Ties! I hate ties, especially the ones above but that isn't what I am talking about. I am talking about the ones when after a couple of hours of wargaming there is no clear winner as far as the gaming system is concerned. See under 6e I have played a total of 4 games and of those I have tied twice. My buddy who is playing the Eldar has tied twice, so every game we have played together that went to completion have been ties. The one other game took too long and we had to cut it short giving me a win, technically. The problem is there should never be a time in a wargame when there is not a clear winner. Well i guess if both sides are completely wiped out there wouldn't be a winner but how often does that happen? I can honestly say that i have never seen it. So why do wargames have this? Nothing is worse than a tie other than maybe not playing at all.
So what can we do with 6e that will allow us to break a tie?
2 ties and 1 loss is about as dismal a performance for the elder as I expected. I mean, since when does a farseer run at the first sight of 3 dead bodies! And how the hell does a group of 5 jetbikes get routed by 5 infantry! I guess my group of blue faeries are hard at work to earn their names. Scared shitless is what I should call them and paint them brown BAHHH!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah losing in an Assault to Imperial Guard is pretty bad. Only thing worse would have been if you had lost to the same number of Tau Fire Warriors.
DeleteI've found to avoid ties, it helps to play with an odd number of objectives, and the new 6e Bonus Objectives (slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, etc.) tend to tip the balance one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteI used to prefer non-objective games, but the game is a totally different animal when you have reasons (i.e., chasing objectives) to do insane things and compromise good positioning for those extra victory points.
I just started reading your blog, so apologies if you already play with objectives!
My first tied game was a 3 objective game. We ends with 1 objective each with line breaker on one side and first blood on the other. Not sure about the other ties though so I will have to ask the other. Running with only odd numbered objectives is a good idea so I will definitely give it a try. Astor missions we typically roll them randomly and thus far only one game has been Purge the Alien. I actually like the objective based missions better than a simple kill as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input.