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Hello, I played a great game at a doubles tournament recently. It was great fun, and its important to say at the start that our opponents were proper gentlemen. This thread is by no means a rant or a desperate attempt to clutch at straw, but I'd just value the dakka's opinion on this situation.

We were playing a doubles match of Capture and Control and Spearhead deployment.

It was a great game, they started off really strong, the game looked quite close at times but by the end of the 4th turn we had our home objective in safe hands with two troops choices sitting on it and they had one land speeder (out of a squadron of two) left and two bikers (out of a squad of 5, they counted as troops because his captain was on a bike).

So it all comes down to the positioning of it. They had placed their home objective in the far corner of their deployment zone. It was about an inch and a half from the corner. We rolled to play turn 5, and so for their final movement phase they essentially lined up the speeder and the two bikes so that the bases of the models blocked us from their objective.

They cited that you cannot finish your movement phase within 1" of an enemies base. Our closest landspeeders could have contested the objective, but there was no space for them to 'land'. So they had to go to within 1" of the enemies bases which left the speeders 3 and a half inches away from their objective!

It was the closest and tensest movement phase I've ever played. As I said, the lads were gentlemen. We all knew how important this was, but similarly none of us wanted to lose. We called over the referee and he very carefully looked at the situation and measured with us, and looked again and measured again.

So rather than moving to contest we tried to shoot his two remaining bikers with everything so he couldn't claim his objective. Everything that remained opened up on them. Two wounds were caused. One save failed. Morale check.........he passed. We rolled to play a 6th turn.......game ends.

So we got a draw, but should it have been a win?

How would you guys play that out?

s.j.mccartney wrote:How would you guys play that out?

The exact same way as you described there, since what they did is 110% legal.

For next time, get there first or kill more stuff!

If you can't legally place your models close enough, then you can't place your models.

Sounds like it was played correctly.

here uploaded is a very shoddy drawing of how the situation looked....

Yup, completely legal.

Thanks for the replys guys. Its good to know that we played it correctly and fairly. I'm not trying to gain support for our case, just checking that we played it all above board.

It is a legitimate tactic within the rules of the game.

Make sure you have something that can assault for those endgame moments, it really helps sometimes!

s.j.mccartney wrote:

So it all comes down to the positioning of it. They had placed their home objective in the far corner of their deployment zone. It was about an inch and a half from the corner. We rolled to play turn 5, and so for their final movement phase they essentially lined up the speeder and the two bikes so that the bases of the models blocked us from their objective.

Would have to double check the mission, but i do not believe that objectives can be within 12" of a board edge. But this mihgt only be for the other mission.

Could you have rammed the speeder - even if you were immobilised you would have been witrhin 3 inches and legally allowed to be base to base ?

@Jbunny, in capture and control they can be anywhere. I found this out the hard way once when my opponent did it to me.

@Imcdonnell, Nope, speeders can't ram as they're not tanks. There is no way he would have been able to move over the speeder and keep the back edge of the base away from the back edge of the speeder.

Fair enough for me. Like I said, I was not sure.

Do you roll to go into turn 5, or is it turn 6 and7? I'm surprised I'm the only one who caught this

You only roll for turns 6 and 7.

It's a favourite if you can block LOS/movement with rhino's, why not apply the theory to capping points

Actually, on a small technicality Rob seems to have told you that rule wrongly. Skimmers' bases are actually ignored. You cannot be within 1" of the MODEL, not the base. Whether or not you could go under or over the Speeder is irrelevant.

I just found it amusing Chris told me a judge had been needed, to be honest - otherwise it seemed to me a decent game. Though, I would have liked him to lose and reduce the margin between his and my own results. lol

He should have had the sense to have those bikes diagonally, lol.

Just to clarify for anyone wondering, yes, the Fail that is Spearhead Capture and Control Combo was being used. Sigh. As far as I am aware 2 of the 13 teams (left, lol) won, and every other game resulted in a draw. Sigh.

Hi Guys, good to have a bit more discussion on this..

Elessar wrote:He should have had the sense to have those bikes diagonally, lol.

Hi Elessar, in truth the bikes were positioned diagonally, but microsoft paint is very limiting when it comes to drawing shapes, so thats what I came up with!

Its rubbish when small side note rules become the be all and end all of a game. The 1" rule is such a side note, but it became vital to defending their draw!!

Although we couldn't have rammed their land speeder, I wonder if we could have tank shocked their bikers??? That might have played out interestingly, but either we were out of range to tank shock, or we were blocked by their speeder, or they would have shot and killed us with a hidden melta gun.

I reckon there were so many draws at Q-con this year because 2 hours isn't enough time to play a 2000 point doubles match. Almost every game had about 5-10 minutes of extra announcements being shouted out and folks dropping questionaires and score sheets to the tables. Plus people playing slowly and discussing tactics makes it all a bit slow.

But I did love it. If the tournament was on again tomorrow I'd go, just that I'd speed everything on to their objective sooner!!!

Since a Land Speeder isn't a tank, you couldn't have tank shocked.

s.j.mccartney wrote:Its rubbish when small side note rules become the be all and end all of a game. The 1" rule is such a side note, but it became vital to defending their draw!

The 1" rule is hardly a sidenote. It's a very important part of the game.

