarf that buffed the greater demons. (in the 3.0 chaos book they were pretty weak).

One of the "main guys" popped up a Bloodthirster near our IG lines on turn 2. I had some rough riders run over and lance him down to one wound. He started to say I was cheating, How did I get them to move 9 inches (back then they were the only cavalry that could) and how did I put a Commissar on a horse, as that isn't an option.

I pointed out that the 3rd edition IG codex had a special rule that you could mount a commissar on a horse. He still didn't buy it. The next 6 hours was "fun".

My worst was my 2nd or 3rd Apoc match ever. back in the later days of 5th

It was going to be 3 IG (my armor, and another guys infantry, with another's mixed with more artillery) vs 3 Ork players.

First problem: I didn't own an Apoc book myself (I did own a Baneblade and Shadowsword though, I was young and foolish only knowing their stats from a glance through a book someone else owned and the internet). One of the Ork guys owned and brought an Apoc book.

Second Problem: All 3 orks guys show up with far more then everything I had combined. The other guy IG guys didn't ever show (I can't recall the reasons, but all I remember is they were legitimate reasons like family matters).


Well... They said play anyways (I was fine playing, I got to bring all I had at the time). I wanted to sent up the field long ways with me at the end with the horde of orks coming towards the defensive line of mine. They said no and switched out the super long board the other way so I was stretched out thin with things like 3 stompas literally a foot away from the front of my tanks (i.e nigh everything was nearly in melee range).

They proceeded to drop all these things I had no idea existed, for example, a "pulsa rocket" which did insane things that I later looked up and it couldn't actually do what it did in the battle (turns out it could do them, but they gave it increased range and ST).

Then they also shot my baneblade to pieces from the side stating said baneblade had armor 12 on the sides because it had additional sponsons. I told them it doesn't reduce armor because of the sponsons, removing sponsons increases it to 14 but you do not reduce armor by adding and additional set of sponsons.

The main Ork guy of the trio grabbed the Apoc book and pretended to look through it and flashed a page with a baneblade on it, and before I could read any of it he pretended to read off that it did that walking away from me as I tried to get the book from him to check it.

I knew these guys were throwing me for a loop just to be mean. I called the game early and I never saw them again in the store.

I saw one of them later but I avoided him like the filthy Ork he was. They cheated on purpose and withheld the rule books to prevent me from calling them out (that and it was 3 to 1 with a 20 year old vs 3 30 or 40 somethings).

It was disgusting.

I later got my own Apoc books and IA books to make sure that never happened again. .

 Engine of War wrote:
My worst was my 2nd or 3rd Apoc match ever. back in the later days of 5th

It was going to be 3 IG (my armor, and another guys infantry, with another's mixed with more artillery) vs 3 Ork players.

First problem: I didn't own an Apoc book myself (I did own a Baneblade and Shadowsword though, I was young and foolish only knowing their stats from a glance through a book someone else owned and the internet). One of the Ork guys owned and brought an Apoc book.

Second Problem: All 3 orks guys show up with far more then everything I had combined. The other guy IG guys didn't ever show (I can't recall the reasons, but all I remember is they were legitimate reasons like family matters).


Well... They said play anyways (I was fine playing, I got to bring all I had at the time). I wanted to sent up the field long ways with me at the end with the horde of orks coming towards the defensive line of mine. They said no and switched out the super long board the other way so I was stretched out thin with things like 3 stompas literally a foot away from the front of my tanks (i.e nigh everything was nearly in melee range).

They proceeded to drop all these things I had no idea existed, for example, a "pulsa rocket" which did insane things that I later looked up and it couldn't actually do what it did in the battle (turns out it could do them, but they gave it increased range and ST).

Then they also shot my baneblade to pieces from the side stating said baneblade had armor 12 on the sides because it had additional sponsons. I told them it doesn't reduce armor because of the sponsons, removing sponsons increases it to 14 but you do not reduce armor by adding and additional set of sponsons.

