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Show Notes
Date: 7-18-18
Intro
- Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube! Join our Forums, too! If you would like to be a guest on the show, email Reece at Contact@FrontlineGaming.org
- We sell tabletop games and supplies at a discount! Hit us up for your next gaming order at Orders@FrontlineGaming.org or visit our webstore at store.FrontlineGaming.org.
News
- The team is back from ATC and we had a great time. Here’s our recap of the event!
- We’re running our first ever FLG Mat Summer Super Sale! We just stocked our warehouse with materials to make mats and we’re bursting at the seams with inventory so we wanted to move some of it and offer our customers some great savings! We also re-released new versions of our Urban Chaos mats and have a brand new Snow 2 mat which is beautiful.
- We are very excited to announce that the ETC 40k Singles championships event will be scoring ITC points! This is a great step towards bringing together these two very large groups as while there is a friendly rivalry between some participants of the two respective organizations, ultimately we all love to play games and have fun.
- The BAO 2018 is nearly upon us! Be sure to prepare yourself to have a great time and also please, please, please read the Chess Clock rules and play with them at least once as we don’t want anyone to be caught off guard playing these for the first time in a competitive setting in a high stakes game at the BAO! As a reminder:
- Not everyone will be using a clock, but anyone that wants to, can!
- We will not have them at all day 1 unless both players at a table ask for them.
- Day 2 all players with a winning record will use the clock and those tables that have 2 players that want to use the clock, can.
- We will be recording how many turns players complete with and without the clock and run an opinion poll after to determine what everyone felt about it.
- Clocks aside, we can’t wait to see everyone at the 8th annual BAO! It will be an awesome time and we will see if Brandon Grant can threepeat!
Upcoming ITC Events
- We got an awesome email that we wanted to share as it really hits the nail on the head in regards to what the ITC is about:
Just want to say definitely please keep doing the podcast and streams. They have helped me, a returning hobbyist not be turned away from going to tournaments. At the end of the day like Reece said, the ITC mission statement is simply for people to come and play the game with like minded people. I’ve made so many new friends in the last 12 months and am no longer scared by these kinds of stories.
The podcasts and streams help provide a ‘designers commentary’ on reasons decisions were made, provide insight on the challenges of this aspect of the hobby and show that this all is a really good thing! Hopefully the word spreads and more people can take on opinions and ideas expressed in the podcasts.
Upcoming 40k ITC Events
- 40K ITC Champions Tourney (2K), Bc Comix of Battle Creek, Battle Creek, MI, July 21st, 2018
- Mortis Munera!, St Paul, MN, July 21st, 2018
- HTU July Warhammer 40K Tournament, HobbyTown USA, Fresno, CA, July 21st, 2018
- GameFace ITC tournament, GameFace, Yukon, OK, July 21st, 2018
- Liga ITC oficial – Warhammer 40K, TM Games, La Paz, Bolivia, July 21st, 2018
- Gamehaven St. George RTT, St. George, UT, July 21st, 2018
- July 21th 2k Warhammer 40k, Dice N Duels, Fernley, NV, July 21st, 2018
- Battle For The Wooden Spoon, Bartlesville, OK, July 21st, 2018
- At Ease Games monthly ITC tournament, San Diego CA, July 21st, 2018
- Warzone: Montreal RECON, Zakeda Sport, Quebec, Canada, July 21st, 2018
- Game Knight Summer Open WH40k Doubles Tournament, Game Knight, Huntingburg, IN, July 21st, 2018
