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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maelstrom; I play an exceptionally mobile army.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tactical depth becomes way more intriguing.

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

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

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

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

I like a mix. keeps things intreasting

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is cryostorm ?

 godardc wrote:
What is cryostorm ?

This is Cryostorm ^^

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

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

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

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

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

That one is horrible

Eternal war.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I see a rather obvious contradiction here...

 Peregrine wrote:

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

I see a rather obvious contradiction here...

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

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

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

geargutz wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

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

I see a rather obvious contradiction here...

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

There's a difference between random variation on a D6 with a limited set of outcomes, and random variation on a D66 chart with results that can repeat, may not even be possible (oh my opponent brought no flyers...sweet), may be entirely trivial/automatic (have a Daemon army cast a psychic power...that was hard...), and that often are completely antithetical to the core aspects of a particular faction (e.g. telling Tau they need to kill something in close combat...why?), etc ad nauseum.

There's nothing fair or balancing about maelstrom. It's a crapshoot that emphasizes hardy MSU builds zipping around the board and that's about it.

geargutz wrote:
Yeah, the contradiction is that people ,who play a game where everything is determined by the roll of a dice , don't want a random chance card mechanic.

There's a huge difference between "roll tons of dice, with the overall outcome being a bell curve that favors neither player" and "draw a small number of random cards, with a huge variance in power". I'm also opposed to single game-changing rolls like random psychic powers, for the same reason.

"The one thing about chaos...is its fair "

It's also chaos. You aren't playing a game anymore, you're just rolling a D6 to see who wins. If the only way you can win is to draw better cards than your opponent why even bother playing the game at all?

Yep, whether it be cards or dice this game still relies on chance. If you want to play a game with no chance except whether you choose black or white then play chess, or checkers.
I still think maelstrom is in itself a balance mechanic, I am more open to hybrid missions, but I loathe trying to play against eternal war.
Eternal war favors shooty armies
Maelstrom favors speed and sometimes melee
Guess which is more overpowered this edition

geargutz wrote:
Yep, whether it be cards or dice this game still relies on chance.

Please, go back and read what I said instead of making false dilemmas between "as the game is now" and "no randomness at all". There is a huge difference between rolling lots of dice for normal game mechanics and maelstrom cards.

I still think maelstrom is in itself a balance mechanic

Only if you consider "the game is so random that nothing matters besides what cards you draw" to be a balance mechanic. Dumbing everything down and letting 10 year olds with their space marine starter sets feel like they're "winning" is not a mechanic we should admire.

Guess which is more overpowered this edition

Eldar jetbikes vote for "speed and shooting".

-Once per game, a player may discard their whole hand instead of just one card
-You can only complete 2 Tactical Objectives per turn
-You can only complete 1 "Secure Objective X" of the same number per turn
-Cards that are impossible to complete can be discarded upon drawing them
-D3 Victory Points = 2

The best package of balancing tweaks for Maelstrom I've found, with over 120 games of 7th edition played. Makes it more sensible.

As standard it's good for casual gaming but not much else.

PS. Why do I see so many native English speakers misspelling "Maelstrom"?

I vastly prefer Maelstrom of war because I hate playing agaisnt or as static gunlines, and maelstrom really rewards you for taking action.

Yes the randomness can be a bit annoying, but this is a tabletop game so randomness is expected. (Furthermore, the excitement gained from having a random objective outweighs the balancing issue).

I play Blood Angels (so I am a bit biased) but honestly as such a low tier army most competitive armies can blow me out of the water with pure firepower, so I love that Maelstrom gives me a fighting chance.

- Recently I managed to beat a 30k mechanicum army which i doubt i could ever do in an eternal war mission.

Fortunately for me Maelstrom of war is the standard at my flgs so its not ever an issue.

Well looking at the vote bar, so far most prefer maelstrom, that could change when more vote, but so far it seems many like the concept of the random chance of cards.
As far what I've stated so far is just my own belief and knowledge. You welcome to your own.

Randomness being a good or a bad thing is nothing more than a subjective view. That's how it really is.

Some want things to be less random, to others the random factors are fine.

Altough I'd say, if you take into account GW's philosophy with the game the ones wanting less randomness are in a way more in the wrong. Their subjective views, demands and expectations are somewhat polar opposite to the company producing the game, balance not being a big concern and most of the content simply being created for variety and additional fun (like the unbalanced campaign scenarios, they're not there for chess level tournament play.)

Thing is, some people just don't realize they're expecting a factory producing blue cars to suddenly start producing red ones and then they get mad/disappointed/bitter. That's what it comes down to.

And no, the good old days are an invalid argument. I've seen the fictional good old days and stuff was broken back then aswell, you were just younger and more inexperienced back then or then it's just the passing of time making your memories more positive.

Gak was broken as hell back then too, period.

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

That wouldn't work that well without some extra house ruling since cards like "cast a power" or " turbo boost x units" still exist. :\

 Runic wrote:
Randomness being a good or a bad thing is nothing more than a subjective view. That's how it really is.

If we're looking at a wargame as a reflection of background material and a test of tactical ability, then no, it's not a subjective view. Randomness for its own sake only detracts from that kind of experience.

If you just want an excuse to play with plastic armymen, well, randomness isn't a problem. The question is, why does one need a defined ruleset with ~60 books for that?

And no, the good old days are an invalid argument. I've seen the fictional good old days and stuff was broken back then aswell, you were just younger and more inexperienced back then or then it's just the passing of time making your memories more positive.

Gak was broken as hell back then too, period.

I don't think anyone is denying there was broken stuff in previous editions, there very much was. In fact, that was one of the driving factors in the 2E-3E reboot, stuff just got too insane and the ruleset needed a reboot. The problem is that they've not only let it get back to that state, but far beyond it with the current edition. I can't think of anything in previous editions that can match the "brokenness" that's not only possible but commonplace in the current edition.

As bad as say, 2E Space Wolves & Eldar were, or 3.5E CSM's and 4E invincifalcon Eldar, or 5E GK's, nothing matches the absurdity that the game allows in 7E, except possibly 2E Virus Grenades, which GW retroactively told everyone to not use and forget it even existed

 Runic wrote:
Thing is, some people just don't realize they're expecting a factory producing blue cars to suddenly start producing red ones and then they get mad/disappointed/bitter. That's what it comes down to.

It's more like expecting a factory that produces cars with no engine in them and half the metal parts rusted away to start producing functional cars. GW's design principles aren't just bad for one particular group of players, they're bad for everyone. They're making a game with all the depth and quality of those silly games you get on the back of cereal boxes, except they're charging people hundreds of dollars for the rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Remulus wrote:
(Furthermore, the excitement gained from having a random objective outweighs the balancing issue).

Which is a very superficial sort of excitement. Maybe it's fun the first time it happens, but you pretty quickly realize that you aren't accomplishing anything when you get that random objective. It's like sitting alone at the table rolling a D6 and then celebrating how awesome it is every time you roll a 6. Personally I find it much more exciting to claim normal objectives, since then it's a triumph of beating my opponent or the last-second drama of whose squad will win the fight over it on the final turn of the game. IOW, things we as players have control over, not a random deck of cards declaring one of us to be the winner.

Calm down bro. The exciting thing isn't the "OH look, i drew a random card!' The excitement stems from coming up with new tactics on the fly to achieve whatever card you drew.


See, you completely misinterpret what people find engaging with maelstrom of war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


Which is a very superficial sort of excitement. Maybe it's fun the first time it happens, but you pretty quickly realize that you aren't accomplishing anything when you get that random objective. It's like sitting alone at the table rolling a D6 and then celebrating how awesome it is every time you roll a 6.

I honestly can't believe you are dumb enough to think this is the 1 reason people like maelstrom of war.

 Remulus wrote:
The excitement stems from coming up with new tactics on the fly to achieve whatever card you drew.

You mean tactics like "move a scoring unit onto the objective the card told me to claim" or "cast one of the psychic powers I'm already going to cast" or "discard this because my Tau army isn't getting into melee"? Maelstrom involves less coming up with tactics on the fly because the random draw tells you 90% of what you need to do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Remulus wrote:
The excitement stems from coming up with new tactics on the fly to achieve whatever card you drew.

You mean tactics like "move a scoring unit onto the objective the card told me to claim" or "cast one of the psychic powers I'm already going to cast" or "discard this because my Tau army isn't getting into melee"? Maelstrom involves less coming up with tactics on the fly because the random draw tells you 90% of what you need to do.

Add to that you can be rewarded points for literally doing nothing with a unit.


I can look back on past battle reports and see good and bad luck, but I can also see the good and bad decisions I made. "I should have targeted them isntead" "I should have fallen back and ceded that flank" and so on, in maelstrom it's almost pointless to look back on choices made, because from a sheer causality point of view there is far more often nothing that could have been done regardless due to cards drawn. That's far and away different that final causality scoring like with crusade, I've tied crusade with 2 models left on the board as the end result of a hard fought battle and careful maneuver.

All the people complaining about gunlines best be playing on tables with a good amount of los blocking terrain or need to reconsider what's making their games suck.

 Vaktathi wrote:
If we're looking at a wargame as a reflection of background material and a test of tactical ability, then no, it's not a subjective view. Randomness for its own sake only detracts from that kind of experience.

Maelstrom is fun to play; but a bit random.

My housemate and I play it almost exclusively now.

The mission where you draw cards equal to the number of objectives you hold seems like a good idea - but it tends to be won/lost early on and almost impossible to come back from losing.

We houserule to discard cards that are irrelevant (e.g. no psykers/fliers/buildings).

Changing the D3 to 2 is a good idea though, the swings that generates are a bit... daft.

Perhaps all 12 missions should be available and you randomly generate one? That would balance up armies designed specifically for one type.

Maelstrom, always. Eternal War are boring.

