When playing a new player I will always explain to them all the hidden tricks and sneaky tactics / combinations on my side for at least a half dozen games.

I will tell them that Demolisher is a glasscannon sneaky-rapetrain with no brakes. I will tell them that the weakness of my VSD is that it is about as manoeuvrable as a week old turd, and I will tell them that the raider with overload pulse stacks with the ISD's Avenger title.

Why?

Because I value actually playing a game more than I value winning it. When they see the nuances of the game, enjoy it, and can play rock-paper-scissors with tiny spaceships at my level I will have an opponent who I enjoy playing against.

I love playing imperials in Armada campaign mode btw, and run it like an RPG, manipulating the game so that the rebels always *almost* loose, but get the campaign in the end. It requires a far higher social and gamesmanship finesse, and that is what I enjoy far more than the thrill of 'winning'.

If I want a quick win-thrill, I shall go and play Soviet heavy tanks on World of Tanks Blitz, where disposable opponents don't matter.

No one is disputing doing any of them things to get new players up to speed, what we are disputing is that a tournament is not the correct place to be doing so, there is ample opportunity to engage new players in casual games to teach them the ropes, to help them learn and understand the many varied nuances of game play, fleet building, set up, and everything else that makes you a more efficient player, so that they can derive the same enjoyment you yourself do, from playing the game.

I am not however going to do this in a competition, and it is not poor form, or bad sportsmanship, or caring about "winning" over the game, a tournament is a place for competitive game play, not teaching new players the ropes, I myself was of course a new player, and I was new to Armada tournaments my very first time out, aware I could be facing people just like myself, or people with a much deeper comprehensive understanding of the game than myself, I read up on stuff, I checked the errata, I checked the rules questions sections, here and over at board game geek, to familiarise myself with common mistakes people make concerning rules, I checked the pinned FAQ thread, and read up on the sections in it, all this to enable to me to enter my first tournament with a sense of doing everything I could to even the playing field against more experienced players, I did pretty poorly, but I was polite, well spoken, engaging, and I paid attention, I went and looked at their side of the table, read the cards, tried to grasp what I needed to be aware of, with combos I had not come up against, I would read each objective two, to three times before picking one, ensuring I understood just what it was I was picking. Any questions I asked politely, either my opponent or the T.O. After the game I'd ask was there any glaring mistakes I'd made, if I hadn't already spotted them myself, in short I went with the firm understanding it was going to be a learning process, one I willingly chose to put myself into.

So I refuse to buy into this "new players need feeding hand to mouth" routine being espoused by yourself and others here, the information is there, easy to find, all you cannot find online, is experience, and you can only get that from playing, so take the time myself and others do to learn everything you can do, it is not secret, it is not hidden in an obscure manner, you do not have to be a veteran of 10 years before other players will even talk to you or answer your "noob" questions, you don't have to pay for a guide, its all here free, all it needs is 10mins of time, and some light reading.

I'm all for gaming for fun, and there is a time and place for it, tournaments are not the place, certainly not before your game, after it's done, talk your head off helping someone, I've done it myself several times.

This.... Absolutely

I just like the description of demolisher as a no breaks **** train.

Ive yet to see what someone might lose by taking the time to give the opponent a run down on their list. Are you afraid you can't win as easily? Are you afraid your peers will consider you a painty-waisted hand-holding sissy? What is there to lose? Why wouldn't you give your opponent a quick run down? It's just good manners to make sure everyone is on the same page.

I think the trouble here was, a rundown was given - or at least an explanation was given - and the response on the other end was "You are lying and/or cheating."

Ive yet to see what someone might lose by taking the time to give the opponent a run down on their list. Are you afraid you can't win as easily? Are you afraid your peers will consider you a painty-waisted hand-holding sissy? What is there to lose? Why wouldn't you give your opponent a quick run down? It's just good manners to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Because it is not part of competitive play to break down your fleet capabilities for your opponent, that is what makes it competitive play, knowledge combined with experience, a test.

It seems to me you are being deliberately obtuse, and it has nothing to do with manners, your attempts at twisting us all in to badly mannered power gamers is frankly pathetic, you have had it explained to you in depth, yet you persist with this mistaken belief that you are some sort of paragon of good play, and we're all scum because we do not agree with your sentiments.

I am done discussing this with you.

