Trying Too Hard?

I was listening to a few podcasts last night and came across something that really triggered a response.


The podcast covered a recent tournament where one of the specifics was that you could bring a piece of terrain to place on tables in your games.


Now from what I gather most people brought a hill or a fence or a wood or a marsh. You get the picture. That's fine until you get someone who actively sets out to game the system.


They brought a Wizard's Tower. Now if you don't know what that does it makes your Wizard a Loremaster in each Lore they know. Okay, generally in tournament games it is a bit broken. At Nicon last year the TO decided to place one on a table I played on and suddenly all my Horror units knew Gateway (not wonderful for my opponent).


However knowing this the player involved brought Kairos Fateweaver who gets to pick spells from the eight lores. By choosing one spell from each he effectively becomes Loremaster in all Battle Magic Lores. Suffice to say, it's a little bit of a leg up.


Now in situations like this I think TOs need to show a little bit of backbone. Clearly this is an "unintended consequence" and is not going to be fun for his opponents. I know in this case I'd be inclined to say "well done, you broke the system....here have a gold star". However I would not allow the player to use it - despite it being probably being legal in the Players Pack. If they insisted I'd happily refund their entry fee and suggest that this "probably isn't the tournament for them".


There's an old wargaming meme that you see on the internet forums in relation to WAAC play - "Punch him in the nuts and steal his army case". It immediately came to mind in this case.


Obviously your mileage may vary but to me this is a clear case of less about player ability deciding games and more in the discovery of combos.