The main Ork guy of the trio grabbed the Apoc book and pretended to look through it and flashed a page with a baneblade on it, and before I could read any of it he pretended to read off that it did that walking away from me as I tried to get the book from him to check it.

I knew these guys were throwing me for a loop just to be mean. I called the game early and I never saw them again in the store.

I saw one of them later but I avoided him like the filthy Ork he was. They cheated on purpose and withheld the rule books to prevent me from calling them out (that and it was 3 to 1 with a 20 year old vs 3 30 or 40 somethings).

It was disgusting.

I later got my own Apoc books and IA books to make sure that never happened again. .

That's not being mean, that's being human garbage. 3 grown ups ganging on a guy who could well be one of their sons is disgusting, nevermind the whole incident with the rulebook, what kind of douchebag does that?

I've never had anything as bad as those stories. The worst are probably army mismatch due to poor balance. Like the last game i was about to face a new guy who wanted to bring IG. So, i got my footslogging orks off the shelf, SAG gun mek, Bubblechukkas...and he happened to have 2 wiverns in a 750 pt game. Needless to say all i had was a sag mek and a couple bubblechukkas in ruins by turn 3.

Not that i feel bad about it, just a bit time-wasted as he didn't even have a glimpse at tactics and stuff like that. Just a severe mismatch with "i win cause i have unit X and you happened to bring unit Y". Well, i intentionally downgraded my ork list to just footsloggas and fun units and he probably had a good time removing a bunch of orks per turn. Also, he didn't expect this cheap vehicles to be THAT good against infantry. So, can't even blame him.

 Ulf wrote:
@JNA: He was more or less OK with the idea that he could sell beginners starter armies before they left. Plus I guess these Guard guys were regulars who spent a LOT of money there, judging by what they put on the table. But that's mostly speculation on my part. I never really frequented the store.

I do seem to notice from a lot of these game store horror stories that the owners tend to turn a blind eye when it comes to people who spend a lot and let them get away practically with murder just because it's usually worth more to them to keep the jerk who spends a lot of money then somebody who doesn't.

there was another thread about flgs horror stories where someone that said how someone was being like extra creepy to them to the point of basically harassment and the owner refuse to do anything because the creepy dude spent more than that person and their spouse combined at the shop.

I have had a few (if you have read the Timmy thread then you will know what I am on about, but here are the high(low?)light games:

My opponent and I where having a 2K game. He wanted to bring his homebrewed character, a chapter master, and I said sure. The Chapter Master later turned out to be a Primarch with about half the stats and soloed half my army within two turns.

Next game, many months later and we are playing 1.5K again. He starts deploying and I watch as more and more stuff is piled on to the board. Eventually, when he starts bringing out this home-brewed unit of special Assault Marines (S5, W2, DS, Shred, Fury, etc) I reach for my super heavy. He promptly puts them away. I should have been suspicious, but I wasnt. The game is horrific, though I get lucky and manage to deal with his Libby conclave early on. Then I pop his Razorback and out comes the Primarch Vulkan. I stared at this aghast. Eventually I managed to pull a win, but I found out afterwards that he had been around 1000+ points over.

Another game, same opponent. He had been whining about my tanks, calling them 'OP' and 'Cheese' and in the end I agreed to do a friendly fun and fluffy mission (his words) in an underground city where the streets where too narrow to let tanks in. So we set up for a mostly Infantry + Walker game and he brings out his stuff. He has 30K Nightlords allied with 40K charadons, complete with Primarch Curze and he Charadon terminator character, an Ironclad squadron, the works. I get utterly hammered and have since refused any other games like this.

