Confessions of a rage quitter

[Panxer]

Ok , maybe not rage quitting, but certainly a 'I quit because I am now combat ineffective, do not have the necessary fire power to effect the outcome, it's turn two and the game has now so frustrating, tiresome, and depressing that I will take any excuse to concede and walk away' quitter.

Some people call it bad form, but personally see no point in continuing a game if there's no way you can win or even come close to winning. If it's turn 2 or 3 and your combat ability has been eviscerated, why would you go on? Why wouldn't your opponent (who is now 7 to 1 for kill points) not end the game to be at least kind or even just considerate? To beat a dead horse? To keep going and see if he can get 10 kill points to 1 then tell your friends that you just 40k beat someone who was so below your skill level that you just wanted to see how far it could go?

What's your favorite 'I got so beat so bad, I quit by turn 2' story?

[computertrucker]

Imagine if Tim Tebow played football like your playing 40k... He would have lost his last six that he has ended up winning in the last few minutes of the game.

He doesnt quit and he turns losing situations into winning ones.

I am kinda new (old timer coming back) to 40k I know this I do play Warmachine. I have literally had my entire army demolished in the past to come back with an assasination win, when it didnt seem possible. My point dont give up.. Play the game to have fun, if you do lose learn from it.

[CrimsonTurkey]

On turn two there's no reason to quit. On turn four or five I might politely declare that I concede and offer a hand if my doom is totally imminent and even rolling 20 sixes in a row couldn't save me.

[LordGrise]

Imagine if Tim Tebow played football like your playing 40k... He would have lost his last six that he has ended up winning in the last few minutes of the game.

He doesnt quit and he turns losing situations into winning ones.

I am kinda new (old timer coming back) to 40k I know this I do play Warmachine. I have literally had my entire army demolished in the past to come back with an assasination win, when it didnt seem possible. My point dont give up.. Play the game to have fun, if you do lose learn from it.

Wow. You didn't... didja? I guess you did. Wow. Talk about condescending.

Tim Tebow is a salaried professional in every sense of the word and has literally a couple hundred million dollars worth of support on any given game day. In what way does this compare to a 'friendly' game of 40K? It doesn't. Nor does Warmachine.

Yeah, I've had the dubious pleasure of having my army rendered mission-incapable on turn one more than once - I play Tau, after all. By and large, my opponent has offered to call the game at that point.

There is one guy in my gaming store who, no matter what the mission is, goes for annihilation every time, and very frequently gets it. He has a photographic memory, knows every army in the game, and is perfectly able to tailor his loadout on the fly to what he observes you getting out of your bags. He is absolutely scrupulous in his adherence to the rules. And he is no fun to play at all. He knows your army better than you do his, never misses a trick, and has no mercy if you do. He is not satisfied unless you have nothing left at the end of the game.

No one plays him one-on-one. Why would anyone want to be that guy?

[chromedog]

On turn two there's no reason to quit. On turn four or five I might politely declare that I concede and offer a hand if my doom is totally imminent and even rolling 20 sixes in a row couldn't save me.

This.

Conceding on turn 2 is bad form.

I've had single troopers turn a game around by refusing to die or run away.

Now, if, after turn 4, I've got no chance of winning, and I can't even force a draw, then I might concede - but only if I have something else I have to be doing.

[DarkLink]

You play a game of 40k to, y'know, play the game. Right? That's what I'd assume, considering that you put your models on the table and started playing. Unpacking all your models only to immediately decide "nah, I'm not feelin' it" makes you look silly.

I mean, if you're opponent's being a @#$%^&*, then find someone better to play. But why just call it immediately?

[energongoodie]

Kreese: Fear does not exist in this dojo, does it?
Karate Class: NO, SENSEI!
Kreese: Pain does not exist in this dojo, does it?
Karate Class: NO, SENSEI!
Kreese: Defeat does not exist in this dojo, does it?
Karate Class: NO, SENSEI!

[warpcrafter]

This.

Conceding on turn 2 is bad form.

I've had single troopers turn a game around by refusing to die or run away.

Now, if, after turn 4, I've got no chance of winning, and I can't even force a draw, then I might concede - but only if I have something else I have to be doing.

I will concede if the mission is objectives and I have no more units capable of claiming said objectives, because at that point their is no further purpose to playing the game. Warhammer 40,000 is not so important that players should feel a requirement to continue a game where they have no chance of winning.

And the example of having a single trooper refusing to run away, let me tell you, I once won a VP game by having the last survivor of a unit run and hide for two turns, thus denying my enemy his unit's VP. It's all a matter of what mission you're playing.

Anyway, real military commanders will withdraw from a battle if they feel that it would serve the overall effort better to preserve his remaining forces so they can be put to more gainful use at a later date.

It's just a game, after all.

[miteyheroes]

I played a Capture and Control game last week. I had shooty CSM force, my opponent a very close-combat BA army. I camped on my home objective; he went for annihilation (didn't even leave anyone on his home!)

It started to go bad for me very soon, I lost some key units and he got on top of me and started cutting me up bad. At that point I realised I wouldn't win, and started playing for a draw. And storywise it was at this point that it became a hugely atmospheric battle - a desperate last stand, my guys trying to survive until re-enforcements could turn up, a real Alamo or Rorke's Drift situation. In the end it was an Alamo not a Rorke's Drift, but right up until the 5th Turn it was possible that I could have got that draw.

After the battle it turned out that there had been a misunderstanding, he had 2000pts and I had 1500. Whoops! We're going to refight this week - hopefully it'll be my San Jacinto...

But last week's game was fun to play, and a bitter drawn-out atmospheric struggle. Historically a lot of battles have been unequal, one side had no real chance of 'winning'. It's fun to play those fights sometimes, people obsess about the idea of winning too much. To me playing 40k is about telling a story, it's not about the winning.

The only time I ever quit a game early was back in 2nd ed, when a Virus Outbreak strategy card killed 9/10ths of my ork army before the game even began...

[pauljc]

As someone who has suffered 25 years of below average to downright 'mathmatically impossible' bad luck with dice, I too know this pain. Even so, I try not to quit, purely so that my opponent still gets a game, and also because I still might learn something about my remaining units.

However, if there really is simply no damn point in continuing, and you're on turn two, maybe it is sometimes better to offer your hand, and ask your opponent if you can both play again. The models are already out of the boxes. You're half an hour into the game. Might as well just go again, right?
Make a deployment change, reconsider tactics, and go again.

Especially if you play Eldar. Then you can just tell your opponent that the Farseers were just testing possible future outcomes.