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I can’t think of anyone I’d refuse a game with. At least, a first game. Most of my games are against a close group of friends, but my few forays into the world ended well.

I could imagine running into someone I wouldn’t want to play with again, but I have a pretty wide tolerance for the socially “slowed” and enjoy games against different types of players from the freshly minted to bitter old grumps that want their virus bombs back. The isn’t this pretty to the isn’t this wombo combo insane? Types. I’m pretty easy going.

In short, the only thing that would make me refuse a future game would be a complete jerk, or a “void” to interact with. If my saying “they duck” when you declare shooting at my Guardsmen doesn’t at least crack a smile... or later saying “it ducks” when you shoot at my tank get some kind of a reaction... I don’t know. I play games with people, in person, to have fun socializing. Having a shared interest to practice my abysmal small talk skills with. If that doesn’t happen than I probably would rather try to rofl-stomp a computer because I can’t hurt it’s feelings, than try to stimulate conversation with a void.

 Bosskelot wrote:
They play Space Marines.

feth that book(s)

I kind of avoid marine armies too.

Mostly because I like building a narrative in my head around the game and playing custodes (and when I was playing my own marines) it made it harder to justify a reason while marines and my guys were fighting and that took a lot of the fun out of the game for me.

I think the only time I'd play against marines now is from a purely competitive mindset of "Can I beat this guy's power list".

 aphyon wrote:

Karol wrote:
Someone has a fully painted nazi or communist style army. Only type of person I would never play.

That's sad, saw a beautifully painted "red army" themed guard army based on WWII era at a GT in 2010.

As a history buff i thought it was a nice touch.......so do you hate the black templars since their entire look is modeled on the knights hospitaller. from the crusades?

The winning and losing doesn't factor in on if they're a pleasant person to play against

Bingo sgt_smudge.

Just showed a regular at the FLGS , who only played 8th, how to play 5th last night. helped him make up a couple lists for his khorne army ....and he kicked the crap outta me...we had a blast, he really likes 5th to, so bonus!

The vast majority of people I know that have some commie themed armies are not commies. Heck I've met a trump voter playing a valhallan force with a red army theme, and one of the people I play against regularly has a red army themed gene cult army.

I have never met someone who made a big deal about having a nazi themed army that wasn't actually a nazi, but I have seen wehrmacht looking miniatures from people who don't really bring it up that seem fine.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Anyone who may be concealing wildlife about their person, once got horribly distracted by what appeared to be indepedent lady lump movement turned out was poorly albino hoglet in a pouch sling on its way to the vets

And they stopped to play a game of warhammer? What?

 Blndmage wrote:
I've had people threaten to out me, be maliciously and aggressively transphobic, and the FLGS backed the guy, as did the local 40k community, so unless I'm playing by myself, there's no one locally that I feel safe with, and no store that is safe.

I'm sorry. There are a number of transphobic and homophobic members of my local community that make me distinctly uncomfortable to be around, but I am always too scared to speak up when they are cracking bigoted jokes in the corner. *hug*

This is a serious issue in the broader miniature gaming community and one that communities, like here on dakkadakka, are loathe to address. either through fear of alienating the donkey-caves who espouse these views, or through some of the store managers, owners, mods, what have yous in authority, espousing some of these beliefs themselves. For every donkey-cave you don't drive away, you are preventing the people they prey on from joining the community.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I can’t think of anyone I’d refuse a game with. At least, a first game. Most of my games are against a close group of friends, but my few forays into the world ended well.

I could imagine running into someone I wouldn’t want to play with again, but I have a pretty wide tolerance for the socially “slowed” and enjoy games against different types of players from the freshly minted to bitter old grumps that want their virus bombs back. The isn’t this pretty to the isn’t this wombo combo insane? Types. I’m pretty easy going.

