When players self destruct.

Just recently during the Easter weekend I played against an Imperial Guard player who agreed to a 2000 point battle, the list I chose can be found here https://greyknights.forumotion.com/t3534-2000-point-grey-knights-list-andarius-s-full-scale-army#54767

His (as I could remember it) were 4 ten man squads of guardsmen with a missile launcher and coms per group, backed by a pair of leman russ tanks loaded with a lascannon and heavy bolters, a 10 man kasrkin squad with a pair of melta guns, 2 command squads with Heavy bolters(with Colonel Straken), a heavy team of three autocannons, a 10 man rattling sniper team and 2 valkeries (1 with 3 lascannons and the other with a multi-laser and missile pods) A very imposing army if I may say so.

I defeated him within 2 turns!!!

The result was what I could only describe as a total nervous breakdown by my opponent as he began to gawk, studder and drop his dice continuously as if he couldn't control his hands anymore. It soon came to me that this was not an act.

Fortunately I wasn't cruel, I managed to calm him down enough that he could speak again and tried to give some helpful pointers without making his previous tactics seem poor or ill thought out. He's good now but it looked like it was really effecting him, like a stress attack.

Has this happen to any of you guys? It just seemed right out of left field to me.

I've never experienced anyone have a nervous breakdown over a game, but I'm sure it happens all the time. The most that ever happens to me is that people get really salty or start debating or being more strict about the rules. I mean, sure, no one likes to lose. That being said no one likes being stomped. Not going to lie your list is pretty solid and I'm pretty sure he had no answer to your monstrous creatures. Two heavy psycannon templates can be pretty brutal to IG's units. That being said I play with more experienced players because I only started 3 years ago and haven't even finished assembling/painting my army.

If you notice him breaking down from it you should just try to slow down the pace of the game more and try to make light of the situation? I think 40k is a pretty social game so just try to talk about anything really. I don't play 40k really competitively and so choose to do really dumb tactics just for fun. When I first started playing and got tabled, I was pretty upset but that's because I didn't know how to play. Also I grew pretty attached to my models since you assemble each one and paint them up and so watching them get blown up to bits is pretty frustrating. Was this guy a veteran or new to the game? If you know you're going to play against someone relatively new you should teach them rather than just flat out destroy them.

+1 with brother Volvoe... I think you reacted well to your opponent's stress....
Eh it's just a game !
I saw some very upset players, and i know a guy very nervous (pathologically) who can get very upset loosing, but i never saw some nervous breakdown as the one you describe...
You could maybe ask him to Play against you another Time with in a "stop learning" mode aka with an explanation halt step by step... ?
Or he was just high !!
Under the influence of some psychotropes ... I saw that sometimes in final exams....
Or you just made a 12 on your psychotrope grenades roll !!
Aubec

I did offer the rest of the game as a learning tool, 4 extra turns to let him see what he could have done and during the whole time he would lock up or drop dice continually (and not because it was his turn to roll) but he did manage to kill off both my dreadknights and a squad of knights after I showed him how to use his valkeries properly. I think he may have had an anxiety problem or difficulty concentrating as apart from the nervous dice drops he would forget the names of his squads and need a few seconds to remember what they were and what they were using against me.

All in all this was the first time I played against him and was not aware if he played weekly or not. He had a powerful well thought out army, its just that the dice gods weren't in his favour.

Well done for being so compationate Brother.
I have seen VERY "bad loosers" before, but I have never enduced shock or a panic attack before This may speal volumes for your generalship.

It sounds like this guy does have some anxiety issues. Anxiety can affect cognitive (memory) and physical (dice dropping) skills.... or perhaps he was just so amazed by the awesomeness of your GK force that he was in awe and lost control of himself. Guard do that from time to time, so it stands to reaseon that guard players may also

Could you share a battle report so we can all see the amazing stomping you gave him?
Make sure there is a warning before ith so that you do not give anyone else a panic attack

I already saw a nervous outbreak too, a grow man stomping his foot like a 5 years old child because he forgot his necron codex, and no one believed in his "I read this in the book" version of that monolith banishing gate, it was hard to believe how powerful that thing was!

