When is it unsporting to make your opponent play on?

[Red...]

I played one of those games yesterday. Everything went wrong that possibly could.

It started with bad intel from my scouts. They reported that I would be fighting against a Tomb King army. Turns out that it was in fact a High Elf host - one can only assume that my good-for-nothing shades blundered upon a small asur halloween party and got confused (in real life, this error came about because after talking about how excited he was about the new TK range, my friend asked me if I would like a game of warhammer in the near future - I put the two together and assumed he would be playing TK).

So I turned up with a tailored army for fighting against Tomb Kings. But I was playing against High Elves. Much of it didn't matter, except for I took a lot less shooting than I would have done and brought Hellebron (possibly the world's worst choice versus high elves).

But, this is the way things go sometimes. So I put aside my worries and we began setting up for the game. We set up terrain, unpacked our armies and rolled for scenario.

We got Dawn Patrol and he promptly rolled a six. I made a passing joke to others watching the table that I would now roll a five, to waste my bell curve. We all laughed, and then I promptly rolled a five.

Okay, so he deploys first and - after the dice rolls - ends up with his entire army in the centre, except for some archers who deploy on his right flank. Not a bad set up. I, on the other hand, roll so that my blackguard with hellebron are stuck on my right flank (which is handily constricted by a bunch of impassable terrain), my cauldron of blood BSB and Hydra are on my left flank (with a wood in the way) and all of my light flanking troops are in the middle. Great. We haven't even started turn one yet, and my army is a mess.

But this is the way of things. We roll to start - he rolls a 3, so he goes first.

Turn one. He doesn't move much. He doesn't need to. His shadow warriors turn my pegasus master into a dead pin cushion while my hydra is reduced to 3 wounds by his archers (who he had managed to cast flaming sword of rhuin on). His bolt throwers make short work of my dark riders and do some damage to the crossbows unit housing my sorceress. Not a great start.

My turn. I begin moving my troops forward. In my magic phase, I start by trying to cast power of darkness on two dice. Two ones. Great. My shooting does next to no damage, and my turn is over.

His turn again. He moves a bit more, but again, doesn't really need to. His mage casts a bunch of spells to heal up any damage I did the first turn and buff his archers and other troops. They shoot again and knock my hydra down to one wound.

My turn. I move my troops further forward, but my blackguard are taking forever to move around his flank due to their positioning, and I'm still out of realistic charge range of his forces. My magic phase and I cast power of darkness successfully, only to immediately fail to cast a spell requiring me to roll 10 on 4 dice - I manage a mighty seven.

His turn. Crunch time. He wipes out my sorceress and her unit with a charge from a chariot, wipes out my unsupported big corsairs block with a combined charge from his phoenix guard and dragon mage, kills my hydra with his archers and does a huge bunch of damage to my blackguard with his lothern seaguard, bolt throwers and reaver bow wielding noble.

My turn. With my level 4 mage dead (having failed to cast a single spell except power of darkness all game), my pegasus master dead (on turn one), my corsairs eliminated, my hydra dead (having not made it across the table), most of my blackguard dead (ditto) and hellebron likely to be killed on his next turn (ditto), I'm nearly 1500 points down and there's no way back. I ask to concede.

He tells me no. That would be unsporting. So I play on. The game goes even further down hill (Hellebron is indeed promptly killed thereafter, along with the remaining blackguard, leaving me with a cauldron of blood and two units of RxBs as my entire army) and becomes something of a farce. He pressures me into playing until the end of turn 5, at which stage I am left with a single wound on my cauldron of blood and that is it.

We conversed afterwards about the issue. He thought it was not good sportsmanship to concede too early, whereas I think it's unsporting to force your opponent to play on after it's very clear that the game is lost and there's nothing left to do but watch your forces get massacred.

I was wondering if the folk on D.net had any thoughts?

[Overmind]

It depends, I play Warhammer to have fun as do the people I play with. So we do occasionally call games early.

It can be rude to end their fun by calling it to early. But in your occassion, I'm not sure you had enough left. I'd have continued on, but I don't see shame in asking for an end. Your oppenent can deny that of course, however I do find it a bit rude that even after you lost the blakc guard he asked you to keep going... it was fairly obvious you were done.

[Dyvim tvar]

If one person is willing to concede because the game is lopsided, the sporting thing to do it to call an end to the game at that point. I think your opponent was being unsporting in that regard.

