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So I've had a passing thought. While in single player games a one-sided crushing victory can be fun and rewarding, this generally isn't the case in 40k. No one wants to sit across from their opponent for two or three hours as they become increasingly bummed out by the massive defeat they're suffering. To me, a close game is almost always more engaging and more rewarding than a one-sided one. But there's really no reason not to go for the gold. Sure, you can intentionally make mistakes, but that's likely to leave your opponent feeling even worse about things if they catch on. You can tone down your list, but sometimes bad matchups or bad dice just happen. And for many, the thought of pulling punches is heresy.

So my thought is this: Within the context of a (probably two-person) campaign with a structured narrative (probably a branching tree style of narrative), what do you think of a mechanic that provides more favorable outcomes if you win a close game rather than a crushing victory?

So for instance, let's say the first mission of a campaign is essentially a Kill Points game. The Space Wolves are duking it out with their hated foes, the Thousand Sons. Losing the game will spell bad things for the Space Wolves as far as the narrative is concerned, but they also have to think about how crushing their victory is going to be. If the Space Wolves win the game by only a few points, the corresponding narrative states that the Thousand Sons commander has been wounded in the fight thus stalling his plans until he's recovered. If the Space Wolves win by a ton, the narrative instead states that this force of Thousand Sons was only a meager diversion meant to keep the wolves looking in the wrong direction. The wolves have secured the critical location, but the Thousand Sons commander has been using this time to complete a ritual that has left the Wolves' primary space ship dead in orbit.

Your thoughts? It wouldn't directly impact a game, but it might encourage players to try and balance their lists against one another and soften the blow of a crushing loss while rewarding more dramatically close games.

I think you may run into problems where the player with the superior list simply holds back. It just gives him a concrete reason to make the game about him pulling his punches.

There's nothing stopping someone from going hard at the beginning and crushing everything but a couple Tsons and leaving them alone, whittling down the turns on purpose because there's a benefit for him to do so.

This also has the side effect of the player in this scenario who is losing spending the last few turns trying to kill his last few models by forcing contact with the enemy, which doesn't sound fun and doesn't feel in the spirit of the game.

I think it would work, but only if you don't tell the players about it and that in itself could put a bitter taste in the mouth.

I too prefer close games (most of mine have been close but I play casual only) but unfortunately, as in actual war, sometimes a side will get slaughtered. Trying to mitigate the slaughter shouldn't be your goal - embrace it, accept it, make it part of your narrative.

It really depends on your players though, some people can take devastating defeats in stride, taking it as fluffy or learning from their mistakes. Plus, you can never be sure the 'losing' player will actually lose, for example if a player finds that he's winning handily he'll generally focus on tabling rather than on the objectives, which can be a game-losing flaw.

If you really, really, really want to add something to help a 'losing' player, make it a withdrawal option.
Change the Objective of the game --- his Commander has declared the day lost and is attempting to pull back his forces and save them for another day --- for each unit he manages to escape off his deployment edge, give him a points bonus for the next battle..... so, if he saves 340 points by withdrawing, give him half as bonus for the next mission, so 170. That'll help balance the next mission and give him something to do in the mission he's losing.