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Just a quickie to see if anyone also experiences this: 80-90% of the 40k games i play against a variety of other players end up completely ignoring missions and objectives and are decided based on one side completely wiping out the other.
I'm a relatively inexperienced player and i wanted to ask if anyone can offer an explanation as to why this might be.
There seems to be a lot of tactics discussed centering around scoring/contesting/troop choices, but in my limited experience it really seems to be a more prevalent strategy to be able to kill/route an army and just win by default.

does this mean i'm not playing tactically enough? or is it more a symptom of unbalanced army lists?

i never play in tournaments, but are those games decided more by scoring or tabling?

is it always better to just eliminate an opponent?

You could just link the recent rock/paper/scissors post to answer this question. Also, the book clearly states that if you eliminate your opp., you win!

A lot of lists are gimmicky so destroy their lynchpin (Fateweaver, I'm looking in your direction) and lists tend to impload. My certainly do

I dont know of a single game mode where you dont win in some way shape or form if you table your opponent. Usually one side concedes before it actually gets wiped though.

I would wager though if they are purposely going for tabling and ignoring any special missions they probably dont want to employ any real tactic and just go for ultimate cheese to see how hard they can hammer their opponents. Kill missions are the only one that reward people who sacrifice all scoring, positional, or restoring tactics for more firepower.
Now if they are literally just going till one side dies, even beyond turn 7, then they probably are just having fun throwing dice around.

The most likely reason is that there is a power imbalance between the armies, one way or another. If one army has a lot more killing power than the other, tabling becomes the obvious way to win; why fight over objective for five turns when you can annihilate the enemy in four?

Another factor might be terrain, or lack thereof. Lots of terrain incentivises movement and tactical positioning, less makes lining up and having a shoot out the more appealing option. Playing optimised Tau on an open field is asking to be blown off the board. Agree to use more terrain if this is the case and it will liven up the game for both players.

Army makeup may be a factor. If they are playing armies with a lot of bog guns and minimal troops, it's only logical they want to play you at the killihjg rather than the scoring game. The way to beat this is to find ways to either reduce their firepower or be more resilliant against it, this will force them to play the mission more. Also, when placing your objectives, try and encourage the enemy to fight for them rather than just twsbling you. Hide some, but make some inviting almost.

It may just be the way plasters think in your area. For a long time my own group mostly went for tabling, but for as we got more expeienced , we started playing the mission a little more,and generally have a lot more fun. The allure of 'kill the shiny things' may wear off in time if they're mostly new players.

Hopes that helps.

A full on tabling is a rare thing in my club. Most situations are met with awe and cuddles for the defeated party.

It might be because none of us are ultra-ultra WAAC players. There are some people who play with net'-lists and they normally try to table the other team. But they haven't done it yet.

I find our games often devolve into people attempting to table each other but it ends up being objectives deciding the game.

I don't play in any tournaments so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most tournaments use VPs to determine ranking (as well as win'loss). so if table your opponent, but don't claim any objectives, you're looking at 3 VPs at most.

Where as the guy on the next table who played the mission might end up with quite a few more, putting him higher in the standings.

In friendly games, it varies. I've seen games where both players ran around until Turn 5 and went for late game objective grabs. I've seen games where one player was all but wiped out going into Turn 2.

With a friend, my templers and his orks have done a few games to bitter end.

Took a while, but like one where 100 + orks killed and all but one truck able to move, 26 marines died oin glorious battle and one chapter master left stood up on the hill, tanks in ruins, dread disabled, dieing in glorious 1 on 1 combat with a orks orks 4 armed dreadnought thing.

That strikes me as a local club thing, I find that tabling only occurs when the lists are completely outmatched against each other(much less to do with codex imbalance, just bad lists).

Try smaller points with lots of terrain. If your map stops the majority of forces shooting on turn 1 then your game will become better. Smaller points restricts the amount of "BIG TOYS" you can take and results in troops becoming far more valuable and the key to winning the game.

I suggest playing a game of 500-1000 points with plenty of LoS breaking terrain. This means you should at least not wipe enemy units horribly and unit placement becomes important.

