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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.)

General question for people who regularly attend tournaments on this one - why would you pack and bring a model that isn't part of your list to a tournament?

 Dysartes wrote:
General question for people who regularly attend tournaments on this one - why would you pack and bring a model that isn't part of your list to a tournament?

To be fair on that count if I'm bring my stuff in a case I'm not taking stuff out of the case unless I need to make room. So there is a very real possibility of me having at least a few models that aren't in my actual table top force if I have to travel for real. Across town or something that's not an issue as my stuff just goes on the tray.

 Dysartes wrote:
General question for people who regularly attend tournaments on this one - why would you pack and bring a model that isn't part of your list to a tournament?

As I mentioned above, the usual cause of this is that the model is ubiquitous enough to the list that you just assume you actually put it in the list. It's not "extra" it was probably the first thing they mentally added and just didn't actually write it down. Still their mistake and you should always audit your list and models, but it happens more often than you'd think.

I don't completely believe that a tournament player at a two day event would never notice that he had an extra unit, but whatever.

It doesn't matter if he intended to cheat or not, it's a players responsibility to make sure his army is legal. Events do not have the time to double check your opponents lists, or rules, or whatever. 40k is a social game and you need to have some trust to really play it. This was a qualifier and at some point things become serious enough that it's okay to recognize that there is actual harm done through his actions.

I don't know what the appropriate sanction would be, but FLG's "we're all good dawg" is an underreaction in my opinion.

Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Intentionally? Of course not. Intent varies a lot from person to person though so the answer ends up being "it depends".

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Intentionally? Of course not. Intent varies a lot from person to person though so the answer ends up being "it depends".

Let's say that you are in a tournament setting, and they (the TOs) announce that your next opponent was someone who was caught cheating at an earlier tournament...

What are your options?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Yes.

Confident enough in my own skills as a player that an extra model makes little difference.

More importantly, I read people's lists at the start of a game and would have noticed an extra Helbrute on the table.

Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

Big "Well what was she wearing at that party" energy here.

I think if six straight players didn't audit the list, that's probably a reliable look into how competitive players approach it. Given the hard time caps, I think may players would rather spend that time on the game than double checking their opponents list. Especially since the cheating unit is very common in the army archtype he was playing. (For those that don't know, Pactbound Zealots lets units score critical hits on a 5+ for either melee or combat while using buff coded to their mark. What the helbrute does is that it allows the unit to take both buffs, which means it will always trigger the 5+ regardless of which buff you want to pick. So in the proper phase, the unit gets Lethals and sustained ones on a 5+.)

 Hulksmash wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
General question for people who regularly attend tournaments on this one - why would you pack and bring a model that isn't part of your list to a tournament?

To be fair on that count if I'm bring my stuff in a case I'm not taking stuff out of the case unless I need to make room. So there is a very real possibility of me having at least a few models that aren't in my actual table top force if I have to travel for real. Across town or something that's not an issue as my stuff just goes on the tray.

Might just be a me thing from the few times I attended WM/H events, but I wouldn't be wanting to deal with the extra weight, let alone the risk of fielding the wrong thing.

Weight being less of a factor in general these days, admittedly, given the young whipper-snappers and their plastic models...

 Polonius wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

Big "Well what was she wearing at that party" energy here.

I think if six straight players didn't audit the list, that's probably a reliable look into how competitive players approach it. Given the hard time caps, I think may players would rather spend that time on the game than double checking their opponents list. Especially since the cheating unit is very common in the army archtype he was playing. (For those that don't know, Pactbound Zealots lets units score critical hits on a 5+ for either melee or combat while using buff coded to their mark. What the helbrute does is that it allows the unit to take both buffs, which means it will always trigger the 5+ regardless of which buff you want to pick. So in the proper phase, the unit gets Lethals and sustained ones on a 5+.)

This is why it got missed by everyone. Opponents, TOs and likely the player himself. The model isn't an "extra", its core to the identity of the list itself and its absence would be more questionable than its inclusion. The Helbrute is supposed to be there. The problem is that since it wasn't added, its points got distributed into the rest of the list as there being just a little too much other stuff, but likely not a clean obvious addition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Intentionally? Of course not. Intent varies a lot from person to person though so the answer ends up being "it depends".

