I once knew a very tricky player indeed.

His most common deception was arriving just in time for an event with a prepared team that was slightly over-build so no one would check his math. Usually it was just enough to fit on some more FCs but once he got greedy and got caught 32pts up in a tournament game. Even though he won all his matches the judge DQ'd him.

Now we've all heard of loaded dice but what about dice loaded to roll low? At one point in a tourney the same player swapped out my HC pack-in dice for another pair and sure enough I started rolling terribly. Rather than call him on it though I just switched to another pair of dice and continued to beat him silly. Mind you this was all based on visual inspection and I could never definitively prove they were loaded but what tipped me off was:

1. Up until a certain point he was using my dice to play but began using his own when my luck soured.

2. Just for posterity I held onto the supposedly rigged dice and sure enough they fail most of the time.

I have since never seen him again.

We don't really get these problems anymore. Due to the incompetence* of the Australian distributor that WK originally used (Croftminster), a number of Australian venues started getting prize support infrequently or not at all. A lot of the less scrupulous players disappeared when there was no guarantee of prizes to win.

When I was first getting into tournaments it was clearly a problem, though. At the first Australian Nationals I attended, there was a judge whose job it was to click through the dials of every single character being used at the tournament, to look for switched dials. And I personally witnessed one obnoxious dude (massively overweight) who stood over his <10 year old opponent and tried to intimidate him. A bunch of fellows were ready to lynch the dude, but fortunately the kid won anyway.


* After Topps closed WK, Croftminster was happy to sell LEs by the boxload to some guys who drove to their warehouse. They had the LEs, theyy just weren't shipping them out to every venue. I personally know of a store that was given over a dozen Convention Weekend kits after Croftminster stopped carrying clix - what are they gooing to do with all those Fooms? And why weren't these mailed out to other venues a year earlier?

Dammit, Comical!

(I do love that game, although it often comes down to picking your friend with the loosest or strictest morals for each question )

I've played tournaments for several games over the decades (Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, FOW, Magic, Overpower, Blood Bowl, V:TES, Dominoes, Hold 'Em, and of course Heroclix...I'm sure there are more). There are folks with low scruples no matter what game you play (inside and outside of tournaments). I'd echo the sentiment of one of the earlier posters - this game seems to be above average in that regard. Certainly at my venue there are a bunch of nice guys, and the other venues I've visited (both here in Sacramento and in the Bay Area), as well as the WWLA cons I've gone to, I haven't noticed problems, either with judges or players.

I quit playing Magic because of the players. I still play in a few Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournaments each year. I actually generally avoid Heroclix tournaments, but it's less to do with the players, and more to do with a desire to just play the game without the stress of a tournament. I really enjoy the game, and have fun just playing each week with my brother in his house or mine. I do sometimes sneak out to events though (I'll probably hit Wondercon and am thinking about Emerald City ComicCon).

I've probably just been fortunate; I'm sure there are bad apples out there, maybe I'm just missing them?

Um...that's crazy. Why would someone go to all that trouble? Was the prize very valuable?

I've found that in many games people get their egos tightly wrapped into their W/L records. This can lead to some shady play. IME a "national rankings system" just exacerbates the issue. Then there is another problem that tends to occur when the prizes are seen as having value (tournaments with big money purses, valuable LEs, "pro tour" events, etc.) - in these events players see wins and losses in real money terms.

There isn't much you can do for the ego problem (aside from fighting against any form of national ranking system), but the money thing is easily solved by avoiding events with big prizes. That's what I do. I'll play for something worth $100 or less, but when it starts to get higher than that, I try to stay away. Biggest Heroclix prize I played for was Galactus and Starro, and those were only because of the cool participation prizes in the lead-up events.

The biggest problem I ever had was playing with a guy who would ask questions about the rules to see how much you knew. So he would mind control a fig and then ask, "now what can I do with this? I forget." He was testing to see if he could get away with breaking rules while he was playing you. He didn't get anything off of me and I beat him.

I knew two players, who were friends, who used to do this all of the time. Fortunately, both of the losers have given up the game, as people got tired of their ####.

With the release of Brave and Bold, the dials will have a small number (like on HaloClix) that specifies what click the dial is on. This has pros and cons, but the strongest pro is that when these figures are used, it will solve this problem.

I've posted this before, but when I moved to college, I was moving from a venue of 16 regulars to a venue of 1 (I actually became a judge when I called the store. He said that they had a thriving community, but there was nobody there when I got there. He also never let me a be a judge because he wanted to keep all the prizes, but that is another story).

Anyway, I was bummed that I had no one to play against, but then I met a guy who was interested in learning. I taught him how to play, and he would only use my pieces. He would, in every game I played against him, quickly grab Vet Jinx, Vet ult Scarlet Witch, and exp Black Cat. I was cool with it at first, but a year later when he still refused to get his own clix, it got old. Anyway, he had another bad habit of purposely not saying "Your turn" even though he had no actions left and was clearly done, but when I would count my RS range and he saw that he was exactly within that range, he would say, "Hey I wasn't done, I changed my mind about this character (which was the last character he moved) and want to put him here, just outside of your range." When he was new, that wasn't as annoying, but when he taught me how to play Magic, on our first game ever, he said something to this extent "I am only going to do this sick combo on you because someone in a tournament would do it to you," and them pwn me.

