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Take-backs and Sportsmanship

Started by Waaaghpower, April 23, 2014, 07:01:17 AM

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Waaaghpower

Tonight was the last game in a 40k league which I am a part of, and so far has been the only game that I really didn't have fun. Being the final game, I decided it would be heresy not to bring my Wolf Lord/Leader of my Chapter. (Homebrew fluff behind him, suffice to say that a Thunderwolf lord and a retinue of Twolvesleads my chapter...) I also brought an Inquiditor with Psycollum, 5 Plasma Cannons, 5 Missile Launchers, and Tigurius. (I'm not going to bother writing out full lists here.) My opponent (Who for anonymity's sake will be reffered to as 'Zagstruk') brought screamerstar and a Hellturkey, including the two-headed anti-aquilla reroll-guy. (I call him THAARG!) Fair enough, I am 8-0, so I expect a challenging game. Perhaps I hadn't planned for something this cheesy, since everyone else has brought fairly TAC fluff-lists, but no problem. I can fight it, I've got a Rune Priest and some neat tricks up my sleeve.

Right off the bat, though, Zagstruk thought that Fateweaver (THAARG!) could use Psychic powers from both heads, (I had to borrow his codex to explain it to him,) and then he forgot to use psychic powers and started moving. Since he brought Screamerstar, got first turn, and should have known better (He's been playing for ages and brough SCREAMERSTAR) I didn't let him take it back. Next, he whiffed both his Grimoire, and its reroll. Ouch for him, but he got really pissed at me for not letting him take back his roll.
I did, though, warn him about all the tricks I had up my sleeve. I explained how Rune Priests and Psycollum worked (Even though, once again, he's been playing three times as long as me), essentially told him what I was going to do, and clued him in as to what he should kill. Instead of Zagstruk shooting at any other target, I lost my Plasma Cannons and Inquisitor because I let him know that they were by far his best target. Between first blood, warlord, and killpoints, he took a 4 point lead righy away.

One assault phase, 9 dead screamers, and several looked-up rules later, Zagstruk flew his Helldrake about 12" on board, right in front of somr Grey Hunters I had deep struck. He flamed them, killing 8, and did all his other shooting. We resolved combat with the Grimoire bearer, (I killed him, obviously,) and it was my turn.
I started measuring so I could assault the hovering Helldrake, and asked him why he hadn't zoomed it. At this comment, he said that he had. I showed him the rule saying you had to move at least 18", and he tried to move his helldrake so that it was zooming, a full player turn later. I told him he couldn't do that, and he promptly quit, saying he 'Wasn't in the right mindset for this kind of the game.' Then he told me that since we were in a non-competitive league, (With prizes and an entry fee), I should have let him take those things back, not looked up the rules so much, etc.

I pointed out that he brought screamerstar to a 'non-competitive' league, at which point Zagstruk told me that if he had brought his Eldar I totally would have lost, but he didn't bring it because this was a friendly game. (I had also quite obviously not brought my A-list, seeing as I took a Thunderwolf deathstar, no AA save an Icarus, and only 3 troops squads...)


My question is, at what point do you stop allowing takebacks? I put my foot down immediately, mainly to spite him fortaking a Thunderwolf star, but this put him in a bad mood for the rest of the game. If I had let him have those takebacks, he still would have been semi-vulnerable because of the Grimoire whiffing (though I had no way of knowing at the time), and he probably wouldn't have been pissy with me all game. (And he also probably wouldn't have gotten annoyed every time I cross checked a rule that sounded odd. Y'know, after he got multiple rules wrong before turn one...)
I also quite possibly would have lost. With his Screamerstar putting out enough firepower to utterly slaughter any one unit every turn, I had pretty much nothing to stop it. The Grimoire whiff would have helped, but I wouldn't have taken the squad off the board turn, just damaged all of the body shields. I might still have won the league with an 8-1 record, but I don't know for sure about that.

Should I have let it slide? Should I have let the thing with the Helldrake slide? Should I have worn a sombrero to the game? Am I including vaguely witty or ramdom comments to spice up what is essentially a long post where I bitch about an annoying game while wondering if I wasn't the one being a jerk, not him?
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The Man They Call Jayne

The rules are the rules. Once you have been playing for more than a few months "properly", then you should damn well know how that stuff works.
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CoffeeGrunt

We have a player or two like that. One guy, a Necron player, constantly snipes every rule you bring up with a tone like you just made it up to bulls*** him. I remember his incredulous screaming when I declared my Pathfinders were going to use Supporting Fire on his Scarabs that were charging my Allies' Land Raider. After reading the rules to him several times, letting him snatch my Codex, helping his reading comprehension, getting the rest of the store to read it to him, he finally understood it. He then declared it ridiculous cheese, even as I pointed out that he runs Necrons.

