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 BlackLobster wrote:
The local club events that I run score by victory points earned each game and totalled for the victor. The reason being that it forces players to play for the mission not go all out for the kill.

This idea gets my vote, forget the actual win/loss stuff outside a few missions

Getting a 20-0 win for tabling is borked as hell. I could see it having been a big issue in 7th edition, with the ridiculous 2++, rerollable 2+ FNP death star shennanigans flying around. Build a dead hard list that doesn't care about objectives because it's going to roflstomp whatever it comes across.

That kinda means one the competitive scene, people needed their own death stars so they had a counter to that, and so actual missions got ignored.

Tabling an opponent definitely should result in a very nice score, but it shouldn't be anything as ridiculously lop-sided as what you'd get for the opponent just giving up turn one.

Just make the "win" provide a VP or two itself and allow the idea of "play on and see what you can claim", so a slow moving army may not even get all the objectives left on the table

I don't see any problem with tabling giving you max points - but objective points scored by the opponent that got tabled should also be counted - if this somehow produced a tie - the dude that got tabled loses the tie breaker. Seems fair enough to me.

nou wrote:
40k is quite well equipped for non pure attrition scenarios/games and work fine that way IF ONLY scenarios do not overreward killing/tabling. Stating otherwise is pretty much shutting eyes closely to all othe possibilities just because attrition scenarios are easiest to setup and are the only ones that work well enough on planet bowling ball.

Hrm, not really. The units are designed and costed to attritional traits in most cases, when people look at balance between factions, its almost directly in attritional terms (most of the time). Actions beyond "move" or "use attack" are practically nonexistent except in some specialist cases, and almost no units in the game have abilities or actions specifically related to objectives. There are some warlord traits and stuff like that which have minor effects that trigger off objective proximity, but thats about it, and its usually some sort of direct combat boost.


Objectives largely boil down to "hold X arbitrary spot on the board" or, in the case of Maelstrom, "accomplish X randomly drawn game action that has zero connection to anything else". Terrain requirements are exceptionally vague and variable. Margins of victory are, at least as far as the rules are concerned, completely unaccounted for.

To illustrate the point further, GW has spent a lot of effort over multiple editions hamfisting various rules into the game in order to get people to bring more basic troops and not just the ultrakilly stuff, with varying results. For instance, in 5E, the game said only infantry troops can hold objectives, which was a rather hamfisted choice, in 8E they did this through detachments and slapping a bunch of bonuses on troops heavy detachments and "ObSec" rules, while DzC doesnt have this issues as they fundamentally built the game around mechanics and missions specifically for infantry to do this in a natural manner and cutting down on the capabilities of heavy weapons to kill everything with heavy LoS and inherent range restrictions, and also not letting people just take anything and everything from everywhere

I play with tabling not being autowin close to two years now and games are sooooo much deeper and involving than simple slaughterfests. And fluff wise suicide missions and phyrric victories are something that IMHO fit 40k universe a lot better than "claim the land" stories that tabling tells.

While not an unfair point, a lot of those stories however arent things that reflect on the tabletop, theyre typically not presented at anything near the same scale (mostly theyre shown as titanic apocalypse battles or something more akin to RPG level), and most games represent no such substance in nature of the objective, terrain/battle environment/etc.

To use the DzC example again, the most basic mission starts off with two sides having to search for, obtain, extract intelligence from an urban environment using dropship based combined arms forces, and to extract that intel off the field of battle. The game naturally revolves around the mission in look, feel, and play.

The most basic mission in 40k is two sides using undefined forces fighting in pitched battle straight across the board fighting over a randomly placed objective token placed on each side of the board. The mission is largely just an excuse to put whatever toy soldiers one wants on the board, and GW have been open about that for many years.

Yes there are more missions, but they dont really get much more detailed or involved.

FoW typically stuck four objectives on the board, two for each player - the "win" condition was invariably to capture on of the ones the enemy put down in your turn, hold during the enemies turn then win at the start of your next one - while stopping them doing the same.

you could win without firing a hot if your opponent was foolish enough to let you.

arbitrary spots on the board, but it made sense to put them somewhere you wanted for tactical reasons and would be fighting towards anyway.

I like the idea that you, and the forces under your command, have a mission to achieve, the enemy is simply something in your way - you are scored on capturing ground, recovering that secret disc, securing the exterminate device or whatever

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see any problem with tabling giving you max points - but objective points scored by the opponent that got tabled should also be counted - if this somehow produced a tie - the dude that got tabled loses the tie breaker. Seems fair enough to me.

