So the rumour thread moves too fast for so I've decided to post this here.

The cards are sounding pretty bad so far.

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Before I start, a brief review of 6th ed missions from my perspective. (feel free to skip, but it may give you some context as to what I feel worked and didn't in 6th in terms of missions)

The Relic - stupid, it gave a massive advantage to tau and eldar who got extra movement they likely did not intend on them getting. It often served to highlight the issue of tables without adequate terrain and the issues with first blood. I never enjoyed it and it made using a center los blocking piece of a terrain a nightmare to balance game wise.

Emperor's Will - stupid, it suffered for similar reasons to relic. First blood was huge like with relic and in all honesety the mission either ended in a tie most of the time or a very small margin victory (first blood). It encouraged gunline and sitting on your butt and did not make for a good scenario in my experience.

The Scouring - Stupid, I've played it twice and both times the division in objectives decided the game before it even started. The LVO managed to fix it by ensuring both sides had the same levels of objectives and dictated where certain objectives went. I think we all liked fast scoring in this, but it's the possibility for terrible unfair division in objective value that ruins it. If it was just like big guns except fast instead of heavy it'd be fine.

Big Guns Never Tire - Ok, it's basically crusade but heavy scores. I can dig it.

Purge the Alien - Terrible, likely the worst mission. Kill point missions are a drag, I've never enjoyed them. For starters, there's the obvious imbalance in rewarding armies with smaller unit counts. Flying circus's and fmc spam lists and knights (puke) don't need a reward for not playing the game. Even in matchups with fairly similar sized forces in terms of unit count, it's still not engaging, often both sides in my experience just play conservatively and never really take risks. Boring,

Crusade - Good, it's pretty much baseline 40k mission. If done right it with ample los blocking terrain it incentivizes armies to move and not just gunline and with higher objectives and decent spread it can really help spread both armies out across the whole board and make for smaller clashes that are more engaging. It still has issues, like all the missions. It's main problem has been the introduction of fortifications, which nessesitated both opponents knowing what side of the board will belong to them. Which leads to cynical objective placement (think both players just tossing their objectives 6 inches from their board edge). In 5th, neither side knew where they would start and that worked a lot better. Fortifications really messed things up.




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http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/05/objective-secured-sample-40k-objectives.html (I've fixed bols screw up)

SECURE OBJECTIVE 3:
Score 1 Victory Point is you control Objective Marker 3 at the end of your turn.

SUPREMACY:
Score D3 Victory Points if you control at least two Objective Markers and at least twice as many Objective Markers as your opponent controls at the end of your turn.

HUNGRY FOR GLORY:
Score 1 Victory Point if you issued a challenge during your turn. If you issued 3 or more challenges during your turn, score D3 Victory Points instead.

OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER:
Score 1 Victory Point if an enemy unit was completely destroyed during the Shooting Phase of your turn. If you completely destroyed 3 or more enemy units during the Shooting phase of your turn score D3 Victory Points instead.


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The gist of how it works: "Apparently you draw a set of these pre-game, and trade them in for new ones once completed, or can discard one and re-draw once per turn, if you don't like your current hand." . Like all rumours, going with what we know, it seems we may have to number our objectives for the cards to work, no big deal there, grab a sharpie. So the first card gives you a vp for holding a specific objective at the end of your turn, that in and of itself isn't bad. However, if objective 3 isn't tied to a specific location on the board and is just the 3rd objective that was placed, what if it's one of the objectives in your zone, great you just got a free vp for picking up a card. Yeah.. to me this is a bit like why a lot of us have our issues with first blood, it often seems rewarded simply to whoever goes first.

Supremecy is also arbitrary. You possibly just rewarded the guy sitting on his butt while the other player is going on the attack. We already don't find gunline terribly fun and now the guy sitting in his deployment holding his 2 objectives to your none just got a vp lead that you may not be able to beat. Awesome. Or if you've got two and he's got one, you still have twice as many. 3 objective missions can but tough enough without rewarding the guy who was already rewarded with 2 objectives to your 1 from t he get go. At least its possible that scenario I described doesn’t occur and the only upside is at least it has some interaction with the mission/scenario at hand, which is more than I can say for the other cards we’ve been shown.

Hungry for glory seems more about adding legitimacy to terrible mechanic than anything else. Close combat is less common than shooting during the course of a game. You don't really need to incentivize cc oriented units to assault. At the same time there are plenty of situation where a challenge may be a no brainer (think guard sgt. vs daemon prince). Challenges are terrible and I really don't understand giving vp's for them, it's the same issue as kill points, you're not taking anything into account, killing 1 model can be the same as killing a 30 man unit which is apparently the same as a guard sgt, doing the most obvious thing when charged by an fmc character.

Overwhelming firepower, or basically kill points popping up randomly. Kill points are pretty terrible, and here you are thinking that now you've rolled crusade you won't have to deal with them other than secondary’s. At least with the secondary’s there's some context. I would think killing the enemy leader to be a valuable accomplishment. I don't know why first blood is important but we'll leave it there. I actually wished line breaker stacked, might reward aggressive play. This however is just more and it's random, it's not even tied to a type of unit so congrats for picking up this card.


The cards for me are a non-starter for organized play (tournaments). I've never felt particularly good having won a game because of first blood, I would have rather tied it. With that said, there have been some games where my opponent having gone first failed to get first blood,

In any case, I value being able to know where the score is turn by turn, I would rather win based on my decisions and actions, tactics, strategy. Random providence will always be a factor, we play with dice. Knowing the averages is still very important. Luck has won and lost me games, however it was always combined with some level of sound judgment, some involvement on the players part. If lucking out on getting cards just wins me the game, it doesn't seem enjoyable to me. Fun is subjective; this doesn't sound fun to me.

Crusade is my favorite mission and I would argue is the baseline 40k mission, the one that plays the best and makes the most sense. What I really like about it is both players know the score throughout the game, they can read each other’s actions and gauge what they’re doing or are about to do.

Some of the cards you might really have to work for it, you’ll likely discard those, others, you may literally have been given free vp’s because… narrative. The whole thing is the opposite of organic or player driven, it’s arbitrary as hell. The better you’re doing, the more cards you pickup which just pulls further and further away from the scenario you’re supposed to be playing.

Think of the stupidity even in a narrative game. Say there’s 3 bridges, each one with an objective marker but over the course of the game, more vps have been handed out for random stuff like declaring challenges. “we haven’t secured the bridges yet sir but our southern colonel’s honour remains solid”. Or kill points out the butt. Based on what we’ve been told, you’re not drawing 3 cards for the game, you’re drawing them every turn if you've made use of ones you held previously, that seems like way too much. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to make use of a card the turn you draw it, but there is also a chance it’s auto rewarded the second you draw it (you’re on the objective in question, it’s your turn so you get to challenge ect).


There may be some potential for home brew scenarios that utilize the cards differently. As it stands now based on what we’ve been told, it doesn’t sound good.

From the sounds of it you can draw new cards every turn regardless of whether you used the cards you had. So from a 5-7 turn game you could both be whipping through like 15-21 cards each… scenario? What scenario? Yeah…

I'm liable to ignore cards altogether, assuming I actually play 7th.

Unless the scenario awards you with silly numbers of VP's, the cards will be all that matter. And they fit into GW's idea that random=balance and random=fun.

Yeah, the cards sound pretty terrible. I don't plan on playing with them, and would be surprised if most people did anyway, since they're probably going to be an extra purchase. Yay for money-grubbing...

It gets worse. The WD article suggests that some of the cards are things like "cast a psychic power". I'm going to love getting that one when I'm playing an army that doesn't have any psykers at all.

As with all rumors/leaks thus far, I will reserve final judgement pending the release of the full rules.

However, I will say that I do like the idea of the random objectives these cards represent. I prefer asymmetrical missions, where my goal is not the same as my opponent's goal (and where I might not even know what their goal is). Nearly every game of 40K is really just a zoomed in view of a small part of a massively epic-sized (pun intended) battle. Marneus Calgar isn't going to just show up at the front just to advance the battlelines, he's at that particular place in time for something more important than to just plant a flag on a hill (and, if so, it better be the most important hill on the whole planet). I feel that's what the cards are trying to represent: that extra importance that this particular battle is representing, as well as the changing tides of war as your those overseeing the battle from far away are giving new orders as the situations change.

Of course, like with most things from GW these days, it looks like the usual "good idea, bad implentation."

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Yeah, the cards sound pretty terrible. I don't plan on playing with them, and would be surprised if most people did anyway, since they're probably going to be an extra purchase. Yay for money-grubbing...

From another rulebook page pic, it looks like the cards may not actually be necessary. You can alternatively roll on a D66 chart.

Random VP is a HUGE no-no-no. If an enemy can get more points by sitting on an objective compared to someone who cleverly outmaneuvers his opponent to snatch an objective with a risky maneuver, that's completely trash game design.

Also, what Peregrine said. What's up with armies that can't use Psykers? Tau? Necrons? Lose 1+ VP by default?

Balance through random rolling!

Might as well roll at the start of the game on a D6 to see how many VPs you start with.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Random VP is a HUGE no-no-no. If an enemy can get more points by sitting on an objective compared to someone who cleverly outmaneuvers his opponent to snatch an objective with a risky maneuver, that's completely trash game design.

Also, what Peregrine said. What's up with armies that can't use Psykers? Tau? Necrons? Lose 1+ VP by default?

GW: "Tau and Necrons have been getting lots of sales recently, due to being very powerful armies. So we no longer need to keep them at the top. It's time to make our followers buy everything else."


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 Blacksails wrote:
Balance through random rolling!

Might as well roll at the start of the game on a D6 to see how many VPs you start with.

+1

I've played other games with these sorts of randomized requirements. The thing is, they're usually short games, where that sort of thing is okay, and if you get hosed on what you pull, you didn't waste 2-3 hours.

I find non-identical requirements great. It's GW's execution of what constitutes an objective I worry about. "Declare a challenge" - yeah, that's going over well for IG or Tau. "Score d3..." with no correlation between the difficulty in achieving the objectives and how much you're rewarded for doing so.

Someone will certainly say that a good army is one designed to be able to accomplish any of these objectives. But does that naturally mean that Tau aren't a good army, because they cannot realistically challenge or cast psychic powers? Seems like flawed logic there.

I'm sure this is all well and good for people who enjoy pushing models about a table for a few hours while drinking beer and rolling a die at the end to see who wins. But some people actually want player action to be the primary determinant of victory, not a deck of cards or a die.

 Redbeard wrote:
I've played other games with these sorts of randomized requirements. The thing is, they're usually short games, where that sort of thing is okay, and if you get hosed on what you pull, you didn't waste 2-3 hours.

Risk

Probably not all that torney friendly but I see no issue with it during games with friends, im interested to try it out. I don't see it as total bankruptcy like what's being over stated here, pretty cringe worthy considering you've got a list containing only 4 of the cards. Lets wait for more info before we throw all the toys out the pram huh.

Sure the tau cant cast psychic powers but they would only have that card for 1 turn out of 5.

kingleir wrote:
Sure the tau cant cast psychic powers but they would only have that card for 1 turn out of 5.

But then you're using up your one discard and replace on getting rid of a card that you literally can not use, while your opponent gets to spend it on hopefully upgrading a weaker card. Having dead cards like that is a huge problem.

So every objective card should be able to be used by every army? Those would be some pretty bland cards, especially to account for the fact that almost everything will be a legal.

The objectives should be based around the game rules and not the army rules. You want a chance to get that psychic card, bring an ally, or build your army to maximise other cards.

My opinion on the card idea and mission objectives in general.



Objectives naturally come in games without needing a prompt. You say, "Huh, if I have control of that hill it would be a lot easier to rain death on those marines. I'd better take it." or "If I get on top of that building I'll be able to flank my opponent". I don't need the piking game to artificially tell me that I need to seize an objective, kill a commander, or something else. I can figure it all out on my own- just let me wreck bloody havoc on my opponents army, stop trying to hold me back.

Plenty of heroic duels, brave defenses, objective-taking, varied tactics, and the like can be found in the most basic 'kill-the-enemy' mission. In fact, more basic missions tend to have a better narrative because you have more control and more opportunity to do what you like and really get into your army.

I find it silly that you're rewarded merely for the challenge, not even winning it, how stupid is that?

 Crablezworth wrote:
I find it silly that you're rewarded merely for the challenge, not even winning it, how stupid is that?

Are you even trying to Forge a Narrative?

lol do you even narrative bro?

As said before, perhaps not a bad idea but a poor implementation. However, is this such a surprise? With GW cleaving to random elements for the sake of them being random, why not random objectives as well? It further levels the playing field between skilled players and fortunate ones.

