# Opinions requested: Denial Tactics



## SHarrington (Jan 7, 2010)

Recently I had someone give me a comp score of 0 in a tournament, and he was matter of fact about it. He said he did it because I played first turn denial, and he doesn't like that.

I'm not sure what to make of that, so I thought I would see how everyone else feels.

When you play against someone who plays first turn denial (holds EVERYTHING in reserves) how do you feel? 
Do you feel they cheated you out of a turn?
Do you feel like its just another facet of the game?
Do you feel like you should punish people who make use of the mechanic?

I'll be honest, it won't stop me from using it in a tournament, but your opinions will change how I play when I'm not playing competitive.

Thanks.


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## KingOfCheese (Jan 4, 2010)

He sounds like a sore loser. Holding things in reserve is all part of the game.

This is one of the reasons why i dont like the whole comp score system in tournaments.


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## flankman (Jan 26, 2009)

id call him out as a sore loser since denying full reserve is denying a decent chuck of army lists he just needs to learn how to counter it


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## Blue Liger (Apr 25, 2008)

My question would be would he give that score to a daemon army that chooses to go second or has to go second?


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## Col. Schafer (Apr 15, 2008)

... wow. What an asshat. Its a tornament, of course your going to try dick statagies. (and I use the term dick mearly to refer to a given stratagy that screws you oponent over)


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## CaptainFatty (Nov 9, 2008)

he's just sore that he isn't skilled enough to counter it. thats always my responce when people complain about me.

if you can do it, then do it (as long as it isn't cheating). my mates and i are always exploiting the rules badly in our own battles and it makes it a lot more 'bloody'


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## Amra_the_lion (May 26, 2008)

Sounds like he wasn't prepared for that strategy and he probably took it badly. To give you a _composition _score of 0 for a _tactical placement _is horseshit. Probably a overreaction to a loss but poor sportsmanship on his part.

First turn denial is a fair strategy and it usually screws the player who uses it. Nothing like second turn only having 1 unit on table, and my entire army shooting it. If its not fair play according to a tournament organizer, they should limits the amount of units able to be put in reserve.


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## KarlFranz40k (Jan 30, 2009)

What...if I was in his position I'd be laughing my behind off, sure bring them on peicemeal so I can shred them one at a time. What a loser.


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## Arkanor (Jan 1, 2010)

I've been playing a 1st tern denial list lately (Mechdar reserves) lately because it opens up a lot of options, and basically allows you to go first every time. Being able to go second also means that when you rush objectives at the endgame, you have the last word. Also, it escapes the Sternguard Bomb that everyone I play seems to use, playing denial allows you to dictate the fight, not someone else.

My friends get a little raged because I skirt around the whole field fighting as little as necessary, and then kill objective holders (in objective games no less) instead of standing in the open field slugging it out with a bunch of power armored dudes for 6 turns. I'm pretty sure (just right in the back of their mind) they just want to see their Marines wade through hordes of xenos without a scratch and are just a little miffed when said xenos just drive away.

tl;dr - There are a lot of people out there who think 40K is all about fighting, denial lists reduce the amount of fighting.


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## SHarrington (Jan 7, 2010)

Ok, so I left a lot of facts out of the original post, as I didn't want to confuse the issue.

The opponent's original score was actually a 10. The tournament judge was the one who encouraged the score to be dropped to 0. This was based on the tournament judge's personal opinions on denial tactics. He actually went into quite a bit of depth about how it is my moral obligation to ensure that I do nothing tacticly that my opponent won't like.

Here is a response I drafted and placed on my local gaming forum. I hope you choose to read all of it and not just read the first few paragraphs and form a judgement of the content as a whole.



> Response Essay
> On Friday night, I was offered an opinion by a fellow gamer. He told me that he did not care for people that employ denial tactics in Warhammer 40k. Turn denial based on army wide reserves is a prime example of this.
> 
> He says he never has any fun in those games. He went on to tell me how he has discovered it is his duty and obligation to do everything in his power to make the other person have fun. He directly linked said duty to being a good sportsman. He was quite clear that he would lower someone’s comp score in a tournament for using denial, and in fact had encouraged one of my opponents in the last tournament to do just that to me. He admitted to me that he had, in the capacity of the tournament judge, spoken to my first opponent to attempt to persuade him to lower the comp score he had given me.
> ...


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I would lodge a complaint with the tournament organisers about that judge.

Seriously.

For starters, look at the word "Composition". Briefly, it means "How did someone build that? What is it made up of?". For example, the composition of that cake is 40% flour, 10% icing etc etc.

