Hm, so two different things here.

1. What the TO has done sure is fishy and even violates the FFG rules as others already have stated (minimum number of players..). The solution however is simple, if you enjoy this LGS overall and just feel bad about this single decision bring it up with the TO, hear his defense (if any) and get the hell over it. People make bad decisions, if that happens rarely you should give them another shot.

However, if you made other similar experiences or the TO is all too cocky with his explanations you should consider leaving the store. Ordering online is generally the cheaper choice over your local store, so your store should value that you bring your money there instead of amazoning it by preserving a community and good atmosphere. At least in my opinion, that is what justifies the additional price tag.

2. "Price sniping" in general is just another brand for a foreign competitor. If someone manages to get 1st in a regular (eg: with at least minimum number of players) event he should be able to take the price without any bragging about where he might come from. In this particular event however it feels bad as he never had to prove his competition, so he was either very lucky or expecting that only few other players could reschedule so fast.

Assuming that winner did win legally, how could someone else complain? I'm really curious s about that one!

I think he was disappointed he lost. On paper the match up was in his favor and I kinda played poorly. Due to some hot dice and his dice cooling off I stole the game in a lot of ways. He usually wins his local events so I am sure the thought process was if there is a 3rd round I can 9-1 and get back to top 3 spot or something.

I don't know how I feel about prize-sniping.

The person coming in is not sure of they will win. They don't know what to expect. They don't know what the Meta will be like. They don't know the play style of those he will play against.

To me that sounds like someone preparing for something like regional's or better.

You last paragraph there is what I feel about prize-sniping. I suppose it's a matter of intent, which is nearly impossible to judge. If someone doesn't have a local store and plays with their friends mostly, but goes to a store for a tournament, that's not prize-sniping. That's great, really. They get a chance to meet and play different people. Maybe make a friend.

If someone regularly goes to multiple stores to participate in leagues and tournaments, regardless of prizes, that's ok too.

It's the person that only shows up to get a prize, doesn't interact with the community or store, behaves like an outsider and/or bully, that I don't like. That's a prize sniper to me. But see my caveat below...

Most of you guys defending "prize-sniping" in your posts have shown me some valid points. I don't think you guys are the ones I have a problem with. And, looking a little deeper at the issue, you're right: in any kind of competitive game there are people that are there for the competition, not the game. And while more "casual" gamers might not like them, they have the same right to play as anyone else. They also tend to drive a good game up in popularity as most everyone appreciates a challenge.

Hey, Admiral, big ups to you for changing your stance. As a level fifty flip-flopper I can really appreciate what you did there. Everybody else take note! Gamer forums are far more interesting when opinions evolve.

That said! Allow me to put my flip-flops on...

If your window on the Armada world is limited to the six people that show up at your store frequently, I can understand a sense of resentment when one of the six "outsiders" strolls off with a tasty prize. It's misplaced resentment, but everyone has to admit they can empathize.

And there you have it. Someone take a picture of this - the single moment in human history when opposing views on a forum came to agreeable consensus!

I think the "prize sniping" thing is something that people need to get over. It's just competition, and at the very least, you'll learn from it. I also think it's poor spirited to presume and then condemn someone's intention for travelling to compete. There are people that can do it for multiple reasons: love of the game, like competing (and winning) and to meet new people/learn new metas.

Additionally, I think there's no great way to define it. I work very near my local game FLGS and in fact I go there about 2-3 times a week during my lunch breaks to shoot the breeze with the owner, buy stuff etc. But, being married and having several properties to look over, I don't get much (if any) time, to game there. Thus, many people that game there would not consider me a regular, because they never see me. The owner would, though; I spend a lot of money at his store. I placed first at our MoS tournamet. To the guys I played against, it probably looked like I was prize sniping, because they had never seen me before. I had no idea what the local "meta" looked like (only the meta that goes on in my house on Thursday night when I play against my buddy). Do you think they had any grumbling about me showing up and snaking top prize away from there? If so, do you think they were justified in feeling that way? (I'm not asking that rhetorically, I genuinely curious what people would think about it).