Let's say that you are in a tournament setting, and they (the TOs) announce that your next opponent was someone who was caught cheating at an earlier tournament...

What are your options?

Well, since its actually happened to me several times both as the player and as the TO:

1. Do not argue with your opponent. When game state questions arise immediately call the TO and have them adjudicate. Keep them involved both as it limits the opportunity for cheating and gives the TO what they need to act.
2. Play clean. Announce your actions and intentions and make sure you communicate everything you do. Avoid casual niceties like take backs or at the very least NEVER expect them in return.
3. Focus on your opponent's actions and watch for attempts to distract you. Ask questions and force them to communicate in response.

Lets be honest. Games against cheaters aren't fun and can absolutely ruin an otherwise great day. Sometimes the answer is legitimately to forfeit. I don't tend to because I like to beat cheaters, but honestly winning events isn't really worth anything and I have had days where I just want to have fun and have absolutely just walked away from a miserable couple hours of babysitting.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Yes.

Confident enough in my own skills as a player that an extra model makes little difference.

More importantly, I read people's lists at the start of a game and would have noticed an extra Helbrute on the table.

Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

It's a tough question. Who's the real cheater? The person who cheated, or those who didn't? Hmmm...

 techsoldaten wrote:

More importantly, I read people's lists at the start of a game and would have noticed an extra Helbrute on the table.

Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

I'll accept at face value that you're a pro-player who would instantly spot an extra model on the table. Kudos and hat tips, all around.

The part in bold I will not accept. As I mentioned in my post about 6 above this, tournaments are go, go, go. There is barely any time between rounds to do more than a glance at your next opponent's list.

1. For us more novice players, there is little chance that we'd notice that there was an extra dreadnought on the table. Yeah, I get it. "Get good". F that noise. That's victim blaming at its finest.
2. Half of my opponents pulled units out of a case as they were deployed. They were not pulling them out as we went over each other's lists before the game. Close to zero chance of me catching a single unit that was different from the list.
3. For us more novice players, we're not as accustomed to glancing at the table and noticing an extra 150 point unit as we don't have all of the codecies we don't play memorized. Its not a reasonable expectation.

Slipspace wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Yes.

Confident enough in my own skills as a player that an extra model makes little difference.

More importantly, I read people's lists at the start of a game and would have noticed an extra Helbrute on the table.

Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

It's a tough question. Who's the real cheater? The person who cheated, or those who didn't? Hmmm...

None of the opponents cheated. 6 of them never bothered to read his list.

Honesty takes effort from both sides. The necessary level of effort is proportional to the risk of a bad outcome.

If you buy a car or a house, you get it inspected. If you take out a loan, the bank checks your credit. If you apply to college, the school checks your academic transcripts. If you apply for a secure position, the government checks your background. All this happens to ensure both sides get what they want in the deal.

Is someone a bad person because they were turned down for a loan, or because they didn't get into a school, or because they have something disqualifying in their background? No, of course not. These are often qualitative decisions, no harm in applying.

But what about spending a lot of money on a car or closing on a house that wasn't inspected, does that make you a bad person? Yeah, kind of. At the very least, people would know you shouldn't be trusted with money. They wouldn't want to hear your complaints because it wasn't worth your time to do something important to making sure you got a good deal.

The cost of a tournament is an entry fee and a weekend of your time. That's worth something, at least it's worth a couple minutes at the beginning of every game checking out what your opponent has. Plus you know what they actually brought, which is an advantage going into a game.

The whole situation could have been avoided if the first opponent simply said, let me see your list then checked what's on the table. It's not like this is the first person to put something extra on the table, whether it's because he's absent minded or a cheater. The reason doesn't really matter, none of us are mind readers. I'd be willing to bet he wasn't the only person with extra models on the table at that tournament.

I think the TOs did the right thing in taking away his tournament victory and not banning him because everyone has a part to play in keeping things honest. Heaping all this blame on him is unfair if no one else bothered to actually check what he brought until after the tournament. I'd be in favor of a rule stating all results final, players are required to check each others list at the start of each game. Mostly because this drama is such a departure from every other interaction in life where honesty is required to ensure good outcomes.