This situation led to our local judge requiring objectives to be placed 12" from the board edge (and each other). It's still possible to surround an objective with units to prevent your opponent from contesting, but more difficult.

wait, maybe I misread something, but you said the bikers were 2 guys left out of 5? wouldnt that mean they couldn't capture anyway, being below half strength?

ryanjh wrote:wait, maybe I misread something, but you said the bikers were 2 guys left out of 5? wouldnt that mean they couldn't capture anyway, being below half strength?

You are getting mixed up with 4th ed.

It can't be considered illegal, I feel it was a good tactical situation, and what makes this game challanging.

nice basketball analegy by the way.

s.j.mccartney wrote:Hi Guys, good to have a bit more discussion on this..

Elessar wrote:He should have had the sense to have those bikes diagonally, lol.

Hi Elessar, in truth the bikes were positioned diagonally, but microsoft paint is very limiting when it comes to drawing shapes, so thats what I came up with!

Its rubbish when small side note rules become the be all and end all of a game. The 1" rule is such a side note, but it became vital to defending their draw!!

Although we couldn't have rammed their land speeder, I wonder if we could have tank shocked their bikers??? That might have played out interestingly, but either we were out of range to tank shock, or we were blocked by their speeder, or they would have shot and killed us with a hidden melta gun.

I reckon there were so many draws at Q-con this year because 2 hours isn't enough time to play a 2000 point doubles match. Almost every game had about 5-10 minutes of extra announcements being shouted out and folks dropping questionaires and score sheets to the tables. Plus people playing slowly and discussing tactics makes it all a bit slow.

But I did love it. If the tournament was on again tomorrow I'd go, just that I'd speed everything on to their objective sooner!!!

lol. I will almost certainly never attend any Doubles event again, tbh. It was terrible, in that sense, though I had fun most of the weekend.

As said above, the 1" rule is one of the most important in the game (screw you, page 5!) as tactical positioning of units based upon it is a solid way to achieve victory in objective based missions. I am well known for parking Grav Tanks dead centre above Objectives, as you then cannot contest without assaulting my vehicle, or destroying it.

Overall, I think 2 hours of doubles is probably no more than 1500 point/team, which is too small to get interested in. 750 per player? Really? lol

If his bikes really were diagonal, then I guess I can't rag on him for it. :( Oh well...

(Oh, and I was the Scythes player wandering around a lot in Game 6, rather than play my game. lol)

Gavin Thorne wrote:
This situation led to our local judge requiring objectives to be placed 12" from the board edge (and each other). It's still possible to surround an objective with units to prevent your opponent from contesting, but more difficult.

Really? I find that despicable. It isn't the judge's job (or, indeed, right) to compensate for the fact that GW made a gakky mission - it's the TO's to either not use that mission, to modify the mission's victory conditions in such a way that it doesn't change the actual rules, or to make up their own mission. Or, at least, to avoid matching C&C with Spearhead.

YMMV.

Elessar wrote:

Really? I find that despicable. It isn't the judge's job (or, indeed, right) to compensate for the fact that GW made a gakky mission - it's the TO's to either not use that mission, to modify the mission's victory conditions in such a way that it doesn't change the actual rules, or to make up their own mission. Or, at least, to avoid matching C&C with Spearhead.

YMMV.

Elessar, the TO for our local tourneys is also the judge. Preventing objectives from being placed along table edge is modifying the mission's victory conditions, keeping them from being placed along a back corner where they're impossible to capture and difficult to contest, leading to (in many cases) each player fighting over a single objective.

yea, I HATE the 2 objective mission.... playing in a local tournament by me, I drew a tau player in the second game, with the 2 objective mission.

of course, he put it in the VERY BACK corner, surrounded by a wall of vehicles, fire warriors, broadsides, and crisis suits. As such, I have 2 choices- 1) sit back and shoot, and draw the game... or 2) charge with EVERYTHING I have, don't hold my own objective, and try to take his. As a biker marine list, I opted for number 2... and managed to contest his, and turbo boost a single surviving sergeant back to mine to hold it.

However, this mission is freaking draw city for most people. Its damn near impossible to win it, because all an enemy has to do is castle up hard enough and keep you off for enough turns, and boom, a draw, even if you have him outnumbered in the end 10-1... This is why I like the Nova Open's multi-tiered system for win conditions. If the primary mission objective is tied, it goes to a secondary (like killpoints)... if thats tied, it goes to a tertiary objective, like table quarters. If THATS tied, I think it went to painting. SOMETHING to prevent draws.

draws are the bane of my existance in 40k.

Outflank is your friend. TBH any anti-castle strategy, of which you should have some in your box, will do this.

Passive playing for a draw will not get you anywhere in most tournaments, so Im surprised its so prevalent.

it won't get you anywhere in the tournament, its true. However, many tournament players are not very good (at any given tournament, only 30-40% of the people are actually good at the game, most are just there for the hell of it because they had nothing better to do that day) and don't understand that drawing is bad for both players.

Outflank IS important, but some armies can do it much better than others.

Don't get me wrong, it's GW's fault the mission is terrible - but in that case the options are play it or don't. Modify it shouldn't be an option, unless changing the name etc.

As a tournament player, I can figure out very quickly if I am playing for a draw. A draw is not better than a win, but it is better than a loss. As far as it being bad for both players... I could careless if it is bad for them. If I can take a losing situation and turn it into a draw I am happy. The fact that my opononent loses points is just that much better for me.