I think the trouble here was, a rundown was given - or at least an explanation was given - and the response on the other end was "You are lying and/or cheating."

Exactly.

When you give someone a full explanation of a rule or capability and their response is to roll their eyes and say "whatever" and imply you are twisting rules to suit your ends it gets real ugly real fast. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM explaining an upgrade or detailing all the upgrades I have on a ship and what they do IF my opponent asks. I DO have a problem with then explaining to them HOW i'm going to use same upgrades and I have a BIG problem when I'm treated like opportunistic scum when all I'm doing is enforcing basic rules of play!

I mean, when I told the guy you can't use a token and then take a new token in the same phase on a 1 command ship he claimed that everyone else so far had allowed him to play that way. I told him that's wrong, confirmed it with a nearby table and the disgust and distrust I got from the guy was palpable, and this is a BASIC RULE.

I mean, when I told the guy you can't use a token and then take a new token in the same phase on a 1 command ship he claimed that everyone else so far had allowed him to play that way. I told him that's wrong, confirmed it with a nearby table and the disgust and distrust I got from the guy was palpable, and this is a BASIC RULE.

Just to comment on this point. I think your opponents behaviour was typically poor, but there is something here that just doesn't help the situation.

The TO is supposed to be the "rules guy" not the other players, why should your opponent trust other players? They are potentially opponents, or worse they were his previous opponents who allowed him to break the rules and now are changing their previous stance. Keep in mind here you may very well trust that player and understand him to get this basic rule correct, but does your opponent have the same amount of trust?

Sometimes it isn't that we care about the correction, it's how the correction is delivered.

@Chucknuckle:

Exactly right. Here is my list, you haven't seen Demolisher before? Here is the card if you like. Giving your opponent tactical advice at the start of the game will never come across right. Even if he wins you took away some the joy for him, he didn't defeat you, you defeated you (he was there just to roll dice for you). If he loses, well the others have that covered, you could just as easily say "This is my ISD, it is easy to kill so drive right at it, OK?"

Ive yet to see what someone might lose by taking the time to give the opponent a run down on their list. Are you afraid you can't win as easily? Are you afraid your peers will consider you a painty-waisted hand-holding sissy? What is there to lose? Why wouldn't you give your opponent a quick run down? It's just good manners to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Now I think you're just being inflammatory and disrespectful.

You didn't suggest a "quick rundown."

"This is Demolisher. Have you played against it before?" And then continue to explain even if he says yes. That's patronizing, babying and, in my opinion, insulting. I'd be more pissed about someone talking down to me like that than pulling something that's perfectly legal that I didn't see coming. What you're suggesting is to guide your opponent through everything in your fleet before every game regardless of their skill level. That's incredibly condescending. Everyone I have played Armada against has been (legally) an adult. If an adult is going to go to a competitive event and not have the common sense to ask "What does that do?" when I list off my ships and upgrades, then they can't claim to have been surprised by it. I'm going to respect them as another adult with a working brain and give them the opportunity to know everything they need to know, but I'm not going to constantly explain things even if they don't want me to.

What you're suggesting is this:

"Alright, here's my Gladiator with Demolisher, Engine Techs, Ordnance Experts and Assault Concussion Missiles."

"Cool, I've played against that before."

"Okay, so you know it can move after shooting? And it can shoot, move, shoot, move? And it can re-roll black dice?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Okay, so here's my ISD-II with Avenger, SW-7's, Captain Needa and Turbolaser Reroute Circuits."

"Nice, I got chewed up by that build once."

"Okay, so you know you can't spend exhausted defense tokens against it? And the SW-7's guarantee four damage from blue dice? And the Needa/TLRC combo means I can flip a red die to two hits?"

"Dude, I've played this game before."

"Well, I just want to make sure there are no surprises."

"Just deploy your fleet."

"Okay, this is a VSD-II with Overload Pulse."

"Don't explain what that does."

"So you know that Overload Pulse uses a blue critical to exhaust all defense tokens? And with Admiral Screed I can spend a die to flip another die to a crit? So I can use this to exhaust all defense tokens before attacking with Avenger, so you can't use your tokens?"

Let's just say a proctologist would have to remove your ISD from your body if I had to sit through that from every opponent at the start of every tournament game.