The first person who should be held responsible for not making sure the right list was on the table is the person using the list - everyone else is secondary at best in that regard. It ties in to why I asked about taking extra models with you to an event - if you've only packed what you're using this can't happen.

I am mildly curious about the list this person was meant to be using - were there any Helbrutes in it at all? I could certainly see it being easier to miss that there were 2 instead of 1, or 3 instead of 2, if you were expecting to see one on the table.

 Dysartes wrote:
The first person who should be held responsible for not making sure the right list was on the table is the person using the list - everyone else is secondary at best in that regard. It ties in to why I asked about taking extra models with you to an event - if you've only packed what you're using this can't happen.

I am mildly curious about the list this person was meant to be using - were there any Helbrutes in it at all? I could certainly see it being easier to miss that there were 2 instead of 1, or 3 instead of 2, if you were expecting to see one on the table.

There were none in his official list.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would you play in a Tournament game with a person who did this?

Yes.

Confident enough in my own skills as a player that an extra model makes little difference.

More importantly, I read people's lists at the start of a game and would have noticed an extra Helbrute on the table.

Missing in this conversation is the responsibility of the people who played in this tournament without taking that basic precaution. Keeping games honest takes effort from both sides, unfair to heap all the blame on this dude.

It's a tough question. Who's the real cheater? The person who cheated, or those who didn't? Hmmm...

None of the opponents cheated. 6 of them never bothered to read his list.

Honesty takes effort from both sides.

No, it doesn't. This is a weird take. Honesty is just not lying. That takes effort from one side.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Spoiler:

If you buy a car or a house, you get it inspected. If you take out a loan, the bank checks your credit. If you apply to college, the school checks your academic transcripts. If you apply for a secure position, the government checks your background. All this happens to ensure both sides get what they want in the deal.

Is someone a bad person because they were turned down for a loan, or because they didn't get into a school, or because they have something disqualifying in their background? No, of course not. These are often qualitative decisions, no harm in applying.

But what about spending a lot of money on a car or closing on a house that wasn't inspected, does that make you a bad person? Yeah, kind of. At the very least, people would know you shouldn't be trusted with money. They wouldn't want to hear your complaints because it wasn't worth your time to do something important to making sure you got a good deal.

The cost of a tournament is an entry fee and a weekend of your time. That's worth something, at least it's worth a couple minutes at the beginning of every game checking out what your opponent has. Plus you know what they actually brought, which is an advantage going into a game.

The whole situation could have been avoided if the first opponent simply said, let me see your list then checked what's on the table. It's not like this is the first person to put something extra on the table, whether it's because he's absent minded or a cheater. The reason doesn't really matter, none of us are mind readers. I'd be willing to bet he wasn't the only person with extra models on the table at that tournament.

I think the TOs did the right thing in taking away his tournament victory and not banning him because everyone has a part to play in keeping things honest. Heaping all this blame on him is unfair if no one else bothered to actually check what he brought until after the tournament. I'd be in favor of a rule stating all results final, players are required to check each others list at the start of each game. Mostly because this drama is such a departure from every other interaction in life where honesty is required to ensure good outcomes.

That's a lot of words, and terrible analogies, to try to shift the blame away from the person cheating. I'm not even sure this would have been avoided had player 1 pointed out the error. If you're the sort of cheater who will try to pass off an illegal list on an opponent, there's at least a 50/50 chance he'd own up to his "mistake" then try it again in game 2. At any rate, you're basically still saying the opponents are part of the problem here, which is absurd.

Slipspace wrote:
That's a lot of words, and terrible analogies, to try to shift the blame away from the person cheating. I'm not even sure this would have been avoided had player 1 pointed out the error. If you're the sort of cheater who will try to pass off an illegal list on an opponent, there's at least a 50/50 chance he'd own up to his "mistake" then try it again in game 2. At any rate, you're basically still saying the opponents are part of the problem here, which is absurd.

Since you don't like a lot of words, let me use fewer to make this simpler to understand.

1 guy had an extra model in every game. 6 people failed to check his list.

The entire situation could have been avoided if 1 person checked his list.

"Shift the blame" - no. Believe it's dumb not to check a list at the start of a game - yes.

