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A major yet often ignored part of 40k that has changed in 8th edition is the tournament scene (due to the prevalence of ITC) has become entirely dominated by the "maelstrom" style of play. Since many local games use these rules as a baseline as well, it's become fairly prevalent. For those who may be just joining us this edition, here's a brief recap of the transition:
<6th edition - Apart from some "bespoke" missions, you won the game by a combination of kills and holding more objectives at the end of the game than your opponents.
Early 7th edition - GW introduces "Maelstrom" missions: Based on the mission you draw objective cards from a deck based on what objectives you hold (or roll randomly). You get points for achieving these randomly generated objectives.
Mid 7th edition - ITC creates their own set of maelstrom objectives (only 5-6 possibilities) to cut down the randomness and uses these as "secondary" objectives to the "primary" objectives which were still scored end of game.
Late 7th edition - Many tournaments are using some sort of progressive scoring system as a primary or secondary victory condition.
8th edition - ITC overhauls their missions and introduces the "champions missions", which are purely progressive scoring.

Now, LVO and other major tournaments primarily use progressive scoring (i.e. you score points each turn). My opinion is that end of game objectives should be reintroduced to the tournament scene, for the following reasons:
1. End of game objectives enable players to fight for "the long game". Progressive scoring turns each turn into a mini-game, and missing a turn of scoring objectives isn't something that's easy to come back from so it has to be the focus every single turn. It means I can't take a turn for positioning, or to focus down key aspects of my opponent's army. It feels less like a grand strategy and more of a frenzied schizophrenic tasker.
2. Progressive scoring heavily favors certain army builds. Maintaining a presence on multiple objectives is impossible for elite armies, and why spreading an objective-secured horde across several is a winning strategy. If it was end-game, the elite armies could afford a few turns to chew through the troop screen to get to objectives. Now, that elite army needs to have cheap allies for objective holders or can't score while also eliminating threats to itself.
3. Alpha strikes are more of a problem in progressive games. I know this is counter-intuitive, but hear me out: Alpha strikes try to cripple an army turn 1. In previous editions, we had the Beta strike, which consisted of hiding or heavily insulating most of your units to survive the first turn or two, then bringing them out to counterattack (or grab objectives) when the time was right. Part of the issue is the matched play requirement for 50% of your army to be on the table, but another factor is giving up points by not scoring turn 1 or 2. This is exacerbated by games not going the full length. Additionally, when only a few units make good forward objective holders, killing those units right off the bat (or killing what can kill yours) makes a bigger difference.
4. The original reason why progressive scoring was embraced was to limit the effectiveness of static gunlines. However, in the ITC champions missions (for example), a gunline will still probably kill a unit, hold an objective, and more than likely kill more than their opponent. Depending on your army and where the objectives are placed, it is very possible they will end up holding more too. So at best, a mobile army zipping around is going to tie at best each turn or at worst get shot off the table, because they can't spare the units to take out the heavy hitters since they have to acheive objectives around the table. In the current format, infantry hordes and gunlines are actually the BEST list for progressive scoring.
5. Finally, game length is less of an issue with end game objectives. Part of the complaint is short games is being unable to get the full points, which can be quite important in a tournament. If the game ends on turn 3 with end game objectives however, it's still possible to get full points.

Well if you want to see more gunlines and wipeouts as decider guess that's one wav

I mean, this is mostly an ITC problem. It is a major ruleset but it's not exclusive. NOVA and tournaments that use NOVA rules have end of game scoring.

I prefer end of game scoring too. I actually find the maelstrom-style scoring to to immensely frustrating and make it not feel like a wargame at all.

There needs to be an small, odd number of end-of-game scored objectives, I think, and they need to be meaningfully separated from each other.

Progressive scoring is absolutely preferably to endscoring. I get that many people dislike the randomly rolled objectives of Maelstrom, and it does feel kind of fake. But end scoring favours static, shooty armies, with a 5th turn dash for objectives. It leads to a game where positioning and movement takes a distant backseat to raw damage output in the opening part of the game. And yes, progressive scoring favours some lists over others, but this is true of all victory conditions.