I have only tried playing Maelstrom once and it was one of the worst games of Warhammer 40,000 I have played. I won the game by moving bikes and a trukk back and forth across the board scoring the two middle table objectives. During the game, there were no tactics or hard decisions, it was just roll, consult, play whatever objective you got, repeat. I have had games where I was tabled without destroying a single enemy unit that were more fun because I could look back and think about what I did wrong, what my opponent did right, and how I can change that in future games. With maelstrom, that kind of assessment is almost meaningless because there is nothing you could have done except "roll better objectives".

This is not to say that eternal war missions are perfect. They have their own problems that push them towards favouring certain armies, but I still find them more enjoyable than the mess that is maelstrom.

Why didn't your opponent stop you from doing that? Maybe, because they weren't thinking tactically about what was happening...

Glad to see maelstrom in the lead!

 Remulus wrote:
Calm down bro. The exciting thing isn't the "OH look, i drew a random card!' The excitement stems from coming up with new tactics on the fly to achieve whatever card you drew.


See, you completely misinterpret what people find engaging with maelstrom of war.

That's pretty much "engaging Peregrine 101". He doesn't agree with you so he'll spend 16k posts arguing about how his interpretation is the only one worth considering. He'll rebut everything you say, often going way off track with bizarre comparisons due to his view that your opinion is totally invalid, but watch what you say about him or he'll run to the mods.

I'm honestly interested in seeing a thread where it's just Peregrine vs Traditio vs Martel762 on a critical issue such as forge world legality in regular games.

 MarsNZ wrote:
That's pretty much "engaging Peregrine 101". He doesn't agree with you so he'll spend 16k posts arguing about how his interpretation is the only one worth considering. He'll rebut everything you say, often going way off track with bizarre comparisons due to his view that your opinion is totally invalid, but watch what you say about him or he'll run to the mods.

IOW: "STOP HAVING OPINIONS I DON'T LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE TALK ON A FORUM FOR TALKING!!!"

And I find it hilarious that you think I'm "running to the mods" when I've got a stack of moderator warnings and temp bans a mile high. If people are getting moderator attention for arguing with me it's their fault for blatantly breaking forum rules, not because the mods are my personal tool for silencing disagreement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Why didn't your opponent stop you from doing that? Maybe, because they weren't thinking tactically about what was happening...

Because their opponent didn't know that it would be possible to go back and forth between those two objectives. It's very hard to, for example, stop your opponent from claiming objective #6 in three turns when neither player knows that objective #6 is going to be active until two turns later. A perfectly executed strategy to stop the "back and forth between the middle two objectives" strategy would have turned out to be completely ineffective if the random objective cards came up "hold an objective in your deployment zone" and "cast a psychic power".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Runic wrote:
If someone disagrees, prove me wrong and show me evidence that GW's vision of 40K is a balanced game meant for competitive tournament play. Or even just a balanced game.

You know you aren't going to get that proof, because GW's vision for 40k is "sell lots of space marines". The rules aren't meant for competitive tournament play, but they also aren't meant for casual "kitchen table" play, narrative play, etc. They're just something you look at once and get inspiration for how awesome the new space marine kit is.

If we're looking at a wargame as a source of fun and happen to enjoy random elements and narrative scenarios that aren't necessarily balanced, then random factors are consired a good thing for said person in a wargame. A person might not care about the measure of tactical ability or be interested in the background at all. We instantly have 2 different subjective views, fact.

Those random elements are NOT fun in narrative gaming, because they replace the story with random die rolls. Maelstrom missions are bad for tournament gaming but they're so much worse in any kind of story-based game. And it's the same with things like random warlord traits and random psychic powers. If you want an enjoyable story-based experience one of the first things you do in 40k is throw out all of the stupid randomness.

And honestly, if you don't care about the tactical aspect or the background fiction why are you playing 40k? If all you care about is rolling dice and seeing what numbers you get it's a lot cheaper to just buy a pile of D6s and roll them. In fact, you could even buy some other kinds of dice to roll to add some variety to the numbers you get.

Randomness being good or bad in a game is subjective.

Nope. There's a reason why game design is a profession and random people aren't as good at writing rules as the professionals. And that reason is that good game design is NOT subjective.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Glad to see maelstrom in the lead!

Typical, Eternal got a bad draw of cards and now can't catch up.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Glad to see maelstrom in the lead!

Typical, Eternal got a bad draw of cards and now can't catch up.

Ok, that was funny!

Also, I constantly keep units within striking distance of the center objectives. While there are 3 of each of those cards, there are also several cards that reward holding multiple objectives. So yes, the tactic would indeed involve stopping them from being able to move back and forth at will to claim points. You have to prepare to stop what they are going to do while simultaneously setting yourself up to take advantage of the cards you draw. If you play a maelstrom game with no planning, you will lose. Period.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If you play a maelstrom game with no planning, you will lose. Period.

How do you plan against cards like: Hungry for Glory or Domination ?
For those types of cards are the ones who get you into a deadlock not the claim objective x cards.

 Peregrine wrote:

Randomness being good or bad in a game is subjective.

Nope. There's a reason why game design is a profession and random people aren't as good at writing rules as the professionals. And that reason is that good game design is NOT subjective.

Erm, yeah, good game design is subjective. Some things aren't subjective, like whether a rule is written poorly leading to ambiguity. But whether the actual underlying mechanics are good or bad is totally subjective.

If we get away from 40k for a second, look at some WW2 games, some are more random but also more realistically representing that there wasn't some all seeing and all knowing general hovering over the battlefield giving orders to each individual soldier. Other rule sets are less random, more abstract but also less realistic, just accepting that a lot of real factors of war go away when you have an omnipotent general.

Which one is "better" is entirely subjective, I prefer the latter because I like control, I know some people who prefer the former because to them it gives them a more authentic experience.

 oldzoggy wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If you play a maelstrom game with no planning, you will lose. Period.

How do you plan against cards like: Hungry for Glory or Domination ?
For those types of cards are the ones who get you into a deadlock not the claim objective x cards.

Ok, we'll start with domination. If you have been trying to ensure area control from the start, and that includes the placement of your own objectives, then you have to ask yourself if the points warrant that level of push to claim the one or two objectives you aren't constantly threatening. My normal strategy is to have units able ti threaten at least 4 objectives at all times. Whether it is fast units with my Harlequins/space wolves or by literally holding them with bodies with my orks. It is the best way to ensure the deck doesn't screw up your game. If the domination card gets pulled, and I am behind by 2 or more points, I will drive to claim the objectives with melee units (which I try to keep midfield to threaten and push as the need arises) the benefit of melee is it will let me have a better chance of driving off the opponent. It's much harder to claim an objective if you rely too much on ranged units.

In regards to hungry for glory, I always have characters in my units. If my enemy doesn't, and didn't from the start, I would ask to redraw just as I would if a flyer or psyker based card popped up. If I killed all of their characters already, then I am probably in a pretty good position so not being able to score that one point shouldn't deck my game plan.

Most of the cards reward killing an enemy unit or claiming objectives. Focus on these cards and treat the others as a unneeded bonus and your tactics should do fine.

I don't see why maelstrom would take away from the tactical aspect of the game. Eternal War missions for me as a CSM player would mean: hide the whole game and try to make your obsec units survive so that you can claim objectives in the last turn. With maelstrom I need to move, I have to try to follow the cards and get enough points and then try to not get tabled. With CSM in eternal war I won't be able to get enough kill points against Necrons, and I won't be able to keep my obsec units alive against Tau. On the other hand, Tau and Necrons in Maelstrom are also forced to move and not just form a gunline. It makes for a dynamic exciting gameplay.

Maelstrom is an exquisite example of GW randumb, at its worse. The true tragedy is that the reasons people like it are 99% of times more than valid (see as an examle the poster just above me), and a sign of the terrible quality of 40k as a game in general.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Glad to see maelstrom in the lead!

Typical, Eternal got a bad draw of cards and now can't catch up.

This is a little jewel of a post.

I like both, so I tend to roll randomly. Eternal War missions have a greater reward for having a game-long plan, and it's fun to know what you're fighting towards at the end of the game. Maelstrom missions have a greater reward for having short-term adaptability, and it's fun to be put in unusual situations where you might take a risk in order to score some more points. The missions themselves are varied enough that we don't know whose going to have the advantage ahead of time.

As for downsides, there are fewer Eternal War missions that I enjoy than there are Maelstrom missions. I dislike Purge the Alien, Big Guns Never Tire, and Big Guns Never Tire - the Fast Attack version. The only Maelstrom mission I don't enjoy is the one where you keep the missions hidden, because there's not much point to it.


EDIT: Took a while to think this through a bit more. Essentially, I like how the game ends more when it's close with an Eternal War game. Maelstrom games that are close tend to feel more like I was cheated by random chance, often due to some good d3 rolls, or poor pulls from the Maelstrom deck. Conversely, I like how the game flows more with Maelstrom, since you have to start taking risks right away, while with Eternal War the game flows a little less, as it's easy to become "locked" if the game hits an early tipping point.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I don't see why maelstrom would take away from the tactical aspect of the game.

Because it's basically just reacting to random stimuli, not executing a plan to achieve a definite objective.

Eternal War missions for me as a CSM player would mean: hide the whole game and try to make your obsec units survive so that you can claim objectives in the last turn. With maelstrom I need to move, I have to try to follow the cards and get enough points and then try to not get tabled. With CSM in eternal war I won't be able to get enough kill points against Necrons, and I won't be able to keep my obsec units alive against Tau. On the other hand, Tau and Necrons in Maelstrom are also forced to move and not just form a gunline. It makes for a dynamic exciting gameplay.

Both Tau and Necrons are likely to have more mobility and resiliency and the ability to perform in a Maelstrom mission over CSM's. Right now as a CSM player I'd understand I don't stand much of a chance against either, but I'd far more take my chances with the older style missions than with Maelstrom against a foe that can play "whack-a-mole" far better than my CSM's can.