- Actually Happening ITC 40K Tournament, Gabi’s Olympic Cards & Comics, Lacey, WA, July 21st, 2018
- GT: Summer Slaughter GT, Stowe, PA, July 21st, 2018
- Heroes’ Gambit 40k RTT, Dragon’s Den Games, Saskatchewan, Canada, July 21st, 2018
- GT: TABLETOP GAMING EXPO, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 21-22nd, 2018
- GT: Wintercon 40k ITC 8th Edition Official Event 2018, Canberra, Australia, July 21-22nd, 2018
- The Cleveland Chainsword Championship, Dave & Buster’s, Westlake, OH, July 22nd, 2018
- LBK Touren 39, Linkoping, Sweden, July 22nd, 2018
- Show-Me Showdown Grand Tournament, Kansas City, MO, July 21-22nd, 2018
Upcoming AoS ITC Events
- AOS Tournament – 2000 pts, Tier 1 Cards & Games, Anchorage, AK, July 21st, 2018
- Gamers Arsenal Monthly ITC Tournament, The Gamers Arsenal, Murrieta, CA, July 21st, 2018
- Age Of Sigmar Tournament, Fremont CA , July 28th, 2018
- End Zone July AoS Tourney, Clearfield, UT, July 28th, 2018
- Get out of the Sun: Age of Sigmar Tournament, Memory Lane Antique Mall, Gate City, VA, July 28th, 2018
40k ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matt | Root | 691.07 | 5 of 5 |
| 2 | Joshua | Death | 635.55 | 5 of 5 |
| 3 | Mitchell | Pelham | 593.48 | 5 of 5 |
| 4 | Nick | Gower | 590.54 | 5 of 5 |
| 5 | Geoff | Robinson | 589.07 | 5 of 5 |
| 6 | Daniel | Olivas | 588.22 | 5 of 5 |
| 7 | tj | lanigan | 585.88 | 5 of 5 |
| 8 | John | Lennon | 579.88 | 5 of 5 |
| 9 | Bruce | Merker | 572.26 | 5 of 5 |
| 10 | Ryan | Verbeck | 565.71 | 5 of 5 |
Click here for full rankings.40k ITC Hobby Track Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeffrey | Merrick | 348.7 | 4 of 5 |
| 2 | Lou | Rollins | 324.73 | 3 of 5 |
| 3 | Shawn | Prosser | 286.89 | 4 of 5 |
| 4 | Nick | Gower | 281.37 | 4 of 5 |
| 5 | William | Ivey | 279.72 | 4 of 5 |
| 6 | anthony | bellm | 265.27 | 4 of 5 |
| 7 | Antonio | Cedeno | 254.55 | 4 of 5 |
| 8 | Connor | Whitehead | 252.87 | 4 of 5 |
| 9 | Kristopher | Boss | 231.59 | 3 of 5 |
| 10 | Michael | Ralston | 227.87 | 2 of 5 |
AoS ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe | Krier | 446.68 | 4 of 5 |
| 2 | James | Thomas | 446.05 | 4 of 5 |
| 3 | Mathew | Jones | 430.43 | 4 of 5 |
| 4 | Joshua | Harvey | 427.39 | 4 of 5 |
| 5 | Steven | Hyche | 419.67 | 4 of 5 |
| 6 | Ken | Eubanks | 410.34 | 4 of 5 |
| 7 | Alex | Gonzalez | 378.09 | 4 of 5 |
| 8 | Jarrett | Zazuetta | 373.62 | 4 of 5 |
| 9 | Cody | Middleton | 364.86 | 4 of 5 |
| 10 | Jason | Heide | 361.49 | 4 of 5 |
AoS ITC Hobby Track Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | laljit | sidhu | 208.52 | 2 of 5 |
| 2 | Philip | Verduzco | 158.69 | 2 of 5 |
| 3 | Frank | DeLoach | 158.62 | 2 of 5 |
| 4 | Scott | Reed | 155.07 | 2 of 5 |
| 5 | Joshua | Harvey | 150.5 | 2 of 5 |
| 6 | Ben | Nelson | 146.37 | 2 of 5 |
| 7 | Josh | Greenfield | 124.35 | 2 of 5 |
| 8 | Chris | Stifter | 110.56 | 1 of 5 |
| 9 | Tyler | Hamil | 105.55 | 2 of 5 |
| 10 | Daniel | Callaghan | 96.74 | 1 of 5 |
Shadespire ITC Hobby Track Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike | Corse | 333.98 | 3 of 5 |
| 2 | Matt | Everhart | 306.03 | 3 of 5 |
| 3 | Josue | Ibarra | 297.42 | 3 of 5 |
| 4 | Andrew | Everhart | 287.83 | 3 of 5 |
| 5 | Tony | Field | 276.65 | 3 of 5 |
| 6 | David | Escobar | 263.04 | 3 of 5 |
| 7 | David | Cutts | 256.37 | 3 of 5 |
| 8 | Christopher | Avalos | 228.06 | 3 of 5 |
| 9 | Brandon | Ulick | 221.14 | 2 of 5 |
| 10 | Michael | Misulich | 194.18 | 2 of 5 |
Tactics Corner
Completed Commissions
- Check out this awesome Dark Imperium starter set painted by the FLG Paint Studio! These models came out beautifully.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
If you speak up at a tournament when your opponent makes a mistake and call them on it. Would that be considered being “inControl” of the situation?