Eventually I stopped letting him use any of my figures, so he got a NGN Superman and Vet Polaris and refused to play any other team (at that point I got a rookie Cosmic Boy to pair with my Vet io Supes). The final straw broke when he invited himself to come home with me for the weekend to play in a tourney at my old venue. It ended up being a seven way game, and he immediately started destroying my team instead of going for anyone else. I had almost killed his best figure, and he had already killed a bunch of mine (I was playing pretty much all HIVE Troopers with a vet Paramedic) when he said, "Hey, you clearly aren't going to win, but I actually have a shot if you don't kill my best guy. How about we call it a truce and both go and heal up and start attacking everyone else. I agreed on one condition, he let me kill one of his guys that was just under the cost of all my guys he killed. He agreed, but blocked most of my injured in a room until he was completely healed up. As soon as he let me out of the room, one of the other players moved the highest costed figure on the map within range of one of my guys, trying to get away from the "real threats", and I pot shotted him and took the lead. My "friend" then turned and decimated my team, and said "Hey, you were the bigger threat at the time." I got last place and he took first, but he was banned from the store for life for being such a Dick (his actual name btw, shoulda known).

I sold my whole collection in the following months because I was so fed up with playing. This was just before Sinister came out, and I didn't get back in until Crisis.

This happened about a 9 months ago at a venue I play at. Neither of these guys play at the venue anymore though. The judge moved out of state. He was one of the lowest people I know in almost all categories of life.

I agree with you. I think MOST HeroClix gamers are great people with at least a rudimentary level of integrity. But it's the bad apples who seem to spoil it for everyone else.

I know the type.

That's awesome! Thanks for the great laugh.

I have witnessed this a few times, usually by the same players over and over again. Then they claim ignorance. Everyone makes mistakes, but if it's a pattern, you know what the they say, "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."

my biggest problem is finding individuals to play...I am currently at law school in michigan and am moving back to wisconsin about 45 minutes north of milwaukee so...hopefully there are some worthy individuals in the area. If there are none, well, I will go back to playing with my 4 or 5 friends and family. On a side note, Heroclix makes a terrific drinking game.

I like this addition too, but from the dials that have been previewed Blackest Night will have them, but B&B does not.

LOL! Love it! Great post!

See, I would have thought that, but Winona Ryder shoplifting lipstick comes to mind. Now I know that anything is possible!

Only if you're playing with Supernova or HoTand damage values approaching 4 or 5. Halfway through a game of Arkham villains plinking away one or two clicks at a time, one tends to fall off the chair.

I live in eastern Iowa, and I'm glad that I now play at the two best venues I've played at in my 6 years in the game. (And that includes significant time playing in the Philadelphia area, as well as 1 big tourney in Orlando) The judges are great, every player is generally friendly, and even the young kids have really good manners. (Like asking if they can look at your Super Rares they've never seen)

There are a couple of intense gamers, but mostly they get upset with themselves. (I call those players "Franks" after the guy on the E*trade commercial with the lottery ticket)

The worst example of bad sportsmanship is similar to what someone else said. It was the tournament for the Galactus after Avengers, and there were 4 rounds. (Also not where I am currently playing) I won my first round, was winning my second round pretty easily and I noticed two brothers were playing against each other also in the quarters. One was actually ahead of the other when one of them noticed my team, and I heard him say "My team will fare better again his team than yours will." Guess who won that game? I still should have won that semi-final game, but Silver Surfer missed a couple low rolls and my Grim Reaper got Critical Hit off a building for a 1 shot KO. Still doesn't sit right with me. Haven't played at that venue since.

I agree that someone truly trying to cheat new players out of rare figures should be stopped. But unfortunately, too many times I've seen some know-it-all (meaning know-very-little of the real world) ####### jump in during the middle of a trade negotiation, and start accusing before the deal is done.

One of my focuses in graduate school was negotiations, and in real life I put this to work dealing with other companies and their lawyers. One basic principle of ethical negotiations is win-win with reasonable disclosure. You have to look at the long term advantages to treating others fairly, which means the possibility of dealing with that person in the future on other deals. That said, only the stupidest negotiator initially offers their "fair" best offer. You make an offer, and if they accept a lopsided deal you have the unethical choice of sealing the deal with the new player, or the ethical choice of sweetening the deal to where it is fair, while telling them why you are doing it. When you do the latter, genuine trust can be built, and both sides get a fair deal. When the know-it-all interferes, uninvited, before the deal is done, you have undeserved mistrust and a broken deal.

Someone just starting to play, who is enthusiastic and likely to become a long time Heroclix player, may pull a Sinestro Corps Batman, and may offer to trade for my Mad Hatter. But if I accept, I'm not going to walk out of the store with Bats. I'm going to say "I'm going to have to add quite a bit to this because that Batman is a chase and really rare, and worth a lot more than Mad Hatter". I usually have trade LEs and SRs with me, so I let them choose some if they still want to trade, making it fair. I've actually done this more than once, and the trade usually goes through. I get a figure I really want, and they get several good ones, and I can face them the next tournament without having to explain why I took advantage. Most times I'll ask another experianced player if the final trade seems fair. But when the ignorant know-it-all butts in to something that is none of their business, and before the deal is really finished, there is nothing but hard feelings all around.

This is a particular peeve of mine, because the ignorant know-it-all is a real person, who exists in the real world. I guess he thinks it is OK to put himself in the middle of someone else's ETHICAL business because he "knows-it-all". If I had seen someone cheat new players this way even once, I would be on their case everytime they started with a new player. But to just butt in everytime someone is trying to make a trade, to try and display his Heroclix knowledge, is pathetic, and seems to me a big red flag that he really isn't capable of dealing with real world complexity. No proposed trade is cheating until the cheater follows through, and that is everyone's business. But until then, if you don't KNOW what is going on, its not your business.