Public LT WIP is making them too obvious

Nobody in their right mind would argue that it's illegal to access the official army builder app during play, either.

You say "RAW doesn't always work," but you don't really have anything else to go on if you don't have rules to go off. Instead this comes off as an unexamined "RAW doesn't always say what I want it to say."

Ah, didn't know you had a mind-meld with the rules team.

Honestly I can't imagine the rules team would be stupid enough to think that it is illegal to access the army builder app during play, and that even if they were they wouldn't state it explicitly but only imply it.

I find your claims that you're divining intent here entirely unconvincing.

 

Here's how we do it:

All tables are set up beforehand. Usually an hour before the event starts. Then players have another hour to setup their stuff. That is, to get their minis, their tokens, dice, lists everything. From then on, the TO will say who is playing on which table and give out the time blocks.
The TO will flat out yell 'Start deployment now!' and 'Deployment over!' when the alloted deployment time is finished. And he will give routine time checks every thirty minutes to keep people in check.

In a casual environment, I've had most of my actual gametime (so not counting stuff like setting up the table or picking minis from the hugeass tray) to add up to about 2 hours.

This is the key. Most of the time I try to keep the game flowing, and oftentimes will take a less than perfect decision because it is 'good enough' and keeps it going. Have I lost games because I took an action and later realized it wasn't the most optimal choice? yes. But we deal with it.

 

@DaRedOne I like the idea of giving flat amounts of time for deployment. I've met too many people who use like 30 mins to deploy.

 

You don't understand what a circular argument is. It's not one that just goes on forever.

What's more, you're not saying that it's unclear - you're presuming intent where there's no reason to think so.

 

If that were the case, mirror matches would be illegal. No, the information is not hidden mechanically by the game. Your premise is incorrect, and it's a particularly boneheaded take to think so. Nothing in Army (or your memory, as it's functionally the same thing; the rules make no distinction) is forbidden from being referenced.

 

There is nothing in the rules that calls out those so-called "reasonable exceptions." There is nothing in the rules that says that the information contained in Army is Private Information. It is unreasonable to insist that players be disallowed from accessing Army during play.

Not only are you making stuff up, you're making stuff up that would make the play experience worse. Enough with your fabrications and lies.

 

The "using Army App to recreate opponent's potential list to discover the Lt (or any other information considered PRIVATE in game terms)" was one of the few questions I asked about when I visited CB HQ a few years ago. While Bostria's diplomatic answer was "we can't ban an official app"; the WTF face of the staff members in the room was worth the question.

To me, it's a practice that circumvents the spirit of what "Private Information" is supposed to be in-game. With that said; I've met smart people who can memorize and recite every Magic the Gathering card they've come across, count and predict opponent's hand playing Dominoes, and even once, a guy who announced he was going to take out my Lt, and proceeded to do it in the second order of his turn 1 (first order was for Shinobu Kitsune to drop smoke. It was a Crowning Moment of Awesome and such a delightful play to see). So, I can understand people in competitive circles feel they are at disadvantage against such individuals.

Against me, all you need to do is ask. Every mini of mine has a name and a backstory and I'll bore you to tears telling you everything about them.

 

Using the app to recreate the opponent's entire list seems to be where a lot of people would draw the line. Seems like a fairly reasonable compromise, although personally it wouldn't bother me if my opponent did this.

In practice, I don't see how anyone could actually do it, though. You don't know what's in your opponent's list until they've finished their initial deployment (all but reserve) and they walk you through what you see on the table. Until then, you can guess based on the models you see, but you don't know what's being proxied until you get the rundown. At that point, where do you find the time to enter everything into Army without stalling the game?

And I think the one thing we universally agree on is that it's not permitted to use the app in a way that stalls the game. There just isn't time in a tournament to allow that, even if one might otherwise approve of the practice.

It's actually a lot easier to do on TTS. While your opponent is deploying, you can mouseover their units to see which profiles they are. There would be plenty of time to enter the info into army if one were so inclined. I've heard TTS players complain about other players doing this, although again it wouldn't bother me personally. An online TO could consider banning the practice, although there would be two practical hurdles: (1) precisely defining the limits of what a player can and can't do with Army during the game, and (2) enforcement, given that you can't see what an online player is doing in another window or on their phone.

 

It's not that CB's RAW isn't infallible; it's that there's no way to play the game without what's in the rules. Can you show me where the rules say using Army to deduce what your opponent's Private Information is is verboten but using your memory is ok? No? Then quit.

Some people have a cargo cult attitude towards the rules, as this memory shows. People insisting "of course CB wants using the ap during gameplay to be verboten!" when nothing could be further from the truth... pathetic, frankly.

 

If you asked CB if it is okay for a player to come naked to an event at an LFG, you'd probably get a similar/stronger WTF face; but the reasonable conclusion from this is not that they frown on players coming dressed in kilt and tank-top because that's not the same as being naked and behaving rudely.

If you'll forgive the graphic analogy.

Now, some people can pull off kilt and tank-top and make it classy, those who don't can probably claim they're doing a (bad) Uxia cosplay, but if you can't expect your players dress code to stick to commonly shared values and standards you may need to set one; be it tux+ or be it trash only. If you don't, expect stuff in between and it's not an unreasonable analogy for gaming aids.

Hell, even golf has relaxed its rules on gaming aids, you're even allowed to use mechanical devices that help you tally and remember your strokes now... using Army to check information external to the public information is a gaming aid, though, no doubts about it.

That's Hecaton you're quoting. Not exactly famous for white knighting CB.

 

The question whether or not it's illegal to look at Army app suddenly reminds me of that thread where somebody suggested using eyes to determine LOF was illegal.

 

There's a difference between something requiring some difficulty to suss out and being ambiguous. It's not the most straightforward, but there's only one answer to this question that doesn't contradict the rules.

 

I have a friend who routinely does this. He calls it 'The Riddick moment'.

Basically he will go "That model is going to die." or "I need to score 3 points in this round" and he does. Probably one of if not the best player I know.

He is also a strong defendant of just letting people know things. While he will not tell you if he has a Hidden Deployment model, if you ask him which models in his army have this option, he will gladly list them out to you and explain which ones are infiltrators and which ones aren't, for example.

 

I feel like this kind of thread is why the forums have a bad rep in the general community.

I keep clicking on it thinking there might be some interesting discussion about the pros and cons of open Lt WIP in N4 (Which I'm undecided about but interested in).

Instead there's a long, personally antagonistic argument for what seems like pages over whether you can look at army in game, which is never going anywhere.

I think it'd be better to just do what you and the people you play with think is reasonable and move on to a more productive discussion.

 

Compared to what, exactly? On FB the mods would have banned people for quoting the rulebook and left nothing but the insults.