Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

...and just concentrate on tabling your opponant???

If you're 100% sure you can actually do it, or don;t have the option in the first place, really. Like pure Death Company builds.

I also usually play that way in Seize Ground missions, because otherwise that just ends in a draw.

Yes if its annihlilation.

Well, I think it can be a winning tactic in certain situations, but I wouldn't make it my defining tactic. A tricky opponent may sneak in for a last minute objective grab and win the game, even if he has only 1 troops choice and its holding the last objective. I think the best thing to do is to hold at least one or two objectives and use the rest of your army to table your opponent.

Fighting against Necrons...

If your playing dark eldar

In general, always go for the killing blow early on if your army has the capacity to.

For instance, DE armies have the long range guns and mobility to position themselves for blowing off the legs of their opponents before going in for the kill in CC with a few units/transports to spare to go objective hunting late game if needed.

Focus on pummeling the opponent's ability to move around the board over getting objectives. You can be a clever grot by baiting them towards objectives if that is your style, but always hinder the opponent in some way so that your army doesn't suffer later.

Son_Of _Deddog wrote:...and just concentrate on tabling your opponant???

No, you don't get to table your opponent every game. Objectives should always be on your mind.

That being said you don't have to grab or camp objectives early in the game. Hyper agressive armies such as de need focus less on how many objectives they control and more on how many enemy troops are still alive, where they are, and how difficult it will be to kill them.

you dont have to go for all the objectives, pick a couple that you can easily take.

5 objectives for example.

Pick the 2 easiest to control for you.

Pick the hardest to get and ignore it.

contest the other 2 while pushing/killing them.


To ignore them all ? Not a good idea.

Yes.

When I'm playing Orks I make sure to put the objectives I place as close as possible to the one that my opponent places, then freight train up the board to the largest concentration of enemies (which is usually located on the furthest defended objective).

There's usually enough time to double back after I've crushed the enemy troops if need be.

depends on what you are playing. when playing IG, i play for the objectives. power blogs and use templates to clear the others off.

when playing SM, i go for the table usualy, depending on what they bring to the table.

whats an objective .. i play orks i ALWAYS ignore them and go for the table, i usually field a group of grots to hold one, but if they get killed i jsut go for wiping them out on thier objective for the draw, it is the orky thing to do

Depends a lot on the army match ups but generally the answer is no. It's hard to table a good opponent, especially when they sense it coming and go into survival mode. If you put all your eggs in that basket and don't have anything in position to take the mission objectives (whether literal objectives or whatever else you need to do) it will be very hard to win.

Utterly crushing you opponent should be part of the game plan, it can't be all of the game plan.

I am going to say no, you want to win the game not just draw. Early aggression us fine, but plan on where your troops will be for turn 5

It really depends. If you can, go for it, if it's a situation where you have no other choice thanks to troops being routed or whatever, then you should go for the jugular and try to drive them off the table.

But remember, the Japanese lost at Midway because they lost sight of their true objective. The Germans lost in WWII on the Eastern Front for the same reason. Unless you're next to garunteed to pull up a tableing, never lose sight of what your true goal is. Take targets of opporunity, but remember that blowing up a couple tanks will do you no good if your melta Vets are now horribly out of position to take any of the objectives.

I remember playing a game against mechdar, and the reason they won was never losing sight of WHAT his goal was. He set up his objectives so that a Falcon, properly positioned with troops inside, could hold both of them, and made sure at least one falcon stayed far away from my Guardsmen shooting as possible. He COULD have gone all in, but that likely would have cost him the game, even if he nearly tabled me what with my Guardsmen holed up around their own objectives.

Besides, a good opponent will try and distract you with some 'targets of opportunity' to try and get you to go away from what could really whne you the game.

I agree with those who are saying that it is based on the army... but it is also based a lot on the build.

Mech eldar will actually ignore objectives (in objective games) unit turn 5, in which they are often in a good position to win the game.

DE on the other hand... have to kill kill kill. Tabling their opponent is what they do best. They don't camp on objectives at all... maybe grab them last minute... but not in the same way as eldar do.

Tyranids have some units that are made to just sit back and hold objectives and augment team mates. Tervigans and Primes joint with large gant units are 2 examples. They focus on the objectives all game.

Daemons do the same with plaguebearers... plagues are pretty much no good at anything but holding objectives. Not all daemons lists use them though, there are lists I have seen where plaguebearers were not taken and they still won in games against Space wolves and mech IG(adepticon results). Probably from having target priorities screwed up or getting troops in late game.

Mech IG and Razorwolves just try and table you... that is really what they do best, and if they have scoring and you don't... who wins in an objectives based mission.

It is sometimes a good idea to ignore objectives... but it is also a good idea to think about where you put the objectives you have control over. Someone said that with orks, they put their objectives as close to the enemy as possible. Now they can focus on killing the enemy, and be able to claim objectives being close by to the enemy.

that is my 2 cents.

only ignore objectives if there army has only 2 minimum troops e.g. 2 x 5 man SM tactical, 20 grots or when Fighting against Necrons

You can by doing this: Have one minimal troop held in reserve and place your deployment zone objective where the enemy most likely wont be going for, have the rest of your army head for his objective and overrun him. If you dont table him, you will still have the only objective uncontested, if that unit doesnt get nuked.

schadenfreude wrote:

Son_Of _Deddog wrote:...and just concentrate on tabling your opponant???