Another guy - also a Tau player, depending on what netlist he's trying lately - will be fairly nice up until you kill the keystone unit of his strategy. There's always one unit he's fadding about, and he'll relentlessly talk about how awesome they are for weeks until everyone just starts shooting them on sight. After they die, he starts throwing dice to save like a petulant child and makes snarky, whiny comments about everything.

I straight-up refuse to play either of them nowadays.
The only constant in the universe is change; the Wise adapt.

Pilum

I dunno Waagh, I'll generally let psychics slide - mainly because I can be pretty bad for forgetting exactly when they get cast sometimes myself, or move a unit and then think "oh yeah, Warlock/Special Ability X" (Especially if it's something I don't usually take) - and as I invariably only play 'friendlies' with long-term buddies it's no big deal, quid pro quo and all that. But adjusting movement? Especially a turn later? Nah... But equally it depends on the opponent as you said. I can think of one or two people who, while otherwise reasonable souls, I would not give an inch to as they're savage little rules lawyers when they want to be.
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Charistoph

Apparently they didn't know it was a League game?   ???

But, yeah, in friendly one-offs, I use them as training moments (even for myself), and even preface with it "for future reference...".

But if there are prizes involved, it's not going to be a friendly game, especially when a person is a known veteran (first time competition, a little slack may be involved). 

It also sounds like this guy hadn't played 6th Edition at all up to this point with all those mistakes he wanted to take back, or had some really generous (i.e. incompetent) trainers who fed him bad information and never read the book in the first place.
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Deraj

The most confusing part to me was 'taking back rolls.' Conceptually he wanted you to... let him keep rerolling until he made his roll? Why even roll then? Why play warhammer then?

Takebacks such as 'I miss X phase' I'll normally allow my opponent to go back to during the next phase, but not 2 phases later, IE moving during a shooting phase. I'd even allow that during competitive play as long as my opponent isn't annoying.

With someone complaining that much about cheese and telling you how good they are you should just do everything in your power to make the game go exactly by the rules and stomp him as hard as you can, as you did. I don't like my opponent being in a book the whole game, but if it's because I screwed up, it makes sense. Just don't lose sight of the fact that first and foremost warhammer is a game. Find some way to have fun with it. If your opponent is being pissy just make that fun needling him until he rage quits. (Can you tell that after dealing with enough players just like this that I've moved past being a nice teacher? :P )

Waaaghpower

When I said 'Taking back rolls' I mainly meamt it as in 'I forgot X roll, I'm going to take it now.'
Also, I *did* let several moments slide. Namely when he was moving his screamerstar, he moved that squad around like three times during the phase before finally moving on. (As I warned him about the various and many threats I had brought along.)


After the game, he went and talked to a couple friends of his, who made some less-than-subtle comments to me later on. (Under the guise of showing me how to plwy a friendly game...) Such gems as my asking how the game went, and friend A. responding "I won, and in such a way that he'll want to play me again. And that's what it's all about, right?"

So... Yeah. I talked to a couple other people later on who said he was a 'bit' of a powergamer.
Super Mario 3D World is The. Best. Thing.

Naser Al-Istikhara Cyrus

I'll rarely allow takebacks, unless it's a minor thing (redoing a move in the same movement phase or something) but skipping things is bad luck.)

He sounds like a funcrusher in terms of the game. Giving you crap for him not knowing the rules is immature and kinda sad. Not to mention the sore loser he comes across as. If you only play 40k to win, you may as well just play against yourself.

But it's not an uncommon sight, as the others here have stated. Every club's got em.

Best way to enjoy a game, i've found, is not to talk about the game so much directly. The game shouldn't be all "dont move there i have x unit". Establish rapport, or talk about the events that are happening in the game, but both players should leave eachother to their own tactics during the game - people need to work that out for themselves. Example, when i shoot with orks, and get awful rolls (1/10 hits or something) i proclaim that the guns were fired while aimed straight up in the air!

But in saying that not all players will enjoy that kind of game. If people play to win, they'll likely be playing to win until the end of time.
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You make it sound like it could be wearing a top-hat and monocle, but for the sole reason it'd have been painted by Gareth that it would still look terrifying........I have to say I agree. XD
Quote from: Greg Mun

Wargamer

I'll generally allow rules to slide if doing so has no real impact on play. Or in some cases, makes the game more fair.

For example, with Fantasy you are meant to cast spells before shooting, but I realised pretty quickly you could use wizards as "spotters" for Artillery (back when you had to guess distances), and so I would often fire my artillery at the start of the magic phase before casting spells, especially ones that involved checking ranges.
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People who have no sense of Sportsmanship have NO PLACE designing any Gaming system