That is how the composition score is worked out. Is your army built in an "appropriate" manner? For example, 10 Scouts and 3 Land Raiders is a very poor army composition because it flies in the face of fluff, and the way armies are supposed to be built. A more balanced approach will win more points for it's composition. This can also be extended to painting and is comparable to (in the above example) giving points for how well the cake has been decorated.

Having established that, we can see that "Composition" has NOTHING to do with how you USE said army. You can employ whatever damn tactics you want in order to win games, provided you are not breaking any rules.

To round off the simile, someone could not say "I think this cake was badly made because someone threw it into someone's face". You could disagree with the cake throwing, but it would have no bearing on the quality of the cake itself.

The judge is completely out of line and should be banned from all future events, in my opinion. They are supposed to be impartial sources who will clarify and make rulings on the contents of the Big Rulebook, not encourage the raising or lowering the scores given to people by their opponents regarding sportsmanship, composition etc. Especially after the game is long over and the opponent has already submitted his score.

I hope that score of "0" didn't knock you down further than you should have been.


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## Holmstrom (Dec 3, 2008)

That's foolish. If they were going to disallow a tactic like that, then why didn't they throw up a FAQ/tournament rule set to prevent it instead of acting immature in the middle of the action?

Moral obligation to use tactics that won't upset your opponent? So every time some asshole loses he could pull out the 'I'm upset' card on the victor to anchor down his score? If anything he should of been glad to see something new and having an opportunity to learn how to deal with it instead of being a mopey fool. That essay response seemed excellent, by the way. I probably wouldn't play in that tournament again if they don't act upon the judge.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Sethis said:


> I would lodge a complaint with the tournament organisers about that judge.
> The judge is completely out of line and should be banned from all future events, in my opinion. They are supposed to be impartial sources who will clarify and make rulings on the contents of the Big Rulebook, not encourage the raising or lowering the scores given to people by their opponents regarding sportsmanship, composition etc. Especially after the game is long over and the opponent has already submitted his score.





Holmstrom said:


> That's foolish. If they were going to disallow a tactic like that, then why didn't they throw up a FAQ/tournament rule set to prevent it instead of acting immature in the middle of the action?
> 
> Moral obligation to use tactics that won't upset your opponent? So every time some asshole loses he could pull out the 'I'm upset' card on the victor to anchor down his score? If anything he should of been glad to see something new and having an opportunity to learn how to deal with it instead of being a mopey fool. That essay response seemed excellent, by the way. I probably wouldn't play in that tournament again if they don't act upon the judge.


Fully agree with the 2 statements above. You did nothing wrong at all, you are not supposed to play "crappy" so that your opponent can be happy and kill a bunch of your plastic toy soldiers. Its a tournament and you are expected to play to win using whatever kind of tactics that works with your army.

Hope that judge has judged his ass out of tournaments forever with that action:hang1:


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## SHarrington (Jan 7, 2010)

Yeah, like I said it won't influence my tournament play, which will remain "ruthless tactics."
But in a fun game, how does denial impact you? In non competitive, would you rather not see it?


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## hungryugolino (Sep 12, 2009)

Post the bastard's name here please, so the rest of us know who to avoid.


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## johnnymajic (Jan 2, 2009)

If someone holds everything i reserves, i just smile and say "fuck yea" in my head. If im going first it gives me an extra turn of not getting shot at and moving up the board in my rhinos, jsut waiting for them to come out and assault next turn. If i go second, it's jsut one less turn of shooting i have to survive, so i encourage this strategy to my opponents. I have yet to loose to a reserve or pod list


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## countchocula86 (Sep 1, 2008)

I think at the core here, if it is rule that you can do first turn denial, then you have done nothing wrong. Youre following an ascribed rule. And when people play 40K they accept ALL the rules.



Its really funny though. I mean....what if I lose a game because of some unlucky dice rolls? Can I cry foul because I wasnt happy?


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## don_mondo (Jan 28, 2007)

So the judge doesn't like the 'riposte' army and suggested you be pinged for playing that way? Seriously, you need to post the event, the judge, all the details so that they can be laughed out of town!! As much as I personally hate facing it, it's a perfectly legal maneuver.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

In casual play I would shrug, and depending on what army I was playing at the time, deploy my infiltrators (all 50 of them) along his table edge so he couldn't enter at all, or just make do with a game that is one turn shorter, and has the size of my deployment zone doubled.

Shorter games = more games in the same space of time = no problem.