We are adults. Tell me what upgrades it has. Explain if I ask. If I don't, any surprises are on me.

^{As a new player myself I had great difficulty understanding some of the rules, specifically the nonstandard crit rules and APT's ignoring shields. I would have never shown up to a tourney until I had a good understanding of the rules. Instead I have been reading this forum and talking to experienced players. he should have been more humble and not thrown a temper tantrum.}

We are adults. Tell me what upgrades it has. Explain if I ask. If I don't, any surprises are on me.

Perhaps even better would be to pass you the card that you ask about? That way there is no bias in the explanation.

That too. It depends on how they ask. If it's a veteran player who's just trying to remember what it does (worded something like, "What's that one, again?") I'll jog their memory. If it's a newer player, I'll give them the card or have them walk around the table if they want to look at all of the upgrades.

Honestly, I haven't seen it be an issue yet. Most tourney games have been prefaced by a few minutes of reading my opponent's list while he/she reads mine, and any clarification questions are generally asked then.

We are adults. Tell me what upgrades it has. Explain if I ask. If I don't, any surprises are on me.

Perhaps even better would be to pass you the card that you ask about? That way there is no bias in the explanation.

There is also the problem that RAW to a new player may as well be greek.

Lets face it not everyone has a brain wired to resolve a rules execution stack. If you are a new player I can hand you a handful of APT cards to read and you will still probably not understand why its hitting your hull before you can do jack-squat. To understand it you have to read the card, read the attack order rules 5 times in a row then read the attack order execution document 5 times and the rules reference a few times. I think the point some people are trying to make is that all that reading and puzzling out should happen well before you hit a table at a Store Championship level.

OK, but that is a bit of a tangent on explaining the fleets. I probably had to spend some good amount of time on combat and even created a flow chart before I was on top of the sequence and timing of things.

Part of the problem you had was an opponent who overestimated his ability to win and underestimated his ability to accept that he didn't understand the rules as well as he should. Had he been personally truthful to himself and realised this, he may have been a very pleasant opponent and learned some of the rules and fleet building ideas that would help move him forward next time.

Because it is not part of competitive play to break down your fleet capabilities for your opponent, that is what makes it competitive play, knowledge combined with experience, a test.

So what if it's not 'part of competitive play'?

What does it cost you?

Why WOULDN'T you do it?

What have you got to lose?

I am done discussing this with you.

What you're suggesting is this:

"Alright, here's my Gladiator with Demolisher, Engine Techs, Ordnance Experts and Assault Concussion Missiles."

"Cool, I've played against that before."

"Okay, so you know it can move after shooting? And it can shoot, move, shoot, move? And it can re-roll black dice?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Okay, so here's my ISD-II with Avenger, SW-7's, Captain Needa and Turbolaser Reroute Circuits."

"Nice, I got chewed up by that build once."

"Okay, so you know you can't spend exhausted defense tokens against it? And the SW-7's guarantee four damage from blue dice? And the Needa/TLRC combo means I can flip a red die to two hits?"

"Dude, I've played this game before."

"Well, I just want to make sure there are no surprises."

"Just deploy your fleet."

"Okay, this is a VSD-II with Overload Pulse."

"Don't explain what that does."

"So you know that Overload Pulse uses a blue critical to exhaust all defense tokens? And with Admiral Screed I can spend a die to flip another die to a crit? So I can use this to exhaust all defense tokens before attacking with Avenger, so you can't use your tokens?"

Let's just say a proctologist would have to remove your ISD from your body if I had to sit through that from every opponent at the start of every tournament game.

We are adults. Tell me what upgrades it has. Explain if I ask. If I don't, any surprises are on me.

Do you need me to explain why it's important to read the situation and adjust accordingly? I didn't think I had to.

I'm not trying to give anyone a script to run off here. So if you're offended at the specific wording I used in my post, then take two steps back, take a breath and realise that I'm just trying to get everyone to be on the same page. Yes, your opponent should be a savvy player with experience and a rock-solid understanding of the rules.

But if he isn't then why wouldn't you give him a run down on your list? What does it cost you? What are you afraid of?

And to clarify since it seemed to get lost in translation, read the situation. If your opponent seems to know exactly what's going on, then treat him as such. If he looks like a deer caught in the headlights, then treat him as such. And at least make SOME effort to find out if he wants a run down on your list. It could be as simple as starting the game with a hand shake and asking "Hey, here's my fleet, do you want a run down on what's what?"