Maybe on turn (random) whomever rolls a (random) wins (random) and is victorious!

 amanita wrote:
It further levels the playing field between skilled players and fortunate ones.

It really doesn't.

Well... Nothing I'm hearing is convincing me that I should give 40k another try but this little snippet of information is actively pushing me away.


Good one GW...

 Crablezworth wrote:

 amanita wrote:
It further levels the playing field between skilled players and fortunate ones.

It really doesn't.

In a way it does...now neither player will enjoy the game!

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
As with all rumors/leaks thus far, I will reserve final judgement pending the release of the full rules.

However, I will say that I do like the idea of the random objectives these cards represent. I prefer asymmetrical missions, where my goal is not the same as my opponent's goal (and where I might not even know what their goal is). Nearly every game of 40K is really just a zoomed in view of a small part of a massively epic-sized (pun intended) battle. Marneus Calgar isn't going to just show up at the front just to advance the battlelines, he's at that particular place in time for something more important than to just plant a flag on a hill (and, if so, it better be the most important hill on the whole planet). I feel that's what the cards are trying to represent: that extra importance that this particular battle is representing, as well as the changing tides of war as your those overseeing the battle from far away are giving new orders as the situations change.

Of course, like with most things from GW these days, it looks like the usual "good idea, bad implentation."

Oh yeah, it's a cool idea. But really poor implementation by arbitrarily handing out VPs for doing the most random crap. It'd be cool if they were unique secondary objectives that rewarded strategic play, but from the sounds of things these are pretty lame.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Well... Nothing I'm hearing is convincing me that I should give 40k another try but this little snippet of information is actively pushing me away.


Good one GW...

40k is fine, as long as you and your opponent can figuer out what it is, together, without different interpretations and prefferences before every game.


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 amanita wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 amanita wrote:
It further levels the playing field between skilled players and fortunate ones.

It really doesn't.

In a way it does...now neither player will enjoy the game!

lol exalted!

You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

 Crablezworth wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Well... Nothing I'm hearing is convincing me that I should give 40k another try but this little snippet of information is actively pushing me away.


Good one GW...

40k is fine, as long as you and your opponent can figuer out what it is, together, without different interpretations and prefferences before every game.

Yeah, but the people in my local area and I disagree about that and there are plenty of better games that don't require that to function which are much more enjoyable imo. I love the fluff but am no longer interested in trudging through the sub par game mechanics of 40k.

I'm liking the declare a challenge one. I just won all my games for the year with it!

1.Bring Krieg Assault Brigade.
2.Charge everything in range.
3.Declare challenges with all Watchmasters available don't bother wining them.
4.Recycle platoons
5. ???
6. Profit!

M.

I think I'll be a big fan of the cards.

If you don't like d3 VP, house rule it to be always 2.

Not every card should 100% apply to every army. That's part of the game. The tides of battle are supposed to be constantly changing, these are supposed to represent that.

NamelessBard wrote:
I think I'll be a big fan of the cards.

If you don't like d3 VP, house rule it to be always 2.

Not every card should 100% apply to every army. That's part of the game. The tides of battle are supposed to be constantly changing, these are supposed to represent that.

I will play a few games with the discard mechanic and see if that takes care of the draw for players without psykers etc.. but if it doesn't wed just rule that you draw another card or just remove the psyker cards from the deck before you play (If your Tau for instance).

It would be interesting to play with like a deck of 7 cards (pokerhammer haha) for the game without the draw and see what that is like also.

bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Have they said whether they remain unaltered? Seems odd to have missions like Big Guns and The Scouring if everything is a scoring unit now.

 Eldarain wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Have they said whether they remain unaltered? Seems odd to have missions like Big Guns and The Scouring if everything is a scoring unit now.

Sortof, they've mentioned 6 additional new missions. My gut tells me they must have at leaest altered some aspect or at least clarified things.


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bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Sure, if the cards are optional it's good for everyone, except the whole having to agree either way thing.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Have they said whether they remain unaltered? Seems odd to have missions like Big Guns and The Scouring if everything is a scoring unit now.

Sortof, they've mentioned 6 additional new missions. My gut tells me they must have at leaest altered some aspect or at least clarified things.

The old missions are in the leaked image above the new ones that have these cards.

Id assume that those missions were altered, in saying that the "everything scores" is yet to be confirmed? could be that those unit's get the new "objective secured" rule in scouring/big guns if they score.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Well... Nothing I'm hearing is convincing me that I should give 40k another try but this little snippet of information is actively pushing me away.


Good one GW...

40k is fine, as long as you and your opponent can figuer out what it is, together, without different interpretations and prefferences before every game.

Yeah, but the people in my local area and I disagree about that

Me too :(

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Have they said whether they remain unaltered? Seems odd to have missions like Big Guns and The Scouring if everything is a scoring unit now.

Sortof, they've mentioned 6 additional new missions. My gut tells me they must have at leaest altered some aspect or at least clarified things.


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bodazoka wrote:
You could always just play the standard missions they still have (and kept for people specifically like the OP) in the rule book?

Sure, if the cards are optional it's good for everyone, except the whole having to agree either way thing.

In my group we generally reach a consensus on these things pretty quickly. For instance within a month (or less) we always re-rolled the Relic mission. If these cards are terrible it wont be too long before we go back to the old missions which as stated are still there to be played. On a side note didn't tournaments all play there own styles of missions also anyway?

NamelessBard wrote:
I think I'll be a big fan of the cards.

If you don't like d3 VP, house rule it to be always 2.

Not every card should 100% apply to every army. That's part of the game. The tides of battle are supposed to be constantly changing, these are supposed to represent that.

I would think the cards should incentivize players to achieve tasks by offering a reward for the succesful completion of said task, likely with some strings attached. The problem is without any context or sense of scale the cards don't do that and it's basically random luck rewarding x victory points. It's basically drunk judges holding up random victory point signs to reward, well, whatever the drink tells them they want to see at that time. If you pick up a card and immediately receive a vp it's added exactly nothing to the game.


The cards are only part of the problem, the other part is how they're being implemented. I can still see some value in the deck, however you'd have to completely change how it currently works.


I don't think anything will make me like handing out victory points for doing something the rules may actually be forcing you to do (challenge). The fact that it doesn't even matter if you win the challange is beyond me.

As a 'forge the narrative' player, I feel the need to point out...

When GW introduced Warlord Traits, Psyker cards and the new 6th ed codexes...everyone got new cards, power, traits, etc.

I'm placing $20 USD on GW releasing Codex/Army/Faction-specific "Objective Cards", ala the missions in their Battle Missions book.

--B.

Pretty sure you have to win the challenge before receiving the VP's.

Also pretty sure that you don't just get the VP, first you have to be on the specific objective (they are numbered, it might be on your opponents table edge) then you have to remain there until the end of your turn. They are also only worth 1 point each.

The roll for a D3 is only when you achieve multiples of that objective which seem fairly impossible to do and so IMO wont happen often.



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 Briancj wrote:
As a 'forge the narrative' player, I feel the need to point out...

When GW introduced Warlord Traits, Psyker cards and the new 6th ed codexes...everyone got new cards, power, traits, etc.

I'm placing $20 USD on GW releasing Codex/Army/Faction-specific "Objective Cards", ala the missions in their Battle Missions book.

--B.

That would be awesome!

bodazoka wrote:
Pretty sure you have to win the challenge before receiving the VP's.

Reality is tough I know it better than most.





Did you issue a challenge in your turn>? You did? Here, have a victory point.

The line between "being positive" and ignorance is thin.




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bodazoka wrote:
The roll for a D3 is only when you achieve multiples of that objective which seem fairly impossible to do and so IMO wont happen often.

Which would mean less incentive for doing more than the bare minimum... that's not cynical at all...

The bare minimum in some cases is just picking up the card. I hear monopoly is pretty sweet.

 Briancj wrote:
As a 'forge the narrative' player

What does this honestly even mean?

We played with a version of objective cards long before this came up, although our in-house version was a little different. (You drew just a single card for your primary objective, worth 3 points, and another for your secondary, worth 2.) The cards were pretty similar to the ones that I've seen so far. By and large, MOST people who gave it a shot loved it. We had one or two naysayers, but I'm tentatively optimistic about this change.

Ahh well.. issuing a challenge card is pretty dumb! lol at least chaos players have some sort of relief! haha

I still think the D3 thing wont happen in most games. I like the "If you wipe out 3 or more enemy units" card. Generally if you do that in a turn it means you win lol.

I compare these cards to the games I have had in 6th (with my Necrons). From a non selfish perspective I like that I have to do more than get first blood and then hide all game before late game contesting with my un kill-able troops in flyers. This will at least make me have to play the game, which is a better alternative.

I do agree with some of the cards likely being silly though, there is what 32 of them however?

My issue stems from the following approach to game design:

1) Write a codex that details how to create a legal, viable army in the game.

2) Write game rules with victory conditions that cannot be achieved by the armies in those codexes.


I've been sold a product (my codex) that says I can play this game with this army. Let's say, Imperial Knights. Oh, but I have no psykers, and I cannot declare challenges...

This just seems like a really sloppy approach to game design, not that any of us should be surprised by that.

@Redbeard, what are you complaining about? I have it on good authority that GW playtested the new objective cards with both kind of army: Ultramarines AND Imperial Fists.

 Mysterious Pants wrote:
My opinion on the card idea and mission objectives in general.



Objectives naturally come in games without needing a prompt. You say, "Huh, if I have control of that hill it would be a lot easier to rain death on those marines. I'd better take it." or "If I get on top of that building I'll be able to flank my opponent". I don't need the piking game to artificially tell me that I need to seize an objective, kill a commander, or something else. I can figure it all out on my own- just let me wreck bloody havoc on my opponents army, stop trying to hold me back.

Plenty of heroic duels, brave defenses, objective-taking, varied tactics, and the like can be found in the most basic 'kill-the-enemy' mission. In fact, more basic missions tend to have a better narrative because you have more control and more opportunity to do what you like and really get into your army.

Agreed! Ideally there should be no objectives at all. The rules of the game should reward you for doing things that put you at an advantage. For example, controlling high ground should give you more of an advantage then just better LoS. These advantages would make it more likely that you can kill more enemy units/keep your units alive. Your opponent would have to actively take these locations from you to gain/deny those advantages. Of course this ideal is probably not attainable, but I think we should be able to avoid stuff like 'Cast a psychic power'.

Don't like the cards being the objectives?

Then don't play the "Maelstrom of War" missions as per White Dwarf they are the ones that have the cards. Otherwise you have set objectives.

I keep getting shocked how people can get so much hate over OPTIONAL rules, for a totally new set of missions they know nothing about, with rules they never even seen.

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I keep getting shocked how people can get so much hate over OPTIONAL rules, for a totally new set of missions they know nothing about, with rules they never even seen.

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

Are you claiming you know the intention of the game designers? Because, the only logical assumption is that if an army can be fielded on its own with explicit instructions on how, then it must be assumed that it was intended to do so, in addition to being an allied detachment.

So no, its not "clearly intended to be used as allies", as it appears to be quite clearly intended to be used as its own army.

Therefore, it follows that either that army and/or the optional rules in the form of mission cards are poorly designed, hence why some people are shaking their head.

 BoomWolf wrote:

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

An army of Knights or similarly weird armies like...Tau..or Necrons.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Don't like the cards being the objectives?

Then don't play the "Maelstrom of War" missions as per White Dwarf they are the ones that have the cards. Otherwise you have set objectives.

People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

Davor wrote:


People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

Almost as though people can discuss new game mechanics that are poorly thought out without 'whining' and 'crying'.

 Blacksails wrote:

Davor wrote:


People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

Almost as though people can discuss new game mechanics that are poorly thought out without 'whining' and 'crying'.

Except how many people actually have read how the "new game mechanics" will work?

Why bother discussing it when you have no frame of reference?

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

An army of Knights or similarly weird armies like...Tau..or Necrons.

Tau = Powerful army that is no good for challenging, and has no psykers
Necron = Powerful army that is only somewhat good for challenging, also has no psykers.

CSM = Utterly terrible army that is all about the challenging and psychic powers.

Maybe it's a "balance" thing?

Davor wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Don't like the cards being the objectives?

Then don't play the "Maelstrom of War" missions as per White Dwarf they are the ones that have the cards. Otherwise you have set objectives.

People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

How do people complaining about people complaning about plastic toy soldiers keep up with themselves?

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I keep getting shocked how people can get so much hate over OPTIONAL rules, for a totally new set of missions they know nothing about, with rules they never even seen.

