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Getting annoyed by a player in tournaments...


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8 minutes ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

I really, really hate playing against players who are like that. It totally ruins the game for me. Unfortunately for such opponents, if I sense someone is having me on with some rules interpretations/interactions I'm the first to start chest poking.

"You've moved within 10" of my Gryph Hound so I immediately get to fire with my handgunners."

"Sure thing fella, mind showing me the rules for that just for my reference?"

<Quick glance over warscroll>

"Says here that it's when the enemy deep strike, and that only Stormcast can shoot, mate. Seeing as you meet neither of these criteria, I reckon you're in trouble now."

I relish the argument that follows. I won't even lower it to a roll off. These types of player need to realise you can't just cheat your way through the game, and just argue your opponent into submission. Equally, I'd be asking to see the rules for every single synergy said opponent claimed to exist from then on!

It'd be a long game, but that's his or her choice, not mine.

The gryph-hound rules were changed for AoS2 (what you quoted) and its very likely those games were AoS1 (only 1 gryph hound, cant run 1 now), in addition the poster didnt know the rules either and hadnt actually played against the person in question, so we are on 2nd hand info about what actually happened at least. If the person is interpreting rules incorrectly then yes they need put straight, but what it really needs is someone to actually ensure the rules are interpreted correctly by an independent, which in a tournament (even a small store one) should be the TO.

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1 hour ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

I relish the argument that follows. I won't even lower it to a roll off. These types of player need to realise you can't just cheat your way through the game, and just argue your opponent into submission. Equally, I'd be asking to see the rules for every single synergy said opponent claimed to exist from then on!

It'd be a long game, but that's his or her choice, not mine.

Gonna do that from now on :)

Our rules say "You can not claim any synergy or rule, as you don't have the warscrolls with you at the tournament." That should be good to manage then :)

 

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2 hours ago, stato said:

 How many rounds do you have? what scenarios are you playing? how are the rankings organised each round?

 

We play 2 scenarios in variety ( but I actually don't know the english names for them ?

1) That "scorched earth" one, where you can deny the objectives on the enemie's side of the board

2) that one, where you gain 1 point for yours, 2 points in the middle and d3 in the enemy's territory



From what I see in generel now, it should be pretty possible to win against him. I would take into account, that the rules must be played correct, guess that's the main point, that bothers people.
The rest is the consequenz of that pretty much.

Me personally, with my Khorne army, I guess I could compete with him. Should be alright, due to the variety of different units I got :)

As for the matchmaking it is like that:

The players get matched in the following maner:

1st vs 2nd
3rd vs 4th
5th vs 6th

etc.

Then after the first game, the TO takes the value of victory points, that got earned via objectives in that game. Then, after he has them all form all players, it is calculated new, who ist 1st, 2nd, etc. now. The the matchmaking is like told before.

This goes that way, and the TO adds all earned points together liek:

1st game + 2nd game = ... points = ...place

We play 3 games, and this is how it works. From what I cans ay, the matchmaking is pretty good, as there are always players matched, that have a kind of equal skill to each other.

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1 hour ago, stato said:

The gryph-hound rules were changed for AoS2 (what you quoted) and its very likely those games were AoS1 (only 1 gryph hound, cant run 1 now), in addition the poster didnt know the rules either and hadnt actually played against the person in question, so we are on 2nd hand info about what actually happened at least. If the person is interpreting rules incorrectly then yes they need put straight, but what it really needs is someone to actually ensure the rules are interpreted correctly by an independent, which in a tournament (even a small store one) should be the TO.

The only change that was made for the Gryph-hound was that only Stormcast Eternals can use the Warning Cry, and that the firing units have to be wholly within the Gryph-Hound. The point that it only works against set-up units is there for 3 years (the entire time, the Gryph-Hound model exists).

So, firing at a unit that has moved into 10" was never possible.

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1 hour ago, peasant said:

Guo with Bell and blade

LoBlights

30 PlagueBearers 

5 putrid BlightKings

Profit!

Sounds like fun to me :D

We got a players that play that faction, I am gonna tell him that 100%, guess he will have interest in that tip.


What I think to do is, to bring a combination of 6 Khorgoraths, 2x3 Mighty SKullcrushers and 1 Lord of Khorne on juggernaut.
The plan is simply, to bring the 3 cavalry units / guys to his units and follow up with the khorgoraths, wich are all just on in their unit. And each one does -1 on the bravery, when they did damage, wich they will do.

