Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Absolutely--the hobby has been receiving a lot more press recently (particularly after Vegas and London), and streaming of games has been on the rise, which is shining a light on problems in competitive play that the wider community was otherwise ignorant of.

From the standpoint of the existing competitive community, the response has been a bit "yeah, what's new?" which has understandably been offputting to those unfamiliar with the situation.

But that is nonetheless the reality of the situation--40k is an incredibly complex game, and these mistakes always happen, and always have happened. They're gathering more and more backlash recently, but from the perspective of someone who's been judging these high-end events for most of the past decade, things aren't any worse than they always were. That's obviously no reason not to fight for changing things for the better, but it's also important to try to be realistic and not interpret mistakes as evidence of a Good Old Boy's Club at the top of the 40k universe picking winners and losers from among the known "celebrity" players, which I believe is what Brandt was speaking to on the prior page.

For instance, a poster a few pages ago noted that he could not believe these top players still have illegal list problems (again, if you count our Plasma issue, 3 of the top 5 teams at ATC had illegal lists on their team) because he's attended lots of tournaments and never had an illegal list.

My response to that would be: Are you sure? How many people had any reason to scrutinize your list? Kdash noted above that he personally felt compelled to check the lists of certain "celebrity" players going into London. How many people do you think checked your list? What if it was wrong? Do you honestly think top players bring illegal lists on purpose, because they think some buddy-buddy situation with TOs will protect them? That obviously isn't the case.

I think having an open, transparent discussion about these situations is probably what we need as a starting point, as well as the aforementioned rules and regulations. It's very easy to get caught up in the hyperbole and rumour-mongering that goes on after these kind of events and my own opinion has changed a little as more info has surfaced. Having such discussions allows us to determine what needs to be done to fix any problems.

As for the illegal list issue? I was a much more prolific WH tournament player than 40k but I do happen to have copies of every WH tournament list I've ever used saved to a hard drive somewhere. I'm going to go back over them and see if I was as 100% legal as I thought.

DJ3 wrote:
Absolutely--the hobby has been receiving a lot more press recently (particularly after Vegas and London), and streaming of games has been on the rise, which is shining a light on problems in competitive play that the wider community was otherwise ignorant of.

From the standpoint of the existing competitive community, the response has been a bit "yeah, what's new?" which has understandably been offputting to those unfamiliar with the situation.

But that is nonetheless the reality of the situation--40k is an incredibly complex game, and these mistakes always happen, and always have happened. They're gathering more and more backlash recently, but from the perspective of someone who's been judging these high-end events for most of the past decade, things aren't any worse than they always were. That's obviously no reason not to fight for changing things for the better, but it's also important to try to be realistic and not interpret mistakes as evidence of a Good Old Boy's Club at the top of the 40k universe picking winners and losers from among the known "celebrity" players, which I believe is what Brandt was speaking to on the prior page.

For instance, a poster a few pages ago noted that he could not believe these top players still have illegal list problems (again, if you count our Plasma issue, 3 of the top 5 teams at ATC had illegal lists on their team) because he's attended lots of tournaments and never had an illegal list.

My response to that would be: Are you sure? How many people had any reason to scrutinize your list? Kdash noted above that he personally felt compelled to check the lists of certain "celebrity" players going into London. How many people do you think checked your list? What if it was wrong? Do you honestly think top players bring illegal lists on purpose, because they think some buddy-buddy situation with TOs will protect them? That obviously isn't the case.

In regards to list checking, it of course gets harder and harder with the more people going to an event, but, I always try to get through as many as I can. Not only to double check things, but, because it gives me a chance to plan what I might do against each of those lists if I come up against them. I doubt most people check lists at all.

For instance, I’m at an event in 2 weeks’ time. 70 players, and I’ve checked all the available lists. But, I have no idea if anyone has checked mine. From doing that I identified issues with 6 or 7 lists, ranging from not including which Regiment a battalion was from, to missing points, wrong war gear and, in one case, completely messed up points totals that put them 29 points over 2k.

All I can do, personally, is repeatedly check my list vs battlescribe, the codices I’m using, potentially post it up on dakka etc. Beyond that I’m hoping someone else at the event is checking lists as well.