Eternal War missions have their problems, especially with Big Guns Never Tire and The Scouring still retaining the 6E downsides for taking HS or FA units without having their 6E bonuses (somebody copy-pasted the missions without thinking about the scoring changes that were made...), but Maelstrom certainly isn't any better.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I don't see why maelstrom would take away from the tactical aspect of the game.

Because it's basically just reacting to random stimuli, not executing a plan to achieve a definite objective.

How so? Sure, a lot of the cards can be random draw and your opponent drawing the same Secure Objective X card can be annoying, but I've still had to be tactical to score the other cards. For example, choosing whether or not to run your unit to get Objective X because it would put you out in the open to get shot, or having to choose between trying to get 3 units to run or focusing all your firepower on one unit to kill him or push him off an objective.

This is actually why I like the new tactical objectives cards. They're bigger points, but often harder to score.

Randomness is part of battle. I like both types, but mostly prefer maelstrom because there's more anticipation for me in "What do I need to do next?" Most of my experience with Eternal War has been at events with rounds going to time, so I have to make weird and bad plays in case the game ends on my opponent's turn. If I have time to finish an eternal war game, it's very fun! I just like maelstrom more.

Overall I like EW missions best as they are cleaner and less chance to win based on luck of the draw. I also play very fast armies, so I always feel I have too much of an advantage in Maelstrom missions.

That being said, if I have 4+ hours to play and am playing a regular opponent that I know and is at my same comfort level of rules knowledge, Maelstrom games can be tons of fun.

 BossJakadakk wrote:
Randomness is part of battle.

Uncertainty is part of battle, but your goals and objectives should not be random.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I don't see why maelstrom would take away from the tactical aspect of the game.

Because it's basically just reacting to random stimuli, not executing a plan to achieve a definite objective.

How so? Sure, a lot of the cards can be random draw and your opponent drawing the same Secure Objective X card can be annoying, but I've still had to be tactical to score the other cards. For example, choosing whether or not to run your unit to get Objective X because it would put you out in the open to get shot, or having to choose between trying to get 3 units to run or focusing all your firepower on one unit to kill him or push him off an objective.

This is actually why I like the new tactical objectives cards. They're bigger points, but often harder to score.

some objectives are harder, some can also be impossible, or absolutely trivial, but ultimately you are just reacting to random orders as they come in a random order, often with no regard for the enemy's actions, as opposed to the older style missions centered around entering an engagement with a coherent goal and battle plan like an actual battle.

My last Maelstrom game was The Spoils of War. That deck of cards really didn't like me, everything went to my opponent one way or another. I did achieve slay the Warlord, at least he couldn't take that one off me lol

maelstrom is more enjoyable, eternal war means gun line usually wins

I prefer set objectives that are agreed on prior to the game / are at least set and of equal value to both players.

Random objective cards that alone can hamstring a player and force them to lose make it difficult to enjoy the game.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I don't see why maelstrom would take away from the tactical aspect of the game.

Because it's basically just reacting to random stimuli, not executing a plan to achieve a definite objective.

How so? Sure, a lot of the cards can be random draw and your opponent drawing the same Secure Objective X card can be annoying, but I've still had to be tactical to score the other cards. For example, choosing whether or not to run your unit to get Objective X because it would put you out in the open to get shot, or having to choose between trying to get 3 units to run or focusing all your firepower on one unit to kill him or push him off an objective.

This is actually why I like the new tactical objectives cards. They're bigger points, but often harder to score.

some objectives are harder, some can also be impossible, or absolutely trivial, but ultimately you are just reacting to random orders as they come in a random order, often with no regard for the enemy's actions, as opposed to the older style missions centered around entering an engagement with a coherent goal and battle plan like an actual battle.

But even then, Eternal War is not all sunshine and roses. Majority of the time, it's shoot shoot shoot until Turn 5/6, then make a mad dash to hold the objectives.

I actually like the ITC style, it's a good mix of per turn scoring and planning for the long battle with no randomness.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BossJakadakk wrote:
Randomness is part of battle.

Uncertainty is part of battle, but your goals and objectives should not be random.

I guess I shouldn't have used the word "random." I agree with you, I just also enjoy the game when goals can change, new objectives realized. I like when the narrative goes "Oh snap bruh something new came up you gotsta gotsta do tha thang." Unfortunately maelstrom can be (read: is for me every time) incredibly hit or miss. So many games lost simply because my opponent keeps getting cards to claim objectives on his side, and I get cards to claim those same objectives, or something similar. Eternal war is really nice to just know what you're there to do, and do it. Like I said though, my experience thus far with EW is mostly 2-3 round games because of time constraints. So I'll have like 2 rounds of shooting and then make moves where I have to leave guys out in the open and hope they survive because time is gonna be called on my opponent's turn.

Maybe combining the two would be for the best.

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe combining the two would be for the best.

It's actually incredibly fun to do this.

I can never draw cards in Maelstrom missions that I have a realistic chance of scoring. The cards hate me and that's why I hate maelstrom.

A great example of this was my third game at a tournament this weekend, We're playing a Deadlock variant mission, I draw 6 cards and get only cards that are held by my opponent deep in his deployment zone, Supremacy and Dominion. I ended up scoring no points from cards because I could only discard one per turn.

 jreilly89 wrote:


But even then, Eternal War is not all sunshine and roses.

absolutely, Big Guns and Scouring especially, and anything using KP's. The Eternal War missions arent perfect, but have far less issues with randomness, incoherency, and record keeping/constant rules references relative to Maelstrom.

I get liking some dynamics in the mission and asymmetric goals, but Maelstrom is just such an awful implementation that the old style EW missions, despite their flaws, appeal much more.

Majority of the time, it's shoot shoot shoot until Turn 5/6, then make a mad dash to hold to hold the objectives

Thats one way to look at it, though I think thats more a reflection of the meta than anything else. Really it should be "early game is breaking the enemy force, late game is claiming the objectives from said broken enemy force". Thats how battle traditionally plays out.

I actually like the ITC style, it's a good mix of per turn scoring and planning for the long battle with no randomness.

The ITC missions are definitely wayyyyyyy better than the book Maelstrom missions, but still suffers from many of the same issues.

 BossJakadakk wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BossJakadakk wrote:
Randomness is part of battle.

Uncertainty is part of battle, but your goals and objectives should not be random.

I guess I shouldn't have used the word "random." I agree with you, I just also enjoy the game when goals can change, new objectives realized. I like when the narrative goes "Oh snap bruh something new came up you gotsta gotsta do tha thang." Unfortunately maelstrom can be (read: is for me every time) incredibly hit or miss. So many games lost simply because my opponent keeps getting cards to claim objectives on his side, and I get cards to claim those same objectives, or something similar. Eternal war is really nice to just know what you're there to do, and do it. Like I said though, my experience thus far with EW is mostly 2-3 round games because of time constraints. So I'll have like 2 rounds of shooting and then make moves where I have to leave guys out in the open and hope they survive because time is gonna be called on my opponent's turn.

If anything I would have thought Maelstr would be a bigger issue with time restraints, having to draw and record new objectives and whatnot. Thats said, if time is consistently that much of an issue, I would think there are other issues if 2-3 turn games are the norm, are you usually playing very large games?

Maelstrom is immense fun, but it is far too random for competitive play.

TBH I think GW needs to look at Malifaux for game scenarios.

You get one overall Objective for both players( the Eternal War Mission) and then each player picks 2 out 5 randomly generated secondary objectives( well 4 random and one you can always take) that will generally take a few turns to accomplish for their army.

Both styles run to time for the events I'm currently playing in. 90 minute rounds, and people like to take their time setting up (which annoys me but apparently only me so I just let it slide). For maelstrom, though, I just feel like more actually happens in those 2-3 game turns. These events are 1000 points, so more should really happen in 90 minutes, but like I said, people are kinda lax on the set up. I go to play the game, not to spend half of each round talking. Talking is fine, just, let's continue the game. Maybe I'll talk to the TO about this and see if anyone else has an issue, or if he thinks it's an issue for these events.

But within those 2-3 rounds, I feel like more exciting things happen in the maelstrom missions than in the eternal war ones.

The 'junk' cards are part of the design; that's why the Tactical Warlord traits are mostly card manipulation mechanics.

I like Maelstrom because of the ongoing scoring. I've played games with my Tyranids where I managed to win but get nigh wiped out in the process, and you can't do that in Eternal War. The opportunity to force your opponent into a pyrrhic victory is awesome, and levels the playing field.

Also, as well as mobility, it favours range and board coverage. Randomized objectives also means that you're typically engaging in sub-optimal target solutions, which means the games typically explore more the game's 'space' than Eternal War, which is really just one optimal solution vs another. t6

To be fair to Maelstrom, you do know what cards you could be drawing, so it is a good idea to consider these cards with list design, objective placement, deployment and movement.

Drawing cards that require crossing the battlefield to score objectives should hardly be a surprise.

nareik wrote:
To be fair to Maelstrom, you do know what cards you could be drawing, so it is a good idea to consider these cards with list design, objective placement, deployment and movement.

Drawing cards that require crossing the battlefield to score objectives should hardly be a surprise.

And what considerations would you give your list to counter or optimize casting a psychic power or declaring a challenge....




"So I charged with my THSS termies and my opponent issued a challenge, luckily I had prepared for this with how I built my list and placed my objectives, even though neither of those things factored in at all or event remotely stood a chance in preventing my opponents use of the card, but I'm just going to finish this sentence by saying tactical a lot. tactical, tactical, tactical"



There's an argument to be made for heavily modified maelstrom as part of an overall scenario with a known primary objective, but randomly picking up cards takes nothing into context. It also adds nothing if the card isn't even really requiring anything, its basically just gifting free vp's.