This seems appropriate to me: Player A Tables player B so Player A gains max points and Player B gains all points obtained up until he was wiped off the table. This is a win for Player A even if Player B matches his maximum point total. The idea that Player A would be penalized in any fashion for wiping out his opponent seems counter-intuitive.

It seems to me that the responses stating that it is a better game when both players "play to the mission" are [intentionally?] overlooking that it is very difficult to table a skilled opponent deep into a tournament. At this point, the players are comparable in skill (including list building) and tabling does not occur often. All players at the top tables later in a tournament are "playing to the mission."

The problem is that early in the tournament a player who tables his first two opponents (who often are not of the same skill as those higher in the standings) will find himself without the victory point total that his peers have.

Then maybe that player should have focused more on objectives in the early round rather than tabling his opponents. His "peers" obviously did so.

It's not an easy thing to figure out fairly. I was at a tournament where in the third round a player on one of the top tables conceded when they realized they were going to lose a reasonably close game, but that gave the other army full points and really affected the final standings. I don't know how you should factor that in to overall score.

 EnTyme wrote:
Then maybe that player should have focused more on objectives in the early round rather than tabling his opponents. His "peers" obviously did so.

"Obviously did so?" This is pure speculation and, I believe, dead wrong. Most likely those "peers" randomly drew an opponent closer to his own skill level.

Most players do both simultaneously: obtain objectives and destroy opponent's units. It is usually [not always] a difference in skill level that results in a player being tabled. What you are suggesting is that Player A go out of his way to not table Player B when it becomes obvious this is likely. This is not a good way to design tournaments. In fact, the likelihood that Player B will be tabled often results in Player B conceding. Thus, we have the concern from the first post: why penalize Player A in this situation?

Which tournament is deducting points for tabling an opponent?

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see any problem with tabling giving you max points - but objective points scored by the opponent that got tabled should also be counted - if this somehow produced a tie - the dude that got tabled loses the tie breaker. Seems fair enough to me.

That makes perfect sense to me.

I'm amazed we have to have this argument. People claiming on both sides that the system is flawed or whatever the crap.

I think it's just a highlight that this game was not meant to ever be played in a tournament or competitive setting, and that GW and tournament organizers are going along with it because it makes money by selling tickets/more models to satisfy the people that want the competitive aspect to exist. Even though it shouldn't.

 EnTyme wrote:
Which tournament is deducting points for tabling an opponent?

My recollection may be less than perfect but I believe in the latest San Diego ITC tournament, the Longwar Doubles tournament, and at Adepticon it was made clear that tabling an opponent did NOT result in maximum points, even a player concession did NOT result in maximum points. It was further stated that if an opponent conceded the player received ONLY the points accumulated up to that point. If a player was tabled the remaining army would receive only the points it could accumulate playing the remaining turns without opposition.

If the game is to be about taking objectives, then tabling the opponent as a uber-objective to bypass the actual objectives is a mistake in design and scoring.

As for concession, that should be allowed, even if it potentially limits the number of objectives that may be scored. It's no different than if a game were called due to time, or a player were disqualified mid-game. I'd simply require it to be declared at the start of a bound, as in "at the end of then next bound, I concede;" however, conceding forces must either fall back or go to ground. This gives both players one last turn before the final tally, however it turns out.

If a player chooses a "strategic" concession, so be it.

That's not a penalty. That's how scoring works. You get points for the things you accomplish. If three cavaliers foul out tonight, I doubt the the refs will spot the Celtics 20 points for tabling their opponent (though if Lebron fouls out, it should qualify as Slay the Warlord).

 Lord_Thanatos wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see any problem with tabling giving you max points - but objective points scored by the opponent that got tabled should also be counted - if this somehow produced a tie - the dude that got tabled loses the tie breaker. Seems fair enough to me.

This seems appropriate to me: Player A Tables player B so Player A gains max points and Player B gains all points obtained up until he was wiped off the table. This is a win for Player A even if Player B matches his maximum point total. The idea that Player A would be penalized in any fashion for wiping out his opponent seems counter-intuitive.

It seems to me that the responses stating that it is a better game when both players "play to the mission" are [intentionally?] overlooking that it is very difficult to table a skilled opponent deep into a tournament. At this point, the players are comparable in skill (including list building) and tabling does not occur often. All players at the top tables later in a tournament are "playing to the mission."

The problem is that early in the tournament a player who tables his first two opponents (who often are not of the same skill as those higher in the standings) will find himself without the victory point total that his peers have.

