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The title says it all: Is it unsportsmanlike to place objectives on upper floors of buildings? Hear my argument, and weigh in, please!

During a game last weekend, a friend of mine stated that placing an objective on an upper (above second story) floor of a tall ruin is a "jerk move," and unsportsmanlike, especially if held by your own troops. I strongly disagree, but wanted to see if whose perception of the matter might match that of other Dakkaites. Please evaluate the arguments below, and please do add or criticize if you have an opinion one way or the other.

His argument:
Placing objectives where they will require over one turn of climbing to reach (on average) is unfair. This is because:
1. Those objectives can only be held with troops choices, and few armies have troops choices that can either reach a high floor directly (jump or skimmers) or move a lot and still be effective combatants (negates heavy weapon usage).
2. Taking high-up objectives with your own troops is the only reliable way to win the battle, because just wiping out enemy objective-campers with fire is too hard, and contesting objectives with non-troops does not actually improve your chances of winning enough.
3. He also believes it makes terrain placement and choice of deployment zone too important.


The broader issue (fun!) is clearly in my favor: Fighting or playing troops ensconced in towers is cool in the first place, and vying for a high position mid-battlefield is a very dramatic and fun focus for a battle. To not do so just for rules reasons takes a lot of fun out of the game. Fortunately, the rules clearly allow for such fights, and every army has a powerful way to deal with it. A good player should have included 3-dimensional movement in his basic army design, as discussed below.

Matching his arguments on rules points then, I would say that placing objectives on upper floors is fair because:


1. Troops choices CAN get to an enemy-held high-floor objective fast.

Most armies DO have troops that can reach those floors directly. Over half the armies out there have skimmer transports, deepstrike capacity or special movement modes for their troops choices. IG (can move 24" and deploy, OR deploy conventionally, their choice); Tau (transports); Eldar (including both transports and bikes); Dark Eldar; SM (Storm); Necrons (Veil); Daemons (pop and drop); 'Nids (flesh hooks!)

Any opponent should already have very mobile troops choices if they want to EVER win an objective battle. Non-static troops choices (ones that are effective without heavy weapons, and are mounted or dedicated to running in order to cross the board quickly) are available to every army. These can climb levels just as quickly as they would deal with any other difficult terrain. And the choice of a Run! move means that they can climb two 3" floors in a single turn quite easily with average rolls, and assault another. Any army without mobile troops choices has screwed itself, whether the enemy is on a higher floor or not. Sit-and-shoot gunlines are a thing of the past.


2. You don't actually need to get your troops to a high, enemy-held objective in order to win an objective battle.

You don't NEED to claim all enemy-held objectives to win. You can either contest with non-troops units (and almost everyone has jump infantry, deep strikers or skimmers that could do so) or just blow the enemy off of the objective. Meanwhile, hold your own objective well. Solid strategy, and pretty basic. Blowing the enemy off of an objective can indeed be difficult when they wear camo-cloaks or have gone to ground. Most units pay for those abilities either in points or lost fire opportunities. Use the same balance of points to buy lots of guns, or better yet some assault troops or flamers. They usually equal out.

In fact, you often _cannot_ reach all the objectives in a game due to limited forces, and must make a choice to ignore some. Ignoring or merely contesting difficult-to-reach objectives (not just the high ones, but also anything covered in, say, 30 Orks with a bosspole) is a needed strategy for most elite armies. Another basic part of the game, btu one that folks seem to forget frequently, resulting in thinly-spread troops and poorly-reasoned rules arguments.

Also, you can play the same high-objective-holding game that an opponent does: Direct-moving troops are not neccessary to HOLD such an objective, so even static-infantry forces can play the same game by also picking a high-up location for their own objective(s) and camping on it. Hell, SM scouts are probably the best choice out there to do this (camo cloaks AND hard to CC to death), and IG snipers are just as good as my Pathfinders, point-for-point. Stupid grots are possibly even better, although they waste the excellent firing positions that high positions afford.