I like the idea behind Maelstrom. Things change on the battlefield rapidly, and you may have to run back to seize that objective that you thought would be of no use. But it was implemented quite poorly. Far too often one player or another gets shafted when they draw poorly, and get a bunch of cards that they can't achieve. Then their opponent gets 20 of "secure this objective that you already have". So, I like the idea behind it, but getting screwed over game after game by those cards has turned me off of it.

 Crablezworth wrote:

nareik wrote:
To be fair to Maelstrom, you do know what cards you could be drawing, so it is a good idea to consider these cards with list design, objective placement, deployment and movement.

Drawing cards that require crossing the battlefield to score objectives should hardly be a surprise.

And what considerations would you give your list to counter or optimize casting a psychic power or declaring a challenge....




"So I charged with my THSS termies and my opponent issued a challenge, luckily I had prepared for this with how I built my list and placed my objectives, even though neither of those things factored in at all or event remotely stood a chance in preventing my opponents use of the card, but I'm just going to finish this sentence by saying tactical a lot. tactical, tactical, tactical"



There's an argument to be made for heavily modified maelstrom as part of an overall scenario with a known primary objective, but randomly picking up cards takes nothing into context. It also adds nothing if the card isn't even really requiring anything, its basically just gifting free vp's.

Try killing their psykers before the card is played. Or accept the fact that occasionally you willose a point to these situations and play around them. That would be the same as complaining that the tau got a "kill something in the shooting phase" they are playing to their armies strengths, and it garnered them a victory point.

You issue the challenge instead. If they draw the card and are in good position to get the charge, then they will score a point. If they draw the card but don't have a decent charge, you either run away to keep it from happening or charge yourself and issue the challenge. Either way you will shut them down from scoring the point. Hell, you challenging them forces them to either accept and keep their (possible) beatstick in the flight or deny to keep them alive a turn possibly costing them the unit. Also, it says to successfully issue a challenge. You can deny them. If your captain here's over the com that the enemy is trying to find their location, they may be willing to back up a bit to keep them guessing.

 Peregrine wrote:
You know you aren't going to get that proof, because GW's vision for 40k is "sell lots of space marines". The rules aren't meant for competitive tournament play, but they also aren't meant for casual "kitchen table" play, narrative play, etc. They're just something you look at once and get inspiration for how awesome the new space marine kit is.

As I said before, which is again, a fact, you cannot dictate what is what to whom. For GW their ruleset is doing its job for narrative and casual play, and I know individuals who agree that they have great casual games with the ruleset. You disagreeing doesn't change this. You have your expectations, someone has theirs, and that's that. Neither is more right or wrong.

If we're looking at a wargame as a source of fun and happen to enjoy random elements and narrative scenarios that aren't necessarily balanced, then random factors are consired a good thing for said person in a wargame. A person might not care about the measure of tactical ability or be interested in the background at all. We instantly have 2 different subjective views, fact.

 Peregrine wrote:
Those random elements are NOT fun in narrative gaming, because they replace the story with random die rolls.

Maybe not for you, but for someone else they might be enjoyable. Again you are no more correct than anyone else, might aswell stop trying. That's your subjective view, nothing else.

 Peregrine wrote:
And honestly, if you don't care about the tactical aspect or the background fiction why are you playing 40k? If all you care about is rolling dice and seeing what numbers you get it's a lot cheaper to just buy a pile of D6s and roll them. In fact, you could even buy some other kinds of dice to roll to add some variety to the numbers you get.

Someone might just enjoy the models, or care about playing but not be interested if the game is balanced, the basis of said tactical aspect argument.

 Peregrine wrote:
Nope.

Yep, randomness in any game being good or bad is subjective, sorry. Nothing you say changes it.

Imagine I reply to any of your counterarguments with "randomness in a game being good or bad is subjective" -because it is even if you disagree. Disagreeing doesn't turn a red car into a blue one. I'll go with that so I don't have to repeat it manually for all eternity as you try to counterargument an obvious fact for some reason. Got nothing more to add, I am correct.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:


Try killing their psykers before the card is played. Or accept the fact that occasionally you willose a point to these situations and play around them. That would be the same as complaining that the tau got a "kill something in the shooting phase" they are playing to their armies strengths, and it garnered them a victory point.

The larger point is that these are "gimme" free "objectives" that require no skill or intelligence to complete and have very minimal ways an opponent can do anything to stop, making their value as reflections of tactical skill pointless, and their role as a directed battlefield goal rather absurd.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:


Try killing their psykers before the card is played. Or accept the fact that occasionally you willose a point to these situations and play around them. That would be the same as complaining that the tau got a "kill something in the shooting phase" they are playing to their armies strengths, and it garnered them a victory point.

The larger point is that these are "gimme" free "objectives" that require no skill or intelligence to complete and have very minimal ways an opponent can do anything to stop, making their value as reflections of tactical skill pointless, and their role as a directed battlefield goal rather absurd.

Agreed. As much as I love Maelstrom, look at the Grey Knights deck. Half the cards are "Cast a psychic power" or "Deepstrike a unit", things entirely built around the army.

Aye, making them goals/objectives in and of themselves is rather silly, when they're simply the natural steps one would take to achieving the actual goal of the battle regardless. Potentially winning a game on objectives like that when you might be left with a broken force with your opponent it total command of the field is particularly absurd.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:


Try killing their psykers before the card is played. Or accept the fact that occasionally you willose a point to these situations and play around them. That would be the same as complaining that the tau got a "kill something in the shooting phase" they are playing to their armies strengths, and it garnered them a victory point.

The larger point is that these are "gimme" free "objectives" that require no skill or intelligence to complete and have very minimal ways an opponent can do anything to stop, making their value as reflections of tactical skill pointless, and their role as a directed battlefield goal rather absurd.

Agreed. As much as I love Maelstrom, look at the Grey Knights deck. Half the cards are "Cast a psychic power" or "Deepstrike a unit", things entirely built around the army.

Or even "Recon" which just gives you a free point whenever you draw it, usually. That card makes me feel funny, and definitely makes me understand the "good idea, poor execution" viewpoint. I like the tactical idea behind maelstrom, but yeah it can get out of hand with points that are literally handed to people, while RNG can totally swing the opposite way for the opponent.

Some people like hockey, some people like basketball. High scoring absurdity vs low scoring tactical play.

 Crablezworth wrote:

nareik wrote:
To be fair to Maelstrom, you do know what cards you could be drawing, so it is a good idea to consider these cards with list design, objective placement, deployment and movement.

Drawing cards that require crossing the battlefield to score objectives should hardly be a surprise.

And what considerations would you give your list to counter or optimize casting a psychic power or declaring a challenge....




"So I charged with my THSS termies and my opponent issued a challenge, luckily I had prepared for this with how I built my list and placed my objectives, even though neither of those things factored in at all or event remotely stood a chance in preventing my opponents use of the card, but I'm just going to finish this sentence by saying tactical a lot. tactical, tactical, tactical"



There's an argument to be made for heavily modified maelstrom as part of an overall scenario with a known primary objective, but randomly picking up cards takes nothing into context. It also adds nothing if the card isn't even really requiring anything, its basically just gifting free vp's.

Snipe out psykers / characters before they draw those cards, or accept that your opponent is going to score some VP and focus on scoring more than over investing in countering small value cards they are unlikely to draw.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Having gimmie cards encourages the strategy of accumulating a decent amount of points (in case the opponent draws a few gimmies) instead of scoring one goal early on then filling the goal with your players for the rest of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Furthermore, gimmies also mean novice players get to feel they accomplished something in game, even if they play someone far out of their league.

nareik wrote:
Furthermore, gimmies also mean novice players get to feel they accomplished something in game, even if they play someone far out of their league.

Which is obviously the intent of maelstrom missions: make the game so random that a 10 year old with their first space marine starter set has a chance of winning against even the most experienced veteran, and continuing to buy more boxes of space marines because they're so excited about how they won. Most people grow up and move beyond kid-friendly games like this, it's just unfortunate that large parts of the 40k community haven't.

So....basically gimme's are there to counter other gimme's (in which case we could just dump them and be no worse for wear) and to mollify new players to think they did somethinf...by doing basic unit actions they were already gonna do?

Neither of these sound like good game design.

Maelstrom missions are stupidly random. As others have said, the idea of shifting objectives is a great one but Maelstrom executes it poorly. And the way objectives are generated are just silly:

"Alright Major! Take your men and assault the south bunker! With it we can fortify our position against enemy counter attack!'

"Yes sir!"

"Major, orders just came down from Segmentum command. Enemy fliers have been spotted in your sector. We need you to take them down!"

"But sir, there are no enemy fliers within sight. And what about the south bunker?"

"Never mind that major, I have new orders from you. These come from the top. We need you to cut the teeth of those psykers we just assigned to your company. Order them to cast a few powers to see how they do".

"Sir, we don't have any pskers!"

"Not important major. We just got new orders. These are big, Major. We need your company to completely eradicate the enemy in close quarters assault. The brass thinks it would make for a good morale boost".

"WHAT ABOUT THE SOUTH BUNKER?!"

"Major! Our intell reports enemy Psykers in your area. We need them eliminated in the name of the Emperor! Do it, ASAP!"

"WE'RE FIGHTING TAU!".

I think Custom sums it up nicely. Maelstrom is a good idea but it was done so very badly.

 Peregrine wrote:

nareik wrote:
Furthermore, gimmies also mean novice players get to feel they accomplished something in game, even if they play someone far out of their league.

Which is obviously the intent of maelstrom missions: make the game so random that a 10 year old with their first space marine starter set has a chance of winning against even the most experienced veteran, and continuing to buy more boxes of space marines because they're so excited about how they won. Most people grow up and move beyond kid-friendly games like this, it's just unfortunate that large parts of the 40k community haven't.

I don't think it is so much about a chance of winning, so much as a chance of putting something on the scoreboard. They are participation awards, not trophies.