As a result, I think my attitude in regards to illegal lists is harsher than most peoples. I accept full responsibility to ensure my list is correct, and I put in the effort weeks before the deadline submission date making sure I am as confident as possible that everything is correct. I owe it to the event and the people I’m going to be playing to do so. I expect the same from others, but, I know, in reality, it’s just not going to happen.

Mistakes are super easy to make during list building, especially if you are relying just on battlescribe, and I can fully understand why some people make the mistakes as they rush to chase the meta etc, but, I still think it shouldn’t happen. #livinginadreamworld.

I know this is going to frustrate some TOs, but, I truly believe, that if they do not have the ability to double check every list submitted, then, they should reduce the number of people attending the event so that they can. Sure, they can crowd source it as well, but, for the integrity of their event they really should be doing the checks themselves as well.

The buck should always ideally stop with the player, but, the TO has to accept some responsibly overall for it as well.

I'm heading to sleep (I work nights) but wanted to say again that I appreciate the majority of the people in here for being constructive, even in their criticisms. There's obviously a handful of people trying to stir things up but I feel for the most part people have been accepting to our attempts to get actual information out there, even if they don't accept some of our conclusions.

I'll check into the thread again tonight to see if there are any more reasonable questions about the tournament and what transpired.

Those Alligator riders are pretty cool actually.

My suggestion would be to anyone using a non GW Model, is to ALWAYS prime and repaint them yourself.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Those Alligator riders are pretty cool actually.

My suggestion would be to anyone using a non GW Model, is to ALWAYS prime and repaint them yourself.

Those ARE painted. The judges seemed to have ruled the models violated the 'Models may NOT contain significant elements of pre-assembled and/or pre-painted models or toys." policy. The base size may have incurred a greater issue with the Modelling for Advantage as they SEEM to be lot smaller than the standard cavalry bases.

While I do agree that the final verdict and judgment on the team was a bit harsh, you do have to understand as players/team of Team Happy's caliber/profile you will always be put on higher scrutiny, and because of that, I think it is the team's responsibility to portray higher degree of sportsmanship and adherence to policies than required for no-name gamers.

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
DQ for cheating with the plasma pistol.

DQ everyone else who had an illegal list.

"Sorry, you can't use those here" at sign in for bringing models which clearly violate event rules. It's unfortunate that the army wasn't banned up front, but it never should have been allowed.

I am disappointed that people admit to breaking clear and explicit rules and complain that it is unfair that they don't get to keep playing. Follow the rules and you won't get DQed.

Your post would make more sense if DQ meant Dairy Queen. Like, take players aside, discuss issues, collect perspectives from multiple people, work out the best possible situation for everyone.

Sort of like the ATC organizers did. Only with ice cream.

The best possible solution is for cheaters to be removed from the event.

have you never watched or participated in a sport whatsoever? This argument is nonsensical.

DJ3 wrote:


This is outright ridiculous and I was not planning to respond to it, but here we go.

So once a player has earned a "bad reputation," a rather nebulous determination, they should retreat into the woods and not attend tournaments until a randomly determined amount of time? You'd prefer the court of public opinion be allowed to hand out arbitrary, universal bans to the players they dislike?

And if they dare show their faces, they be chased out by a torch-wielding mob?

You genuinely see no issue with the community that would foster, and aren't just using an extremely overstated means to say "you got what you deserved"?

This is far more the dakka I was speaking about previously--not a realistic representation of what actually occurs at major tournaments, where the overwhelming majority of interactions between players are positive, but instead the sort of hyperbole that exists solely on the internet slung about by people with no stake in the matter but who expect their anonymous internet comments to have a direct impact on matters.

If an event wants to ban a player, the event will ban the player. We don't rely on the will of the mob to make these decisions, which is sort of the entire point. You're making it very clear why it was so easy to manipulate opinion at the event.

If you disagree with the content of what I'm saying, don't make comments about cabals of lizard people, look into the matter yourself--ask a handful of people who were there what they heard. If you have any presence in the tournament community at all, you almost certainly know many people who were there. Then consider if you'd expect wild rumors to line up so perfectly across nearly 400 people.

Speak on the matter from an informed place, and I'd be happy to accept your disagreement in a more constructive manner, as I have with others who have had similar opinions.