3. It does not imbalance terrain placement, it just adds another dimension (a very fun dimension) to the game.

Everyone knows that high floors can be important in an objective battle, just as fire lanes, movement-blocking terrain, and dangerous terrain can be. So plan around it. If you're not as mobile as the other guy, limit the number of tall pieces in your own choices, or better yet ask nicely if you can both keep the tall stuff minimal to make the battle more evenly balanced for your force. But again, a balanced force should have a solution for upper-floor objectives. If you don't, you should be nice about asking your opponent to handicap for your choices.

Also, high ground is only one of several terrain factors to consider. If you focus too much on high ground, you may fail to place good fire lanes and cover for your troops at ground level, or to place enough dangerous and difficult terrain to make advancing towards your high point costly.

On a tangential note, having tall terrain makes LOS more interesting in a 40K game, and adds another (fun) dimension to calculating movement and fire lanes. Making control of high ground less vital (or nonexistent) moves 40K back towards a 2-dimensional game, which defeats the point of having built cool, tall buildings in the first place.


So that's my counter-argument: High points are awesome, and not hard to deal with. Does either one seem more valid?


Of course, extreme cases will be different. Placing ALL the objectives in a multi-objective game on high floors might be unbalanced. Also, more than 3 floors up might be imbalanced, especially if placed in one's backfield. Of course being extreme and placing tons of objectives high up (when you have planned for that and your opponent has not) would be unfair. But one or even two objectives, no more than 3 floors up? Come on. Learn to play in three dimensions!

Quite obviously your friend was right!

He was probably really handsome, nice to be around, and popular with the ladies as well....

I would like to say, that in the context of internet discussion, I would not call it a "jerk move", just say that I don't like it. (In the context of you and I being lifelong friends, I use stronger language because we banter a lot, but I would like to be more objective for a broader forum.)

In any case, a little context before I launch into my reasoning.

The battle fought was the one where each side has a single objective in the deployment zone. The objective in question, the Eldar Objective, was place on a ledge that was between 1-2" wide and 4-5" long on the third floor of a building.

Here's why I don't like this:

Multi-story ruins are just very problematic for a non-cities of death game of 40k. They provide great dynamics and look great, but to put an objective on the 3rd floor of a ruin in your backfield when there are only 2 objectives on the board seems to not fit well in a standard game of 40k.

The Eldar have no problem with that setup, but many armies do, because if multi-storey ruins are going to become a major part of a game, many armies have to plan for that and take choices they would not normally take.

Sure, you can say that many armies have skimmers, but you were playing Nurgle Marines, which you knew did not.

I guess my main objection is this:

40k is a limited turn game played on a 4 x 6 table. The nature of the game is objective based 66% of the time, and armies are built to claim objectives over that 4 x 6' space within the limited number of turns. Objectives placed above ground level have an unusual effect on the game because of the extra time needed to reach them.

I like high terrain in games, and I think it gives a tactical advantage for units operating there, but I don't like objectives placed there because of the extra movement needed to get to them.

It's the same problem I would have if someone put an impassible terrain piece in the corner of their zone, leaving only a tiny scrap of real estate in the corner and then put their objective their, surrounded by troops so that noone could outflank onto it. Sure, a basilisk could still hammer it, and lots of armies have indirect fire weapons, and indirect fire is awesome, and it's a part of real warfare, but it doesn't feel sporting to me.

Anyhow, didn't mean to rag on you too much at the time!






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick addendum:

I think that in Cities of Death, which was admittedly published before 5th edition, buildings/ruins had to be "occupied" to be claimed for your side. If the other side troops in, then the building was contested.

I think that this is an important element when dealing with multi-level terrain. Multi-level terrain really multiplies the space of the battlefield, and gives a strong advantage to troops defending a multi-level building/ruin, and deserves special consideration.

You know what we should probably do is get together and try a few games putting ALL the objectives on upper floors, just for fun.

That other player must also have been terribly modest. Too bad about the stench, though. As for "jerk move", no sweat- that was just funny! We probably shouldn't post all the things we all call Eldar on here either, at risk of offending anyone leading an alternative lifestyle.