In short, the only thing that would make me refuse a future game would be a complete jerk, or a “void” to interact with. If my saying “they duck” when you declare shooting at my Guardsmen doesn’t at least crack a smile... or later saying “it ducks” when you shoot at my tank get some kind of a reaction... I don’t know. I play games with people, in person, to have fun socializing. Having a shared interest to practice my abysmal small talk skills with. If that doesn’t happen than I probably would rather try to rofl-stomp a computer because I can’t hurt it’s feelings, than try to stimulate conversation with a void.

Really really really bad hygiene? Maybe they put their fingers in dark moist places then touch your dudes?

stratigo wrote:
And they stopped to play a game of warhammer? What?

When you gotta play, you gotta play.

Wait... that's not how that phrase goes...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

stratigo wrote:
And they stopped to play a game of warhammer? What?

What you gotta play, you gotta play.

Wait... that's not how that phrase goes...

I ain't a playa I just crush a lot.

Broadly speaking, I'll refuse a game if I don't think it will be fun.

This could be for a wide variety of reasons, but typically it will be based on a previous experience. There are some people who earn reputations in every store that people often avoid playing, but in fact some people I get a long with just fine and who are capable players, but I don't enjoy playing because what they get out of the game and play it for is very different from what I am in it for, or likewise often someone may bring a list that will be stupidly one sided one way or the other, both of us can find better uses of our evening. I will generally be less enthused to play someone running something painfully unfluffy however, particularly for the sake of exploiting rules mechanics just to make a more powerful army list (e.g. Blood Angels/Dark Angels/SW biker/TWC 7E deathstars).

I've never outright refused a game to anyone new just looking for a pickup game except for a handful of times when someone obviously brought a face crushing netlist and I hadn't brought anything that would pose a challenge, otherwise unless they were particularly obnoxiously offensive in some way I don't think I generally would, it'd have to be pretty outrageous.

For me:

• If they are a raging judgemental bigot. Be it racist, sexist or rabid fundamentalist of any description (I include ‘angry atheists’, ‘red pill’ MRAs and OTT ‘woke’ SJWs in that list)
• Dudes that have repeatedly creeped out my female friends
• Any dude with a USSR or Nazi themed army
• Rule cheaters
• Dudes that rip on other players painting, skills or abilities, or makes fun of their accent, disability etc. or is otherwise a bully or douche… Yeah… nope.
• Anyone that:
o has a problem with either of my daughters watching us play and asking questions, and practising our second (non-English) language (which they are much better at than me) or
o has been mean or rude to my daughters in any games they played against them, or were otherwise rude to them, or make rude comments about their painting or even being there in the FLGS (they often paint their models whilst I play in the store)

I’m cool with proxying to an extent, one or two models a couple of time is OK, anything beyond that… yeah, nah.

Don’t care about painted or unpainted models. I am more than happy to play against ‘power gamers’ and ITC ‘power list’ nerds, even if I know I will lose. I am also more than happy to play against players I know are better than me and will kick my behind.

 XeonDragon wrote:
Any dude with a USSR or Nazi themed army

Presumably if you were playing a WWII based game this wouldn't necessarily apply, right?

I only play 40k. Given my what both the soviets and the nazis put my family through, I will not play WW2 based games. Period.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 XeonDragon wrote:
Any dude with a USSR or Nazi themed army

Presumably if you were playing a WWII based game this wouldn't necessarily apply, right?

 XeonDragon wrote:

• Anyone that:
o has a problem with either of my daughters watching us play and asking questions, and practising our second (non-English) language (which they are much better at than me) or

People have a right to be wary of young kids hovering around expensive and easily breakable models. Now, your kids might not do that but a stranger does not know that. I've seen many a model be broken and/or go missing from curious hands and distracting kids.

I have, personally, had very few interactions with people I wouldn't want to play against. I came close once, in very early 8th edition. I had been out of the hobby for a while, and I only had two games of 8th in before this tourney. Someone I had never met before came up to me and chewed me out for my army's "crap look" and that it made him want to vomit. Luckily I never faced him.