I am shocked that the majority prefer arbitrary and randomly-shifting objectives for randomness sake.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I am shocked that the majority prefer arbitrary and randomly-shifting objectives for randomness sake.

I think your missing the point. The majority like maelstrom for the fact that they find it fun. If maelstrom wasn't fun then no one would want to play it....but more people find it more fun then eternal war. You look at that and think "they like it because they just want to be randum", while I look at it and think "they like it because they got tired of fighting against gunlines". Majority proves most of your "anti maelstrom " posts are just your opinion whIle most disagree with you

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Maelstrom missions are stupidly random. As others have said, the idea of shifting objectives is a great one but Maelstrom executes it poorly. And the way objectives are generated are just silly:

"Alright Major! Take your men and assault the south bunker! With it we can fortify our position against enemy counter attack!'

"Yes sir!"

"Major, orders just came down from Segmentum command. Enemy fliers have been spotted in your sector. We need you to take them down!"

"But sir, there are no enemy fliers within sight. And what about the south bunker?"

"Never mind that major, I have new orders from you. These come from the top. We need you to cut the teeth of those psykers we just assigned to your company. Order them to cast a few powers to see how they do".

"Sir, we don't have any pskers!"

"Not important major. We just got new orders. These are big, Major. We need your company to completely eradicate the enemy in close quarters assault. The brass thinks it would make for a good morale boost".

"WHAT ABOUT THE SOUTH BUNKER?!"

"Major! Our intell reports enemy Psykers in your area. We need them eliminated in the name of the Emperor! Do it, ASAP!"

"WE'RE FIGHTING TAU!".

Brilliant! Best explanation ever!

 Ankhalagon wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Maelstrom missions are stupidly random. As others have said, the idea of shifting objectives is a great one but Maelstrom executes it poorly. And the way objectives are generated are just silly:

"Alright Major! Take your men and assault the south bunker! With it we can fortify our position against enemy counter attack!'

"Yes sir!"

"Major, orders just came down from Segmentum command. Enemy fliers have been spotted in your sector. We need you to take them down!"

"But sir, there are no enemy fliers within sight. And what about the south bunker?"

"Never mind that major, I have new orders from you. These come from the top. We need you to cut the teeth of those psykers we just assigned to your company. Order them to cast a few powers to see how they do".

"Sir, we don't have any pskers!"

"Not important major. We just got new orders. These are big, Major. We need your company to completely eradicate the enemy in close quarters assault. The brass thinks it would make for a good morale boost".

"WHAT ABOUT THE SOUTH BUNKER?!"

"Major! Our intell reports enemy Psykers in your area. We need them eliminated in the name of the Emperor! Do it, ASAP!"

"WE'RE FIGHTING TAU!".

Brilliant! Best explanation ever!

While this does sound quite funny, most houserule that you discard cards that don't matter in a game...so in reality it never plays out like this.

If one has to houserule the game to not play the game's actual victory conditions, then you're not playing the game...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If one has to houserule the game to not play the game's actual victory conditions, then you're not playing the game...

So I guess you arent a fan of itc, the most common tournament houserule in the us.

The free points cards are there to promote list variety.

The fact that I choose to have flyers, characters, and psykers to make my opponent attempt those objectives while I focus on the ones based on board control has affected my list making since this addition dropped. Now, you can do the opposite obviously, but that is again a tactical decision that is added with the advent of these cards.

Yes, some armies don't have psykers. The objective to kill a psyker is then one where you are denying a point to the opponent as well.

No, I'm not a fan of ITC; I play among friends, so ITC is a solution to a problem that we don't have.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The free points cards are there to promote list variety.

Except they don't. If there's a "kill a flyer" objective you want to remove flyers from your list so that your opponent has a dead card every time they draw that objective. So instead of promoting diversity in unit choices you discourage people from taking anything that has a "kill this" objective attached.

And of course that's on top of the stupidity of taking units just in case they're relevant for an objective. Why should my Tau have to ally in a psyker that has no purpose in the army other than casting any random level 1 power if I happen to draw "cast a psychic power"? How is that producing interesting list diversity and strategic choices, rather than being a stupid gimmick?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The free points cards are there to promote list variety.

The fact that I choose to have flyers, characters, and psykers to make my opponent attempt those objectives while I focus on the ones based on board control has affected my list making since this addition dropped.

Or rather, you've just given an opponent a greater array of methods to achieve victory with and any specialized assets they brought to deal with such are no longer dead weight and have targets while the rest of the army does what it was going to do anyway...all you are doing by reacting that way is opening up more points for an opponent to snag.

If you brought no flyer, well that Hunter tank your opponent deployed would have done largely nothing of value, but since you brought the flyer to try and stress their objective capabilities, you've just made it useful and now *you* have to devote resources to dealing with that threat, for no objective bonus, that otherwise you could have ignored. Alternatively, if they brought no specialized AA, you've given your opponent a fallback objective to try for if they cant reach their primary one, or given them the chance to score 2 objectives where otherwise they could only have scored one.

There's very little tactical merit to this sort of thing.

Yes, some armies don't have psykers. The objective to kill a psyker is then one where you are denying a point to the opponent as well.

which balances only over very many games, almost never just one, making the theoretical balance factor largely pointless.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If one has to houserule the game to not play the game's actual victory conditions, then you're not playing the game...

Yes, thankyou!

That's the other problem, I have a gut feeling that a lot of the pro maelstrom side aren't actually playing maelstrom, they're playing modified maelstrom, but to admit that weakens their argument from the get go so that part gets omitted.


I'll be fair, I'll weaken the eternal war side, most of the eternal war missions suck too, but at least some are still primarily about final causality scoring as opposed to gotta catch'm all pokemon.

Maelstrom forces you to be reactive, and adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield. I appreciate that a lot more than the shin kicking contest that Eternal war missions tends to be. Lets face it this game isn't balanced at all, so anything dependent on kill points is horribly doomed to failure. At least weak armies can strive for victory in maelstrom (albeit with little chance of success) as opposed to getting their faces ground into the dirt like eternal war tends to do.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If one has to houserule the game to not play the game's actual victory conditions, then you're not playing the game...

Yes, thankyou!

That's the other problem, I have a gut feeling that a lot of the pro maelstrom side aren't actually playing maelstrom, they're playing modified maelstrom, but to admit that weakens their argument from the get go so that part gets omitted.


I'll be fair, I'll weaken the eternal war side, most of the eternal war missions suck too, but at least some are still primarily about final causality scoring as opposed to gotta catch'm all pokemon.

So you mean to tell me that you guyz don't use any house rules at all? With the poor writing of gw there is almost no way to play the game without houserules....and also you are trying to give the concept of houserules a negative spin.
By your logic I am no longer playing a game of 40k if I'm making a simple houserule to either better the game or make it quicker....it's logic like this that makes people Snip. If you have to ask if something is considered an insult on Dakka, you should already know the answer. --Janthkin

 Grimgold wrote:
Maelstrom forces you to be reactive, and adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield.

40k does that inherently, even in Eternal War missions. If you're playing some version of CTF or KOTH, for example, and your opponent makes a move, you generally have to find a way to counter it or you will lose.
____

@geargutz - if you're using "neckbeards" as an insult (and you are), then it's an insult. But far be it for me to judge...

Also, nice use of logical fallacy there. Maelstrom has a very specific set of rules, and the question is whether people are playing Maelstrom, Not whether they are playing a modified version of Maelstrom that ignores anything they deem to be "impossible" due to their (or their opponent's) failure to provide enabling units.

If one accomodates a player when their opponent doesn't have a Flyer, why not a similar accomodation when continuous Running by the nearest remaining unit(s) cannot reach an Objective? That's exactly the same.

 Grimgold wrote:
Maelstrom forces you to be reactive, and adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield. I appreciate that a lot more than the shin kicking contest that Eternal war missions tends to be. Lets face it this game isn't balanced at all, so anything dependent on kill points is horribly doomed to failure. At least weak armies can strive for victory in maelstrom (albeit with little chance of success) as opposed to getting their faces ground into the dirt like eternal war tends to do.

I find that the armies that are considered "top tier" are generally also the best at Maelstrom missions too. Hard to find a unit better tailored to Maelstrom than Scatterbikes or Tomb Blades for example, super fast, can be played MSU or with large squads, and effective against a very wide array of targets with good weapons range to boot. Or things like TWC deathstars that can often achieve multiple Maelstrom objectives in a single turn (cast a power, kill something in CC, win a challenge, all while clearing the enemy off and claiming Objective X).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Also, nice use of logical fallacy there. Maelstrom has a very specific set of rules, and the question is whether people are playing Maelstrom, Not whether they are playing a modified version of Maelstrom that ignores anything they deem to be "impossible" due to their (or their opponent's) failure to provide enabling units.
.

It might be logical falacy, but it's willfull misdirection to try to lead people to believe the houserulled version they've been playing isnt 40k....40K IS A TABLETOP GAME!!!!
The only game out there where you have to play it in its original form are video games, where you involvement is completely determined by the system...anything else that isn't a video game is pretty open to interpretation and doesn't automatically make it a completely different game when someone makes a change to a rule. Houserules are how we make a fun game better, easier, and an overall better experience. Even tournaments houserule.
So when I voted for maelstrom I was also including my houserule. Do you want me to retract my vote on this threads poll since I don't play the exact word for word version of Maelstrom missions?

SMs in massed free Transports that all happen to be super-scoring aren't a bad choice, either...

Since playing the game the way you like including the use of houserules is literally stated as "the most important rule" in the rulebook, I see nothing wrong with that. We also play it with discarding impossible objectives right away.

Houseruled 40k is still 40k.

Houseruled Maelstrom is NOT Maelstrom.

Conflating the 2 is the mistake.