I see just the opposite actually, it is wrong for a match between less skilled players to have what could amount to a single dice roll to swing a game from 5-5 to 20-5. Now that lucky player makes the top bracket only to get smashed. I agree that you should not be penalized, I would even say that perhaps you should auto get all points possible on the remaining turns but even that might be a stretch. Removing tabling as a win condition leads to all people playing the mission, it allows calculated risks to gain points etc. IMO it shouldn’t be possible for a player to get a max points without ever leaving their deployment zone.

Objectives should always take precedence over tabling.

Warhammer is built on stories of men holding off the evils of the universe until The last man falls keeping the mcguffin secured.

 Lord_Thanatos wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Then maybe that player should have focused more on objectives in the early round rather than tabling his opponents. His "peers" obviously did so.

"Obviously did so?" This is pure speculation and, I believe, dead wrong. Most likely those "peers" randomly drew an opponent closer to his own skill level.

Most players do both simultaneously: obtain objectives and destroy opponent's units. It is usually [not always] a difference in skill level that results in a player being tabled. What you are suggesting is that Player A go out of his way to not table Player B when it becomes obvious this is likely. This is not a good way to design tournaments. In fact, the likelihood that Player B will be tabled often results in Player B conceding. Thus, we have the concern from the first post: why penalize Player A in this situation?

And what you're suggesting is the random luck of the draw being the only deciding factor. Beating opponent closer to your skill level should result in better, not worse grade. What do you think requires more skill, beating someone equal to you or kicking some random kid? The latter being rewarded more is completely backwards...

Perhaps Warhammer players should require ELO ratings, with points to be apportioned accordingly,

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, if you have been driven from the field and your force destroyed, your troops dead and your war machines in flames, you have probably forfeited those other objectives, at least in the tactical level scenarios 40k tabletop presents.

Broadly speaking, I'm fine with tabling being full points. 40k fundamentally is an attritional warfare game. It just is. Objectives and scenarios are not things this game has ever done particularly well. 40k really is a game that really suits itself to attritional slugfests, with objectives and scenarios largely being afterthoughts to the fundamental game mechanics, rather than being inherently part of them.

For a game where objectives really are important, look at something like Dropzone Commander. There, you have all the same types of units you have in 40k, but generally the mission is to get infantry into urban structures to search for, obtain, and remove objectives from the field. Your infantry are built and used almost entirely around this task. You have units that support that task, like drones that boost search rolls for your infantry. You can win games without killing a single enemy model and it doesnt feel weird. In fact, if you try to play the game without objectives, and just play it as a 40k style attritional shoot-em-up, you basically get one faction that will autowin the game, but because the game is built around objectives, and is also built around much shorter ranges and extensive LoS blocking urban terrain (your average MBT has an 18-24" range and your typical board has a dozen or more LoS blocking urban multistory buildings), it's not an issue.

"Objetives shouldn't matter. Warhammer 40k should be won just by pure raw force and by who is capable of out-lasting his opponent by pure attrition" says the Imperial Guard guy.

To be honest I really like how you think and your posts, but you have to admit, thats a very biased way of looking at the game. I know we all hate last-turn objetive graving eldar jetbikes but...
(And I agree that W40k actually rewards attrition play, but that does not mean we should just be content with that)

Honestly, if it stops people from trying to win turn 1 then i'm fine with it.

IMO winning turn 1 isnt fun for anyone other than what i would consider people not interested in playing the game and only cares about winning.

As someone that did martial arts tournaments for years and wasnt able to go to US Open in Florida do to money issues, the local circuits for tournaments got really boring in my specialty really fast, getting 9s and 10s scores all the time isnt fun when others are getting 8s and 9s.

Video games, table top games, its all the same for me, winning is great, but i want a good game more so than anything else. If i were to go to a tournament, i dont want to win turn 1 and then waste an hour of playing with him not trying and not having fun.

IMO tabling shouldn't be a thing. Some kind of endless respawn rule should be in the core rules. If that shifts power more towards glass cannon units I don't care. The game's not very balanced anyway. Make troops respawn faster than elites and HQ. And don't let people concede a game in a tournament. If you want to concede, you should have to go home.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, if you have been driven from the field and your force destroyed, your troops dead and your war machines in flames, you have probably forfeited those other objectives, at least in the tactical level scenarios 40k tabletop presents.

