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So I've recently been reading around how players dislike the randomness of Maelstrom, but also dislike how straightforward Eternal War is. They hate how certain army types tend to dominate certain games, and how it feels so weird that their Warlord and psychic powers don't jive at all with the mission at hand. As such, I've decided to attempt to patch together a new 40k Mission that represents two forces planning to engage each other. But, of course, no plan will survive contact with the enemy...

This mission is suggested for games under 2000 points, and over 500 points. Over or under that, I think it'll start to break down.

Planned Assault lets you customize a battle plan for winning the game with your army, while trying to hamper your opponent's chances to win. For one, you get to choose how you're going to try and score your Victory Points, and this may be different from your opponent's choice. If you think your army can dominate quickly, the Dominate objective can lead to a fast game, but is also the most likely to be disrupted. If you just want to focus on killing and trying to disrupt your opponent at the same time, Slaughter will earn you a steady stream of Victory Points, but probably less than a concerted effort of any of the others. If your opponent's list is skewed towards an over reliance on characters or special unit types, you can punish your opponent for taking such a list with the Decimate or Assassinate objectives. Additionally, the Special Circumstances further punishes an over-reliance on certain builds. Is your opponent trying to turn-one kill you with shooting? Maybe Night Fight will be a good choice. Did they take a list of Super Heavies or other fast moving forces? Slow them to a crawl with a Fuel Shortage. Did they take a lot of Flyers? You may want to use Mysterious Objectives to try and find some Sky Fire. Additionally, all of these options are amplified if both players choose them! Suddenly that Warp Storm isn't just a first turn annoyance, it's a major calamity! Allies aren't just having a hard time working together, now it's almost impossible!

The goal of this mission is to create a dynamic game that rewards smart decisions, to encourage the use of balanced army lists in order to reduce the penalties that an opponent can inflict on you, and to allow players that just want to have a fun "line 'em up and smash" game to also do just that and gain an honest chance at winning that game if they play it well.

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Mission: Planned Assault

Roll Army Abilities:
If your force has any psychic powers, warlord traits, or other abilities that are determined at the start of the game, do so now.

Choose Deployment & Mission Objectives:
Each player secretly chooses a method of deployment (Dawn of War, Hammer & Anvil, or Vanguard Strike), a mission objective (see below), and a special circumstance (further below).

Dominate - Score 5 Victory Points at the end of each of your turns that you control every objective point.
Command & Control - Score 3 Victory Points at the end of each of your turns that you control more objectives than your opponent.
Slaughter - Score 1 Victory Point every player turn that a unit is destroyed.
Take & Hold - At the end of your turn, choose one objective you control and score 1 Victory Point for every game turn that you've controlled it, including this turn.
Decimate - Score 1 Victory Point for every enemy non-Troop unit destroyed during each player turn, and 1 Victory Point for every 3 Hull Points or Wounds taken off a Super Heavy Vehicle or Gargantuan Creature during each player turn.
Assassinate - Score 1 Victory Point for every enemy Character, and 2 Victory Points for every enemy Independent Character, destroyed during each player turn. Score a bonus 1 Victory Point if those characters were killed in a challenge involving your forces.

Deploy Objectives & Forces:
Players then roll off, with the player who rolls highest deploying first and having the first turn. Both players reveal their deployment choices, and the player who goes first chooses their deployment zone. Then the next player chooses their deployment zone (choosing the opposite side if both players selected the same deployment type). The first player then deploys the first objective, with players alternating deploying objectives. Players must place one objective in their own deployment zone, one in their opponent's, and one in neither deployment zone. Once all objectives are deployed, the player who goes first deploys their army, followed by their opponent. Forces cannot be deployed in areas where deployment zones overlap.

Special Circumstances:
After all models are deployed, but before Infiltrators, Scout moves, and Redeployments, each player reveals the special circumstances that they secretly chose earlier. If both players agree to it, you may add any number of additional special circumstances after these are revealed, and these additional special circumstances count as both players having chosen the option.