Same opponent. By this point I had noticed that he always managed to get invisibility and an other power he wanted when rolling for them (he did it when I was unpacking). So, we are doing a 2K Maelstrom game (he rarely plays anything else) and I have my Thunderer, a Macro Cannon, 2 units of Stormies, an Inquisitor with Servo Skulls, some veterans and 5 Terminators with a termy libby and 5 scouts. He has Charadons with three Vindicators, Chronus in a Terminus ultra, a 3 man Libby conclave, 5 Vanguards with a chaptermaster with jump pack, shield eternal, power weapons, etc, 10th company task force and two las preds. Oh, and a Whirlwind. His libby's get Invisibility and that power that lets you move terrain. The first thing he does is to pile a ruin in front of my bunker and turn his vindicators invisible. And that is how the game continues, with my bunker being buried in ruins whilst he rampages about the battlefield. He than complained when I managed to get invisibility off on my bunker....
I lost and later on found that he had been 600 points over the limit. When another player confronted him about it he claimed we had been playing 2.5K.

Oh, and in one game where he demanded that I did not bring my LoW (A Stormlord) he brought a Typhon Siege Tank.

This same person is, mind you, the person who brought DG flamer spam for a beginners game for a Genestealer Cult player. And who also claims that: Leman Russ tanks are OP, Baneblade chassis are OP and shouldnt be allowed, Macro Cannons are too powerful and I should not bring them against him because he has no counters, Master of Ordnances are OP (they should only have one barrage according to him), IG orders are OP and that we should do timed turns because it takes me too long to do mine despite his insistence at playing massive games and my turns taking less than his.
Oh, and he will never play less than 1500, barring the odd 1250 game, because he claims that it is impossible to build good lists at that level.

Why do you even play against such people.

He seems to have an awful amount of $ to throw at figures. I agree with the poster above. Why is there even examples 3 and 4?

 Ifurita wrote:
He seems to have an awful amount of $ to throw at figures. I agree with the poster above. Why is there even examples 3 and 4?

After discovering he fudges points so hard, why did anyone allow him to actually just set things up without an actual written up list?

Several apocalypse stories here. I would never play Apoc with strangers or a pick up game. The few I have played were super fun, but they were against good friends of mine.

I've been fortunate in that I've only played mainly against friends, so we avoid thelse types of stories.

The only thing I can add is back in 2002/4 (honestly cannot recall exact year) when me (orks) my brother (tyranids) and my cousin (chaos) were playing one of my brothers school friends (blood angels).

He had been playing a few years, despite his young age and so we looked to him for rules advice.

We played with no terrain on a carpet floor as this was like our 2nd game ever. He combats us turn one with death company and Mephiston and then proceeds to jump from squad to squad after killing each one, claiming that he could sweeping advance into another combat. Now I know this was possible in one edition, so he may have been legit on this point.

That aside, none of our attacks back could attack/wound his immortal death squad (because reasons) and they just rolled over all of us for 40mins.

I can't recall the exact details as it was so long ago, but I remember it being a pretty poor experience.

Probably my first game.

It was a local escalation league and all I owned to use was a Farseer and the Eldar Battleforce. This was with a 5th ed codex at during 6th edition.

I had Farseer, 1 squad of Guardians, 1 5 man squad of Dire Avengers, a Wave Serpent, and a War Walker.

My opponent was playing Guard. Command Squad, 2 small units of Guard, and a Leman Russ. The only thing of his that died was a Plasma Gunner, who blew himself up with a Get's Hot. Leman Russes should not be brought in a 500 pt game. I don't think I played another game for like 6 months after that. It was just so unfun and totally demoralizing for a first game.

I've since gotten very used to losing just about every game of every thing I play. I'm a very good first opponent for learner games, since dice games hate me no matter how I try

I can't recall any stories even half as bad as most on this list, but one game in particular stands out in recent memory. It was a tournament and I played against a friend of mine who plays BA. I ran guards and it was the third game of a four game tournament. We had both lost the two previous games but neither minded much. Then this game happened and I just utterly destroyed him. It made me feel terrible because he'd lost his two other games so badly and then I came along to kick him while down. He did some mistakes but mostly got screwed over by the deployment, short side in this mission. Guards vs BA on long tables, of course he would lose. To add insult to injury my only AA gun brought down his 250p flyer by getting a a lucky intercept. The guy's to nice to get mad but I could see him getting down about it and I felt like crap. It was the "40k isn't fun" thing and I didn't want that because the guy is great.

