8th Ed. On Sportsmanship

[Ixt]

What's good sportsmanship for Fantasy?

Prior to this arena, I played a lot of 40k. My skin's gone green, and my fists sore from klompin'!

Anyway, my gaming group saw that most people had to proxy at least one or two things because they lacked either the time or money to do the intense modeling/painting/modifying that closed lists sort of call for.

It was rare to go without a proxy in friendly matches (as in, non-tournament).

I guess that rather than hoping for opponents to remember this tiny item or special rule someone had that could change the game that was scarcely mentioned during deployment, someone decided it'd be best for everyone if we'd open our lists. No hassle this way, and everyone can have a pretty good time - that seemed to be the idea, that winning should come second to both players having fun.

So, I'm uncertain as to whether it's 'the rule' or 'the exception' at large, but my gaming group played with open lists. Nobody left frazzled because their opponent refused to inform them about a special rule, magic item, or whatever. There were no bad times had, and I think that the opportunity to know a bit about your opponent beforehand helped players grow as generals.

While Warhammer is seemingly meant as an immersive narrative, it's always been a hybrid between that and a social event in my experience: people don't always know the rules (sometimes shocking when I've confused some) from the base rules or between armybooks, proxies happen, special rules forgotten, models placed 1 millimeter into exposing flank-facing when they were intended for front-facing (a big one for me, early on in Fantasy), go unaware of standard wargear, so on.

So, I have to ask: in a friendly environment, what do you guys call good sportsmanship? Do you see it at all different from a tournament scene?

I'm bringing it up because in my last match (a 2v2 amongst friends, one of whom is visiting the three of us), my opponent (a friend of this friend) was actually refusing to answer most of our questions. Even simple things, "What's the armor save of that model?," "What's his stat line like?"

Early in the game, I placed my Saurus to block up the middle of the board by engaging some trolls and save my ally from a Skullcrushers charge as it prevented them from getting into *any* combat. He became pretty bitter, and later on held it against my ally in a similar situation (in which he was clearly in the wrong, but our side just dropped so that we could finish).

Right off the bat, this seems like very, very poor sportsmanship to me. It seems to shirk The Most Important Rule just for the sake of winning.

For some background: he was asking questions of his own ("Aren't Saurus Initiative 1? What's making them Initiative 2?", "What kind of weapons do they have?" - I'd had a Bastiladon nearby.), and running a few proxies that were very dissimilar to their standard models, refusing to tell us what they had.

He also tried to ambush us with mysterious terrain mid-game when it was clear at the end of our movement phase that we had a deployment & terrain advantage, nobody having ever brought it up while the board was being set up and our group having never played it that way without prior discussion.

'Aren't you supposed to roll for mysterious terrain?'
'Uhh we never talked about that at the start..?'
'I mean, you should roll...'
'....... (looks back and forth)(our side continues playing)(slann winces, stirs, salamander chews quietly on a skink)'

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm leaning toward not gaming with this guy anymore, but I don't want to shut him down. Odd situation. :/

Sorry ot rant: I was curious as to what you all thought of answering your opponent's questions (again, non-tourny) since it's technically not a rule that you have to. I'd also like to hear some of your own experiences with poor sportsmanship on the other side and how you handled the awkwardness, and a few other general do's and don'ts, if you guys don't mind!

 

[Pinktaco]

Personally u wouldn't be the one calling him again. It can be hard when playing with other friend and you need the 4th guy to make it work.

He sounds incredible annoying to play with. Now I haven't played tournaments, but even in such a setting I would gladly answer my opponents question. It can be hard to remember everything about everyone in the game. It doesn't get much better that he himself ask similar questions that he refuses to answer himself
It's just.. Odd and not very friendly.

Just think of it this way: we aren't all meant to be friends. He clearly didn't do a very good job of being friendly so don't think too much about him. Play without him if possible and next time set up some very clear rules so he can't ambush you. He sounds like the type of player who gets sour when he's about to lose and could come up with all kinds of tricks to annoy you.