From your perspective:

-You play Armada at FLGS and have built up a base of 4-8 people whom you play against fairly regularly.

-Tournament day, a stranger shows up who you haven't seen.

-He wins the tournie.

-You don't see or play him again until next tournie.

-What you don't know is that he's a local and frequent patron of the same store you play at.

So, what do you think? Is there a justified grievance?

I didnt intend to start a debate on 'prize sniping'. I was trying to highlight the poor decisions made by the organizers of the event, namely:

1. Changing the event's date with 1 day notice.

2. splitting the prizes between 2 players, one of which is a store employee. (kiiiiinda looks fishy)

The salt in the wound was that the 'winner' of the event (they played one game) took home half the prizes and doesnt even live here....meaning that we hardly get to see the new ships. In fact, we havent seen them at all. (i'm starting to wonder if the TO sold them online) Its basically as if the event never happened here.

Wanna come in from out of town to win the prizes here? fine....just give *us* a chance to show up.

Wanna come in from out of town to win the prizes here? fine....just give *us* a chance to show up.

You are acting as if this out of town player somehow conspired with the store in order to get the date changed to drive down attendance so they could swoop in and steal all the prizes. Don't you see how absurd your statement is? Why would the out if town player have any impact on the "chance" the locals had to attend. He had the same chance as you, he just choose to utilize it.

A store had to change the date last minute, they posted that change, it resulted in low attendance. Somehow you are drawing some absurd conclusions from that chain of events.

Could the store have provided more notice? Not if they themselves had no notice of the issue requiring the day of the event to change.

Could the store have just held it a different weekend? Yes and No. FFG has allowed stores to run pre-release events outside of the set dates, but the store could be unaware of that. From thier standpoint they were told that the event was suppose to be run on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of that specific weekend. They executed thier obligations as they were aware of them.

Is it "fishy" that the two players that attended the event got all the prizes for that event? No, what else were they suppose to do with them. The ships were prizes for use in the event, the store not giving them out at the event would have been "fishy". That even with low attendance they gave out all of the prizes they were suppose to give out is a good thing. That the players recognized that the store was going to take a loss on the kit, and forked up some extra money to prevent that from happening is also a good thing.

Look at it this way, if the store just wanted to keep the prizes and sell them or give them to a store employee then why would they announce an event, cancel it, move the event, and hold the event (in which they have no gaureentee that people won't show up to)? When they could get the kit, never announce an event, and just report back a false event to FFG? It isn't as if FFG ever posted a listing on the stores getting kits, so if the store never said they were getting one, you would never have known they did.

You're upset you couldn't attend an event, but your allowing that to lead you to some just wild conclusions.

I had an equally shady experience with Massing at Sullust. Enough so that I have decided to never return to the store and to never play one of the players gain.

I would have everyone that had planned to attend and missed out due to the schedule change email the store owner/manager and FFG Sales about this. Option #1 was the only reasonable choice at that late notice. This is the first place I've seen the phrase "prize sniping" but I like it. It describes perfectly the practice of people going from store to store just for prizes. I don't mind if someone regularly plays at multiple stores in non-prize events, but in my opinion it's a sign of poor sportsmanship to only go to a store to take prizes away.

Edit: Inappropriate question on my part, ignore me.

Prize Sniping is mostly a matter of opinion I think. For example there's a small town near mine that doesn't have a LGS and as such doesn't have an Armada Community. There's a guy from there who drives to our store to play, and I consider him to 100% be a part of our gaming group. Him winning stuff means he'll keep coming back and we'll keep getting to play him.

What bugs me is someone who has their own local scene and drives to other scenes after winning theirs to win more. I get the allure of the big prizes, but I think it's kinda greedy. If you take first in a local tournament then congratulations, but you don't then need to go and take first place prize in other peoples tournaments. I realize that's probably weird, but it's how I feel.

You last paragraph there is what I feel about prize-sniping. I suppose it's a matter of intent, which is nearly impossible to judge. If someone doesn't have a local store and plays with their friends mostly, but goes to a store for a tournament, that's not prize-sniping. That's great, really. They get a chance to meet and play different people. Maybe make a friend.