No, you don't get to table your opponent every game. Objectives should always be on your mind.

Yes you do!

Maybe for the living embodiment of tactical genius, Dash, but not for the rest of us.

No considering if the mission is objectives its how you win the game. Most tournaments will say you do not win the game by tabling your opponent you still need to control the objectives.

A-P wrote: Fighting against Necrons...

Yes... dance puppets! Dance!

On topic:

If it looks like tabling is feasible I always go for it. If the smarter money is on playing for objectives I do that. It's completely based on the the situation at hand; I realize that this answer probably doesn't help you much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Avariel wrote:No considering if the mission is objectives its how you win the game. Most tournaments will say you do not win the game by tabling your opponent you still need to control the objectives.

Really?

I'm pretty sure no tourney I've ever been to has played it that way.

Avariel wrote:No considering if the mission is objectives its how you win the game. Most tournaments will say you do not win the game by tabling your opponent you still need to control the objectives.

If all the enemy's troops are dead, how do they even claim a 'draw'? They lose by virtue of being dead.

Avariel may be thinking of 4th edition or something. In 5th edition the rules specifically say that you win if you manage to destroy your opponent's entire army, regardless of the mission.

That being said, many tournament missions have secondary objectives which you actually need to achieve in the alloted game length, and which may NOT be automatically granted to you for tabling your opponent.

--------

In answer to the original question, my answer would be no. I always focus on the objectives, and that's what I teach new players to do too. I never even try to table people. I still do it occasionally, but it's not the goal. I win games on objectives. And I've probably been tabled fewer times than I can count on one hand, out of the (roughly) six hundred or so games of 40k I've played over the last decade.

I always force my opponent on the defensive by placing most of the objectives on his/her side. I will then steam roll my way to grab the minimum that I need and hold them. Dont over extend on objectives...

Avariel wrote:No considering if the mission is objectives its how you win the game. Most tournaments will say you do not win the game by tabling your opponent you still need to control the objectives.

I have never hear of a tournament that has done this...

in most cases you get more points for tabling your opponent in my experience...

If you KNOW you can pull it off then go for it. If your not sure, or cant, dont even try it. Sometimes its better to hang back and hold out then bum rush

Stategically, it's best to remove siuations where you rely on die rolls to win. You can't table your opponent without rolling dices. You can, however, move onto objectives, or block your opponent, without rolling.

People are saying to go for the table if you "know" you can do it. Well, you can never know for sure, 100%. So better advice is to go for a table if you can do it without overextending yourself. Make sure that if things start going poorly (and they can very easily), you can still at least draw based on objectives. Never give up a winning position for a "more-winning" one.

I say go for the table if you lost all of your own troops. Otherwise you are playing for a draw.

There is another option for the very aggressive player beyond just tabling an opponent.

In a situation where you have a much more aggressive army than your opponent you can ignore objectives for the most part, if you are confident in your ability to eliminate troops and mobility from your opponent.

In other words, some armies win by having units on all 5 objectives, contesting every one, and scoring one or more, and some armies win with one troop unit on one objective that has been cleared of enemy contesters, and all enemy troops or mobility killed off.

in simple terms, you don't have to contest objectives that don't have enemy troops on them, and in the basic book missions and most tournaments, you don't get more points for winning by a larger margin.

Launching anecdote in 3,2,1...

I recently played a game with my grey knights against a full mech IG army, I had a grand master and gave scoring status to two of my venerable dreads. They stood on an objective that was very far away from the IG lines and shot all game. I prioritized the enemy vendettas with my shooting, and then quickly switched over to chimeras holding troops, it cost me nearly every space marine to wade past the melta and plasma spam, but I succeeded in killing off every last one of his vets. His manticores were alive, his psyker battle squad was alive, his CCS was alive.... but it didn't matter, even though I had nearly nothing left to contest with, he didn't have any troops to force me to contest something, and he didn't have anything fast enough to contest the one objective that I was camping.

In essence I ignored every objective but one, but only because i saw the potential for being able to wipe out my opponents troops. It should also be noted that i didn't go into the game with that plan. The plan was born when my opponent used his troops aggressively, and opened himself up to that. If he hadn't done that, it would have been a different game. I would have had to respect the objectives, and stay clear of his special weapon spam.

So I'd say, yes, you can win games by ignoring objectives, but also I would say that walking in to games with that mentality will open yourself up to getting played like a fiddle by an opponent. By baiting you into overly aggressive moves to try and kill his troops he can wipe you out with special weapon spam umbrellas or properly positioned counter-charge elements. Be flexible in your game plan.

Maybe not ignoring them completely, but you can use them to get a tactical advantage. I've seen shooty armies deliberately place their objective out into the open on purpose. They have no intent whatsoever on trying to take the objective. They want you to take it so they can shoot the hell out of you...then swoop in on turn 4 to contest.