Watching the Tabletop Tactics video on the new chapter approved, one thing people don’t seem to be discussing as much is the new missions and mission format.
I feel the points adjustments made should be looked at taking into account this new way of playing as it completely changes how the game is played. For example, deployment is now done one whole army at a time with each player deploying knowing who has the choice to go first or second. Additionally, scoring objectives is now super important as tabling your opponent does not automatically mean you win.
These changes greatly reduce the effectiveness of knights and Ynnari and I think provide a much better balanced ruleset which encourages playing the objectives. The elephant in the room is however the ITC format. Previously I had much preferred ITC over book missions and almost all the competitive scene uses ITC.
However, now it may be that armies are balanced for a completely different way of playing than ITC. Whats everyones opions on this, will we start seeing more competitive play using the new CA missions or will ITC continue to dominate (and therefore knights, Ynnari etc).
Hard_rock_geo wrote: Watching the Tabletop Tactics video on the new chapter approved, one thing people don’t seem to be discussing as much is the new missions and mission format.
I feel the points adjustments made should be looked at taking into account this new way of playing as it completely changes how the game is played. For example, deployment is now done one whole army at a time with each player deploying knowing who has the choice to go first or second. Additionally, scoring objectives is now super important as tabling your opponent does not automatically mean you win.
These changes greatly reduce the effectiveness of knights and Ynnari and I think provide a much better balanced ruleset which encourages playing the objectives. The elephant in the room is however the ITC format. Previously I had much preferred ITC over book missions and almost all the competitive scene uses ITC.
However, now it may be that armies are balanced for a completely different way of playing than ITC. Whats everyones opions on this, will we start seeing more competitive play using the new CA missions or will ITC continue to dominate (and therefore knights, Ynnari etc).
I think that it's bold of you to assume that GW would balance armies and missions against each other. Or balance anything correctly at all.
I think the GW missions need to be the baseline. GW apparently does their points adjustments with their new missions in mind, while ITC is essentially a completely different game due to how it changes things (this is why there are generally great differences in the meta between ITC events and like GW's own GTs). Unfortunately, ITC is so ingrained in the USA that I doubt anyone will care about these missions; I already see people bitching over the one that Warhammer Community previewed because not allowing invulnerable saves near the objective "screws over Daemons and Harlequins"
I'm honestly tired of seeing ITC held up as the standard when it's fan-made stuff, basically house rules. Sure, Reece and his cronies might be "playtesting" for GW, but they have essentially forked the game. GW can't balance matched when the very guys they're getting input from on what to change don't even use the missions they are doing the balancing based around! I hope that ITC will adopt these missions but I doubt it and I am betting nothing will change as a result; the issue isn't so much the points/rules (which are problems, don't get me wrong) but the fact the missions are not helping and are actually CAUSING the meta we see in the major tournaments.
I think at this point ITC only needs to be ranking and not their own mission pack. Same like they do for AOS; the AOS ITC rules are basically "Use the matched play rules from the General's Handbook" and that's it. Only the 40k ones are completely deviant and, as a result, fork the game.
Honestly, some of the CA18 missions feel a bit like the randomness of mission selection can feth you up.
For example, one mission punishes you for not having plenty of characters to go around, while another punishes you for having them.
One mission is basically "do you play an invul-based army? too bad, you lose."
Its just...not refined enough for competitive.
Its sure as hell great for semi-casual and just having a blast-but a competitive scene needs something a bit more solid.
They can be used as great bases for competitive missions (for example, merge the "feth chars" and "feth no chars" into one and it balances out and creates a dynamic decision making), but it requires some refinement.
Gotta say though-the ability to thin your deck preemptively is a welcome addition.
The missions from last years CA were already decent so much so that I didn't understand the need for ITC's house ruled missions. In my playgroup we'll mix the missions from both CAs (when we are playing matched play that is...)
Martel732 wrote: ITC tries to remove randomness from what I can tell.
Which is fine, and a great basis for competitive play because you're looking to enhance the effects of skill and reduce the effects of luck. However, I think often they go too far. The secondary missions still feel like something that you build your army around. The main problem I have with ITC is that the core, primary missions aren't really different enough from each other and secondaries still feel like they're worth too many points. I'd like to see some more variety in general and maybe now is a good time to run some tournaments using some of the new missions from CA.
they are probably not perfect (see the null zone one), but there are some ideas that should be adopted straight away in the ITC format,
1; who choses the side deploys all his army after the opponent and goes second...do you want first turn? you deploy all your army before me (really good Idea)
2: scoring objective at the end of the battleround and not turn, giving the possibility to counter
(another great idea)
CA 17/18 missions affect army selection. ITC missions affect army selection. An army that would be good in a CA18 mission may not be good in an ITC mission and vice versa. As long as ITC continues to think they know best for 40K and playing the game, this is always going to be an issue. For me, personally, I find the ITC missions bland and uninspiring to play.
My local league uses ITC missions. I don't mind them; they're better than the Open War Card missions that we use for all the non-league games.
My 2c, though:
I feel that my primary complaint with the ITC is that the reward for destruction of enemy units is too high. Ideally, it'd be zero, with points only scored by occupying and holding positions.
However, the ITC missions are overall very consistent, I like, and they don't include many "interesting" features. I feel incredibly frustrated when the cards turn up a short deployment with "Eager for the Fight" or "Acid Rain". I can take it, but it's no fun when it seems the cards just decide to buff some armies and nerf some armies.
With regards to scoring...
I believe that the destruction of the hostile units should not contribute directly towards victory. Suppression of the enemy facilitates the capture and defense of positions. In addition, it allows us to focus more on destructive units with firepower. This further combines with the ability of non-troops to score, allowing the backfield positions to be held by the artillery and tanks, and allowing a greater density of destructive firepower to appear in lists.
Open War games get crazy. I like that they're an option, but I've had some pretty awful setups with them. I have some really fun games with them, too. But man, are they swingy.
ITC I've only played a few times and although I like what they're trying to do, they feel over-complicated and heavy-handed.
I tend I still have fine experiences with ye olde Eternal War missions, except for The Relic. They're simple and they work.
Martel732 wrote: ITC tries to remove randomness from what I can tell.
Which is fine, and a great basis for competitive play because you're looking to enhance the effects of skill and reduce the effects of luck. However, I think often they go too far. The secondary missions still feel like something that you build your army around. The main problem I have with ITC is that the core, primary missions aren't really different enough from each other and secondaries still feel like they're worth too many points. I'd like to see some more variety in general and maybe now is a good time to run some tournaments using some of the new missions from CA.
So how exactly do the secondaries feel more important than the primary?
You can earn a possible of 30 primary points and 12 secondary points. Not even 50% of your points are secondary.
ITC missions are made with the intent that you play 6 turns of Warhammer 40k, not 3-4.
Martel732 wrote: ITC tries to remove randomness from what I can tell.
Which is fine, and a great basis for competitive play because you're looking to enhance the effects of skill and reduce the effects of luck. However, I think often they go too far. The secondary missions still feel like something that you build your army around. The main problem I have with ITC is that the core, primary missions aren't really different enough from each other and secondaries still feel like they're worth too many points. I'd like to see some more variety in general and maybe now is a good time to run some tournaments using some of the new missions from CA.
So how exactly do the secondaries feel more important than the primary?
You can earn a possible of 30 primary points and 12 secondary points. Not even 50% of your points are secondary.
ITC missions are made with the intent that you play 6 turns of Warhammer 40k, not 3-4.
Which is contrary to reality. It ends up with people playing 3 turns then theory hammering the last 3 turns to inflate their scores in order to compete in the tournament.
Insectum7 wrote:Open War games get crazy. I like that they're an option, but I've had some pretty awful setups with them. I have some really fun games with them, too. But man, are they swingy.
ITC I've only played a few times and although I like what they're trying to do, they feel over-complicated and heavy-handed.
I tend I still have fine experiences with ye olde Eternal War missions, except for The Relic. They're simple and they work.
Looking forward to seeing what's in the new CA.
Yeah. I generally give up the Ruse to my opponent, and the twist always also feels like it hurts my army. Plus, the amount of times the no-man's land isn't 24"...
All in all; I still win these games since I bring a list that's mid-tier competitive, but it feels frustrating when every aspect of the mission is acting against you.
Eihnlazer wrote:
So how exactly do the secondaries feel more important than the primary?
You can earn a possible of 30 primary points and 12 secondary points. Not even 50% of your points are secondary.
ITC missions are made with the intent that you play 6 turns of Warhammer 40k, not 3-4.
Well...Only the difference between your score and your enemy score matters in determining the victory, [though the raw score matters too for tournaments and leagues, it doesn't drive victory].
The two basically automatic points for Holding 1 and Killing 1 basically only count for tournament scoring; since you have to be really, really losing, like tabled losing, to not score both. So there's 3 points up for grabs each round from primary, and the Bonus point is generally really hard to get unless you're really winning, so that's really 2 points up for grabs.