lol, possibly!
Your Upcoming 40K ITC Events look to have been accidentally copied from JUNE instead of JULY. Might want to do a quick edit.
I only mention it because I actually user your list to find a local tournament that I attended last weekend.
Yeah, I goofed it =(
Fixed.
Regarding your defense of the plasma pistols as potentially innocent-if you cannot remember a list well enough to not make that mistake with a piece of wargear on multiple models have the self-awareness to only go WYSIWYG. If you cannot get WYSIWYG models for your ideal list and cannot remember the right gear if it is not WYSIWYG then make sacrifices from your ideal list to match the models you can obtain. There is simply no excuse for “forgetting” that you did not pay for at least 21 points (plasma pistols on 3 squad sergeants), whether the offense is deliberate or not.
Given that this happened when the individuals involved were winning (apparently decisively so) it just goes to show how ingrained dishonest behaviors can become, whether they are needed or not in a particular match. This is why TOs and event rules need to deal with these infractions harshly, regardless of whatever “intent” can be divined from the circumstances.
Oh, trust me, there should have been consequences whether intentional or not. The TO’s handled it as they felt was appropriate. What I was driving at was that we weren’t going to make a statement as to intent as a lot of people are claiming he cheated intentionally. While that is certainly possible, we can’t know what he was thinking so we don’t cast that stone but regardless, he broke the rules and so we brought that fact to light.
If it had been us at one of our events, we would have been a lot harsher in how we handled it. We make people pull models/units/detachments off of the table, often for the rest of the event. However, this was not our event and the judges handled it the way they felt was most appropriate.
Thank you for the clarification. The discussion in the episode in conjunction with the character references later gave a different impression than just attempting to stay neutral.
There are two Aarons on Team Happy. I actually don’t know Aaron Aelong very well as I’ve never really hung out with him so I don’t have anything to say as to his character as it would be purely speculative. I was talking about Aaron Towler who is legitimately one of the nicest people I have ever met and an all around awesome dude.
Fact,
There was 1 plasma pistol on 1 sister superior.
In the Long War podcast on this the 2nd round opponent states around the 23 minute mark that it was multiple pistols on multiple superiors in multiple squads. So unless he misspoke at least from one opponent’s perspective it was more than 1.
Juice said pistol. Kenny said pistols. It has been confirmed it was 1.
I will ask Frankie again (he was on the receiving end of this as well) but I think he said it was Pistols also. However, it’s a bit of splitting hairs either way. Using equipment you didn’t pay for, whether 1 or X, is still illegal.
I agree Reece,
But Alparious changed the story to 3 pistols on 3 sgts. That is significantly more intentional than 1 on 1.
Fair enough.
Reece, what measures if any are you planning on taking to prevent a recurrence of this cheating at your three coming events?
Will lists be checked pre-game ?eg- I liked the way that some tournaments allowed an extra 15 minutes for lists to be checked by first round opponents. And also at the London GT where the lists were put on the net weeks ahead and most of famous/ infamous players’ lists were well scrutinised by many players.
How can the responsible majority of gamers help to cut out cheating or sensationalising the situations ?
Are ever bigger events causing issues as the small group of TOs is being overwhelmed ?
Perhaps you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but we cover it in the episode. We’re actively working on a set of Floor Rules to cover these issues.
As for events growing and causing issues? Yeah, growing pains are a thing but they pretty easy to overcome, too. I am not concerned about continued growth but on finding the ways to make it happen smoothly.