It depends on how the armies interact with each other as well as how long the game goes. For example, a game going to 7 turns will result in a tabling or a concession much more often than one that ends after 5 turns. Generally speaking, however, I would echo the sentiment offered up by others that this should not be the case. Keep track and see who tables whom. If a couple people are consistently tabling everyone they play, they probably have a much better list and/or play their army better than their opponents. Have those people play each other and see what happens. If they keep tabling/getting tabled by each other, I would be surprised (given that one army is not a hard counter to the other).

While yes, you win if you table the other player, typically you will have a greater chance of winning if your army is able to win the objective game against a variety of builds. My guess would be that you play against a limited number of opponents on a regular basis (and see games from a small sample pool of players) and there is just a large discrepancy in how good the lists are. For example, Screamerstar will ROFLstomp many casual lists.

You're welcome to submit a sample list that you play with. Many people here will be able to tell you if it's a competitive or casual build.

Especially with the new 7ed coming soon, ensure that your army can complete the following;

1) Secure objectives
- Positional Objectives (Objective 1)
- Kill Stuff Objectives
- Area Objectives (i.e. Line breaker)
- etc

So you need units that can do these things (movement, shooting) whilst not getting annhilated by enemy firepower or positional dominance. I.e. an few 20man conscript blobs, unsupported, terrible idea. MSU deep striking plague bearers or pink horrors, excellent.

2) Deal with the other guy
- Kill Heavy Infantry (ROF/High AP)
- Kill Hordes (ROF/Blast)
- Kill Tough Infantry (ROF/High Strength or ID weapons)
- Kill Tanks

So if your answer to AV14 is a single squad of plaguebearers or a lone meltagun, then you may need to re-address. I'd also advise that you take into account general META but try to play and encourage others to play TAC lists.

If you can reasonably answer the above questions, being tabled shouldn't happen often, mainly due to bad dice, poor decision making or a high-risk, high reward strategy by the other guy.

 pocketcanoe wrote:
I'm a relatively inexperienced player

This is probably the main reason. The game is a combination of list building, rule knowledge, and target prioritization, all of which takes time to learn. If you keep running your foot Orks as Salamanders, you are going to get burnt. Subjectively, it is part of the learning curve.

If you give us more information, we may be able to have some objective advice. What army are you playing? What models have you used? How have you used them? What do you play against?

My guess would be that you play against a limited number of opponents on a regular basis (and see games from a small sample pool of players) and there is just a large discrepancy in how good the lists are. For example, Screamerstar will ROFLstomp many casual lists.

This rings true for the local store. I think imbalance of lists and players is probably what's happening here. Plus it's not that I'm always the one who gets tabled, I'll have you know! Lol.

Currently experimenting with variations on Mordrak turn 1 bomb supported by interceptors and a DK. I get a lovely evil warm glow from incinerating whole squads turn 1. Although careful positioning and not striking into enemy's faces and then assaulting turn 2 does seem to increase the survivability of this list. I don't see it as a tournament level list, but I'm at about 50% win ratio locally. Most of my losses are to one guy and as long as I'm learning something each game, I'm happy to get demolished.

Additionally, I find I would rather play against a new opponent and a faction I've not experienced before than the same ol' same ol'.

To answer the mostly unanswered question of whether it is worth it to go for objectives, I think some armies are better off just going for tabling. Dark Eldar being a notable one. They have a massive amount of gank and very little tank, if they waste ANY time dicking around with objectives they are really just hurting their gameplan. Games with pure DE generally don't last too long, they die really quick and kill things really quick. Also, in a killpoint mission, their opponent will quickly start raking in KP's being that you have generally at least 7x transports + 7x 5 man units, all of which are AV10/HP2, or T3/1W, + whatever you've used in the Fast Attack aka Glass Cannon slot. (Although a beast pack can be a little harder to bring down but thats not hugely relevant). If you still have any guys alive near the end of the game its easy to use your speed to steal some late game objectives, especially if you went heavy on the troops.


I would also argue that some armies with a lot of aggression and bad scoring units are better off just focusing on the tabling. And vice versa, an army like white scars with 6 units of tough as nails, 3+ armor save, scoring, jinking, 12" moving bike squads should definitely be focused on taking those objectives, as it will probably be able to dominate this aspect of the match against a lot of armies.