So his army is pretty sure to run away :)

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The biggest thing you can do when something seems too good to be true is say "show me".  Get the warscrolls out (other than some battalions, you can even load them up for free on your own smartphone if it comes to it) and run through the details.

Any player who has worked out a legitimate combo will proudly show you exactly how it works.  If the combo is shady, the pride will fade and you might get evasion or fast-talking haha.

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3 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

The biggest thing you can do when something seems too good to be true is say "show me".  Get the warscrolls out (other than some battalions, you can even load them up for free on your own smartphone if it comes to it) and run through the details.

Any player who has worked out a legitimate combo will proudly show you exactly how it works.  If the combo is shady, the pride will fade and you might get evasion or fast-talking haha.

THIS. We have a guy sort of like the one OP described who plays at our local tables. Hes the type that conveniently misinterprets rules for himself a lot despite having played the game since launch. Every time he's tried something, a polite 'can you show me?' has pretty much always shut it down.

Now the fact that he wants to use little plastic toy army men as Freeguild gunners, on the other hand...

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33 minutes ago, Euphanism said:

THIS. We have a guy sort of like the one OP described who plays at our local tables. Hes the type that conveniently misinterprets rules for himself a lot despite having played the game since launch. Every time he's tried something, a polite 'can you show me?' has pretty much always shut it down.

Now the fact that he wants to use little plastic toy army men as Freeguild gunners, on the other hand...

The best part is it's really a win-win proposition.  Either it's shady and doesn't work, or it works and you've learned a new trick.

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39 minutes ago, Euphanism said:

THIS. We have a guy sort of like the one OP described who plays at our local tables. Hes the type that conveniently misinterprets rules for himself a lot despite having played the game since launch. Every time he's tried something, a polite 'can you show me?' has pretty much always shut it down.

Now the fact that he wants to use little plastic toy army men as Freeguild gunners, on the other hand...

Over the years I have found that people like this generally weed themselves out of the player pool over time as more and more people simply decline to play them.  I have seen a few cases bad enough where local events barred them from entry since it started to result in drastically reduced attendance.

Playing to win is fine, but in a game such as this winning should not have to come at the expense of your opponent enjoying the process.  Being hyper competitive is fine as well - as long as when you roll up to non-event games you make sure that you and your opponent understand each other's expectations for a game.  The objective of an individual game is to win via the game win conditions, but the goal of playing the game in the first place should be for all participants to have a good time. 

If the goal is not for everyone involved to have a good time then why are we even playing with little toy army mens?

The objective of winning should never be so important that people resort to cheating or poor sportsmanship.  I find that most people come to this conclusion over time or else they find their pool of opponents just gets smaller and smaller.  We are not Alexander the Great conquering persia - we are playing a semi-balanced game of make-believe with little toys.

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15 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

Over the years I have found that people like this generally weed themselves out of the player pool over time as more and more people simply decline to play them.  I have seen a few cases bad enough where local events barred them from entry since it started to result in drastically reduced attendance.

Playing to win is fine, but in a game such as this winning should not have to come at the expense of your opponent enjoying the process.  Being hyper competitive is fine as well - as long as when you roll up to non-event games you make sure that you and your opponent understand each other's expectations for a game.  The objective of an individual game is to win via the game win conditions, but the goal of playing the game in the first place should be for all participants to have a good time. 

If the goal is not for everyone involved to have a good time then why are we even playing with little toy army mens?

The objective of winning should never be so important that people resort to cheating or poor sportsmanship.  I find that most people come to this conclusion over time or else they find their pool of opponents just gets smaller and smaller.  We are not Alexander the Great conquering persia - we are playing a semi-balanced game of make-believe with little toys.

Very nice saied!

That's exactly what it is, and I try to prevent the players from splitting apart from that one player, so he doesn't sort out himself.

I mean, if the does so, because of his cheesy attitude, then it is what it is, But that's not the target to reach.

Each time, a player doesn't show up anymore, I am a little disappointed. Sometimes people come to the store, buy a lot of stuff and never show up for playing, because they play in a private community, people would have to pay for participating.

So that's why I try to get the people together on a sort of even base really.

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This is a tough issue. The issue of maintaining and building a community.  Your questions about the problem player have been addressed by others. 

Write a rules pack for your events that specifies what you expect and deals with issues that seem to be problematic.

I don't have an easy answer to the more general question about building a community.