That is not what I said at all and I think that if you were in a calmer frame of mind you would see that.

Repairing a damaged reputation is not an easy thing - one of the first things you must do to start on that path is to make a determined effort at being trustworthy in order to regain trust. Clearly you are not in a very receptive mood to listen to anything that does not fit with your state of mind so I will just leave you with an apposite quote from someone older, wiser and richer than myself.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

You know what else isn't fun? Having my opponent get away with cheating and keep playing. DQ and remove them from event property. If people know the penalty for an illegal list is crying in their hotel room over $1000 in wasted travel expenses they'll be damn careful about avoiding mistakes. Until then people will keep cheating and ruining it for the rest of us.

That literally happens in no sport, you know ones with real money involved.
I can shoot myself in the foot at a USPSA match, get DQ'd and still stay to watch the other competitors. Quit talking nonsense about banning them from the tables.

In MLB, NHL, and NFL, if you get ejected from the game, you are required to leave the playing area and become restricted to the locker room.

In these sports you only get ejected if you basically attack other players in the refs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DJ3 wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:
Aaaaaaand you missed his point and proved it all in one tirade. Good job.

I'm not seeing any actual facts or even opinions come out of this last group of responders--just quips about conspiracies and one-liners.

Please tell me what you believe to be so fantastical about the following sequence of events:

1. A group of people was approaching teams, asking them to boycott the entire event if we were not removed. This is absolute fact.
2. The same group of people was providing a wildly incorrect version of events to the teams they approached, who obviously had no idea of the real facts, because they were not directly involved. This can be corroborated by dozens of captains from the event.

And you believe that the concept that tying these two pieces of information together to the conclusion that the aforementioned group of people was actively attempting to have us removed constitutes an unbelievable conspiracy?

Realistically, the only jump in logic I'm making there is that the people pushing for us to be removed was the source of the rumors, but regardless, somebody was actively spreading misinformation about us and somebody was using that information to ask for us to be removed. From what information I was able to gather after the event, it started to become clear that they were the same people.

I'm trying to have an honest conversation about the situation, but that's frequently hard to do on an anonymous internet forum. I genuinely want you to tell me what issue you have with the points I'm presenting there, not provide sarcastic responses intended only to provoke and demean.

None of those are facts. Those are just statements by you. Opinions are not facts.

DJ3 wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
As far as a mob is concerned, there was no visible anger or maliciousness shown to Team Happy at any time during the weekend.

I'm trying to be as transparent as possible here, and this kind of gray vagueness does nobody any good--please provide details about what you mean.

Again, my concern is that the "teams upset about the behavior" were upset about behavior that did not occur, based entirely on lies from a motivated group of individuals.

I would also be interested to hear about the "history of offenses"--what exactly were our issues at previous ATCs, in your opinion?

History:

2016 - Adepticon, missing pistol on Character, Lone Wolf issue,
2016 - ATC - Illegible lists for ATC, When confronted told our captain to f**k off and that he was going to stab him in the face.
2016 - ATC - The opponent screamed at you, "CHEATER" (i assumed its you since you referenced earlier in the thread) and threw a water bottle into the stands.
2018 - LVO - Unsportsmanlike in game actions against another player on video.
2018 - LVO - Round 1 slow play documented against another top player
2018 - ATC - What this thread is about.

Perceived Mob:
At the event you had no further incidents after round 3 per your teams statement. There were no visible physical assaults or verbal altercations. Having a few people discuss concerns or mention comments is not a Mob.

If you believe you have had ZERO fault for any past discrepancies and that the reaction of the other teams was to take you down a peg, then you and your team are oblivious to the reality of the experience your opponents have had around the members of your team. Other teams being being upset is a direct correlation to other confrontations outside of ATC. The reaction is not part of a vacuum.

The reality is 90% of people don't care if you win. They care how you play and carry yourselves. You have failed in this regard.

 Peregrine wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Totally see where you are going Peregrine and agree with you, it's time to prune all the undesirables.

I would be down with dealing harshly with cheaters so long as we also do something about all the people using recast models. GW's IP needs to be respected otherwise the game goes away. For that matter, proxy models. Everyone else put the resources into getting a real army, it's time to stop coddling the people trying to get away with something less and take the rest of us down.

