When I play 40k I “try” and play the game we are supposed to all be playing. The major arguments I have usually start because I’ve stumbled into a game with someone playing the game they think we should be playing.
When I’m playing friendly games I do force myself to play by the rules, even the ones I hate, but I won’t be dead set on enforcing them on my opponents if they are honest mistakes. Sometimes if someone does something illegal I’ll even wait till the end of the game to bring it up and see what it was they thought they were doing. They’re responses usually help me gauge my desire to play them again.
Tournaments however are a different story. In a tournament you are saying yeah today's the day I play a lot of 40k and I better be good 40k. I play the game we are all supposed to be playing and I intend to make sure everyone else does too. And that is usually the point it gets heated.
Last weekend while I was in a little tournament, a recurring issue came up in regards to rules. The first time a TO was on hand and the matter got resolved quickly. The second no TO around and I ceased to care. I told the player he was wrong in probably not the nicest of ways, explained why, and then let the player cheat (didn’t matter the game was mine. Who brings two troop choices to a Tournament?).
After the fact the player didn’t bother to apologize he simply agreed I was right on the issues and that in the future we should agree to play differently……. I might not go out of my way to play him in the near future…….
Meanwhile back in the article I was writing, I did realize that the issues that came up weren’t because both players were trying to callously cheat me, but because they thought we were playing the game they thought we were playing and not the game we were supposed to be playing. There are dumb rules in 40k and sometimes even dumber rules explained very dumbly. We can all agree on that. But I find myself far too often having to track down rules in the magical “choose your own adventure” main rule book because someone didn’t take the time to understand a rule the first time around and it’s now cemented in their heads as some distorted mess.
I guess my main point is read a book and don’t assume things. And it might be helpful if patience is used because there is a chance the person doesn't know they are cheating you.
But I swear if I have to explain vehicle firing arcs in a tournament game one more time THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
Probably should change the last part "we're Jerks!"