Concerning the original context (the game we were playing), you have several details wrong/omitted:

The Nurgle Marines had a flying Daemon Prince, 2 Land Raiders to cross the board with, and 2 units of summoned lesser daemons to pop in on upper floors. These were not luckless footslogging PMs, but a fully-mounted army with flying units, deepstriking units, and 2 nigh-invulnerable transports with dozer blades. They had plenty of tools to deal with upper-floor objectives, but chose to hang back and shoot instead. Later he realized that was a mistake, just as I realized that not dedicating enough of my own troops to claim his objective was a big mistake. It was tie, btw, as he held his objective with a single sneaky daemon at game's end, while I had one unit of Pathfinders above a bunch of angry PMs. Good game, that.

The objective was on the third floor, a floor 2' wide with 8+" of length, plus another floor (completely empty) below it. Models on that lower floor would have contested/scored, being within 3". Each floor was only 3" high. Easily reachable, and not too small to accommodate a melee, nor ringed with defensive troops (although that would have been a good idea, and still fair).


Back to your points:

An army built to cover a potentially long diagonal slog over a normal 4x6" field should easily be able to handle an extra 3" to 6" of vertical climb. If a force cannot go that far, it's not built to win even a basic objective battle. 3" to 6" of climb (all that is needed to claim or contest an objective on the 3rd story or below) is not at all unreasonable.

One of my points is that multi-story buildings do NOT actually require special measures. The same things that help you cross any battlefield to distant objectives help you get into a high building- running, jump troops, zooming up in transports, deep strikers, etc., etc.

Also, multi-story buildings aren't that unusual at all. If someone went to a tourney not expecting to ever have to flush scouts out of high positions, they're setting themselves up to lose. Pretty much everyone has buildings as terrain, and most of those have multiple floors. Not planning for such a common situation is like not planning for dealing with (neutralizing) enemy indirect fire.

Bottom line is that moderate multi-story buildings do not even stretch the 40K rules- they're accounted for in movement distances, firing distances, and the options available in every army. They're a core feature of battles. They're in the rulebook too, and not as an overlooked extra but as a very common situation.

What they ARE difficult for is static gunline armies, which may be unable to seize those objectives. Of course, such armies also couldn't even seize many ground-level objectives, as all footsloggers is just too slow for 5th ed. objective battles, and cover is too prevalent to be sure that you can just shoot the enemy to death all the time.

Now that those points are made, here's regarding your simile to someone abusing terrain: Putting an objective on an upper floor does not in any way relate to placing an objective in a far corner surrounded by impassable terrain and a castle of troops. That would be outside the spirit of the game, would stretch the intended game mechanic, and would require special consideration. Unlike such a situation, a regular old upper-floor objective is easily reachable by climbing, or directly by air in ways that every single armylist can field, many of them from Troops choices. You use an unrelated and extreme example to illustrate your case, not the common occurrence of dug-in troops on an upper floor (the thing we're actually taking about).

On a tangential note, the point of the 2-objective battle is that you must find a balance between holding your own objective as strongly as possible versus seizing the enemy objective. Defending your own objective well by elevating it (within a fair distance of the ground like 3 floors) isn't cheap, it's basic. It does make dealing with such a situation even more common, and thus even more a core consideration for any well-balanced, competitive force.

As for an all-upper-floor objective battle sometime, that sounds like an interesting variant, and a ton of fun. But it certainly would not prove any points about regular battles, as it is an extreme case (as mentioned in the first post). It would be an awesome chance to trot out everyone's jump troops, though. Yeah, that sounds really fun!

I would have no objection to putting objectives on higher levels. It's not a jerk move, it's a tactical decision. If you know that the enemy will have problems reaching it and it gives your side an advantage, then take it. Just don't get all upset when they also place their objective on a building too.

It might seem like a jerk move if you were fighting a Bike-only list. But then, it is the Bike players fault for not considering higher objective grabbing when making his list.

I always take two Rhinos full of Marines with my White Scars just for this problem.

..So no, you are not a jerk.

I wouldn't call it a jerk move if the table is set up to give both players that ability, or some different advantage that balances the two out. Setting up a fair table can be difficult to begin with, adding this complication (elevated objectives) can make it a lot harder. My hunch is that this would simply make an unbalanced table -more- unbalanced, but if you start with a balanced table you're probably okay.

