http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12210-2000pt-de-harlequins-vs-ge-ig

Recent battlereport for a game I did. I play only about 4 games a year now due to a lack of motivation and my distaste for the average 40k player.

Since this blog is unlikely to be viewed by *anyone* I feel confidant enough exposing here a few things.

Well to begin with lets do us a SinCounter of things that went wrong here:

no GK/IG army list.
Didn't confirm him rolling for his powers
he selected the mission without roll off.
preselected his table edge and set up.
Walking off during the game at least 10 times.
Suspicious use of rules lawyering for advantage.
Did you notice that terrain density? huh?

It's funny how some people start off fast and loose with the rules but as the game drags on and the margins of error get tighter and tighter they start puckering up and looking for advantages. The competitive spirit of this guy lead him to several rules debates with store staff and the local rules lawyer. And he was wrong every time.

When I saw at the very beginning before we even got started how he was going about it I decided to take a few liberties myself. Does that make me a better player or person than him? Sure it does. Because I was 0.2% of my army list over in points and rolled for fleet incorrectly like one time.  In other words if I must be labeled a cheater it was pretty benign compared to him.

I played him psychologically, talking up how good the saves on my harlequins were and how powerful their attacks were and shit, fully knowing that by infiltrating them so close to him they were just going to get pumped full of psybolts until they disappeared. I wonder if he ever realised how much energy he wasted trying to kill them seeing as I never even rolled to shoot with any of them and stopped trying to use psyker powers with my shadowseer after turn 2. The deathjester and shadowseer literally did nothing but roll invulnerable/cover saves for 4 turns until they died. I played on my opponents target priority, reminding him that you can't consider weapons to be part of the model you're shooting for Line Of Sight purposes so what was his response? He moved around until he could. Even if it meant 1". Even if it meant that his fucking librarian couldn't see any part of my shadowseer but magically was shooting witchfire attacks at her anyway because "Fuck Logic(tm) I will cheat in order to achieve my objectives". Since he was such a good sport about ignoring the rules in order to win I let him as he was doing a really bad job at it anyway.

I think it's the money people pour in to 40k that makes them so crazy about it. No that can't be it. I'd go for an even more base assumption: these kinds of people are so hungry to win they will do it if they can get away with it.

He never went as far as making shit up on the spot or model swapping which is where I'd have been calling him WAAC and to be blacklisted, but it is very telling that when someone you're playing against can't even do the simple courtesy of telling you what's in his army list and that by the end of the game the satisfaction of beating this guy anyway is eroded and drained away that you might be playing either a bad game or are just associating with bad people.

And it's the people. It has for the very most part always been the people. And game stores are the worst offenders for it because they principally will not deny access to games for players who have proven themselves unable to handle the responsibility of not breaking the rules. Socially awkward little kids who feel the need to stroke their tyranid models and put off their substantially older opponents like they're being a psyops master. It's not. You're not. You're just being a creepy little anti-social shit and your incessant jokes about stupid things is only going to result in noone wanting to play with you.

I really do miss living in Auckland, the 40k social club in ellerslie was a collection of 20-30 18+'s who joined up once a week to play some dice in a private setting with a bar and restaurant. Perth doesn't really seem to have a dedicated club space that I know of and that's a damned shame because this game is so, SO much better once all the retards and their bullshit is removed from the equation.