The one exception is a tournament situation that differentiates between degrees of victory. In that case, both players really have a duty to play things out.

[faeli-n]

In a game like this, I would have considered it very unsportsmanlyness to make you continue playing. If one person stops having fun, and is clearly losing then he/she has every right to concede.

There are only two occassions where you 'shouldn't' concede: the first is in a tournament where points count, the second if you're about to get a sound beating and you want to deny your opponent a massacre etc.

I have seen plenty of occassions where people losing heavily have played to the last model because they had a good (from an enjoyment perspective) game... but making you play on if you're beaten, and not enjoying it, is REALLY harsh.

[Bitterman]

I ask to concede. He tells me no.

Wait... what? That's insane. "It's obvious the battle is over, let's call it there" - "No". I don't understand how that conversation could ever happen. It'd be like playing a cricket match, and the first team to bat score 100, and the second team score 101 in just 10 overs, but insist on batting out the rest of their innings just so they can score 600 runs and really rub it in. If he's forcing you to go down to the last wound on your last surviving model, he's no longer playing a game, he's intentionally humiliating you, and who wants to be humiliated?

If someone ever told me I wasn't allowed to concede, I'd say "watch me" and start packing up my models.

second if you're about to get a sound beating and you want to deny your opponent a massacre etc.

Surely conceding counts as a massacre? I don't play tournaments so I can't comment on those, but by any reasonable definition, "you're beating me so heavily that I just can't face finishing the game" sounds like a massacre to me.

Personally I think the only time when conceding is unsporting is if someone throws a strop because their favourite unit got blown up on turn one and decides they don't want to play any more (yes, I've seen it happen). Even then... well, if they're that petty and in that bad a mood, better to end the game than suffer through something that isn't fun... in other words it's the strop and pettiness that's unsporting, not the conceding.

[faeli-n]

Surely conceding counts as a massacre?

I'm not actually sure? I assumed the 'strength' of the victory always depended on just the points difference at the end for destroyed units/captured standards etc. But it's another one of these 'so simple I won't bother checking the rules' things, so does conceding just automatically count as a massacre against you?

The reason i mentioned it is that I've seen people who think they're going to lose stop at a point where they could have dragged it back, rather than chance that they'll lose to a worse degree than they are already.

[Burizan]

I had a very similiar game today, same scenario, my WoC (dual Hellcannon) against a 2400pt high elf combat/magic army. I set up first, neither of us had a terrible set up, and got first turn. Eye of tzeentch -> steal dwellers below from his lv.4, and cast it at the unit with the lv.4. Sure enough his lv.4 pops and he immediately concedes.

At this point he still had a large unit of white lions, swordmasters, spearmen, a mage with shadow (inc. okkams) and basically the rest of his army. And he accuses me of cheese? I was pretty pissed off he threw the towel in so early, and while I agree dwellers is a broken spell, but though he had 5 lore of life spells, he didn't HAVE to take it against me. He knew exactly what was in my army, and only chose to biatch about it being competitive afterwards.

I guess what I'm saying is if you are gonna freak out about the first thing that goes wrong then you are unpleasant to play against.

Even when I know its going tits up (and even against the same person this has happened ALOT) I still continue, and quite often 'luck' has a way of balancing things out a bit.

You know what I blame? High elf players. Pfft.

[Blaznak]

Weirdly, I'm somewhat willing to play on after the arrow is shot through my army's chest plate. Its fun to see what pain I can still inflict before I go down swinging. Similarly, if my opponent's game I don't mind continuing to do a victory lap for a turn or two.

However, it has to be mutual fun or its all pointless.

~B~

[Kaleth stinson]

First of all, did you leave your master naked on that pegasus?

Second, surrendering = massacre! Always...


For me there can be some reasons to condede, like:
- We have the time to play another
- really bad luck that has impacted the game too much (like your game it seems).
- Someone is clearly not enjoying themselves
- if your opponent is being a d'ck
- or if someone has to go.

Times when its not cool to concede:
- You play against someone that is trying a new list/army and want to try it out
- When you have made quite a bit of effort to get to your game.
- the game can still turn, but you have had some bad luck.

And for the love of god, don't ASK him if you can concede, TELL him you are. You are a man aren't you? Then show it!