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## Schizofen (Mar 11, 2009)

If it's a tournament surely any tactic goes? The point is to win after all, whilst not being an arse.

In friendly games, the only time I'd have a problem would be if I played the same person a lot and they did the same tactics every single game (denial or otherwise) and the games always turned out really boring. Then it might be a case of "Dude, use some other tactics or I can't be bothered to play you again", but I don't see this happening very often. Even the games I've played with denial tactics have turned out pretty fun. It's just one more tactical challenge.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

SHarrington said:


> Yeah, like I said it won't influence my tournament play, which will remain "ruthless tactics."
> But in a fun game, how does denial impact you? In non competitive, would you rather not see it?


I wouldnt care in any kind of game. Its a viable tactic, and one that every player should learn to adapt to. The only way to learn to adapt is to play against it. Keep on reserving stuff!


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## ItsPug (Apr 5, 2009)

I agree that the judge was a bit of a prick. Telling a player to change a score is just downright wrong, irregardless of any other factors.

Maybe someone should sit down and explain to the idiot that 'composition' is what units are in your army, and how you use them is called 'tactics', and the most important one 'judges' are supposed to settle disputes, not start them.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

A judge's role should be impartial and make a judgment in the case of a dispute, influencing players is very wrong and you should complain, whos to say this was the only thing he influenced ?


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## VanitusMalus (Jun 27, 2009)

personally I have no problem with any opponent bringing to bear any tactic he can legally discover. 

I mean if you showed up to a gun fight with a knife, you can't then whine that you didn't know you could bring a gun.

I'm sorry as much as this is only a game, it's a game of strategy and no where in the books of strategy does it say "Oh and remember only use tactics that make your opponent happy". No you play to win and that's it. I admit I have been involved in games where I could see the scowl coming over my opponents face and I intentionally will screw up something or not fire a particular unit just so he can cheer up a bit, BUT I shouldn't. We're all adults. If you don't like losing or you can't strategize then maybe that individual should just collect and paint versus actually playing


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## Inquisitor Varrius (Jul 3, 2008)

...except of course, those of us who are kids. But we stay out of tournaments for a reason.

I do agree that in a tournament setting, winning is the primary objective, and you should obtain victory if possible.


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## Arcane (Feb 17, 2009)

SHarrington said:


> Yeah, like I said it won't influence my tournament play, which will remain "ruthless tactics."
> But in a fun game, how does denial impact you? In non competitive, would you rather not see it?


For casual afternoon games, I would rather my opponent not run tourney lists or use tactics like this, unless they are practicing for tournaments coming up. 

I only say this because seeing the same lists ever time you play gets really old.


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## qwertywraith (Sep 8, 2008)

Reserving all is a perfectly fine and even risky tactic (depending on your opponent). I don't like getting raider rushed. Neither are cheating, exploiting the rules, or are even very surprising (land raiders are big in the meta game, and plenty of armies like to reserve all).

As for the judge, he's there to ensure fair play. In _his _mind that's what he was doing. I don't think he was right to do so. It sounds like the tournament's comp score was a mix of sportsmanship, composition, and maybe painting. Were guidelines posted on the scoring sheet or online? Are there standing rules for your tournaments? I'd like to hear what the community response is and if there is any response from the judge and organisers.


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## Marneus Calgar (Dec 5, 2007)

I am gonna use this tactic for ever now. It sounds like a great tactic, because you can tactically place your models around their set up. Obviously providing you get what you need into the game.

But on topic, the tournament organiser was, by the sounds of it, just trying to get you out of there because he didn't like your tactic. 

Just send him a letter saying ITS A GAME!


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## Arcane (Feb 17, 2009)

Just played against a tau player who did this, only having a broadside on the board, waaaay out of range of anything I could shoot at it besides one gun. 

Not saying I'm soar about it but it was frustrating and made the game less fun. All it really makes me want to do is not play him much in the future.


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## SHarrington (Jan 7, 2010)

Thanks Arcane. Good report.
Anyone else run into this tactic in an actual game and have a feeling from it? (positive or negative.)

It's easy to say you'd be okay with it, but its not until its actually used that you get a feel for how much it alters the game. I too think I would be okay with it, but I've never actually had it used on me. So it's hard to say how it will make me feel.


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## don_mondo (Jan 28, 2007)

Sure, run into it all the time. It's a common Mech Eldar ploy. Force you to go first if they can, then use their twin Autarchs to get everything in on turn 2. Mech IG same thing, only using an Astropath (so only a 3+ for turn 2) with Valks/Vendettas outflanking and all the tanks etc coming in on the long board edge. I've even faced a Necron player that did it with all his Warriors coming in through two Monoliths.