My personal preference is to scatter six objective markers on the table, and grant 1 VP for each held at the end of a battle-round. If one player is tabled, the other player is granted 6vp for each remaining battle-round. Getting second turn is used as a tiebreaker.

pismakron wrote:
Progressive scoring is absolutely preferably to endscoring. I get that many people dislike the randomly rolled objectives of Maelstrom, and it does feel kind of fake. But end scoring favours static, shooty armies, with a 5th turn dash for objectives. It leads to a game where positioning and movement takes a distant backseat to raw damage output in the opening part of the game. And yes, progressive scoring favours some lists over others, but this is true of all victory conditions.

My personal preference is to scatter six objective markers on the table, and grant 1 VP for each held at the end of a battle-round. If one player is tabled, the other player is granted 6vp for each remaining battle-round. Getting second turn is used as a tiebreaker.

I don't see a problem with static, shooting armies. The problem is not "gunlines are viable" [and honestly, I wouldn't want to play a game without them. I'd rather mass-CQC rush not be a thing than stand-and-shoot not be a thing], the problem is that it's easier to wipe out the enemy than to score the objectives. I have 2 armies that can't form a gunline for their lives, and I can still ignore objectives if I want, because it's frequently easier just to wipe the board.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

pismakron wrote:
Progressive scoring is absolutely preferably to endscoring. I get that many people dislike the randomly rolled objectives of Maelstrom, and it does feel kind of fake. But end scoring favours static, shooty armies, with a 5th turn dash for objectives. It leads to a game where positioning and movement takes a distant backseat to raw damage output in the opening part of the game. And yes, progressive scoring favours some lists over others, but this is true of all victory conditions.

My personal preference is to scatter six objective markers on the table, and grant 1 VP for each held at the end of a battle-round. If one player is tabled, the other player is granted 6vp for each remaining battle-round. Getting second turn is used as a tiebreaker.

I don't see a problem with static, shooting armies. The problem is not "gunlines are viable" [and honestly, I wouldn't want to play a game without them. I'd rather mass-CQC rush not be a thing than stand-and-shoot not be a thing], the problem is that it's easier to wipe out the enemy than to score the objectives. I have 2 armies that can't form a gunline for their lives, and I can still ignore objectives if I want, because it's frequently easier just to wipe the board.

Well, end scoring would not change that, would it?

Really, turn Vs. endgame scoring feeds directly into the horde problem. Elite armies have trouble being all over the place to score AND killing their enemies. Endgame lets them focus on one then the other. Hordes, however, can multitask.

I hate endgame scoring. The main rule book has 6 Eternal War missions and no matter which mission you play every game ends up being identical, try to table your opponent and if anyone's left standing by turn 5 jump on objectives. Couldn't be more boring if it tried.

Progressive scoring is the only way to get the missions to interact with the game being played. My personal favourite misisons to play are the some of the Eternal War missions from Chapter Approved (specifically Dominate and Destroy, Ascension and Scorched Earth), they rely on progressive scoring, are different enough from each other that it doesn't feel like your playing the same mission repeatedly and doesn't have the randomness of Maelstrom. Mind you, the first two Maelstron missions are pretty good as well since they include mechanics to mitigate against the random element.

The major problem with endgame scoring is that in 8e there frequently isn't a long game. I see armies getting tabled in 2-3 turns all the time, if you aren't going to do something about the damage/durability balance (which tournaments don't really have the power to do) progressive scoring gives players a chance to do something rather than every game ending in one side tabled and scoring nothing while the other side scores maximum points.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The major problem with endgame scoring is that in 8e there frequently isn't a long game. I see armies getting tabled in 2-3 turns all the time, if you aren't going to do something about the damage/durability balance (which tournaments don't really have the power to do) progressive scoring gives players a chance to do something rather than every game ending in one side tabled and scoring nothing while the other side scores maximum points.

Most tournaments award max score to the victor if he/she tables an opponent so this is actually moot across both times. If you can table your opponent before T5, it is always in your benefit to do so.

The only difference is it gives the losing army some consolation points.

My personal preference is to play progressive scoring with some hard-to-achieve but known up-front goals mixed in. By hard-to-achieve I mean objectives that take coordination of multiple units and multi-turn involvement. Such types of objectives also allow for meaningfull equalising mechanics even with random generation: while still unfulfilled, oponent can decide to pursue your objective.

One other thing I usualy play by: no killpoints and tabling only gives a small bonus. In an endless war destroing enemy units is a necessity, not a victory. This allows for some interesting "steals" to be incorporated into games and emphasises non-lethal features of units a bit more.

