Team Effort – Why the next changes to the tournament rules need to go far beyond cards and boards

Hi everyone!

I’ve been spending so many activations passing lately, I’m pretty sure I could score Is It Asleep?!

But I’m here, and I’m alive, which, in these uncertain times nothing to take for granted.  
Apologies for not writing in so long, I’ve been working from home, and for some reason that’s completely sapped my energy to write.  I think missing out to an hour of podcasts to and from work might have contributed to it, as has the distinct lack of content being released, but primarily I think it’s really hard to get opinionated about plastic toys when the world appears to be dissolving around us.

Nevertheless, I’m here and I’m writing now, it’s not about the latest FAR list though. I’ll hopefully going to get that later this week. Today I’m going to talk about something I feel is much more important.

The tournament rules.

We've seen a bit of this lately...

It’s mostly physical

With most of the world in one form of lockdown or another, it’s been curious to see the various ways that people in this community have got their Underworlds fix. I have played regular webcam games with a mate, which has been excellent, and given that he lives about 40mins away as the batsquig flies, an arrangement we’ll probably continue if/when lockdown ends. Vassal, TTS and the runner-up in ‘most perfectly timed software release of all time*’ Underworlds Online, have all given us a taste of what we’ve been missing out on.

* The winner, of course, is Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Despite this, one of the most interesting things I’ve noticed is how much the ‘remote meta’ has an asterisk beside it: Content creators haven’t really got to grips with it as much, angsty posts on Facebook are at an all-time low, and almost no-one has written a petition to Games Workshop demanding the banning of Rebound. Clearly, the community has a strong preference for physical, face-to-face play, which is as it should be. After all, that’s why we spent money on all these cards and models. This realization was the impetus for today’s article. The next time the tournament rules are updated, they need to recognize this, and ensure that face-to-face play is open to everyone.

Let’s Talk about The Pandemic in the Room

The first item that the tournament rules need to cover is hygiene. Hygiene requirements are nothing especially new in tournament play. I recall the first 40k tournament I went to, around 12 years ago. The tournament organizer made everyone bring a bottle of deodorant, to be inspected with our lists. Not particularly subtle, but effective.

    This did not happen at Judgment day 2007

Now however, we have more pressing concerns than man-smell. Coronavirus is a potentially fatal disease*. As we know, those at the biggest risk are the elderly, the sick, and the immune-compromised. This isn’t a small number of people, and all of them have families. Most people who play Underworlds will have at least one person who is near and dear to them in a risk category. I shouldn’t especially need  to explain why it’s important not to pass on life-threatening viruses, but I won’t labour the point overly long, save to say that the responsibility is on all of us to ensure that we slow, and hopefully stop, the spread of COVID-19.

*We all know this; what’s not talked about nearly so much, are the effects caused to those who don’t die: vascular problems, permanent scarring to lungs, and the still unknown effects on pregnancy.  In some ways, the death toll is drastically understating the damage that coronavirus is doing to people. Many people who survive the disease will have shorter lives, with a lower quality of life. Please don’t be complacent. This is a seriously nasty disease.

This isn’t a flavour of the month type thing either. Even after we negotiate the current spike, COVID-19 is going to remain a threat to health and wellbeing for some time to come. Experts are saying that we might never be free of this virus, and even if we can get a vaccine, the same practices that limit the spread of coronavirus also stop the transmission of influenza and other illnesses which are dangerous. 2020 has (re)opened our eyes to the risks of transmissible disease, and I feel it will be a long time before we’re so lax about hygiene again.

To that end, I would like to see the Warhammer Underworlds Tournament Rules updated to include hygiene protocols. Players should either be given, or be expected to bring, hand sanitizer, gloves and a mask. Any player who is unwell should be sent home. Social distancing should be practiced as best as possible, with a minimum square meters per person rule applied.  

The rules should also have clear, zero tolerance, consequences for breaches.

