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Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

I definitely think it's a good thing. Prevents objective rush, forces players to be adaptable, which is a skill they should be able to bring to bear in tourneys...

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

ChocolateGork wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

Then they had a better plan than you. If you've destroyed 80% of their army, you destroyed the wrong 80%. That's one reason target priority is important.

ChocolateGork wrote:
But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

With fixed game length, it's far, far bigger issue. In your example, with 5 turn fixed turn length (your opponent has no reason to rush the objectives until last turn) you have 1 player urn to react if you went second and no time at all if you went first. If you had been playing random game length, you would have had 2/3 chance of getting at least one extra turn to solve the problem.

With random gamelengths, enemy is forced to do the rush by turn 5 latest, even though there's 2/3 chance that game will continue to turn 6. Fixed game lengths mean that "last" turn objective grabs become far better than they are normally.

ChocolateGork wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

If you're playing an objective game, killing stuff is not the winning condition.

If you kill an army down to one model who's holding an objective, and you have an entire army and are holding none, you were outplayed.

Jidmah wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

You lose the game when the roll does not turn in your favor, you didn't defeat the enemy. Blowing 2/3 of the enemy army off the table only counts as defeating during Annihilation.

Whenever a single roll (game ends, moral check for that most important unit, psychic test for the power you really need, penetration roll against the vehicle which really has to die) makes you lose the game, it is your fault for maneuvering the game into a state where a single roll makes you lose. Not the dice's fault.

Right, except it is entirely possible to destroy 80% of your opponent's army, lose only 20% of your own, and draw because of that single unlucky dice roll. Short of tabling an opponent there is little you can do to stop late-turn shenanigans.


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DarknessEternal wrote:

ChocolateGork wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

If you're playing an objective game, killing stuff is not the winning condition.

If you kill an army down to one model who's holding an objective, and you have an entire army and are holding none, you were outplayed.

Right, but no one said that. It's more often than not the difference between victory and a draw. Recently there was a situation where my tyranid opponent had literally only a full-wounded tyrannofex left on turn 5, rushed it forward towards my holding objective. By the end of turn 5 I was still winning. Then during my shooting phase, knocked it down to its last wound but it still moved/ran towards my objective with one wound left. Bam, the game ends end of turn 6. I lost, despite having the good chunk of my army left and having essentially wiped out my opponent.
I know it's popular on dakka to, whenever you disagree with anyone on anything whatsoever, simply accuse the opponent of lacking skill, but this is bs.

@Joey I understand where you are coming from. I lost an objecctive game last week because my opponent daisy chained a bunch of tzeentch horrors from one objective to another. It is not a cool way to lose but it is the way the game has been.

I know my army is designed to in turn 5 rush out speeders to contest objectives. Is it a fething cheap move? Yes it is, but otherwise my handful of troops would have a lot of trouble holding the line against any horde army.

This mechanic while imperfect is nescessary for game balance because it makes you have multiple troop choices to claim objectives in order to have a chance in every game type. Other wise people would field minimum tac squads and load up on terminators etc.

So in short is it perfect no shoul we change it no

Joey wrote:

Jidmah wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

You lose the game when the roll does not turn in your favor, you didn't defeat the enemy. Blowing 2/3 of the enemy army off the table only counts as defeating during Annihilation.

Whenever a single roll (game ends, moral check for that most important unit, psychic test for the power you really need, penetration roll against the vehicle which really has to die) makes you lose the game, it is your fault for maneuvering the game into a state where a single roll makes you lose. Not the dice's fault.

Right, except it is entirely possible to destroy 80% of your opponent's army, lose only 20% of your own, and draw because of that single unlucky dice roll. Short of tabling an opponent there is little you can do to stop late-turn shenanigans.

No, that's exactly what he's talking about. If that one die roll could cost me the game, I did not really outplay my opponent. It ISN'T one die roll; it's five turns of die rolls and decisions in which I left myself in a position where a 1/3 roll could lose or draw the game. I had five turns to cripple my opponent's army and/or maneuver my units to block off that objective, and I failed to do so. Thus I did not earn the win.

Joey wrote:

If you kill an army down to one model who's holding an objective, and you have an entire army and are holding none, you were outplayed.

Right, but no one said that. It's more often than not the difference between victory and a draw. Recently there was a situation where my tyranid opponent had literally only a full-wounded tyrannofex left on turn 5, rushed it forward towards my holding objective. By the end of turn 5 I was still winning. Then during my shooting phase, knocked it down to its last wound but it still moved/ran towards my objective with one wound left. Bam, the game ends end of turn 6. I lost, despite having the good chunk of my army left and having essentially wiped out my opponent.