It kinda remind me of this person my friend played against. They had agreed to play 2500pts. My friend, a WE player, had never played a nurgle demon army before, nor his opponent. So what happens? The demon player have 3000pts which my friend doesn't realize until mid-game and had 2 x 8 nurgle beasts with him. There's a reason these units are comped and yet he choose to not only cheat with the points, but also take a ridiculous amount of clearly OP units with him.
Fair enough though. When they discovered that it wasn't an even playing field due to points the demon player decided to remove a unit of plague bearers so far away from the main combat area that they would've never been a threat. After the game the demon player claimed victory despite my friend having actually outplayed him and gotten the most VPs, but the demon player refused to acknowledge that claim and had his friend back him up.

Some people don't know when they're being an as'shat to play against and having talked to the demon player I know he doesn't consider himself a cheater or someone with bad sportsmanship. Unfortunately you can alter their view because that's just howitzer see things. Some will want a fair and balanced game that is fun for both sides and others want to rofl-stomp their opponent which is only fun for the stomper.

Again, this isn't a person my friend and I have to like OR play against so it's one of those cases where you just let it slide and forget about it.

 

[borkbork]

for sportsmenship this is usually what we do.

first we ask the question: "So? today do we play honest or like usual?"


before game we:

1. make sure everone knows what what terrain piece is supposed to be (especially impassable terrain). Usually we dont bother with mysterious terrain, but make sure its clear.
2. When setting up the army, you simply tell what everything is. When playing closed list this involves the WYSIWYG things. (example: I am putting my 50 Nightgoblins, with spear, shield, nets and full command). When playing open list you would also disclose if they have fanatics or not (although personally i think even in an open list this should remain a mystery). For characters it is the same; closed list you would tell the WYSIWYG things....(Scar veteren on cold one with light armor and great weapon). In an open list you would also disclose magic items or their effects.
Also at this time you can ask any question about the unit, and especially when you bring something new you would explain what a unit can do.


in game
3. if you make a move that can cause discussion you explain what you mean to do with it.
example: " I am positioning my unit so that you can only charge my front." Or, "if i postion my unit like this do you agree that you wont have Line of sight with your canon?".
4. Rule discussions....usually we ask a third person if available. And if we cant reach an agreement after looking it up in the book, we often drop the issue by changinng the action (if possible) so that we can avoid the rule problem. In my last game we were not sure about the arcane unforging spell wether you needed to wound or not to destroy a magic weapon. So i decided to cast a different spell and leave the question for later (although things like that can cost you games, so only do this in friendly games).
5. and yeah, if you opponent has questions about the units just explain.

after game:
winner buys beer or pizza.

ps: your opponent sounds like he is some kind of reproductive organ.

ps2: We have a tiny gaming community here....so things go very relaxed as i think everybody realizes that if you act like an ass you will be playing with yourself very quickly. So even our local tournaments are very relaxed and friendly. In one tourny game my opponent actually offered me the "f.cking cool model 4+ ward save" when my pirate rock lobber blew itself up on the first shot.

 

[Ixt]

3. if you make a move that can cause discussion you explain what you mean to do with it.
example: " I am positioning my unit so that you can only charge my front." Or, "if i postion my unit like this do you agree that you wont have Line of sight with your canon?".
4. Rule discussions....usually we ask a third person if available. And if we cant reach an agreement after looking it up in the book, we often drop the issue by changinng the action (if possible) so that we can avoid the rule problem. In my last game we were not sure about the arcane unforging spell wether you needed to wound or not to destroy a magic weapon. So i decided to cast a different spell and leave the question for later (although things like that can cost you games, so only do this in friendly games).
5. and yeah, if you opponent has questions about the units just explain.

All good advice, man! Thanks.

In the future, I'll definitely be putting #3 to use - seems like a good strategy for avoiding conflict.

 

[GhostWarrior]

I think the best answer to your question is going to be 'it varies'. But, some thoughts:

Army books are public. If your opponent is unwilling to share a stat, ask him for his book. If he's unwilling to share his book, then I guess you get to pick his stats! (ooh, I guess that Daemon Prince only has 3 wounds then, because, well, you can't prove to me that he has more then any other Lord-type character).

This game is ALL about communication. While it does sound rough that he demanded certain things (like Mysterious terrain rules), at the same time it sounds like your group may not have clarified that for him. If he's always played Mysterious terrain (there are still people out there like that ), then it probably came as a shock to him if your group didn't. Talk everything out as much as you can. If your group was designing lists together before the game (like, didn't come to the club/person's house with their lists already created), talk about what type of game/how the terrain would be played (generalities), what type of lists you find acceptable vs. not (ie. 'we don't typically use Special Characters' ect.).