Now that’s desperately unlucky for those players who would miss out due to illness, and some TOs may need to find alternative venues, but in the interests of all parties, it’s a stand that needs to be taken.

 "Why should people practice social distancing and good hygiene, Shadowsun?"

" *Sigh* For The Greater Good....    .... I say other things you know...."

I would propose that tournament packs from now on come with some extra loot (including extra tokens) to set aside for those players who can’t make it due to illness.

Why the tournament rules?

“But surely stores can set their own hygiene requirements! Why put this in the tournament rules?” I hear you cry.  The very simple answer is consistency. Games Workshop is a big enough company that they can afford to consult with a public health expert to get accurate information about what precautions are adequate; your friendly local game shop might not be nearly so large or so well organized.

Second, Transparency. People need to know in advance. As I mentioned earlier, many of the people in our community have loved ones in the risk categories. It’s simply not fair to them to rock up on the day and take pot-luck with whatever hygiene practices the TO has thought of, nor is it okay for someone who has a couple of cold symptoms to travel long distances to then be turned back at the door, without advanced warning that might occur. As will become apparent later, as I talk about my second topic, it’s really, REALLY  mportant that people can find exact wording on policy and be informed beforehand.

Third, transparent consequences. Again, this will become more important in my second topic, players and TOs alike need to have a clear framework for enforcement of rules. If players know the consequences for an infringement, they’re more likely to report to a TO than if the consequences aren’t stated. Leaving things on the downlow and putting the responsibility on tournament organizers determine what steps need to be taken if someone doesn’t follow the rules is grossly unfair on them; particularly as COVID hygiene is kind of pass or fail - if someone has already sneezed in a person’s face, a friendly reminder is too late.

Lastly, by putting these policies in the tournament rules is effective. Putting disqualification on the line is a sure-fire way to ensure players comply. It may seem a little heavy handed, but we are literally talking life and death here. Again, this is key for the second topic.

Speaking of….

The Second Topic

By now, you’ll probably have seen Games Workshop’s ‘you will not be missed’ statement. It boggles my mind that such a positive statement could somehow be seen as divisive, but apparently to some it was. I feel that the tournament rules need to include a section on standards of behaviour that set out consequences for racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic conduct. Again, it should be zero tolerance.

In preparation for this article I attempted to find a customer behaviour policy on the GW website, shockingly, I couldn’t find one.

Transphobia is real. It has a real cost. It kills.

Remember that tournament I mentioned earlier? There’s a reason that stuck in my mind, other than being asked to produce a can of Rexona. Unfortunately, it was one of the most blatant and distressing examples of transphobia I’ve ever seen.

To set the scene, we were playing on rows of tables, quite close to each other, standard tournament type setup. As you’d all know, you generally don’t have a lot of elbow room, and you can clearly see and hear what’s going on at tables nearby. The games for the round were winding down, and as is often the case, those who have finished early were now spectating on the games still going. A table or two over from me, a player (let’s call him Player A) had a couple of friends watching his game. One of those friends appeared to be Trans or Non-binary (Friend A). They had hair cut in the style common for young women of in those days, and wore a blouse, but had quite noticeable stubble, and a deep voice. At one point in the game, Player A’s opponent (Player B) made a very lucky save. Friend A, who was closest to Player B congratulated Player B. Just a simple ‘Wow that was lucky’ or something similar, nothing more.   

Player B stepped up to Friend A and screamed “FUCK OFF MATE” in their face.  

Friend A left the room very quickly, looking shattered. The rest of the room went quiet for a while, and I can’t recall whether the TO was called, or whether Player A or his other friends said anything, but it was an awful moment.

I didn’t see Friend A again. I don’t know whether they were a player or merely a spectator, but it’s disgusting to think that one person’s transphobia could manifest in such pure aggression, and that person to have felt entitled to express themselves in such a blatantly offensive way.  

Now, that was 2007, and I hope we have become more sensitive to difference since then, but given the reaction that vocal minorities of the GW hobby reacted to the ‘You will not be missed’ statement, gives me pause to think maybe we haven’t.