One my hypothetical list:
1. People that are not in a fun mood. I do this game for pleasure, not to be with a grump.
2. Anyone being extremely political during the game. Do you love Trump/Sanders/Biden/Antifa/BLM/MRA? Good for you, but not during the game please.... unless it's funny.
3.Anyone that isn't careful with my stuff. I saw someone at the FLGS once brush his opponent's casualties off the board with his arm and into his hand and toss them across the table. They weren't even my models and I wanted to kill the guy.

Wanting to use "House Rules" which basically boil down to "Buff Unit I like, Nerf Unit I Dislike".

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Khalith wrote:
Reading this, it’s reassuring to see no one say they refuse to play with new players like myself.

Everyone likes new players. Well, at least anyone who is going to be in the position to play a new player. I wouldn't be the least bit self-conscious about being new pr cautious you're not going to be welcomed, all you have to do is let people know it's your first game / first few games but you're eager to learn. Generally speaking, there's nothing people like more than helping someone else get into the game.

Everyone on the forums I’ve been to and the discord I joined have been very welcoming and supportive. I’ve been asking a lot of questions and everyone has been very constructive with advice, answers, and criticism. There’s always that concern when wanting to get involved in a new community as they can become very insular and tribal. I am happy to say that my experience has been a positive one.

I didn't refuse to play altogether, but my last game of 8th I walked away from the table on turn 1. My opponent and I were playing the same army and he constantly queried how stuff worked and refused to believe me until I got the book out and showed him, and acted like everything I was doing was an attempt to cheat. Explaining what I'm doing is fine, getting the codex out to reference something is fine, but if someone is insistent on going to the book multiple times on the first turn to answer basic questions about an army we both have that is too much. On his turn he tried to argue one of my units was out of cover based on a completely faulty understanding of the cover rules and again started getting heated when I disagreed with him. This was a nothing mid-table game at a tournament and I just shrugged and told him if he wanted the win that bad he could have it and packed up. Literally the only tournament game in 10 years of attending them where I've felt like I had to do that.

For me it’s really down to personality and hygiene.

If my opponent is a stinky person, the game just isn’t going to be terribly pleasant, is it? Bit of BO isn’t necessarily a deal breaker - it depends how, ah....matured it is. Some people are after all just naturally whiffier than others, that can’t be helped and shouldn’t be criticised. But when it’s clear it’s not just that days whiffs? Yeah I’m out.

Personality? Bit trickier to define. But I’ll try to explain.

Right now, I’m so far out of practice and knowledge of modern 40k it’s not even funny. So the few games I’ve recently had were taxing. My opponents were doing things that just made no sense to me - like declaring charges against multiple units, including ones which they couldn’t properly engage due to a screening unit (well, a unit in the way! I wasn’t screening with intent).

My opponents took the time to explain it all to me. And sometimes I blundered into a ‘Gotcha’. They let me make the mistakes, and I stuck to them. But because they explained things, I learned and improved. So I can only sing their praises.

But if they refused to explain, and I’m left floundering with no context to their actions? Not so keen. By all means give me my well deserved pasting. Just don’t be a Richard about it. Can’t be much if any honour and glory in stomping a NooB!

Also, people that don’t banter during a game. Bemoan your god awful roll, celebrate your unlikely pay off. Be human. Show you’re actually enjoying yourself.

Overall, people that lose sight of the fact each game is meant to be fun. The challenge is meant to be fun. Yes you need to make allowances, not everyone has the same social skills and preferences. Once again, it really boils down to was my opponent a Richard? If they’re just naturally socially awkward, that’s fine. But if they adopt a ‘game face’ and treat it all super serial? Nah, I’m out.

And one thing I‘ll always object to are Compulsory House Rules. No demanding we use ITC etc. I’ve no beef with them as such, but unless we’re both preparing for a Tournament, please do not just add further rules. Whether I’m still learning the base game, or more advanced, House Rules should be optional, as they affect how I might want to arrange my list and deployment etc.