Night Attack - Your Warlord believes it is advantageous to press the attack during night. The first turn uses the Night Fight special rules. If both players chose this option, the entire game uses the Night Fight special rules.
Warp Storm - Your Warlord is attempting to time the attack while the Warp is particularly disruptive. During the first turn of the game, Psykers suffer a Perils of the Warp on any double, and those that would already suffer on any double auto-Perils instead. If both players chose this option, this is in effect all game long.
Seeds of Heresy - Your Warlord has dispersed rumours that even allies are not to be trusted. At the start of the first turn of the game, before rolling for Reserves, any unit within 6" of a model in the same force, but from a different faction, rolls a die. On a 3 or less that unit can't move, charge, and fires Snap Shots only during this turn. If both players chose this option, this is in effect all game long.
Fuel Shortage - Your Warlord is attempting to attack while your enemy's fuel reserves are low. During the first turn of the game, no unit can move more than 6" during any phase. If both players chose this option, this is in effect all game long.
High Alert - During each player's first turn, if they have a unit end the Movement Phase within 12 inches of one or more enemy units, those units may immediately shoot or charge that player's unit. If both players choose this option, this lasts all game instead.
Mysterious Objectives - All Objectives are now Mysterious Objectives. If both players chose this option, a player that discovers a Mysterious Objective may add or subtract 1 to the roll for determining what the Mysterious Objective is.

Seizing the Initiative
Whomever is going second may now roll to Seize the Initiative.

Scoring Objectives:
Players may reveal their mission objectives at any time, but must have their objectives revealed in order to score Victory Points.

Players may also score these additional objectives during the game:

First Blood - Score 1 Victory Point if an enemy unit is removed as a casualty, and no other units have yet been removed as casualties.
Slay the Warlord - Score 1 Victory Point when an opponent's Warlord is removed as a casualty.
Line Breaker - Score 1 Victory Point if you ended the game with a unit in your opponent's deployment zone.

Ending the Game:
At the end of the 5th turn, and every turn thereafter, roll a d6. On a 3+ the game continues, otherwise the game ends. The game always ends at the end of the 7th turn. The game ends if, at the end of any game turn, one player is 10 Victory Points ahead of their opponent.

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I like the look of this mission, and I'm excited to give it a try. It's more complex than most missions out there, but that's kind of the point, since it's supposed to be like a bunch of missions wrapped together - a "build your own mission" sort of mission. My main concern is that one of the primary objectives is too strong. I've tried to strike a balance between these being difficult and worth a lot of points, or easy but worth few points. In any case, it should be very difficult for a player to get 10 Victory Points ahead, but the existence of this "mercy" rule will also encourage players to take greater risks.

I also feel that none of the objectives or special circumstances provide enough of a punishment to Null Deployment strategies (aka, Drop Pod lists). The best I can think of are Slaughter and Assassinate, but neither of these are great, and these forces tend to be so one dimensional and dependent on that first turn attack that I worry that any penalty I give them (even just as a "first turn only" special circumstance) is going to be too strong against them. I had considered a first turn penalty where all terrain counts as difficult terrain, but this just feels wrong and I have no in-fluff reason to justify it (considered Tremors but that just feels dumb). Any help here would definitely be appreciated. Remember, the idea is not to completely hamstring these broken lists, but to limit what they can do for a single turn, or provide an opponent a more achievable method of defeating them in victory points.

Note, I know you may be wondering "why would both players choose Sneak Attack?" and the answer is that sometimes forces or Warlords gain a bonus to Stealing the Initiative. If you think your opponent is going to choose Sneak Attack, and they have one of these bonuses, you can counter it by using your own Sneak Attack. Since this is revealed after players have already deployed, if your opponent placed things in a manner to try and gain maximum bonus of a Sneak Attack, this choice can be particularly devastating. Sneak Attack, like Night Fight, was included as a way of incorporating the classic game elements as one of the Special Circumstances.


*EDIT: Fixed Decimate to score points during "each player turn" rather than "your turn". Also, remember that you first pick deployment zones, and then set up objective markers after that, and lastly deploy forces.
*EDIT: For anyone just looking at this, Sneak Attack has been removed, and Seizing the Initiative as a default is now back in. High Alert is the new ability, and will help you counter those Drop Pods and Genestealer Cults!

Had a game using this mission today, and wow! It was really quite good!

