Slitherine

Has there ever been a concensus opinion on how to deal with a situation where a list checker approves a list that is found to be illegal mid way through a tourney?

fix for the next round in the least disruptive way.

ethan wrote:fix for the next round in the least disruptive way.

As above everyone is Human and we all can make mistakes.

From the BHGS site

Any incorrect list discovered after a game has commenced (after set up dice have been rolled) must be corrected prior to deployment if spotted in time, and fully corrected in any case before the next match.

Humorous possbily true story I heard about........I think it was at a tournament in Korea, or maybe in Qatar.

Swiss list was used using 17 BG's or so of 4-pak heavy weapons and was approved......however the minimum of 12 pike was not taken.....discovered after the first round.

The issue is if you go the earlier period as he had taken the army you don't have to take the pike but have to take the heavy weapon BG's in 8's, so the player re-made a list during the lunch break moving to the "middle" period, where he could keep the 4-paks with the minimum 12 pike.

Some certain individual(s) (I would guess they were of the competitive type but I can't be sure) protested on the grounds that he should have to switch to the 8 paks and play the same period, or use the list he submitted. Somehow it was decided that the player should use the list that was approved even though it was illegal.

Rumor has it said illegal list finished in first place by about one point over said protester.

This is all rumor of course.

IanB3406 wrote:Rumor has it said illegal list finished in first place by about one point over said protester.

Ah! Competition play at its finest. Thanks for that story. I made me smile.

My most memorable moment as a ref / ump was a game for the finals in a local tournament. The game was between two players that really disliked each other. It was the end of the game and one player had a unit in rout that was being pursued by one of his enemy's units that was in contact. The player with the routing unit declared that it would "surrender" and he would recover a fraction of the points which was enough to win. His opponent refused to accept the "surrender" and swore (probably in real life too but I don't remember) to cut down his opponent's unit to the last man. I scoured the rules in vain for a mention of whether or not one had to accept a surrender of an opponent's unit. It was a bit distasteful but I had to side with the surrendering player.....it's not good result when you win by surrendering. I think we made changes afterwards.

You've mixed up your rumors Ian but that's better than mixing up deployment.

The illegal Swiss list at the tournament had more than a dozen BGs of 4 stand halberdiers, which were required to be in 8s, and the minimum pike.
The player was changing the list as directed by the ref but wanted to change some of the halberdiers into pike after round 1.

One of the protesters pointed out that the 4s should be combined into 8s but the owner declined to do so because it would make the list less competative.

I don't think wholesale changes should have been allowed or that the list should have remained the same.
Maybe his four opponents didn't mind.

Thankfully the next tournament in that circut posted guidelines on how to handle illegal lists.

devilforrest wrote: One of the protesters pointed out that the 4s should be combined into 8s but the owner declined to do so because it would make the list less competative..

The owner should have read the list correctly and therefore changed to 8's, but its hard to be hard on people if you want them to come to competitions.

Well, this is bringing us to a general discussion on how playing against the rules may be punished.

2 small examples:

Example 1:
One player sets up an ambush in a brush, so his opponent can be sure it can ONLY be Light Foot.
In the 3rd round of the game the player reveals his ambush, setting up Medium Foot Bow there.
This was stricly illegal, but how to punish it?
The umpire (me in this case) decided he has to take them away and put them back to the 10" starting line instead of having it 18" in the field.
Meanwhile, I would punish this harder, I would take them off the field and declare it lost, costing 2 AP's

Example 2 (This time I was the 'victim' of this situation)
I had a flank march, and when rolling the dice, my opponent also said he has a flank march.
Both were on the same flank, and so when I managed to bring it up in round 5, it was pushed back by him, as he had more non-skirmishers in his flank march.
I had to put my BG's in 12" of my own table edge as staded in the rules and do a full double move (instead of heading directly towards his back, as I would have otherwise on his side's edge for sure)
Next turn he puts up his 3 BG's on the table, and when I was asking for his general, he was starting to get a little nervous, as he forgot to have a general in the flank march.
So, his flank march was illegal, my push-back was illegal and we have already played 5 or 6 turns, so we had not even a change to roll back.
I called the umpire and left the table, so he can decide what he thinks.
His decision was, that my opponents flank march has to come in the edge of his side and rear edge and in addition the BG's have to reach the next generals command radius in one move.
As an IC was nearby, this was easy to accomplish and I was in real trouble, as his units were close to the action, while mine were stuck in wood 12" away from my rear side

Ithink I do not have to say that I was not pleased with this decision at all, but I'd accepted it and lost the game.