@ stratigo

Was a MTG pre-release, guessing they just dropped in for the new cards and a game or two, still a good rule of thumb for any game

stratigo wrote:

This is a serious issue in the broader miniature gaming community and one that communities, like here on dakkadakka, are loathe to address. either through fear of alienating the donkey-caves who espouse these views, or through some of the store managers, owners, mods, what have yous in authority, espousing some of these beliefs themselves. For every donkey-cave you don't drive away, you are preventing the people they prey on from joining the community.

That is absolutely not the case here, we have exactly zero tolerance for that kind of behavior, if you see anyone post in such a manner report it or PM a moderator and that person will very quickly be unable to post here.

I mean, Dakka is famous for it's double standards.

@Mad Doc Grotsnik: I agree with you here, if you make a mistake, take your lumps and learn from it.

 cuda1179 wrote:

2. Anyone being extremely political during the game. Do you love Trump/Sanders/Biden/Antifa/BLM/MRA? Good for you, but not during the game please.... unless it's funny.

Nope, quiet the opposite for some & more so for the others. I can envision making some fun politically incorrect SoB/GSC style armies to mock most of them.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, Dakka is famous for it's double standards.

Thats a pretty big accusation there, you want to back that up with some evidence? PM it to me.

There is a player in my group I try to dodge as much as possible.
He is wailing crybaby when he loses and a arrogant prick when he wins.
I am living on the countryside and we have to drive 40-60 min for a match.
He has a tendace to surrender after the first or second turn if it is not going his way and that is an absolute no-go for me
I don´t want to drive over 1:30-2 hours just for one round

I only play with people I know, and never play in public. I've read too much online and seen enough FLGS activity as a bystander to know I wouldn't enjoy it.

One came to mind while I was at work, but I'm not cure how to categorize it.


Years upon years ago, White Dwarf featured an army by Joe Orteza that was 95-98% green stuff sculpted into flames, a giant scorpion, and whatnot. He claimed it was his Chaos Space Marines army. No, it really isn't. It's a 7 year old's Milliputt project. I would scoop, no matter how much I paid to be in that tourney, no matter how close I was to the title.

I can understand proxies or non-GW models, I have no problem with that within reason. But when you literally cannot tell what someone's army is without a damn road map, it's too far. Whatever Orteza's army was, or whatever kind of player that is, I wouldn't play them.

I will generally avoid games with people who are:

1: Defeatist. There's nothing which drags a game down more than when one player fluffs one of their rolls, then approaches the entire game with a depressed expectation of failure and a "why am I even bothering" attitude. yes, your "I can pull off a turn 1 charge" unit failed to pull off it's turn 1 charge. get over it, there are 5-6 more turns for you to play before the winner is decided.

2: Predictable. Back in 7th I played a lot more than I do now, and played a greater variety of people. 95% of people took varied lists, and you never knew what you would get. the remaining 5%, you would expect the same list as last time you played them, and the time before, and the time before - the one they copied off the internet and win most games with. (Pleased to say my Orks usually trow such lists off kilter and make people have to think a bit!)

3: Unprepared people who "quickly throw a list together" once they know what you're bringing. Played a Space Wolf player before Corona kicked off. He asked what I was playing, I said Orks, and he "threw a list together" - all anti-infantry, purely tailored to kill hordes. His loss - I brought a dreadbash!

4. Not a fan of playing anyone with a maturity of under 18. I can make exceptions for younger people who take it seriously, but there is an element of "whiny kid" which I cannot stand, and to prevent me from teaching said whiny kid the merits of an advanced (if slightly colourful) vocabulary, I avoid the games.

I've never discounted any army choice, I'll play against anything as long as they don't mind me questioning the abilities of units which I am unfamiliar with. I was actually looking forward to facing Iron Hands when they were the new hotness, but I didn't get the chance. I see it as a challenge for my Orks - I've never been afraid of losing; it's a game, and for me to win I expect my opponent to lose, and I should never expect them to do anything which I cannot do myself.

i agree, on a lot of points, but i'd like to expand on vakathis a bit.