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

Are you claiming you know the intention of the game designers? Because, the only logical assumption is that if an army can be fielded on its own with explicit instructions on how, then it must be assumed that it was intended to do so, in addition to being an allied detachment.

No, but I assume that when you got 1 unit type (and honestly its one unit type with an optional gun upgrade), who is very much not divisible in many points levels due to high PPM cost so that it only really works right on its own in given "skips", and can only do one thing (as you got just one unit) that it is NOT a stand-alone army, but an extension that is allowed to stand-alone for the few who REALLY wants to.

At least not in any remotely sane level of game design, and I make the bold assumption GW are at least TRYING to make sense, even if they often fail to do so.

Everything about knights screams "ally me", not "play me". they lack MOST army interactions, just like any other mini-codex, unlike big codecies who are "army X" or supplements who are "alternate army X"

 BoomWolf wrote:


No, but I assume that when you got 1 unit type (and honestly its one unit type with an optional gun upgrade), who is very much not divisible in many points levels due to high PPM cost so that it only really works right on its own in given "skips", and can only do one thing (as you got just one unit) that it is NOT a stand-alone army, but an extension that is allowed to stand-alone for the few who REALLY wants to.

At least not in any remotely sane level of game design, and I make the bold assumption GW are at least TRYING to make sense, even if they often fail to do so.

Everything about knights screams "ally me", not "play me". they lack MOST army interactions, just like any other mini-codex, unlike big codecies who are "army X" or supplements who are "alternate army X"

Then why can they be fielded as a standalone force? Why do they have that ability if they weren't intended to be used in such a manner?

Regardless of the GW's inability to write coherent rules, the fact is that Knights are their own legal army. Its completely ridiculous, agreed, but that doesn't mean it wasn't intended purely as allies, otherwise their rules would have only let them be taken as allies. Like it or not, they can be fielded solo, as a primary detachment. Its irrelevant claiming they're not because you feel they're not, but the simple truth is that they are.

In the context of the mission cards, its even more poorly thought out, seeing as they can't participate in challenges or psychic powers.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Davor wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Don't like the cards being the objectives?

Then don't play the "Maelstrom of War" missions as per White Dwarf they are the ones that have the cards. Otherwise you have set objectives.

People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

How do people complaining about people complaning about plastic toy soldiers keep up with themselves?

Could only take so much of grown men complaining/whining about rules they have no idea how they are going to work. Usually I don't make a comment, but the internet broke me and I had to make jab.

I've been gaming for 25 years. D&D 2nd, 3rd, 3.5 4th editions. Cyberpunk, Cthulu & VtM. For wargames DeBellis, Fire & Fury & of course Warhammer since 1990. Not as much as some, but more than most. There's been more but nothing worth mentioning.

Let me say that in all those years of gaming I've learned that cards SUCK. The randomness sucks. Its not strategy, its just GoFish mixed in for extra points. Any game where random card draw is a big factor I've learned to stay away from. This new card system is gonna blow goats.

There's nothing wrong with cards, in theory. They have the potential to add more strategy than dice do (because once you have cards, it's easier to build in strategic choice to the randomness, with hands and discards, and because you add the potential for at least limited card-counting if you want). It's just this implementation that could be problematic.

Davor wrote:
People just love to cry and whine about anything. I wonder how these people can look in the mirror and be proud they complain about plastic toy soldiers.

Games are a form of entertainment, just like movies, or TV, or music. All of the later have changed from being considered merely entertainment, to being considered artforms, and gaming is heading the same direction; the Museum of Modern Art has started a collection of relevant video games (http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/).

The point of criticism is to further the art. Game design in a vacuum does little, and feedback is required for progression. If you cannot comprehend the difference between valid critiques of a game system and "whining", perhaps you should distance yourself from the subject matter, as you're obviously too wrapped up in it. Save your claims of whining for those who merely type "this sucks". They're of roughly equal intelligence.

I'm looking forwards to giving the cards a try.

I thought people wanted options to score during the turns and not at just the end of the game. Wouldn't these cards give what people wanted? If you don't like the cards, then say each objective you are on, you get one point per turn. This way there is no random factor, or pic the cards you think are good and just use them for Everyone to use at the beginning of the game.

More options are good. Don't like them don't use them just like how people said 1999+1 for a 2000 point game to no use 2 FOC. I am sure GW will say change what you don't like, add what you would like and just have fun.

Davor wrote:
I thought people wanted options to score during the turns and not at just the end of the game. Wouldn't these cards give what people wanted?

Yes, but does that necessarily mean that this implementation of a way to do that is ideal, or fair, or balanced? Just because a poorly thought out solution is offered to a recognized problem doesn't mean that everything is great and we should offer praise.

...I am sure GW will say change what you don't like, add what you would like and just have fun.

That's part of the problem. It has been shown in creativity studies that reducing options actually increases creativity, and there's a fairly simple exercise that shows it. If I ask you to tell me a story, that's pretty open-ended, and most people have a hard time knowing where to start. If I ask you to tell me a story about an accident that happened on the way back from the grocery store, I've reduced the options you have available, but it's much much easier to come up with a story.

So, GW's "well, do whatever you want and have fun" - why are we paying them to write rules? If it's going to come down to doing what we want anyway, why not just stand up the models and shoot rubber-bands at them until they fall over? Clearly, "whatever we want" isn't the answer. What we want is a cohesive ruleset.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Briancj wrote:
As a 'forge the narrative' player

What does this honestly even mean?

I honestly don't know, anymore.

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


No, but I assume that when you got 1 unit type (and honestly its one unit type with an optional gun upgrade), who is very much not divisible in many points levels due to high PPM cost so that it only really works right on its own in given "skips", and can only do one thing (as you got just one unit) that it is NOT a stand-alone army, but an extension that is allowed to stand-alone for the few who REALLY wants to.

At least not in any remotely sane level of game design, and I make the bold assumption GW are at least TRYING to make sense, even if they often fail to do so.

Everything about knights screams "ally me", not "play me". they lack MOST army interactions, just like any other mini-codex, unlike big codecies who are "army X" or supplements who are "alternate army X"

Then why can they be fielded as a standalone force? Why do they have that ability if they weren't intended to be used in such a manner?

Regardless of the GW's inability to write coherent rules, the fact is that Knights are their own legal army. Its completely ridiculous, agreed, but that doesn't mean it wasn't intended purely as allies, otherwise their rules would have only let them be taken as allies. Like it or not, they can be fielded solo, as a primary detachment. Its irrelevant claiming they're not because you feel they're not, but the simple truth is that they are.

In the context of the mission cards, its even more poorly thought out, seeing as they can't participate in challenges or psychic powers.

They CAN be taken as a stand alone force, he's saying it's pretty clear to most people that they SHOULDN'T. Knights are cool and all, but deploying all of a single unit type is going to leave you with holes in your force. an inability to adapt. Knights are best run with allies. as eaither a primary detachment backed by allies, or as an allied force itself.

for example, Here's how I'd run a Knight primary detachment and allies. 3 Knights (of whatever mix you so choose there's only a 15 point differance over all which can be made up with wargear elsewhere. I'll assume Knight Paladins for ease of math) 1125 points.
1 SM Librarian with ML 2, Terminator Armor and a Storm sheild.
2 10 Man Tatical Squads with Rhinos
1 Hunter anti-Air Tank
1 Storm Talon Gunship

for a 1770 point list

As allied forces go it's pretty solid. the Librarian is gonna be your psyker, but he can also, should you need it, handle challanges. the tatical squads are solid all around and can combat squad to spread out and give you a little infantry support everywhere. the Hunter'll keep you safe from his fliers, and the storm talon can provide a light, flier effective in breaking open light vehicles, killing enemy fliers or slaughtering infantry. obviously your knights are gonna be your armor crackers.

this list is far from perfect. and I'm sure people could suggest way better builds. but that's just an example of how you could feild a knight detachment as your primary detachment while having allies on board that'd allow you to adapt to the changing conditions of the battlefield

Why does it matter that they shouldn't, when they clearly can be?

You can argue till your blue in the face, but Knights are their own legal army and have clearly been intended to function that way due to the abundantly clear rules permitting and explaining how to do so.

Your thoughts and opinions on whether or not its a good idea is completely irrelevant.

Exactly Blacksails.


To add to the thought - if the goal of the new game system is to require all armies to take allies in order to be able to achieve the basic game objectives, why even have individual armies. Why not just have a master list of units and you can take whatever you want?

Or perhaps what Unbound means...

 Redbeard wrote:
Exactly Blacksails.


To add to the thought - if the goal of the new game system is to require all armies to take allies in order to be able to achieve the basic game objectives, why even have individual armies. Why not just have a master list of units and you can take whatever you want?

Or perhaps what Unbound means...

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

I remember a time when people played, you know, one army. Hell, the army you played even at times defined you.

The knight model is cool, I'm sure it's fine in apocalypse, I guess I just lament that we now call apocalypse 40k.

BrianDavion wrote:

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

If you're required to have a psyker on the table in order to achieve certain missions, then Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and maybe Sisters now need allies as well. If challenges become a fundamental objective in the game, then non-combat armies like Tau and Guard will now require allies. And this is based on seeing four of sixty cards?

I guess we'll see how the rest are implemented. Still, I feel that the addition of basic game objectives that cannot be accomplished by some of the armies in the game is a sign of poor game design.

 Redbeard wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

If you're required to have a psyker on the table in order to achieve certain missions, then Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and maybe Sisters now need allies as well. If challenges become a fundamental objective in the game, then non-combat armies like Tau and Guard will now require allies. And this is based on seeing four of sixty cards?

I guess we'll see how the rest are implemented. Still, I feel that the addition of basic game objectives that cannot be accomplished by some of the armies in the game is a sign of poor game design.

"To achieve certain missions" that will only show up when playing the missions from "Maelstrom of War"...plus, you can actually opt to discard the cards that you think that you might not be able to complete.

And it's 36 cards in the pack apparently.

Honestly I think the major failing of the cards will be that they are generic, much like the major failing of the warlord traits was. If they do something like what they did in sixth with the new armies in giving them their own table to roll it could work better, no cast a psychic spell for the factions without psychers, but of course then suddenly the armies that get the easier to score cards would suddenly be dominate even if they are not viewed as the most powerful.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Anyone else notice the "TYPE" at the bottom of these? Whats the source for this pic? Perhaps you can choose which "TYPE" of objective card deck you are drawing from to match your army. I think that would make "dead cards" much less common and everything a bit more fair.

 kronk wrote:
I'm looking forwards to giving the cards a try.

Me too however if the randomness doesnt work out. There are still several ways to play with objective cards.

You can preselect mission cards for the table. The requirements on those cards can persist the entire game.
You can preselect mission cards for the table. You discard those cards once either player meets those conditions.
You can preselect the same mission cards for each player. Each player discards those cards once they meet the condition.
All of the above options remove the randomness of objective cards and allows for more victory point conditions during a game.

You can randomly select 6 mission cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Do not show the other player your mission. You discard the mission card once the condition is met.
You can randomly select 6 mission cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Each player can see your mission. You discard the mission card once the condition is met.
You can randomly select 6 mission cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Do not show the other player your mission. The mission card persists persists throughout the game.
You can randomly select 6 mission cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Each player can see your mission. The mission card persists throughout the game.

These setups limits randomness and useless cards draws and allows for more vicotry points.

I am sure there are several more ways to use objective cards. Heck you can even create your own objective cards, such as slay the unit that slayed your warlord or Slay the unit that got first blood.

Personally i like the idea of randomly selecting 6 objective cards and keeping 3 and Do not show the other player your mission and you discard the mission once the condition is met. It sounds extremely fun and limits the useless cards and has me trying to figure out what my opponents armies missions are in the middle of the battle.

gungo wrote:

 kronk wrote:
I'm looking forwards to giving the cards a try.

Me too however if the randomness doesnt work out. There are still several ways to play with objective cards.

You can preselect objective cards for the table. The requirements on those cards can persist the entire game.
You can preselect objective cards for the table. You discard those cards once the condition is met.
You can preselect the same objective cards for each player. Each player discards those cards once the condition is met.
All of the above options remove the randomness of objective cards and allows for more victory point conditions during a game.

You can randomly select 6 objective cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Do not show the other player your objectives.
You can randomly select 6 objective cards for each player. Each player selects 3 cards to keep for the game to complete. Each player can see your objectives.
These setups limits randomness and useless cards draws and allows for more vicotry points.

I am sure there are several more ways to use objective cards. Heck you can even create your own objective cards, such as slay the unit that slayed your warlord or Slay the unit that got first blood.

Personally i like the idea of randomly selecting 6 objective cards and keeping 3 and Do not show the other player your objective. It sounds fun and limits the useless cards and has me trying to figure out what is his armies goals in the middle of the battle.