As previously stated, I don't like it that much. But I play a gunline IG army, so the less time I have to shoot at you, the less I like it...........


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

Sethis said:


> In casual play I would shrug, and depending on what army I was playing at the time, deploy my infiltrators (all 50 of them) along his table edge so he couldn't enter at all, or just make do with a game that is one turn shorter, and has the size of my deployment zone doubled.
> 
> Shorter games = more games in the same space of time = no problem.


Sethis, I have 3 words for you: DROP POD ARMY

your welcome to throw a ton of infiltrators as a ploy to make it so I cant come on, ill just wipe out your non infiltrating half of your army via drop pod assault easier, then move up and destroy your infiltrators slowly.


onto the topic at hand though:

I think that judge is an ass, plain and simple. unless you played a seriously unsportsman version of the tatic, like mentioned earlier on the whole broadside thing.

youd think that judge doesnt know what the word TOURNAMENT means.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Why would he do the infiltrating trick against a drop pod army unless he was mildly retarded? 

Aramoro


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

KhainiteAssassin said:


> Sethis, I have 3 words for you: DROP POD ARMY
> 
> your welcome to throw a ton of infiltrators as a ploy to make it so I cant come on, ill just wipe out your non infiltrating half of your army via drop pod assault easier, then move up and destroy your infiltrators slowly.


The hell are you talking about? I was answering the question: "How would you feel about someone who used 1st turn denial".

If I had been answering the question: "How do you play against drop pod armies?" then my answer would probably have been "First turn denial".

Why would I string my models out along a 6' line when fighting drop pods??? :no:


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## Lucio (Aug 10, 2009)

SHarrington said:


> Yeah, like I said it won't influence my tournament play, which will remain "ruthless tactics."
> But in a fun game, how does denial impact you? In non competitive, would you rather not see it?


If its a tourny tactic I'd rather see it on occassion in a non-competitive game so I get to figure out how to beat it. Closest I've ever gotten to facing something like that is the one time I went against demons, otherwise I've never faced it.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

directly just holding a non DSing army in reserve is stupid 9/10ths of the time unless both armies have long range barrage support.

the one time I see it being useful atall would be during a Dawn of war game as any meched / transport army, especially if your facing something annoying like guard, and if someone tried that trick on me during a dawn of war game Sethis, I would just tank shock when I came off the edge


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

Arcane said:


> Just played against a tau player who did this, only having a broadside on the board, waaaay out of range of anything I could shoot at it besides one gun.
> 
> Not saying I'm soar about it but it was frustrating and made the game less fun. All it really makes me want to do is not play him much in the future.


No offense intended here but I would say that you're falling dangerously close to what the judge did here. Essentially your saying that your opponent should change his strategy so that you may have more fun or else.... 

I think a much more proactive action would be to change your list to counter his tactic. If you beat it enough, he'll stop using it.



KhainiteAssassin said:


> directly just holding a non DSing army in reserve is stupid 9/10ths of the time unless both armies have long range barrage support.
> 
> the one time I see it being useful atall would be during a Dawn of war game as any meched / transport army, especially if your facing something annoying like guard, and if someone tried that trick on me during a dawn of war game Sethis, I would just tank shock when I came off the edge


Apparently you don't play in too many tourney settings. Reserves are a large part of most armies, especially those that can control them to a larger extent. Drop pod armies are one of those armies that don't actually do that well... If I saw that you had an entire drop pod army, I'd let you go first and reserve everything. You can either DS near the objectives and let me shoot you (no mobility) or DS near my table edge and let me assault you.





Personally, I think its a great tactic. We have an eldar player who brings 2 aurtarcs (spelling doh) and reserves everything.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

KhainiteAssassin said:


> Sethis, I would just tank shock when I came off the edge


Unless you have Autarchs, you're coming in on a 3/4+ per unit. Anything that *isn't* a vehicle is automatically dead if it does arrive and can't fit on while being outside 1" of my unit.

Anything that is a vehicle has a choice of going 6", shooting 1 weapon and nothing else, or goes 12" and does nothing. Even if I fail the tank shock Ld test, I still auto-rally because I'm space marines.

I have 5 Powerfists, Shrike, and units with Melta bombs in addition to a drop pod Venerable with Multi-melta, Land Speeder Storm with Multi-melta and an Autocannon/Lascannon Pred. You have approximately 2-3 tanks on the table, depending on how the terrain is set up, either spread miles apart or clumped together.