If someone regularly goes to multiple stores to participate in leagues and tournaments, regardless of prizes, that's ok too.

It's the person that only shows up to get a prize, doesn't interact with the community or store, behaves like an outsider and/or bully, that I don't like. That's a prize sniper to me. But see my caveat below...

Most of you guys defending "prize-sniping" in your posts have shown me some valid points. I don't think you guys are the ones I have a problem with. And, looking a little deeper at the issue, you're right: in any kind of competitive game there are people that are there for the competition, not the game. And while more "casual" gamers might not like them, they have the same right to play as anyone else. They also tend to drive a good game up in popularity as most everyone appreciates a challenge.

With my limited meta i try to hit events for games. As they are often designed to do which is something FFG achieves really well. They have some of the best organized play out there i feel.

One player showed up to my massing event and after losing the second game 1-9 tried to talk people into changing the event to a 3 round event so he could try and battle back for better prizes. He had already won a MoS event that weekend and was trying to get more. He wound up placing 5th and I took First (as TO) and he was still able to get a raider, but a lot of people were annoyed by his attitude. It happens. The MoS event had "big ticket prizes" by armada standards. Its easier to get the kit prizes that come out even if you don't play. They are reasonally priced on the secondary market. The 5 expansions being prizes meant that the secondary market would be very high (i think i saw an ISD go for $100+) this just brings out the worst in people who figure if I win an ISD, sell it for 2x retail I can buy 2 on release date.

It happens in all games and if you are newer to the miniature gaming scene it can be frustrating at times.

I am man enough to say sorry for annoying you and i would not have taken offence if you told me to stop. I will freely admit those poor dice rolls aggravated me far more than they should have and and willing to take heat for that. I do hope I am still welcome at your tournament scene as I genuinely enjoy playing new people. I would however claim that calling my rolls "cool" is a massive understatement.

I feel like Prize snipping in and off itself is nothing bad nor should it be looked at negatively. I don't see people very often going hours out of their way to play an all day tournament and driving home without the promise of something that could offset the time and effort. We had 11 people show up to MAS at Gamer's Gambit of which 7 I did not know. You show up for a tournament and you win you get the prize. That being said if you show up to a tournament, lose the first round and then quit i do have a very big problem with that. To me that means you care more about winning than playing. I can see people getting sad and annoyed at loosing (guilty as charged see above) but to back out of a tournament is just disrespectful to everyone in my eyes.

/pep Guys.

Emotions get high and swings come in low. Lets move on from this and play some STAH WOOOAHS!!!

/RickFlairWoooooooooooooooooo!

Wanna come in from out of town to win the prizes here? fine....just give *us* a chance to show up.

You're upset you couldn't attend an event, but your allowing that to lead you to some just wild conclusions.

as mentioned in my OP, I had no chance of attending this event no matter which day of the weekend it was held. Am I drawing conclusions? don't remember offering any....? My only conclusion is that giving players less than 1 days notice (when it could have been rescheduled with FFG permission) is NOT acceptable. Players either could not alter their schedules to attend in time, or they did not know the event had been changed. (i'm told some players showed up on Saturday only to be informed the event was changed)

I leave any implications to your imagination.

Wanna come in from out of town to win the prizes here? fine....just give *us* a chance to show up.

You're upset you couldn't attend an event, but your allowing that to lead you to some just wild conclusions.

as mentioned in my OP, I had no chance of attending this event no matter which day of the weekend it was held. Am I drawing conclusions? don't remember offering any....? My only conclusion is that giving players less than 1 days notice (when it could have been rescheduled with FFG permission) is NOT acceptable. Players either could not alter their schedules to attend in time, or they did not know the event had been changed. (i'm told some players showed up on Saturday only to be informed the event was changed)

I leave any implications to your imagination.

They probably could not have rescheduled, actually. If they found out on Friday, maybe they tried to contact FFG, bit didn't get a response back in the 1/2 business day that they needed to get that figured out.

So that leaves holding it Friday night, on 1 hour notice, or Sunday on 1 day notice, or possibly not holding one at all if FFG didn't let them reschedule or something.