With regards to secondaries, there's at least a few points you can be reasonably assured of getting if you really can't get anything else.
12 game-deciding points from primaries. and like 8 or 10 from secondaries, plus the somewhat game-skewing effect on list building secondaries can have, makes them fairly valuable.
However... my bigger complaint is that half the primary and pretty much the entire secondary set are based on destruction of enemy units, rewarding building lists that are good at blowing away chunks of the army without moving out to cap objectives.
If you go to a tourney expecting 6 of the same bland scoring missions you are not competing, you are picking a style of play as an organizer and rewarding it.
If you do as the BRB suggests and mix it up, then and only then will you find the "best" player imo.
It would be nice if I knew that everyone had to deal with the same drastic swings each mission to get to the finals. Removing the "kill everyone" mission type is wrong, removing any type of mission is wrong. Pick many types and reward players that can play to each of those well.
sfshilo wrote: If you go to a tourney expecting 6 of the same bland scoring missions you are not competing, you are picking a style of play as an organizer and rewarding it.
If you do as the BRB suggests and mix it up, then and only then will you find the "best" player imo.
It would be nice if I knew that everyone had to deal with the same drastic swings each mission to get to the finals. Removing the "kill everyone" mission type is wrong, removing any type of mission is wrong. Pick many types and reward players that can play to each of those well.
ITC terrain varies wildly over 6 rounds of play. You should try a 6 round tournament before you parrot the nonsense that BRB = the way to play.
Predictability in scoring is only one piece of the game. And if you know all the BRB missions it's the same predictability.
Missions are a variable beyond player control, which is why it's incredibly un-fun to get Acid Rain and a 0" No-Man's land.
As such it is important in a competitive scenario to ensure that the missions are as constant as possible, and available to the participants before the event.
List contents is something that is within your control. The mission isn't; and that's not good for competitive play [or fun play really].
Insectum7 wrote:Open War games get crazy. I like that they're an option, but I've had some pretty awful setups with them. I have some really fun games with them, too. But man, are they swingy.
ITC I've only played a few times and although I like what they're trying to do, they feel over-complicated and heavy-handed.
I tend I still have fine experiences with ye olde Eternal War missions, except for The Relic. They're simple and they work.
Looking forward to seeing what's in the new CA.
Yeah. I generally give up the Ruse to my opponent, and the twist always also feels like it hurts my army. Plus, the amount of times the no-man's land isn't 24"...
All in all; I still win these games since I bring a list that's mid-tier competitive, but it feels frustrating when every aspect of the mission is acting against you.
The last Open War mission I played was essentially The Relic. 0" No Mans land. It was the dumbest game I've played in a while. I gobbled up Imperial Soup, Custodes, Guard Castellan and all, with my Nids. But only because I went first. If my opponent had gone first, clear victory the other direction. I'll be editing the draw of Open War games from now on.
sfshilo wrote: If you go to a tourney expecting 6 of the same bland scoring missions you are not competing, you are picking a style of play as an organizer and rewarding it.
If you do as the BRB suggests and mix it up, then and only then will you find the "best" player imo.
It would be nice if I knew that everyone had to deal with the same drastic swings each mission to get to the finals. Removing the "kill everyone" mission type is wrong, removing any type of mission is wrong. Pick many types and reward players that can play to each of those well.
ITC terrain varies wildly over 6 rounds of play. You should try a 6 round tournament before you parrot the nonsense that BRB = the way to play.
Predictability in scoring is only one piece of the game. And if you know all the BRB missions it's the same predictability.
ITC missions are all the same. The only variance comes from the tertiary and bonus objectives. The primary objective only changes in the location of the objective markers and the deployment map, while the secondary mission is just you picking the most optimal selections based on your opponent. ITC rewards one type of list building, while the new objectives reward variety and reinforce the requirement for skill.
It is pretty clear that ITC rewards certain builds and lists. Just look at the results of GW's "official" GTs and you'll find their meta way different than ITC where it's all similar types of armies across different factions.
That's the problem. People think ITC is the standard when ITC missions are designed to cater to a specific style and meta, while the GW missions are in a different way. I even recall someone saying that the GW Grand Tournament "didn't count" because it wasn't ITC. ITC is far from perfect. It rewards a specific type of list building/combo-building that competitive players seem to think should be the main factor of the game. I am pretty sure that's WHY GW's Eternal War and Maelstrom missions vary as much as they do: So you actually have to bring a BALANCED army to a tournament instead of a gimmicky skew list (which is what dominates ITC events). ITC missions encourage the skewy type of lists we see, which is why that's mostly what we see in ITC events and nowhere else.
The idea may be noble, but the execution has just caused the entire problem.
12 points of out secondaries is huge. The ability to choose to score based on position if you can't kill your opponents triple super-heavy list is really important. Without ITC this game is a one dimensional kill fest. And seriously, being able to get the bonus is a huge deal.
Also being able to score on objectives with more control if you go second is a big balancing factor in going first, versus going second. Without ITC missions this game is HEAVILY decided by who goes first. With ITC missions you actually see people choosing to go second quite frequently.
Marmatag wrote: 12 points of out secondaries is huge. The ability to choose to score based on position if you can't kill your opponents triple super-heavy list is really important. Without ITC this game is a one dimensional kill fest. And seriously, being able to get the bonus is a huge deal.
Also being able to score on objectives with more control if you go second is a big balancing factor in going first, versus going second. Without ITC missions this game is HEAVILY decided by who goes first. With ITC missions you actually see people choosing to go second quite frequently.
And the new GW missions change both of those. It's like they've taken the best parts of ITC and stripped out the garbage that is "only list type X has viability"
Maelstrom is hot garbage. I ain't touching those with a 10 foot pole. You can't plan, which is the fundamental skill of a strategy game.
There's limited fore-planning, since objectives are new and random each turn, and there's limited counter-planning, since the enemy objectives are also unknown, and objectives pretty much only exist for a single player turn.
Eternal War is okay, but frequently boils down to "blast them to bits; then move out take the point". It's okay, but not amazing.
ITC Champion's Missions are pretty good. They're consistent, and progressive scoring rewards being aggressive a little more.
I think the *CONCEPT* of Maelstrom is cool. But the execution is terrible. It should be like, you only draw at the start, can discard any card which you cannot achieve, and then keep the stratagem that lets you redraw some cards during the game (with the same caveat for discarding). Something like the old Mission Cards in 2nd edition where each player could have their own objective to achieve. The drawing every turn is just silly.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Maelstrom is hot garbage. I ain't touching those with a 10 foot pole. You can't plan, which is the fundamental skill of a strategy game.
There's limited fore-planning, since objectives are new and random each turn, and there's limited counter-planning, since the enemy objectives are also unknown, and objectives pretty much only exist for a single player turn.
Eternal War is okay, but frequently boils down to "blast them to bits; then move out take the point". It's okay, but not amazing.
ITC Champion's Missions are pretty good. They're consistent, and progressive scoring rewards being aggressive a little more.
That's only for BRB eternal war missions, which indeed are bad (like all brb missions). CA2017 missions are already much better.
Tabletop Tactics also did a BatRep of GK vs Necrons which demonstrated the 2nd mission in action. Both seem very fun and much improved over the previous missions from the subpar BRB and the slightly better CA17
Tabletop Tactics also did a BatRep of GK vs Necrons which demonstrated the 2nd mission in action. Both seem very fun and much improved over the previous missions from the subpar BRB and the slightly better CA17
I’ve watched a lot of their content and they don’t play the game in any sort of competitive way.
ITC isn’t perfect but at least it forces you to make important decisions every turn and rewards thoughtful list building.
But it doesn't. ITC rewards specific types of skews and stacking combos. It doesn't reward anything other than pure min/maxing to the Nth degree. In contrast, the GWCA missions reward a balanced approach because you aren't sure what mission you will get or what it might entail. With ITC you can prepare for almost all possible scenarios relating to the mission itself because they are so similar.
Tabletop Tactics also did a BatRep of GK vs Necrons which demonstrated the 2nd mission in action. Both seem very fun and much improved over the previous missions from the subpar BRB and the slightly better CA17
I’ve watched a lot of their content and they don’t play the game in any sort of competitive way.
Outright untrue. Lawrence has won multiple larger tournaments and is indeed known as a highly capable player, BBone places all right now and then. What they show on their Youtube battle reports isn't cutthroat competitive stuff, mainly because it isn't as entertaining to watch or make as their good ol' banter and experimentation with wacky stuff. Rule of Cool applies and makes for a much better viewing. This does not in any way decrease their ability to comment on the changes or the game. I recommend their Vox Cast videos for those more competetive thoughts, where they are more serious about it.
Wayniac wrote: But it doesn't. ITC rewards specific types of skews and stacking combos. It doesn't reward anything other than pure min/maxing to the Nth degree. In contrast, the GWCA missions reward a balanced approach because you aren't sure what mission you will get or what it might entail. With ITC you can prepare for almost all possible scenarios relating to the mission itself because they are so similar.
