8.10.2009

Passing Along: Passive Cheating

Look, I'm aware I don't have much of a following, but I have to give this absolute BS the widest possible dispersion. Nik posts about some nonsense a player hit him with during Hard Boyz (do these stories surprise anyone?), but what makes it more interesting is they are both from the Wrecking Crew. Nik couldn't have been more concise and detailed... Read the thread:

http://40kwreckingcrew.aceboard.com/331128-607-2359-0-Furious-Reflections-Boyz-Semi-Finals.htm

Green Blow Fly or Steve, the opponent in question, responds on another thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/251668.page

He also says the following, "I feel bad that yet another incident has occurred that shows my club in a bad light. At the Big Waaagh this year I had a perfect score for sportsmanship and one of my opponents told me our game was by far his favorite and he handily won that one."

I don't know who to believe - I wasn't there. What really hacks me off is the response from a MODERATOR from the site and his response. It couldn't have been more diminishing. Read Bdon's response, if you didn't read it on the site.

"I say “we” in quotation marks because an organization like our own is, by its very nature, nothing more than a loose affiliation of like-minded tournament players."

Nothing more?

Peace!

Ok a more in depth response:

"I have decided to bring the issue up here, rather than at some open forum like DakkaDakka or the B&C. I recognize how much heat this would bring down on us, and how"

Holding something against your club over what one person did is not a good idea pal!

"This is where things began to become “murky”. We exchanged lists, and upon closer examination of the list I was handed (my own being accurate), the point total of his roster added up to ‘1850’. I asked him four times (Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?) whether the army roster was correct, and was told that it added up to 2250. "

Sounds like a simple case of not changing the roster value in AB. I make 2k lists all the time without switching from 1850, so it says "1850 list" at the bottom below the REAL points value. Why were you going into this so paranoid?

"1.) Each time a squad was kicked out of a transport, rather than having the squad on the table (or near at hand) to simply place on the board to save time, Steve would walk back to the front desk, sift through a stack of four or five foam flats, take each model out one at a time, share a few comments with the clerk, and return.. and then, painstakingly place each model, one at a time, in the same fashion. Each squad removed from a transport took, on average, 5 minutes to place. These are squads of 5-10 models, not 30 man Orks."

I dont see any cheating here. I hear tell of a crowded place.

"2.) During shooting, targets were frequently not declared. A vague gesture would be made, and dice would be rolled. This happened two or three times, and I often had to stop and ask, again, which unit was firing at what. Twice, I had an issue where Steve tried to fire twice with a single unit, nearly back to back. Checking and requesting verification for every other move an opponent makes is not what I’m used to, unless I’m playing a newb."

That is how he plays. If you dont like it take it up with him at the table, not later in some essay.

3. Then call him on it then call a TO if he does it again. It doesnt sound like you put up much of a fight. Sounded like he thought he was walking into a friendly game since you are in the SAME CLUB and both FOR SURE going to the finals.

4 n 5. I dunno wasnt there should have brought it up with him instead.

6. Tell him to speed up? I will tell you what, last time I played Steve when I was on a trip in Florida I would have preferred he slowed down. Rethink your priorities. If you dont like playing or spending time with us then dont let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

7. "Really Steve?" Should have asked him at the table maybe?

8. Then keep calling him on it?

9. "(It doesnt)" Opinion

"What is the standard by which Wrecking Crew members are judged, and do I want to count myself amongst their number? " HAHA don't pull that two faced BS.

"Here is where I stand: I have nothing to gain from writing this. " Yeah you get to make yourself feel better because youre pissy you didnt win. Your posts read like a childrens story, simple and easy, you arent going to pull this over on me.

"My purest intention in this thread is to resolve my own problem with what took place" YOu do that with a phone call or at the worst a PM.

"I’m also fine with replies to this thread" Damn right.

I think it should be deleted because its a passive aggressive act against a clubmate, one you would rather win agaisnt than play another turn agaisnt. I would love to play Steve at any time.


There is something wrong with the community when we allow this to happen at competative events. Anyone that's travelled has some stories of this or similiar nonsense.

Call it out.

Brent

9 comments:

SAJ said...

Damn, Nik outlines all my most effective strategies for winning...I guess I'll have to come up with others if we ever get around to playing -Simon

Anonymous said...

I always find myself kind of on the fence about tournament play after reading about bullshit like this. On the one hand, it almost completely turns me off from ever attending future events. On the other hand, it almost inspires me to take my gaming to the next level and roll up and kick some ass.

While it doesn't come as a surprise to some, it is still kind of a shock for me to see the lengths at which people will go in order to win a game of man-barbies.

Bruce said...