Then why not maintain the original date and allow one of the players to act as TO for the event and work with another LGS staff member to ensure legal prizing?

OR simply return the prize kit and cancel the event.

Sure, its crying over spilled milk at this point.

I'll mop it up with my wave 2 pre-order receipt from an online retailer.

Maybe they didn't want to return the kit? Maybe they weren't comfortable with someone else TOing, I don't know. What did they say when you asked them for their motivations?

I'm still wondering as to why holding the event on a Sunday was some masterplan in order to ensure only the store employee and this mysterious out of towner were the only ones going to show up.

As to the idea of returning the kit, do you seriously expect the store to spend money to get a kit shipped to them only to have to spend more money to ship it back simply because they had to move the date of an event? That is nuts.

I'm still wondering as to why holding the event on a Sunday was some masterplan in order to ensure only the store employee and this mysterious out of towner were the only ones going to show up.

As to the idea of returning the kit, do you seriously expect the store to spend money to get a kit shipped to them only to have to spend more money to ship it back simply because they had to move the date of an event? That is nuts.

Don't forget that they did post updated event info, so it's not like they intentionally kept it a secret. Yeah, they gave very short notice - but they only had very short notice themselves.

Sure, it's a crappy situation... But it's a crappy situation for the store, too.

All I am hearing is a chorus of tiny violins, lol. Things cropped up so TO had to change date last minute, some new guy ended up being at the right place at the right time and ended up making out like a bandit. This whole conversation would not exist if it was someone from the poster's game group.

The only comment they offered was something to the effect of "we felt this was the best possible solution".

The community discussed our feelings and we've decided to:

lets face it MOS was poorly conceived. The event required minimum 9 hours( 4x 2 hour rounds, 1/2 hour to eat,1/2 to open and create last round lists) most stores and infact not one store in my area ran a MOS event in what i consider a decent timeframe. Most hard a start time much too late which would finish in the evening or they just skipped the final round and gave prizes out 1-4.

The only comment they offered was something to the effect of "we felt this was the best possible solution".

The community discussed our feelings and we've decided to:

This is what it's all about. You vote with your wallet, folks. Nothing makes a statement about how you feel as much as refusing to shop there.

Regardless of any other judgments about this TO's intentions, he failed to recognize his duties as a Business Owner vs. his duty as a TO/player. Unfortunately, like many other FLGS owners, he put his interests as a gamer ahead of his interest as a business owner. The result ended in the perception that he had conflicting interests, and in this case, as in so many others, that's all it takes to lose business to online retailers.

I unfortunately have no option but to travel long distances to tournaments...in fact my first 17 games were all tournaments....and I did end up going to over 4 different Sullust events and getting something at each of them. In fact have another sullust coming up in a couple weeks. I don't even have anyone locally (outside of an hour drive) to game with so some of us have no choice. But I feel that the community was small enough and I got to know everyone and I will be back to as many of their tournaments as possible. Not just big prize give away ones.

How did you get to 4 MoS events? Did you sleep? In what city do they have 24/7 Armada clubs...because...I want to move there.

How did you get to 4 MoS events? Did you sleep? In what city do they have 24/7 Armada clubs...because...I want to move there.

My city had 5 all within an hour and a half drive of one another. Then again, Houston is bigger than Israel, sooooo......

prize sniping happens in every game and is somewhat unavoidable.

stores giving away the TOs "cut" is kinda bull. FFG doesn't have a program in place for community drivers like other companies do where they are reimbursed for their time via product. If the store gave away the TO cut I would expect the TO to receive some kind of compensation. I would also contact FFG and report that store as that's just detrimental to the community if no one wants to run an event anymore.

Sorry I have to call BS on this. The store gave away the TO prize becasue the TO didn't want the prize and wanted to run a better tournament. The TO is the store owner who has enough general knowledge to get a tournament running but he doesn't own the game. He wanted everyone to walk away with a prize, his prize was having people walk away with a favorable view of his store which giving away the squadrons did. I now know 11 people who are skipping the discounts on coolstuff and mini market to buy from his store b/c he is such a cool guy.