My approach has  been:

1) Ask your players what they want to see happen in the store, and make sure to survey those that don't participate regularly in, in store events

-You may have to vary what you do. Sometimes it's a tournament sometimes it's a several month escalation league, sometimes it's open play. Different things attract different players.  I think right now in the post AoS2 release time frame an escalation league is a great idea to get new players started 

2) Set up a time to be there in the store and make sure you and a few other players are there every one of those times. Maybe it's a weekly league night. Maybe it's a once a month open play day.  Pick the interval and the timing and make sure if someone shows up looking for a game they are there.  

3) Recognize you aren't going to capture everyone playing in their basement - just keep building with the ones who want t o be part of your larger community and make sure everyone knows what a great time you are having.    A Facebook group or the like with weekly pics of people playing in the store can be pretty motivating.

 

 

 

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A few thoughts

1) One bad apple can kill a community faster than you think, its very difficult if that person isn't actually doing anything wrong. They might not be as humble or nice, but they also might not be insulting, breaking rules, cheating etc... They are just loads better and because they don't socialise outside of competitive events, they are an outsider.

2) Because they are an outsider they can easily become a focus of a groups ire. Quickly getting blamed for things that they don't even do; or considered malicious etc... Once that thinking sets in it spreads and even if that person does no wrong they are still viewed with a bad attitude - which builds on itself and makes the group not nice to be in which causes people to filter away. 

Yeah people are complicated to manage at times! 

Possible resolutions:

1) Impose new rules for competitive events which includes:

a) Must bring all rules for relevant models to the game store to game with. Simple and efficient and helps block many cheating or miss remembered rules. Note with the FAQ/Errata culture are present I would expect the TO to print off several copies of the main rule book errata/FAQ/etc.. and then at least one print off for each faction battletome and rule set - increasing that number by each faction you 100% know is going to turn up. This way you should have one of every bit of rules turn up to the event and you've printed off the online updates to hand out to players to make use of during the game.

This step arms you and them with the rules, keeps players up to date and helps resolve many issues quickly because you've got everything you need to hand to reference check. 

2) All conversions must be verified before competing - either photographs or bring the models into the store BEFORE the event. This helps cut down on conversion abuse and means that it should be cleared up before the event. It lets the TO judge on what is and isn't valid for a conversion for the game on an army by army basis and thus lets you rule on what can and can't be allowed. IF most gamers are turning up outside of tournament events then most of it will be done pretty casually. The idea here is that you are not banning conversions; you are ensuring that they are fair and easy to recognise for what they are (within the context of the players army) so that on the day no one gets disappointed. 

3) Change things up. As @gjnoronh said an escalation league can be a very fun way to draw new people in; encourage people to start or build on new armies and have repeat events that build up over time rather than just one-shot tournaments. It's also a neat way to build in other events. Eg early on you might have a painting day or a working with greenstuff day to help encourage people. This does mean that you might relax some rules on "all armies must be painted" for the first few events (its not fair to force everyone to paint a chunk of models and then have a painting day focused on helping them out, later) or that the first event isn't even a game but a workshop. 

4) Be impartial and keep written records of any and all reports and complaints aired against members. This helps you record keep and means that you're not running on "well so and so said last month that....". You're keeping a clear record that lets you keep yourself up to date with at least what you are told. 

5) Carrot before the Stick - if a member is repeatedly causing problems or malcontent then identify those issues and have a polite, quite word to them about it. No one else need know or be involved, but simply share what the issues are and approach it in a manner that you want to help them overcome these issues. If the person wants to they should react in a positive manner (after a bit of huffing and puffing); if they don't care or don't want to then it can be a moment where you get a clear sign of their intentions. 

6) Don't worry about people not buying models locally. If that person provides a game for others who are buying locally then its working in your favour. Of course if everyone/majority are not buying locally then you've got to address that; but a few shouldn't break things. 

7) Change things up. If you've got someone who is way above the normal skill level to the point where they win without trying and everyone hates it then instead of trying to get that person to "tone their armies down" "play worse" or try to remove them from the community; instead embrace it (if they are receptive to it of course). Shift things around and make them a judge/TO/official. Encourage them the run their own teaching nights and to help other players improve their game. Again if the person wants the community to grow and wants to be a part of it (however great or little) then this is a far more positive way to maximise what you get from them; whilst removing them from the competing element and without being cruel. 

8 if all else fails or if the person reacts in a hostile/malicious/uncaring way then its time to consider ejecting them from attending future events. This might simply be a ban on attending competing events; or could be a full event/store ban. 