I had an Eldar/Harlequin mix (nothing broken, just fun stuff) against an Ultramarine list (nothing broken, just fun stuff). He took a long table edge, and I took a short table edge, allowing me to work up his flank, but he was able to counter, as I had to slow down to engage multiple times while his further units were hitting the objectives. Since his list was so balanced, and mine wasn't the fastest Eldar list around, I picked the Slaughter mission objective, and planned on just keeping him off whatever his objective was. He chose Take & Hold, which felt like a good counter to mine, since sticking at a few objectives over the course of the game would pay him big dividends. I selected Night Fight for the first turn, since he had Grav Cents in a Drop Pod, while he chose Mysterious Objectives (though he realized he should have selected Warp Storm for the first turn). I ended up winning when he conceded on Turn 5. I was at 9 Victory Points to his 8, but only because I got First Blood and Slay the Warlord, and he conceded because he couldn't see being able to grab an Objective to hold for more than 2 turns again - but he had spent most of the game gaining 2VP per turn (and got one turn at 3VP), but that was matched by my 2VP per turn because something was dying every player turn (once during his turn simply because his Rhino that was at 1VP got Immobilized while driving over a crater and destroyed).

All in all, a very fun and enjoyable game.


If you try this mission (which I VERY much suggest you do), make sure to keep your mission & Special Circumstance secret until AFTER you are deployed. We forgot that. Probably didn't matter for us, but yeah.

Looks like fun! A couple thoughts at a glance:

* Why deploy objectives after deploying forces? Personally, I always liked that players would set up objectives before knowing what their deployment zones looked like because it discouraged putting an unfair number in your own zone or stacking them all up where your gunline can easily reach them. Blind objective placement encourages you to place them near cool terrain features and to spread them out a bit across the table.

* Decimate only scoring on your own turn seems like it could kind of hurt assault armies. Shooting armies more or less control when an enemy unit dies. Assault armies can't really make that guarantee unless they exclusively have melee units that can murder anything in a single turn. And then there are armies like harlequins that really want to hide in melee when possible...

Seems like a solid way to play though!

Wyldhunt wrote:
Looks like fun! A couple thoughts at a glance:

* Why deploy objectives after deploying forces? Personally, I always liked that players would set up objectives before knowing what their deployment zones looked like because it discouraged putting an unfair number in your own zone or stacking them all up where your gunline can easily reach them. Blind objective placement encourages you to place them near cool terrain features and to spread them out a bit across the table.

* Decimate only scoring on your own turn seems like it could kind of hurt assault armies. Shooting armies more or less control when an enemy unit dies. Assault armies can't really make that guarantee unless they exclusively have melee units that can murder anything in a single turn. And then there are armies like harlequins that really want to hide in melee when possible...

Seems like a solid way to play though!

#1 - You deploy objectives before forces, but you do choose your deployment ZONES before deploying objectives. It's not written very well right now.

#2 - You're absolutely right. Decimate and Assassinate should be "during each player turn", no "your turn".

I've had 3 games of this now - and each has been great! Just had an awesome game come down to a draw; Decimate vs Slaughter. We've changed Take & Hold to 0 points on the first turn, increasing by 1 point each turn thereafter that you held it consistently. Also, came up with something better than Sneak Attack:

(Note: Seize the Initiative as a standard part of the game is back in as a result.)

High Alert - During each player's first turn, if they have a unit end the Movement Phase within 12 inches of one or more enemy units, those units may shoot or charge that player's unit. If both players choose this option, this lasts all game instead.


Haven't tried this yet, but it should be effective against 1st-turn charge opponents, Drop Pods, and other similar forces, as these forces currently have a major advantage in Planned Assault.

I have to admit I was sceptical at first, but by the end of the description I was sold. If I still played 40k I'd love to give this a try.

Eternal War and Maelstrom both have their own issues. In Eternal War you have a handful of static missions that get stale and are all scored on the last turn, making for very "canned" games and reinforcing the bias in the core rules towards gunlines. In Maelstrom you have fundamentally unfair and random objectives that break immersion and reward extreme mobility and turn to turn flexibility. It's a clumsy way of working around the gunline bias but at terrible cost, as it takes the "war" out of wargame.

It looks like you've come up with a clever way to solve some of these issues. The number of different combinations here is staggering, so a hell of a lot of play testing is warranted, but the emphasis on guessing your opponent's intentions is interesting. I'm a big fan of asymmetric missions, and asymmetric deployment zones is a very promising idea too. You also have turn by turn scoring so a last turn objective grab isnt an option for some of these. So long as the options are balanced, this will never get stale.

Balance will be the trick though. If the advantageous mission options become obvious for different builds and the counterbalance is insufficient, it becomes a game of rock, paper, scissors where you know your special rock will beat their paper.

I'd like to see more people try this and post results.