If I would have been umpire, there were 2 possible decisisons:
As my flank march was already played, I'd not change this (even if it was bringing me in trouble, when 2 of your 11 BG's are out of the game), but had his 3 BG's counted either as straggling (costing 3 AP) or even as completely lost (costing 6 AP)

I know there is nothing stated in the rules regarding this, so it's for sure up to the umpire of each tournament, but IMHO, situations like described above should be punished very hard.
If you are playing a tournament, you should not hope that a mistake will not be punished.
I'm not talking about a friendly game for sure.

I'm interested in your oppinions on this

It's always a hard decision when people make genuine mistakes. But I would have straggled them. 3AP.

Next turn he puts up his 3 BG's on the table, and when I was asking for his general, he was starting to get a little nervous, as he forgot to have a general in the flank march

I would have straggled them as well.

I would have put the troops in ambush on the base edge and forced their owner to take a straggling test.

I think when ambushing and flank march errors are made if puts the umpire in a very difficult position. I'd suggest you need the player making the error to feel some pain. If you don't, what is to stop other players deliberately making errors.

So in the ambush situation, it is too kind to put the MF bow back on the 10 inch line. Perhaps on the baseline would be good. I'd also give the opponent the option here of either allow them to deploy in ambush or have them back on the base line. After all, perhaps the ambush position is really bad for the MF.

In the flank march situation the problem is made worse as the game has moved on and it might not be possible to put it back together. Perhaps as Phil says, straggle the enemy BGs is easiest. But I might also allow you to pick up your battle groups that had been forced back on and allow them a move from any part of the flank edge, in the opponents movement phase but after his troops have moved.

Unfortunately, such things are easier to think of now, much harder for an umpire in a game. I have seen people concede a game when they have made such an error.

dave_r wrote:I would have put the troops in ambush on the base edge and forced their owner to take a straggling test.

Too far methinks. Base edge definately, I think this was a clarification for DBM, but no straggle. An ambush makes much less impact on a game than a flank march, which changes the game completely once you know there is one coming, opponents first turn.

Certainly in the ambush and flank march cases the option of "just leave it as is" should be given to the player that was theoretically disadvantaged.

Certainly in the ambush and flank march cases the option of "just leave it as is" should be given to the player that was theoretically disadvantaged.

Yes, however innocent the mistake I would say that the first priority is not to penalise the player who has done nothing wrong.

ethan wrote:Certainly in the ambush and flank march cases the option of "just leave it as is" should be given to the player that was theoretically disadvantaged.

Good point. The ambushing MF bow might be tasty treats for something that popped their ambush. Probably not, though, or the question would not have arisen.

As other posters have stated, the first principal must be to make sure that the "innocent" player is not disadvantaged by the error. After that, the actual solution chosen can be quite difficult to determine, especially in the moment.

Marc

I agree in general that it must e a 'punishment', which is hurting, otherwise it will not stop people from doing it.
And even if I believe my opponent that it was not done on purpose (which I really did in this case), he should feel it.
So straggling seems to be the best way and in addition my pushed-back flank march should be allowed to come in in a better place than in the middle of a big wood 12" from my base edge.

As these kinds of discussions only happen on tournaments normally, the organizer may have something in the announcement about how situations which are clearly against the rules will be handled.

the organizer may have something in the announcement about how situations which are clearly against the rules will be handled.

The problem here is that, even though many of these will be accidental, it is very hard to predict all of the potential errors that can be made. Realistically, all you can say is that incidents where a player has been found to have broken the rules in this manner will be adjudicated in a way that penalises the offender and does not harm their opponent, with each case judged on its individual circumstances.

ethan wrote:Certainly in the ambush and flank march cases the option of "just leave it as is" should be given to the player that was theoretically disadvantaged.

The danger of this is the disadvantaged player, may feel it is unsporting to impose a penalty so the offender gets away with it because a player doesn't want to be excesively rude. I think the umpire should only offer that if its a true toss-up call.

But I think the umpire ought to try and rule to punish the player who made the error to the degree that they might really take interest in remembering the rule next time.

I would have straggled the flank marchers and allowed the ambushers opponent to place the unit where he wanted that unit as long as it was in the ambushers deployment zone.