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44 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

2) Set up a time to be there in the store and make sure you and a few other players are there every one of those times. Maybe it's a weekly league night. Maybe it's a once a month open play day.  Pick the interval and the timing and make sure if someone shows up looking for a game they are there.  

This is a good one - for a newcomer to walk in and see people there in the store, playing games; this can be a huge selling point.

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Best way to beat a freeguild Great Company is not charge the freeguild Guard, he has to have those guard more than 3 inches out and no enemies within 3 inches of the crossbowman supporting FOR them to support so if your within those 3 inches they cant support, so generally you want to flank and get to the shooters just beware the crossbows have a piper so they have there own ability to shoot at a charging unit ONCE per TURN. and if no enemy unit is within 3inches of them they get 2attacks instead of 1. Plus if you kill his general he gets no buffs.  I'm gunna drop some links on you so you can take a look in case I explained like ****** xP



https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos- warscroll-freeguild-general-en.pdf
https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-freeguild-crossbowmen-en.pdf

and this is the rules of the great company
.The unit lending support is more than 3" from the enemy 
.The unit being supported is within 3" from the enemy 
.The two units are wholly within 12" of each other

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Thank you for that great advice!

@Overread
@gjnoronh

I appreciate your efforts, and you're totally right.
All of you are right in their ways!

The TO was concidering this solutions from now on:

1 ) He is gonna make the player registration, publishing of the tournamentrule now store exclusive.
That means, players have to got there at least once to fill their names in the list and see the actual rules.
So payers, that only showed up, when they saw the tournament on facebook would have to come there, to be able to participate. Noone can fill someone's else's name into the formular.

2 ) A new rules set should prevent misunderstandings.
There it is clearly statet, how conversions are handled etc. I could translate the prototype of these rules:

"Age Of Sigmar Turnierregelungen

§1 New players are very welcome to our tournaments!

§2 We play armies on a base of 1000 points.

§3 "What you see, is what you get!" Units and equipment must be 100% able to identify. That includes conversions, as each units, that is officialy published by GW.

§4 Models and rules from Forgeworld are not allowed.

§5 The rules for open battles apply. ( don't know the correct english translation here )

§6 The actual scenario will be "..." .

§7 The amount of players, participating in the tournament should not be less than 4 players. Otherwise the tournament might be declined.

§8 All rules, warscroll or battletomes has to be with you in any written from, even though it's on an official app! You can not use rules, that you can not prove!

§9 The armylists have to be present at the day of the tournament in a written form. You can write them yourown, or use GW's officialy supported "Warscroll Builder".

§10 All miniatures have to be on adequate round bases. Use the official base chart, that GW published, if you need further information. Or ask our store manager, or the administrator if you need help with it.


§11 Self built miniatures are not allowed, but you may use conversions. If the difference is not clear, don't hestitate to ask the administrator!
 

§12 Each registration can only me made by yourwon! Noone may fill in another's name in any way.

§13 Models, that can only be used once in your army are not allowed in this tournament..

§14 For each tournament a charge of 5€ is obligatory. With this money, the prices are being payed.


I am very happy to see you all in the next tournament, and I am curious what great armies you gonna bring. It's gonna be a funny round again, that's sure. :)

Best regards,


Administrator"

 

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@Carnivore - ignoring the translation aspects (since I assume its clearer in native tongue) a few thoughts:

1) "Models and rules from Forgeworld are not allowed." Don't forget that FW makes upgrade packs for official models as well and also makes some alternate sculpts for codex/battletome models. It might be better to clarify that FW models are allowed, but only when their rules are in the GW battletome/Codex (No FW Unique models/units).

2) Point 11 sounds a little specific with regard to self built. It might be easier to suggest that all conversions must be approved before use. This helps avoid having to have arguments on how many parts counts as "self built" (esp if the build uses all GW parts) and leaves the rule down to interpretation of the TO when they actually see the models.  

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Up to you but I think the register in person thing is probably going too far personally.

You want more bodies at your tournaments not less.    Set rules that deal with the problem behaviors. Once that's done how they register isn't going to matter.  

The tournament I run uses the rules found on the following page:

http://www.daboyzgt.com/fantasy/

 

Feel free to crib anything you like.   

 

As a general point also make sure you have enough terrain on your tables.  Gunline armies do better with less terrain and scenarios that reward defensive play.  

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15 minutes ago, gjnoronh said:

Up to you but I think the register in person thing is probably going too far personally.