Tabletop Tactics also did a BatRep of GK vs Necrons which demonstrated the 2nd mission in action. Both seem very fun and much improved over the previous missions from the subpar BRB and the slightly better CA17
I’ve watched a lot of their content and they don’t play the game in any sort of competitive way.
Outright untrue. Lawrence has won multiple larger tournaments and is indeed known as a highly capable player, BBone places all right now and then. What they show on their Youtube battle reports isn't cutthroat competitive stuff, mainly because it isn't as entertaining to watch or make as their good ol' banter and experimentation with wacky stuff. Rule of Cool applies and makes for a much better viewing. This does not in any way decrease their ability to comment on the changes or the game. I recommend their Vox Cast videos for those more competetive thoughts, where they are more serious about it.
I'll probably stick to exclusively playing the CA18 missions, so I will be using that deployment style. I think there is more strategy in a full deploy/counter deploy, and I like the ability for the first deployer to elect to go 2nd in the event that a successful counter deploy limits a potential first turn.
A) Going to stick to the RaW deployment for each mission (BRB's Autofirst included);
B) Going to use Alternate drop then Rolloff+Bonus for BRB and CA17 missions, new deployment for CA18;
C) Going to use Alternate drop then Rolloff+Bonus for all missions;
D) Use the new deployment rules for all missions?
I assume you can guess what one I do.
Should be E: Whichever is specified by the mission you're selecting, since BRB have one, CA17 has another and now CA18 has a third. Oh, and ITC have their own if you play that. The deployment rules are tied to the mission, after all.
I hope that people embrace the CA18 missions. The tournaments will continue to use ITC because ITC is ingrained, but since I don't care to play in tournaments I'll probably push CA18 missions if I'm not doing some sort of narrative mission for fun.
The irony here is supposedly the new missions are what the updated points costs in Chapter Approved are balanced against, not ITC missions.
The points are balanced against the idea of "how to shift what sells around". Not to concept of balance.
And as usual GW scenarios are lol bad for competive use. Fun enough if you don't care about competive game but if you want competive game burn them with fire until they stay down. Only way to be sure.
Yeah I really like the new Chapter approved missions (minus the null-zone single objective one), but stilli feel as though ITC is still the best format for competitive 40k. Yes it’s not clearly not the not the same as regular 40k, but that doesn’t seem like too much of a problem. In competive 40k, the name of the game is balance, and ITC does the absolute best job at balancing 40k. For example, in the mission that table top tactics plays during their battle report, an objective is randomly choosen to be worth more than all others each turn. That adds variety and fun to a casual game, but is an absolute disaster in competive 40k. While some might see this as a good way to add dynamic desicion making to a game of 40k, it will very likely w give one player a large advantage over the other. For a game were some can spend months preparing for a tournament, this is a very bad thing. Yes 40k is a game of dice, but in most cases players have some control over the chances they are given, where as here a critical mission point Is given pretty much at random. To bring up the table top tactics video again the first double point objective is placed in way which all but guarantees bones will get a point over beard for doing absolutely nothing. Sure maybe that changes over the course of the game, but we all know that there will be games where the double point odjective roll will favor one player massively over the other. Maelstrom missions suffer this to a much more extreme degree. The reason ITC has a lot of flaws naysayers bring up is because it’s designed to have next to no randomness in it, which means it’s more balanced than around 95% book mission.
Salt donkey wrote: Yeah I really like the new Chapter approved missions (minus the null-zone single objective one), but stilli feel as though ITC is still the best format for competitive 40k. Yes it’s not clearly not the not the same as regular 40k, but that doesn’t seem like too much of a problem. In competive 40k, the name of the game is balance, and ITC does the absolute best job at balancing 40k. For example, in the mission that table top tactics plays during their battle report, an objectively is randomly choosen to be worth more than all others each turn. That adds variety and fun to a casual game, but is an absolute disaster in competive 40k. While some might sees this as a good way to add dynamic desicion making to a game of 40k, it will very likely will give one player a large advantage over the other. For a game were some can spend months preparing for a tournament, this is a very bad thing. Yes 40k is a game of dice, but in most cases players have some control over the chances they are giving, where as here a critical mission point Is given pretty much at random. To bring up the table top tactics video again the first double point objective is placed in way which gaurntees bones will get a point over beard for doing absolutely nothing. Sure maybe that changes over the course of the game, but we all know that there will be games where the double point odjective roll will favor one player massively over the other. Maelstrom missions suffer this to a much more extreme degree. The reason ITC has a lot of flaws naysayers bring up is because it’s designed to have next to no randomness in it, which means it’s more balanced than around 95% book mission.
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Salt donkey wrote: Yeah I really like the new Chapter approved missions (minus the null-zone single objective one), but stilli feel as though ITC is the best format for competitive 40k. Yes it’s not clearly not the not the same as regular 40k, but that doesn’t seem like too much of a problem. In competive 40k, the name of the game is balance, and ITC does the absolute best job at balancing 40k. For example, in the mission that table top tactics plays during their battle report, an objectively is randomly choosen to be worth more than all others each turn. That adds variety and fun to a casual game, but is an absolute disaster in competive 40k. While some might sees this as a good way to add dynamic desicion making to a game of 40k, it will very likely will give one player a large advantage over the other. For a game were some can spend months preparing for a tournament, this is a very bad thing. Yes 40k is a game of dice, but in most cases players have some control over the chances they are giving, where as here a critical mission point Is given pretty much at random. To bring up the table top tactics video again the first double point objective is placed in way which gaurntees bones will get a point over beard for doing absolutely nothing. Sure maybe that changes over the course of the game, but we all know that there will be games where the double point odjective roll will favor one player massively over the other. Maelstrom missions suffer this to a much more extreme degree. The reason ITC has a lot of flaws naysayers bring up is because it’s designed to have next to no randomness in it, which means it’s more balanced than around 95% book mission.
I watched that battle report. The special objective is only worth 6 extra points during the entire game. This means that, if someone manages to hold the special objective at the end of every single battleround, they'll have only six points over their opponent. That's not a drastic unconquerable difference, especially if you infer that the same player will NOT have control over the special objective for what, probably 3 turns? And since its scored at the end of the Battle Round, rather than Turn, the other player has a chance to go deal with it that they otherwise wouldn't've had if they went second.
Also again, I get the impression the reason for things like "special objective" is to encourage you to take a balanced army list rather than doubling down on some skew/soup with a single tactic that you try to achieve. It's like auticus always says: People seem to want to treat Warhammer (or most tabletop games) like Magic The Gathering where there is one killer combo you try to get off, and if you do you win.
That's why I like the GW missions. They encourage you to prepare for everything. ITC missions encourage you to play skew lists instead.
The mark of a good player shouldn't be bringing a min/maxed to the nines skew list with a major combo like it was a CCG. It should be the person who can bring a well balanced and tactically flexible "take all comers" force and win a variety of missions that may not play to their strengths. That's how it's always been in 40k, which is why you were always encouraged to bring well-balanced armies (and a big reason why Army Comp was a thing) to events rather than pure min/maxed ones; because there was a chance you might get into a mission that didn't play to your strength. ITC seems to have eliminated that as a balancing factor, which leads to the problems we see now. The fact you might get a mission that has a varying victory condition is PART of the balance.
I watched that battle report. The special objective is only worth 6 extra points during the entire game. This means that, if someone manages to hold the special objective at the end of every single battleround, they'll have only six points over their opponent. That's not a drastic unconquerable difference, especially if you infer that the same player will NOT have control over the special objective for what, probably 3 turns? And since its scored at the end of the Battle Round, rather than Turn, the other player has a chance to go deal with it that they otherwise wouldn't've had if they went second.
I’m not arguing in blowout game it will matter, but in a closer game? For example say there are 3 special objectives placed in area I can reach, 2 in 1 an area that only you can reach, and 2 in areas that reached by both of us. In that situation you would have to get both constested objective to tie me on bonus points. This is not that unreasonable of situation, and would be mean I would have an inate 2 point advantage over you. While you claim that this isn’t much, when you get to high tables at top tournaments where players rarely get crushed, it makes a massive difference. Nobody wants to have their narrow win turn into a narrow loss because the mission. Screed them.
I love that people get upset about randomness in a game which is largely comprised of rolling dice. How is it losing to a random mission is worse than losing because you roll nothing but 1s and 2s
Also again, I get the impression the reason for things like "special objective" is to encourage you to take a balanced army list rather than doubling down on some skew/soup with a single tactic that you try to achieve. It's like auticus always says: People seem to want to treat Warhammer (or most tabletop games) like Magic The Gathering where there is one killer combo you try to get off, and if you do you win.
That's why I like the GW missions. They encourage you to prepare for everything. ITC missions encourage you to play skew lists instead.