Broadly speaking, I'm fine with tabling being full points. 40k fundamentally is an attritional warfare game. It just is. Objectives and scenarios are not things this game has ever done particularly well. 40k really is a game that really suits itself to attritional slugfests, with objectives and scenarios largely being afterthoughts to the fundamental game mechanics, rather than being inherently part of them.

For a game where objectives really are important, look at something like Dropzone Commander. There, you have all the same types of units you have in 40k, but generally the mission is to get infantry into urban structures to search for, obtain, and remove objectives from the field. Your infantry are built and used almost entirely around this task. You have units that support that task, like drones that boost search rolls for your infantry. You can win games without killing a single enemy model and it doesnt feel weird. In fact, if you try to play the game without objectives, and just play it as a 40k style attritional shoot-em-up, you basically get one faction that will autowin the game, but because the game is built around objectives, and is also built around much shorter ranges and extensive LoS blocking urban terrain (your average MBT has an 18-24" range and your typical board has a dozen or more LoS blocking urban multistory buildings), it's not an issue.

Or you have archieved your mission. This is actually even more appropriate in 40k than real world as value of life is much lower. Millions of lost IG troopers? Who cares. If mission was archieved it's all good.

But fluff issues not standing do you really want to make gunlines even more powerful and make scenarios irrelevant? Doubly so in tournaments where it can easily comes that only tabling really matters.

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, if you have been driven from the field and your force destroyed, your troops dead and your war machines in flames, you have probably forfeited those other objectives, at least in the tactical level scenarios 40k tabletop presents.

Broadly speaking, I'm fine with tabling being full points. 40k fundamentally is an attritional warfare game. It just is. Objectives and scenarios are not things this game has ever done particularly well. 40k really is a game that really suits itself to attritional slugfests, with objectives and scenarios largely being afterthoughts to the fundamental game mechanics, rather than being inherently part of them.

For a game where objectives really are important, look at something like Dropzone Commander. There, you have all the same types of units you have in 40k, but generally the mission is to get infantry into urban structures to search for, obtain, and remove objectives from the field. Your infantry are built and used almost entirely around this task. You have units that support that task, like drones that boost search rolls for your infantry. You can win games without killing a single enemy model and it doesnt feel weird. In fact, if you try to play the game without objectives, and just play it as a 40k style attritional shoot-em-up, you basically get one faction that will autowin the game, but because the game is built around objectives, and is also built around much shorter ranges and extensive LoS blocking urban terrain (your average MBT has an 18-24" range and your typical board has a dozen or more LoS blocking urban multistory buildings), it's not an issue.

"Objetives shouldn't matter. Warhammer 40k should be won just by pure raw force and by who is capable of out-lasting his opponent by pure attrition" says the Imperial Guard guy.

To be fair, they're only the largest army among many, I've got more points worth of CSM's and Eldar combined than I do just Guard.

To be honest I really like how you think and your posts, but you have to admit, thats a very biased way of looking at the game. I know we all hate last-turn objetive graving eldar jetbikes but...
(And I agree that W40k actually rewards attrition play, but that does not mean we should just be content with that)

Eh, it's more just looking at the structure and intent of the game and seeing vague and simplistic mission design and deciding that I'm ok with tabling being worth full game value. I'm not terribly bothered about the idea of counting Tabling as less really, but I don't see it as a thing that needs to be addressed given the state and nature of the game being fundamentally two forces fighting a pitched battle at close quarters and little definition beyond that. The missions, tables, and forces are so wildly vague or variable, and the unit roles/actions/abilities/costings built so much around basically direct combat exchange, that I don't see too much value in getting too irked over the missions not be followed religiously in favor of just going for mass slaughter for some builds/matches, especially as in most situations that's not out of place fluff-wise either for most of these armies

It should be a choice. And making one option clearly the correct answer is not a choice.

If you wanna prevent me from grabbing objectives by killling 90% or 100% of my models fine. But that shouldn't automatically net you max points outiside of kill point games.

Conceding on the other hand should IMHO grant max points possible from that point onward.

 Earth127 wrote:
It should be a choice. And making one option clearly the correct answer is not a choice.

If you wanna prevent me from grabbing objectives by killling 90% or 100% of my models fine. But that shouldn't automatically net you max points outiside of kill point games.

Conceding on the other hand should IMHO grant max points possible from that point onward.

This, destroying an enemy force as a means to accomplishing the objectives is a valid choice, sacrificing your own models to score points should also be a choice. Right now one of these choices is receiving double reward because it counts toward 2 objectives (scoring objectives/preventing scoring, and tabling), where as the other is penalized because it is only maybe scoring objectives but also actively contributing to being tabled. This is one of my issues with the ITC missions to some extent, killing is valued far more than holding objectives, because it is often getting double counted.