That's only a difference of degree, not of kind.

You didn't wipe out the part that mattered. Whether you look at it as a failure of play skill on your part for leaving him that unit alive to do that, or an achievement of his skill that he preserved a unit in just the right place he needed it at the end. If you had exercised different fire priority, maybe you would have killed that unit, and left something else alive elsewhere on the table where it wasn't in position to win him the game.

Exactly what Mannahnin said.

If you spend five turns playing and your opponent still has the ability to win the game by one dice roll with just 20% of his army left, you should have either killed those 20% instead of other things or prepared countermeasures to prevent that die deciding the game.

You know, like puting someone with a meltagun on that objective, to be able to DoG the jumping tank - that's more than one dice. Or parking a vehicle on the objective. Then you are already up to three dice required to lose the game, as the skimmer has to ram, penetrate and destroy the vehicle and the game has to end.
If you don't have those options left, maybe the opponent sacrificed 80% of his army to outplay you?

As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?
You could also argue that your failure to shoot it down lost you the game, not the game ending. Maybe you should have kept something alive that can reliable wound a tyrannofex.
Blaming the failure to secure your objective on the dice that ended the game, is common practice, but nonsense. "If I had one more turn" or "If the game had ended the turn before" is something I hear way too often. In turn five to seven you have to take into account both the game ending and the game continuing. If you plan for just one, you are going to get screwed when the dice doesn't follow your plan. Just like you get screwed if your only melta in the army fails to hit the landraider.

This, a thousand times this

If you didnt prepare for this situation occuring, you wwere outplayed.

Play to the mission, which isnt as simple as killing nore stuff than the enemy, in objectives missions.

Jidmah wrote:As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?

How about a fast skimmer? You can't toss something in its way, and it can hide quite easily in maximum movement range of an objective. This is what made Eldar so broken.


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nosferatu1001 wrote:This, a thousand times this

If you didnt prepare for this situation occuring, you wwere outplayed.

Play to the mission, which isnt as simple as killing nore stuff than the enemy, in objectives missions.

This isn't about out-killing the enemy. It's about playing to the mission. Some armies, with a fixed game length, can guarantee a draw if they can't get a win, simply by going second, hiding fast skimmers and contesting objectives on the last turn.

ChocolateGork wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Joey wrote:I don't like anything that allows a weaker, defeated army to draw/win due entirely to a single dice roll.

They weren't weaker or defeated if they control more objectives/have more kill points than you. It's the other way around.

If they have more objectives/kill points, you are the weaker army.

But what if you have destroyed 80% of their army and at the top of turn 5 they rush the objectives with skimmers and jetbikes?

As people complain about the enemy doing this with fixed turns. it also works with random turn length. Just now you have an even shorter amount of time to destroy the enemy.

Do you think this problem will be better or worse with fixed game length?

If you're not an idiot the answer is 'worse' because currently the player has to commit to what will probably be a losing move 2/3 of the time. In a fixed game length situation (and there's no reason that you necessarily have 'less' time to do it with RGL because fixed game length doesn't HAVE to be 6 turns) they can do it with complete safety, knowing it can't fail.

-Loki- wrote:This isn't about out-killing the enemy. It's about playing to the mission. Some armies, with a fixed game length, can guarantee a draw if they can't get a win, simply by going second, hiding fast skimmers and contesting objectives on the last turn.

Right - random game length is a good thing in this situation, because the skimmer player must take a risk.
Fixed game length would make this worse.

-Loki- wrote:

Jidmah wrote:As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?

How about a fast skimmer? You can't toss something in its way, and it can hide quite easily in maximum movement range of an objective. This is what made Eldar so broken.

...block it from landing within 3" of the objective somehow?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Jidmah wrote:As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?

How about a fast skimmer? You can't toss something in its way, and it can hide quite easily in maximum movement range of an objective. This is what made Eldar so broken.

...block it from landing within 3" of the objective somehow?

They can ram, so they can at least get within that range.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Jidmah wrote:As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?

How about a fast skimmer? You can't toss something in its way, and it can hide quite easily in maximum movement range of an objective. This is what made Eldar so broken.

...block it from landing within 3" of the objective somehow?

They can ram, so they can at least get within that range.