The mark of a good player shouldn't be bringing a min/maxed to the nines skew list with a major combo like it was a CCG. It should be the person who can bring a well balanced and tactically flexible "take all comers" force and win a variety of missions that may not play to their strengths. That's how it's always been in 40k, which is why you were always encouraged to bring well-balanced armies (and a big reason why Army Comp was a thing) to events rather than pure min/maxed ones; because there was a chance you might get into a mission that didn't play to your strength. ITC seems to have eliminated that as a balancing factor, which leads to the problems we see now. The fact you might get a mission that has a varying victory condition is PART of the balance.
I’m struggle to see any evidence that backs up your claims. In what way does brings a “more balanced/take all come list” (whatever the heck that means) help you capture an objective that is in the middle of your opponents deployement zone? Or stop from drawing domination from The maelstrom deck while you’re opponent gets an easy supremacy? I think your saying that GW’s missions encourage armies that have; a variety of unit types, a large board presence, and ways to handle many different types of threats, better than ITC missions, but I’d argue the opposite. Look at some winning list of some the large ITC events. All them fulfill the criteria I mentioned to a T.
Really I think people like the book missions because they A) are more flavorful and B) give the player with the weaker list a much better chance to win. Both a great for causal games, but we are debating which format is best for competitive 40kz
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mokoshkana wrote: I love that people get upset about randomness in a game which is largely comprised of rolling dice. How is it losing to a random mission is worse than losing because you roll nothing but 1s and 2s
While this seems true in theory it doesn’t really Match reality, In the last ITC game I played from friend made around 20 invulnerable saves with swarmlord in row (any fails would have killed it) yet what won him the game was me forgetting he had rippers to steal my objective last minute.
This is the most Extreme experience with luck I’ve had in about 10 games, yet it was playing toward objectives that determined the game not the dice rolls. As another example on the other side of pendulum one of the first games I played in 8th had me win because I drew far better maelstrom cards than him. He outplayed me in all stages of the game, yet I won because fate was on my side.
To put my argument simply, luck in killing and saving models matters a great deal less than luck in the mission.
Look at winning lists of GW's own tournaments, that don't use ITC missions. You will see vastly different criteria and lists that are doing well. That's the problem in a nutshell: ITC changes the dynamics of how you build armies completely, and IMHO does so to such an extent that it's essentially a different game using the same rules, a fork of the game if you will. The ITC missions fundamentally change the nature of the game.
mokoshkana wrote: I love that people get upset about randomness in a game which is largely comprised of rolling dice. How is it losing to a random mission is worse than losing because you roll nothing but 1s and 2s
While this seems true in theory it doesn’t really Match reality, In the last ITC game I played from friend made around 20 invulnerable saves with swarmlord in row (any fails would have killed it) yet what won him the game was me forgetting he had rippers to steal my objective last minute.
This is the most Extreme experience with luck I’ve had in about 10 games, yet it was playing toward objectives that determined the game not the dice rolls. As another example on the other side of pendulum one of the first games I played in 8th had me win because I drew far better maelstrom cards than him. He outplayed me in all stages of the game, yet I won because fate was on my side.
To put my argument simply, luck in killing and saving models matters a great deal less than luck in the mission.
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. It is irrelevant.
The irony here is supposedly the new missions are what the updated points costs in Chapter Approved are balanced against, not ITC missions.
The points are balanced against the idea of "how to shift what sells around". Not to concept of balance.
And as usual GW scenarios are lol bad for competive use. Fun enough if you don't care about competive game but if you want competive game burn them with fire until they stay down. Only way to be sure.
Oh enough with this conspiracy nonsense.
Most models are either always has been bad, or always has been good.
If GW was shifting points to make sells, what is good and what is bad would change, and often. but it doesn't, at all.
The same things that were great from the day they dropped were always at the very least OK, and usually good or better, and many models were released with bad rules, and never got better.
Wayniac wrote: Look at winning lists of GW's own tournaments, that don't use ITC missions. You will see vastly different criteria and lists that are doing well. That's the problem in a nutshell: ITC changes the dynamics of how you build armies completely, and IMHO does so to such an extent that it's essentially a different game using the same rules, a fork of the game if you will. The ITC missions fundamentally change the nature of the game.
I could debate that to a degree, but you are right that ITC does change how armies are made.
Still why exactly is this a bad thing? People keep claiming that ITC causes more skewed lists to be played, but the evidence shows the exact opposite.
It's easier to balance a faction with the objective that it is able to do decently well in a specific set of mission rather than against all other factions.
We should be giving feedback on this new set of missions rather than dismissing them (without even knowing all of them afaik) because "lolz GW missions".
Some factions will do well in some missions and poorer in others and you can't tailor your list to a set of objective in advance, so you won't see massive one trick ponies. It's fine really.
If you're annoyed that an objective in a mission can be worth one more point because a die roll said so, maybe you can have a part of your army dedicated to steal these, I dunno. You just have to put more troops in range after all (provided that the mission place objectives sensibly though).
Wayniac wrote: Look at winning lists of GW's own tournaments, that don't use ITC missions. You will see vastly different criteria and lists that are doing well. That's the problem in a nutshell: ITC changes the dynamics of how you build armies completely, and IMHO does so to such an extent that it's essentially a different game using the same rules, a fork of the game if you will.The ITC missions fundamentally change the nature of the game.
This is a considerable overstatement.
I'll counter. ITC changes nothing about the game. It changes how you make decisions during play.
It's not like you can't create the same armies in both ITC and "vanilla". A Leman Russ is still a Leman Russ. A lascannon still a lascannon.
Wayniac wrote: Look at winning lists of GW's own tournaments, that don't use ITC missions. You will see vastly different criteria and lists that are doing well. That's the problem in a nutshell: ITC changes the dynamics of how you build armies completely, and IMHO does so to such an extent that it's essentially a different game using the same rules, a fork of the game if you will.The ITC missions fundamentally change the nature of the game.
This is a considerable overstatement.
I'll counter. ITC changes nothing about the game. It changes how you make decisions during play.
It's not like you can't create the same armies in both ITC and "vanilla".
I disagree.
Having only played the book missions, and a few CA17 missions, the CA18 look super fun.
I started looking into ITC to see if I could get in on local tournies...people say that tracking CP for each faction is too much bookkeeping, but the ITC missions are a crazy amount of bookkeeping.
I'm very visually impaired, and I have a blast with the core missions (not the tactical objective ones though), and the ITC missions seem like the same basic objective mission over and over. The Secondaries and general sameness of mission mean that some lists, while playable and can win book missions, just don't work for ITC.
Why should I be forced to use a large groups House Rules when I can play the mission that GW gives and have a great time? Mixing the BRB! CA17 and CA18 missions and randomly picking one per round, ahead of time, on the day of the tournament means people can't tailor, they have to adapt to the mission at play, like everyone else.
Having only played the book missions, and a few CA17 missions, the CA18 look super fun.
I started looking into ITC to see if I could get in on local tournies...people say that tracking CP for each faction is too much bookkeeping, but the ITC missions are a crazy amount of bookkeeping.
I'm very visually impaired, and I have a blast with the core missions (not the tactical objective ones though), and the ITC missions seem like the same basic objective mission over and over. The Secondaries and general sameness of mission mean that some lists, while playable and can win book missions, just don't work for ITC.
Why should I be forced to use a large groups House Rules when I can play the mission that GW gives and have a great time? Mixing the BRB! CA17 and CA18 missions and randomly picking one per round, ahead of time, on the day of the tournament means people can't tailor, they have to adapt to the mission at play, like everyone else.
To be clear I'm not advocating against CA 2018 missions. I haven't been able to read them all in person yet, but I like what I saw so far.
ITC secondaries get a little easier as you learn. A well formatted piece of paper helps.
dhallnet wrote: It's easier to balance a faction with the objective that it is able to do decently well in a specific set of mission rather than against all other factions.
We should be giving feedback on this new set of missions rather than dismissing them (without even knowing all of them afaik) because "lolz GW missions".
Some factions will do well in some missions and poorer in others and you can't tailor your list to a set of objective in advance, so you won't see massive one trick ponies. It's fine really.
If you're annoyed that an objective in a mission can be worth one point because a die roll said so, maybe you can have a part of your army dedicated to steal these, I dunno. You just have to put more troops in range after all.
Rather than talk in circles I would like you to provide me example of a less screwed/tailored list winning a majore GW tournament vs an ITC tournament. I don’t follow GW tournaments so the modt recent example of a winning list I know of is that slow playing ork list.
