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Reemule wrote:

Marin wrote:


You are wrong, he could have used the strat with adv weapons. Is that good no, is it legal yes.

I agree, but the trick is to be nice. I mean, Alex shouldn't have asked. Have some pride man and accept your play. But the desire is to beat him at his best, not his worse.

I disagree, its top 8 in the biggest tournament, you are not allowed to take moves back.
Even if the opponent give you the chance to correct the mistake, you have to refuse.

Marin wrote:

Reemule wrote:

Marin wrote:


You are wrong, he could have used the strat with adv weapons. Is that good no, is it legal yes.

I agree, but the trick is to be nice. I mean, Alex shouldn't have asked. Have some pride man and accept your play. But the desire is to beat him at his best, not his worse.

I disagree, its top 8 in the biggest tournament, you are not allowed to take moves back.
Even if the opponent give you the chance to correct the mistake, you have to refuse.

It's a policy of mine that I give leniency to my opponent, but refuse it for myself. If I make a mistake I need to learn from it so as to not repeat it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

auticus wrote:
With all the talk about trying to legitimize tournaments and make them some kind of esport, I'd say if you want to be taken seriously you absolutely need to blacklist people proven to be cheaters and that blacklist should be a public viewable file.

Same as in real sports when you get caught doping and you end up on the front page for it.

Sports are *replete* with people cheating and getting away with it. Let's not act like regular sports are something to look up to.

I'm not looking up to them. Rather we are trying to make 40k tournaments the same in respect to sporting leagues. As we are trying to do that, then the people participating in those endeavors should be held at a higher level of scrutiny and standard and should be blacklisted if they are caught cheating.

I'm also of the opinion that no one should be using their own dice in tournaments because its a known thing with a lot of groups that people either bake or choose dice iin their collection that favorably rolls the majority of what they want.

But I digress.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Marin wrote:

Reemule wrote:

Marin wrote:


You are wrong, he could have used the strat with adv weapons. Is that good no, is it legal yes.

I agree, but the trick is to be nice. I mean, Alex shouldn't have asked. Have some pride man and accept your play. But the desire is to beat him at his best, not his worse.

I disagree, its top 8 in the biggest tournament, you are not allowed to take moves back.
Even if the opponent give you the chance to correct the mistake, you have to refuse.

It's a policy of mine that I give leniency to my opponent, but refuse it for myself. If I make a mistake I need to learn from it so as to not repeat it.

This. Right here. Top play sir!

If you want to make this about how real sports cheat, and Esports is no different, well, I present you the case of Thomas Brady vs. NFL. There was a LITERAL CONGRESSIONAL HEARING about whether or not there was cheating in the NFL, and how Brady might have cheated. They attempted to pass ACTUAL legislation to deal with cheating in sports. But when you have two team owners playing live action Bloodbowl, with billions spent on the real life models, it takes a different scope I guess. But I digress.

If the ITC spent even a fraction of their time actually caring about game accountability, they would have a lot less problems then they do now. But, as it stands, they obviously don't. They care about butts in seats, and dollars in pockets. All the ITC has to do is publicly call out one incident of cheating, to make a difference. And they don't even have to use names. "A player during the tournament was deemed by judges to have attempted to gain an unsportman like advantage, and was thus removed from play."

I mean as long as the governing body is doing something to cheaters thats a step in the right direction.

Right now tournaments are pretty much its only wrong if you get caught. And if you get caught you just try again next time.

auticus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

auticus wrote:
With all the talk about trying to legitimize tournaments and make them some kind of esport, I'd say if you want to be taken seriously you absolutely need to blacklist people proven to be cheaters and that blacklist should be a public viewable file.

Same as in real sports when you get caught doping and you end up on the front page for it.

Sports are *replete* with people cheating and getting away with it. Let's not act like regular sports are something to look up to.

I'm not looking up to them. Rather we are trying to make 40k tournaments the same in respect to sporting leagues. As we are trying to do that, then the people participating in those endeavors should be held at a higher level of scrutiny and standard and should be blacklisted if they are caught cheating.

I'm also of the opinion that no one should be using their own dice in tournaments because its a known thing with a lot of groups that people either bake or choose dice iin their collection that favorably rolls the majority of what they want.

But I digress.