An army like Tyranids which can be played really aggressively with Flyrants Hive Crones and Mawlocs, with no decent options in the troop slot to support this playstyle is probably better off playing for the table. Especially since it means it can suicide FMCs into assault and plenty of other mid-late game glass cannon tactics. However, a different list with a Tervigon or 2, which are generally not bringing their points cost to the table in actual battle effectiveness, are however excellent scoring units which are incredibly hard to move, and each spawn a scoring unit every turn. You are wasting (alot of) points in this list if you are NOT going for objectives.



So to summarise, I think a big part is relevant to your army, as well as a game per game basis. Each army has different scoring tactics. With DE even though you are playing for the table, you probably still want to strategically place your objectives somewhere that it will split your opponents forces up if he tries to take them (watering down his combined strength, and really playing to your advantage of spped and position). This will make the difference in a close game. Orks however might want to place their objectives on the opponents side of the map, so they can roll their entire big green ball of pain all the way up the board as one and build their list to do so, while being able to take objectives just fine late game. A gunline however most games probably wants to place its objectives as close to itself as possible to shoot down anything that comes to claim it, and being able to hold position all game and just step out later to mark their territory. However, in a game where the biggest threat is scoring units (possibly big guns never tire ~_~), where they will be also focusing scorers first, they too might place objectives on the other side of the map in an attempt to water down the onslaught, and knowing that if the opponent has any scoring threats left on the board its probably because their gunline failed and they lost anyway. This is a similar all-or-nothing tactic to going for the "table".

It's really very situational and changes on a game per game basis how much you should focus on the mission, and how relevant it is to your victory. Remember, even if you are going for the table, (or even just to "table" the opponents scoring chunk of their army), the mission can always help you accomplish this just by letting your opponent face it. You need to table to win? Fine. But if the opportunity presents itself, grab the relic with some mandatory troop fill in and run it backwards. Your opponent will come running to you and hopefully re-direct some firepower that would otherwise be placed somewhere more dangerously. Tada, your bare-bones troop unit just made its points twice, three times, or even 10 times over, in an indirect manner.

I hope this helped and hope some of the many examples used are somewhat relevant or at least applicable to your gameplay. It's an interchanging strategy game. So, be adaptable, and strategic. Each army, opponent, and mission, will call for a different style, and different amount, of focus on the mission.

 pocketcanoe wrote:
Just a quickie to see if anyone also experiences this: 80-90% of the 40k games i play against a variety of other players end up completely ignoring missions and objectives and are decided based on one side completely wiping out the other.
I'm a relatively inexperienced player and i wanted to ask if anyone can offer an explanation as to why this might be.
There seems to be a lot of tactics discussed centering around scoring/contesting/troop choices, but in my limited experience it really seems to be a more prevalent strategy to be able to kill/route an army and just win by default.

does this mean i'm not playing tactically enough? or is it more a symptom of unbalanced army lists?

i never play in tournaments, but are those games decided more by scoring or tabling?

is it always better to just eliminate an opponent?

Armies getting tabled very often where I play, either by myself or my opponents. Maybe is happens in like 1 of 20 games, but usually it happens when someone is trying a new list or when there's a new player. More often then not, winning comes down to victory points.

If you are are playing games where people are getting tabled all the time, try to play defensively, use cover as much as possible, and force your opponent to come to you.

I play a CSM army against mostly Space Marine, Eldar, Tau, IG and Orks (been a while, but there's also a few Dark Eldar and 30k players in my FLGS). As you might imagine, I face some disadvantages tactically, so most of my games are focused on three things: killing the weakest units in my opponent's army, wiping out a squad as soon as possible, and keeping them off strategic objectives. In practical terms, this means I am charging up the board to kill something as soon as possible (to get first blood), then moving my guys into positions where they can hold / deny victory points.

This kind of game doesn't lead to tabling. When I win, it's because I have more points than the other guy, but it's very rare for me to have more models than him. When I lose, it's because I got drawn into a shooting match (which Chaos always loses) or because I wasn't able to find enough cover for my troops.

Of course, everything that me and everyone else has said is all subject to change in a few weeks. It's all going to be VERY different when every unit incl transports is scoring, and if your troops get objective secured because you kept it Battleforged.