Well, we don't know if 6 people failed to check the lists
We don't even know if there was a list people could have checked or if the list they could have checked was the right one

You could also assume that there was a wrong list and people just failed to quickly calculate the points to see that there was too many models

Or people actually checked and were convinced that everything is alright but they were making a mistake.

We are missing too much here to make make any conclusions if someone failed except the one who brought too many models

 techsoldaten wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
That's a lot of words, and terrible analogies, to try to shift the blame away from the person cheating. I'm not even sure this would have been avoided had player 1 pointed out the error. If you're the sort of cheater who will try to pass off an illegal list on an opponent, there's at least a 50/50 chance he'd own up to his "mistake" then try it again in game 2. At any rate, you're basically still saying the opponents are part of the problem here, which is absurd.

Since you don't like a lot of words, let me use fewer to make this simpler to understand.

1 guy had an extra model in every game. 6 people failed to check his list.

The entire situation could have been avoided if 1 person checked his list.

"Shift the blame" - no. Believe it's dumb not to check a list at the start of a game - yes.

6 people failed to check a list in 1 of their games, and none of their other games in the entire tournament had any problems.

1 person failed to check his list in every single one of his games, whilst using an illegal list in all of those games. I can't help but feel the real onus is on the 1 guy to check his own list as he is the problem in every single one of the games in question.

This is like saying it is up to every individual runner in a race to check their opponents aren't doping, rather than, you know, the organisation that is putting on the event in question.

So I have done this. In a blood bowl tourney, my teams are all packed away and get unpacked as and when. I took undead to a tourney and got my wires crossed in a very sleep deprived brain, somehow thinking the extra zombie I had packed to cover raise the dead was actually in my team list. This came up second game when I raised the dead, and discovered I was already using said zombie, having used it in the first game as well (and won, and was winning this game). All I could do was apologise profusely, concede the game and go tell the organiser. They changed my first round opponent score to a win (and he went on to get a prize, I forget which, arguably he got a boost from an easier game than he should have had in round 2).

If it never was spotted? And I got a prize? If anyone worked it out as presumably I wouldn't have ever realised (though day two I hope I would have having had some sleep) I would have had those prizes taken back. Would I have deserved to be banned though?

Does mean I check rosters now before starting if I am at a tourney, mine and my opponents.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
6 people failed to check a list in 1 of their games, and one of their other games in the entire tournament had any problems.

1 person failed to check his list in every single one of his games, whilst using an illegal list in all of those games. I can't help but feel the real onus is on the 1 guy to check his own list as he is the problem in every single one of the games in question.

This is like saying it is up to every individual runner in a race to check their opponents aren't doping, rather than, you know, the organisation that is putting on the event in question.

My guess is no people checked a list before a game in that tournament, and that's just the way things are done down there.

I have seen every kind of genuine mistake and earnest attempt to bend the rules this game has to offer.

Were I to hold people to the standard you're talking about, that would make about 20% of the people I've ever played a cheat. Thing is, skills in math and painting do not always go together. It's important to accept people get things wrong and act accordingly.

But to claim 40k players have to either prepare perfectly for each match or be banished from the game forever as a cheat - that is knuckledraggingly stupid. Hard to imagine how awful a player someone has to be to look at the game this way.

Feels like the TOs did the right thing taking back the award after the problem was noticed. But they should have banned the people he played against for creating this situation. At least for a year or two, maybe pending completion of a remedial reading comprehension course.

Every event I have participated in the first thing that is done is check each others list, generally inputting it into an army builder at the same time so I have their rules on hand and this is standard practice.
Have had three people ever have mistakes in their list, one using too many limited options and two using incorrect formations.

 Dysartes wrote:

I am mildly curious about the list this person was meant to be using - were there any Helbrutes in it at all? I could certainly see it being easier to miss that there were 2 instead of 1, or 3 instead of 2, if you were expecting to see one on the table.

The list archetype he was running always has 1 hellbrute as part of its combo. It's most likely the first thing anyone would add to the list and I suspect everyone including the player in question just assumed it was on the list. The issue is it was never put on the list and instead there's 130 points distributed out into the rest of the army that would have been cut down instead.