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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

I'm sorry, but no. You don't accidentally plonk a whole extra model down on the table for every game, especially when said model just so happens to get extra rules in the detachment you chose and is effectively a lynchpin model as a result. He was running a detachment where hellbrutes give out a buff aura around them, and his paper list had 0 hellbrutes. It isn't a mistake, it is intentional cheating.

It could easily be a mistake that's come about from last minute list tweaks. I don't think it's necessarily intent though it's a bit sloppy and something I'd expect people to notice.

I guess it's maybe one of these things that comes down to the 'vibe', did it seem like a genuine mistake or a cheater caught?

But apparently he is friends with the organisers and has prior behaviour issues they have overlooked, including threatening violence to other players.

Now that's a good reason for him never to play in tournaments again. Threatening violence should be an automatic lifetime ban.

Herzlos wrote:
It could easily be a mistake that's come about from last minute list tweaks. I don't think it's necessarily intent though it's a bit sloppy and something I'd expect people to notice.

Do tournaments not require lists to be submitted before the event? Either just to lock them in, or to allow for checks on the lists?
But even if there were checks, no-one is likely to have seen that model on the table as not being listed.

It's a tough question, because if the list was validated beforehand then the ref did his job.

You wouldn't want the players to be so mistrusted that their opponents or additional refs need to double check every time they put models on table.
You have to trust in the sportsmanship and competitive spirit of the players.

Appreciate that people pay a lot for these tournaments though so a bit of a sticky wicket for the organisers!

 Skinnereal wrote:
Do tournaments not require lists to be submitted before the event? Either just to lock them in, or to allow for checks on the lists?
But even if there were checks, no-one is likely to have seen that model on the table as not being listed.

1. Lists were required the Sunday before the event, yes. I'm not sure what % is checked, but I think all of them were based on some comments I read.
2. No tournament organizer walks around and checks people's lists to what's on the table. It's a 300+ person event, and that really isn't a reasonable ask. Even if they did, many people put their army in a carrier between games and put away models as they die, which makes that difficult.

As a player, I usually look at the list for my next opponent, but rarely have time to do a full run down of everything. I certainly am not going to remember every unit, but that's just me. If you haven't played at a large event, it's round 1 at 9:00 AM, dice down at noon, score your game in BCP, run to the long lunch line and scarf down your chicken nuggets or over heated pizza before 12:30, find your next table and wheel your army to it as you dodge the other 299 players, hopefully look at your next opponent's list, start round 2, score your round and then have 15 minutes to rush to the next table along with the other 299 players, hopefully have time to read their list, play round 3. Repeat for Day 2.

It's go, go, go man. I love it, but I rarely have time to just sit and read lists, you know? However, I will always carry a printed out list and go through it from top to bottom, pointing at my units as I go. It would be next to impossible for me to make the mistake mentioned in the original post. It's a simplified Excel Spreadsheet that's a one-pager, not the 6-page behemoth that the old Army Builder would print.

Sorry for all of the edits.

Was this an event with open lists? Like you could check your opponents list before the game?
Because in this case I am just a little confused how nobody would not see that there is a model on the table that is not on the list.
Specially one that gives buffs and the people he played against being good players so one should recognize during the game that there is a model giving a buff that wasn't on the "kill list" after checking the opponents army


for the problem itself, after the event is done, not much you can do as a TO anyway as any adjustments on the ranking will cause troubles no matter what (like removing the player and give everyone who played against him a win will leave some people angry while just removing him from the final score upsets others), you only can give something to the people who played against him as apologies

To me it very much comes down to this: did this guy cheat, or did he blunder? If he blundered, then yeah, drop him, suspended ban ("yellow card" as someone else called it, is a good term for this - "we aren't punishing you but consider yourself officially warned") and adjust everyone else's standings accordingly.

But if he cheated, especially if he has a history of bad behavior? Then yeah, he should be banned, and if the FLG didn't do that because he's a friend, then that's a really bad look for them.

I can see ways it could have been a blunder, and I can also see ways it could have been deliberate. I think it also matters if someone else caught it, or if he self-reported first, and I'm seeing that mentioned both ways. Definitely don't punish someone who both blundered and reported themself - that disincentivizes honesty, and we don't want that. But OTOH, deliberate cheating and then the TOs covering for it is a really bad look. It's just not at all clear to me which one actually happened here.

I don't have much use for cheaters, but I think treating bunglers and deliberate cheaters the same way is also unfair. (Knowing wrongdoing gets punished - unintentional wrongs get compensated. This is also an important principle here.)