Anyway we managed to reach a consensus, and everyone blowed away the monolith in the 1st or 2nd turn! (its hard to have arguments against twin linked lascannons or orks power klaws)

i was playing agame once and i cant remember what but i killed his HQ or something with one of are rules which he didnt like and i showed him but ne wouldnt accept it and started arguing with my friend who was watching and it got very heated spit was flying from his mouth i thought he was going to go off on a rampage so i told him it didnt matter and to just play the game.

also this was awhile back but are upstairs gaming room was closed for awhile as someone smashed another person thought one of the gaming tables like a wrestling move

I have seen this as well, I play in a club, and as the president have the job of helping out new players and getting them into the game, so I set up a game with a new player, 1000 points and orginised him an army to borrow, (marines) anyway due to my dice being realy hot the game ended in turn 4 with him being removed from the board and him going on a 5 min rant about that if I wanted to get new players into the game then I should not bring such a cheesie army (this was not helped by other players coming over during the game and making coments about how cheesie grey knights are and one x-prseident making a coment about how when playing me you should always ask for spit or lube, he ment it in a funny way but it was not a good moment), anyway after I calmed him down, I got him to play with my army and I went with his (he rubed his hands together and smiled with delight), 4 turns later and he was again removed from the table. I coached him through both games letting him know all his options and giving my opp on which I saw as his best ones, I will note that he did not always listen to me but this was his choice. He was an adult player (mid 30's) so I was not going to do the standard G.W red shirt thing of "o look you rolled a 6" and was not going to bring a sub par list, both were of equal strengths, as he was a new player I kept flyers out of it as well. He is now coming back to the club and we are doing a painting day this weekend.
I think that a lot of people get tied up in the old, this army is cheesie thing and forget that most of the older G.K players have been playing with them for years and play it for the love of the army and dont jump around with the power level.

first strike wrote:I think that a lot of people get tied up in the old, this army is cheesie thing and forget that most of the older G.K players have been playing with them for years and play it for the love of the army and dont jump around with the power level.

+1 Brother

THanks all and I'm sorry Constantine but I'm not sure I could provide a battle report since I could not for the life of me remember the exact items and wargear of his force and anything I'd offer would be wild assumptions.

Buuuuuuuuuuut....

I can offer the details of said game here.

I had won the initiative to have the first turn so I went first.

I had cast shrouding on my Libby with him in my terminator squad, boosting their cover save as they sat comfortably within a battered ruin (3+ cover save). Both Dreadknights were behind him and within range of the shrouding bonus while my two strike squads moved in with thier rhino transports to attack two adjascent platoons of guard hiding in cover within a wooden brush.

Deploying out of their vehicles I surprised my opponent with a shunt move by my interceptors right behind his Lemun Russ tanks, which he had side by side as a gun wall in front of me with his autocannon gun placement and snipers to the right as a precautionary measure. (left far back thanks to my servo skulls)

The Strike squads had fired a full volley of psy-bolt ammunition from my storm bolters followed by a shredding volley from their psycannons. Both platoons were annihilated as I had rolled an average of 15 hits per squad. The interceptors had fired upon the aft armor of the tank with their own psycannons, causing two penetrating hits that destroyed the cannon on one roll and destroyed it with the other. whatever guardsmen had survived the salvo from my knights had passed their morale but were in full range of my dreadknights and terminators come next turn.

My opponents first turn was to get his valkeries out via deepstrike, only one arrived and deployed a new squad with a heavy bolter team to replace the battered platoon from earlier. The remaining forces shot full on both of my squads but only managed to wound three of my knights, all three had passed their armor saves. The valkerie and remaining leman russ tank fired their weapons at one of my dreadknights and failed to hit it even once. His final attempt was to use his autocannon team and snipers to kill my interceptor squad, killing my justicar with a crack shot but managing to pass its morale test and not get pinned.

On my second turn I had pushed my two dreadknights forward and used my libby's summoning power to pull my interceptors out of sniper fire and to safer locale by his side. The terminators had shot down his valkerie with psycannon fire (four 6s!) bringing it down swiflty as my remaining forces killed all but the snipers and tank.

All he had left were his sole HQ, his lemun russ tank and his ratling squad too far to be any benefit while his spare valkerie circled high above waiting for orders to drop and give aid. By then my opponent fell into his fit and I stopped the game.

brother andarius. for you opponent doing some cheating he sure deserve to get his behind handed to you

reserves dont come out turn 1 and vendettas can not deepstrike (as of errata)

but i have similar issues. mostly with "raging" gamers. one is really extreme in that regard.

note that this player most of the time fields lists like space wolves 3 units of longfangs with missle launchers each.... masses of grey hunters 2-4 runepriests.. yeah that guy. also got a "salamander list" at 1850 with vulkan, that forgeworld venerable ironclad HQ cybot bray'arth ashmantle and also has scout seargent telion in his list...
5th edition was razorspam + runepriests + longfangs...
now he mixes his sallys with space wolves for redicilous combos... well nevertheless he was so "proud" that he always comes with his tourney lists
that i decided to use my pre new codex chaos daemons combined with chaos space marines and put them against him in a tourny list style aswell...

my list was 1750 points. kairos fateweaver, tzeentch sorceror in terminator armor with psyker level 3. 3 x 4 flamers of tzeentch, 2x 5 horrors with bolt 1x 14 cultists. 9 screamers of tzeentch, 1 helldrake with baleflamer and 2 soulgrinders with phlegm... he wanted to play his 2k list but had no enemys so i decided to go with 1750 against him anyway...

to keep things short this game was a massacre.. we played killpoints and i was leading 11 to 3. he was raging so hard this game. he even gave up some of his dice and was so loud in the store that the manager had to calm him down a bit.and to top it all off: his list wasnt 2000, it was 2300. he makes some calc errors from time to time...

