Feast of Blades '13

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Rules Lawyering from my Perspective


Hey folks, here is my oppinion and response on rules lawyering....

Well in my oppinion I try to avoid abuing rules without a FAQ, such as can a librarian gate out of an assault in which I disagree with it, as I believe an OFFICIAL gw faq is the only reasonable way to resolve an arguement but I have had many situations where I travel to a tournament and the local gamers have a different interpretation of said rule.

Now most of the time I will let them play their way as it is the way they design their stradegies and form their play. Yet if I am certainly sure that I am correct I will nicely pull out my rule book and walk over to my opponents side and read the rule with him and show him my way of thinking or the majority/internets view on it. A lot of the time I get long "ohhh I see" comments and we play the right way, and if not a roll off will suffice but I try to avoid these as it may be game changeing to the guy who loses the roll off as his stradegy may have been relient (not in a cheesey way but more simply your normal play) on the rules interpretation. For instance I came back to my home town in New Jersey for a tournament with my old gaming group. In my first game I caused a unit to fail morale and run in his turn. When my turn came I told him to roll for the distance to run again since he could not rally. He told me that he only runs away on his turn not mine so I got the tournament organizer and he laughed in my face over the situation with general agreement from the room, except for marcus I believe.

Now I showed him in the rulebook it clearly stated that you run away in the phase your broke, and EACH CONSECUTIVE MOVEMENT PHASE, but they still did not agree. I told the organizer that I never have seen an enterpritation like his and he told me he "saw where I was coming from, and mine makes sense but I don't want to play it like that". Now this pissed me off as it caused him to win the game, and tournament, in another case where he only had to make half as many running away rolls...especially since noe  one in the world plays this rule like him...so In this case I needed to rules lawyer but it came up in vain...So I always see this as a case by case situation.

Now a jerk over rules lawyering is always annoying. I myself have been one sometimes but now I only try to act this way anymore ONLY IF my opponent is a known WAAC player or a known consistent malicious cheater in which case I only show those people the same treatment they give others....more on this later....

8 comments:

  1. I don't know anybody who plays it the way you do. Everybody I know only runs in each of their own movement phases.

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  2. Each consecutive movement phase has to specifically call out that it is also in the opponents turn as pr. the definition on how a turn works.
    Especially since it's yourself who gets to decide when to roll for your fleeing unit so you can get something to stand in the way of it and thus reduce the distance it closes to the tableedge.

    Even in the WD battlerepports they only ever move fleeing units in the players own turn, unless something would cause the unit to roll morale in the opponents turn in which case they would have counted as failing it and will have to move again.
    Even though I know that WD battlerepports sometimes does some wierd things, I very much doubt they would get something like that wrong for the entire duration of 5th edition.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Dude (Kevin), you are the one that is rules lawyering, and then complaining about it, and then posting only half the rule to back up your arguement:

    "units make a fall back move immediately upon failing a morale test. In each subsequent phase, they will make further fall back moves INSTEAD OF MOVING NORMALLY" emphasis mine.

    "Instead of" in GW's book means that yu have to sacrifice an action. Your opponent's models are not allowed to move in your movement phase normally, so they cannot make a normal fall back move.

    You said you tried to rules lawyer, and it failed, and that upset you because your opponent won the game. You tried to break the rules, and failed, and you got mad.

    Smells like WAAC spirit.

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  5. I this the Dan I am thinking of because if it is then thats a biased oppinion. I clearly stated I only rules lawyer when two things happen, I am being dicked to and if the rule is clearly being misenterpretited. I was playing it that way since everyone in my main local group in RI plays it like that way I described. I was not mad in this case since I also explained if a rule is played in a certain way in a local area I tend to adapt. I could have forced a roll off and I did not....besides the TO couldn't give me any proof that I was wrong. Now if I am playing this wrong and a reader can point out a specific quote or FAQ that proves this just post it as I like to get corrected since I like to play the game right

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  6. You just got two examples, there's a FAQ that describes when what happens during a turn.

    It even (iirc) states that for something to happen in your opponent's turn, it has to be mentioned in the rules that it is something that can happen during your opponent's turn, not that it is something that cannot happen during your opponent's turn.

    Nowhere does it say that fleeing models have to roll during your opponent's turn, except for if they have to take a new morale test which they will automatically fail.

    Even then, if we assume your interpretation is correct, then the fleeing unit would still get to roll to regroup every movement phase instead of just your own, since, even if it doesn't contain the word subsequent, is worded the same way and means exactly the same.

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  7. thanks quaade, ill fix my play and the friends of mine I know play like this too

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  8. I am not the Dan you are looking for :)

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