Exactly. Talking about house-ruled maelstrom missions as justification for why maelstrom missions are good is essentially saying "maelstrom missions are great, once you change them to remove all of the bad things".

 Peregrine wrote:
Exactly. Talking about house-ruled maelstrom missions as justification for why maelstrom missions are good is essentially saying "maelstrom missions are great, once you change them to remove all of the bad things".

Maelstrom is symptomatic of the utter cluster-feth that has resulted from: 1. power creep, 2. fliers and 3. superheavies being introduced into the regular 40k game.

Not all armies, even reasonably well constructed, have the same killing capacity. Thus, for "balance," you need some other mechanism.

I modify maelstrom and eternal war. I am playing 40k either way. Exact same as when I play DND. Most armies anti flyer capabilities are based around also having flyers. If you decide to not take flyers, vehicles, monstrous creatures, and fortifications in order to keep your opponent from scoring a single POSSIBLE objective point you are going to lose. HARD.

So yes, they do promote list variety. You'll want fast units, durable units, assault units, shooty units, and psykers (maybe) in order to have the best possible odds of completing objectives. If you don't take those units (of which there is only one an army doesn't have access to which is psykers and that has the same odds of helping you as hindering you) you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

With eternal war the only thing you need is ranged firepower and fast units in the very last round of the game. Because of the fact you won't NEED to close the distance between yourself and the enemy until the last couple turns.

Are you possibly going to run melee? Sure. Will it actually give you a serious advantage in the game? No. Because you had 4-5 turns to simply blow the enemy off of objectives. A melee unit probably isn't going to do much that late in the game. With maelstrom you may need that midfield objective NOW. A melee unit will get that for you faster than most ranged units will because they will be sitting on the objective when the target is dead. Shooty units are still where they started.

Traditio wrote:
Maelstrom is symptomatic of the utter cluster-feth that has resulted from: 1. power creep, 2. fliers and 3. superheavies being introduced into the regular 40k game.

Not all armies, even reasonably well constructed, have the same killing capacity. Thus, for "balance," you need some other mechanism.

No, it's symptomatic of GW's desire to add more randomness to the game to allow 10 year olds to "win". If 40k is primarily won through player skill then GW's target audience is going to lose all of their games and stop buying boxes of space marines. If, instead, 40k has a major random element that overwhelms the importance of skill then GW's target audience is no longer at as much of a disadvantage, wins often enough to stay happy, and continues buying boxes of space marines. Maelstrom missions in 40k fill the same role as those silly "roll a die and move that many spaces" games you play with small children: they're both terrible as serious games, but small children aren't smart enough to know any better.

If anything maelstrom missions are more necessary in a balanced game, assuming you want to accomplish GW's goals. In a balanced game with no power creep issues player skill is decisive and you have to add a huge random element to let the small children win. In an unbalanced game like 40k player skill is less decisive. Even in the absence of a strong random factor to overwhelm player skill you can still tell the small child "BUY THIS AWESOME GIANT ROBOT AND WIN EVERY GAME" and collect another $500 next week when they come back to buy two more giant robots to win even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
So yes, they do promote list variety. You'll want fast units, durable units, assault units, shooty units, and psykers (maybe) in order to have the best possible odds of completing objectives. If you don't take those units (of which there is only one an army doesn't have access to which is psykers and that has the same odds of helping you as hindering you) you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

The problem is that it promotes list diversity in a really stupid and awkward way. You aren't taking, say, assault units in a Tau army because they're part of a coherent strategy or because they match your fluff, you're taking them because there's an objective card that says "kill something with an assault unit". In the absence of that card you'd be perfectly happy to shoot stuff to death instead of charging. And it makes no sense at all that killing a unit with your guns is worth less as an objective than killing that same unit with swords, if you roll the wrong random objective. A dead unit is a dead unit, it shouldn't matter how you killed it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Traditio wrote:
Maelstrom is symptomatic of the utter cluster-feth that has resulted from: 1. power creep, 2. fliers and 3. superheavies being introduced into the regular 40k game.

Not all armies, even reasonably well constructed, have the same killing capacity. Thus, for "balance," you need some other mechanism.

No, it's symptomatic of GW's desire to add more randomness to the game to allow 10 year olds to "win". If 40k is primarily won through player skill then GW's target audience is going to lose all of their games and stop buying boxes of space marines. If, instead, 40k has a major random element that overwhelms the importance of skill then GW's target audience is no longer at as much of a disadvantage, wins often enough to stay happy, and continues buying boxes of space marines. Maelstrom missions in 40k fill the same role as those silly "roll a die and move that many spaces" games you play with small children: they're both terrible as serious games, but small children aren't smart enough to know any better.

If anything maelstrom missions are more necessary in a balanced game, assuming you want to accomplish GW's goals. In a balanced game with no power creep issues player skill is decisive and you have to add a huge random element to let the small children win. In an unbalanced game like 40k player skill is less decisive. Even in the absence of a strong random factor to overwhelm player skill you can still tell the small child "BUY THIS AWESOME GIANT ROBOT AND WIN EVERY GAME" and collect another $500 next week when they come back to buy two more giant robots to win even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
So yes, they do promote list variety. You'll want fast units, durable units, assault units, shooty units, and psykers (maybe) in order to have the best possible odds of completing objectives. If you don't take those units (of which there is only one an army doesn't have access to which is psykers and that has the same odds of helping you as hindering you) you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

The problem is that it promotes list diversity in a really stupid and awkward way. You aren't taking, say, assault units in a Tau army because they're part of a coherent strategy or because they match your fluff, you're taking them because there's an objective card that says "kill something with an assault unit". In the absence of that card you'd be perfectly happy to shoot stuff to death instead of charging. And it makes no sense at all that killing a unit with your guns is worth less as an objective than killing that same unit with swords, if you roll the wrong random objective. A dead unit is a dead unit, it shouldn't matter how you killed it.

This whole over exaggerated 10yr argument is reAly getting old....WE GET IT!!! You don't like gw business decisions, go ahead and fume while the rest of us play maelstrom and have a right and proppa fun time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Since playing the game the way you like including the use of houserules is literally stated as "the most important rule" in the rulebook, I see nothing wrong with that. We also play it with discarding impossible objectives right away.

Love this comment, in all seriousness this had made the most sense out a lot of recent comments. EXALTED

geargutz wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Traditio wrote:
Maelstrom is symptomatic of the utter cluster-feth that has resulted from: 1. power creep, 2. fliers and 3. superheavies being introduced into the regular 40k game.

Not all armies, even reasonably well constructed, have the same killing capacity. Thus, for "balance," you need some other mechanism.

No, it's symptomatic of GW's desire to add more randomness to the game to allow 10 year olds to "win". If 40k is primarily won through player skill then GW's target audience is going to lose all of their games and stop buying boxes of space marines. If, instead, 40k has a major random element that overwhelms the importance of skill then GW's target audience is no longer at as much of a disadvantage, wins often enough to stay happy, and continues buying boxes of space marines. Maelstrom missions in 40k fill the same role as those silly "roll a die and move that many spaces" games you play with small children: they're both terrible as serious games, but small children aren't smart enough to know any better.

If anything maelstrom missions are more necessary in a balanced game, assuming you want to accomplish GW's goals. In a balanced game with no power creep issues player skill is decisive and you have to add a huge random element to let the small children win. In an unbalanced game like 40k player skill is less decisive. Even in the absence of a strong random factor to overwhelm player skill you can still tell the small child "BUY THIS AWESOME GIANT ROBOT AND WIN EVERY GAME" and collect another $500 next week when they come back to buy two more giant robots to win even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
So yes, they do promote list variety. You'll want fast units, durable units, assault units, shooty units, and psykers (maybe) in order to have the best possible odds of completing objectives. If you don't take those units (of which there is only one an army doesn't have access to which is psykers and that has the same odds of helping you as hindering you) you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.

The problem is that it promotes list diversity in a really stupid and awkward way. You aren't taking, say, assault units in a Tau army because they're part of a coherent strategy or because they match your fluff, you're taking them because there's an objective card that says "kill something with an assault unit". In the absence of that card you'd be perfectly happy to shoot stuff to death instead of charging. And it makes no sense at all that killing a unit with your guns is worth less as an objective than killing that same unit with swords, if you roll the wrong random objective. A dead unit is a dead unit, it shouldn't matter how you killed it.

This whole over exaggerated 10yr argument is reAly getting old....WE GET IT!!! You don't like gw business decisions, go ahead and fume while the rest of us play maelstrom and have a right and proppa fun time.

What a great counter-argument. "Stop making that argument because I don't want to hear it!"

 TheCustomLime wrote:


What a great counter-argument. "Stop making that argument because I don't want to hear it!"

It was a statement, not an argument.
At this point I'm just gonna ignore anyone who compares honest to goodness players to 10yr olds because they like maelstrom. I have used terms like neckbeard, rules layer, and tfg, but I have never questioned the maturity of my fellow gamers (at least not in 40k )

So, it's ok to use derogatory language about people...but not to discuss rules within the context of what appears to be GW's increasingly targeted market demographic...

So I'm 10, or have the maturity of a 10 year old, because I like Maelstrom more?

I'll even play it without discarding objectives, because doing so is simply a way of making the point count higher anyway. I was even surprised the first time someone said anything about it to me. Now it just seems to be the way people here play, and it makes sense to me.

Most of the time people want to play the modified version so that both players always have something they are able to be working towards.

So if you guys want to say that using houserules in a game that basically needs houserules on a fundamental level to function is still that game, but playing a variant within that game with houserules that simply make it more exciting to those using said houserules means you're no longer playing that variant, fine. Then I should have chosen "other," but that still doesn't push me into eternal war, so eternal war is still losing the poll. That still means that a majority of people find eternal war less exciting.

My favorite version of the game was controlling table quarters - whoever exerts more control of the board - wins the game. There is just too much luck involved in maelstrom - usually revolving around who draws the most D3's. No one I play with wants to play anything else though.