The cards have some value, no question. Being a pragmatic fellow, I will definitely agree that better methods involving less random and more choice can mitigate the issues.

The crux of the issue for me is the "normal" secondaries in 6th never totaled more than 3vp max. The scale of vp's on the cards don't seem to have any sense of proportion.

Cards on the table, I'm not a fan of kill points as a mechanic precisely because they don't take scale or context into account. Collecting vp's that cannot be taken away detracts from the game IMO.

The card system reminds me of the sims 3, there was a mechanic meant to incentivize sims to do random stuff and would reward them with points they could spend on skills. They had the same problem, they were arbitrary as hell. "work out for an hour, here have 500pts" "learn how to play the guitar, here, have 1000pts"

There wasn't much sense of scale, some tasks that took much shorter amounts of time yet offered much higher rewards. Granted, it was a single player game so it wasn't the end of the world, but in a game where two players face off againsts one another, laying a random easter egg hunt that rewards, well, whatever, doesn't seem too solid.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

If you're required to have a psyker on the table in order to achieve certain missions, then Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and maybe Sisters now need allies as well. If challenges become a fundamental objective in the game, then non-combat armies like Tau and Guard will now require allies. And this is based on seeing four of sixty cards?

I guess we'll see how the rest are implemented. Still, I feel that the addition of basic game objectives that cannot be accomplished by some of the armies in the game is a sign of poor game design.

"To achieve certain missions" that will only show up when playing the missions from "Maelstrom of War"...plus, you can actually opt to discard the cards that you think that you might not be able to complete.

And it's 36 cards in the pack apparently.

To people putting forth this whole Maelstrom of War thing, this almost certainly means "standard 40k mission". I'm pretty sure 6th ed missions were called Altar of War missions.

 Jaceevoke wrote:
Honestly I think the major failing of the cards will be that they are generic, much like the major failing of the warlord traits was. If they do something like what they did in sixth with the new armies in giving them their own table to roll it could work better, no cast a psychic spell for the factions without psychers, but of course then suddenly the armies that get the easier to score cards would suddenly be dominate even if they are not viewed as the most powerful.

THIS. I really hope they don't make army-specific objective cards because I can guarantee you that some army will get hosed for having terrible objectives, while another will have pants-on-head stupid rules which allow them to get a dozen VP every turn with ease.

One way to house rule it is to take out cards that aren't viable for BOTH armies and then deal a random bunch face up to the side of the board. First one to qualify for an objective card gets its point and the card is discarded.

That way both players will find themselves competing for a bunch of objectives they can't prepare for ahead of time, and since it's the same bunch of objectives for both players with both of them aware of them you at least know your chances and plan accordingly (or flip the table ).

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

If you're required to have a psyker on the table in order to achieve certain missions, then Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and maybe Sisters now need allies as well. If challenges become a fundamental objective in the game, then non-combat armies like Tau and Guard will now require allies. And this is based on seeing four of sixty cards?

I guess we'll see how the rest are implemented. Still, I feel that the addition of basic game objectives that cannot be accomplished by some of the armies in the game is a sign of poor game design.

"To achieve certain missions" that will only show up when playing the missions from "Maelstrom of War"...plus, you can actually opt to discard the cards that you think that you might not be able to complete.

And it's 36 cards in the pack apparently.

To people putting forth this whole Maelstrom of War thing, this almost certainly means "standard 40k mission". I'm pretty sure 6th ed missions were called Altar of War missions.

Nope. "Maelstrom of War" is something separate.

We have seen the scan of the "roll for mission" page, there is "malstorm of war" mission table (6 of them) and the good all ethereal war table (same missions as 6th, at least by names)


Not to mention over half the armies already have their altar of war missions you can also use.
Then you got the cinematic missions (forgot their name) that got per-defined terrain, armies and such.

There are gaktons of missions to play, you don't like card? don't play cards.

I wonder how the 6 are differentiated.

Who knows?

That's part of the reason all the crying people annoy me, we really don't know anything about malstorm except "cards are involved"

I used to get so angry at the direction of the game. I started playing in 1991 with photocopied rogue trader books. Back then I didn't understand what a "competitive" game was and so it was great fun. Then I played some CCG's that were very competitive. I won many tournaments for various games and then when I returned to 40k I saw what a mess it was based on my expectation of what a good game should be.

After not playing 4th out of anger after my main army was gutted by codex change (Chaos marines) I picked up Blood Angels and enjoyed them. Then 6th came and nothing I could do made the game fun anymore I forced myself to break out of my mindset with 40k. I learned to not expect a "good" game and just enjoy playing with friends. No more tournaments, only casual games at friend's houses.

Now the game is great fun. I don't care so much about winning or how balanced things are, I play when we just want to kill some time together in a fun way. 7th is going even further into the non-competitive zone and that's ok. It's clearly what GW wants so you either go with it or you don't.

TLDR: Stop thinking that 40k is supposed to be a balanced competitive game and see it for what it is. If you don't want what they are offering, either stop playing it or write your own rules to suit you knowing no one else will adhere outside your group.

On topic, These random objective cards add an interesting mechanic to the game. Did they do it well? Of course not, this is GW we are talking about. Will it be fun? It will be for my group, they love random for the sake of random things.

How does one go from unable to do stuff with things you bought and which were suppose to do them , to having fun .
That is like having a care that you don't know , if it will turn left or right.

IMO if anything w40k is only good for tournaments. Someone can buy an army which at the given time is top tier. It will do what an army is suppose to do . On the other hand , if someone wants to play with what he wants , like for example your BAs. why bother with playing ? One can see friends without spending 300-450$ and the time be just as good , maybe even more so , because the frustration from spending money on something that doesn't work won't be there.

Makumba wrote:
How does one go from unable to do stuff with things you bought and which were suppose to do them , to having fun .
That is like having a care that you don't know , if it will turn left or right.

IMO if anything w40k is only good for tournaments. Someone can buy an army which at the given time is top tier. It will do what an army is suppose to do . On the other hand , if someone wants to play with what he wants , like for example your BAs. why bother with playing ? One can see friends without spending 300-450$ and the time be just as good , maybe even more so , because the frustration from spending money on something that doesn't work won't be there.

I don't disagree with you there. I would sell off my stuff and not touch 40k again if not for my group wanting to play it. So since I am going to be playing it anyway I needed to figure out how to reconcile the game in a way that I could still enjoy it. I thought my post relevant because of the reaction to the objectives. It seems to me that it is the old arguments from the "casual" crowd vs the "competitive" crowd. Are random objectives in the middle of the game competitive? No way. Getting random points just because have nothing to do with your tactics during the game and you could lose a well played game just because you were unlucky when you drew your objective cards.

yeah , but you already own an army . you liked it and then it went bad. Short or long term you played with it. Am more concerned about people like one of our friends , he was stupid to trust the clerks in the GW store and started a GK army , made out of GKs. Now he can't play at the GW anymore , unless he starts to buy more stuff. Not one of us wants to play him , because he will feel bad and we will feel bad too. And after playing some games in our FLGS , he knows he wasted money. How are we suppose to bring in more people in to the game , when we have someone who spend a huge pile of cash on something that doesn't work at all and worse it is impossible to make it work .

 Brotherjanus wrote:
TLDR: Stop thinking that 40k is supposed to be a balanced competitive game and see it for what it is. If you don't want what they are offering, either stop playing it or write your own rules to suit you knowing no one else will adhere outside your group.

Go have a look at the 'is 40k dying at your FLGS?' thread.

People don't like the discretion the game is going. People are quitting. And it is slowly killing the game.
Don't confuse you liking something with it being objectively good.

It is entirely possible to appeal to both 'competitive' players and 'causal' players, in fact there is little or no distinction between them in other, better written, games. GW however don't see a problem and insist that their way is the 'right' way to have fun. What we are seeing with these cards is that they are further pushing in the 'we want people to remember that time they rolled a 6 and won' mentality over any sort of tactical depth or strategic thinking on the players part. The fact that they are hemorrhaging sales and that 40k is no longer the predominate game in some places (or most rather, depending on there you live) tells you everything you need to know about how the 'if you don't like it quit' mentality is working out for the game.

I like the idea of objective cards. Represents the ever changing field of battle where sometimes a seemingly unimportant position all of a sudden becomes important. A battlefield is chaotic. You shouldn't be able to plan for everything. This adds a crimp into the game and makes it so that deathstars don't just auto win against non death star armies because the other side something to do other than try and stay away from the death star.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Go have a look at the 'is 40k dying at your FLGS?' thread.

Actually just as many people post positively in that thread..

bodazoka wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Go have a look at the 'is 40k dying at your FLGS?' thread.

Actually just as many people post positively in that thread..

I didn't see that but hell, lets say you are right. Just as many saying going strong as dying. Whats that, roughly 50/50?

That is utterly TERRIBLE considering 5-10 years ago there was no question that 40k was THE dominate game on the market.
Having only lost half there market domination is not a positive thing...

 jonolikespie wrote:


People don't like the discretion the game is going. People are quitting. And it is slowly killing the game.
Don't confuse you liking something with it being objectively good.

It is entirely possible to appeal to both 'competitive' players and 'causal' players, in fact there is little or no distinction between them in other, better written, games. GW however don't see a problem and insist that their way is the 'right' way to have fun. What we are seeing with these cards is that they are further pushing in the 'we want people to remember that time they rolled a 6 and won' mentality over any sort of tactical depth or strategic thinking on the players part. The fact that they are hemorrhaging sales and that 40k is no longer the predominate game in some places (or most rather, depending on there you live) tells you everything you need to know about how the 'if you don't like it quit' mentality is working out for the game.

If you read my entire post you'd see that I am basically a defeated player. I have spent enough money on things as to feel that I can't recoup it and I have friends that still like the game for whatever reason. Out of context, I can see why you'd think I was saying to like it or get out. What I am actually saying is that if you are like me (you like the models, you have friends that want to play, you have spent too much to get out now) then you need to find a way to make it enjoyable for yourself. The game designers themselves are not doing that for me (and many others or there wouldn't be threads like this), so if it requires house rules or a different edition then do that. If you can't find a way to enjoy it then you should stop playing. Forcing yourself to do something you don't enjoy as a hobby makes little sense.

 jonolikespie wrote:
'we want people to remember that time they rolled a 6 and won'

Hmmm sounds like the Variable game length, and yet pretty much all tournaments run off those rules and I consider them terrible. You can be clearly tabling an opponent with superior firepower but they win by 1 point at the end of turn 5 cause they rolled a 1 or a 2.

 Xerics wrote:
. A battlefield is chaotic. You shouldn't be able to plan for everything.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xerics wrote:
Hmmm sounds like the Variable game length, and yet pretty much all tournaments run off those rules and I consider them terrible. You can be clearly tabling an opponent with superior firepower but they win by 1 point at the end of turn 5 cause they rolled a 1 or a 2.

Cognitive dissonance is in season it seems.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nope. "Maelstrom of War" is something separate.

Ah ok. As I see it then, the distinction is "normal 40k" and "card 40k"... so again, maelstrom of war missions are optional and gonna be pretty uncommon I imagine.

You know I am coming around on these cards. It has the ability to get people to change their lists up.

I still may get rid of my chaos army though. They have been less than stellar.

Edit: also these type of random mission objectives work fine in other games such as Malifaux and Dark Age.

I think having alternatives to the regular missions will be nice. Some codexes will be more viable depending on the situation. I've played tournament missions in the past were holding objectives accumulated points over time, and when my opponent made the decision to rush forward and ignore his objectives and attempt to table me, he played his way and I played mine. I ended up winning when I held the line.

If there are cards that really don't go along with your army, come up with ways to minimize the effect. Perhaps both of you pick 5 cards from the deck at the beginning to set to the side. You pick psychic and cc cards to set aside, while they set aside shooty ones. You both play as your armies normally would (A Tau supreme-commander wouldn't expect you to order your unit leaders to engage in a challenge with a Daemon Prince, while Khorne sure as hell might demand it)

I like the cards because it is just another tactical part of the game. I find it interesting how people say random =/ tactical. You actually have to plan for more eventualities with random mechanics but that is neither here nor there. Control what you can, minimize the risk for the things you cant.

The cards are going to be lots of fun. You do realize that you get three cards at a time right? So aim to complete 1-2 of them that you can and then discard the one you cant. Now you have three new cards. Also you dont know what your opponents objectives are so you have to play towards what serves your objectives best and hope you are stopping them in the process. I like it a lot and definitely opens up some army builds. If you have no cards you can complete(which I find highly unlikely but possible) then aim to deal as much damage as you can and move on. Who knows, there might be an option to just discard your entire current hand if you want and get three new cards(Prof Oak style)

What makes something broken in 6th was the ability to abuse the win conditions and not having enough terrain(specifically of the LOS blocking type).