I've often pondered making a dice app that verifies by pairing to your opponent. Results of rolls are visible on both devices simultaneously and occasionally seeded by a central server.

But...it's probably a big ask to make sure everyone has a properly charged phone that can last all day.

GW's dice roller is pretty great, but iOS only.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If you want to make this about how real sports cheat, and Esports is no different, well, I present you the case of Thomas Brady vs. NFL. There was a LITERAL CONGRESSIONAL HEARING about whether or not there was cheating in the NFL, and how Brady might have cheated. They attempted to pass ACTUAL legislation to deal with cheating in sports. But when you have two team owners playing live action Bloodbowl, with billions spent on the real life models, it takes a different scope I guess. But I digress.

If the ITC spent even a fraction of their time actually caring about game accountability, they would have a lot less problems then they do now. But, as it stands, they obviously don't. They care about butts in seats, and dollars in pockets. All the ITC has to do is publicly call out one incident of cheating, to make a difference. And they don't even have to use names. "A player during the tournament was deemed by judges to have attempted to gain an unsportman like advantage, and was thus removed from play."

I think the problem is there can be negatives about that also. Even legal consequences. They should make sure all ducks are in all orders before they attempt this as a big event. Some guy that spent several grand getting and playing in an event might be able to make a case of this if they aren't careful to do some prep work before this kind of action.

As someone who has had family involved in professional athletics, most people would be seriously shocked at how common cheating is at the upper level of competition. My completely anecdotal number is that roughly one third (33%) of professional athletes "cheat" in some capacity (usually performance enhancing drugs), and most get away with it their entire careers. Yes, THAT much. There is an entire industry devoted to helping athletes "juice" in a way undetectable by drug tests.

That being said, just because it is common, doesn't mean it needs to be accepted. Cheaters should absolutely be called out when caught, and punished.

That being said, innocent until proven guilty. Just because a person has a particular "reputation" doesn't mean we need to start assuming the worst every single time they are involved in anything shady. That may be base human nature, but out legal system and societal rules are trying to evolve past that.

w1zard wrote:
As someone who has had family involved in professional athletics, most people would be seriously shocked at how common cheating is at the upper level of competition. My completely anecdotal number is that roughly one third (33%) of professional athletes "cheat" in some capacity (usually performance enhancing drugs), and most get away with it their entire careers. Yes, THAT much. There is an entire industry devoted to helping athletes "juice" in a way undetectable by drug tests.

That being said, just because it is common, doesn't mean it needs to be accepted. Cheaters should absolutely be called out when caught, and punished.

That being said, innocent until proven guilty. Just because a person has a particular "reputation" doesn't mean we need to start assuming the worst every single time they are involved in anything shady. That may be base human nature, but out legal system and societal rules are trying to evolve past that.

If they have a bad enough reputation they just need to be blacklisted for a period of time, maybe permanently if it's bad enough.

Instead, ITC usually goes out of their way to avoid mentioning it, or if they do it's always trying to deflect it and say how the guy is really a good guy and it should be ignored, which is the opposite of what you want. They usually defend the cheater against being outed as a cheater.

I guess they don't for the simple reason that it costs money to do this sort of background research, and to build a history on a player takes time. There were 300 tables? Times 2 players? So 600x(Time+Money) = Never going to happen unless the community self polices.

For starters, I think games media take a big swing at this.

If GW/we are trying to make this a T-sport sort of thing, then there are some major upgrades necessary to make it happen.
1) being a former competitive player and mostly a painter now I can’t stand watching the final at the LVO, as their armies looked bare minimum in term of painting requirements, I understand that most of us are not into the hobby side of things, but if the miniatures moving on the table look more like toys rather than gaming miniature=pro team wearing HS JV gear in the finals;
2) commentators: there should be a team of 3-4, 1 play by play, 1 tactics, 1 reporting from other tables, 1 color commentary;
3) prize support, I would ideally like the 40k prize support to be total at 40k, do some sort of scaling for placement winning;
4) make our hobby more accessible, GW should make replays on the streams available to everyone, not just subscribers, take a hint from free to play games like Fortnite/Apex etc.

I think a lot of this comes down to a culture of "Win at all costs" something that sadly has been cropping up over time in this country at least. Cheating is not only accepted its expected. The "ends justify the means" concept that I see all too often among young people makes it no surprise that this is happening in a tournament. Now dont get me wrong, there are plenty of class acts and great people out there but like anything else in life the nice person always finishes last.