Many people attach too much self worth to this game. I have been guilty of this one. The truth is, there are many people who want to think of themselves as 'the best' at this game, and will do much to try and achieve it. Most of us don't get that kind of practice (and it takes A LOT of practice to get really good at this game).

I'd say you give him another shot, but communicate as much as you can about what you expect from a game. If he doesn't respond to that communication, just move on. If he ever asks why you stopped playing vs. him, do your best to be honest. It will be painful right then (for both of you), but is more likely to be good for him in the long run.

My Warhammer career (just shy of 20 years) is littered with stories of people who were an absolute pain to play against. Between sore losers (mopey), those who could never admit defeat ('you didn't beat me, my dice were terrible'), those who screamed at his dice and mine whilst playing (a personal peeve of mine), those who built lists that had no intention of playing a real game (100 WE Archers in the Folding Fortress, seriously?), actual cheaters/thieves (quick of hand on dice/stole some of my stuff after), and others.

It has also helped me develop many friendships, which have had benefits both in game and in real life (one of my best friends - found through Warhammer - helped me understand the things to look for when picking out a quality house to own, the one I currently live in). Due to the fact that I've moved around a bit, I've also got friends in this hobby that stretch from coast to coast (US). While I didn't handle every potential friendship perfectly, I'm happy that I've continued playing/interacting, and giving people 'a shot'.

 

[Kblock]

I have only played in one tournament (40K) and the rules were strict about the models used. No proxies and WYSIWYG on all models.

It would not have been fun to play against that player. A clear definition of the the rules of your group will help clear up any confusion with this player or other new players that join you for a game or two.

My WHFB games have all been with a local group who are really in it to have fun. (and to try and win) At the start of each game we exchange army lists and define what terrain piece has what properties. Proxies are allowed in the games, and we do not use named characters from the books.

I have lost more games than I have won, but I still have fun learning the game. One player was just getting back into the game after not playing a few years and has stopped playing again because he was not winning. (the same reason he stopped playing before). The rest of us keep playing when we can and always try to have fun.

As I learn the game better, I hope to start winning more and I will always try to make the games fun for both players whether I win or lose.

 

[SilverFaith]

I would argue against revealing what magic items you have, solely because some spells (like arcane unforging) allows you to REVEAL what the target has.

Hence why my local group run open lists without revealing the magic items, and only show point costs for the entire group, making it pretty impossiible to "guess" what magic stuff you have equipped.

I don't feel it is a problem when someone wants to "be the best", if only his attitude isn't horrible. I know a guy who wants to perfect his play with Tomb Kings. If he brings one of his powerful armies, he'll table most people, and if he don't it's pretty much 50/50, though this also involves him using subpar units, or outright "trollworthy" tactics - The kind of things where you think "That's stupid and can't possibly work", and then he makes it work anyway. Half the time, at least. It just doesn't come off as a problem, but he also refrains from going full cheese, which certainly helps.

My primary problem have always been the "subtle cheater". The one who "accidentially" fumbles something, and drops something on his units, only to "rearrange them as they were" with a slight change in facing, to set up a charge/prevent a flank charge", or grabbing the dice immediately after rolling, before you have a chance to see the results. That kind of thing just throws me off, and immediately reduces the enjoyment of the battle.

 

[LawGnome]

My primary problem have always been the "subtle cheater". The one who "accidentially" fumbles something, and drops something on his units, only to "rearrange them as they were" with a slight change in facing, to set up a charge/prevent a flank charge", or grabbing the dice immediately after rolling, before you have a chance to see the results. That kind of thing just throws me off, and immediately reduces the enjoyment of the battle.

I tend to dislike the "subtle cheater" myself. I would almost prefer actual cheating, since at least then I can call them out on it. If it is subtle cheating, you don't know if they are actually cheating or if it was a mistake.

However, when it happens 3 times in a row.... it's frustrating.