Why doesn't your friend place an objective within 12" or 24" of said 3rd story building to deny you from putting one in there.

OMG, dramas!

Place the terriain and objectives, and have scoring / contesting units that can climb if necessary.

As objectives in real life may be 'inconveniently' placed I think its fine - if your opponent has chosen a restricted army then they need to go for a contest at best.

It rewards a flexible army list, and importantly a balanced army list.

And dont forget that the opponent gets to place their own objectives.

I (a CSM player) personally like to place at least two objectives close to each other (between 6-12 inches) as it concentrates the battle, and means the flighty Eldar's movements are somewhat controlled.

Doesn't seem too bad to put an objective on the third story.

Putting them on ridiculous, eight-story towers wouldn't be very sportsmanlike, although that would be the kind of thing that would better off declared impassible in general.

It's a dick move unless both sides will have a tough time controlling an objective. I don't care if putting an objective on top of the Tower of Orthanc sounds funny and cool, taking potshots from the top and mining the stairs, it's a dick move. The majority of my army doesn't have many deepstrike capabilities. I doubt my army is the only one that gets shafted if someone decides that it'll be HILEFFINGARIOUS to put that oh-so-vital objective at the corner of no and where, a couple feet in the air.

"Learn to play in three dimensions."

Dude, I colored paper figures and put stickers on cardboard when I was a wee tyke. Now, I'm painting guys who fire a one inch shell out of the most basic grunts' gun. I play in three dimensions, thanks. If you take it upon yourself to put objectives nearly out of reach, how about you learn to play in three dimensions, capiesce?

Let's assume I have a squad of spehss mahrens going after an objective a couple floors off the ground. Now, I don't have enough turns left to get the objective, so I contest it. I can either lose, or draw, all other things equal. I.e. the game rests on that silly objective. You're suggesting that to make things "cooler" and "more fun" you'll put an objective on a nigh-unreachable (ok, let's be generous: definitely reachable, assuming sixes are rolled for every roll: shooting, difficult terrain, and running) building. Hmm...

"It adds a fun dimension to the game!"

For who? The guy holding the objective or the guy trying to get the objective?

"Camo cloaks on scouts mean less firepower or versatility"

Three points each, IIRC. I don't have the codex in my general locale, so I may be mistaken.

Please elaborate on the "SM (Storm)". I think my skimming Rhinos are in the mail, what can I do in the meantime?

I have this picture in my head of a guy putting an objective on top of an almost gratuitously big building and grinning happily. Final summation: Unless both sides have equally-hard-to-reach objectives, let's leave the alter-ego-TFG at home.

Rico.

I think pointing an objective in a very hard to reach position is unfair to the other player, because the objective will inevitably have troops on it. Someone did that to me recently. They put scouts on an objective on the 6th floor of a ruins. Now even if I kill the scouts, how do I get to the objective before the game ends in 5-7 turns?

I supposed my raptors could make it up there, survive dangerous terrain tests, and contest the objective. But all the CSM troops are on foot. They'd have to get in the ruins and roll difficult terrain over and over to get the objective. I could make it to the objective in 3 turns if I rolled a 6 for difficult terrain every turn and my entire squad could fit on the next floor of the ruin without moving first. Each floor is 3 inches up, so a six would let the squad go up two floors a turn.

This is assuming I can actually roll all those sixes. Realistically, it isn't going to happen. Especially now that you have to divide your roll between vertical and horizontal movement. My opponent effectively made it impossible for me to take that objective before the game ended. I'd call that a jerk move, or something more colorful, depending on how well I know the opponent.

Smart Generals' bring faster units for dealing with hard to get to objectives.

Other Smart Generals' limit an opponents options by placing objectives in spots which will give him some sort of advantage, be it maneuver or fire lanes.

Jerks bitch about other people being smart.

So which are you?

Jack

Hmm...

Savnock wrote:The title says it all: Is it unsportsmanlike to place objectives on upper floors of buildings?

First responce: No.
Second responce: Well...
Third responce: It could be...