Audustum wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The major problem with endgame scoring is that in 8e there frequently isn't a long game. I see armies getting tabled in 2-3 turns all the time, if you aren't going to do something about the damage/durability balance (which tournaments don't really have the power to do) progressive scoring gives players a chance to do something rather than every game ending in one side tabled and scoring nothing while the other side scores maximum points.

Most tournaments award max score to the victor if he/she tables an opponent so this is actually moot across both times. If you can table your opponent before T5, it is always in your benefit to do so.

The only difference is it gives the losing army some consolation points.

Consolation points, yes, but it gives a metric by which you can distinguish games other than "won" or "lost". If you aren't going to play until your entire elimination tree is done (at which point a one-day event is kind of hard-capped at 16 people because four rounds is already pretty hard to fit into a day) or if you want some way of reshuffling the tree making sure games aren't all max points v. no points is kind of useful.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The major problem with endgame scoring is that in 8e there frequently isn't a long game. I see armies getting tabled in 2-3 turns all the time, if you aren't going to do something about the damage/durability balance (which tournaments don't really have the power to do) progressive scoring gives players a chance to do something rather than every game ending in one side tabled and scoring nothing while the other side scores maximum points.

Most tournaments award max score to the victor if he/she tables an opponent so this is actually moot across both times. If you can table your opponent before T5, it is always in your benefit to do so.

The only difference is it gives the losing army some consolation points.

Consolation points, yes, but it gives a metric by which you can distinguish games other than "won" or "lost". If you aren't going to play until your entire elimination tree is done (at which point a one-day event is kind of hard-capped at 16 people because four rounds is already pretty hard to fit into a day) or if you want some way of reshuffling the tree making sure games aren't all max points v. no points is kind of useful.

The endgame scoring tournaments already have ways of doing this. Some are pure random, some mix have pseudo-progressive secondaries, e.t.c. It's not like progressive is the only way.

Plus elite armies fare better, as I said earlier.

I'm not that sure about things but the 1 game I did play with an ITC packet left me with some questions.

1)Can you score on your opponent's turn? In the game I played you couldn't even if you qualified for the scoring.

2)Can you score on top of 1? It seems like an unfair advantage to be able to score and take a chunk out of your opponent before the opponent can even do anything.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I'm not that sure about things but the 1 game I did play with an ITC packet left me with some questions.

1)Can you score on your opponent's turn? In the game I played you couldn't even if you qualified for the scoring.

2)Can you score on top of 1? It seems like an unfair advantage to be able to score and take a chunk out of your opponent before the opponent can even do anything.

The ones my FLGS uses for tournaments you score on your own turn only starting from turn 2.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I'm not that sure about things but the 1 game I did play with an ITC packet left me with some questions.

1)Can you score on your opponent's turn? In the game I played you couldn't even if you qualified for the scoring.

2)Can you score on top of 1? It seems like an unfair advantage to be able to score and take a chunk out of your opponent before the opponent can even do anything.

In most games objectives are scored after each battle-round, that is after turn 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10.

Battle Round? I'm not familiar with the term. Is it after the 2nd players turn ends?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Battle Round? I'm not familiar with the term. Is it after the 2nd players turn ends?

Yes. Most 40k games are supposed to be 5 battle-rounds which is 10 turns. After each battle-round all objectives are scored for both players.

Thank you. You're just using different nomenclature but I get it now.

How do you remember the situations on the odd numbered turns? If I have hold objective 3 and I'm the first player what happens if I'm holding objective 3 at the end of my turn and then lose it on my opponent's turn?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Thank you. You're just using different nomenclature but I get it now.

How do you remember the situations on the odd numbered turns? If I have hold objective 3 and I'm the first player what happens if I'm holding objective 3 at the end of my turn and then lose it on my opponent's turn?

You don't. Whomever holds an objective after odd-numbered turns is not recorded and not regarded with respect to scoring. After each battle-round (which is two turns) you look at each objective and award a victory point to one player, the other player or neither. And you award points for other objectives depending on mission etc. This gives the player going second a slight advantage with respect to objective scoring, all though most players still opt to go first if they win the roll-off. Regards

Thanks for all the help.

nou wrote:
One other thing I usualy play by: no killpoints and tabling only gives a small bonus. In an endless war destroing enemy units is a necessity, not a victory. This allows for some interesting "steals" to be incorporated into games and emphasises non-lethal features of units a bit more.