I sat down for a few minutes and thought about what all the changes will mean. But then I just decided its impossible to fully predict (especially since we don't know the full extent of the changes yet!), and plus its gonna be much more fun to play and find out

Same will still hold true for DE though lol. But since its easy to stay within the FOC for them, it will open up some interesting options like kiting transports to backfield in a "lost" game, then coming back in lategame to claim objectives uncontestably. You'll still be shooting to table though.

It's a matter of play style, 2 aggressive players are likely to result in one getting tabled, and aggressive is more popular in more casual "just for fun" environment.

And ANYONE can be aggressive. I play tau and I'm one of the more aggressive players in our local, with most of my army ending the game on the opposite half of the board.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

Now if they are literally just going till one side dies, even beyond turn 7, then they probably are just having fun throwing dice around.

I can attest to that - best games I've ever played

Rock Paper Scissors ends by the third instance of play.

40k Ends by the third turn.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Rock Paper Scissors ends by the third instance of play.

40k Ends by the third turn.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

It's a conspiracy by GW...


They must be owned my the illuminateh

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Rock Paper Scissors ends by the third instance of play.

40k Ends by the third turn.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Half life 3 confirmed.

 Kain wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Rock Paper Scissors ends by the third instance of play.

40k Ends by the third turn.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Half life 3 confirmed.

Brilliant, exalted

 pocketcanoe wrote:
Just a quickie to see if anyone also experiences this: 80-90% of the 40k games i play against a variety of other players end up completely ignoring missions and objectives and are decided based on one side completely wiping out the other.
I'm a relatively inexperienced player and i wanted to ask if anyone can offer an explanation as to why this might be.
There seems to be a lot of tactics discussed centering around scoring/contesting/troop choices, but in my limited experience it really seems to be a more prevalent strategy to be able to kill/route an army and just win by default.

does this mean i'm not playing tactically enough? or is it more a symptom of unbalanced army lists?

i never play in tournaments, but are those games decided more by scoring or tabling?

is it always better to just eliminate an opponent?

From the sound of your OP, I think you and possibly your gaming group is just new to the game with varying degrees of player skill. I have not played a game where an opponent was tabled in a few years. I don't have a group so every game was against someone different.

I remember when I was starting off however, back in 2nd edition, each game DID end in a tabling. At that time I was in a gaming group and there were very little tactics involved - just run at the opponent and attack.

That could be. I remember when i started playing right as 6th hit i just wanted to keep playing until one of us was totally dead. Even at 750pts that can take awhile lol. Think it was a 1000pt game when i did it last and we went to like turn 12 or something silly like that because of WTF? dice rolls.

Was fun as hell, but i'd never do it with a large game thats for sure lol

pocketcanoe wrote:does this mean i'm not playing tactically enough? or is it more a symptom of unbalanced army lists?

Either, or you're just getting really unlucky.

There are three ways to win a game of 40k, by taking objectives, by forcing the game onto secondaries and winning by first blood, and by tabling your opponent. It turns out that the best way to table your opponent is with overwhelming killing power. And the best way to force things onto secondaries and win by first blood is by killing your opponent's scoring units, and being the first to make a kill, both of which is achieved with overwhelming killing power. If you want to play to the objectives, then the best way is to kill your opponent's scoring units, and to kill the stuff that can kill your scoring units, which is best achieved with overwhelming killing power.

As such, there is only one way to win a game of 40k. That way is to table your opponent, with various contingency plans if it doesn't happen to work in any particular game.

It won't take you too long to realise that the book missions are pretty crappy, and create only the illusion of tactics while still just boiling down to merely who hit the other person hardest, fastest. Basically just victory points with the occasional upset with a small squad of guardian jetbikes. If you want to play a game where killing power isn't the only thing that matters, you'll have to come up with missions that don't immediately and permanently give one player an advantage just because they killed something.

Like this, for example.

I disagree, the number of times I won missions despite being grossly behind on raw destruction makes me believe that tactics corresponding to the missions still play a major role in the game.

Then your opponents aren't bringing serious firepower. "I won even though I lost a bunch of stuff" is not the same as "I had a few units left on the board by the end of turn 3, and none of them were scoring."

I think it's a lot deeper than that Ailaros and sometimes focusing the troops is not an option to stop YOURSELF from being tabled.

40k isn't a game about tabling, because focusing on objectives will get you tabled?

Hmm...