Only if a DoG doesn't kill it, or if they kill whatever they ram.
Still more than a single die roll.

Trying to ram through a death or glory meltagun and then only having a 1 in 3 chance of the game ending is the kind of long shot odds that keeps that from being an effective strategy.

Yes, which is why I support the random game length myself.

-Loki- wrote:

Jidmah wrote:As for the single MC stealing your objective - maybe you should have tossed something in it's way to prevent it from reaching the objective in time? Grab the other objective instead? Charge it, so keep it busy for the turn?

How about a fast skimmer? You can't toss something in its way, and it can hide quite easily in maximum movement range of an objective. This is what made Eldar so broken.

Uh, did you read my post? I was talking about fast skimmers the very two lines before the one you quoted.

Loki wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:This, a thousand times this

If you didnt prepare for this situation occuring, you wwere outplayed.

Play to the mission, which isnt as simple as killing nore stuff than the enemy, in objectives missions.

This isn't about out-killing the enemy. It's about playing to the mission. Some armies, with a fixed game length, can guarantee a draw if they can't get a win, simply by going second, hiding fast skimmers and contesting objectives on the last turn.

I know it isnt, hence my statement - see the bold

General - If you think removal of random game length makes the game more "fair" or is somehow a greater display of someones skill as a general, then you have no idea what skill means - for all the reasons shown throughout these threads, FGL means certain armies have an autowin if they go sedond - they simply hide in reserves till turn 5 and you have, assuming 6 turns, 1 turn of shooting to get them

If you want objective based missions, where end-of-game-holding is all that counts, you CANNOT have FGL and expect this to be a demonstration of any sort of skill for certain armies. None at all. You have just massively reduced the skill level requred to play the game

Corrode wrote:
If you're not an idiot the answer is...

Ah. The epitome of rhetoric. Lol. Just saying.

The way I see it, if winning your game comes down to passing (or your enemy failing ) a certain die roll, then you weren't playing well enough to really deserve the win. Your enemy obviously played well enough that the win might as well be a coin flip.

This goes for bad luck with random game length, enemy units miraculously passing a morale check or armor save despite the odds being against it, your units miraculously failing morale or armor despite odds being in your favor, having a bed shooting phase, having a bad hth phase, etc.

If you find yourself saying "Aw, if it wasn't for *example from above", I would have won!" then it was a close game and your enemy was just as entitled to that win.

Jancoran wrote:

Corrode wrote:
If you're not an idiot the answer is...

Ah. The epitome of rhetoric. Lol. Just saying.

Good to see you still have no argument other than "people are afraid of change!!!!!"

Just saying.

Weak.

Anyways, I got what I needed out of the convo. Like I said: mission accomplished for me.

Jancoran wrote:Weak.

Anyways, I got what I needed out of the convo. Like I said: mission accomplished for me.

As weak as entirely misrepresenting a whole slew of other peoples arguments, entirely lying about the outcome?

Nope, not really.

Whatever man. "Lying" about the outcome. Yeah. You're not a drama queen or anything.

You guys are just the worst kind of internet.

Jancoran wrote:Whatever man. "Lying" about the outcome. Yeah. You're not a drama queen or anything.

Logical, well structured arguments that explain to you, quite clearly, why random game length is important to ensure games have some modicum of skill

Vs

People are a'feard of change! This is the only possible reason they dont want fixed game length!

Notice how one isnt like the other? Notice how it isnt even remotely possible to get from one to the other in an honest fashion?

Not a drama queen, pointing out dishonesty in anothers position, to make sure people aren't duped by you into thinking your position has merit

Jancoran wrote:Fair enough. the number of people who feel its better to have it than not have it seems to be heavily weighted. So it's probably better not to make a change there. This is the same response in various forms i have gotten elsewhere.

trouble with asking these questions is, you rarely get an answer. Instead you get insults towards anyone "who would" do it. I think you have to explore everything when you're trying to build a better mousetrap. Sometimes that exploration ends you where you started, as in this case. hehehe.

Page 1 of this whole debate. page ONE


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Jancoran wrote:Yeah and a bummer when you look over and see the other guy DID and therefore won the game you could have won had you been one table over. That's the inequity that I wish there was a good answer too. i get that it adds a level to the game in one sense but it does so at a cost also. All things being imperfect, I suppose this isn't the largest evil facing our hobby though.

That evil would be price...hehehe.

Page one also. I was already trying to move the convo forward towards other possibilities. So chill out.