For that matter, we should also git rid of the people participating in online mobs. They add nothing to events and promote a toxic culture. And they are predominantly white males, there's no reason everyone else should have to deal with all that privilege.

Which leads to getting rid of those who don't show sufficient respect for marginalized communities. There's a reason tournaments lack diversity. We should also be looking to build more inclusive tournaments and eliminate the misogyny that often exists at the tables.

TOs, for that matter, need to do more to share the space with new and less experienced players. They should not be leading the tournaments they organize, they should be using the event to promote the needs of those who are disadvantaged. I would love to see some of the Feminist40k people getting a chance to speak up about more important issues than games.

First step, of course, is dealing with all those cheaters infesting the top tables, which is an incontrovertible fact. I'm just as sick as you with all the cover ups and lies and look forward to achieving a more just and equitable tournament scene. All we need to do is start telling TOs how to run their events and we can finally fix some of these problems.

Yep, really proving my point here about "competitive" 40k being a joke. You're seriously comparing expecting people to follow the rules to nonsense about banning people who don't spend enough money or replacing tournaments with Feminist40k speeches. I never thought I'd see the day when "competitive" players defend cheaters to the death, and insist that we need to accept cheating as part of the game or we're all the worst TFGs.

And yes, it is incontrovertible fact that cheaters exist. FFS, we have someone from one of the top teams admitting to cheating (illegal list) in this thread.

Well, the point of all that was to outline a few of the different agendas vying to shift the Overton window of what we find acceptable as players participating in tournaments. There's a lot of them at the moment, as there always has been, as well as a lot of screeches for zero tolerance from those who would have you believe they are fighting for our "best interests."

The vitrol tournament organizers and other players are subjected to in this effort is the only thing that's new. It's nasty, all the lies, exaggerations and hard-line stances being taken, and makes me wonder why anyone would subject themselves to this cesspit.

Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.

Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.

These probably nots do not amount to a reason to change the tournament system, impose stricter penalties, create a database of banned players, villify people on social media, etc. Adding salt to all that by claiming tournament organizers are pocketing money, collusion is happening between judges and top players, people's reputations are "harming" the game, etc - those are all base-level lies meant to elevate the actual impact of these slights to some insidious level that's not supported by the severity of what actually happened. It becomes impossible to put anything in perspective with all this garbage floating around and eventually anyone will accept anything in the name of removing all the "cheaters," or whatever label some social manipulator is floating to get people to settle on a normality they find acceptable.

I don't play in tournaments anymore but I've been around the tournament scene since Rogue Trader. The one consistent fact about tournaments is there are always problems and a lot of drama generated by people who don't have anything better to do. That's one of the reasons I won't play in tournaments anymore, a good portion of the people who show up are a little too invested in what other people are doing and not enough in their own army.

This modern expression of the drama-urge is louder and less honest than what came before. It's still as meaningless as the terms "40k celebrity" and "competitive" player, which are really just a way of conveying one's own desire for status as the best toy solider dice roller in the world. Neither really means anything, that's not why people go to tournaments and it would be a shame to shape the scene around these petty expressions of jealousy. People who win tournaments are dorks like the rest of us, there's no reason to treat them otherwise.

Tournaments are about finding friends, playing games, and being happy if you win. If you feel the need to wrap yourself up in intrigue over rules violations, come with facts and be reasonable in what you ask for without trying to demolish everyone around you. Otherwise you're really just putting your own defects on display.

DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:

This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.

ATC states that:

During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.

Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?

Similarly you claimed that:

The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."

ATC states that:

We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).

Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?

In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).

When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.

Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.

 skchsan wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Those Alligator riders are pretty cool actually.

My suggestion would be to anyone using a non GW Model, is to ALWAYS prime and repaint them yourself.

Those ARE painted. The judges seemed to have ruled the models violated the 'Models may NOT contain significant elements of pre-assembled and/or pre-painted models or toys." policy. The base size may have incurred a greater issue with the Modelling for Advantage as they SEEM to be lot smaller than the standard cavalry bases.