Playing against a friend of mine; he gets stroppy if things go against him, which ruins the fun of the game. If he starts losing badly he'll ragequit as well.

So, whenever I face him - I weaken my lists and make fluffy decisions rather than the tactically sound decisions simply in order to let him have an advantage (he doesn't know I do this) so that we can have a fun game.

Last time, my Company Commander lucked out and killed his beatstick HQ in CQC and he ragequits (even with my army collapsing under his LOW bombardment). One thing didn't go his way and that was GG.

 Nerak wrote:
I can't recall any stories even half as bad as most on this list, but one game in particular stands out in recent memory. It was a tournament and I played against a friend of mine who plays BA. I ran guards and it was the third game of a four game tournament. We had both lost the two previous games but neither minded much. Then this game happened and I just utterly destroyed him. It made me feel terrible because he'd lost his two other games so badly and then I came along to kick him while down. He did some mistakes but mostly got screwed over by the deployment, short side in this mission. Guards vs BA on long tables, of course he would lose. To add insult to injury my only AA gun brought down his 250p flyer by getting a a lucky intercept. The guy's to nice to get mad but I could see him getting down about it and I felt like crap. It was the "40k isn't fun" thing and I didn't want that because the guy is great.

Dice will be dice. I do have sympathy for him, though-while normally it's not that bad to just laugh off the bad stuff (Typhus died to a DROP POD. IN CLOSE COMBAT!) after you've already lost a few games, and in a tournament, I can imagine that that really sucks.

The Big mek with SAG is fine. He was a little bent. I had pinned on the spiny bit and he was assembled with industrial grade glue. I use this to put together my metal minis as it holds really good.

Jathom wrote:
Probably my first game.

It was a local escalation league and all I owned to use was a Farseer and the Eldar Battleforce. This was with a 5th ed codex at during 6th edition.

I had Farseer, 1 squad of Guardians, 1 5 man squad of Dire Avengers, a Wave Serpent, and a War Walker.

My opponent was playing Guard. Command Squad, 2 small units of Guard, and a Leman Russ. The only thing of his that died was a Plasma Gunner, who blew himself up with a Get's Hot. Leman Russes should not be brought in a 500 pt game. I don't think I played another game for like 6 months after that. It was just so unfun and totally demoralizing for a first game.

I've since gotten very used to losing just about every game of every thing I play. I'm a very good first opponent for learner games, since dice games hate me no matter how I try

Ehm, to be honest you DID have the stuff to deal with him: stock up on brightlances. I'm sorry but it seems to me it was more: I didn't think at all, rather than a leman russ' being OP (which isn't) at low points level.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Ehm, to be honest you DID have the stuff to deal with him: stock up on brightlances. I'm sorry but it seems to me it was more: I didn't think at all, rather than a leman russ' being OP (which isn't) at low points level.

It was back than if you didn't have some decent dedicated at.

 kronk wrote:
Several apocalypse stories here. I would never play Apoc with strangers or a pick up game. The few I have played were super fun, but they were against good friends of mine.

I noticed that too. But thankfully, all the other Apoc games I've had were awesome, (except that one I had to leave super early because of my idiot brother). slug matches between two giant IG armies (with GK in there too) and more. That one time didn't deter me. Only made me avoid people like that.

I have another good one, this one about games I was actually a part of.

So my buddy and I (a different guy from my last story) move out to an area where there's an established 40K & WHFB scene. We eventually find our way into the group, and start playing. Nice guys; all reasonable adult human beings who have jobs, know where their showers are, and can put together complete sentences when they speak. Their armies were all really nice, too; well painted, lots of cool conversions, all kinds of good stuff.