Savnock wrote:His argument:
Placing objectives where they will require over one turn of climbing to reach (on average) is unfair. This is because:
1. Those objectives can only be held with troops choices, and few armies have troops choices that can either reach a high floor directly (jump or skimmers) or move a lot and still be effective combatants (negates heavy weapon usage).
2. Taking high-up objectives with your own troops is the only reliable way to win the battle, because just wiping out enemy objective-campers with fire is too hard, and contesting objectives with non-troops does not actually improve your chances of winning enough.
3. He also believes it makes terrain placement and choice of deployment zone too important.

1. Tough titties. This is 40K. GW has a real hard-on for units only ever being able to do one thing at a time. You move, or you shoot, you shoot, or you assault. Units that are capable of or try to do both either suffer penalties or are few and far between.
2. That's not an argument. Wiping out objective holder's is too hard? Based on what? What armies? What points level? What terrain conditions, play skill levels, and so on. This game has too many variables to make comments like that. As for contesting not improving the chances of winning, well that's nonsense. It's a two way street. It's just as likely to increase your chance of winning as it is to have no impact whatsoever.
3. They've always been important. I don't see how this makes them more important.

Savnock wrote:The broader issue (fun!) is clearly in my favor: Fighting or playing troops ensconced in towers is cool in the first place, and vying for a high position mid-battlefield is a very dramatic and fun focus for a battle. To not do so just for rules reasons takes a lot of fun out of the game. Fortunately, the rules clearly allow for such fights, and every army has a powerful way to deal with it. A good player should have included 3-dimensional movement in his basic army design, as discussed below.

Well yes, it is fun to fight over objectives such as that. In Necromunda my fav missions are the Scavenger missions with the Loot counters, as you could place them anywhere. I used to love placing them in low wide open areas with lots of lines of sight to cover it (making them risky) or up the tops of the tallest towers. Way more fun. That said, 40K has trouble with 3-dimensional space, and this is why I say that putting objectives up high could be a 'jerk move'. Things have improved with the way 40K handles the Z axis, but it's not there yet.

But this, I believe, is less to do with objective placement and more to do with the terrain you use. If you have terrain that is difficult or impossible to climb up in the space of a game, then it doesn't matter if there's an objective there or not. If your army is unassaultable (or near enough) because of a piece of terrain, then you've made your terrain in a way that provides a clearly unbalanced advantage. I'm a fan of CoD buildings - a huge fan, I've got about 15 multi-story buildings and lots of unbuilt stuff as well - but nothing of mine has gone above 5 stories, and even the 5-story one is just a small single spire (like a bell tower) with the rest of the building being levels 4, 3, 2 and the ground floor. I could go and make a 12 story building if I wanted to, sit my HW units up there (even place an objective there) but my opponent would look at my funny.

But it's a terrain issue, not an objective issue.

Well, Savloc, I'm happy to rescind my labeling it a "jerk move". I still think that it is something which gives an unfair advantage, for the reasons stated before, as the terrain feature combining an incredibly skinny ledge and 3 stories of height makes for a very difficult proposition even if your enemy has skimmers and deepstrikers aplenty.

If the building in question had full-floors, it would have been a different proposition, and while I still would prefer to see objectives on ground floors, it would have perhaps not raised my ire as much. It's that the position was elevated, in the backfield, and on such a small ledge that no other models could deploy from transport or deepstrike there, that it cheesed me off.

But oh well, no harm, no foul.

I think in any friendly game placing objectives into high area terrain makes for a more fun expirience. Jerk Move? I say NO!

I think this sort of behaviour is entirely against the spirit of the game. I for one would never do this.

On the other hand, my favourite 40K mission of all time (with the possible exception of the flag-planting Planetstrike scenario) is/was High Ground from Cityfight... but that's not "ha! My objective is 12" off the ground! Dick-move to victory!" but "whoever has men on the roof of that 12" building at the end of the game wins!"

That made such fun games; anyone on top of that building had a commanding field of fire, but was also the target of every tank in the city! KABOOM!

Wargamer wrote:I think this sort of behaviour is entirely against the spirit of the game. I for one would never do this.

Would you also never charge Fire Warriors with Lightning Claw Assault Terminators?