Hope you have learned your lesson on tailor making your lists

[Tethlis]

Surely conceding counts as a massacre? I don't play tournaments so I can't comment on those, but by any reasonable definition, "you're beating me so heavily that I just can't face finishing the game" sounds like a massacre to me.

Many tournaments have bonus points that can be earned in each game, which you add on to whether you scored a draw, loss, win, etc.

For example, Game 2 in a tournament may feature an objective that awards bonus points if you get one of your Core units into the enemy deployment zone, or if you wipe out all enemy wizards on the table. This can allow a player to score higher than whatever the straight VP comparison determines.

This method is designed to penalize one-dimensional, point-and-click or formulaic armies with no tactical flexibility (obviously, a gunline will have to work pretty hard to get a unit into the enemy deployment zone) or else boost the score of a player who loses but still achieves some good objectives (maybe you got massacred, but you get some extra points for wiping out enemy wizards and your overall tournament standing isn't totally sunk).

If a player concedes a game early in a tournament, he can deny his opponent the ability to score those bonus objectives. Some players will also argue the "conceding = massacre" clause, in an attempt to forestall an even worse beating. Most smart tournament packets will address this situation in the rules, to allow players to score whatever points they're entitled to.

In my experience, most gentlemanly tournament players will reach a consensus when the game is clearly lost, either continue to play it out or else have a discussion to decide who clearly earned what appropriate bonuses and levels of victory.

[Overmind]

And for the love of god, don't ASK him if you can concede, TELL him you are. You are a man aren't you? Then show it!

Why not? I think it is fair to ask them for permission to concede and state your reasons. There is no need to be blunt and rude to someone, especially a person I would assume is a friend. Why have a giant argument? Your friend and you should both be able to reach an accord, they should understand why you wish to do so.

In this case his opponent was a dick afterwards, and by all means, unless he gave a decent reason for denying your wish to concede, you should probably just leave. Or finish and not play them again.

I fail to see how being rude, annoying, and arrogant proves some obscure gender principle, nor does it make a person any more conformed or better for being an arse.

[Kaleth stinson]

I fail to see how being rude, annoying, and arrogant proves some obscure gender principle, nor does it make a person any more conformed or better for being an arse.

I never said that you should be arse and argue with a friend, i ment that if you want to condede, you should. Have you ever played sports or heard of a war when someone surrenders, and the others won't let them?

And the reference was not to gender(I asumed he was male, as are 99% of the players here), but of age and state of mind. Nobody should ever tell you what to do, with the exeptions of people that pay you...

[Durzod]

If a player wishes to concede he has every right to, no matter the circumstances. In a tournament there should be repercussions, but this doesn't sound like a tournament situation. Refusing to allow a concession is the height of assholery (pardon my French).

I've conceded games in the past and will probably do so in the future. I have also offered to end games early when my opponent is in a hopeless situation. Mop-up operations are rarely any fun for either party. And fun is the reason we play, isn't it?

[Ichiyo1821]

He's a douche for saying that. You however got the wrong end of tailoring .

In a friendly match where no one drove 3 or more to play and it was just a spur of the moment thing the best thing you guys could have done was call it in then offer to play another game. You waste less time in an obviously lop sided game where it benefits no one save for egos. If one had an emergency like an accident or something I don't even mind if the person had to leave after our first turn.

On a tournament however, If you concede I will regard it as a massacre and take whatever bonus points the scenario may have (as long as the TO approves of it ofcourse). If not, I will ask him to finish his game even if it means he has one lone character with one wound left by turn 3. No one forces anyone to join tournaments and the moment one does, he or she is obliged to consider the other players who did join.

[Diablo]

I think you get what you deserved for tailoring your list to defeat specific army Bad karma is a biatch

In your case i would say something like: "hey man, sorry but i think its obviously massacre, i concede." And he answered something like he want me to play on because he wants to know "how much he can defeat me" i would simply pack my minis and leave. As somebody pointed out, its a game, game is played so both players enjoy it. Not for boosting ego...

[Red...]

Thanks for all the feedback and support Lots of very interesting points! All much appreciated.

The difficulty is at my club we have one player (lets call him Bob) who tends to throw a strop and concede very early on, something which we all dislike. My opponent for this game (lets call him Bill) tends to build power armies and so games between Bob and Bill tend to be quite unpleasant in this regard and Bill is probably more sensitive to the issue than he might be.

