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Many of the 8e tournament scoring templates have specifically said that tabling an opponent does NOT award the victor maximum possible points for the contest. This is a change I have seen since 8e dropped. I was wondering what the rationale behind this trend is. I agree that as long as participants have access to the scoring template far enough in advance to take the scoring into account when constructing an army list that it remains fair for all. Still, I am curious why tabling an opponent should result in a lower score than is possible if you leave one marine scout alive and bleeding to death in a bunker in the center of the table. And I am curious what players think of this trend.

To move away from "screw the scenario, just table the army" mentality that drives to extreme lists that are designed to just kill opposing army to last man and who cares about scenario. It's also more logical as warfare isn't actually about just killing enemy and it's possible to lose war by concentrating too much on just killing.

Lists that can only win by tabling an opponent suffer all the downsides of any other "one trick pony" list. Outscore such an opponent and keep a single model alive for the win.

The player who constructs a list to counter the prevailing meta in the present rock-paper-scissor world is penalized for tabling the "net lists"? Also, a skilled player capable of tabling an opponent simply allows enough models to survive an additional round or two until max points are achieved. I have found that the players most penalized by this scoring shift are those who have their opponent concede. Is this fair?

 Lord_Thanatos wrote:
Is this fair?

Yes.

Both players are beholden to the same rule. If you know in advance that this is the case (which you should), you had the opportunity to tailor your list to the rules, same as the other guy.
If you choose to take a list that works by attempting to table the opponent under these conditions, sorry - you kinda placed the problem on yourself.

You should not be able to hurt your opponent by conceding. Any kind of tournament system that works that way is flawed.

 Jidmah wrote:
You should not be able to hurt your opponent by conceding. Any kind of tournament system that works that way is flawed.

Most rulepacks include that a concede is a 20-0 victory precisely because of that.
Tabling not being an automatic 20-0 is to stop gunlines from sitting at their table edge for 5+ turns and then winning despite the objective score being 31-3 against them. It forces you to actually take part in the mission.

However some rulepacks, imo, make the mistake of punishing a tabling which gets wierd as you try to keep 1 enemy unit alive so you can keep playing and score more points.
The London GT for example got around this by stating that the game continues after a wipeout so the player can play out the remaining turns solo to score objectives. This means your not punished for tabling in turn 3 but if your doing it at the bottom of turn 7 you can still lose on other scores.

The other reason to not make tabling max points is that if it is, it in no way represents the closeness of a match. If tabling is 20-0 and your last remaining squad, kills my last remaining model in a game that otherwise would result in a draw, how does that go from 10-10 to 20-0 with one kill? Or worse what if the player with 1 model is leading 18-2, losing that last model completely flips the game? I agree that it is kind of wonky that you are incentivized to leave models alive in order to score points, but I’m also totally in favor of being able to win even if you get tabled. Personally I would like to see tabling =\= win, but allow the player to “continue to play on” and collect any points they can after the opponent is dead.

How about giving points for tabling your opponent? The amount of points depends on your scoring scale but I can see giving points for this achievement.

Some of the events out here still give you max points for tableing your opponent. Then again this is the same crowd that can't get over FW... Even at the Glass City GT we got max points in every category for tabling. I built an army to play the objectives, everyone else seemed to build armies to table. So, I did terrible lol.

Form a tourney perspective, awarding full points to the winner and zero to the loser should only happen if 1 player concedes. This seems to be the case in most tourneys.

But it the winner tables the opponent, the loser should still be able to keep any victory points they earned during the game. To do otherwise really skews the results.
As for not awarding full points to the winner in this case, I am totally for that. It prevents army list building that disregards objective holders in favor of pure power. It forces the players to play the game as it is intended: by scoring objectives.
This makes for a much deeper game that is enjoyable for both players.

-

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about giving points for tabling your opponent? The amount of points depends on your scoring scale but I can see giving points for this achievement.

I don’t view it as an achievement, there is a mission and people should be encouraged to play to the mission. Winning the mission is easier when your opponent is dead, but ignoring the mission for 4 turns to kill your opponent should not be seen as an achievement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only way I see giving any points for it is if “kill a model” is a per turn score, you should get points for it if your opponent has no models.

That would be an interesting way to shake up list building, if the opponent automatically scores if you don't have a valid model of that type on the table. Eg everything in your army being ineligible for big game hunter they auto score.

If your forces are busy blowing up the vile [xenos/corpse-worshipers/traitors] and decide their squads need to be killin them instead of turning off the defense grid or whatever the objective is intended to be, you certainly should get you fewer points.

I tabled an opponent on Turn 5 at NOVA last year, but lost the game, because there wasn't enough time (1 movement phase left) for me to get more objective points than they already had.

So I lost the only game I ever tabled my opponent in at a GT.