Yea, they are painted... the same paintjob from whatever gift shop at the Zoo they came from. I do think it is a cool conversion though. Theres even a female Catachan! C'mon!

 deviantduck wrote:
Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.

What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.

 techsoldaten wrote:


Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.

Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.

While I largely agree with fitting the punishment to the severity of the crime I do take issue with a couple of things here. Specifically, when discussing possible types of infringements you repeat "The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game". That's incorrect. The question is, is it against the rules? When it comes to applying an initial penalty intent is irrelevant. Intent might be relevant when assessing whether a harsher penalty is required but the only thing that matters is if the rules were broken. If my list is 2001 points, I have broken the rules and a penalty should be applied. It doesn't matter if breaking the rules affected the outcome of the game. There's a rule, and a penalty for breaking it - in this case a warning, followed by a game loss. If it later comes to light that this is a pattern, or rather than being 1 point over because of a miscalculation, my list is actually 150 points over and I'm blatantly trying to cheat I may well be met with a full DQ and possible future ban from the event but that's the only point where intent should enter into it.

Alpharius Walks wrote:
DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:

This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.

ATC states that:

During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.

Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?

Similarly you claimed that:

The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."

ATC states that:

We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).

Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?

In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).

When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.

As one of the Team Captains, that agreement was not disclosed to us, as best as I can remember.

 skchsan wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.

What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.

I don't think you understand how WYSIWYG works. If he didn't list the PP on his sheet and didn't pay for it, but it is on the model, he broke WYSIWYG policy, period. The fact that he used it just demonstrates the need for that rule to begin with.

 djones520 wrote:

Alpharius Walks wrote:
DJ3 some of your claims in thread appear to be inconsistent with ATC's statement on key details. As an example you wrote that:

This is a mostly accurate depiction of events--again, the agreement to leave if there were further issues was in response to the sportsmanship warning after the game you otherwise mentioned. Our context for that was further sportsmanship-related issues, arguments with other players, things along those lines.

ATC states that:

During the lunch break (after game 3) we had a very long meeting with the team captain, Tony. An agreement (initiated by the captain) was made that if there were any other issues with anyone on the team, that the team would withdraw from the event.

Can you spot the difference in the accounts over the scope of this agreement?

Similarly you claimed that:

The other important note to point out (which I don't think has been mentioned so far) is that this agreement was mentioned to the other captains, in response to their complaints about our team. As in, teams approached the organizers, and the organizers' response was "they will be removed if there are any further issues."

ATC states that:

We did not disclose this agreement to the rest of the event players at that time but promised the other captains that we would reveal our decision and intentions in their entirety at the end of the event (which we have just done).

Do you contend that ATC lied or made significant misrepresentations in their statement as far as these details are concerned or would you like to retract your claims?

In any event it is clear that you and your team members consistently have issues with the details both at the table/event (from ATC we have at least from the event's statement issues with the modeling policy and maintaining agreement between what was paid for in your list and what you are using on the tabletop) and away from it (the discrepancies noted above).

When it seems that the world is against you quite unjustly the better approach may be to examine what you can do to improve your own future conduct.

As one of the Team Captains, that agreement was not disclosed to us, as best as I can remember.

The ATC statement also says they didn't inform anyone else. Which makes sense. If you tell the room that your kicking out team X next time there is an issue. Someone is going to find a reason to have an issue.

My only concern is this. The plasma thing, you agreed you messed up. Ok, but where is the "we apologize" seriously. The dude from BOLS DQed himself and did a self imposed ban and said sorry a lot. Where is Team Happy's sorry

It seems like an attempt to play the victim. Suddenly this is all about mob justice when it should be about congratulating the ATC TO's for being the first major event organizers to step up and show some balls. I think they could have done a better job initially with their policies, making them more clear and much tighter. I also think they should have gotten in front of this a bit sooner, but that's hard to do from an event. That said it's nice to see they stood up for the event.

The key points are very straight forward. There were multiple infractions, perspective can be spun any way you like because they admit to being in the wrong and accepting the judgements. They also AGREED to withdraw if ANY other issue arose. One did, they were ASKED to leave and now they are acting as though the judgement was too harsh.