As to HOW they get away with it, I'm going to say all kinds of harsh stuff, so roll with me on this. As a former straight white male (im still white, but im neither straight nor male anymore!) I have seen this lifestyle from both sides. Its very common for them to believe that they have the RIGHT to win. This means cheating is on the table, it means that other people do not have the wherewithal to QUESTION their decisions. Its a culture of "im right, you're wrong, because I'm the man" and this isn't just an attitude addressed at women, its addressed at anyone perceived as weak. It keeps circulating because more often or not these guys are also bullies. No one wants to deal with them because they are here to play a game and enjoy themselves so more often than not its the case of "well screw it, he can win, I dont need this crap in my life" from their opponents. This awful combination of events further inflates the egos of these nasty fellows and more often than not others will emulate this behavior because they want to win too "if he's cheating and gets away with it, why shouldn't I?". Its a pervasive sense of a certain group of people that the world owes them something and that its theirs to take as they please.

This guy should have been penalized. The fact he had been noted to have been breaking rules before hand should have meant there was zero room for interpretation. A cheater is a cheater and will cheat again, zero tolerance.

Now like I said, this MY interpretation based on my different view of life, a sort of outsiders perspective from someone who has seen the inside. I think people should earn everything in life, especially their failures. And through failure is how we grow. When people choose not to confront self entitled people like this they spread that disease and it sets in like a virulent cultural cancer. No amount of sportsmanship and good will can stop it unless the TOs are willing to excise these people.

To be perfectly honest I think 40k is probably one of, if not the worst, choices for a game to be a position as a "T-Sport", and that concept alone I think is ridiculous as something that should even remotely be considered as good for the hobby as a whole.

E-sports are toxic enough as it is and encourage an entire subculture that tries to "win" at life by being good at video games. We don't need to have that sort of garbage infest tabletop games. Streamers and people trying to be "e-celebrities" are bad enough.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

If a TO was stationed at each of the top 8 tables, and final 4, and so on, it would seriously cut down on these "judgement mistakes". It is too prevalent a problem, and far too easy a solution. 1 "mistake" issue in the top 8 is too many. It's why you don't see these sort of "mistakes" in other professional events. You don't see chess players moving rooks diagonally, or tennis players accidentally catching balls out of the air. If you are a top competitor in your given field/hobby/sport, you don't make these "mistakes".

One bad opponent having the game watched by a TO would make the match as fair as possible, and remove the fear of cheating. How is that spoiling things???

You have cheating in chess. You have cheating in sport. You have cheating everywhere. Especially where money comes.

Wayniac wrote:
To be perfectly honest I think 40k is probably one of, if not the worst, choices for a game to be a position as a "T-Sport", and that concept alone I think is ridiculous as something that should even remotely be considered as good for the hobby as a whole.

E-sports are toxic enough as it is and encourage an entire subculture that tries to "win" at life by being good at video games. We don't need to have that sort of garbage infest tabletop games. Streamers and people trying to be "e-celebrities" are bad enough.

It's not about making a sport. It's about strengthening the community enjoyment of Warhammer and presenting the hobby in a manner that encourages other people to play.

I guarantee you hardly any people unfamiliar with Warhammer watched those streams and left worried about a cheating problem. It's the internal community that lights these fires on a crusade to fix what they perceive as a rampant problem. I think we can all agree that it needs to be addressed more sharply, but treating competitive Warhammer like it's some bar on Tatooine is just silly.

There were over 3,000 games played and we're hearing about a few of incidents. I imagine there were way more incidents of dodgy dice manipulation on key rolls, but I'd bet if you polled the players you wouldn't indicate that they thought they had been cheated at any rate that is problematic.

So, to this ever becoming a sport that is accessible, I'm sorry, but no. For the cost it takes to get started in this "hobby" I can fully deck myself out for YEARS in other hobbies. To get a fully painted 2k army, with rules, codecies, faqs, CAs, and tools, we are talking well into the thousands. Maybe even 3 or 4.

No other competitive "every-man" hobby takes that sort of input. E-sports are popular because literally anyone can buy a game and play, that's all that is required., Skill is free. Even real sports like baseball only require a few hundred for equipment.