As for “you just have to put more troops in range after all” that’s ok thought aside from 2 exceptions. The first is sometimes that won’t be possible no regardless of any list or game desiscions you make “see Table Top Tactics video, no matter what army or units Beard took, there was no way he was going take the double point objective from bone). The second is that good oppenents (I.E anyone you see at top tables) will everything in their power to ensure they keep an important objective. This means that an important objective appearing under my dudes very likely means I’m keeping. It doesn’t take much tactical ablity to conclude it’s better to have a 2 point objective than a 1 point objective. Likewise you don’t have to be list building master to know taking deamons and harlequins will hurt you during the null zone mission.
dhallnet wrote: It's easier to balance a faction with the objective that it is able to do decently well in a specific set of mission rather than against all other factions.
We should be giving feedback on this new set of missions rather than dismissing them (without even knowing all of them afaik) because "lolz GW missions".
Some factions will do well in some missions and poorer in others and you can't tailor your list to a set of objective in advance, so you won't see massive one trick ponies. It's fine really.
If you're annoyed that an objective in a mission can be worth one point because a die roll said so, maybe you can have a part of your army dedicated to steal these, I dunno. You just have to put more troops in range after all.
Rather than talk in circles I would like you to provide me example of a less screwed/tailored list winning a majore GW tournament vs an ITC tournament. I don’t follow GW tournaments so the modt recent example of a winning list I know of is that slow playing ork list.
As for “you just have to put more troops in range after all” that’s ok thought aside from 2 exceptions. The first is sometimes that won’t be possible no regardless of any list or game desiscions you make “see Table Top Tactics video, no matter what army or units Beard took, there was no way he was going take the double point objective from bone). The second is that good oppenents (I.E anyone you see at top tables) will everything in their power to ensure they keep an important objective. This means that an important objective appearing under my dudes very likely means I’m keeping. It doesn’t take much tactical ablity to conclude it’s better to have a 2 point objective than a 1 point objective. Likewise you don’t have to be list building master to know taking deamons and harlequins will hurt you during the null zone mission.
Regarding the "null zone" mission, you don't have to stand in it AT ALL to be able to win the mission. There are 3 other objectives you can score while denying them to your opponent. Which means if you get the central objective for 2 turns, you win. The real issue with this mission imho is number. If your opponent has a lot of troops and you don't, you're screwed. The null zone though ? Debatable.
No I can't give examples because I don't give a damn, but it's obvious most armies consistently winning are designed to "abuse" some very strong points. I was talking about what "balancing" factions against a set of missions instead of against all other factions can do. And it is, imho, a decent way to balance the game (to a point, if you have to get destroyed every time to win a mission, it isn't really fun, even if you win) thus I wish people were at least thinking about these missions rather than dismissing them before hand.
Regarding the random objective giving one more point and the TTT video, pretty sure he could have at least attempted to remove the guy(s) on top of the objectives if he had any presence that side of the board as he was playing second. Of course he couldn't do anything about it, he ignored this whole side of the battlefield (not saying he had a choice not to though).
This hilarious line right here also sums up dakka dakka, and people who think BRB missions are balanced.
Nice editing. (edit : you're making me say something I didn't)
Do you mean dumping a lot of PC/Psy powers into powerful units for example aren't obvious "abuse" of strong points, since it was my original sentence ? Or are you trying to imply it isn't done ?
This hilarious line right here also sums up dakka dakka, and people who think BRB missions are balanced.
Nobody is talking about the BRB missions, Marm. We're talking about CA2018 missions, which seems to be part of how GW balances the game. That's the point. ITC missions do not (as of now) take into account any of the balancing GW puts into their missions. In short the perceived imbalance that the GW missions tend to have are, in fact, part of the overall balance for the game due to exactly why they seem imbalanced: The entire point is to make it so there's a potential counter to certain armies, or certain list builds, in an effort to provide real diversity (not ITC's "look how diverse the game is!" when every faction uses a similar list) to the game. Just like how in AOS they flat out stated that the "omg unbalanced" realm rules were actually part of the balance (and still got summarily ignored by the community).
What you think is unbalanced is actually part of what counterbalances the game.
The premise that "playing the mission" is more important than just "I am odds on to table you by turn 4" is a reasonable one.
Whether it actually works - and encourages lists which are less "tabley" - remains to be seen.
Part of the criticism is that ye Imperial/Eldar Soups are likely to be equally adept at both.
With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Spoletta wrote: With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Spoletta wrote: With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Tabling isn't an option? guess I wont be playing any of those garbage missions.
Spoletta wrote: With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Tabling isn't an option? guess I wont be playing any of those garbage missions.
Tabling is absolutely an option, but its not an automatic win. There are strategic parameters involved in all that missions that require actual thought instead of the point, click, delete methodology that has existed up to this point.
Spoletta wrote: With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Tabling isn't an option? guess I wont be playing any of those garbage missions.
Tabling is absolutely an option, but its not an automatic win. There are strategic parameters involved in all that missions that require actual thought instead of the point, click, delete methodology that has existed up to this point.
It's already hard enough to table armies in this game. It should reward you a victory. What is actually not hard is taking a ton of chaff and moving it onto objectives and force your opponent to be aggressive.
Spoletta wrote: With the CA finally in my hands i have to say that i LOVE the new missions, they are perfect.
No end game scoring.
Only end of battle round scoring.
No kill points of any kind.
Tabling is never a win condition in any mission.
Solved the issue with one player having the advantage on objective placing.
Severely limited the first turn advantage.
For every mission in which a type of play stile/army composition is at an handicap, there is another in which it has the upper hand.
Just perfect. This is how a tournament mission set should look like.
Ironically, that's exactly the sort of stuff the tournament players think don't belong in tournaments.
People act like ITC has some nefarious plan. It doesn't.
ITC wants calm rational missions that are easy to allow people to play, and maintain a close relation to the game. Its set to allow people come, play the game and have a good chance at having a fair and fun time, while being hard to master.
GW's missions so far have been the Table Top equivalent of "ow my balls" from idiocracy. So far the point hasn't been to have a fair game, but more to provide bystanders amusement, as far as I can tell.
Reemule wrote: People act like ITC has some nefarious plan. It doesn't.
ITC wants calm rational missions that are easy to allow people to play, and maintain a close relation to the game. Its set to allow people come, play the game and have a good chance at having a fair and fun time, while being hard to master.
GW's missions so far have been the Table Top equivalent of "ow my balls" from idiocracy. So far the point hasn't been to have a fair game, but more to provide bystanders amusement, as far as I can tell.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
Bro I've already done this with a nullzone libraian jump advancing into Harliquen lines. I destroyed half his army with bolters and other garbage weapons. It would be even worse against daemons who don't have -1 to hit's and wound all over the place. Hes my good friend too and he pretty much said he knew that was gonna happen and didn't want to play from the start. The thing is in that game I had to get lucky to pull it off - in this game i'll place my objectives where you can't ignore them and ether autowin from standing on them all game or auto win when you move into the aura. I'll spare you the lack of fun - lets play a mission that doesn't suck.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
in this game i'll place my objectives where you can't ignore them and ether autowin from standing on them all game or auto win when you move into the aura.
lmao. It's clear you've not read the mission if you still think you can place your objectives.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
Bro I've already done this with a nullzone libraian jump advancing into Harliquen lines. I destroyed half his army with bolters and other garbage weapons. It would be even worse against daemons who don't have -1 to hit's and wound all over the place. Hes my good friend too and he pretty much said he knew that was gonna happen and didn't want to play from the start. The thing is in that game I had to get lucky to pull it off - in this game i'll place my objectives where you can't ignore them and ether autowin from standing on them all game or auto win when you move into the aura. I'll spare you the lack of fun - lets play a mission that doesn't suck.
Spoiler:
Reading comprehension is key, Bro. There is one objective, which happens to be in the center of the table. Harlequin players can use their speed to win the first two turns, and then play the secondary objectives. Wow, sounds like you'll need to employ a bit of strategy with some armies...
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
Bro I've already done this with a nullzone libraian jump advancing into Harliquen lines. I destroyed half his army with bolters and other garbage weapons. It would be even worse against daemons who don't have -1 to hit's and wound all over the place. Hes my good friend too and he pretty much said he knew that was gonna happen and didn't want to play from the start. The thing is in that game I had to get lucky to pull it off - in this game i'll place my objectives where you can't ignore them and ether autowin from standing on them all game or auto win when you move into the aura. I'll spare you the lack of fun - lets play a mission that doesn't suck.
Spoiler:
Reading comprehension is key, Bro. There is one objective, which happens to be in the center of the table. Harlequin players can use their speed to win the first two turns, and then play the secondary objectives. Wow, sounds like you'll need to employ a bit of strategy with some armies...
So basically A quin army does what it always does but they can't fight in the middle of the map. Amazing - What if I am on the middle of the map?
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
As a Daemon player, I think I'm more willing to give this mission a go than you are.
Bro I've already done this with a nullzone libraian jump advancing into Harliquen lines. I destroyed half his army with bolters and other garbage weapons. It would be even worse against daemons who don't have -1 to hit's and wound all over the place. Hes my good friend too and he pretty much said he knew that was gonna happen and didn't want to play from the start. The thing is in that game I had to get lucky to pull it off - in this game i'll place my objectives where you can't ignore them and ether autowin from standing on them all game or auto win when you move into the aura. I'll spare you the lack of fun - lets play a mission that doesn't suck.