But they had this one super weird tendency (tradition? ritual?) when they played games; they always insisted on knowing what the other guy was playing, before selecting armies or building their lists. By comparison, my buddy and I came from a more competitive background, and believed in playing 'all comers' lists, to keep our game sharp, and play as if we were in a tournament environment.

So the guys in this gaming meta would literally show up with no list written and no army selected, and ask you what you'd brought. Then they would tailor a list to face you, to maximize their chances of a win. Which meant between 60 and 90 minutes of additional prep time for even a small, casual game.

Which I guess is not the worst thing in the world (despite being really really odd), but when we started refusing to tell them what we were bringing, they got real bent out of shape, accused us of not playing fair, and then whining to high heaven if/when they lost a game. What my friend and I started doing was printing out our army lists and putting them on the table, face-down, and saying "I'm taking this". So there was no way we were doing anything underhanded.

And these dudes threw a tantrum like I've rarely seen.... LOL.

"How am I supposed to know what to take if you won't show me your list!?!"

"What the h*ll is the matter with you guys?!? That's NOT FAIR!!!"

"How do I know if I should bring anti-tank weapons if I don't know what you're playing?!? You're trying to CHEAT!!!"


...and on and on and on like that.

It got to the point (shortly before we left this group) that we just started straight-up lying to them. But they were obvious lies. Like, for instance I would show up to 40K night, they'd ask what I was playing, and my response would be something like "I brought my Flames of War British tonight." or "My Escher gang." or "Goblins of No-Dan-Kar" or "My dwarf Blood Bowl team".

Never failed to rile them up. LOL It weas equal parts sad and amusing. But it made for weirdly tense, awful games full of passive-aggressive whining and complaining.

Before anyone asks the obvious.... what did they do when playing against each other? They (swear to god) would flip a coin or roll dice to determine who would pick first, and then that person would just more or less lose every single game.

 Ulf wrote:
I have another good one, this one about games I was actually a part of.

So my buddy and I (a different guy from my last story) move out to an area where there's an established 40K & WHFB scene. We eventually find our way into the group, and start playing. Nice guys; all reasonable adult human beings who have jobs, know where their showers are, and can put together complete sentences when they speak. Their armies were all really nice, too; well painted, lots of cool conversions, all kinds of good stuff.

But they had this one super weird tendency (tradition? ritual?) when they played games; they always insisted on knowing what the other guy was playing, before selecting armies or building their lists. By comparison, my buddy and I came from a more competitive background, and believed in playing 'all comers' lists, to keep our game sharp, and play as if we were in a tournament environment.

So the guys in this gaming meta would literally show up with no list written and no army selected, and ask you what you'd brought. Then they would tailor a list to face you, to maximize their chances of a win. Which meant between 60 and 90 minutes of additional prep time for even a small, casual game.

Which I guess is not the worst thing in the world (despite being really really odd), but when we started refusing to tell them what we were bringing, they got real bent out of shape, accused us of not playing fair, and then whining to high heaven if/when they lost a game. What my friend and I started doing was printing out our army lists and putting them on the table, face-down, and saying "I'm taking this". So there was no way we were doing anything underhanded.

And these dudes threw a tantrum like I've rarely seen.... LOL.

"How am I supposed to know what to take if you won't show me your list!?!"

"What the h*ll is the matter with you guys?!? That's NOT FAIR!!!"

"How do I know if I should bring anti-tank weapons if I don't know what you're playing?!? You're trying to CHEAT!!!"


...and on and on and on like that.

It got to the point (shortly before we left this group) that we just started straight-up lying to them. But they were obvious lies. Like, for instance I would show up to 40K night, they'd ask what I was playing, and my response would be something like "I brought my Flames of War British tonight." or "My Escher gang." or "Goblins of No-Dan-Kar" or "My dwarf Blood Bowl team".

Never failed to rile them up. LOL It weas equal parts sad and amusing. But it made for weirdly tense, awful games full of passive-aggressive whining and complaining.

Before anyone asks the obvious.... what did they do when playing against each other? They (swear to god) would flip a coin or roll dice to determine who would pick first, and then that person would just more or less lose every single game.