Warhammer is singular in the "hobby sports" in it's extreme cost and time investment.

Until GW comes up with a less "gouge the customer at all costs" attitude, you will never see this become mainstream.

Plenty of sports are bloody expensive. Sure equipment might be "few hundreds". Of course those are replaced pretty much yearly. Then club fees. Thousands is cheap.

And thousands for 2k is...optimistic.

Castellan, cadian defence force, 2 start collecting: IG, 2 ig infantry squad, 2 HWS, 3 basilisk, 3 boxes of ogryns, 2 codex. Not sure of points exact but that has castellan, 8 infantry squads, 9 mortars, 3 basilisks, 3 leman russ commanders and bits and stuff. Pretty sure that's 2k with spare. 622£. Add in rules and paints. Hardly thousands and 3-4k is laughable.

 Big Mac wrote:
If GW/we are trying to make this a T-sport sort of thing, then there are some major upgrades necessary to make it happen.
1) being a former competitive player and mostly a painter now I can’t stand watching the final at the LVO, as their armies looked bare minimum in term of painting requirements, I understand that most of us are not into the hobby side of things, but if the miniatures moving on the table look more like toys rather than gaming miniature=pro team wearing HS JV gear in the finals;

More than likely, organizations would either commission out their armies, or maintain a painter on staff who would paint the team's armies/miniatures to a consistent and high standard, much like any e-Sports team's support staff.

there are way more sports that cost a heck of a lot more than 40k to play competitively that are open to non-professionals, just as they are hobbies that cost way more.

plus hobbies that cost way less, price is almost a non-issue here, people cheat at zero stakes card games, some view it as a challenge, some out of habit, some because they are insecure enough they need to win at everything, reasons vary.

adding prize money makes the cheating more creative typically, adding 'authorities' makes the cheating a lot more creative

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, to this ever becoming a sport that is accessible, I'm sorry, but no. For the cost it takes to get started in this "hobby" I can fully deck myself out for YEARS in other hobbies. To get a fully painted 2k army, with rules, codecies, faqs, CAs, and tools, we are talking well into the thousands. Maybe even 3 or 4.

Multiple thousands? Well perhaps if you are commissioning a painter, but honestly most armies can be build for hundreds - 1K at most for some for a viable army provided you build and paint it yourself.

Heck a good PC computer to play those computer games will cost that much and is just as much a luxury expense since basic things (email word etc...) can run easily on a very cheap computer. Heck a basic console is going to cost you a good bulk army cost and that's without a game. Compare it to hobbies like photography and a decent entry level DSLR and lens is going to cost you, again, well into the hundreds that would be the bulk of a 40K army very easily.

Also lets compare some other sports - what about equine - the horse alone, for mid to high level competing, is going to make a warhammer army seem like small change and that's without running costs (feed, vet).

So I disagree, GW is by far and away not alone and isn't actually as expensive as many people think. Sure there ARE cheaper hobbies and there are more expensive ones and GW is not the cheapest of the cheap; but I would hardly say that its prices at a point where its a drastic barrier. I would argue that more likely its got an "image" of being expensive (not helped by its heavy targeting of younger markets where its expensive for the parents) and that image is what GW is trying to break with things like killteam and the board games.

Ok, Horseback riding, Helicopter flying, and Space jumping might be more expensive than 40k. But lets go into the math of 40k.

Models alone: $750 to $1k - Especially if you plan on having back up models incase you come across different types of armies. Three full troop squads of marines is at least 150, un painted.

Paint - This can vary depending on skill and army. If you are going black templars - $100 bucks. If you are going deathwatch or 1Ksons, 350? If you don't buy GW magic paints, 200.

Carrying cases - High side professional grade travel cases - 250. Cardboard box with bubblewrap: 50/

Tools - about 150 if you get every brush and snip.

BOOKS - 250.(Battlescribe = 0)

Travel costs - Vary, but there are no professional players, so you eat this. No sponsors in 40k.

So we get about 1500-2500. Not far off my original estimate. That is 2k points of ONE ARMY. My GW store guy made it easy. Points=Dollars. 2k point lists cost about 2k dollars.

That is not an amateur level investment.

When was the last time you priced a set of good golf clubs?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, Horseback riding, Helicopter flying, and Space jumping might be more expensive than 40k. But lets go into the math of 40k.