So in our game, it wasn't so much that I asked to concede, the conversation at the end of turn 3 went more along the lines of:

"Okay, I'm pretty much willing to call it there."
"C'mon. Don't throw a Bob!"

It was initially quite civil, but by the time we had got to turn 5 it had descended more into a slighly acid verbal sparring match about sportsmanship. I do see his point about wanting to see what happened (he particularly wanted to see if his shadow warriors could kill my cauldron of blood, which as a tiny consolation they did not (in fact, the death hag killed them, yay!).

But he's a good friend and we made nice after. So I'm not too worried about that. I've also been quite grumpy of late, so that didn't probably help much on the day. In retrospect I should probably have just smiled and laughed more (I'm usually better in this regard, although I did get a good laugh out of the conversation: "Well, you did manage to make my eagle flee off the board" "It didn't flee, it got bored from lack of targets and went home!"

I do think it's an interesting issue though and a lot of the points raised on this thread have mentioned it: at what point in the game is it acceptable or even more fun to concede? On this occasion I wanted to concede at the end of turn 3, but in reality I could have probably done so by the end of deployment.

A lot of my frustration came because I had been looking forward to this game (first proper game of warhammer in months) and it seemed a real shame (although no one's fault) that our battle essentially became pointless because my 275 points mage failed to cast any real spells, my 350 points general was forced out of the action by a bad dawn patrol deployment dice, my 225 COB BSB had a similar issue, and my 190 points pegasus master (with cloak of hag graef and full mundane armour for a 2+ save and -1S to enemy range attacks) was pincushioned immediately.

My preference therefore would have been that, after turn 2, we simply call it a loss and start again: giving us the chance of playing an even battle. But is that really a good idea? At what point does luck become bad enough that you can validly chuck it all in and have a replay? I had a game of Battlefleet Gothic a couple of months ago where my opponent rolled nothing but torpedoes and mines for this side of the scenario. We immediately called it my game and re-rerolled the battle. When does it become okay for this and when does it become sore losing?

And yeah, it probably is an element of karma for tailoring my lists! But then I find a lot of the joy in warhammer for me is building lists, and tailoring allows me to do lots and lots of list building!

[Meteor]

It is indeed a very interesting topic. And yes, I think your lack of performance comes in heavily tailoring for a specific army rather than an all-rounder list, that is indeed karma for you haha.

But it is a rather delicate topic because it's all very situational and depends on the mood of the game. There are jerks who will concede a match and ruin the fun just because they made a couple of bad rolls or minor mistakes, aka sore losers.

Then there are those games where it's so one sided from the get-go, like yours, that makes the game seemingly pointless, where your opponent probably didn't get much kick out of really testing their stuff because well...they were virtually handicapped all the way.

For me, it's normally about having fun right, well that's pretty ordinary. But when I notice I've quite literally destroyed my opponent's morale and enjoyment of the game, I'd ask them if they wanted to continue it. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, and sometimes when they do, they make a great come back.

I find it acceptable to be asked to continue if your opponent wishes to test something out, but they should have the decency to speed the game up and just do what's important so the game can finish up fast. If you still just pack up and leave then I think that's when you become a poor sports for conceding.

But generally no, I do not find it rude or a poor sports to concede by, lets say, END of turn 3 if the game is no longer fun anymore for one side.

Like in Blood Bowl the other day. I played my mate, and the first half I received a ridiculous thrashing due to unbelievably shocking rolls everywhere. Half my team was knocked out and was refusing to return during kick off. I play undead, and I was left with half a team of Skellies and Zombies running around, not even a Ghoul to pick up the ball. I had a sook and was like "dude whatever, I really don't care at this point.".

Then second half it was his turn to receive the same thrashing and sook. Except he wanted to concede the match, and everyone axed him for being a bad sport. I wasn't too happy with it because we were playing a season, so he was basically denying my team from gaining experience by wanting to surrender. In the end he sucked it up from peer pressure and actually won anyway.

He was a friend of mine, so we also made nice after. But I too thought he was a bit of a douche for wanting to concede the match. It was a rather selfish thing to do, so like I said, it really does depend on the circumstances and mood. Sometimes it's ok to concede, sometimes no.

[Tethlis]

Generally if I'm playing an army I haven't used in a while, or against new opponents, or any setting where I know things might not be as polished with my playstyle as they could be, I try to steer clear of the scenarios and go for a basic battle. I know there's a lot of disagreement about the scenarios, and that some players ALWAYS roll for them while others don't use them at all, but it might have been useful to press for a match where you didn't have the additional stress of the deployment rules to add to the fact that you haven't had a game in a while.