They agreed to follow there judgement and now are spinning it like they were wronged. What I find most disturbing is the lack of personal responsibility and integrity. He started off saying he respects and agrees with the TO and that they respected the call only to speak out of the other side of their mouth and imply the TO was talked into a decision that was not their own by a mob. You can't have it both ways, you either respectfully accept the ruling and move on, agree or disagree with the severity. Or you are calling the TO out on their integrity and credibility. If your calling them out at least have the spine to do just that, but they are trying to have it both ways.

I think this one should just have a pin put in it already. The TO made the right call, this doesn't mean other issues may not have been present with other teams, but in this instance it is clear that it wasn't the one issue day two, it was everything combined.

Slipspace wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:


Not speaking specifically about your comments, but if one honestly believes mounting calvalry on pre-painted alligators without prior authorization is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact any game and the answer is probably not. If one believes going over on points is cheating, that's fine. If someone honestly believes an extra plasma gun popping up in a list is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game and the answer is probably not. If on believes only getting to turn 4 in a game is slow play is cheating, that's fine. The question is how did it impact the outcome of the game and the answer is probably not.

Let the punishment fit the severity of the impact on the game. Anything else is just vindictive.

While I largely agree with fitting the punishment to the severity of the crime I do take issue with a couple of things here. Specifically, when discussing possible types of infringements you repeat "The question is how did it impact the outcome of a game". That's incorrect. The question is, is it against the rules? When it comes to applying an initial penalty intent is irrelevant. Intent might be relevant when assessing whether a harsher penalty is required but the only thing that matters is if the rules were broken. If my list is 2001 points, I have broken the rules and a penalty should be applied. It doesn't matter if breaking the rules affected the outcome of the game. There's a rule, and a penalty for breaking it - in this case a warning, followed by a game loss. If it later comes to light that this is a pattern, or rather than being 1 point over because of a miscalculation, my list is actually 150 points over and I'm blatantly trying to cheat I may well be met with a full DQ and possible future ban from the event but that's the only point where intent should enter into it.

"Crime." You lose me when you use that word.

I see where you are coming from with all this, the question I ask is how the introduction of new rules improves the results, the tournament system or the outcomes of any particular game. Nothing about what you said encourages me to think more rules make tournaments better in any sense of the word.

Let's say Team Happy had all it's models approved beforehand, removed the unfortunate plasma gun, and somehow got to Turn 5 with horde lists. Did they enjoy success because of those factors, or did they enjoy success because they are better players? The answer is likely the later.

If you honestly feel the only way they succeed is cheating, that's great. But this list is technicalities, I would be embarrassed to say something there caused me to lose. They don't have much of an impact on the game outside sportsmanship (mine included.) Saying there's a "crime" when a player did not conform 100% to a rather long set of rules makes me think we're losing perspective on why anyone even plays in a tournament. It's asking a lot for TOs to assume the worst in people and enforce a zero-tolerance policy, they're basically being turned into cops and players into snitches.

Pause and think about the forms of cheating that actually affect the outcomes of games. Adding extra models to your lists, giving you lists with points-costs adjusted downwards, using dice rolls to reposition models, cupping dice to add a few 6s, rolling into a pile and choosing the best dice, looking at a book and quoting rules that don't exist, telling opponents they must to roll higher than what they actually need, mismeasuring, adjusting position with rulers, repositioning terrain, double movement / shooting / psychic actions, fixing the decks, overcounting command points, using food / beverages as distractions at key points, etc. There's a long list of worse behaviors that actually impact games. Were I of a mind to, I could do all this in a game without you knowing unless I told you. If I really wanted, I could probably get you to apologize and thank me for being so patient with your poor play after I win.

This thread is calling out Team Happy over technicalities. Many participants are demanding systemic change and making wild accusations about TOs and players being in cahoots / lying / cheating / stealing / etc. People are lawyering statements from players and trying to trip them up on language. There's a lot of talk about zero-tolerance, and lists and bans.

Isn't that a little odd? Isn't that a lot of effort to go to over alligators, plasma guns and sluggish play? Is this really about how we punish people who violate the rules, or is something else going on?

For that matter, tournament organizers do a lot of unpaid work to set up tournaments. Not all of them work out as well as we wish, but I've never met a TO who was out to get rich from doing this. Every one I've ever met put in a lot more into organizing the event than they received in return.

Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?

Reading the official statement from the ATC, the things they did merit a DQ.

1. Using mixed regiment traits they didn't have access to (lots of people do this and in the age of soup its very difficult to track properly, easy to pull off and people get away with this all the time).
2. Using wargear they didn't purchase (this is blatant cheating)
3. Modeling for advantage (hard to judge without seeing the model, but you know it when you see it, and i trust that it was egregious enough to be a "third strike.")

Ultimately if you're willing to fudge this kind of stuff then you're probably cheating in other ways. I hope this community can get cleaned up.

I am so freaking sick of the "well what impact did the cheating have" mentality.

 djones520 wrote:
I am so freaking sick of the "well what impact did the cheating have" mentality.

Yeah that’s definitely not the kind of mentality that should be used when evaluating whether something was legal or not.

The one thing I am interested in getting clarification is whether there was slowplay or not. I’ve seen posts from people that were there that claimed they slow played but the official statements from the TOs say otherwise. Do we have anyone who is a third party/opponent who ACTUALLY witnessed their games not go past turn 3? If there was no slow playing I think the DQ might have been a little more than it should have been. Most of the other stuff should have been brought up much earlier (alligator models) or were minor enough to warrant game losses which should have probably put them out of contention.

Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?

Where do you get anyone is making organizers the enemy? To answer your question, the organizers are providing a service that people are paying for. They want to couch that under the banner of it is just for people to get together and have fun. That is fine, it is why I go to them, but as JY3 stated we spend thousands of dollars, vacation time, time away from family, etc. to do this and your attitude is we should just let shoddy players get away with it because it is to much effort to do something about it!?! I am the customer, I am spending good money and time to go these events and it is the organizers responsibility to insure I enjoy myself. The person that followed the event rules, the person that can write a legal list, the person that plays with models that are WYSIWYG so he can tell if his own model has a friggin Plasma gun or not, and the person who is not a jerk to people he is playing toy soldiers with. The organizers responsibility should not be to let it slide for people that can't get their crap straight. Team Happy negatively effected people they played, and from their own admission people they did not play, and we should not just let it slide. They want to call it mob mentality I think it is more that people are fed up and are not going to just let it slide anymore. If you don't get that there is no point in talking to you.

 Red Corsair wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
Using wargear not included in your list isn't something that can be list checked ahead of time by a 3rd party. But, having a clear, concise, accurate list and having WYSIWYG models (as 99.9% of tourneys require) make it really difficult to 'accidentally' fire a non-existent plasma pistol.

What most likely happened is that the plasma pistol WAS WYSIWYG but wasn't paid for on the list.

I don't think you understand how WYSIWYG works. If he didn't list the PP on his sheet and didn't pay for it, but it is on the model, he broke WYSIWYG policy, period. The fact that he used it just demonstrates the need for that rule to begin with.

That's the same thing. WYSIWYG doesn't just go one way you say it does. If your miniature isn't modeled with a PP, then you can't say on the list the mini is equipped with a PP. If your miniature is modeled with a PP, then you MUST say on the list mini is equipped with PP.

If he represented it on the mini but didn't put it on his list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG. If he didn't represent it on the mini but put it on the list, then it wasn't WYSIWYG.

The infraction most likely involved the player attempting to represent a WYSIWYG mini with a PP, but "forgot" to add to his list. So it wasn't WYSIWYG at the end of the day.

The reason why WYSIWYG is actually not a rule anymore is because of the theoretical 'Thousand-Bolter Thundercannon' shenanigans, because if you were actually able to modela thundercannon with thousand bolters, you were still technically allowed to use it.

dredgejosh wrote:
My only concern is this. The plasma thing, you agreed you messed up. Ok, but where is the "we apologize" seriously. The dude from BOLS DQed himself and did a self imposed ban and said sorry a lot. Where is Team Happy's sorry

This is my big concern, too. I think they’ll write this off as mob mentality and massive overreaction, and then we’ll have another thread about a similar issue with some of the same players in six to twelve months.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:

Why is it so important to some people to make them into the enemy? What is it about the tournament system that's so bad these people who volunteer their time and resources need to be told how they are harming the game? Are the actions of TOs worth the attention of a worldwide community of players, or is there something else at work here?