It's a wargame. There's inherent advantages and disadvantages to every tactical choice. If you put an objective 12" up and your opponent crushes your objective holder with an artillery barrage, for example, then you now face the problem of getting a unit back on top of the building in time to claim before game end.

I agree with HBMC in that it's more of a terrain issue than anything else. Yeah... super tall ruins look cool, but it probably gives static stuff such as HWTs or Devastators/Sniper Scouts a bit too much of an advantage even without the whole objective mess taken into account.

If a unit in a transport has to spend the entire 5+ turn game trying to get to an objective, then that's a bit much. In a game with multiple objectives, it would just be annoying as you could ignore it and go for the other objectives, but in Capture and Control, it might be unbalancing.

However, in the end, you and your opponent has to come to a consensus on what to consider "jerk-moves". Otherwise, someone is going to get fed up and you'll have one less playing partner.

Wargamer wrote:I think this sort of behaviour is entirely against the spirit of the game. I for one would never do this.

What exactly is the spirit of the game?

I tried reading the intro but all it talks about are "savage battles" and "devising game winning tactics". Enlighten us poor douchebaggy schmucks.

sourclams wrote:

Wargamer wrote:I think this sort of behaviour is entirely against the spirit of the game. I for one would never do this.

Would you also never charge Fire Warriors with Lightning Claw Assault Terminators?

A rather silly example.

Part of the issue I have with this is the fact two of my friends play very, very bike-heavy lists. I also have a pure-bike "Ravensquig" list that I made to replace my now-useless Ravenwing. In Mega-battles, we usually get an Armoured Company or two together. In fantasy, we tend to spam the Knights and damn the rest.

Placing objectives on the top of buildings that are unreachable to ground-based forces is therefore a dick-move; as far as I'm concerned, all objectives must be attainable from the ground floor.

It depends.

I didn't see in the OP where the objective was in plan view. Was it near the center of the board or in a far corner?

Really the question is, did your opponent have a reasonable way to reach the objective? If they have a bunch of skimmer-transports, then probably yes. If he plays a slow-moving horde, maybe not.

I'm not totally opposed to placing an objective high up, but the game is supposed to be fun. Just because you can at least pull a draw by putting your objective in Rapunzel's tower doesn't mean you should. It also depends what type of games you and your opponent generally play. If you're constantly trying to 'one-up' each other with the latest powerbuild, then I think putting an objective on top of a tower when facing his 20 nob bikers should be expected. otoh, if you guys face off with fluff-driven, balanced armies, it's a little extreme.

Thanks to those with constructive input!

We are talking about only up to the third floor, folks, as stated repeatedly in the original posts. We're not talking about 6-floor buildings here, which would be an extreme case. Here's why:

To clarify (it may have gotten lost amidst the shpiel), we're talking about only up to the third floor, which is 6" high in most buildings. Higher than that may indeed be difficult to reach with footslogging troops, as it's the same as going through more than 6" of difficult terrain. 6" of difficult terrain seems like a handle-able amount to move through in one game for standard infantry. Over that is a bit much. Thus, 3rd floor. Arbitrary choice on my part, I would love to hear opposing arguments about what amount of difficult terrain (height or whatever) is fair for infantry to have to go through.

So it seems to be agreed by most folks on both sides of the issue here that _really_ high stuff is a problem, but perhaps not moderately high stuff, because really high stuff breaks the game (too many turns of moving through difficult terrain, basically), whereas moderately high stuff (third floor max) isn't much worse than moving through 6" or so of difficult terrain. Does that seem like a pretty solid statement?

Following that, maybe a house rule limiting objectives to 6" off the ground is a good idea. That will keep height in the game, without stretching things too high. What do you all think about such a rule? Useful or not?

Tangentially: What exactly _is_ wrong with how 40K handles height, and/or high parts of buildings? I get building-climbing being slow, but what about firing distances from high places? Do those work okay? What else?

And for everyone getting hot under the collar (pro or con), let's stop being inflamatory and fix the game. You can best participate in a discussion like this by finding stuff that's broken and proposing fair fixes or by highlighting stuff that actually works, not by making asinine flame-baits.

@H.B.M.C.: "It's a terrain issue"- good point, thanks. I get that tons of horizontal terrain could be a problem too. What do you think of the rough number of 6" being crossable for most infantry (and thus a good guide for fair objective height): too high/low a number?