Models alone: $750 to $1k - Especially if you plan on having back up models incase you come across different types of armies. Three full troop squads of marines is at least 150, un painted.

Paint - This can vary depending on skill and army. If you are going black templars - $100 bucks. If you are going deathwatch or 1Ksons, 350? If you don't buy GW magic paints, 200.

Carrying cases - High side professional grade travel cases - 250. Cardboard box with bubblewrap: 50/

Tools - about 150 if you get every brush and snip.

BOOKS - 250.(Battlescribe = 0)

Travel costs - Vary, but there are no professional players, so you eat this. No sponsors in 40k.

So we get about 1500-2500. Not far off my original estimate. That is 2k points of ONE ARMY. My GW store guy made it easy. Points=Dollars. 2k point lists cost about 2k dollars.

That is not an amateur level investment.

Sort of? Generally speaking who straight one shots all equipment to get into a professional sport (or hobbies (outside of the kinds that require a full buy in like most animal keeping or saltwater aquariums) or buys 100% new. second hand market will probably cut that 1k in half.

Paints it depends. good planning and you could spend about 30$ to get a fully painted army.
Carrying cases and display boards are all over the place with options so best to pick the one best suited for your situation.
tools 150 seems pretty high. aliexpress flush cutters 1.00, or harbor freight flush cutters 5 dollars, winsor newton 1 about 10-20 depending on sales, needle files like 5 dollars exacto like 5 dollars. i dont know how you got to 150.

This cost thing is a useless endeavor. There are ALWAYS people who point out "But <insert expensive non-tabletop hobby> is expensive too!" and don't get why that's not a valid comparison.

Collecting priceless works of art is more expensive than 40k too. Doesn't mean 40k isn't expensive.

IMO he should have been dropped from the tourney based on behavior alone. Also if you are getting rules wrong at a top 8 table I consider that cheating via negligence; there is no excuse for having your rules wrong in that context. I think we can all remember a game where a player conveniently 'forgot' to read his FAQ and Eratta.

I think another Elephant in the room is Rules Bloat. I mean we need how many different books now? And still GW refuses to make a Battlescribe app. But seriously, Base codex, Base Rulebook, Faqs, CAs, White Dwarfs......


"MAN! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!"

But seriously - GW. Get your crap together and Edit the damn Digital copies.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think another Elephant in the room is Rules Bloat. I mean we need how many different books now? And still GW refuses to make a Battlescribe app. But seriously, Base codex, Base Rulebook, Faqs, CAs, White Dwarfs......


"MAN! AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!"

But seriously - GW. Get your crap together and Edit the damn Digital copies.

You don't "need" CA in full present with you 100% of the time. You just need the point values. If you can't handle having a sticky note with the page reference # and the point values written down, stuck into your book?

There's a problem. Also, White Dwarf hasn't had as much rules content in it as you think--and most of it has been outright declared to be "beta" or "trial" stuff.

Also not sure why you're talking about a "battlescribe app". It wouldn't matter one damn bit here.

OK, but again, Soup army, three books at least, plus the rule book, too much.

I always suggest that GW take the 14 or so pages of actual rules, put them in the army codex for free, sell pretty picture book on the side for lore hobbits.

But don't tell me I need to buy a $50 book that really only 10-20 pages of are actually rules, most of which is faq'd and outdated. It's one of the hardest things about getting new people into the hobby. Buying the books. And to be DEAD honest, the only reason I buy the books is so I can play at the FLGS without getting tossed because I cheated and downloaded them off the interwebs. You legit can't play at my store if you didn't buy the books, and the rep will call you on it.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
OK, but again, Soup army, three books at least, plus the rule book, too much.
I always suggest that GW take the 14 or so pages of actual rules, put them in the army codex for free, sell pretty picture book on the side for lore hobbits.

But don't tell me I need to buy a $50 book that really only 10-20 pages of are actually rules, most of which is faq'd and outdated. It's one of the hardest things about getting new people into the hobby. Buying the books. And to be DEAD honest, the only reason I buy the books is so I can play at the FLGS without getting tossed because I cheated and downloaded them off the interwebs. You legit can't play at my store if you didn't buy the books, and the rep will call you on it.

Sorry, but all I'm hearing is "I want to play soup but don't think I should have to buy all the books!".

Tough. Nobody's making you play soup.