- "I place my scouts here behind your guys." "Sorry, I just realized that I forgot to place a unit. Is it ok for me to place them?" *Proceeds to try to counter my scout placement, though I do complain that he wasn't going to place a unit there in the first place*

- He shoots my slaughtermaster with a hellcannon. He misses entirely. He then remembers the leadership test. He passes that, then rerolls the shot, which kills my SM flat out.

These kind of things just irk me.

 

[borkbork]

My primary problem have always been the "subtle cheater".

I know a guy who is a "reversed subtle cheater" and that is even more annoying than a regular "subtle cheater"
This guy is always "checking" your movement distance and always wants you to move half an inch backwards, and is thus implying you are the sublte cheater.

 

[lordkingcrow]

Personally, I like playing with a closed list. It adds a bit of difficulty when I don't know everything in my opponent's army and nasty surprises can come out of nowhere. It's even more fun when you get to surprise your opponent! Without that element of surprise I feel the game loses something. That being said, my group is very open about stats and basic knowledge. Example: If my friend wants to know the stat line for saurus, armor saves, effects of a spell, etc... I'd be more than happy to let them know. Am I going to let them know that my Oldblood might as well be a lizard on steroids with a re-rollable armor save and a 4+ ward save... No. When they ask I'll smile and say, guess you will have to find out. I wouldn't expect to know if my uncle, playing Ogres, has ambushing gorgers or that my friend with Dwarves has a cannon that blows up in close combat. Will I ask? Sometimes. Do they give me an answer? Rarely. Keep in mind, that's just what we do and it is all in good fun. We heckle and play mind games if we can swing it. However, that is how we play and we are all really good sports about it. If something clashes in the rules or doesn't make sense, we usually discuss it and if a consensus can't be made, we roll. Hard to argue when the dice gods decree it to be so.
As for your situation, I probably just wouldn't play with him again. When people start to take a "fantasy" game personally it loses entertainment value. I played with a guy that would do things like explain a spell, but leave out certain parts so it didn't sound so bad, then try to hammer you with it when you chose not to dispell it. Now I'm a pretty blunt guy, so I just told him I don't play with cheats and if he wanted to try crap like that I didn't want a part of it. He didn't like being called out and we didn't play again for a while. After a year we got another game together and there weren't any issues. Your going to run into poor sports at everything, it's up to you how you want to deal with it. I don't know if this helps, but there it is!

 

[Ixt]

I would argue against revealing what magic items you have, solely because some spells (like arcane unforging) allows you to REVEAL what the target has.

Oh, yeah - I'm fine with that. Not revealing magic items is pretty standard. He took that logic a step further, is all.

It started when he said that Throgg was in the unit of trolls. I asked, 'What's his profile like?' and he outright refused to answer. o_o He said, "I'd rather not tell you."

So there was an uneasy silence, and he then only read his statline to me.

I've never played against Throgg - I went into that combat knowing nothing about his ultravomit attack, despite asking. Figured he allowed trolls to be Core, maybe had a magic item or two, maybe Stubborn or something... that kind of stuff.

Pretty lame for someone to do that, especially after reading all of these responses. Meh.

 

[Mr Phat]

We do it like this:


1. You are entitled to ask about anything you could read by yourself in an army book.
- Statlines
- Special abilities
- equipment
and so on

2. You are entitled to ask of anything you can SEE
If my opponent has magical equipment he only needs to tell me what TYPE of weapon he has.

Example:

a HE Prince with

-Star lance
-Armour of destiny
-potion of strenght
-star dragon
- charmed shield


Would be presented as

HE Prince
- Lance
- Heavy Armour
- Star Dragon (you can visibly tell the difference from mount to mount)
- Shield

3. You are entitled to get reminded on anything that has already been revealed
Like, as I play with multiple scar vets I dont blame my opponent for not remembering
which is which.
So after the first time the gear has been "shown" and used, this is how it goes:

"Who was it with the armour of destiny again?"
"this guy"
"thanks mate, and then that one had the dawnstone?"
"correct"
"great, thanks"

4. You are to reveal Any special upgrade at the start of the game


example For chars:
- Slann diciplins
- Daemon gifts
- Vampire powers.

Example for units
- Stegadon EoTG or Sharpend horns
- What arrows Wood Elves carries
- what mark WoC carries
and so on.

