Unwinnable by Mistake/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* It is possible to win a game of Warhammer 40,000 by killing all of the enemy units that can claim objectives, making the game unwinnable for that side. Other units can still contest objectives, so a draw is still possible.

** This was built into one of the armies, the Necrons, who used to just disappear if more than 75% of their army is utterly destroyed. Note that "army" in this case means the total number of units with the "necron" rule; there were a considerable number of units without this rule. This superseded all other official mission rules.

* A hilarious one can happen if you decide to hold your entire army in reserve and there are no deployment restrictions (only possible in certain gametypes): Your opponent can deploy his entire army near-touching your board edge (infiltrators can deploy even there, without any units to keep them at bay) and your units can no longer legally come on. This is because they must legally move the entire unit onto the battlefield without getting within 1 inch of an enemy unit or breaking through their formations, which you can no longer do. This actually happened — search for "Kroot Conga Line".

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' adventure I5 ''Lost Tomb of Martek''. The three Star Gems must be placed in the altar in the Garden of the Cursed so the [[PC]]s can continue. However, the Star Gems are also needed much later in the adventure to revive Martek, but there's no way for the [[PC]]s to know this. If they assume the Star Gems have fulfilled their purpose and forget to remove them from the altar, they're in trouble. The Crystal Prism area effect that teleports the [[PC]]s to the Citadel of Martek only works once. Once they reach the Citadel, even if they use the Teleport wall in the Citadel to return to the Garden of the Cursed to get the Star Gems they can't get to the Citadel of Martek again.