We replace first blood with tabling for the same bonus. Tabling is so prevalent because so many events give you max points for winning that way. Those that support the tabling player getting maxed out vp's, how do you reconcile the difference between the player who has 1 model left when they table their opponent and the one that has 75% of their army left?

I've always proffered the idea that should a player be tabled that you still look at the victory point totals. If the tabled player has more they still win. Makes players play to objectives and not for the kill.

As mentioned, endgame scoring is terrible from a game balance perspective. Take the first Konor battle - Chaos effectively had to table their opponent to win (which was reflected in who won that fight).

40k cannot be a tactical game of endgame scoring as long as it sticks to You Go, I Go, as one army is normally obliterated T1 and incapable of fighting back. Gradual scoring has the added depth of requiring you to make decisions - objective or killing? A bandaid solution would be increasing the cost of all weaponry massively to make units relatively more durable for their points.

ITC solves first turn nicely (they have a 45/55 win split between who goes first and who goes second). Maelstrom is fun for casual games, but the issue is the huge randomness. Objectives like Domination and Supremacy, which are just designed to totally wreck the opponent once you're winning and not allow any chance of a comeback.

Endgame scoring can die in a fire.

However, I think a compromise can be made - turn-based scoring should be the norm, but there should be a way to push so that holding objectives/completing end-game objectives give a substantial boost at the end.

Holding objectives throughout the game AND end of the game should give a cushy level towards a win, but if the opponent takes the objective at the end/near the end, should make it able to at least get a draw on the objective.

Think of it as Final Jeopardy - a way to come back at the end and reverse things, but you need a bit of skill to win via the endgame instead of building to victory all throughout the game. Hell, maybe even a Second Jeapordy sort of situation so that as you get towards the end of the game the more an objective is worth - maybe 1 point/objective for Turn 1/2, maybe 2 points/objective for Turn 3/4 and 5 points/objective for Turn 5 (assuming the game ends on Turn 5).

End Game scoring promotes Non-Interaction, I've stolen more than a few pre-8th games just by durdling Windriders behind some LOS block,and then zipping out in the last turns

Progressive is better, I like to see something between ITC dice based and GW card based, maybe some kind of objective deck construction rules so you can tune the deck to support your list rather than hinder it with blind-draws of undoable objectives

 ChazSexington wrote:
As mentioned, endgame scoring is terrible from a game balance perspective. Take the first Konor battle - Chaos effectively had to table their opponent to win (which was reflected in who won that fight).

40k cannot be a tactical game of endgame scoring as long as it sticks to You Go, I Go, as one army is normally obliterated T1 and incapable of fighting back. Gradual scoring has the added depth of requiring you to make decisions - objective or killing? A bandaid solution would be increasing the cost of all weaponry massively to make units relatively more durable for their points.

ITC solves first turn nicely (they have a 45/55 win split between who goes first and who goes second). Maelstrom is fun for casual games, but the issue is the huge randomness. Objectives like Domination and Supremacy, which are just designed to totally wreck the opponent once you're winning and not allow any chance of a comeback.

YGIG is a problem but its not THE problem of every game being an alpha strike slaughter. 6th and 7th were still YGIG but a much bigger portion of those games played out to where end game objectives mattered instead of a Turn 3/4 tabling. The lack of deployment options, poor cover mechanics, and weapons just generally being more deadly (AP is king, everything can wound, etc) in 8th means that the game is pushed towards who can gun/chop down the other person first.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
End Game scoring promotes Non-Interaction, I've stolen more than a few pre-8th games just by durdling Windriders behind some LOS block,and then zipping out in the last turns

That is more of an issue with obsec eldar jetbikes being stupidly good at last second objective stealing than end game scoring being a problem

Fair point on the Windriders, but from my, admittedly limited, read of 8th nearly every faction has Bikes, Jump Troops and/or a double move psyker power to achieve much the same late game steal

 ChazSexington wrote:


ITC solves first turn nicely (they have a 45/55 win split between who goes first and who goes second)..

I wouldn't say ITC solves first turn. There are still too many games that are decided by the roll for first turn. It is just not always to the advantage of the first turn player. But I agree that it is a huge improvement over Eternal War, where getting first turn is pretty much always a huge advantage.

Maybe they should change the objective secured rule, so that elite infantry would count all their wounds towards the total. That would help them out a bit in the mission game.