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Hi,
I have a simple question: what do you prefer, Eternal War or Maelström ? And why ?
I prefer Eternal, as there is less randomness involved. In almost all my games of Maelström, one of the two players generates near impossible objectives, even with houserules (for example, when I play with a friend, we just roll again / draw another card if one of us has an impossible objective such has killing a psyker if the opponent hasn't one, but even with this houserule, there always one player who is asked to get the objectives in his deployement zone, or to keep units close to his table edge, when the other has "supremacy" T1...).
I had fun with Maelström, but I prefer Eternal: I know what I have to do, it is my strategy against my opponent, no random objective.
What about you ?

Eternal War, with Relic and Purge the Alien being my two favourites. As you essentially said, they're simpler/less random.

Plus I find them more fun since Eternal War Missions tend to allow you focus more on tactics and fun rather than objective markers.

I like maelstrom for the reason most probably don't. It's kind of luck based so no matter what your opponent ends up bringing you still have a chance to win. I won a game the other day ( by good draws) with a sub par army vs D toteing Eldar.

 IllumiNini wrote:
Eternal War, with Relic and Purge the Alien being my two favourites. As you essentially said, they're simpler/less random.

Plus I find them more fun since Eternal War Missions tend to allow you focus more on tactics and fun rather than objective markers.

Me too. Nobody needs more randomness in this game. And there are no cards for my army.

Maelstrom; I play an exceptionally mobile army.

However, I am the one person in any of the clubs I am in who prefers this type.

I like Maelstrom. It basically neuters gunline armies and forces you to be mobile to win. The random luck element is a downside, but thoughtful play can improve your luck, so there is still skill involved. As others have mentioned, it also is kind of an equalizer between powerful and weak armies. Even CSM and Blood Angels can win in Maelstrom.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I like Maelstrom. It basically neuters gunline armies and forces you to be mobile to win. The random luck element is a downside, but thoughtful play can improve your luck, so there is still skill involved. As others have mentioned, it also is kind of an equalizer between powerful and weak armies. Even CSM and Blood Angels can win in Maelstrom.

This sums up the two main reasons why Maelstrom of War missions are good, especially in the case(s) where you're not well acquainted or friends with the person or people you're playing. I would argue that Eternal War Missions are still better (and arguably preferred) among people who predominantly play with people they know well because people can come to agreements with regards to list building and play styles (i.e. what they want out of the game).

Plus in a more specific scenario that pertains to my circumstances (as I'm sure it does to many other people's circumstances): Eternal War Missions are better for when one or more of the people you're playing with are still learning or getting comfortable with the rules and/or their codex.

I like the idea of mealstorm but I really dislike the execution.
The cards are way to random in the effort you nee to put into them to achieve a point and I hate it when a player deadlocks due to having a hand of all next to impossible cards. The other MAJOR downside is that it greatly favours eldar jetbikes especially if they are objective secured.

it puzzles me that GW or the Community still hasn't produced a decent fix for them that is generally being accepted.

 oldzoggy wrote:
I like the idea of mealstorm but I really dislike the execution.
The cards are way to random in the effort you nee to put into them to achieve a point and I hate it when a player deadlocks due to having a hand of all next to impossible cards. The other MAJOR downside is that it greatly favours eldar jetbikes especially if they are objective secured.

it puzzles me that GW or the Community still hasn't produced a decent fix for them that is generally being accepted.

GW won't because it's GW, and apparently nobody cares enough about that to put in the effort to detail and propose a change. Plus whatever changes are made will inevitably produce bias. In the case of your Jetbike example, that's a problem that needs to be fixed on the Eldar side of things rather than the mission scenario side of things.

Hybrid Scenarios are by far the best way to play the game currently. Seem to be common in tournaments.

Most basic example, The Relic & Cleanse and Control. Both Missions are in effect, that's about it.

The tactical depth becomes way more intriguing.

I prefer maelstrom missions. I like the combo missions as well though.

Had a escalation league where one of the missions everyone did was straight up 3 card maelstrom, but the objectives were also worth 3 points each at the end of the game. It let mobile armies rack up points while gunline and hordes pushed forward to play the long game. Very different strategies with equal chances to win. Had a BLAST!

In a game system where there are massive differences between the strength level of each army maelstrom missions go a long way towards balancing this.

Eternal war in my experience is a system where the game can be won at list building stage but even the most uneven matchup can lead to a fun game with maelstrom.

I like a mix. keeps things intreasting

Eternal war all the way. But realistically, most of the eternal war missions aren't great, crusade is the best of them IMO.

Maelstrom is a bad joke, I want to play against an opponent, not their ability to pull cards from a deck.