It would be awful to think that Friend A could have been lost to the hobby due to that. They could have become the next (or given the passage of time, the previous) John Rees or Aman, or gone on to be an engaging podcaster or simply been another player who complains about Rebound like the rest of us.

Hopefully they were resilient to Player B’s disgraceful conduct and continue to play the game to this day. We’ll never know.


I love stats. I don’t love these ones.
What we do know is that homophobia and transphobia has a death-toll, just like COVID-19.  Across the world, LGTBIQ (I know there are other terms, including two spirited , but I’m just going to use the term I’m familiar with) people are at significantly increased risk of self-harm than Cis, Heterosexual peers, a differential that starts in the pre-teen years. What’s most shocking is that trend continues through the lifetime, with LGBTIQ people in their 50s and 60s having the greatest differential to Cis/het peers. LGBTIQ people also have much higher rates of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, they also report staggering rates of social isolation.

The cause?

Discrimination.
The data is clear and irrefutable.  The stigma, attitudes and behaviour of others causes LGBTIQ folk to self-harm, and to exclude themselves from activities that others enjoy.  It would be wildly implausible to suggest that LGBTIQ folk are not under-represented in the Warhammer Underworlds community.

Fortunately, the solution is clear. Some people laughed off the “you will not be missed” statement as a cynical marketing ploy. Whether or not that was the ultimate motivation is beside the point. People who are at increased risk of discrimination are adept at finding safe spaces, and small actions, which to lay people might seem tokenistic are generally responded to positively by the target audience.

For evidence, I work at a homelessness service in Ballarat, Victoria. My workplace is the only ‘Entry Point’ into the service system in a town of over 80,000 people. That is, if someone is homeless in Ballarat, they will need to be triaged through us, before they receive support from one of a number of support organisations. The month following when we received our ‘rainbow tick’ accreditation, as being a competent as an LGBTIQ friendly organisation, we saw a 15% increase in the number of LGBTIQ people presenting.  

Think about that for a second.  If they weren’t receiving support from us, they weren’t getting support at all.

If that LGBTIQ are willing to face homelessness alone, they’re sure as sunrise going to avoid going to an Underworlds tournament, if they fear they’re going to receive abuse.  But on the other hand, something as simple, and as likely to be dismissed as tokenistic, as putting a rainbow flag on the window, was enough to encourage those people to come to our service.

Similarly, I know several female gamers who generally only game at home because they find the atmosphere at stores to be hostile and or creepy. I’ve not seen an example of racism at a store, but I’d be incredibly naïve if I attempted to suggest it wasn’t a problem.

In my view, the solution is simple, for all of the reasons I espoused for hygiene above (Consistency, Transparency, Transparent Consequences and Effectiveness) the Warhammer Underworlds Tournament Rules need a clear, zero tolerance code of conduct for racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia. There is no place for that kind of behaviour at any Underworlds Tournament.  No ifs, buts or maybes. Perhaps even more than with hygiene precautions the consequences need to be stated upfront, as asking the victim of an abusive comment being asked to seek out the TO and potentially having them dismiss the behaviour would be highly shaming and hurtful. A complaint, corroborated by a witness, should be enough to have a player disqualified.

Advice for anyone struggling with the above

To conclude, 2020 has thrown a lot of curveballs our way. But Underworlds is still the game we know and love. By using the popularity of sanctioned tournaments and the near universality of the tournament rules on casual play, Games Workshop have an opportunity to make lifesaving behaviours such as hygiene and prosocial conduct, mandatory at all tournaments. This will ensure that when we do get to rattle the bones in the way intended, tournaments will be open to everyone.

Cheers, and please drop me a line, I’ll keep comments open on this one, but if you’re going to dismiss the rights of anyone to play this game, or to mock the damage caused by homophobia, transphobia, sexism or racism, be warned I’ll give you no quarter.

Rowan