5. You are NOT to know placement of hidden units as assassins and fanatics.

6. you are in your full right to go through your opponents armylist after the game to check if everything is as he played it:
- Hidden units where placed where he noted
- the magic items where put as he said
- go through his points (I have more than once caught an opponent in sneaking an extra 5pts over the 100max after games).

7. Before ANYONE, does ANYTHING on the table you agree on what terrain is and how it works.
No more "Thats not a fence, thats impassable" mid game.




Follow these lines and you SHOULDN'T meet any problems. We use them at local tournaments and they work out pretty well, but keep in mind that we might know it by habbit

 

[Ixt]

We do it like this:

Good lookin' out, man. Thanks much.

 

[Caprasauridae]

Hi there!

I have noticed that I tend to take losses in Warhammer a bit more seriously than in other boardgames. I think this is because of the personal nature of the hobby. You buy the models you want. You put them together and paint them. You build your army list. With other games it's often just "I'll be the green player".

I wouldn't describe myself as a sore loser, but after a bad game I'm a bit moby and irritable for a few minutes. After that I can laugh at it. But that only happens if the game/luck was really bad. After a hard fought loss I'm usually still happy about it. I have also noticed that I don't mind losing as much when the other player played better. But if the reason is something like dice missbegaving, me not taking crucial stuff into account or forgetting something or making stupid mistakes, I take it much harder.

In our small group there's rarely any real troubles with the players, even though we have a pretty sore loser and a real complainer there. The sore loser wants to quit the game after one unsuccessful charge and the complainer whines about the price of his High Elf foot soldiers or the fragility of his Star Dragon (who didn't even die in the game) even after he wins. We play with open lists, but usually hide the magic items. Although I often make rhetoric questions like "Hmm, I wonder if that unit of White Lions have the Banner of World Dragon...". Sometimes my opponent straight out tells it to me, most times the answer I get is

I don't attend tournaments, but enjoy reading their rule sets. Quite often the rules state that you need to provide information about your models when asked and that this includes everything that is said in the army book entry. So special attacks and such, but not bought magic items. I think this is pretty fair and fluff-wise it could be said that an experienced general knows his enemies well enough to have that kind of information, but of course they don't have any way of knowing what kind of magic items the hero in the front rank left his or her tent with...

Hopefully your future games will be more enjoyable, with him or without. Good luck!

 

[Pinktaco]

My primary problem have always been the "subtle cheater". The one who "accidentially" fumbles something, and drops something on his units, only to "rearrange them as they were" with a slight change in facing, to set up a charge/prevent a flank charge", or grabbing the dice immediately after rolling, before you have a chance to see the results. That kind of thing just throws me off, and immediately reduces the enjoyment of the battle.

I tend to dislike the "subtle cheater" myself. I would almost prefer actual cheating, since at least then I can call them out on it. If it is subtle cheating, you don't know if they are actually cheating or if it was a mistake.

However, when it happens 3 times in a row.... it's frustrating.

- "I place my scouts here behind your guys." "Sorry, I just realized that I forgot to place a unit. Is it ok for me to place them?" *Proceeds to try to counter my scout placement, though I do complain that he wasn't going to place a unit there in the first place*

- He shoots my slaughtermaster with a hellcannon. He misses entirely. He then remembers the leadership test. He passes that, then rerolls the shot, which kills my SM flat out.

These kind of things just irk me.

I'm a subtle cheater, but only by accident haha. I would never cheat anyone on purpose and I'm usually good at reminding other people of their own special rules if they forget them. However, I do accidently fumble stuff around a lot because I'm clumsy like that. There are also times where I accidently drop a dice before the rest and I quickly take it up again. Sometimes this has a negative effect because the dice will eventually hit something bad for me and it'll appear as if I saw it and didn't want the roll.

I think one way to avoid misunderstandings is to be rather consistent with what you do. For instance you should ALWAYS pick up dice that aren't flat, even if it's just a little bit uneven due to terrain and it the roll actually benefits you. If you like me sometimes drop a dive before the other you should always either pick it up regardless of the roll OR roll the rest. Again it's an iffy situation because your opponent will ALWAYS look at the first dice and regardless of how you resolve it he'll find a way to make you guilty of cheating. For instance if you decide to roll the rest along with the first one your opponent might see it as "oh yeah of course you'll take the roll because you saw the first dice was a 6 for poison" and rathe other way around if you roll a 1 and pick it up.