TLR that LGS was populated by morons.
Which makes me remember that infamous GW I was in and the mental dissonance the players had:

1) ALL guard players spammed russes, always brining pask and wyverns. They all spammed daemonology to get free bloodletters. It was always the spam of this units: tanks, letters and wyverns. They consisted in 50-60% of their army if not more while the rest varied between melta vets in chimeras or... plasma vets in chimeras. Oh once I found an AP2 manticore. Despite the summoning of daemons he called me traitor whenever I played against him, oblivious to the hipocrisy inherent to it when it came down to his army.
2) There was a chaos space marine who thought that thousand sons were competitive and so were land raiders. This was when 7th edition had churned out codex: space marines already. Trying to point out tha they, while fluffy, weren't THAT great, earned me his scorn and said I was a shittty chaos player.

4) There was that donkey-cave whom I fought first time ever. I swear to god: when we were in a campaign there was one guy who accused me of cheating because I brought noise marines and no troops (because those were my troops, I brought a slaaneshi lord and I have explained it TWICE to the opponent). He insisted that I ought to be rescinded the TIE's point and make it a win for him (and since I was away for a couple days, it ended up being that way, even showing them the truth didn't matter). Cue third match of the campaign, I'm playing with a girl and he's monitoring all the movements, correcting hers and not giving a damn about mine (but being snidely about my mistakes afterwards)... mind you this was a competitive (it wasn't meant to, but it had devolved to) scenario, and he was telling her what to do. Worse was when I explained them that jinking gave a cover save and you rolled that save AFTER pen rolls. They didn't understand and called me (again) a cheat, saying that that "interpretation" of the rules favoured me, even though the book said it clearly: you get a 4+ cover save. For feth's sake, the guy operated under the 4th ed rulebook to a large degree.
He was utterly anal about like saying that my chaos lord couldn't get infiltrator via the warlord trait nor that he couldn't join those squads with infiltrator). Last straw was when I, very politedly, asked wether or not I could be allowed to run a skitarii as dark mechanicus allies, dropping the doctrina imperatives (to represent their disconnection with the omnissaiah) but getting pumped to battle brothers for the chaos space marines, and designed a very cool and fun mission (get to the knight, blah blah, it actually could favor him more than me). The guy snarled than me and was all like: this is a fething tournament... even though we had called it a NARRATIVE campaign all along.

To be honest? That store apparently hosted the dregs of the city, those that had been expulsed out of the other ones (for very apparent reasons). Shame, though, as the manager was an angel!

I have zero problems with asking or being asked what army (as in, faction) is being used before starting a game or making a list, but I've never heard of people demanding to know your army list before making their own. That's crazy.

The odd thing about it was that it seemed to be something they'd developed over time, that was just a normal part of their routine. They were real friendly about it up-fromt, they all did it and accepted it.

It was only when they were challenged on it, or somebody refused to do it, that they got so weirdly upset.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Ifurita wrote:
He seems to have an awful amount of $ to throw at figures. I agree with the poster above. Why is there even examples 3 and 4?

After discovering he fudges points so hard, why did anyone allow him to actually just set things up without an actual written up list?

Ifurita wrote:He seems to have an awful amount of $ to throw at figures. I agree with the poster above. Why is there even examples 3 and 4?

Bank of mum....

koooaei wrote:Why do you even play against such people.

To all of the above^ Initially I did not realise and thought I was making mistakes. Oh boy, as soon as I found out things changed. He is now expected to bring a fully written out list, and the one time he didnt (the time after he claimed we where playing 2.5K to a friend) he wanted a 3K game. I turned up with 6K's worth of stuff, including a Baneblade borrowed from said friend and flattened him. He whined and muttered all through the game that I was cheating by borrowing a model and that I was not allowed two SH vehicles (I actually was playing fully bound).
Since then we have made a very good point of checking his lists and crushing him whenever he tries to get noughty.

