Would like feed back and opinions...

Recently I attended a tournament and into the 3rd and final game the organizer found out the player who won the tournament had an illegal list. Now this was a fantasy tournament and the way it was illegal was the player did not have a general. The army was skaven. Obviously the TO (tournament organizer) had to make an on the spot decision. The player with the illegal list I whole heatedly believe was not trying to cheat in anyway. He is a newer player and has only ever played 8th ed. Meaning hes only played for a maximum of 6-8 months. To make the situation even more convoluted is that it was a team tournament. So the player had a teammate with a legal list. They ended up winning all 3 games and even beating 2 teams made up of some pretty veteran players. In the end the TO disqualified them putting them in last and bumping up the second and third places. My stand on it is. I honestly don't know what I would have done... So I'm kind of asking you guys as I know most players on this forum and the amount of 14 year olds is to a minimum as opposed to say warseer. (no offense to younger players intended) Also I'm curious to know since most people on this forum regularly or use to regularly attend tournaments what your opinions are. From what I heard the player was offered round 3 to simply change the list and take out 3 infantry and had a super cheap hero. The team kind of shrugged it off and they played out the game as is anyway. (last two sentences were hear say) I personally played the team and got trashed plan and simple. In no way would it have made any difference if he had the character or not. Out of the three teams they played against one team didn't notice, one team (us) asked him were his general was and then kinda shrugged and kept playing when he didn't have one, and one team sort of made it out to be a big deal. Now I'm not saying the decision was a good one nor am I saying it was a bad one. I just don't know. I felt bad for the team for going from 1st to last place.
I think I would have handled the situation in different ways depending on the type of tournament. A 50+ man 2 day I probably would have disqualified them or asked around to see if it was a big deal for any opponent he may have beaten ask him to immediately change his list and maybe deduct some points. In a smaller local tournament I probably would have been more leanyant (sp?) and ask the players if they were okay with it or not. Player opinions ranged from disqualify them to who gives a Shizer let them have it and everything in between.

Possible outcomes I've come up with on how it could be handled are.

~player brought an illegal list disqualify them. Simple.
~ask players to closed ballet vote really quick explaining the situations and let them decide at the end.
~Go on as is but deduct a certain number of battle points from the team.
~ask any player that was beaten by the team in question if it would have made any difference if the list was slightly altered to include a general. Respond accordingly.

I don't think what the TO did was a wrong decision. However as a player that got second and bumped up to first it left a bad taste in my mouth. Also as someone whom runs tournaments about twice a year I would like to hear opinions on this so I can be prepared if this ever creeps up on me.

Thoughts?

That's a craptastic situation all around.
While I agree with you that it sucks, I think the TO made the only logical decision. If you ignore it because it makes little difference you make two new friends, a fair number of people could care less, a fair number of people will be quietly disgruntled, and one or two people will be vocal pricks. Whereas if you do as this TO did, you only wind up with two people who are put out and a general feeling of indifference from everyone else.
I also think it would undermine the quality of the store's tournaments, and at least one person would try to slide something duplicitous past you the next time.
It sucks, but dq'ing them makes the most sense.
Later,
Monkey

You have to dq them out of fairness to everyone. However, since the TO didn't catch the error first before the game, perhaps they should still have received some prize support? Or the store pays their next tourney fee at the store....

I'd have to vote for DQ.

It's a bad situation, but it's the only fair way to handle it.

Yeah I agree with Jester. The TO should have seen the error when he was reviewing the list. It's kind of an obvious one.