Spoiler:
Reading comprehension is key, Bro. There is one objective, which happens to be in the center of the table. Harlequin players can use their speed to win the first two turns, and then play the secondary objectives. Wow, sounds like you'll need to employ a bit of strategy with some armies...
So basically A quin army does what it always does but they can't fight in the middle of the map. Amazing - What if I am on the middle of the map?
Then you get annihilated by letting the rest of my ultra-fast harlequins/daemons blitz around you and pick apart your everything? My plan for this mission generally includes feeding 10-girl, 60 point Daemonette squads into the center at the end of every battle round, after choosing to go second, and then cutting off your ability to get close to the center of the board with my speedy units by staying 12" away from the objective?
It's not like you just deploy there, lol. It should be fairly trivial to surround the objective and then feed it cheap stuff or even park a character on it so you can't target them with shooting, either, and then keep the rest of your army away while mine is more than 12" away?
EDIT: Picture this: A herald standing on the center objective, untargetable while the rest of my Daemons dive into your deployment zone, pinning you there and being the closest model, so you can't target the herald with shooting. Your options are to deep strike more than 9" away from the objective/herald, and kill her, which means I turn around and devour that unit that deep struck, or fly over my close combat army and challenge the herald with a Fly unit. I've significantly reduced your options just by existing, and played to the mission.
Xenomancers wrote: The mission sucks. Accept it. I'm a space marine player - I don't even have invo saves and I think it sucks.
Awesome! Please tell me what else you think sucks so that I know what to think in regarding those items as well. Your viewpoint is your own, and its incredulous as you haven't played it once yet. If my 2k Frozen Stars list gets mowed down in this mission 70% of the time, then I'll be willing to give your viewpoint credence. However, I'm going to play this a bunch of times before I just call it trash.
Xenomancers wrote: So your pinning me and going second...This really is fascinating.
Yes? Unless you want to move into the center of the table and have it guaranteed that I make it into combat. You're not getting a shooting phase at any of my units in the no-invulnerable field until I am in combat either way, and guaranteeing I make it into combat by moving up turn 1 is a really good way to lose to Slaanesh, lol.
The missions from ITC are a lot better than this garbage set of CA missions. My issue with ITC is not the missions - but their house rules.
So you haven't even seen the new mission let alone played them but have already decided that they're garbage? Ok.
I've looked the first mission that turns off invo saves if you are near objectives within 12". Man - I'd hate to play Daemons/Harliquens/DE/or Custodians in that game. Plus - no tabling was a condition in that too. Safe to assume they are all equally garbage. In fact - any mission set that specifically states you can lose all your models and still win is complete gak.
But don't ITC missions also say if you table your opponent you don't auto win, just you continue to "play" to get points? I'm pretty sure the ITC Champions missions have something like that rule already.
And the null zone thing is part of the balance to encourage a well-rounded force, because you might get that mission or might not. That's the intent. The missions are supposed to help balance out the listbuilding by having some missions be detrimental.
Xenomancers wrote: So your pinning me and going second...This really is fascinating.
Yes? Unless you want to move into the center of the table and have it guaranteed that I make it into combat. You're not getting a shooting phase at any of my units in the no-invulnerable field until I am in combat either way, and guaranteeing I make it into combat by moving up turn 1 is a really good way to lose to Slaanesh, lol.
I absolutely am moving my entire army into the middle of the table. I can really see the veteren intercessor ability being strong here. 3 attacks per intercessor against units that aren't even getting saves and I'm rerolling all hits and wounds. You really want to try this?
Xenomancers wrote: So your pinning me and going second...This really is fascinating.
Yes? Unless you want to move into the center of the table and have it guaranteed that I make it into combat. You're not getting a shooting phase at any of my units in the no-invulnerable field until I am in combat either way, and guaranteeing I make it into combat by moving up turn 1 is a really good way to lose to Slaanesh, lol.
I absolutely am moving my entire army into the middle of the table. I can really see the veteren intercessor ability being strong here. 3 attacks per intercessor against units that aren't even getting saves and I'm rerolling all hits and wounds. You really want to try this?
Yes, because Slaanesh always strikes first in combat and I will mutilate your army before it retaliates in CC.
Remember, a Keeper of Secrets gets 6 attacks at Str 7, -3 Rend, 3 damage AND d3 attacks at Str 6, -2 Rend, 3 damage, always fights first, can fight 3 times in a single battle round so long as it has units to constantly pile in to, and is -1 to be hit in melee. I have no fear whatsoever of close combat with your Veteran Intercessors, because I was never relying on that 5++ for my survivability anyways. Who would? It's a single 5++.
Oh, and all of that is for 165 after Chapter Approved.
Heres how it works bud. I move up my whole army and take about 200 shots at whatever you have in front of me. In other words - not much that is within range to charge me next turn will exist any longer. Your keeper can come. Honestly hell be lucky to survive the overwatch without a save.
Xenomancers wrote: Heres how it works bud. I move up my whole army and take about 200 shots at whatever you have in front of me. In other words - not much that is within range to charge me next turn will exist any longer. Your keeper can come. Honestly hell be lucky to survive the overwatch without a save.
And now we're moving beyond the mission. If I'm outside of 12" of the objective and you shot me to death even with my invulns, then the mission doesn't particularly matter, does it? Your entire criticism falls flat.
As for surviving overwatch, we can do the math. 10 intercessors hitting on 6s with auto bolt rifles is 7 hits. For generosity, let's say all of them wound (on 5s), I have no save, suffer 7 wounds, and then eviscerate your squad.
Xenomancers wrote: Heres how it works bud. I move up my whole army and take about 200 shots at whatever you have in front of me. In other words - not much that is within range to charge me next turn will exist any longer. Your keeper can come. Honestly hell be lucky to survive the overwatch without a save.
And now we're moving beyond the mission. If I'm outside of 12" of the objective and you shot me to death even with my invulns, then the mission doesn't particularly matter, does it? Your entire criticism falls flat.
As for surviving overwatch, we can do the math. 10 intercessors hitting on 6s with auto bolt rifles is 7 hits. For generosity, let's say all of them wound (on 5s), I have no save, suffer 7 wounds, and then eviscerate your squad.
These boys also give you some love when they die too. Whats she got? 8 wounds?
Xenomancers wrote: Heres how it works bud. I move up my whole army and take about 200 shots at whatever you have in front of me. In other words - not much that is within range to charge me next turn will exist any longer. Your keeper can come. Honestly hell be lucky to survive the overwatch without a save.
And now we're moving beyond the mission. If I'm outside of 12" of the objective and you shot me to death even with my invulns, then the mission doesn't particularly matter, does it? Your entire criticism falls flat.
As for surviving overwatch, we can do the math. 10 intercessors hitting on 6s with auto bolt rifles is 7 hits. For generosity, let's say all of them wound (on 5s), I have no save, suffer 7 wounds, and then eviscerate your squad.
These boys also give you some love when they die too. Whats she got? 8 wounds?
The idea here is the objective gives me a massive bonus. You lose all saves and I still retain a 3+. It's to the point I will start to win and melle...and you have practically no shooting.
Xenomancers wrote: The idea here is the objective gives me a massive bonus. You lose all saves and I still retain a 3+. It's to the point I will start to win and melle...and you have practically no shooting.
I get the point of what you are saying, but I am saying I would still give the mission a go.
Basically, what we are doing here in a text medium is playing the mission against each-other, clunkily and without nuance, but speculatively playing nonetheless (right down to your Intercessor squad getting a lucky 7 wounds! Good roll, Xeno!). I haven't heard anything that really dissuades me from trying the mission out, and I definitely don't automatically rule my army out of being able to compete as long as I have a sound plan.
I recognize that I am disadvantaged by the mission, and that's fun, because now I have a chance to plan around that, just like we are doing here. The fact that you assert the mission is skewed against me isn't going to make me not want to play it, because I already know that it's skewed against me.
If I win three turns in the middle, I've got an excellent chance of winning or drawing the mission. Go ahead and table me, but it probably won't matter unless it goes to turn 7.
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Xenomancers wrote: Heres how it works bud. I move up my whole army and take about 200 shots at whatever you have in front of me. In other words - not much that is within range to charge me next turn will exist any longer. Your keeper can come. Honestly hell be lucky to survive the overwatch without a save.
If you're playing Imperial, you aren't winning anything in ITC anyway, so what's it matter?
Space Marines aren't winning in ITC, but that has little if anything to do with the ITC mission structure, and EVERYTHING to do with them being fundamentally overcosted and poorly designed.
Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
But the fact they "aren't fair to a lot of armies" seems to be by design. That's part of the balance against those armies, and it's something ITC does not have which is why we see the same armies dominating ITC events.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
But the fact they "aren't fair to a lot of armies" seems to be by design. That's part of the balance against those armies, and it's something ITC does not have which is why we see the same armies dominating ITC events.
This is a bad post.
ITC is dominated by undercosted & overpowered models like any format. Ynnari and Imperial Guard are still amazing, regardless of format. A Castellan is still amazing regardless of format.
You are starting from the assumption that ITC is imbalanced because certain armies are winning. There is 0 evidence that those armies would suddenly cease to be viable in a different mission pack.
There is no evidence further to suggest that IG + Castellan or Ynnari wouldn't absolutely dominate in CA missions. Because those armies are incredibly lethal and durable.
I've won games in ITC with my Tyranids that i would not win in any GW format, because I was able to control the map and win on objectives. This doesn't simply work in GW missions because they're wonky and stupid. Genestealers without a 5++? I lose, automagically, without even needing to play the game.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
ITC is fair to "a lot of armies" then, is it? It is not. It promotes troop heavy lists (e.g. Plaguebearer spam, Guard Spam, etc) or Soups designed to table your opponent and then stand on objectives in the theory crafted turn 4/5.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
ITC is fair to "a lot of armies" then, is it? It is not. It promotes troop heavy lists (e.g. Plaguebearer spam, Guard Spam, etc) or Soups designed to table your opponent and then stand on objectives in the theory crafted turn 4/5.
You're conflating fundamental game imbalance with ITC imbalance. Marines aren't viable regardless of format.
And your understanding of ITC seems pretty terrible. Standing on objectives is a thing in EVERY format. Do you really think a giant blob of plaguebearers would suddenly be less effective standing on an objective if it was in a GW mission, instead of an ITC mission? News flash, it's the same thing my dude.
One big difference between ITC and GW is the way scoring rewards and punishes hordes. In ITC, reaper, butchers bill, both give you a trade-off in horde scoring versus opponent scoring - yes you can plop your 100 guardsmen on the objectives, but i'll get 8 points out of killing them. Whereas in GW there is literally 0 downside to flooding the table with models, because there is no counter-scoring based on that skew list.
Tabling does not equal an "auto-win" but, if you table your opponent you're highly likely to win anyway. Similar to ITC, you continue to score points in the turns after the tabling. If you table me on turn 3, the only way you're going to lose the mission is if you don't have enough units left to claim the objectives to overcome any lead i might have. Just like ITC, you need to plan to have those units alive to claim the secondaries.
The "Null Field" mission. You can still claim the objective AND keep your invuln save turns 1 and 2 due to the range of the objective being 18" and 15" respectively for those turns and the no invuln range being fixed at 12". Armies like Quinns will need to do what they currently do anyway - and that is do as much damage to your opponent as quickly as possible in order to have a chance at winning. First turn charge armies also have a strong starting point for this mission, as they can charge the "horde screening units" and tie them up preventing them from getting into objective range (depending on deployment) for a turn or 2. Sure, elite armies are going to struggle with this mission more than horde armies are going to, but, it doesn't mean they can't win. Most horde armies suffer extreme casualties in the first half of the game, where they try to trade their numbers for your numbers. if they fail, then the elite armies tend to have an advantage, especially if they are mobile. GK Interceptor spam for example is a great example where they can move up turn 1, remove a lot of the horde models and stay within the objective range and keep their invuln. Sure, GKs might need to soup it up, but, just having 30 Interceptors and 3-5 units of Marine scouts + whatever else you have in range after removing your opponents 3-4 screening units of guardsmen gives you a great starting point. Going 2nd will also be key here, as all you have to do is get 1 extra model in range for the point. If you score the points turns 1-4, then as long as you pick up first strike, you are forcing your opponent to have to table you to deny you WL and/or Linebreaker in order to win.
As for ITC vs these missions. ITC primary missions are more forgiving imo. You hold 1 objective and kill 1 unit then you are guaranteed 2 points. All it does is direct your focus onto killing as much as possible, in order to score the bonus points. It doesn't really reward good play or penalise bad play. It's all about game mathematics. The secondary missions are nice, but, lets face it, if you go into an ITC mission with a list where you haven't already picked 3 or 4 secondaries that you are going to max out every game, then, i'd be surprised. There is very little variance between the secondaries you pick in game 1 and the secondaries you pick in game 6. All you are doing is building your army to max out those mission points. You have to do the same for these new missions, the only difference is you actually have to fight your opponent for the points in the new missions, as opposed to farming 22 odd points plus whatever bonuses points you pick up here and there.
As for GW missions being less competitive. I played at the Vigilus weekender AND Heat 3 this weekend just gone. Some of the games i had were just as competitive, if not more so, than some of the ITC games i've played. Not only that, a good chunk of them were actually close games. Also, the lists people use and take were extremely varied and extremely competitive for the event. A lot of people said they were surprised at the sheer level of power at this event, compared to the first 2 heats. These missions can be just as competitive as ITC games, more so in some cases, just as they can be just as unbalanced as ITC games can be. A skilled Ynnari army will still perform just as well in either style of mission, just as a pure Primaris force will probably (prior to this CA and Vigilus) suck just as much in each style. There was 120 players at heat 3 with all kinds of lists that would get instantly dismissed as "trash" here on dakka, that were winning games vs "OP" armies due to the missions. For example, my game 2 was vs Custodes and 11 Assassins. The mission was Ascension. I got hammered on points as i just couldn't kill his units fast enough. That list also beat a BobbyG buffed list + Guard round 1 on an objective hold mission. Sure, it suffered in some of the other missions we played, but these missions really do give "trash" lists opportunities.
As for Guard having the "advantage", well, it just depends. Bring enough guns to kill me 120 Guardsmen or 120 Cultists, or bring enough firepower to deal with a Knight. Make sure your list can deal with 120 Boyz whilst surviving 10 Smasha Guns etc.
As for the idea of us getting a load of horde v horde games, well, i guess it's just another nod toward chess clocks.
No one seriously thinks Bobby G + Guard is OP. You don't see Roboute on tables anymore, really.
And assassins do very well against Guard heavy lists that don't bring an Imperial Knight. None of this is news to people playing ITC.
What ITC does, that the European meta doesn't really get, is that you have to move to win. You can't castle and win in ITC, by nature of the missions. Of course an English guy finds these refreshing because they force movement and discourage gunline, something you have probably never seen.
Fun fact: Most ITC games with good players & lists are very close. Sometimes you'll see a blowout but again, that's not because of the format, it's because someone is getting tabled on turn 3. Literally NO MISSION MATTERS when you're getting tabled, or essentially tabled, that early.
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
But the fact they "aren't fair to a lot of armies" seems to be by design. That's part of the balance against those armies, and it's something ITC does not have which is why we see the same armies dominating ITC events.
This is a bad post.
ITC is dominated by undercosted & overpowered models like any format. Ynnari and Imperial Guard are still amazing, regardless of format. A Castellan is still amazing regardless of format.
You are starting from the assumption that ITC is imbalanced because certain armies are winning. There is 0 evidence that those armies would suddenly cease to be viable in a different mission pack.
There is no evidence further to suggest that IG + Castellan or Ynnari wouldn't absolutely dominate in CA missions. Because those armies are incredibly lethal and durable.
I've won games in ITC with my Tyranids that i would not win in any GW format, because I was able to control the map and win on objectives. This doesn't simply work in GW missions because they're wonky and stupid. Genestealers without a 5++? I lose, automagically, without even needing to play the game.
I agree that certain units/armies will do well, regardless of whether it is in a GW mission or an ITC mission. As you say, armies are currently unbalanced (though how much so after we see how CA changes things will be interesting to see).
Genuine question now though.
How often are your Genestealers (or their targets) alive after round 2?
It takes considerable dakka to drop a 20 model, 5++/5+++/-1 to hit unit that is morale immune. And, I bring 2 of these such units.
They're also fast and can hide behind walls & inside buildings. You have to play aggressively but also defensively. Paying 3CP to fight again, to pile around another unit so it cannot fall back (even one model is enough) protects the squad.
I usually lose all of them by turn 4. But by then they've done their job. And of course, if you're killing Genestealers you're not killing the rest of the list.
The biggest difference between ITC and GW missions and tournaments is the volume and variance in the terrain. Some ITC tables will have fully closed in, or nearly closed in, buildings. These hide infantry incredibly well. Meanwhile tournaments in London have gakky foam walls, and line of sight is as easy as 1-2-3. (Another reason why European meta favors gunlines. There's no reason not to bring guns when you always have line of sight).
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah obviosuly I'm not bringing Ultramarines to an ITC event. My argument that was these CA missions aren't fair to a lot of armies. I don't need to play them out. I can read.
ITC is fair to "a lot of armies" then, is it? It is not. It promotes troop heavy lists (e.g. Plaguebearer spam, Guard Spam, etc) or Soups designed to table your opponent and then stand on objectives in the theory crafted turn 4/5.