You want more bodies at your tournaments not less.    Set rules that deal with the problem behaviors. Once that's done how they register isn't going to matter.  

The tournament I run uses the rules found on the following page:

http://www.daboyzgt.com/fantasy/

 

Feel free to crib anything you like.   

 

As a general point also make sure you have enough terrain on your tables.  Gunline armies do better with less terrain and scenarios that reward defensive play.  

Agree with that, we have a GW store that does this for all of his events.  You have to go to the store to get info on the event and to register, all its done is caused most people to stop showing up to events.  All it does is create a needless hassle and depending on location it could be a pain in the ass to get to the store during the week etc.

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Hmmmmm. good arguments. I will have a look at the rules set from gjnoronh and maybe copy some stuff there ;)

@Drofnum Fairly reasonable. I guess I am gonna try out to contact that player, just to inform him, that he maybe could take lists, that are also suitable for our beginners to play against.

Gotta think about it now a little. I will write, what I think tomorrow I guess, gotta take some thoughts here and there to make it suitable for all our players.

Thank you all very much, it really helps a lot!

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I guess the final factor is that if there are prizes for winning, prizes with actual value (product, store credit, etc.), it's going to be a hard sell to convince someone to hold back.  And maybe it's not fair to do so. 

Shady rules interpretations or questionable proxies are one thing, a hard-as-nails strong but fair list is a different thing.

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1 hour ago, amysrevenge said:

I guess the final factor is that if there are prizes for winning, prizes with actual value (product, store credit, etc.), it's going to be a hard sell to convince someone to hold back.  And maybe it's not fair to do so. 

Shady rules interpretations or questionable proxies are one thing, a hard-as-nails strong but fair list is a different thing.

The tournaments a friend of mine runs locally use random prize support to completely separate winning from rewards. That is intended to encourage a more casual approach to the tournaments and has worked well so far. 

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I also highly recommend looking at the Narrative Event approach when mixing up your events  

https://wearetheneon.com/

 

For the NEON event I ran in March I had a number of awards beyond just winning on the battlefield.  Killing opponents generals, slaying behemoths, best theme, best sportsman, best painted.   

 

I use best sports, best painted  awards in my competitive events and my largest award is the 'overall' which includes paint, sports and battle.  I also offer a best general award for the players who just care about the tabletop results alone.   Including those awards will tend to shift player behavior from 'most broken' to coolest looking most fun to play against.  

 

 

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On 7/24/2018 at 5:59 PM, Carnivore said:

So many great advice :)

Thank you already, to all of you!

Well, the thing is not only, that he play another list each time, that noone could ever win against...the thing is also his geneell attitude with that.

People where complaining, that he is kind of arrogant too. They told, that they have the feeling, that he always knows, that he will win, and acts like that pretty harsh. In our local, very small, community that's a problem.

Next thing is, that he doesn't even support the local store, and he also never shows up for normal games. So people can not gain experience aginst him. The thing with the support of our store is, that we use our GW's location for our tournaments. Everyone buys his products here, but he doesn't.

No, in fact he doesn't buy any models. What he does is, to buy the easy to build models from the stormcasts anywhere and converting them in whatever he wants to.
He imitated a Lord Azyros with a standart Prosecutor, that he attached a sword from an elve to, and a lantern from an artillery unit, that I never saw before.
SOme of his units doesn't even have the correct bases. That's what annoys the players too.

They ask sometimes "Why do I even buy my models here, that I wanna play? Seems like I could convert anything to anything." And that's not optimal in terms of supporting our local store.

Then his rule sets, that he seems to misinterpret, come to that too.

So, in generell, the playbase describes him as being "cheesy" and WAAC ( win at all cost ). Because he likes to discuss the opponent's rules and to interpret those different, as it is obviously written sometimes.

What's also important is, that we have beginners in our tournaments, that just started the game. And the gameplay with him is often a bad example for those. So they get discouraged very easy.

Cheers ///

Again, I appreciate the help very much! :)

So I know he doesn't usually come to the store, but if someone brought in something like this, misinterpreted rules and just wanted to try and be a pompous butthead, then people just wouldn't play with him.

We also have a rule in my area that if you happen to get the lowest Best and Fairest score twice in a row at tournaments then you are not allowed to compete in the next one. Furthermore he shouldn't even be at the tournament if he is using incorrect bases and models that aren't clearly different from other models and are approved by the TO before the day.

But on the other hand plenty of people have given you good advice here on lists geared to take down what he's trying to play... so good luck! :D

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