Again, I'm not trying to give you a script here. It's just a suggestion so don't get your panties in a bunch.

Again, you are being intentionally insulting and inflammatory without reason. I'm not even the least bit riled up, because I can have an intellectual disagreement without taking it personally and feeling the need to hurl juvenile insults.

Admit you misspoke in your earlier post, the one that started this entire debate. You didn't mention gauging the situation or anything. You clearly stated that you explain everything, all the time, whether your opponent wants you to or not, regardless of their level:

Hell, I do this with veteran players.

This is from the post that I am reacting to. A post that you never made an attempt to correct or acknowledge. Instead you try to change your stance to make it look like your opposition is being unreasonable. I am not. Either stand by your previous statement, or correct it, but don't try to slink away from it.

You clearly stated that you (and by your argument, everyone else) should explain everything in their list at the outset of every game, regardless of your opponent's wishes or skill level. I called BS on that. Now you're trying to change your argument without correcting your stance. So what is it? Do I stand by your original opinion of always explaining everything, or do I feel out the situation (which I do, by the way)? Take a moment and get yourself straightened out before you try to correct others. And again, stop asking "what's there to lose?" Asked and answered. Read my posts before burning with indignant rage and responding.

@Hastatior - Exactly. You should play friendly games and local tourneys before you step up to the store championship level. It's not a training event, it's a competition. I'll gladly explain something if my opponent asks. Then it's rulebook and then TO to resolve a dispute. You have two hours to play a full game, so stopping to explain and re-explain makes that a daunting task. It shouldn't happen at that level.

This increasingly feels like a silly thing for people to be getting this worked up over.

The capacity of the internet world to argue incessantly about pretty much ANYTHING never ceases to amaze me.

Let's try an experiment. The sky is blue. Discuss.

My first comp, I got stomped....badly stomped....but I said "**** it lets kill something"

Walked away with a 1-9 his favor...but still I learned ALOT from that game.

The capacity of the internet world to argue incessantly about pretty much ANYTHING never ceases to amaze me.

Let's try an experiment. The sky is blue. Discuss.

Nuh-uh, what about sunrise and sunset when it's orange and red and yellow?

Checkmate, kindergarteners.

Seriously, f*cking sky noobs.

This increasingly feels like a silly thing for people to be getting this worked up over.

Some guy telling us we are all bad mannered players who care more about winning over having fun, to the extreme we delight in tabling noobs, so they get taught a good lesson?

Sure it is the internet, and all arguments are ultimately futile on message boards and forums, but I dunno, I am willing to make a stand on kumbaya spouting, rainbow unicorn lovers, lets all hug, "can't we all just get along" people, dictating to normal people, that they are being abnormal for enjoying a competitive environment in a competition, because frankly I do not want it to become the norm, and that is what usually happens, goody twoshoers twisting the world to the version of it they want.

@TheEasternKing

you are the one arguing with strangers on the internet, who have no power over your actions

The capacity of the internet world to argue incessantly about pretty much ANYTHING never ceases to amaze me.

Let's try an experiment. The sky is blue. Discuss.

Except at sunrise and sunset.

Or when its raining. Or snowing.

And really you could more accurately say that the sky is not inherently any color at all, and is merely a reflection of the earth's water which gives the appearance of color.

Get your facts straight before you say something so inflammatory and incorrect, pleb.

This increasingly feels like a silly thing for people to be getting this worked up over.

Some guy telling us we are all bad mannered players who care more about winning over having fun, to the extreme we delight in tabling noobs, so they get taught a good lesson?

Sure it is the internet, and all arguments are ultimately futile on message boards and forums, but I dunno, I am willing to make a stand on kumbaya spouting, rainbow unicorn lovers, lets all hug, "can't we all just get along" people, dictating to normal people, that they are being abnormal for enjoying a competitive environment in a competition, because frankly I do not want it to become the norm, and that is what usually happens, goody twoshoers twisting the world to the version of it they want.

Well, thank goodness there's no belligerence or hyperbole to be found here on either side of this debate here on the forum, unlike that new player at the tournament, right?

I'm just sayin', man, maybe y'all should take it down a notch, or work over your differences in a game on Vassal, or something.