Rules Lawyering gone delightfully right.
Rules Lawyering gone delightfully right.
Originally shared by Ben Gerber
I don't play 40k - but I did have a good chuckle at this one.
http://imgur.com/gallery/V0gND
Originally shared by Ben Gerber
I don't play 40k - but I did have a good chuckle at this one.
http://imgur.com/gallery/V0gND
I don't play 40K either, but if the one kid's army is all one unit, which it looks like, that has got to be a super cheesy army.
ReplyDeleteBikers were (and depending on the army, still are) cheesy.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this story before and am 99% sure that "Shooter" is the power gaming jerk here.
ReplyDeleteRules lawyering your opponent out of the game without them getting to play is way more obnoxious than playing one of the gimmicky themed Space Marine chapters and using their thematic gimmick.
Dylan Boates Nah. Being able to put ALL of your army in reserve was a really stupid decision from a game design standpoint and that's the reason they specified in later editions that you must have at least one unit on the table or you lose.
ReplyDeleteThe shootist's units aren't that good (well, cheesy) by themselves at all.
He wasn't really using their thematic gimmick. He was holding the entire army in reserve so he could wait until after his opponent had set up, see the weakest point, and fire his entire army at that point. Which is only slightly more interesting than what Shooter did.
ReplyDeletePut it this way: the biker all-reserve army is cheesy against a majority of builds. The Kroot line is only cheesy against all-reserve builds and that's it.
ReplyDeleteLike if he tried the Kroot against any other army they would promptly get shot the fuck up.
ReplyDeleteWheels must have used this gimmick more than once and Shooter knew it was coming.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard anything about the Kroot other than how much they suck.
ReplyDeleteYup. It was a big part of the tournament metagame.
ReplyDeleteIs being able to deploy your whole army in reserve not part of the White Scars gimmick? I know it was part of the Raven Wings gimmick. (And since, as far as I know, the White Scars never had their own rules, I'm assuming he's using the Raven Wings rules since they were the other all bikers Space Marine group.)
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm misinterpreting the situation because I don't know the tournament metagame, but it really sounds to me like the story is "This guy rules lawyered someone else out of the game because he didn't like the other guy's army choice."
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many army lists they were allowed to have in the tourney?
ReplyDeleteDylan Boates I don't think Shooter owed Wheels a game if he was going to get steamrollered by playing into his one-trick pony show. To mangle a metaphor.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me smile :)
ReplyDeleteJames LaManna makes me feel a little better about Warmachine, which is cheese-tastic. What was the move called where the warjack throws the Kovnik downfield, but the Kovnik can't be knocked down, so then he charges the opposing warcaster and wins in two moves?
ReplyDeleteKicking powergamers in the balls with powergaming ... mmm, that satisfies.
ReplyDeleteReally I lay it at the feet of GW, which has given nearly zero shits about actual good game design for probably decades now. It's not an RPG, there's no "spirit of play" involved, it's a competitive game and needs to be designed as such.
EDIT: OTOH one could argue that the scout trick is the fix, and that if you're gonna pull the reserve trick, you had it coming.
Dylan Boates No, he didn't like the fact there was literally no downside to placing all your units in reserve on a kill point game since it means you get to deploy last and then take your turn no matter who actually gets first turn.
ReplyDeleteLike IIRC he coulda done it with any army, not just a cheesy one. It's not the Biker part that is the ultimate cheese, it's the All Units in Reserve part.
ReplyDeleteI would say that photographing your opponent with a giant shit-eating grin on your face is probably the only real douchebag move here.
ReplyDeleteI probably would have as well. I suspect there's some backstory to the biker player.
I'm pretty sure that's not the case. At least not in any edition I ever played.
ReplyDeleteOnly certain units could be placed in reserves, and the only armies that could be composed of purely reserve capable units were things like the White Scars/Raven Wing.
Is it possible that GW effed that up in its latest edition?
ReplyDeleteDylan Boates Okay, I may be misremebering who could go in reserves but the army composition doesn't really enter into it.
ReplyDeleteIt is exceedingly cheesy to have an army that basically cannot be attacked at any point until they are deployed, at which point the Reserve person gets to go regardless of who actually started the game.
The reserve rule has indeed been fixed since... fifth? You lose the game automatically if there's no one on the table.