@Rico- SM Storm is the new scout speeder.

@dietrich- thanks, great points. Maybe a bit of charity is called for when one knows one's enemy's army. In a tourney or hard-play environment though, failure to plan climbing ability into one's army seems like a major oversight.

@Wargamer: "Dick-move to victory!" is my new favorite phrase. May have to go on a T-shirt, if you don't mind.

To those with arguments based around bike-heavy armies, isn't being unable to reach higher objectives an accepted and widely-known major flaw of bike armies? So wouldn't planning to overcome it (like, say, a few infantry models) be a good idea (like Smashotron suggests)? Otherwise, you need the aforementioned charity from your opponent to make games even. I wouldn't want to have to ask for that all the time, dunno about you.

@avantgarde- placing an objective at the base of a tower to keep an enemy from placing it IN the tower is a really, really bright idea. Thanks for that one!

It seems like what nathonicus was getting at wasn't entirely that the objective was high up, but also that the objective was on a ledge that made it difficult to deploy on.

I actually see more validity to that line of reasoning than the one purely about height; in a best case scenario you'll end up with a mildly annoying case of the "how do I get my model to stay up there"s, and a worst case scenario you'll end up with heated, turn six arguments about movement into that position.

Jackmojo wrote:Smart Generals' bring faster units for dealing with hard to get to objectives.

Other Smart Generals' limit an opponents options by placing objectives in spots which will give him some sort of advantage, be it maneuver or fire lanes.

Jerks bitch about other people being smart.

So which are you?

Jack

Perfect. Put that in a supplement to the Art of War.

BACK to fictional wars, please. Here, war is fun to do! Here, hard-to-reach objectives only cost fun at most, not lives!

You can't compare reality and 40k. Only when Marines are toting 25mm chainguns and are covered in the Reactive Plates modern-day tanks are wont to tote around can we turn this fun game into something much, much less. But that's just me. If you enjoy the look of dismay on your opponent's face as you place an objective on the fourth story of a building and attribute him being POed to the fact he hasn't read the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, fair nuff. But I'll continue to bitch about other people being "smart" (I put it in quotes because in this context "smart" means "asshat") if ye don't mind

Rico.

I'm not sure how someone playing a game to win is hampering your fun.

I'm not trying to equate anything to real world tactics, but much like building a whole row of hotels in monopoly may be a 'jerk move', it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, any of your fellow players only make themselves look bad by objecting to it.

We play to have fun, and the objective of the game we're playing is to win.

I won't disagree that one can make the game less fun for ones fellow player, but really that's a whole nother can of worms.

I'm just not seeing how placing objectives advantageously is a bad thing, both players will get to place at least one, and are entitled to do something that favors them.

Jack

I guess I don't have a problem putting an objective anywhere "legal". I think I do worse in games because I tend to think "story" instead of "victory".

What I mean by this is I find a place that looks logical for the marker I'm using: A statue in the town square, a tyranid bubbly counter near a marshy section, etc.

Usually, this works to my advantage because I can get a bit more "into" the mission, then.

Still, I don't consider putting markers on the upper level of some ruined out shack that bad of a move.

Later!

Jackmojo wrote:I'm not sure how someone playing a game to win is hampering your fun.

I'm not trying to equate anything to real world tactics, but much like building a whole row of hotels in monopoly may be a 'jerk move', it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, any of your fellow players only make themselves look bad by objecting to it.

We play to have fun, and the objective of the game we're playing is to win.

I won't disagree that one can make the game less fun for ones fellow player, but really that's a whole nother can of worms.

I'm just not seeing how placing objectives advantageously is a bad thing, both players will get to place at least one, and are entitled to do something that favors them.

The problem is that in this instance, placing the objective is inherently tied to the rules for placing terrain and declaring the properties of that terrain.

There are no rules governing that, only guidelines. A player may very well feel taken advantage of if they let their opponent use a terrain piece that looks cool, and their opponent then goes on to gain a considerable in-game advantage from it.