Maelstrom is not very tactical. Therefore i prefer other missions like those in the HH books. They are more interesting to play then the Eternal war ones.

I like interesting scenarios. I once played the "Unwelcome Visitors" mission from one of the Harlequins issues of White Dwarf against my roommate's Shadowsun modelled as Samus. The AdMech's reactor had just blown up and she had to escape in 60 seconds. ^^

I also think Cryostorm's way underrated, and doesn't have as many unwinnable objectives as Maelstrom does. I actually made two handwritten Cryostorm objective decks. It's the best $5 download GW sells, IMO.

Of Eternal War vs. Maelstrom, though, I prefer Maelstrom. I play 40k to just throw dice with my friends and see what happens. When I want to play chess using hand-painted models, I play Warmachine.

What is cryostorm ?

 godardc wrote:
What is cryostorm ?

This is Cryostorm ^^

You're fighting over scarce supply drops, before the blizzard moves in and turns all open areas into dangerous terrain.

I feel like it makes the random objective locations make sense, since the wind's buffeting your support aircraft and the supplies could land anywhere. Also you can choose to forego scoring points for some objectives in exchange for a "munitions drop," which buffs the scoring unit.

Progressive objectives are a great mechanic but Maelstrom is so poorly thought out that it ruins what could of been a great mission system. Eternal war is ok but it generally turns into "kill everything and then worry about objectives turn 4+".

I generally play Maelstrom but like most people I use some sort of house ruling on common sense issues. As to particular missions I personally I like the mission where have as many objectives as you do turns so as the battle goes on the ability to score increases and so a bad initial draw doesn't ruin your game on turn 1. The mission where you draw objective cards based on how many objectives you hold can be interesting but the rest of them are not as great. The one where you start off with 6 and it goes down tends to be decided almost purely on your turn 1 draw.

 Vankraken wrote:
The one where you start off with 6 and it goes down tends to be decided almost purely on your turn 1 draw.

That one is horrible

Eternal war.

If I wanted random card draws and random VP allocation to decide the outcome of my game, I'd go play yahtzee instead.

*Edit* The flag changes based on location, cool!

Maelstrom. A lot of Eternal War missions just feel like "kill everyone for the first three turns, theb start capping objectives later." Maelstrom has points throughout the match, keeping things nore tactically interesting because you might have to change your plans to get another VP.

I prefer Maelstrom much more with the house me and my regular opponent use - all objectives are "cashed in" after your opponent's turn - this means that I could move up my grots to take Objective 1.
Normally, the grots would score without any hope of my opponent retaliating, but with this, my opponent gets one turn to stop them before they can cap it.

It makes games far more about tactical movement and support than just dashing to objectives.

Me and my gaming group love maelstrom missions that much we didn't even care to play a single eternal war mission yet. Only maestrom and scenario-based missions. As a result, my opponents (Tau and Necrons) don't understand, why the internet hates CSM so much when I win as many games as them . Maelstrom might be the best way to balance the game, even though, admittedly, there are games where you're just not lucky with the cards and lose consequently.

I get to play so rarely that I don't mind what the mission is. Although, if I had to choose, I would say maelstrom as you don'y know what your next objective will be and you have to try to achieve your objective(s) whilst stopping your opponent achieving theirs.

While the Eternal War missions have problems, the Maelstrom missions are so random and stilted, and so utterly opposed to any sort of narrative, that Eternal is pretty much the only thing I bother playing. Not to mention the extra record keeping and constant page referencing Maelstrom requires.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Maelstrom might be the best way to balance the game, even though, admittedly, there are games where you're just not lucky with the cards and lose consequently.

I see a rather obvious contradiction here...

 Peregrine wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Maelstrom might be the best way to balance the game, even though, admittedly, there are games where you're just not lucky with the cards and lose consequently.

I see a rather obvious contradiction here...

Yeah, the contradiction is that people ,who play a game where everything is determined by the roll of a dice , don't want a random chance card mechanic.
I Personaly prefer maelstrom. I play orks, I often fight opponents who would wipe me in eternal war. With a lucky draw of maelstrom cards I can win a game if I focus my list on speed. Often it seems those who have gunline armies ot just a better codex complain the most about maelstrom, they hate that they have to leave their adl or vsg and trudge up the battlefield, while my troop bikes grab objectives.
"The one thing about chaos...is its fair "

So Maelstrom is much better when you allow people to build from a deck. Just tell them to pick 15 cards to draw from so you do not have "junk" cards.

I feel like Maelstrom favors fast armies with more targets, and Eternal War highly favors static armies. Personally, I think hybrid formats are the most balanced. (Although Maelstrom is going to help my armies more.)