ReplyDeleteYeah, people in the comments talk about the reserve thing not being legal anymore in 6th ed.
ReplyDeleteSo is this picture from pre-5th?
ReplyDeleteOr did the biker nerd bring an illegal force?
Pre-5th. Old pic.
ReplyDeleteThen I partially recant my previous GW rules-writing slag.
ReplyDeleteBut only partially. I still hate their game design.
In kind of a similar/related case, I once developed a, like, 10 or 12-card recipe for a Shadowfist deck that was so brokenly cheesy that it needed to be errata'ed. So I can sort of appreciate the pleasure of unleashing that sort of thing ... once. To make a point.
ReplyDeleteI'm just betting this kid had done it multiple times (which is why trollface there knew what to do).
I suck at min-maxing point-based games. I was like an innocent little moppet in the few Warmachine tournaments I went to.
ReplyDeleteThe trick is to be a total powergamer bastard but not act like it.
ReplyDeleteThe most brutal players I've ever known were the ones who knew their games' edge cases and could work them hard, all the while being a complete pleasure to play with. Pretty soon the edges don't seem so...edgy.
Yeah, I briefly played in a league with a nationally ranked Warmachine dude. He was super nice while kicking my ass. Gave me a lot of pointers.
ReplyDeleteThese guys really redefined my opinions about what "good sportsmanship" is about, especially in hardcore competitive environments like CCGs and mini tournaments and stuff.
ReplyDeleteMy takeaway, when I was into this, was that complaining about "cheese" or "spirit of play" or whatever is straight-up whining, and has nothing to do with sportsmanship. The rules are the rules, everyone is playing by the same set, and the competition isn't about who was the most faithful to the theme.
Winning and losing gracefully within the confines of the rules is where it's at. I've seen poor sports who flawlessly played in the spirit of the game, and I've seen good sports play right up to all the edges and it's all legal. But they don't gloat; they just accept that anything goes if the rules allow for it.
Casey Garske Warmachine gamers can be a mixed mag. Most of them are fairly decent folks, but there's a few out there that will say they're teaching someone to play, and then beat them down.
ReplyDeleteI admit to having a one-trick strategy for Warmachine, which was "Get the Butcher into melee range by using warjacks as a shield, then cast killing blow, boost attack with a focus point. maybe boost damage." Killing Blow was powerful enough that in many cases, he didn't even need to roll damage because his doubled strength was more than most warcaster's health. Sadly they took out the Butcher's most effective attack spell and left him with the worthless rock. I wasn't always able to get into range, but I had fun playing.
I love what Shooter did.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, yeah, it's a gimmick. But...
If you use a gimmick that's generally useful and works even against opponents who know it's coming, because it exploits rules that give you a huge advantage (such as keeping all your units in reserve, meaning you can't be attacked, so you can put them on the table and go first (or go last and not give the opponent a chance to go while you're also on the table?) - that's cheesy.
If you use a gimmick that only works because you know what your opponent is going to try then that's called tactics
That's what the game is ABOUT.
There's nothing cheesy about taking anti-demon weapons against a demonic army. There's nothing cheesy about picking the right units or taking advantage of the right rules to win against the opponent's strategy. That's just called playing the game
Yeah, there's a shit-eating grin on Shooters face. There SHOULD be. Wheels had a strategy that shooter predicted, causing it to totally, absolutely backfire.
I had a similar shit-eating grin on my face when I predicted my opponent in fantasy would spend all his points on as the general, and would place him up in the tower that was on this map. So I fielded the max number of dwarven cannons, all with runes picked out to kill this unit. First turn, my turn, they all fired on the exposed general (being up in the tower, it was a giant unit with a clear line of sight) - destroyed the general, meaning most of the army crumbled. The battle was over fast. It wasn't "fun" in that we didn't get to fight it out over the terrain. But it was still a legitimate win. I won because I predicted the strategy the opponent would use, and used that prediction to block him. Just like Shooter did.
So we laugh, we learn, and next time you don't keep your entire army in reserve. Next time Wheeler can sacrifice a few units to hold some of the terrain so the reserves can come out later in the battle. He can still use his strategy, but if he wants to be protected from this counter-strategy, he'll have to be slightly less efficient. Which is fine. That's the game. He can make the gamble of keeping ALL units in reserve, or he can play safer at the cost of providing some targets to the opponent.