Picture this,

It's 9am on a sunny December morning in 2001. and a young Z-Ray has walked for an hour to the next town, his school backpack filled with Ork speed freaks. (the only army he has and the one he's been playing for the last year.)
Normally our hero would have to wait until the "regulars" went off to lunch to get a table but not this time, this time "Player-A" had organised a game and promised to save a table. (the manager would let his friends in to claim the tables while he got ready to open.)

He had already set up the table, nothing but rings of GW jungle plants.
I made a comment about the terrain being heavy on jungles...and nothing else.
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, I can swap any terrain for jungles" (He'd bought the only copy the store got on release the week before)

I accept that and unpack my speed freaks and ask if he wants to roll to see who deploys first.
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, I can set up in reserve to ambush from the jungle"
...OK...so I set up my entirely mechanized speed freaks on my table edge...against nothing.

I'm the only one with models on the board so I go to move my first Trukk...
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, the circles are clearings everything else is jungle, you have to roll a dangerous terrain test."
...what?...let me see that...(by those rules my entire deployment zone was dangerous terrain.)
"Can't, I left the book at home, but it's a rule."
at this point it's 9:30 and the other non-regulars have already claimed the next games on the tables so if I quit I wouldn't get another game and still had hour long walk home, so I decide to have a sense of humor and see how bad this could get.

...It gets bad...every one of my vehicles is immobilized on the starting line, but still, his entire army is in reserve if he comes in peace-meal I have a chance to overwhelm him with numbers.
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, all my reserves come out first turn anywhere in a jungle"
...

Suddenly I'm surrounded, entire army is just 1 inch away from mine.
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, all my squads have two heavy flamers and three demo charges."
after the barrage of demo charges and tidal wave of flame I have...a mega-armored Warboss left and his army is only 1 inch away, time for some payback
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule, at the end of my turn any of my units in a jungle can go back into ambush"
all his units disappear from the table.
My Warboss as frustrated as I am is left to stomp around the jungle alone for a turn.

His army returns, but, for reasons known only to him he set up way back this time...and his sentinels have lascannons now instead of the heavy flamers he denies using the previous turn.
He walks his sentinels into a clearing and shoots at my Warboss.
I calmly (on the outside at least) inform him that I'm more than 6 inches inside a jungle and can't be seen.
"No both your Warboss and my Sentinels are taller than the trees." is his reply and that's when I notice that these aren't the stores jungle trees, he brought his own...he made them just tall enough to hide a guardsman.
...cover save?...
"I'm using Codex: Catachans, they have a special rule..."

In other words, he wanted to be as petty as possible. Shitbags like that deserve no respect, honestly. Next time I'd have told him: if you have no codex catachan then this is bogstandard guard, capito?
But was ANY of it true or he made gak up?

After looking at the online copy I'm sickened at the filthy manneuvers he pulled, specially considering the fact that the designers themselves told the reader to hand it to their opponents just so they knew about it a priori and they had a fighting chance.

it was 16 years and 4 editions ago so I can't really remember

I think they had a limited ambush from jungles rule
and they could take a heavy flamer as a their heavy weapon choice or a demo charge (which should have scattered)
and I believe there was a special scenario mission with the reversed jungle outline in the book as well (or in White Dwarf)
It was the only time I played him of course.

Amusingly my best game of 40K was not too long after that and has some eerie similarities to that game.

My speed freaks vs a Guard infantry gun line...on a much fairer table
My first turn I rush my Trukks forwards, My Warbosses battlewagon on the far right flank.
His Guard filled his deployment zone edge to edge and blasted every one of my vehicles out from under me.
My Orks are now foot slogging it across the board (3rd ed so no sprinting) getting blasted away until the only unit that makes it into combat is...my Mega-Armoured Warboss at the extreme right of his army.
My opponent, instead of going for the guaranteed win by withdrawing and shooting, puts his faith in the power weapons of his officers and commissars and stands his ground.
Turn after turn of combat ensues with my Warboss krumping his way through 1500pts of guardsmen (game should have ended well before on turns but we wanted to take this too the end)
eventually all that's left are my Warboss and an insanely brave heavy weapons squad with three lascannons on the other side of a small stream...and it's my turn
...I fail the difficult terrain test and can't make it into combat by 2 inches, the warboss goes down to three point blank lascanon bolts.