This doesn't sound like you are calling BS so much as you are explaining the situation, which is fine.

No need to get uppity, if Berger has incorrect information a simply correction should be fine, no need to "call BS" senen you are really just explaining the reality that he was unaware of.

I don't know how defending my local game store owner makes me "uppity". And btw the word "uppity" has a specific negative connotation and I wouldn't advise you to find different syntax.

i mean you did come across as a bit abrasiveness. Also, your initial post comes off a little bit negative. "So that does sound like a garbage LGS. My FLGS took the "TO" prize, i.e. the squadrons and broke open the pack and created a draft of choices using the squadron ships. of course 1-4 got the capital ships but 5-11 walked away with something cool too. The TO didnt take prizes at all." While you are clearly demonstrating what a good FLGS did, I initially interrupted it as a negative. Compounded by the fact that their is a LGS in my state that is known for taking the TO's cut selling it to make more money I assumed your TO was getting the shaft. My apologies.

As for prize sniping. It happens. Welcome to tournaments with awesome prizes. A store ran a tournament for its local group for WM/H and gave away a $140 model for first place. It got sniped by someone in my group (we play at a different store) and all hell broke lose. The guy complaining the most came from a third store which made it funny.

Assuming that winner did win legally, how could someone else complain? I'm really curious s about that one!

I could see it being something like what happened in ours. We were playing target ship (do not remember official name) and on turn five after I had moved my star destroyer to line up a killing shot for next turn, he says opps, that ship that you asked and have been going after all game is not the target ship, it is this one that is out of range. So I ended up trading one star destroyer for one guppy, and lost. Had it been the target ship I would have won. With the one loss I lost the tournament to that rebel player, and took second place.

No it did not really make a big difference as the store decided that with only three of us showing up, he was going to keep the two big ships, and most of the fighters. Prize support was the two little ships, and a gladiator, each player also got two of the fighters but he again keep the "best" or at least the most wanted ones the Falcon and Slave one. I do not know how many tournaments took place but from reading on this and other pages, it sounds like a lot of them are not being ran as they are supposed to.

The only comment they offered was something to the effect of "we felt this was the best possible solution".

The community discussed our feelings and we've decided to:

Not in my area. Portland Stores treat me well and deserve my money.

I think the "prize sniping" thing is something that people need to get over. It's just competition, and at the very least, you'll learn from it. I also think it's poor spirited to presume and then condemn someone's intention for travelling to compete. There are people that can do it for multiple reasons: love of the game, like competing (and winning) and to meet new people/learn new metas.

Additionally, I think there's no great way to define it. I work very near my local game FLGS and in fact I go there about 2-3 times a week during my lunch breaks to shoot the breeze with the owner, buy stuff etc. But, being married and having several properties to look over, I don't get much (if any) time, to game there. Thus, many people that game there would not consider me a regular, because they never see me. The owner would, though; I spend a lot of money at his store. I placed first at our MoS tournamet. To the guys I played against, it probably looked like I was prize sniping, because they had never seen me before. I had no idea what the local "meta" looked like (only the meta that goes on in my house on Thursday night when I play against my buddy). Do you think they had any grumbling about me showing up and snaking top prize away from there? If so, do you think they were justified in feeling that way? (I'm not asking that rhetorically, I genuinely curious what people would think about it).

From your perspective:

-You play Armada at FLGS and have built up a base of 4-8 people whom you play against fairly regularly.

-Tournament day, a stranger shows up who you haven't seen.

-He wins the tournie.

-You don't see or play him again until next tournie.

-What you don't know is that he's a local and frequent patron of the same store you play at.

So, what do you think? Is there a justified grievance?

As far as I'm concerned, (and I run what passes for the Armara scene at my FLGS) if you show up for tournaments on the regular, you're part of my community.

If, OTOH, you drove a great distance to participate in Massing at Sullest, and never set foot in my store before, or will again after, (at least, until the next preview event) then you have removed somthing from my local gaming community. I will not be pleased. I wanted to see those ships on the table next week.