"Tabling your opponent" Topic

What do you think is the correct result of a game where you table your opponent?

1) Automatic Victory
2) Play out the game turns unhindered to get more points

I see games where someone tables their opponent but loses because they can't score enough points. Now that's a Pyrrhic victory!

I'm not familiar with the term. What does it mean to " table your opponent"?

To kill all of your opponent's models. To force your opponent to remove all figures from the table.

If the mission was to control certain objects, and you chose to destroy units instead, then the game is a draw.

I have had my forces "tabled" on more than one occasion and declared victory telling my opponents that I was sorry they didn't win, but I had my army picked up before them so I was obviously the victor.

As far as the original question, I believe in friendly games where when the resolution is obvious, call the game.

"To kill all of your opponent's models. To force your opponent to remove all figures from the table."

How strange. I don't think I've ever seen that happen in over four decades of wargaming.

Personally I see no point. We end a game when there is a clear winner. Sometimes that could be before there are even large losses on one side if the winner has got say some ideal positional advantage. Why would you play a boring game, life is too short!

It depends on the scenario victory conditions.

If the VC were attrition (including capitulation or withdrawal of forces), then somebody has won. Not necessarily the last man standing. We play a Battle of Short Hills scenario where the Rebels' objective is to delay the advance of the the Empire. VC are a combo of total turns and Rebel units that retreat off the board. The Rebels can be "tabled" and still win.

If the VC were occupying objectives and not time-bound, then I guess the "tabling" side (as opposed to the "tabled" side?) would win. But it's not really a question, it's just the VC.

Lots of other options.

We end a game when there is a clear winner.

Which in a well designed scenario is at the end.

There are probably a lot of people who would disagree with calling a battle early …

I'm pretty much with eto. If your objective was to secure the bridge by 1200, and your opponent was wiped out at 1230 still holding the bridge, you've lost.

But like MajorB, in 50+ years of wargaming, the situation has never arisen. Armies reach breakpoint or someone concedes and the castings go back in their boxes.

Is this a fantasy/sci-fi thing? There generally comes a point when we decide to play one more turn to see if a miracle happens, then we call the game. Reasonable people then discuss likely outcomes such as what units will, will not, or probably make it off the board; if the winning player can achieve objectives, and if the attacker is in good enough shape to pursue, or if they need to consolidate and hold the field.

Reminds me of a Gettysburg game I ran. First day was great and played fast, second day took longer, and on the third day Picket's charge was set up and the game ended there. There was no reason to continue when the battle was already won.

Since the posting refers to gaining extra points, this may be referring to tournament type games and not friendly games where having a good time together is the real definition of victory.

Is this a fantasy/sci-fi thing?

link

See the picture above.

Very much a sci-fi/fantasy thing. In the various GW Warhammer Games, it is common to wipe out every one of your opponent's units, sometimes in just a couple of turns. In these games, though, you typically have some pretty Baroque victory conditions ("score 5 points if you have a unit able to enjoy a leisurely lunch on the center left objective on turn three…") and it is in fact also reasonably common for the "tabled" party to win the game due to having accumulated an insurmountable lead in victory points.

etotheipi, I consider "last stands" to be in a category of their own. We know the outcome. The Legion lost at Cameroon.

Leonidas "won" at Thermopylae.

Some on the list won the desperate fight. Some lost. None packed it in because the outcome was "obvious". The last stands are not the only battles won against overwhelming odds. They're just the famous ones, so the easy ones to find on a list. If people were "sensible" there wouldn't be a war in the Ukraine right now.

According to second part of the definition of "tabled" offered above, any retreat is a "tabled" force. Also, anything like Short Hills, mentioned above.

Also, the last five(?) at Camarón were not "tabled". They forced the Mexicans to allow a conditional surrender, including medical treatment. The Mexican forces were delayed and significantly thinned, affecting later battles in a war the French won.

"The Legion lost at Camerone."

But "WON" Eternal Glory!

TVAG

What do you think is the correct result of a game where you table your opponent?

Finding new rules.

100% destruction of the enemy force isn't a believable military outcome.

Table your opponent? Never heard that term till now. "To kill all of your opponent's models." I have been gaming since the 70s and have never seen that happen. At a certain point I would think you would call the game before that.

The victory conditions should cater for this, especially if its a historical scenario. However i have never a played a game when this has occured. If one side has clearly lost they normally withdraw, if a campaign game, or the game just ends, if its a single scenario.

100% destruction of the enemy force isn't a believable military outcome.

I, for one, am proud to be a member of the human race, which has no genocides or massacres.

While fortunately rare (from the mid-1700's on) in larger battles, the smaller the engagement, the more common the incidence of complete annihilation of an opposing force.

BTW …

To force your opponent to remove all figures from the table.

Would include routes and retreats.

I, for one, am proud to be a member of the human race, which has no genocides or massacres.

I don't know of any 100% successful genocides or massacres either. Do you?

In any case, that's not the kind of thing wargames simulate. I hope my good faith presumption that we were talking about wargames here wasn't misplaced…

BTW…

To force your opponent to remove all figures from the table.

Would include routes and retreats.

And that has sent me looking for a new set of rules in the past. I don't see why it wouldn't have that effect on me again. My comment that 100% destruction of the enemy force isn't a believable military outcome is another way of saying: I would disagree with that representational modeling. It ruins my suspension of disbelief.

- Ix

Last time that happened to me, I won the game. I'd inflicted enough casualties on the relieving force to fulfil the victory conditions.
Yellow Admiral, in many ways I agree with you, but in the case above I'd happily suggest that while several of my units may have decided not to take further part in the immediate battle, they may have still been 'present', and capable of maintaining the siege. Just not worth leaving on the table during the action.

To answer the OP, it depends on the victory conditions. Has the defender held the attacker up long enough to prevent him completing his victory conditions in the allotted time?
Then regardless of whether they've been 'tabled' or not, they've won.

I don't know about 'killing all the enemy figures', but routing an entire enemy army so they have no combat effective units left in the field (a fairly common occurrence in pre industrialwarfare) certainly looks like a victory to me.

As noted above though, if it is a stop enemy from taking point x by time y scenario, then maybe not. I usually require troops to physically occupy objectives to count them as controlled, not just remove the enemy units in them.

I don't know of any 100% successful genocides or massacres either. Do you?

7th Cav at Little Bighorn is a famous one (100$ killed or wounded, but many engagements (not battles of hundreds) in the Plains Indians Wars ended in an outright massacre. Same thing with various battlefronts within a larger battle or campaign.

Stalingrad did not end in 100$ casualties, but several units fighting functionally isolated engagements within the battle were completely wiped out. Of course, there is speculation that some people bolted before their units were taken out.

Same thing for several engagements leading to the Battle of Hue. Several outposts were completely destroyed with no survivors. Does Lima85 count? A handful escaped (in our parlance, left the board prior to end of game), but everyone who did not was killed.

Hundreds of African and American tribes have been eliminated. Some have living relatives where women and children were absorbed into other tribes, but (since we are talking about wargaming), all the warriors were killed (though that is not the reason for all the tribal units becoming extinct).

Any number of resistance cells against Communist occupation post WWII were completely eliminated. It's why my grandfather had to leave. Several occupying forces of Soviets were likewise eliminated by Resistance movements.

All of these are not good subjects for wargames. Lima86 is a good example – 100% casualties, but 2K+ soldiers overrunning less than a platoon's worth of forward deployed not a good wargame. However, settlers vs a raiding party that could wipe them out is. Likewise for irregulars taking on a larger organized force.

I was going to say Little Bighorn.