Many years later I was selling a painted 1500pt marine army and someone said they were interested and asked me to bring it to the store. It was Player-A the cattachan man, but he only wanted to buy the beaky heads (just the heads, not even the whole marine)
I refused.
However, apparently I'd done a bad job gluing some of my marines together. Because when I got home I found some heads had fallen off and gotten...lost.

Never saw him again, thankfully.

So I started 40k on an Eldar Battleforce with the 6th ed Codex, I spent my week painting furiously (If terribly) to get them table-top ready. I call a friend who plays 40k (he's the one who got me into it and helped me choose an army) and ask if we can have a game this weekend, he has family business so I decide I might try a pickup game. So I ask around if anyone would do a 500 point game - Ultramarines player says okay. So I pull out my Waveserpent, Dire Avengers, Guardians, Farseer and single Warwalker - He says to skip the roll and just deploy while he sorts out his army from his bag (He had bought a few thousand points and needed to find the right stuff). Naive new me says okay and deploys. I put my Waveserpent as far forward as possible so I can get my Dire Avengers in range, my warwalker hangs back and I put my Guardians on an objective. While I was busy deploying he pulls out his army - a Librarian (ML1), a Scout Squad with Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks, an 8 man Tactical Squad with a Flamer and Combi-Flamer, and a Land Raider. A LANDRAIDER. I've only heard stories of how powerful they are and the only thing in my army that can even hurt it is the twin-linked Brightlance on my Waveserpent.
Turn 1: He steals the Initiative (lucky roll) and goes to town. Blows up my Waveserpent first thing, the Dire Avengers and Farseer are sitting ducks for his snipers, only the Farseer Survives. My Guardians are still out of range but I move them off the objective and into a bit of cover, my Warwalker kills a few scouts because it cant hurt the Landraider, - I already knew I'd lost but I kept playing.
Turn 2: The Tactical Squad gets out of the Landriader, he casts Presience on the Tacticals and drops two Flamer templates on my Guardians. No survivors. Landraider kills my Warwalker just by looking at it. Farseer (no Dire Avengers remain) is killed by snipers.
He took no losses and walked over me.

Much later in my gaming life I was given a Landraider for Christmas, I only collected Eldar but had been thinking about Blood Angels so I thought why not and bought a Battleforce to go with it. Once they were all ready I called someone to ask for a game, I say I want to try out my Blood Angels and that I don't have many so ~750 points, he says sure, but no Landraider because it's too strong for a small game - he then bought a Monolith. Do I need to explain?

 Z-Ray wrote:
it was 16 years and 4 editions ago so I can't really remember

I think they had a limited ambush from jungles rule
and they could take a heavy flamer as a their heavy weapon choice or a demo charge (which should have scattered)
and I believe there was a special scenario mission with the reversed jungle outline in the book as well (or in White Dwarf)
It was the only time I played him of course.

Looking in my own catachan codex all that was true was the 1" deployment....

You have to hope your table has jungle or woodland.... ambush locations have to be drawn on a crudely drawn map into 1' squares with the location already written down... same as booby traps. He "has" to let you read the rules beforehand so you know which units that can scan for ambushing units and booby traps. Hell the rules clearly state you have to let your opponent read these rules before using them. Even then only catachan devils, snipers and patrols get to ambush....

Also it must be a pure deathworld veterans army to use the ambush rules. You add some units into a standard Guard army, but the lists sentinels can only use heavy flamers.

That being said the one time we actually used booby traps and the ambush rule we house rules it to make it easier.... and a lot of the book in terms of the rules are incredibly badly written. Basically the guys was just a cheating scumbag!