-- *All of that said* --

My Scouts are not a competitive army. They're my fun army because no-one wants to play my Eldar any more. They will lose horribly if someone steals the initiative, and probably not do amazingly if I don't go first. The above tactic would not work against any number of armies, but that's not the point of this thread. In an attempt to get back on topic:

How do people feel about someone holding their entire army in reserve? :biggrin:


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## Lash Machine (Nov 28, 2008)

I was a bit apprehensive the first time I did it but it works a treat and can be a game winning tactic, especially if it has not crossed your opponenets thoughts at all. It works quite well against opponenets if they can out shot you at range providing you have some outflanking and or deepstriking units available in your army. You essentially provide them with one less turn of shooting and providing your army is good or apt at moving and shooting you can neutralise key components of their army when you arrive.

The chance you take is that you don't know what units are arriving at a particular time but it gives you the initiative to target and neutralise a key element of their force. It works well in Kill point missions as you deny the enemy one less turn of firing than you. It's almost always worth doing against an army with drop pods as it really renders the podding units useless. Since most are designed to deliver some form of killing blow when they drop, if there is no one to perform it against they are going to either have to drop close to your lines and hope not to get it in the neck when you arrive or drop close to theirs and move on foot which will hamper their effectiveness.

Dawn of war is perhaps one mission where you would need to think twice but even then, if you are arriving on turn two you have daylight and can shoot the enemy before they shoot you.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Arcane said:


> Just played against a tau player who did this, only having a broadside on the board, waaaay out of range of anything I could shoot at it besides one gun.
> 
> Not saying I'm soar about it but it was frustrating and made the game less fun. All it really makes me want to do is not play him much in the future.


Try to view the other side of the coin too and play Tau army against a lot of Pods, or a Chaos Daemon army or anything similar "in your face army" and you will never want to face those armies any more either, since its a decent chance that the game is over turn 1.

I do see your pain, I just dont think that yours is a good response to what happened. See below



Lucio said:


> If its a tourny tactic I'd rather see it on occassion in a non-competitive game so I get to figure out how to beat it. Closest I've ever gotten to facing something like that is the one time I went against demons, otherwise I've never faced it.


This is a very healthy way of confronting this, more people should think like this:victory:



Lash Machine said:


> ...It's almost always worth doing against an army with drop pods as it really renders the podding units useless. Since most are designed to deliver some form of killing blow when they drop, if there is no one to perform it against they are going to either have to drop close to your lines and hope not to get it in the neck when you arrive or drop close to theirs and move on foot which will hamper their effectiveness...


Very well said. Far too many players just accept their fate, deploys and lets those pods pop down turn 1 and ruin their chances. 


40k is a game of tactics, and one of the cornerstones of warfare tactics is "outsmarting" your opponent, generally by doing something unexpected. This is one typical trick that will work about 2 times on each player. Get those 2 times under the carpet quickly and learn to overcome it instead:wink:


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## Arcane (Feb 17, 2009)

I don't think it is a good response either but what do you really expect? But as you can see I _have_ won tens of thousands of games 

Currently, I can't change my list for a month so there really isn't anything I can do anyhow. Unless also hiding behind cover is a good tactic, but then you just get set up against.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

As someone who regularly runs tournaments, I have to throw a red flag at the tournament organizer on this one. You, as an organizer/judge, CANNOT interfere with the scores opponents give one another if you choose to have that scoring system in place. The GT/RTT standard system does not allow for opponents to score one another--it's all left to the judges. However, by acting as a judge, you have to be completely impartial and follow the rules from the rulebook and any FAQs officially printed by Games Workshop to the best of your ability. If you don't like someone, but they're right, you still have to rule in favor of them. Similarly, if they're doing something that's legal in game, but you personally find dickish, you have to stand behind them if their opponent cries about it, because they're not breaking any rules. 

When I hear about how opponents score their opponent a 0 with the cause of what's ultimately getting beaten in the game, I just add another tally mark to the reason I don't score comp in tournaments (and GW doesn't, generally, either, if you look at the GT/RTT format.) 

If there are any others who're reading this who run tournaments, I encourage you to give this a try-- score the games as normal; score painting as normal; and score sportsmanship only if there's someone being a serious douchebag (the rubric can be found on GW's tournament organizer pdfs on their website, under "community" then "Grand Tournaments"). You have to make a concerted effort to get points off on the sportsmanship rubric, after all. So what you have at the end of the day are scores from three games, and a painting score assigned by you, the judge, using a rubric that's very straightforward and almost impossible to argue with.


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