Also the cards are like 8 bucks and completely optional, like the psychic cards. If you want them, get them, if you dont you can still play the game.

How do you plan with random objectives , when your opponent can do all the sub missions and you can only do 2/3 or less and when the limitations are not based around likes , cash , but how a codex is constructed. An eldar player can do any of the card missions . An am won't do any of the melee , challange . Other armies have no psykers and can't do melee like tau . And even if we can discard a mission per turn there are still more then 1 of each in the deck .

Makumba wrote:
How do you plan with random objectives , when your opponent can do all the sub missions and you can only do 2/3 or less and when the limitations are not based around likes , cash , but how a codex is constructed. An eldar player can do any of the card missions . An am won't do any of the melee , challenge . Other armies have no psykers and can't do melee like tau . And even if we can discard a mission per turn there are still more then 1 of each in the deck .

You are confusing wouldn't do with can't do. In general will Tau or IG want to engage in close combat? Nope, but I wouldn't hesitate to charge in for that victory point. Psychic are the only ones that I can think of that would be army limited but if there is a rule like "If you have no psykers discard this card and get another one" or "remove these from the deck if you have no psykers". There is no army that requires psykers be present so I highly doubt that there is not something to limit the impact of those cards. All of those things are for the most part under your control. Now if it was something like "Accept a challenge" then I would have a problem with it. But everything is done during your turn so you have control and I am also assuming that cards are done at the start or end of your turn so you can plan for what you have.

Even then, you know what all the potential things you could have to deal with before the game even starts. You know that there might be objectives on the other side of the table you need to get on your turn, you know you might need to get into a challenge. You have all this information before you build your list. It certainly adds additional depth to the things you have to think about when preparing for a game and encourages you to plan for additional eventualities instead of doing what a lot of the armies do now which is abuse the absolutely known.

The cards have no such rules. You can discard one objective card at the end of a turn. So if a tau player ends up with use psyker and do melee objective in hand , he will be at a big disadventage.

Same with guard , unless we spam psykers we won't be getting powers off , because our casters are only level 2 and other armies will be runing with level 3-4 ones.

How do I build my list to grab far objectives with guard ? my dudes are +5sv with no fearless , no skimer transports t3 and low Ld. Even If I do somehow get in range my unit will be in the range of the whole enemy army and it will make it easier to pull of his cards . The melee ones , the destroy with shoting ones , the challange ones . Am practicly handing him 2 units for the d3 VP card and then he just needs to kill one more.

Now I can imagine marines using drop pods , landing on 2-3 objecitves then spaming out demons using their psykers . But armies that can't do melee won't be able to pull stuff like that.

There would be extra depth to the game , if all armies could do everything . But it is not the case .

Makumba wrote:
How do you plan with random objectives , when your opponent can do all the sub missions and you can only do 2/3 or less and when the limitations are not based around likes , cash , but how a codex is constructed. An eldar player can do any of the card missions . An am won't do any of the melee , challange . Other armies have no psykers and can't do melee like tau . And even if we can discard a mission per turn there are still more then 1 of each in the deck .

Other than the psyker card of casting a power any army can do anything. They just might not do so well at it. The card said you had to issue a challenge not win a challenge after all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The cards might also , dare I say, promote some variety *gasp* in list building?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also there are 36 cards in the tactical objectives deck. I am pretty sure there will be more then enough for any army to get some good objectives.

I'm just frustrated that GW seems to be so good at coming up (or listening to) good ideas and then so incredibly horrible at executing them. It really seems like the entire Rules Development team has the idea that it is just too hard to work on, you know, actual rules.

Unbound Armies will allow a lot of really cool army ideas, but they will also allow a lot of really silly, really abusive, or really dumb ones too. Rather than, you know, writing rules to allow specific cool army ideas that fit the background of the game, let's just allow people to take anything, and hopefully, they will take stuff that reflects the cool battles in the background. Isn't the entire concept of Unbound Armies a slap in the face of people who paid money for books which have formations and the like? Why buy a sourcebook allowing you to field some specific units, when you can just buy what you want and field it?

It undermines GW's own sales strategy, in that codex supplements now have LESS value, since the only rules benefits of having them are unique units, warlord traits, and relics, not changes to the force organization. You don't need an Iyanden Supplement to field a Ghost Warrior army. Buy the Ghost Warriors you want and field them.

It undermines GW's strongest element, their iconic background. What kind of a background will a player see when he goes to a game and faces off against some Battlesuits, a Mawloc, Arhiman, some Vendettas, and some Immortals? If people are attracted to the game because of a rich, vivid background, why wouldn't that be something you WANTED to ensure survived to the tabletop?

It also undermines a lot of potential sales from GW. Are you telling me that the people who wanted to field a Genestealer Cult army wouldn't have bought a White Dwarf or supplement with rules for that? By having a reasonably restrictive force organization, GW could have made lots of money selling supplements (I would have recommended smaller, less expensive ones, to sell people more as an impulse buy than hardcover ones). This also would have allowed GW to put out supplements that reinforced key aspects of the background (like Ghost Armies, Cult Armies, Traitor Guard) and not things that violated long-standing background (loyalist, highly trained, super-disciplined Librarians summoning daemons).


Objective Cards. Again, another great concept (a wide variety of objectives, unique to each player, that can change over the course of a battle) with terrible execution. The 'objectives' you need to claim are bland in the extreme (Objective 1), and do nothing to convey any immersion in the game, since the 'objective' can just be a coin on the battlefield. You can be 'given' objectives by 'high command' that have nothing whatsoever to do with your army. Even if you discard it, why would any commander tell his Black Templars to manifest a psychic power? Your objectives can be arbitrary in the extreme (You just claimed this spot after brutally driving off the enemy. Now go get that spot on the other side of the battlefield). These don't 'forge a narrative', but force you to brutally subvert any narrative you might have had in building your army or setting up the battlefield to a set of random selections.

A much more 'narrative' idea would to have been a deck of objectives that were very specific, possibly even to the point of specifying terrain or scenery (Take and hold the ammo dump). Players could choose objectives for each of their armies based on the battlefield set up, and their army and play style, and then kept those cards secret from their opponent. Alternatively, you could have chosen objectives randomly, before building your list and setting up the battlefield. Then, the cards would have value as a marker of your own objectives, and allowed you to play the game while not knowing exactly what your enemy was trying to accomplish. You could have even had objective cards like "Fluid goals: discard an objective and select a new one" and "Fickle Tide of Battle: Your opponent must discard one of his objectives and select a new one.". You could still have had hidden, specific objectives, without arbitrary, generic, and often illogical ones.

 Leth wrote:
The cards are going to be lots of fun. You do realize that you get three cards at a time right? So aim to complete 1-2 of them that you can and then discard the one you cant. Now you have three new cards. Also you dont know what your opponents objectives are so you have to play towards what serves your objectives best and hope you are stopping them in the process. I like it a lot and definitely opens up some army builds. If you have no cards you can complete(which I find highly unlikely but possible) then aim to deal as much damage as you can and move on. Who knows, there might be an option to just discard your entire current hand if you want and get three new cards(Prof Oak style)

What makes something broken in 6th was the ability to abuse the win conditions and not having enough terrain(specifically of the LOS blocking type).

Pretty much everyone here has actually said that they like the cards in principle - it's a cool idea to have mid-game objective updates. However, the problem is that, as you say, the way they have been written makes them easy to abuse the win conditions. Getting VPs just for challenging? Wut? They're just too arbitrary and don't reward strategic/risky plays. I can see people house ruling their own decks into the game, which could be far more interesting, but the base decks just make no sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da Butcha wrote:
Unbound Armies will allow a lot of really cool army ideas, but they will also allow a lot of really silly, really abusive, or really dumb ones too. Rather than, you know, writing rules to allow specific cool army ideas that fit the background of the game, let's just allow people to take anything, and hopefully, they will take stuff that reflects the cool battles in the background. Isn't the entire concept of Unbound Armies a slap in the face of people who paid money for books which have formations and the like? Why buy a sourcebook allowing you to field some specific units, when you can just buy what you want and field it?

I'm actually not as worried about them now, not being able to contest is pretty huge. I probably still won't use or fight an unbound army, but the risk-reward is there at least.

Da Butcha wrote:
Objective Cards. Again, another great concept (a wide variety of objectives, unique to each player, that can change over the course of a battle) with terrible execution. The 'objectives' you need to claim are bland in the extreme (Objective 1), and do nothing to convey any immersion in the game, since the 'objective' can just be a coin on the battlefield. You can be 'given' objectives by 'high command' that have nothing whatsoever to do with your army. Even if you discard it, why would any commander tell his Black Templars to manifest a psychic power? Your objectives can be arbitrary in the extreme (You just claimed this spot after brutally driving off the enemy. Now go get that spot on the other side of the battlefield). These don't 'forge a narrative', but force you to brutally subvert any narrative you might have had in building your army or setting up the battlefield to a set of random selections.

A much more 'narrative' idea would to have been a deck of objectives that were very specific, possibly even to the point of specifying terrain or scenery (Take and hold the ammo dump). Players could choose objectives for each of their armies based on the battlefield set up, and their army and play style, and then kept those cards secret from their opponent. Alternatively, you could have chosen objectives randomly, before building your list and setting up the battlefield. Then, the cards would have value as a marker of your own objectives, and allowed you to play the game while not knowing exactly what your enemy was trying to accomplish. You could have even had objective cards like "Fluid goals: discard an objective and select a new one" and "Fickle Tide of Battle: Your opponent must discard one of his objectives and select a new one.". You could still have had hidden, specific objectives, without arbitrary, generic, and often illogical ones.

Amen. Not entirely sure how to rebalance the cards at the moment, but it's an idea I'll be mulling over.

I still have my 2nd edition of 40k. Guess I'll break the cards out from that, since we seem to be going back in that direction. Does unbound armies mean we can have Genestealer cult forces with units of terminator armored cultists like in the Rogue Trader days?

Man, 7th looks great! Before the game, you have to:

1. decide on whether you want to play Regular 40k or Unfun and

2. decide on whether you want to play normal scenarios or Maelstrom

3. decide on whether you want to play with FW or not

4. make all upcoming unclear rules clear (i.e. fortifications).

Sounds awesome.

1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

 Redbeard wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

I think saying "knights might need allies to be effective" is a BIIIG differance between "ALL armies need allies"

If you're required to have a psyker on the table in order to achieve certain missions, then Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar and maybe Sisters now need allies as well. If challenges become a fundamental objective in the game, then non-combat armies like Tau and Guard will now require allies. And this is based on seeing four of sixty cards?

I guess we'll see how the rest are implemented. Still, I feel that the addition of basic game objectives that cannot be accomplished by some of the armies in the game is a sign of poor game design.

Or, they could optimize their army to get the most out of the rest of the cards and discard their psychic cards.

Or perhaps you will make that last ditch effort to charge that understrength firewarrior unit in, and declare your challenge.

Da Butcha wrote:
I'm just frustrated that GW seems to be so good at coming up (or listening to) good ideas and then so incredibly horrible at executing them. It really seems like the entire Rules Development team has the idea that it is just too hard to work on, you know, actual rules.

Unbound Armies will allow a lot of really cool army ideas, but they will also allow a lot of really silly, really abusive, or really dumb ones too. Rather than, you know, writing rules to allow specific cool army ideas that fit the background of the game, let's just allow people to take anything, and hopefully, they will take stuff that reflects the cool battles in the background. Isn't the entire concept of Unbound Armies a slap in the face of people who paid money for books which have formations and the like? Why buy a sourcebook allowing you to field some specific units, when you can just buy what you want and field it?

It undermines GW's own sales strategy, in that codex supplements now have LESS value, since the only rules benefits of having them are unique units, warlord traits, and relics, not changes to the force organization. You don't need an Iyanden Supplement to field a Ghost Warrior army. Buy the Ghost Warriors you want and field them.

It undermines GW's strongest element, their iconic background. What kind of a background will a player see when he goes to a game and faces off against some Battlesuits, a Mawloc, Arhiman, some Vendettas, and some Immortals? If people are attracted to the game because of a rich, vivid background, why wouldn't that be something you WANTED to ensure survived to the tabletop?