(Additionally, placing objectives is often seen as a setup for the game, rather than a part of gameplay. That's more of a matter of opinion, but it makes some sense; setting a game up to be in your favor before actual play is usually cheating, or unsportsmanlike in the very least. Even though people are allowed to place objectives in Warhammer, that feeling still holds over for a lot of people.)

Orkeosaurus wrote: The problem is that in this instance, placing the objective is inherently tied to the rules for placing terrain and declaring the properties of that terrain.

Ah, I see now, that's something we always settle out prior to mission determination, helps avoid confusion and bad feelings.

Orkeosaurus wrote: There are no rules governing that, only guidelines. A player may very well feel taken advantage of if they let their opponent use a terrain piece that looks cool, and their opponent then goes on to gain a considerable in-game advantage from it.

Totally, board setup should be a cooperative endeavor for sure.

Orkeosaurus wrote: (Additionally, placing objectives is often seen as a setup for the game, rather than a part of gameplay. That's more of a matter of opinion, but it makes some sense; setting a game up to be in your favor before actual play is usually cheating, or unsportsmanlike in the very least. Even though people are allowed to place objectives in Warhammer, that feeling still holds over for a lot of people.)

So its a point of view issue, I can see where you're coming from at least.

Jack

Savnock wrote:@H.B.M.C.: "It's a terrain issue"- good point, thanks. I get that tons of horizontal terrain could be a problem too. What do you think of the rough number of 6" being crossable for most infantry (and thus a good guide for fair objective height): too high/low a number?

I don't think placing an arbitrary figure on how high an objective can be placed will solve much, and is just as likely to lead to more aguments over both how high that arbitrary figure should and then during a game whether it's really 6" or is actually 7" or whatever. As I said, it's more to do with terrain, and thus the setting of the terrain becomes the main part of importance. If you have particular pieces that would provide a gross advantage (with or without an objective on top of it), then don't place it in one player's deployment zone unless you have a similar piece of terrain for the other player to use. Instead place it along the centre line of the table.

I'm not advocating symmetrical tables (though they can be fun! ) nor am I saying that you should place the biggest building dead centre every time, but before one can look at objective placement one has to look carefully at how they set up terrain. In our group I'm the terrain guy. I love making terrain, and I especially love GW terrain like the CoD buildings. I've built lots of different terrain types - even built a whole city to cover a 6X8 table out of thick cardboard and PVA glue that we undercoated and drybrushed with grey and used once and never used again - I didn't care, I had a great time making it. So I spend a lot of time thinking about terrain, as well as terrain placement. If you come into the Battle Report forum the posts I made are often about the terrain placement of the games, and so often I see tables where there's either nothing, or a massive imbalance has been created.

I'm all about themed tables, so when I make a city, I'll make city blocks with streets and things like that. A ruined area near the edge of a light wood, I'll make that look as natural as possible. An ancient ruined shrine that has had a hasty series of bunkers erected nearby to defend it? A charged table covered in craters and wrecked tanks (having 30 Russes helps here! ). I'll spend ages looking into new and interesting ways to make terrain look cool - why else would I be so happy about Planetstrike, and why else would I have ordered 8 Bastions - but with theme goes balance. Unlike the rules GW writes, it is possible to have terrain that is both themed/fluffy/has a story and is also balanced.

So forget about objectives and their placement for a moment and look more at your terrain collections, how you've built them, and how you place them on the table. That could solve a lot of problems right away.

Savnock wrote:To those with arguments based around bike-heavy armies, isn't being unable to reach higher objectives an accepted and widely-known major flaw of bike armies?

Yes, completely. One of the guys in our group plays Ravenwing and he knows full well that units defending buildings will be a problem for him, especially once our resident Tau player figured out that by hiding in the 1st floor and higher he could avoid being charged by the dangerous biker units. The Ravenwing player now brings a good mix of biker and non-biker units like Land Speeders, Teleporting Deathwing Squads and tanks transporting units to off-set the inherent weakness or downside of biker units.

And you're right, in a balanced environment the person who brings an army that is incapable of doing something isn't the fault of his opponent, it's the fault of his own choices. All-Comers means just that - take all that come your way - and if you're not ready for that, shame on you really.



BYE