See, i don't own a car, transporting minis is annoying, so i in general bring out a small portion of my collection and call it a day, now, i normally set up a match before i go , now if a newbie shows up and i have brought what ammounts to comp list and hes has what is in essence babies first whaagh, then there is not really a point for a match, because i'd like for a match to be able to go either way not because of the army selection but the skill involved.

vice versa i also refuse comp or SM+ Supplements if i field my R&H army. Because that is just a onesided stomp regardless of how well i play.


As for the nazi commi lists, ifeel like there's a difference, in many ways, between those that do it along the lines of the satire of old 40k. 40k has these themes as Satire of the real world counterparts in their ideology.
Then of course as someone that occaisonally plays bolt action you face these armies, and if there are history buffs, they will probably paint as accurately as possible, there's however a difference between someone wanting to do such an army as accurately as possible and someone genuinly in favour of their respective ideology and you will get rather easy clues from their behaviour as to what is the case.
the later, i reccomend to avoid like the plague. Now that is personal and Karols point is perfectly understandable to completely refuse such matches aswell. (also, there's a distinct difference between such armies showing up in historicals and in 40k, and just because the satire theme exists doesn't mean that now that the lore turned more wanabee ernest to condone that)


As for the transphobia /homophobia, considering the store i go to has atleast one player that is trans ( i rarely play at the store due to transport but have a table at home and am working on a second one) , is just unaceptable, even when you are conservative, at the end of the day live and let live is one of the basics of a liberal democratic society most of the western world claims to fall under.

I pretty heavily curate the people I prefer to play with (as I've got the luxury of a really really large pool) so if I've already played someone multiple times, you've got factors like

-hasn't painted any miniatures in their entire army, has been around for long enough to have started doing so

-is incredibly defeatist when losing/gloating when winning, generally doesn't make the game playing a good light hearted experience

-army has a 'gimmick' that makes basically every game exactly the same and I'm not in the mood to play that kind of game (All Superheavy army, 100% all infantry horde, full deep strike alpha strike, 6 flyers, stuff like that)

but in terms of the first game I'm playing against someone, we've arranged in advance they turn up and I refuse the game, it's pretty much only

1) they have some kind of army or attitude that is going to make some other member(s) of the group feel unwelcome/is going to generate complaints to the FLGS. Whether that's heavy scare quotes "politics", one of those riotously hilarious scatalogical slaanesh armies the kids these days are all getting into with their tiktoks and their fidget spinners, or just smelling real real real real bad, doesn't matter. I know as one of the people that organizes the club I'm going to get to chat with the store owner about it later if we do get complaints about the guy, so generally I err on the side of caution with newcomers.

2) Clear cheating. showing up with blatantly 1,000+ points more than they're supposed to have, repeatedly fudging die rolls right in front of me, inventing rules whole cloth (not just misremembering/remembering rules from old eds). Happens more often than you'd think, and people are fully conscious of it (generally justifiying it internally by believing their units are hard done by in the rules and need advantages regardless of whether your opponent agrees to them or not).

Zuwi wrote:
There is a player in my group I try to dodge as much as possible.
He is wailing crybaby when he loses and a arrogant prick when he wins.
I am living on the countryside and we have to drive 40-60 min for a match.
He has a tendace to surrender after the first or second turn if it is not going his way and that is an absolute no-go for me
I don´t want to drive over 1:30-2 hours just for one round

I remember a guy like that, he would copy/paste winning lists from tourneys in the 3rd/4th/5th era and try them on us....but he was really bad at execution of the tactics, so if he wasn't winning by turn 2/3 he would give up. we would have to coax him to play it out and often times he would have a comeback win.


As keyboard warriors here , we have the tendency to say things we would not say in person where we can gauge the mood in the room so i take everything said about social interactions with a bit of a hedge because often we only hear one side of the story.. as an example, i think it was maybe a year or two ago we had a new guy come into our FLGS and the big MTG guy, who is super helpful and a pretty cool dude, hooked the guy up with some of his decks and showed him the ropes.