It also undermines a lot of potential sales from GW. Are you telling me that the people who wanted to field a Genestealer Cult army wouldn't have bought a White Dwarf or supplement with rules for that? By having a reasonably restrictive force organization, GW could have made lots of money selling supplements (I would have recommended smaller, less expensive ones, to sell people more as an impulse buy than hardcover ones). This also would have allowed GW to put out supplements that reinforced key aspects of the background (like Ghost Armies, Cult Armies, Traitor Guard) and not things that violated long-standing background (loyalist, highly trained, super-disciplined Librarians summoning daemons).


Objective Cards. Again, another great concept (a wide variety of objectives, unique to each player, that can change over the course of a battle) with terrible execution. The 'objectives' you need to claim are bland in the extreme (Objective 1), and do nothing to convey any immersion in the game, since the 'objective' can just be a coin on the battlefield. You can be 'given' objectives by 'high command' that have nothing whatsoever to do with your army. Even if you discard it, why would any commander tell his Black Templars to manifest a psychic power? Your objectives can be arbitrary in the extreme (You just claimed this spot after brutally driving off the enemy. Now go get that spot on the other side of the battlefield). These don't 'forge a narrative', but force you to brutally subvert any narrative you might have had in building your army or setting up the battlefield to a set of random selections.

A much more 'narrative' idea would to have been a deck of objectives that were very specific, possibly even to the point of specifying terrain or scenery (Take and hold the ammo dump). Players could choose objectives for each of their armies based on the battlefield set up, and their army and play style, and then kept those cards secret from their opponent. Alternatively, you could have chosen objectives randomly, before building your list and setting up the battlefield. Then, the cards would have value as a marker of your own objectives, and allowed you to play the game while not knowing exactly what your enemy was trying to accomplish. You could have even had objective cards like "Fluid goals: discard an objective and select a new one" and "Fickle Tide of Battle: Your opponent must discard one of his objectives and select a new one.". You could still have had hidden, specific objectives, without arbitrary, generic, and often illogical ones.

So I read the last paragraph as "Draw the cards for objectives prior to list building in order to tailor to the cards."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The base deck has 36 cards in it. Lets reserve how bad the cards are untill we know what all of them are. Just because 1 is to challenge somone doesn't mean there aren't 35 other great cards you can draw from. 1/36 odds of getting a random card you can't use doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The chances of that are less then rolling an 11 or 12 on a psychic test with a Ld 10 Psyker.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Man, 7th looks great! Before the game, you have to:

1. decide on whether you want to play Regular 40k or Unfun and

2. decide on whether you want to play normal scenarios or Maelstrom

3. decide on whether you want to play with FW or not

4. make all upcoming unclear rules clear (i.e. fortifications).

Sounds awesome.

With FW or without shouldn't even be a question. FW yes 100% of the time. If it's a model and GW made rules for it then why wouldn't you let them play it (FW being a subsidiary of GW).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Before there is any FW rage I don't actually own any FW models.

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

If you don't unterstand the, especially, latter point, you haven't been to a tournament yet. Anyhoooo. It's not about what I personally like or dislike. It all requires communication that SHOULDN'T be required in PUGs. Rules should be clearly laid out instead of being vague and obtuse because of being lazy ass writers.

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

Swing and miss. More so number four... GW has had to "fix" the fortifications and building rules several times. I will be quite amused if seventh further invalidates the rules found in stronghold assault.

Relapse wrote:
I still have my 2nd edition of 40k. Guess I'll break the cards out from that, since we seem to be going back in that direction. Does unbound armies mean we can have Genestealer cult forces with units of terminator armored cultists like in the Rogue Trader days?

From reading White Dwarf, it seems so, BUUUUT, since WD is getting a few things wrong these days, it is possible that us Nids can't.

 TheKbob wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

Swing and miss. More so number four... GW has had to "fix" the fortifications and building rules several times. I will be quite amused if seventh further invalidates the rules found in stronghold assault.

The statement that has been put forward(in White Dwarf, mind you) so far is that fortifications and building rules--i.e. "Stronghold Assault"--are actually in the main rulebook...so Stronghold Assault probably is invalidated.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Man, 7th looks great! Before the game, you have to:

1. decide on whether you want to play Regular 40k or Unfun and

2. decide on whether you want to play normal scenarios or Maelstrom

3. decide on whether you want to play with FW or not

4. make all upcoming unclear rules clear (i.e. fortifications).

Sounds awesome.

Yeah, as if 6th wasn't slow enough already. I could get a 1850pt game of 5th done in 2-3 hours, a similar game of 40k just takes nearly an hour to just get everything set up...

 TheKbob wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

Swing and miss. More so number four... GW has had to "fix" the fortifications and building rules several times. I will be quite amused if seventh further invalidates the rules found in stronghold assault.

This. You've never played against a Skyshield before, have you?

Da Butcha wrote:
I'm just frustrated that GW seems to be so good at coming up (or listening to) good ideas and then so incredibly horrible at executing them. It really seems like the entire Rules Development team has the idea that it is just too hard to work on, you know, actual rules.

Unbound Armies will allow a lot of really cool army ideas, but they will also allow a lot of really silly, really abusive, or really dumb ones too. Rather than, you know, writing rules to allow specific cool army ideas that fit the background of the game, let's just allow people to take anything, and hopefully, they will take stuff that reflects the cool battles in the background. Isn't the entire concept of Unbound Armies a slap in the face of people who paid money for books which have formations and the like? Why buy a sourcebook allowing you to field some specific units, when you can just buy what you want and field it?

It undermines GW's own sales strategy, in that codex supplements now have LESS value, since the only rules benefits of having them are unique units, warlord traits, and relics, not changes to the force organization. You don't need an Iyanden Supplement to field a Ghost Warrior army. Buy the Ghost Warriors you want and field them.

It undermines GW's strongest element, their iconic background. What kind of a background will a player see when he goes to a game and faces off against some Battlesuits, a Mawloc, Arhiman, some Vendettas, and some Immortals? If people are attracted to the game because of a rich, vivid background, why wouldn't that be something you WANTED to ensure survived to the tabletop?

It also undermines a lot of potential sales from GW. Are you telling me that the people who wanted to field a Genestealer Cult army wouldn't have bought a White Dwarf or supplement with rules for that? By having a reasonably restrictive force organization, GW could have made lots of money selling supplements (I would have recommended smaller, less expensive ones, to sell people more as an impulse buy than hardcover ones). This also would have allowed GW to put out supplements that reinforced key aspects of the background (like Ghost Armies, Cult Armies, Traitor Guard) and not things that violated long-standing background (loyalist, highly trained, super-disciplined Librarians summoning daemons).


Objective Cards. Again, another great concept (a wide variety of objectives, unique to each player, that can change over the course of a battle) with terrible execution. The 'objectives' you need to claim are bland in the extreme (Objective 1), and do nothing to convey any immersion in the game, since the 'objective' can just be a coin on the battlefield. You can be 'given' objectives by 'high command' that have nothing whatsoever to do with your army. Even if you discard it, why would any commander tell his Black Templars to manifest a psychic power? Your objectives can be arbitrary in the extreme (You just claimed this spot after brutally driving off the enemy. Now go get that spot on the other side of the battlefield). These don't 'forge a narrative', but force you to brutally subvert any narrative you might have had in building your army or setting up the battlefield to a set of random selections.

A much more 'narrative' idea would to have been a deck of objectives that were very specific, possibly even to the point of specifying terrain or scenery (Take and hold the ammo dump). Players could choose objectives for each of their armies based on the battlefield set up, and their army and play style, and then kept those cards secret from their opponent. Alternatively, you could have chosen objectives randomly, before building your list and setting up the battlefield. Then, the cards would have value as a marker of your own objectives, and allowed you to play the game while not knowing exactly what your enemy was trying to accomplish. You could have even had objective cards like "Fluid goals: discard an objective and select a new one" and "Fickle Tide of Battle: Your opponent must discard one of his objectives and select a new one.". You could still have had hidden, specific objectives, without arbitrary, generic, and often illogical ones.

I agree with everything said here, surprisingly so.
Also, I dislike the idea of random cards on principle.

And random is the opposite of narrative. It's like writing a screenplay mad lib style, it's absurd. No one writes a story with a D6, because it will be a terrible terrible terrible story.

I mean can you imagine the command channel for these cards "go secure that objective in the enemy zone, scratch that, have your nco's start fights they can't possibly win.. on second thought turn the army around and go back for the objective you just bypassed... wait wait have your men kill something, I don't really care what, it will pleaes me. Now if you'll excuse me, my crack pipe needs me"

How long before the troops just stop listening, drop the vox and pray to the immortal god emperor that lord commander ford will just check into rehab?





We have only scratched the surface of the cards, granted and 1 of the 4 isn't terrible in that it at the very least interacts in some way with the scenario. Still no idea on if objective 3 will be placed somewhere specific or if it's literally just the 3rd objective to be placed. Some cards could be the same or potentially better.

None of that changes the fact that just randomly plopping them out over and over is a terrible mechanic, takes nothing into account and can easily just awarded victory points without even really incentivizing certain actions.

I can already think of better methods.

Here's one: shuffle the deck, deal 7 cards face down. At the top each turn, flip a card over. Both armies can make use of the card, but must do so in the turn alloted. Continue doing the same thing for all 5-7 turns of the game.

Even that suggestion still has to contend with the fact t hat any of those cards could still essentially just award free vp's without really having to do anything. The one balancing act is both players are aware, so for example if the stupid challenge card comes up, yeah, you might be screwed no matter what but you may also be able to factor the card into your decisions, perhaps ensuring your opponent has no viable close combats. If you see your opponent eyeing some objective you both know will reward bonus vp's for holding, you may be able to address that and vice versa. Still the problem that just flipping the card may just pretty much automatically reward you or your opponent with a free vp.

The only benefits to the method I suggested is, fewer overall vp's in play over the course of the game, so that hopefully the mission/scenario in play will still matter and transparency, you're not all of a sudden informed that some incredibly innocuous action on the part of your opponent has resulted in them receiving victory points.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Man, 7th looks great! Before the game, you have to:

1. decide on whether you want to play Regular 40k or Unfun and

2. decide on whether you want to play normal scenarios or Maelstrom

3. decide on whether you want to play with FW or not

4. make all upcoming unclear rules clear (i.e. fortifications).

Sounds awesome.

Yeah, as if 6th wasn't slow enough already. I could get a 1850pt game of 5th done in 2-3 hours, a similar game of 40k just takes nearly an hour to just get everything set up...

 TheKbob wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-you are great at objecting things you never tried.

2-dear god, so hard.

3-why is this even a discussion still?

4-if the fortification rules are not clear to you, the problem is not in the game.

Swing and miss. More so number four... GW has had to "fix" the fortifications and building rules several times. I will be quite amused if seventh further invalidates the rules found in stronghold assault.

This. You've never played against a Skyshield before, have you?

I have...not too complex...
You cant KILL the damn thing, even with a nuke, and that's silly, but otherwise its logical.
You need to delve deep into the logical process, yes, but there IS a final conclusion on how it works that you really can't get wrong without warping whats written.

 BoomWolf wrote:
but there IS a final conclusion on how it works that you really can't get wrong without warping whats written.

Really, I have yet to see much consensus on how it works. Plenty of people play it using ruin rules to cut around the rough edges. Tanks can apparently just drive on to and off of it... which is in no way logical.

 BoomWolf wrote:

You cant KILL the damn thing, even with a nuke, and that's silly, but otherwise its logical.
You need to delve deep into the logical process, yes, but there IS a final conclusion on how it works that you really can't get wrong without warping whats written.

The Skyshield is commonly regarded as one the most illogical collection of rules in 6th.

Wait, weren't you the guy claiming that Wave Serpents or Riptides weren't op?

 Crablezworth wrote:
And random is the opposite of narrative. It's like writing a screenplay mad lib style, it's absurd. No one writes a story with a D6, because it will be a terrible terrible terrible story.

I mean can you imagine the command channel for these cards "go secure that objective in the enemy zone, scratch that, have your nco's start fights they can't possibly win.. on second thought turn the army around and go back for the objective you just bypassed... wait wait have your men kill something, I don't really care what, it will pleaes me. Now if you'll excuse me, my crack pipe needs me"

How long before the troops just stop listening, drop the vox and pray to the immortal god emperor that lord commander ford will just check into rehab?





We have only scratched the surface of the cards, granted and 1 of the 4 isn't terrible in that it at the very least interacts in some way with the scenario. Still no idea on if objective 3 will be placed somewhere specific or if it's literally just the 3rd objective to be placed. Some cards could be the same or potentially better.

None of that changes the fact that just randomly plopping them out over and over is a terrible mechanic, takes nothing into account and can easily just awarded victory points without even really incentivizing certain actions.

I can already think of better methods.