WWAD wrist-bands ? Play by the rules and call a referee. An illegal / unpaid for weapon that suddenly gets selected when the original weapon fails to kill is CHEATING. In your own tournaments, that would be a DQ model.
“We’re working on the floor rules” …. BAO is in a week. Where are they? And are these going to be produced with aid from the GW Events Team who are the best in the world at this?
Lol, whoa man, patience. These things take time. It is actively being worked on.
And we didn’t witness nor were we aware of the whole incident with Juice and Aaron. I didn’t know of it till after we recorded the show and so had no opinion on it. Plus, I like and trust Juice, but anything we said on that topic would be hearsay unless we simply quoted them but again, we weren’t even aware of it until recently so please temper your perspective.
I think there are some incidents that are getting blown way out of proportion. The plasma pistol was an obvious cheat. If you use an ability, know how it works. Don’t use models that clearly have a weapon not in your list. There will always be slow play accusations until the templates return. Competively most armies are going to have 50+ models.
For slow play issues, I know you don’t want to increase the time back to 3+ hours but between increasing the points to 2000 and the addition of all these rerollable abilities it does sometimes feel impossible to get past turn 4. Hopefully something is done.
With that said: if you get caught blatantly cheating you lose that tournament. If you don’t know your army mechanics, don’t bring it to a tournament or not knowing a rule and how to use it legally means its illegal. that means by mistake or intentional, you cheated. Don’t bring an army you don’t know how to play in a tournament setting.
“hearsay” is an American legal term …. and yes, Juice taped after you did. But one of your commentators,who wasn’t even at the event / doesn’t play competitively, wanted to lessen the serious nature of the problem.
But how will your rules be different to the ones that the official GW Events Team already use ? Aren’t you taking time in reinventing the wheel?
The good news is that I visited my local GW store and nobody had heard of the controversy. They were happily killing plastic toy soldiers. This may be big news in the USA but elsewhere it’s treated as a few cheesy guys not playing by the rules. Millions of other gamers are in the same situation…. they don’t know and don’t care about cheating thousands of miles away.
You have no idea how happy I am that you guys are making a centralized guide for how TOs should deal with cheating. I was actually going to suggest something like that, then you guys confirmed it was being worked on.
I’ve never been a TO before, and I frankly don’t know if I’m cut out for it at this point in time, but I want to read the guide when it’s out, anyway. If nothing else, I want to be able to help TOs deal with this, should I see it at an event. They get overwhelmed enough as it is, and really do need all the help they can get. I feel like it’s everyone’s responsibility to help combat this kind of behavior in some way, not just the responsibility of the TOs.
These events are great, and I hate seeing so much controversy coming out of the recent majors. It just hurts the reputation of the tournament scene, especially for people on the outside. Having a guide for TOs to handle this is a huge step in the right direction.
You got it! It’s not just about dealing with cheating, either. It’s not a punishment guide or what have you, it’s a guide for players and organizers to use to standardize the tournament experience as much as is possible. It’s about etiquette and all sorts of stuff that isn’t covered by the rules. It should, hopefully, be very helpful.
Looking forward to seeing the final draft! Covering other things besides dealing with cheating is important, too. Even if cheating isn’t happening, there are other potential points of failure for an event when it comes to unwritten rules. Unsporting behavior is another good example. Hopefully this will help get some of those unwritten etiquette rules in writing so they’re less ambiguous. They really shouldn’t need to be written, but sadly, they do. Human nature, and all that.
Yeah, it is what it is. Pretty much every competitive event/sport/whatever has these types of guides.
Maybe this is also worth adding a feature to BCP
If you can flag players or matchups so they end up clustered together you can use fewer resources to monitor them instead of having to run all over the gaming floor due to random distribution
They are still being paired randomly but table assignments for physical proximity can be used
It is hard to do that but possible. Typically the way it works out is that high frequency judge calls and other judge related issues tend to occur at the top tables because the games are higher stakes. People with less on the line play more relaxed. So naturally you get the effect you are referring to. Round 1 is the only truly random round of play.