Dude you don't even know what kind of slow play that we had to endure from one guy in Lubbock. Unfortunately for him, I beat him at his own game on turn 5 I just stopped pushing him to keep going and on my turn I took my time. I have never done this to anyone, but this guy certainly deserved it! The first round he played one of the guys that drove up there with us, and they only got through three rounds in two and a half hours. That was ridiculous, and when I played him in round two it took him thirty min just to put his shit on the table. I pushed him the entire game, and finally I noticed him looking at his watch every two min after they called one hour left, and that pushed me over the edge. If this guy would have played me strait up, he would have killed my army. He had two land raiders with 15 man squads left inside, assault termies, 8 man assault squad, and I had shit left. I'm not sure what happened with Brent's game with this guy other than him not wanting to finish their game, but maybe Brent will blog about it more in depth. I was ashamed to have to slow play my way to a victory, but this guy started it, so I finished it.

Terminus Est said...

Hi. I want to thank you for being objective about your review of the event. I chose not to speak much about it publicly at the time because I felt bad for Nikk that he came out and said he felt cheated. Some time had passed, the Ard Boyz is over and now I would like to clear up some issues surrounding the game and Nikk.

First Nikk never was a member of the Wrecking Crew (WC). He simply joined our forums and put WC in front of his username. Our club was large enough that everyone took it for granted that one of our leaders (Kenny Boucher and Marc Parker) had granted him membership. Nikk played this well and we fell for it. After the shit storm hit the fan with his post on the WC forums we did some research and found out that in fact Nikk was never approved as a member.

More about his character... as soon as the third round was over Nikk said he would not be able to afford the trip to Chicago for the finals. The TO immediately went looking for the person (Gabe Dobkins) who took 4th place to let him know he would be able to go. Nikk in the meantime was trying to sell his spot and when he learned that Gabe would get his spot suddenly Nikk said he would be able to go.

Nikk asked me during the game to see my codex. I was playing Blood Angels with Grey Knights as an allied troop choice so I asked him which one he would like to see and what was his question. He never answered me and after the game was over he stated he wanted to see the SM codex because he had a question regarding whether or not a combi melta benefits from Vulkan. He had gotten into a big argument with some other members of WC a week or two about this while playing with them in the Miami area. I thought this was very odd of him to ask during the game in which he stated I was slow playing.

About the accussations of slow playing... I had a terrible headache and there were no sideboards to place your army so I put mine on the closet counter at the store. It took time to pull out units when I disembarked them. Nikk was beside himself when I asked an employee if I could have an aspirin and a diet Coke. Nikk always took his time during his turns and then would stare at me and tell me to hurry up during my turns.

What bothers me the most is that Nikk never approached me to discuss these issues and posted about later that night on the WC forums. He said in his post that he did not want to go public but sure enough some asshat from my local area linked his post on the B&C and Dakka Dakka. I think Nikk is smart enough to know that his post on the WC forums would be highly visible. Stelek also posted it on his blog - I stand no chance there of having an opportunity to explain my point of view fairly.

Are any of Nikk's accusations true? What about his game play during the match. I had some issues with him such as rolling dice behind terrain where I could not see the results and not taking DT tests for his Oblits when they DSd into DT. I can say here that what he said is not true and I responded point by point on Dakka Dakka. I'm not going to go through that exercise again.

Publicly I have offered an olive branch to Stelek recently. I will see how it goes. I think the way he handled it when he posted Nikk's link was unfair. I appreciate the opportunity to tell my side of the story here.

G

Darkness said...

Well spoken. As someone who has played Steve on multiple occasions, I felt this post odd when I first came across it. I'm glad that Steve had an oppurtunity to say his piece.

Pat said...

While i am ambivalent to the situation, how is him being a member or not of your group relevant to the behavior on the table top?
I know plenty of people who sell their (or try to) sell their tickets that way, while again i am rather ambivalent on that practice, how is that at all relevant to the tabletop behavior?
All in all, cheating is often 90% perception than reality... My question is this, Most of us spend more money than usually is in prize support to even get to the event, we are playing with toy soldiers for fun, what is the purpose of even having bad games? it is not like you are making money/scoring babes/earn the admiration of the masses. This is a hobby. Creating shit storms on the internet with plenty of finger pointing to go around solves nothing. It does divide our small community creating less opportunity for fun games, less chances of someone not in the hobby watching and wanting a part of the good times...

Terminus Est said...

Kind of late for a rebuttal don't you think ?

Just saying ...

Brent said...

Wow! This was an old post.

It's interesting how much my opinion has changed since 2009. I've since met Steve, and he's one of my favorite people on the circuit. The WC dudes I've met have all been great opponents.

Still and all, these type of games sometimes happen. This isn't the type of post I do anymore, because they don't help in general.

As an aside, BBF - did you ever get my response email on the ATC thing?

Terminus Est said...

Hi Brent !

So are you up for some ATC this year ?

Hit me back at this email:

moodhoney@yahoo.com

G

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