 BossJakadakk wrote:
So I'm 10, or have the maturity of a 10 year old, because I like Maelstrom more?

No, mature adults can prefer Maelstrom, and is is possible for them to express that preference in an grown-up manner. You, however...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 BossJakadakk wrote:
So I'm 10, or have the maturity of a 10 year old, because I like Maelstrom more?

No, mature adults can prefer Maelstrom, and is is possible for them to express that preference in an grown-up manner. You, however...

I, however, what? All I did was infer from the wording of the responses that maelstrom should only be considered appealing to children.

Channeling Gollum, I both love and hate maelstorm. Most of my victories have come in maelstrom, but maelstrom makes them a bit hollow. But being outgunned as badly as I am, I can't bring myself to pick eternal war.

Yeah, I've had games where I won even though I was outplayed and outfought, just because of the luck of the draw on pointless random objectives. Doesnt really feel like a win and makes me feel bad for my opponent. Ive also been on the other side, which is infuriating.

That said, I've had much the same issues with Kill Points (as opposed to the old 2e-4e Victory Points) too, so its sadly not new.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, I've had games where I won even though I was outplayed and outfought, just because of the luck of the draw on pointless random objectives. Doesnt really feel like a win and makes me feel bad for my opponent. Ive also been on the other side, which is infuriating.

That said, I've had much the same issues with Kill Points (as opposed to the old 2e-4e Victory Points) too, so its sadly not new.

Yeah kill points are terrible. I don't mind the tie breaking secondaries but winning because of first blood never feels too great unless the initiative was stolen or something.



But ya, playing modified maelstrom and not mentioning the first part while arguing why one prefers maelstrom seems weak to me. The honest argument would be maelstrom can be improved but it does have some issues. I would say the same of eternal war missions. GW forgot the upside of fast attack and or heavy support but kept the vp's for some reason. Relic is still bad. Kill points are bad. Emperor's tie is bad. Scouring isn't very good. Big guns is ok. The only good one is crusade. And only if you actually follow the rules and place objectives before either side knows what deployment it will be. And even then, crusade is 3-5 objectives, that one factor drastically alters games and how they'll play out.

But crusade at least has end game scoring on the objectives, holding for 4 turns only to have your enemy wipe you off and claim an objective shouldn't reward you anything. You died.

And in any case, malestrom or eternal war, it's pretty moot with a lot of the sand boxes er gaming boards we see out there with minimal terrain and certainly no los blockers. If you're complaining about eternal war but your gaming board resembles a golf course, solve the first problem before even talking about scenario/mission. Los blocking terrain, it's whats for dinner.

 Vaktathi wrote:


That said, I've had much the same issues with Kill Points (as opposed to the old 2e-4e Victory Points) too, so its sadly not new.

Kill points is also bad it might even be the worst mission of 40k that you could possible play right now.
It favours death stars and tons of players love it for this reason but it is bad really bad.
There is just no way that a mission that gives max 7 victory points to player a and max 30 to player b is a good mission.
I don't wan to be able to predict the outcome of the battle just by counting at the amount of units.

This doesn't make mealstorm a good mission. Mealstorm even includes the same mechanics with cards like killl one unit etc.
It only deluded them with more unfairly balanced objectives.

Okay..... I've played both. I played 40k a lot before the 'birth' of Maelstrom games, and loved it, and played Maelstrom of War and loved it. Both have bits I hate as well.

Both, annoyingly enough, can be summed up by Jetbikes.


Eldar Jetbikes have ALWAYS been my most hated unit - even before the current incarnation made them super-scoring, BS4 and armed with scatter lasers for a pittance of points, they ruined games because a player could pay a few points and have three bikes which would play keep-away the entire game and then on turn 5 turbo-boost anywhere they damn well liked on the board and go "contesting your objective. Sucks to be you, I guess", and the fact that I'd been holding the objective for 4 turns and would have wiped said squad out in a fraction of the next shooting phase (if there had have been one) meant nothing.

Being able to camp on a couple of objectives and shoot the snot out of opponents also was little fun. And lo, the gun-line army was born. Kill points is annoying because as noted it favours elite 'death star' smashy units, but then that's exactly the same unit type screwed over by multiple objective games, so I'm fine with that.


In Maelstrom games, getting points throughout the game means holding objectives always matters. But because you never know which damn objectives it's going to be, it helps less than you might think. What you really need is a very fast unit which can relocate to the objective that matters, throw down immense firepower to clear defenders off it, then use an assault move to occupy it instead..... like, say, Eldar Jetbikes. Taking objectives in the midfield in the first couple of turns, and enemy objectives in the mid turns, is nigh impossible with footslogging armies and one reason they struggle to achieve anything.



So. Rant over. Having said what I think are fun but bad mission design, what are good missions? I do like the horus heresy missions (shatter strike is a very good one - requiring you to move, but also to move through your opponent, and also to leave non-troops units at home), but to my mind the best designed mission I know of is the Epic: Armageddon tournament scenario.

There was only one mission, played in essentially every game, and it was always interesting. It had 5 mission goals, and 6 objectives (two placed in your board half - one by each player, one on your board edge, and the same on your opponent's side)

Goals were

1) Hold The Line - control all 3 'friendly' objectives
2) Take and Hold - control 2 'hostile' objectives
3) Blitzkrieg - control the 1 'board edge' enemy objective
4) Cleanse - no unbroken enemy units in your board half
5) Break Their Spirit - destroy the most valuable (points)enemy unit

From the end of turn 2 (might have been 3) onwards, you claim a win if you have completed at least 2 more than your opponent has. Obviously Break Their spirit only has to be done once.

It made for tense games - and yes, your 'effective' mission could change during the game, but not at the expense of what you were doing before - moving a unit into the enemy deployment zone denies them cleanse, but costs you hold the line if it was holding a friendly objective, etc, etc.

locarno24 wrote:


So. Rant over. Having said what I think are fun but bad mission design, what are good missions? I do like the horus heresy missions (shatter strike is a very good one - requiring you to move, but also to move through your opponent, and also to leave non-troops units at home), but to my mind the best designed mission I know of is the Epic: Armageddon tournament scenario.

There was only one mission, played in essentially every game, and it was always interesting. It had 5 mission goals, and 6 objectives (two placed in your board half - one by each player, one on your board edge, and the same on your opponent's side)

Goals were

Spoiler:

1) Hold The Line - control all 3 'friendly' objectives
2) Take and Hold - control 2 'hostile' objectives
3) Blitzkrieg - control the 1 'board edge' enemy objective
4) Cleanse - no unbroken enemy units in your board half
5) Break Their Spirit - destroy the most valuable (points)enemy unit

From the end of turn 2 (might have been 3) onwards, you claim a win if you have completed at least 2 more than your opponent has. Obviously Break Their spirit only has to be done once.

It made for tense games - and yes, your 'effective' mission could change during the game, but not at the expense of what you were doing before - moving a unit into the enemy deployment zone denies them cleanse, but costs you hold the line if it was holding a friendly objective, etc, etc.

I'm going to try that this weekend - it sounds great!

locarno24 wrote:

There was only one mission, played in essentially every game, and it was always interesting. It had 5 mission goals, and 6 objectives (two placed in your board half - one by each player, one on your board edge, and the same on your opponent's side)

Goals were

1) Hold The Line - control all 3 'friendly' objectives
2) Take and Hold - control 2 'hostile' objectives
3) Blitzkrieg - control the 1 'board edge' enemy objective
4) Cleanse - no unbroken enemy units in your board half
5) Break Their Spirit - destroy the most valuable (points)enemy unit

From the end of turn 2 (might have been 3) onwards, you claim a win if you have completed at least 2 more than your opponent has. Obviously Break Their spirit only has to be done once.

It made for tense games - and yes, your 'effective' mission could change during the game, but not at the expense of what you were doing before - moving a unit into the enemy deployment zone denies them cleanse, but costs you hold the line if it was holding a friendly objective, etc, etc.

I believe the Supremacy Tactical cards are more or less what you want

locarno24 wrote:

There was only one mission, played in essentially every game, and it was always interesting. It had 5 mission goals, and 6 objectives (two placed in your board half - one by each player, one on your board edge, and the same on your opponent's side)

Goals were

1) Hold The Line - control all 3 'friendly' objectives
2) Take and Hold - control 2 'hostile' objectives
3) Blitzkrieg - control the 1 'board edge' enemy objective
4) Cleanse - no unbroken enemy units in your board half
5) Break Their Spirit - destroy the most valuable (points)enemy unit

By "no unbroken enemy units," does that just mean units at full strength? As in, any enemy units on your side of the board have taken at least 1 casualty?

That does sound really fun

Maelstrom all the way for me. And this from someone who didnt touch them for a year. Much more interesting, dynamic and overall fun.

My preference:

1. Modified Maelstrom
2. Maelstrom
3. Not playing
4. Eternal War

 kronk wrote:
My preference:

1. Modified Maelstrom
2. Maelstrom
3. Not playing
4. Eternal War

No "Modified Eternal War" on there?

Eternal War is straightforward and easier to set up.

Maelstrom is actually more rewarding for focusing on objectives and planning.

So, six to one, half dozen to the other really.

Eternal War is a thing of beauty for drop in games or even organising tournaments as the simplicity is key there.

But Maelstrom is more rewarding and gives the underdog more of a chance.

I prefer Maelstrom. I think that at this point, 20 years of 40K, if it wasn't for a very new way to play 40K I would have quit at this edition. Eternal war missions seem to me to be more or less the same missions from all the last editions I've played.
One of the things I like about Maelstrom is that I score point when I complete an objective so even when I don't win a game I have points on the board.
I tried ITC for the first time last weekend and was less than trilled with the way points are scored. Objectives are of less value than kill points so to win a game one would simply have to game the kill points and occasionally hold an objective. I'm very tired of kill points.
As far as Objective cards that can't be done at all. We simply discard them and draw another.
I have also tried the other new card set but at this point I don't know how well suited my Orks are to those. (yet)

So far every game with Maelstrom of war has been different and entertaining .

