Is this fair or bad sportsmanship?

[exeteroborach]

Hi everyone.



So two friends were playing a game of 9th a while ago (Sisters vs Tau ) and a sketchy situation came up and wanted my opinion. Figured I'd get yours too.



In Player A's Shooting phase they had their Exorcist in melee with Player B's Crisis Commander which had only 1 wound left. The Exorcist fired it's Rockets and Heavy Bolter into the Commander and both scored one hit and wound each. I guess 9th was different so Player B got to resolve the wounds from different weapons simultaneously. He set aside 2 dice and dedicated 1 to each weapon. First he rolled the die for the Rocket and failed the save and so his Commander was killed thus nullifying the die for the Heavy Bolter.



Later, in the Fight phase, Player B realized that the Rocket could not have been fired due to it having Blast. Player A agreed that he should not have fired it and continued with the Fight phase. Player B then stopped him and said " I need to go back and roll for the Heavy Bolter because my Commander might still be alive to fight this phase."



Player A said "No, it doesn't matter because he's still dead. You were only meant to roll one die anyway and you did. You failed the save that was truly meant for the Heavy Bolter."



After a short debate Player B conceded and the game continued.



Personally, I would have just let B roll it since he did dedicate a specific die for that save and could have potentially saved it. Especially if it's between two friends. 


What do you think? Was that fair or bad sportsmanship? How would you handle it?


Thanks.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

There's no one way to handle these disputes. The rules say to do a roll off if there's an unclear rules dispute which could have worked. Another approach would be to say "roll a 4+. If you get it, you can reroll"

One thing to remember is that in 9e you can only fast roll if the to hit, strength, and AP are all equivalent to the target. Was this the case here? If not the dice should have been rolled separately. Note: I have fast rolled in this situation if I'm using multicolored dice. For example "red into squad A. Blue into squad B"

I would factor in if the players remembered what the dice rolls was. If it wouldn't have mattered (a roll of a 1), I would have said the model was still dead.

Another thing to factor in against friends is if the loss of the model would make it so the player is out of the game. If yes, I'd argue that letting him roll is going to make it more fun, so go for it.

Also, going back from the fight phase to the shooting phase is a bit far. I usually tack these things up as a learning experience when it happens to me.

If I was at a league and was playing "that guy" my answer would be VERY different than if I'm playing a good sport or a new player.

Edit:
I think those opponents should discuss how far is ok to go back and what to do if there's a rules mistake prior to the game to ensure that there's no hard feelings going forward.

[yoritomo]

If they chose to go back that far they may have to re-roll the die. I believe the Ap on those weapons are different, so unless he used an invulnerable save he would be cheated if he just took the wound using the rocket’s profile.

I suppose if you remember the value of the die roll I guess you could go by that, but it’s better just to re-roll.

[piersonsmuppet]

I don’t think it’s solely a sportsmanship issue for player A, as the commander not dying might have changed future actions. I’d give the re-roll in the event nothing else could have affected the commander. If player A had another gun or strat that could have downed the commander, I don’t think it would be fair to give the re-roll as there would be so much back-track.

[mattblowers]

In my experience Player A made the mistake so Player B gets the benefit of the doubt. He gets to reroll the dice. In golf terms Player A committed a rules violation and as such has to eat a penalty stroke. If I was Player A I would give it to him since I had cheated him of the opportunity.