Here's one: shuffle the deck, deal 7 cards face down. At the top each turn, flip a card over. Both armies can make use of the card, but must do so in the turn alloted. Continue doing the same thing for all 5-7 turns of the game.

Even that suggestion still has to contend with the fact t hat any of those cards could still essentially just award free vp's without really having to do anything. The one balancing act is both players are aware, so for example if the stupid challenge card comes up, yeah, you might be screwed no matter what but you may also be able to factor the card into your decisions, perhaps ensuring your opponent has no viable close combats. If you see your opponent eyeing some objective you both know will reward bonus vp's for holding, you may be able to address that and vice versa. Still the problem that just flipping the card may just pretty much automatically reward you or your opponent with a free vp.

The only benefits to the method I suggested is, fewer overall vp's in play over the course of the game, so that hopefully the mission/scenario in play will still matter and transparency, you're not all of a sudden informed that some incredibly innocuous action on the part of your opponent has resulted in them receiving victory points.

Just because you draw the cards doesn't mean you have to go for them immediately that turn. Think of them as bonus objectives. You have your main objective and then a few that come up as the game progresses.

Champions of Chaos rule for the win!

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

You cant KILL the damn thing, even with a nuke, and that's silly, but otherwise its logical.
You need to delve deep into the logical process, yes, but there IS a final conclusion on how it works that you really can't get wrong without warping whats written.

The Skyshield is commonly regarded as one the most illogical collection of rules in 6th.

Wait, weren't you the guy claiming that Wave Serpents or Riptides weren't op?

Never said anything about the wave serpents not being OP, as for riptides, it might be taken a bit out of context.

I said the problem lies not in the riptide itself, but in the ion accelerator, and without THAT, the riptide is ok.


Back to skysheild, while highly illogical as to the WHY on earth it works the way it works, the HOW it works seems pretty clear, at least to me and the people I play with. we never had trouble there. (not that he is that much of a common sight)

 Xerics wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
And random is the opposite of narrative. It's like writing a screenplay mad lib style, it's absurd. No one writes a story with a D6, because it will be a terrible terrible terrible story.

I mean can you imagine the command channel for these cards "go secure that objective in the enemy zone, scratch that, have your nco's start fights they can't possibly win.. on second thought turn the army around and go back for the objective you just bypassed... wait wait have your men kill something, I don't really care what, it will pleaes me. Now if you'll excuse me, my crack pipe needs me"

How long before the troops just stop listening, drop the vox and pray to the immortal god emperor that lord commander ford will just check into rehab?





We have only scratched the surface of the cards, granted and 1 of the 4 isn't terrible in that it at the very least interacts in some way with the scenario. Still no idea on if objective 3 will be placed somewhere specific or if it's literally just the 3rd objective to be placed. Some cards could be the same or potentially better.

None of that changes the fact that just randomly plopping them out over and over is a terrible mechanic, takes nothing into account and can easily just awarded victory points without even really incentivizing certain actions.

I can already think of better methods.

Here's one: shuffle the deck, deal 7 cards face down. At the top each turn, flip a card over. Both armies can make use of the card, but must do so in the turn alloted. Continue doing the same thing for all 5-7 turns of the game.

Even that suggestion still has to contend with the fact t hat any of those cards could still essentially just award free vp's without really having to do anything. The one balancing act is both players are aware, so for example if the stupid challenge card comes up, yeah, you might be screwed no matter what but you may also be able to factor the card into your decisions, perhaps ensuring your opponent has no viable close combats. If you see your opponent eyeing some objective you both know will reward bonus vp's for holding, you may be able to address that and vice versa. Still the problem that just flipping the card may just pretty much automatically reward you or your opponent with a free vp.

The only benefits to the method I suggested is, fewer overall vp's in play over the course of the game, so that hopefully the mission/scenario in play will still matter and transparency, you're not all of a sudden informed that some incredibly innocuous action on the part of your opponent has resulted in them receiving victory points.

Just because you draw the cards doesn't mean you have to go for them immediately that turn. Think of them as bonus objectives. You have your main objective and then a few that come up as the game progresses.

I'm starting to think you haven't read the original post...

 BoomWolf wrote:

Never said anything about the wave serpents not being OP, as for riptides, it might be taken a bit out of context.

I said the problem lies not in the riptide itself, but in the ion accelerator, and without THAT, the riptide is ok.


Back to skysheild, while highly illogical as to the WHY on earth it works the way it works, the HOW it works seems pretty clear, at least to me and the people I play with. we never had trouble there. (not that he is that much of a common sight)

I'm curious, do you mostly play within a small group of friends?

What happened to the design studio at GW?

Did they decide not to employ (enough) competent designers, or is there just a myopic focus on new content without any regard to quality?

I think the prevailing theory is that they are a buch of friends sitting around, playing together, who are entierly unaware of the wider meta or even the murkiness of the rules because it's the same 6 people who only play against those other 5 people and it all makes perfect sense in their heads and none of them would dream of spamming any particular unit simply to win the game.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I think the prevailing theory is that they are a buch of friends sitting around, playing together, who are entierly unaware of the wider meta or even the murkiness of the rules because it's the same 6 people who only play against those other 5 people and it all makes perfect sense in their heads and none of them would dream of spamming any particular unit simply to win the game.

The terms echo chamber, old boys club and greedy bastards come to mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

znelson wrote:
a myopic focus on new content without any regard to quality?

Bingo. That's been the release schedule since nov 13, it's all "better now than never, better loud than clever" . They're hoping the bloat can hide the rot.


And that's the crux of the marketing side of things, white dwarf is more about fitting as many subjective adjectives as possible. To infer 7th will be better than 6 is to be avoided, it would infer that 6 had problems. The release is cynical for a few reasons, it's a last big bump on their financial year and it was obviously rushed seeing as they're just putting 7th ed rulebooks into the same old starter box. That doesn't exactly scream "this was the plan all along".

I'm not sure if greedy is the right word..

Incompetent is probably more accurate. If any company starts selling a garbage product to their loyal customers, it won't be long before there aren't any left.

 Crablezworth wrote:
it's a last big bump on their financial year and it was obviously rushed seeing as they're just putting 7th ed rulebooks into the same old starter box.

Is that confirmed? It actually is somewhat sensible in a lot of ways for them to do that, but I hadn't heard anyone come out and say that before now.

For the record, Crablezworth idea for the cards and using them as shared objectives is great. The give and take of trying to achieve an objective and/or denying your opponent, all while still playing a primary, is what make Malifaux an interesting game.

Yep, a game already does this concept. And it's completely crazy to get used to but can make rewarding games!

znelson wrote:
What happened to the design studio at GW?

Did they decide not to employ (enough) competent designers, or is there just a myopic focus on new content without any regard to quality?

Yes.

Yes, but, nothing 'happened' -- that's just how it's been for as long as most of us can remember.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
it's a last big bump on their financial year and it was obviously rushed seeing as they're just putting 7th ed rulebooks into the same old starter box.

Is that confirmed? It actually is somewhat sensible in a lot of ways for them to do that, but I hadn't heard anyone come out and say that before now.

It's a rumour till we see it. I agree that it's sensible, but it would indicate a rush job.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:
For the record, Crablezworth idea for the cards and using them as shared objectives is great. The give and take of trying to achieve an objective and/or denying your opponent, all while still playing a primary, is what make Malifaux an interesting game.

Yep, a game already does this concept. And it's completely crazy to get used to but can make rewarding games!

I still think to make it work you'd need to take a long hard look at all 36 cards and maybe cut some of the less inspired ones. My fear is a bit like what has always been a concern in the scouring, if one side just has a huge vp advantage out the gate it can be a bit daunting. I think the games I remember the most are the ones that were fairly back and forth and filled with tension, never the ones where a mixture of bad luck and terrible imbalance just turned the game into a foregone conclusion for either side. In fact the best games are ties, and that's my biggest fear about adding a random amount vp's to the game, it will make ties even more of a rarity.

Crusade is the best mission by a mile. Imagine if instead of each objective being worth 3vp's GW had decided on D3. That would have sucked, hard.

Star Trek Fleet Captains uses pretty much exactly this same system and it works really well.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Never said anything about the wave serpents not being OP, as for riptides, it might be taken a bit out of context.

I said the problem lies not in the riptide itself, but in the ion accelerator, and without THAT, the riptide is ok.


Back to skysheild, while highly illogical as to the WHY on earth it works the way it works, the HOW it works seems pretty clear, at least to me and the people I play with. we never had trouble there. (not that he is that much of a common sight)

I'm curious, do you mostly play within a small group of friends?

He plays Tau and hasn't assembled his one Riptide yet.

There are two players with Riptides other than him that I'm aware of in our FLGS but neither of them spams them (and one of them tends to play rather underwhelmingly).

I haven't been keeping track of his match ups, but I suspect he hasn't been exposed to just how frustrating it can be to face a Riptide, even a Burst Cannon Riptide, for most armies.

Its not the riptide that is the problem. Riptides are kinda Meh by themselves. It is the buff commander that makes them annoying.

Also the card does not require that you be good at challenges, only that you issue one.

 Selym wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

An army of Knights or similarly weird armies like...Tau..or Necrons.

Tau = Powerful army that is no good for challenging, and has no psykers
Necron = Powerful army that is only somewhat good for challenging, also has no psykers.

CSM = Utterly terrible army that is all about the challenging and psychic powers.

Maybe it's a "balance" thing?

sensible comment brain melting...

 Zognob Gorgoff wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

And sure, an all-knight army cant cast powers or issue challanged, but why on earth do you play only knights? they fact its a legal army does not mean its not clearly intended to be used as allies, just like LotD, rather then stand-alone.

An army of Knights or similarly weird armies like...Tau..or Necrons.

Tau = Powerful army that is no good for challenging, and has no psykers
Necron = Powerful army that is only somewhat good for challenging, also has no psykers.

CSM = Utterly terrible army that is all about the challenging and psychic powers.

Maybe it's a "balance" thing?

sensible comment brain melting...

Pretty sure it has nothing to do with balance because GW detest the word.

I have a better idea, instead of these objective cards why don't we take it in turns to draw straws instead. The one who draws the shortest straw loses the game.

Think of all the freedom you then have to forge the narrative about your game you could have played.

 Mij'aan wrote:
I have a better idea, instead of these objective cards why don't we take it in turns to draw straws instead. The one who draws the shortest straw loses the game.

Think of all the freedom you then have to forge the narrative about your game you could have played.

In fact, why bother with a second player? They're all just WAAC TFGs that do nothing but ruin your fun anyway!

Play the game as it was obviously meant to be played! Buy two armies and then forge a narrative of glorious war between them in your basement. Alone...

If 40k was a narrative game, It would have some RPG elements. But it doesn't. It's like any other strategy game except with abysmal balance.

Looking forward to giving the cards a test run this saturday, already got a game lined up....Just hope I am not exhausted from being up all night....

I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

 Xendarc wrote:
I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

As long as there is no money being made, there are no grounds for a lawsuit.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Xendarc wrote:
I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

As long as there is no money being made, there are no grounds for a lawsuit.

GW will try anyways, on the grounds that having a fanbase reduces profits.

They will try to ban people from talking about 40k.

 Selym wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Xendarc wrote:
I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

As long as there is no money being made, there are no grounds for a lawsuit.

GW will try anyways, on the grounds that having a fanbase reduces profits.

They will try to ban people from talking about 40k.

I can already see it in my head...

GW legal department: "Every fan that talks about our product is a fan that isn't at that very moment standing in front of a GW sales counter pulling money out of his wallet to buy our products! We're losing a lot of profit here!"

 MWHistorian wrote:
If 40k was a narrative game, It would have some RPG elements. But it doesn't. It's like any other strategy game except with abysmal balance.

THAT SAID;
GW really should come up with a campaign narrative rule set (a proper one, where your characters get upgraded war gear based on performance) - Except everyone will just abuse it and ...
The players are just as bad as GW sometimes.

They used to have one built into the rulebook in third.....good times. Holy crap, I just looked at the two sample missions released today.

That has potential for some serious tactical play during the game.

For one you get 3 cards and then fill up to three.

For the other you get 1 card to start than on every turn get more cards based on the number of objectives you control up to 6.

So it really does reward game play during the game, giving you many more opportunities to get cards based on how well you play the game, minimizing the impact of "bad cards" during the game.

Interested in seeing how the other 4 play out but I like it.

 Selym wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Xendarc wrote:
I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

As long as there is no money being made, there are no grounds for a lawsuit.

GW will try anyways, on the grounds that having a fanbase reduces profits.

They will try to ban people from talking about 40k.

We already have people making fan rules. DakkaDakka even has their own FAQs which are all fan made. I don't think GW has gone after them or any other Tourney Organization which has their own 40K FAQs to go by, and the tourneys do make money and profit from 40K.