Played another game of Maelstrom at the insistence of the friend that I was playing and a couple of things happened which makes me remember some reasons why I dislike this scenario type:

(1) Yes, the your Tactical (or other) Objectives are random in the sense it depends on which cards you draw, but there's a difference between drawing genuinely impossible objectives (which a lot of people House Rule to say that you can discard those) and practically impossible objectives:

Take, for example, the objectives I drew: First Turn I drew three objectives, two of which were Capture Objective 4. Now, that objective was solidly held by my mate's Warlord and his squad (which could easily shred everything I had), so I discarded one in the hopes I might get a Tactical Objective which was better for me). I got the Capture Objective 1 card, which was another objective that was held by my opponent from first turn and was even further away.

This should illustrate that although the objective you can get are random, they tend to heavily favour one player or the other (whether that's favouring you because they're relatively easy to get, or your opponent because they're very difficult or practically impossible for you to get). If nothing else, this is reason number one why I dislike Maelstrom.

(2) Units spend a lot of the game camping objectives that would be impractical to leave alone on the chance that you get a card for that objective. For example, my mate had two entire squads camp on objectives near the back of the field just in case they got that objective. Those units did literally nothing other than sit there the whole game.


I know that Eternal War still has Objective Markers, but as a general rule, there is less of them (enough to be relatively significant in my experience), meaning that the games are often less focused on objectives that are practically impossible and more on the strategic gameplay. This is why I love The Relic, The Emperor's Will, and Purge The Alien so much (notice they're all Eternal War missions with low/no objective marker counts). Plus the VP's for Objective Markers are scored at the end, meaning there's less instant gratification and less YOLO-Squading for the sake of VP's at the end of your player turn.

My point is that there's is enough in Maelstrom Missions to force strategic gameplay, fun, and interest without all the shenanigans of random objectives.

It's OK. I played Maelstrom over the weekend. It was nice when so many of the objectives cards just happened to be where we were already camped. It's really good strategy to deploy right on top of them before the cards were drawn. And then to draw bonus VP cards for killing when you're about to kill stuff. Strong tactical play there...

My buddy has a great time playing 40k Maelstrom with his 9-year old child. Or rather, his kid loves Maelstrom. Especially with the common modification to remove "impossible" cards. His kid wins a bunch of games that way, so the "Maelstrom is for 10-year-old kids" is an absolute fact.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's OK. I played Maelstrom over the weekend. It was nice when so many of the objectives cards just happened to be where we were already camped. It's really good strategy to deploy right on top of them before the cards were drawn. And then to draw bonus VP cards for killing when you're about to kill stuff. Strong tactical play there...

My buddy has a great time playing 40k Maelstrom with his 9-year old child. Or rather, his kid loves Maelstrom. Especially with the common modification to remove "impossible" cards. His kid wins a bunch of games that way, so the "Maelstrom is for 10-year-old kids" is an absolute fact.

Yeah having good control over the board at all times is useful in maelstrom rather than just rushing to the objectives at the end of the game, because that's what would happen in a real battle, both armies just agree to stop killing each other after a certain amount of time and you get to keep whatever is next to you right at that point. And I don't get your point about getting a card for killing things, do you have turns where you just decide not to kill the enemies?

And yeah your mates kid likes it, it doesn't stop other people who are older liking it too. Also the common modification is to remove totally impossible ones, not very difficult ones too, which I believe is what you mean when you type "impossible".

The point is that Maelstrom is luck, Eternal War is skill. That the cards simply randomly give you points, rather than you working for them.

Far be it for me to turn my nose up at those adults who enjoy a robust game of Tic-Tac-Toe, Rock-Scissors-Paper, Checkers and/or Chutes & Ladders. I will, however, continue to mock their claims of any being a "deep" game requiring "strategy" and "tactics."

As opposed to the "strategy" of rushing forwards to the objectives on turn 5 and hoping for the 1 in 3 chance of the game ending? Is that not luck then?

Yes the cards are random, but a well designed maelstrom army will be able to complete the majority of them relatively easily, so it shouldn't matter as much what you draw, and you can discard the one or 2 you won't be able to do. The real skill is being ready for anything and adapting your plans to suit what you need to do.

Just because you need lots of luck for you to get the cards you need with your gunline army that needs to draw cards like hold the line or secure an objective you are already on doesn't mean that it is so bad for everyone.

JohnHwangDD,: You're drawing a false dichotomy. There are only 36 cards, many of which are duplicates. You know what you and your opponent might draw and can pre-plan accordingly.

The cards are also random in poker, but I hardly think that makes it a game lacking in skill; The cards give Maelstrom a layer of contingency planning that Eternal war simply doesn't have.

In honesty, I often I find this a layer too much. If I want a quick or easy game, for example, I'll play an Eternal war mission.

Maelstrom IMO is more engaging and brings the focus on objectives throughout the game instead of just grabbing objectives at the end (or just going for the tabling). The problem with Maelstrom is that GW is bad at writing rules (this seems to be a recurring theme with GW for the past few years....) so they have a lot of holes in their design which people understandably try to fix with house rules.

I don't agree that Eternal War is more skillful as it often times devolves into "kill everything and jump on objectives on turn 5". The missions are predictable which adds stability but the gameplay generally ignores objectives so the strategy comes from mostly just trying to beat the other army and not so much about how your scoring. Maelstrom is more random but it favors board control heavily and it often times forces decisions between taking the objective or attacking the enemy force which adds a lot of risk management to the game.

Also, you holding your objectives is only half of it. You will end in a draw if you aren't also trying to stop your opponent from scoring. So you keep track of what they've drawn and watch objectives that haven't been pulled because there is the chance they'll pull 2-3of them by the end of the game.

That takes serious thought and a tactical approach to the game.

How hard is your buddy trying to beat his 9 year old? Seriously.

Really... another thread that is starting to devolve into ''Your preference is WRONG because my preference is different''. You may as well argue over which flavour of icecream is better.

Personal preference is a real thing guys.


Go on, take this comment as a personal assault to something you said - even though this isn't targeted at someone specific.

I like vanilla...

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I like vanilla...

Vanilla? Strawberry is the one true flavor of icecream. All those that deny it are my enemies.

Vankraken wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I like vanilla...

Vanilla? Strawberry is the one true flavor of icecream. All those that deny it are my enemies.

I dare deny it. Mint choc chip is obviously the best flavour. I will prove it by beating you in a game of Maelstrom of War 40k, I don't care if you prefer Eternal War, maelstrom is definitely better for everyone.

Wulfmar wrote:Really... another thread that is starting to devolve into ''Your preference is WRONG because my preference is different''. You may as well argue over which flavour of icecream is better.

Personal preference is a real thing guys.

Go on, take this comment as a personal assault to something you said - even though this isn't targeted at someone specific.

I don't believe it has, to me it seems people are discussing the relative merits of each set of missions and WHY they prefer one over the other, not just saying "I'm right and you're wrong and you're an idiot for thinking something different to me!".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
My buddy has a great time playing 40k Maelstrom with his 9-year old child. Or rather, his kid loves Maelstrom. Especially with the common modification to remove "impossible" cards. His kid wins a bunch of games that way, so the "Maelstrom is for 10-year-old kids" is an absolute fact.

Man, there's awful lot of salty people here. Seriously, I've seen a lot of sour responses because people like Maelstrom over Eternal War. Who's the child here?

 jreilly89 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
My buddy has a great time playing 40k Maelstrom with his 9-year old child. Or rather, his kid loves Maelstrom. Especially with the common modification to remove "impossible" cards. His kid wins a bunch of games that way, so the "Maelstrom is for 10-year-old kids" is an absolute fact.

Man, there's awful lot of salty people here. Seriously, I've seen a lot of sour responses because people like Maelstrom over Eternal War. Who's the child here?

Some people have trouble expressing preferences in a mature manner

That result is interesting considering the salt maelstrom gets.

I like flip a coin to choose each game. I do prefer maelstrom (or kill points) because the whole game counts, I find eternal war missions are usually decided by the last turn.

 IllumiNini wrote:

 kronk wrote:
My preference:

1. Modified Maelstrom
2. Maelstrom
3. Not playing
4. Eternal War

No "Modified Eternal War" on there?

Fine!

1. Modified Maelstrom
2. Maelstrom
3. Wonderfully Modified Eternal War
4. Not playing
5. Poorly modified Eternal War
6. Eternal War



But you'll have to sell me on some modifications to make it good!

The AdeptiCon events I played in emphasized kill points and random objectives enough to make it interesting.

Maelstrom is certainly flawed but I still prefer that style of play.

The Cities of Death cards and the Tactical Supremacy cards are better than the original set.

 DarkBlack wrote:
That result is interesting considering the salt maelstrom gets.

I like flip a coin to choose each game. I do prefer maelstrom (or kill points) because the whole game counts, I find eternal war missions are usually decided by the last turn.

I do find it entertaining when people brag about how powerful their 'alpha strike' is, then complain their opponent who got second turn 'only won the game because they moved onto the objectives immediately before the game ended'.

I far prefer maelstrom. It is random, I'll admit, and it's possible to be boned by a bad draw.

But eternal war missions are a bit boring. Everyone basically ignored all the objectives until turn 5, and then everyone zips to the closest one to try and secure it before the game ends.

I prefer the game that actually utilizes objectives rather than ignores them until the game end. I will admit that eternal war is more balanced, but maelstrom is much more interesting.

Some people enjoy chess or go, some people enjoy dance dance revolution or twister.

Still standing by vanilla. Maybe with sprinkles.

The random patterns amuse me.