1 week later he made a real 2000k list and i should also put it on 2000k points.. well i did and this game became even more of a whine and ragefest.
for someone that comes with hardcore lists all day (also having many times those "point errors") for someone like him to enrage that hard is really heavy to see.. considering he is in his mid 40's.

his raging makes him do terriible mistakes wich he realises too late (or ignores if i give a hint to those) and rages on them even more.
i decided to not play him anymore and if there happens that i have to play against him.. as soon as he starts raging i pack my stuff inside my bags again... no use playing with people that seriously lack to have fun in a game that they are not winning by any means while others could enjoy a game on the table.
funny thing however: this guy is awesome out of the tabletop or when he is winning. i really like this guy a lot and would stand behind him whatever happens but yeah... just dont want to play against him anymore.

I've dealt with sore losers before Souba, and HORRIBLE cheaters. One in particular was a Dark Angels player who tried to run it past me that he could have 5 heavy weapons in his devestators, sternguard ammo for his troops and a terminator squad with a re-rollable assault cannon.....

Sure... Yeah... And how long have I been playing again?

Pointing these errors out he called me a #$^&-sucker. Something I did not take lightly, even worse was once it seemed like he would not win against me he left the table to do other things, claiming he would be back. He never did.

Suffice it to say I never play against him EVER! If he does offer a game to me I remind him of his behaviour that day and he walks away rolling his eyes.

Amazing how some people take the game so seriously. I should consider myself lucky that I've never experienced such a nerdrage in a game.
What I always experience though, is that typical "GK are so OP/cheese/unbeatable" phrase. "Paladins with 2 wounds? Impossible!", "All have power weapons?? It figures", "Monkeys with lascannons? GK only of course".

It's funny how GK's have so much more nerdrage against them than necrons. I mean come on they have troops that can glance vehicles without special weapons....

Necrons are more obviously powerful, where as Grey Knights are subtle. Strength 5 stormbolters, psychic powers falling out of their pockets as they fight and FORCE weapons swinging away makes people gawk in shock. Even back in the good ol days of 3rd edition a marine squad with that much power was considered severly OP!

When Necrons came about back around that time they were an experiment just like the Tau. Yes they were scary with their 'all weapons rend' bit but their weakness was they dropped off the board once they lost 75% of their point total on the field. People would give a sigh of relief in knowing all they had to do was cause enough damage and they'd win by default.

Grey Knights then and now gave the opponent that he/she was fighting a very decorative marine army with the major handycap of no bikes, predators, assault squads, scouts, chaplains, landspeeders, or whirlwinds. Only to find out that they hit like a hammer and were dynamic enough to be able to move, shoot AND asasault with power weapons in hand. Retaliatory fire was in essence a waste of time since the old rules made it so all enemy fire into grey knights was the equivalent of night fight rules (still are now but only as a psychic power). Many long time winners of games prior to the arrival of the Grey Knights would scream foul at turn 1.

Well I played a round with the very same Imperial Guard player that was the cause of this post in the first place...

I'm not playing against him again!

Apart from the odd behaviour I had to tolerate between turns (Deliberately standing like Captain Morgan on his chair while rolling dice comes to mind) he would reroll unfavorable dice rolls without telling me which weapon was being used and at what target he was firing upon until I was told how many saves to make. During one interesting turn he used Colonel Straken on me, infiltrating in and throwing an explosive charge on my terminators.

I calmly called out B.S!

Then I discovered he never purchased a rulebook for his army and was merely reciting what he had 'memorized' over the months or hearsay from other nearby players. When I considered that irrelevant he frantically scrounged for another copy of the book failing to find one on the shelves, this generated another nervous breakdown for the man.

The lesson of the day folks is "Word of mouth is not proof of purchase." If you don't have your own codex you don't play your army. And just because everyone says something is true that only means they are all either right or all misinformed, reference material is a must!

I played against my best friend who forgot his codex at home. He ended up giving his thunder wolf calvary +1 Str, + 1 T, +1 I, +1 Attacks. And rerolled to hit AND to wound with his claws.

Since I'm a new player I always ask for clarification or proof from other players if something sounds wayyy too cheesy. There is a way for IG to infiltrate his guys but I don't feel like looking up on how. I learned that the fastest way to learn 40k is learning other people's codexes as well. From you story I felt bad for the guy at first, but now I see it's his own fault. How does someone even make an army without a codex? I mean there is the internet incase you really don't want to buy one. I hope I don't ever have to face anyone like this!