AS for 40k and attrition, I feel like that is a throw back to non-progressive missions, and in missions where holding end game objectives was all that mattered tabling as auto win (maybe not max points even then) makes sense because you auto hold more objectives at the end if your opponent is dead. Even then I would argue if you table someone while only having 1 squad left you should not be awarded max points.

The only thing I like about tabling = win is that sometimes in maelstrom missions it is possible to get so far behind that catching up is impossible, and sometimes that happens totally outside of the decisions made by players (lucky turn 1 draws etc). Allowing tabling to win in that scenario makes playing the rest of the game worthwhile. I would argue that is more down to the poor mission design in maelstrom, than it is the general principle of tabling = auto win is good.

Breng77 wrote:

The only thing I like about tabling = win is that sometimes in maelstrom missions it is possible to get so far behind that catching up is impossible, and sometimes that happens totally outside of the decisions made by players (lucky turn 1 draws etc). Allowing tabling to win in that scenario makes playing the rest of the game worthwhile. I would argue that is more down to the poor mission design in maelstrom, than it is the general principle of tabling = auto win is good.

Maybe limit result to draw if you get tabled? Or somehow reduce score opponent gets from tabling so it's not 0-20.

I'm personally fine with people winning that have been tabled, so long as the mission makes it uncommon to fall so far behind that catching up through mission is impossible (at least with reasonable play). Most progressive objective missions do this just fine. There will always be a point where a game is unrecoverable if someone doesn't try to score, but with turn by turn scoring games should be able to be kept close enough to make a come back through reasonable play, if you gain an end game advantage. Just have objectives score at the end of the opponents turn.

Breng77 wrote:

 Lord_Thanatos wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't see any problem with tabling giving you max points - but objective points scored by the opponent that got tabled should also be counted - if this somehow produced a tie - the dude that got tabled loses the tie breaker. Seems fair enough to me.

This seems appropriate to me: Player A Tables player B so Player A gains max points and Player B gains all points obtained up until he was wiped off the table. This is a win for Player A even if Player B matches his maximum point total. The idea that Player A would be penalized in any fashion for wiping out his opponent seems counter-intuitive.

It seems to me that the responses stating that it is a better game when both players "play to the mission" are [intentionally?] overlooking that it is very difficult to table a skilled opponent deep into a tournament. At this point, the players are comparable in skill (including list building) and tabling does not occur often. All players at the top tables later in a tournament are "playing to the mission."

The problem is that early in the tournament a player who tables his first two opponents (who often are not of the same skill as those higher in the standings) will find himself without the victory point total that his peers have.

I see just the opposite actually, it is wrong for a match between less skilled players to have what could amount to a single dice roll to swing a game from 5-5 to 20-5. Now that lucky player makes the top bracket only to get smashed. I agree that you should not be penalized, I would even say that perhaps you should auto get all points possible on the remaining turns but even that might be a stretch. Removing tabling as a win condition leads to all people playing the mission, it allows calculated risks to gain points etc. IMO it shouldn’t be possible for a player to get a max points without ever leaving their deployment zone.

Choosing to go for objectives or the table is a tactical decision. Perhaps the mission doesn't favor you. Perhaps your army is particularly good at destroying theirs but they are ineffective against yours. There are all kinds of factors at play. Honestly there is a lot wrong with the scoring formats in tournaments IMO - I don't want to go into too much detail but standing on arbitrary points on the table top is not only exceptionally boring to me - it just isn't very tactical. Also - knowing the mission objectives/terrain ahead of time is another problem - it produces skewed lists. I'd like to see more objectives like "slay the warlord" but slaying the warlord is the win condition or "hold the center" where if a player holds the center for 3 consecutive turns they win or if they hold it at the end of the game they win. All these secondary objectives need to go - more or less - these objectives just reward you for what you were going to do anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
I'm personally fine with people winning that have been tabled, so long as the mission makes it uncommon to fall so far behind that catching up through mission is impossible (at least with reasonable play). Most progressive objective missions do this just fine. There will always be a point where a game is unrecoverable if someone doesn't try to score, but with turn by turn scoring games should be able to be kept close enough to make a come back through reasonable play, if you gain an end game advantage. Just have objectives score at the end of the opponents turn.

Most of the time when you are going for a table this happens. I feel like most of the time the person going for the objectives has the advantage in this situation too.