Where do you get anyone is making organizers the enemy?

In this thread, there's people claiming TOs are making money off tournaments, they're being accused of giving preferment to high-profile players and enforcing the rules unequally, they're being called liars and being accused of whitewashing the facts, they're being criticized for not being umpires, and then there's just the general shitposting. Facebook isn't much better.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:
To answer your question, the organizers are providing a service that people are paying for.

That wasn't the question, but sure. At some level, that's true.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:
They want to couch that under the banner of it is just for people to get together and have fun. That is fine, it is why I go to them, but as JY3 stated we spend thousands of dollars, vacation time, time away from family, etc. to do this and your attitude is we should just let shoddy players get away with it because it is to much effort to do something about it!?! I am the customer, I am spending good money and time to go these events and it is the organizers responsibility to insure I enjoy myself.

So this isn't about outcomes, this is about whether or not everyone is 100% in compliance with a set of rules. That helps me to understand where you are coming from, I appreciate you for offering that.

Does your enjoyment of a tournament honestly depend that much on whether or not everyone else is 100% in compliance with a rules packet?

Please don't take this as a personal attack, I'm honestly curious about where you are coming from. Because, to me, alligators and an extra plasma gun in one player's list makes zero difference in what I would do at that tournament. That much interest in what other people are doing is strange and alien to me, it's almost like hearing tournaments are a competition to see how closely people can confirm with a checklist more than a chance to play games and meet new people.

It's been years since I played in a tournament, and there was a time I kind of felt the same way. It changed for me when I realized just about everyone has a problem with their list, the rules, etc. Instead of looking at 90% of the gaming community as cheaters, I would prefer to focus on sportsmanship.

How would you feel after having paid all that money, were away from your family, etc, and played a game using the wrong BS for a unit only to get called out on it as part of a zero-tolerance policy? That is the policy a lot of people are calling for, and I think that situation would a lot harder to deal with than whether or not someone else went over by 15 points or so. And while you might feel that doesn't apply to you, it would affect to a lot of other people who also have families, budgets, jobs, etc.

If that's what it takes for you to enjoy yourself, that's fine, but that might be a good idea to consider what that looks like when it's consistently and evenly enforced across a set of tournaments over time. Part of me thinks people would start calling for that rule to go away, but the part of me who knows how tournaments work knows people would just stop coming while TOs double down on those rules.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:
The person that followed the event rules, the person that can write a legal list, the person that plays with models that are WYSIWYG so he can tell if his own model has a friggin Plasma gun or not, and the person who is not a jerk to people he is playing toy soldiers with.

How many games have you played in a tournament against someone from Team Happy or someone who is otherwise cheating? How much did that impact the outcomes of the games?

I realize you probably don't think this matters, but I'm curious because I've been in games with a lot of people who are actively cheating in more significant ways. The way I would react is different than running to organizers, but it would help me to know more about how this has personally affected you before I go into that. I realize you may have had a bad experience that kept you out of the top tables and don't want to be insensitive.

 ChainswordHeretic wrote:
The organizers responsibility should not be to let it slide for people that can't get their crap straight. Team Happy negatively effected people they played, and from their own admission people they did not play, and we should not just let it slide. They want to call it mob mentality I think it is more that people are fed up and are not going to just let it slide anymore. If you don't get that there is no point in talking to you.

There's definitely a mob in this thread who are grossly distorting fact and expressing faux outrage. I really appreciate you for sharing your perspective and hope you do choose to continue this conversation.

While I see only see downsides in the zero-tolerance rules you present and believe (were we facing each other in a tournament) I could use them to get you kicked out and banned from future events very easily, I am totally open to having my mind changed.

 skchsan wrote:
The reason why WYSIWYG is actually not a rule anymore is because of the theoretical 'Thousand-Bolter Thundercannon' shenanigans, because if you were actually able to modela thundercannon with thousand bolters, you were still technically allowed to use it.

That's ass-backward, and you should know it.

WYSIWYG says the models must accurately represent what's in your list.

Not you get to play wahtever your model looks like.

If there are no rules for a Thundercannon with 1,000 bolters, then you don't get to use it as such.