Davor wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Xendarc wrote:
I wonder at the legal ramifications of a fan-written BRB.

As long as there is no money being made, there are no grounds for a lawsuit.

GW will try anyways, on the grounds that having a fanbase reduces profits.

They will try to ban people from talking about 40k.

We already have people making fan rules. DakkaDakka even has their own FAQs which are all fan made. I don't think GW has gone after them or any other Tourney Organization which has their own 40K FAQs to go by, and the tourneys do make money and profit from 40K.

Yet.

Pessimism = Win.

From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

 Mij'aan wrote:
From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

Just grab a friend, blindfold them and then force feed them a 26er of vodka and have them randomly demand that you do things thoughout the game. Seems to be about the same.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Mij'aan wrote:
From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

Just grab a friend, blindfold them and then force feed them a 26er of vodka and have them randomly demand that you do things thoughout the game. Seems to be about the same.

Except that sounds a LOT more fun.

Someone mentioned the ebb and flow of battle and I think it's pretty silly to try and simulate that with cards. Isn't that what the models are representing?

darkcloak wrote:
Someone mentioned the ebb and flow of battle and I think it's pretty silly to try and simulate that with cards. Isn't that what the models are representing?

I believe the cards represent Tzeentch f**king with your commanding officer's mind.

Shifting objectives isn't a bad idea in itself, it might certainly make matches more interesting and fun (but less competitive) and create a good dynamic.

In order to successfully achieve said dynamic, though, you'd be forced to actually invest some thinking in creating meaningful and interestng while also balanced targets.

 Mij'aan wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Mij'aan wrote:
From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

Just grab a friend, blindfold them and then force feed them a 26er of vodka and have them randomly demand that you do things thoughout the game. Seems to be about the same.

Except that sounds a LOT more fun.

heh, for the guy, for the players its probably the same lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galorian wrote:

darkcloak wrote:
Someone mentioned the ebb and flow of battle and I think it's pretty silly to try and simulate that with cards. Isn't that what the models are representing?

I believe the cards represent Tzeentch f**king with your commanding officer's mind.

Exactly, tzeenthchian absinthe will mess you up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
In order to successfully achieve said dynamic, though, you'd be forced to actually invest some thinking in creating meaningful and interestng while also balanced targets.

Agreed

 Mij'aan wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Mij'aan wrote:
From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

Just grab a friend, blindfold them and then force feed them a 26er of vodka and have them randomly demand that you do things thoughout the game. Seems to be about the same.

Except that sounds a LOT more fun.

"A-aand now.."
*hic*
"kill a.."
*falls over*
"..a... that blue thing. No, the left one. Other.."
*hic*
"...left. Get D1 billion points!"

 Sigvatr wrote:
Shifting objectives isn't a bad idea in itself, it might certainly make matches more interesting and fun (but less competitive) and create a good dynamic.

In order to successfully achieve said dynamic, though, you'd be forced to actually invest some thinking in creating meaningful and interestng while also balanced targets.

I agree 100%. Change for the sake of change IMO is hardly ever good. But it doesn't seem like GW is doing that in this situation. I like the idea of an ever changing battlefield. When you have static objectives, half the table gets ignored usually... now the entire table could be in play and thats exciting.

I like how the GW fanboys (sorry, but I'm calling a spade a spade here) are now defending outright bad game design. Guess I'm failing as a Tau player by not taking a psyker, huh? Must forge narrative harder

No, I am not a fan of what I see right now.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
I like how the GW fanboys (sorry, but I'm calling a spade a spade here) are now defending outright bad game design. Guess I'm failing as a Tau player by not taking a psyker, huh? Must forge narrative harder

No, I am not a fan of what I see right now.

Take an unbound list with a billion Zoanthropes. Say that your Tau are being mind controlled.

#ForgingTheNarrative.

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

When GW and the House of the White Knight uses the term to handwave all sorts of nonsense you can't help but ruthlessly mock the term.

 Kain wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

When GW and the House of the White Knight uses the term to handwave all sorts of nonsense you can't help but ruthlessly mock the term.

You sir, get an exalt.

Keep in mind with cards, if there are no duplicates, say you get the one that provides a nice VP or three for a psychic, and you have none, while you hold that card your opponent can't get it either.

Hidden missions are amazing in games that have them, its one of the failings of FoW: you know what the enemy is trying to do.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

When GW and the House of the White Knight uses the term to handwave all sorts of nonsense you can't help but ruthlessly mock the term.

You sir, get an exalt.

I have an urge to get some Knights off eBay and paint them white using the avatars of the more vehement GW fanboys on Dakka as heraldry.

It'd probably be too much effort for a visual pun though.

I also lack the skill to replicate avatars like that.

 Selym wrote:

 Mij'aan wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Mij'aan wrote:
From this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/6810/592379.page#6842809

 tdwg83 wrote:
FYI, I was at my LFGS when they got the bad news. Card sets have been under printed.
Local store is receiving 120 Rulebooks, 14 sets of psychic cards and 8 sets of the Objective cards.

Just grab a friend, blindfold them and then force feed them a 26er of vodka and have them randomly demand that you do things thoughout the game. Seems to be about the same.

Except that sounds a LOT more fun.

"A-aand now.."
*hic*
"kill a.."
*falls over*
"..a... that blue thing. No, the left one. Other.."
*hic*
"...left. Get D1 billion points!"

Wait... It's like you work for GW!!

 Kain wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

When GW and the House of the White Knight uses the term to handwave all sorts of nonsense you can't help but ruthlessly mock the term.

The most painful thing about the Zoanthrope thing is that it's exactly the kind of thing GW would promote now.

*sigh*

But yeah, also exalted. Clearly, I was wrong, and my codex's lack of psykers is entirely my fault. How could I ever doubt you Gee dubs? #Spiritualliege

The card system seems as bad as the BRB Warlord traits in 6th ed. Some armies fething love it, others could care less (orks?) about almost every single one.

If they dont add a rule saying along the lines of "If your army cannot use this card either because you did not bring the proper units, or do not have the option for the proper units, discard and redraw" because otherwise its going to be extremely one sided to the more well-rounded armies that have a little of everything whether its good or not compared to armies that have a lot of one thing, none of another.

Neither of my armies use psykers, and im worried im going to be shafted because of it. Orks do have one, but cmon weirdboyz? who uses them with the intent on winning? lol

 Kain wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Kain wrote:

#ForgingTheNarrative.

I hate serious use of hashtags, but I love when they're used sarcastically. Love this.

When GW and the House of the White Knight uses the term to handwave all sorts of nonsense you can't help but ruthlessly mock the term.

You sir, get an exalt.

I have an urge to get some Knights off eBay and paint them white using the avatars of the more vehement GW fanboys on Dakka as heraldry.

It'd probably be too much effort for a visual pun though.

I also lack the skill to replicate avatars like that.

Try using these. You can just print waterslide decals!

 liquidjoshi wrote:
I like how the GW fanboys (sorry, but I'm calling a spade a spade here) are now defending outright bad game design. Guess I'm failing as a Tau player by not taking a psyker, huh? Must forge narrative harder

No, I am not a fan of what I see right now.

Indeed, as I said, people are focusing on the wrong things. Yes, random objectives throughout the game can actually be a very cool addition, but the reason we're complaining is because the objectives themselves are awful.

I've enjoyed doing random, hidden objectives in Dystopian Wars. Things like "kill 50% of the enemy's points and all of their medium-sized units"

The 50% thing means it's still a game, even if they only brought a single minimum-number unit of medium-class ships. And there's always a default "destroy 70% of the enemy's fleet" to fall back on if you look at your objective, their fleet and go "naaaaaah that ain't happening..."

I think its a bit too early to tell without having seen all the rules. But if they allow the player to discard one card before the first game turn it would probably alleviate the issue of having cards that don't apply to your army. From what it looks like, you don't have to discard an objective each turn. If they are working for you, keep them and score some points.

Your scoring unit sitting all alone on objective 4 you had a card for just got nuked off the table? Nothing close enough to make a second go at taking it? Discard it and go for another.

I'm okay with them being random. The path to victory isn't always so obvious.

Personally, anything that removes the ability to win just by blowing your opponent off the table is a good fix. Would help remove a lot of the dbag builds and play style.

In theory, you're right. But really, we all know that TFG Ted is gonna bring his Unbound 9 Riptide list, and simply table us. Or, we're gonna get shafted because we have to roll everything, roll for random cards, roll for decisions, roll for rolling, roll for narrative structure...


A little hyperbole, but you get the idea. I'm just waiting for GW to release a rule where "At the start of the game, roll a D6. On a 4+, you don't feel like playing 40K today."

Am I the only one that isnt afraid of 9 riptides?

I can deal with 5 pretty easily, they are not scary except for the 1-2 that get the buff commander.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
In theory, you're right. But really, we all know that TFG Ted is gonna bring his Unbound 9 Riptide list, and simply table us. Or, we're gonna get shafted because we have to roll everything, roll for random cards, roll for decisions, roll for rolling, roll for narrative structure...

Well, there's no rule that can force players to not engage in dumbarsery. I still think the notion that tabling is an auto win is whats "ruined" 40k. If you score objectives on turns 2-5 or score objectives from cards from turn 1 (a guess?) and your opponent doesn't score anything but just shoots you off the table on whichever turn. Why does he magically get the win?

Why do we as players reward players who refuse to play to the scenario this way? I could see changing first blood to gaining 1 VP for tabling your opponent. But if you are up in turn four with 20 objective points and your opponent has zero, why does he win if he kills all the stuff you have on the table? Who's playing the game and who's "playing" the game there.

I love that we are now at the point where a game based on the premise of eternal war and conflict, it is not considered to be in the spirit of the game to try and outright kill your opponent.

 Madcat87 wrote:
I love that we are now at the point where a game based on the premise of eternal war and conflict, it is not considered to be in the spirit of the game to try and outright kill your opponent.

Thats entirely not my point. Just that a lot of problems that come from list building would be fixed if doing so wasn't an automatic win. If we're just trying to outright kill everything your opponent has, no matter the scenario objectives, why do we even have scenario's? Just play till someone gets tabled.

If you remove the auto win from tabling, you open the door up to a lot of situations that fit the 40k "premise" completely. Assume the rearguard died against overwhelming odds, but they held out long enough to allow their main force to get away. Did they fulfill their mission?

Removing the auto win from tabling though swings to far in the other direction. People will build lists solely around capturing objectives knowing full well they won't survive the game.

 Madcat87 wrote:
Removing the auto win from tabling though swings to far in the other direction. People will build lists solely around capturing objectives knowing full well they won't survive the game.

I'd say replace "first blood" with a vp reward for tabling. There is still an advantage to tabling, it just doesn't make it smart to go at it with ten plague marines and the rest of your army made up of helldrakes. Would also get rid of the "first blood" effect, where useful units are removed from lists solely because they're likely to give up first blood.

Granted plenty of military actions in history have just been stalling tactics, sure, but I'm a bit wary in general of scooping up vp's that cannot be lost.

I don't mind a couple vp's here and there that my opponent can earn and I cannot take away from him but as we've seen with the cards, if you really are able to cycle through like 15-21 cards per person per game, my god, you've just made the mission irrelevant.

I wonder if the different text on the bottom of the cards has anything to do with the scenario's. Perhaps you only run certain ones with each mission? Or they have different effects depending on which mission it is? A scenario built solely on what the cards give you points for would be a little off.

Without knowing everything, it's hard to say. But card objectives would still be known to your opponent (right?) and wouldn't be too different than having objectives that you score points for on turns 2-5.

Then again, if its better than scoring first blood and then denying giving anything else up by flying your FMC's off the table until they need to come on to contest, I'd be up for it.

 Leth wrote:
Am I the only one that isnt afraid of 9 riptides?

I can deal with 5 pretty easily, they are not scary except for the 1-2 that get the buff commander.

My Necron's and/or my FMC spam Tyranids would smash 9 riptides!

Im waiting for the all knight army.. easiest win my Necrons will ever have!




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 dracpanzer wrote:
I wonder if the different text on the bottom of the cards has anything to do with the scenario's. Perhaps you only run certain ones with each mission? Or they have different effects depending on which mission it is? A scenario built solely on what the cards give you points for would be a little off.

Without knowing everything, it's hard to say. But card objectives would still be known to your opponent (right?) and wouldn't be too different than having objectives that you score points for on turns 2-5.

Then again, if its better than scoring first blood and then denying giving anything else up by flying your FMC's off the table until they need to come on to contest, I'd be up for it.

There is a rumor that the cards will certainly interact differently in different missions.