[Ehakir]

Well, you should also remember that his point of view can be totally different:

- He does not know you have tailored an army against TK

- He finally gets to kill a hydra

- He does not experience the bad placement of your black guard block as heavily as you will probably have done. Besides, if your army lies in tatters because of the black guard which are in a wrong part of the table, your armylist is not one of the best.

- It is just after the half of the game: the start of real combat mashing! The most exciting part of the game, especially when it goes good for you!

I can imagine that it has not been very pleasant for you, but sometimes it might be better to let other people enjoy for a moment. And yes, it might be painful if your army is being whacked away completely, but believe me, you'll learn to accept it
I've had some tournaments where the end result of a single battle which i was not really winning still mattered to the final ranking of the tournament, in which case the challenge of the battle is not winning anymore, but preventing the enemy from getting a massacre.

I hope you understand that some people get into the game 'too much' and hope your next loss will be more pleasant

[Tmarichards]

At the end of the day the whole point of the game is to have fun- if you're not having fun, your opponent has no right to force you to play on, or even to bad mouth you for conceding, as long as you're not rude about it.

I've only conceded twice in tournaments, and been conceded against once. Each time was in a W/L/D situation, and each time all the points on offer were given (all the army VPs, extra pts for general, BSB, standards etc).

[Malmorte]

I think conceding is a fair thing to do if you have been slaughtered, to be able to save your face army's pride, but not too early, ie the moment you
lose your Lv.4 at turn 1 or 2, but to play on until turn 4. If someone ask me to concede at turn 1 or 2 I would say to play on until turn 4. by then the game has mainly been played.

My army has also been slaughtered, but I never concede. playing to the end seems logical. You can always learn something. Stopping the game unnatural early isn't good.

[Ehakir]

playing to the end seems logical. You can always learn something.

Very true. Sometimes in a game you know early on that you will not win the game, but you can always at least try to prevent a massacre loss. Even when half of your army runs away because of some panicking Dark Riders (which I have had once -_-'), you can still try to kill some stuff with the rest of your army. Makes for a nice tactical play when the enemy outnumbers you in numbers whilst you still outnumber him in manouvrability

[Durzod]

I fail to see the point in making an opponent play to an arbitrary turn number.. If my opponent has lost half his army thru a series of bad die rolls on my Turn 1, why force him to play on until Turn 4 before he can concede? Chalk up the win (if you must) and start another game! Even if he wants to quit because he lost his favorite model (you know the one, it's the one he relies on to win for him) what's the point in forcing him to continue? The most likely thing for him to "learn" is that you're an a**hole.

Now if you have a player who consistently concedes if things don;t go perfectly on turn 1 oe 2, the simple solution is to not play that player. Forcing him to play until an arbitrary turn before allowing him to concede does neither of you any good.

If you have an arbitrary point before you will allow someone to freely concede, be open enough to tell them up front.

[xFallenx]

I fail to see the point in making an opponent play to an arbitrary turn number.. If my opponent has lost half his army thru a series of bad die rolls on my Turn 1, why force him to play on until Turn 4 before he can concede? Chalk up the win (if you must) and start another game! Even if he wants to quit because he lost his favorite model (you know the one, it's the one he relies on to win for him) what's the point in forcing him to continue? The most likely thing for him to "learn" is that you're an a**hole.

Now if you have a player who consistently concedes if things don;t go perfectly on turn 1 oe 2, the simple solution is to not play that player. Forcing him to play until an arbitrary turn before allowing him to concede does neither of you any good.

If you have an arbitrary point before you will allow someone to freely concede, be open enough to tell them up front.

This rant brought to you by turn 4 and the word 'Arbitrary' haha.

I agree with your stand. I play the game for the social aspect, I shoot the shiz as often, and usually more accurate, as I do my rbx's. So if everything falls apart and it's looking like a rout, the option is always there to scrap the game and re-start if we're so inclined. We're playing with toy soldiers at the end of the day, just ask our wives & arguably better halves.

[Layne]

I personally like to see things played out to the bitter end even when I'm the one losing like dick. I would generally neither ask nor accept concession unless the other party is plainly not enjoying things [or is a jackass].