The guy wanted him to come back and play more on a day the MTG guy could not...that whole real life thing getting in the way of gaming. the the new guy apparently got all offended and went on a rant on the stores page throwing out accusations of bigotry, homophobia and the like (i saw the posting) and we were all like WTF????? the MTG guy was baffled as he let the new guy use his stuff to learn how to play. personality conflict perhaps? who knows, but if you only read the rant you would think terrible things about the MTG guy and the store atmosphere. .

 aphyon wrote:

Zuwi wrote:
There is a player in my group I try to dodge as much as possible.
He is wailing crybaby when he loses and a arrogant prick when he wins.
I am living on the countryside and we have to drive 40-60 min for a match.
He has a tendace to surrender after the first or second turn if it is not going his way and that is an absolute no-go for me
I don´t want to drive over 1:30-2 hours just for one round

I remember a guy like that, he would copy/paste winning lists from tourneys in the 3rd/4th/5th era and try them on us....but he was really bad at execution of the tactics, so if he wasn't winning by turn 2/3 he would give up. we would have to coax him to play it out and often times he would have a comeback win.


As keyboard warriors here , we have the tendency to say things we would not say in person where we can gauge the mood in the room so i take everything said about social interactions with a bit of a hedge because often we only hear one side of the story.. as an example, i think it was maybe a year or two ago we had a new guy come into our FLGS and the big MTG guy, who is super helpful and a pretty cool dude, hooked the guy up with some of his decks and showed him the ropes.

The guy wanted him to come back and play more on a day the MTG guy could not...that whole real life thing getting in the way of gaming. the the new guy apparently got all offended and went on a rant on the stores page throwing out accusations of bigotry, homophobia and the like (i saw the posting) and we were all like WTF????? the MTG guy was baffled as he let the new guy use his stuff to learn how to play. personality conflict perhaps? who knows, but if you only read the rant you would think terrible things about the MTG guy and the store atmosphere. .

My personal favorite guys who give up are guys who get incredibly mad at perfectly statistical dice rolls. Nothing makes me laugh like someone rolling 6 space marine armor saves, getting 2 fails, and slapping the table in frustration yelling "come ON!!!"

I hope I've never ejected a player from the group over a false allegation of anything, but ultimately as an administrator you don't have a heck of a lot of choice, particularly if you don't own the space and the person who does is the one bringing you the complaint. Over the years I'm sure something has come my way exaggerated from some entitled Karen who heard a potty word and complained to the manager, but it is what it is, and it isn't like we aren't the only game store in the area people can go to. Stay a preferred partner of the store you work with, and you get many more new people than those you have to kick when you weren't personally there to see/hear the offending incident.

I did manage to defuse an allegation of stealing back in 6th ed when the owner found a clampack of tigurius that had the back ripped out and the mini stolen. I pointed out that one, nobody plays Ultramarines here, two, tigurius is one of the worst models in the game, and three, he came from the very bottom of a shelf and was stolen in exactly the manner that a child would steal something, i.e. not just the whole damn clampack that you could easily slip into a pocket and leave with.

 cuda1179 wrote:

3.Anyone that isn't careful with my stuff. I saw someone at the FLGS once brush his opponent's casualties off the board with his arm and into his hand and toss them across the table. They weren't even my models and I wanted to kill the guy.

Don't touch the opponent's miniatures should be 40k's rule number one. It is for me.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 XeonDragon wrote:

• Anyone that:
o has a problem with either of my daughters watching us play and asking questions, and practising our second (non-English) language (which they are much better at than me) or

People have a right to be wary of young kids hovering around expensive and easily breakable models. Now, your kids might not do that but a stranger does not know that. I've seen many a model be broken and/or go missing from curious hands and distracting kids.

That's fair enough, but by way of context my daughters are likely to ask question like 'what warlord traits does your captain have?' and 'Is that a relic blade?' or 'can I look at the drop pod after the game?', they have been around long enough to know not to touch, and regulars at my FLGS all know them