There's also another issue and that's people taking too long and thus the opponent "zone out" and doesn't quite see what's happening and when something might look fishy they call then out.

These are just some of the reasons as to why I usually play with friends. Some people are super strict with rules and take forever while others are so sloppy they don't allow you to look them up because that would only annoy them. We're all different and some have very different ways to play.

 

[lordkingcrow]

I think my biggest "subtle cheating", though I really just space it out, is forgetting stupidity with my cold ones! Does anyone else have this problem? I mean it rarely happens with the cold blooded rule, but I always feel bad when I do remember and the turn has progressed. I try to go back and roll for it.

 

[borkbork]

I think my biggest "subtle cheating", though I really just space it out, is forgetting stupidity with my cold ones! Does anyone else have this problem? I mean it rarely happens with the cold blooded rule, but I always feel bad when I do remember and the turn has progressed. I try to go back and roll for it.

quilty.

I usually forget a few things in my battles.
With my orcs i tend to forget the ld test for frenzy for my savage orcs (ld9 with reroll) quite often, however i never forget animosity or stupidity for the trolls.

But because Lizzies dont have silly things like animosity i almost automaticalliy forget the stupidity for cold ones.

 

[SilverFaith]

My primary problem have always been the "subtle cheater".

I know a guy who is a "reversed subtle cheater" and that is even more annoying than a regular "subtle cheater"
This guy is always "checking" your movement distance and always wants you to move half an inch backwards, and is thus implying you are the sublte cheater.

This reminded me of someone i used to play against.

He would constantly "fix" positioning of my units, move around on my wound-counters, and generally touch EVERYTHING on the table, all the time. Without a word - not even "I'll put this wound counter closer to your guy, okay?" or a "This model had fallen over, and I raised it back up", nothing. He just kept touching everything on the board without a word, only sometimes explaining himself when confronted with it, like "You moved 8 inches, and you can only move 7", etc.

God that was frustrating. Though to be fair, he suffered from some mental illness, which he didn't want to talk about. It didn't make it any less frustrating when trying to have a fun game, though.

 

[LawGnome]

I don't think that "subtle cheating" really encompasses forgetting things like stupidity.

I've forgotten stupidity on my cold ones, I've (constantly) forgotten stomps on my ogres, and I've forgotten everything in between. Heck, I've forgotten entire phases of my turn before because I was looking forward to one phase more than the others.

When this happens, my opinion is that you take the result that is less favorable for you. When I forget stupidity, I ask my opponent if they want me to redo the move. When I forget stomps, I just don't stomp that round. If I forget a magic phase, I will ask if I can do it after the fact, but I make sure that I don't attempt to buff a unit that I already used (so, for example, I forgot magic until after my saurus finished their combat. I do not try to buff the saurus and redo the combat, no matter the result. I forgot, so it would be unsportsmanlike for me to try to change the result after the fact.)

I think that "subtle cheating" is only when one player uses their mistake to try to get an advantage. This is like forgetting a unit and remembering it after scouts are placed. If you acknowledge your mistake and your opponent lets you place your forgotten unit, it is bad sportsmanship to then try to deny the scouts. You didn't think to block scouts with your initial placement, so it is pretty scummy to try to block them after you see where your opponent wants to put them.

 

[hdctambien]

I think that "subtle cheating" is only when one player uses their mistake to try to get an advantage. This is like forgetting a unit and remembering it after scouts are placed. If you acknowledge your mistake and your opponent lets you place your forgotten unit, it is bad sportsmanship to then try to deny the scouts. You didn't think to block scouts with your initial placement, so it is pretty scummy to try to block them after you see where your opponent wants to put them.

Another "subtle cheat" that can come up with closed lists is "forgetting" which unit has the flaming banner.

If I charge your unit with some non-regen unit and you don't mention that it has the flaming banner (I think I would notice that all their weapons were on fire...) then I will say to myself "Ah, I don't have to worry about flaming attacks and can charge them next turn with these trolls"

... only to find out next turn when the trolls get into combat "Oh yeah, this unit has the flaming banner"