Breng77 wrote:
The other reason to not make tabling max points is that if it is, it in no way represents the closeness of a match. If tabling is 20-0 and your last remaining squad, kills my last remaining model in a game that otherwise would result in a draw, how does that go from 10-10 to 20-0 with one kill? Or worse what if the player with 1 model is leading 18-2, losing that last model completely flips the game? I agree that it is kind of wonky that you are incentivized to leave models alive in order to score points, but I’m also totally in favor of being able to win even if you get tabled. Personally I would like to see tabling =\= win, but allow the player to “continue to play on” and collect any points they can after the opponent is dead.

Yesterday on 6th round game was fairly close, maybe 7-13 to opponent. If game goes to 7th round last model gets blown. It did, it did and 0-20.

And that is just wrong.

Derp. Can't read.

I have seen it happen once in a maelstrom game where Guy A tabled his opponent but opponent B had enough points to win anyway.

Objectives IMHO should win games.

Breng77 wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about giving points for tabling your opponent? The amount of points depends on your scoring scale but I can see giving points for this achievement.

I don’t view it as an achievement, there is a mission and people should be encouraged to play to the mission. Winning the mission is easier when your opponent is dead, but ignoring the mission for 4 turns to kill your opponent should not be seen as an achievement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only way I see giving any points for it is if “kill a model” is a per turn score, you should get points for it if your opponent has no models.

Killing one's opponent is a good method of achieving an objective.

This discussion reminds me of one camp essentially saying they wish to play as did the Spartans at the Hot Gates: i.e. if the mission is delay it matters not if we all die to achieve the mission. The other camp wishes to play as Ghengis Kahn: i.e. a single soldier demanded the surrender of a town and if the town didn't surrender every man was killed as a warning for the next town.

It is very, very difficult to table a skilled player deep in a tournament. This is definitely an achievement. Sure, round one may result in more tabled results. The player who wins the first round or two by tabling an opponent should not be penalized relative to the other players who had sufficient turns available to score more points. I see this less as a list-building issue and more of a random penalty for players in the first round of two of a tournament.

There is a difference between being punished for tabling and being rewarded for it. I don’t agree with punishing people for tabling others. I also don’t think it should be incentivized over the mission, with the exception of a kill point style mission, I think that tabling should not be rewarded, the focus should be on achieving the mission. Destroying your opponents forces is rewarded by denying points, making it easier to score points. If tabling wins, why bother with the mission at all.

It is ,as always, important for tournaments to communicate their house rules and scoring system so players can adapt to it.
It is the onus of the players ,and a good way of finding the truly excellent ones, to see who thrives in multiple tournaments with different set ups.

That said if one option is better than any other. It is no longer a choice. 8th has an alpha strike problem. It does not need excarbating by empowering tabling to be perfect victory.

So if you know tabling your opponent round 2 is going to be bad or not good for your overall performance. Don't build a list around the concept.

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.

40k is trying to be an everyhting game. If you want one kind of gameplay totally dominating play that game fine for you. But I like variety and one kind of all-encompassing all-trumping victory condition is anathema to my preferred playstyle.

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. 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.

With tournaments finally adapting that POV I might even start to enjoy watching standard tournament batreps/live streams as there will finally be something other than lists and dice rolls that matter.

It's a shame. While I haven't played much 40K, I would much prefer to play until the last enemy has been taken down rather than having to leave troops behind to watch objectives.

Oh well

SG

Objectives don't matter, as long as I can 20-0 for killing your entire army.

Playing cat and mouse with a single model/squad just so my opponent doesn't get the "tabling reward" is just silly.

Objectives should > final kill count; otherwise why play anything else? It would only serve to further create imbalance between the over-tuned armies, and the under-tuned armies; at least the latter can try to have a chance by playing the objective game.

And since they're so many Space Marine players out there - think about the imagery of completing the mission at all costs, despite losing everyone in a valiant last stand (or singular final push).

It's classic heroic stuff - we completed the mission, and that's what matters.

I like the way FoW used to work, you have a scenario - which determines the winner and loser, then the casualties the winner takes determines the level of victory - the losers casualties don't matter

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.

I've never served in the military, but it's my understanding that abandoning your post or otherwise going off-mission to hunt down the enemy tends to lead to a court martial.

 EnTyme wrote:
I've never served in the military, but it's my understanding that abandoning your post or otherwise going off-mission to hunt down the enemy tends to lead to a court martial.

While abandoning your post has generally been punishable by death or decimation, that's not always the case. For the more organized armies in history, sure. But armies consisting of a bunch of small groups that could generously be called "united" under a single banner? Nah, they dissolved all the time without any problems for the individual.

And going off-mission to kill the enemy also has varied in punishment... and has even been rewarded. Again, depends on the time period, the discipline of your army, and many other factors. It's sometimes seen as a good thing for your soldiers to show initiative and a penchant for violence.


I think the tabling not being max points makes a lot of sense. I'd say the Rebels won the Battle of Scarif, even though they all died.