You're conflating fundamental game imbalance with ITC imbalance. Marines aren't viable regardless of format.
And your understanding of ITC seems pretty terrible. Standing on objectives is a thing in EVERY format. Do you really think a giant blob of plaguebearers would suddenly be less effective standing on an objective if it was in a GW mission, instead of an ITC mission? News flash, it's the same thing my dude.
One big difference between ITC and GW is the way scoring rewards and punishes hordes. In ITC, reaper, butchers bill, both give you a trade-off in horde scoring versus opponent scoring - yes you can plop your 100 guardsmen on the objectives, but i'll get 8 points out of killing them. Whereas in GW there is literally 0 downside to flooding the table with models, because there is no counter-scoring based on that skew list.
This is all based on Xeno saying the GW missions are garbage and ITC does it better. It doesn't. A blob of plaguebearers standing on the null zone objective is absolutely less effective. That's the point of the mission variance. GW is trying to make well rounded lists a thing, where as ITC is set up to reward a specific list type. ITC is the EXACT same mission every time with different deployment zones and scattered objectives. The secondary objectives can change, but they likely won't. You'll be going for the same two or three secondaries every time.
Marmatag wrote: No one seriously thinks Bobby G + Guard is OP. You don't see Roboute on tables anymore, really.
And assassins do very well against Guard heavy lists that don't bring an Imperial Knight. None of this is news to people playing ITC.
What ITC does, that the European meta doesn't really get, is that you have to move to win. You can't castle and win in ITC, by nature of the missions. Of course an English guy finds these refreshing because they force movement and discourage gunline, something you have probably never seen.
These new missions require movement though, and, i'd also argue to a point, that gunlines have it easier in ITC than they will in these CA missions. One of the biggest things that hasn't been mentioned for a lot of these missions, is that they have fixed objective placements like the ITC missions do. This means you can't just pick the deployment zone that already somehow has 4 objectives placed within it, which can sometimes happen with the current missions. Also, most of the games i play are ITC or ETC missions, with ETC requiring the movement as well due to maelstrom being so swingy. I very rarely play the old BRB or CA17 missions.
A fair amount of ITC lists have some form of a "gunline" or "castle" in them, especially Imperial armies. 9 mortars and 2 basilisks is an example. T'au do it as well in ITC. A Castellen surrounded by 80 Guardsmen still has aspects of a "castle" in it, in that the Castellan isn't really getting into combat or moving excessively around the table. That style can still apply in these CA missions, as it covers the firepower and the manoeuvrability requirements of a strong force.
The mission and bonus matter. Sometimes objective secured doesn't matter, sometimes characters hold objectives, etc.
And the terrain absolutely dictates what secondaries you might pick.
Stop being obtuse. You guys are assuming the secondaries are always the same. Hint. They're not. They vary based on whom you're playing and also what the map looks like. If I can hide inside buildings and win i'll do it, and take defensive secondaries.
Some of the best ITC guard lists are catachan and have melee guardsmen + bullgryns. Getting upfield is required to win. You need to hold more and you need the bonus. Hellhounds are close range models, too. IG is also a bad example because it is the no-skill faction with everything. They win, place or show in every format consistently.
There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events. I actually remember a discussion here about it because you saw different armies and lists performing well compared to ITC. In fact I recall seeing a few dismissive comments saying that ITC events were more official than a GWGT at Warhammer World and more representative of the game.
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
I do not remember which tournament. I just know there were official GTs that had different results than ITC, and yet people still seemed to think ITC was the "real" tournaments.
It takes considerable dakka to drop a 20 model, 5++/5+++/-1 to hit unit that is morale immune. And, I bring 2 of these such units.
They're also fast and can hide behind walls & inside buildings. You have to play aggressively but also defensively. Paying 3CP to fight again, to pile around another unit so it cannot fall back (even one model is enough) protects the squad.
I usually lose all of them by turn 4. But by then they've done their job. And of course, if you're killing Genestealers you're not killing the rest of the list.
The biggest difference between ITC and GW missions and tournaments is the volume and variance in the terrain. Some ITC tables will have fully closed in, or nearly closed in, buildings. These hide infantry incredibly well. Meanwhile tournaments in London have gakky foam walls, and line of sight is as easy as 1-2-3. (Another reason why European meta favors gunlines. There's no reason not to bring guns when you always have line of sight).
Bolded the important bit, but i agree with the whole post.
The thing i don't think you're fully envisioning right now though, is that those Genestealers can still survive til turn 4 in the "Null Field" mission. All it requires is that you''re outside of 12" of the centre of the table. With their speed and pile ins etc, you can make sure this happens, and, as you said, if you're targetting the genestealers cos they are in your face and preventing you from moving up the table, then, you aren't killing the rest of the army that is happily camping within 15" of the objective.
I agree 100% on terrain. 100%. However, this ISN'T a product of GW mission vs ITC mission. It is simply a GW EVENT thing. If you play these new missions on an "ITC Standard" table, then surely they are just as balanced as playing an ITC game on the same table. Also, i don't particularly like the whole enclosed building thing some ITC events have. The rules need to be fleshed out more imo, but, that could be said for all forms of terrain in the game atm.
Just because the London GT and most previous GW ran events have had terrain, doesn't mean that every event in the UK and/or Europe is the same.
The terrain does matter for the context of this discussion, because big ITC tournaments have incredibly different terrain. I would argue that terrain shapes lists more than secondaries. The argument is that the ITC mission pack shapes results. I would disagree. You can't bring a list with 7 eldar flyers and win an ITC event because you WILL encounter maps that have buildings. Same thing with 4 Imperial Knights or 3 Knights + Guard. You'll go 4-2. Which means your list isn't getting discussed.
Genestealers need to be in cover or in buildings. If the only place to hide is near the null-zone, it's GG. Again this depends on terrain, though. If the objective is placed in the center and you can't draw line of sight to it from any side, of course the game will fundamentally change. Maybe the genestealers will survive.
I've said it earlier and i should repeat it: I will give these new missions and honest chance. Hopefully the ITC will take what works from them.
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
Top 37 "factions" at Heat 3.
Bear in mind this was 1750 points and the only highlighted players "deliberately" slow playing didn't feature in the top 20.
Also, remember when talking about terrain, ITC have their own house rules which are not part of the base game (i.e. that the bottom level of ruins blocks LOS). So already ITC is deviating from the game as written even before you get to the missions, and that deviation (while I actually think it's better) already skews results because it does not exist in non-ITC events.
If you don't see the problems with the scores reflected on that page i don't know what to tell you.
Scoring based on how fun the army was to play, and how it looks, is going to dramatically alter what wins the tournament. How can you have a credible stance in regards to game balance when the outcome is based on how well you bat your eyes and how much time you spent painting your duders?
Marmatag wrote: The terrain does matter for the context of this discussion, because big ITC tournaments have incredibly different terrain. I would argue that terrain shapes lists more than secondaries. The argument is that the ITC mission pack shapes results. I would disagree. You can't bring a list with 7 eldar flyers and win an ITC event because you WILL encounter maps that have buildings. Same thing with 4 Imperial Knights or 3 Knights + Guard. You'll go 4-2. Which means your list isn't getting discussed.
Genestealers need to be in cover or in buildings. If the only place to hide is near the null-zone, it's GG. Again this depends on terrain, though. If the objective is placed in the center and you can't draw line of sight to it from any side, of course the game will fundamentally change. Maybe the genestealers will survive.
But, if you played Null Field on an ITC table, then, you have all those places to hide like you currently do.
Likewise, if you played an ITC game on a GW table, then you're genestealers will still be GG because they can't hide in a 2 storey, fully enclosed, no windowed building.
Terrain shapes your list in ITC, i agree, but so does the missions and secondaries. In my ITC lists, especially with Knights, i love running the Ironstorm pods simply because they ignore LoS and are a flat 2 damage. Goodbye mortar squads etc.Sure, they are less effective at a GW RAN EVENT, but, we aren't talking about these missions just being ran by GW. If the ITC ran these missions with the same standard of terrain as detailed in their mission packs and "advice packs" then their worth goes back up again. Terrain matters, yes, but, terrain should matter regardless of whether an event is ITC or not. The fact that it doesn't currently isn't a reflection on the missions being played, but rather the tables and event organisers setting up those tables.
Space Marines aren't winning in ITC, but that has little if anything to do with the ITC mission structure, and EVERYTHING to do with them being fundamentally overcosted and poorly designed.
I think you forgot that Eldar exist. Yeah Guard/KNight lists are getting the most 1st place finishes, but overall Eldar have a far more consistent high level of performance.
Marmatag wrote: If you don't see the problems with the scores reflected on that page i don't know what to tell you.
Obviously the whole "favourite game/player" bits are worthless, i agree, but ignore them and look at the rest of the scores. Gaming and secondaries (secondaries being first blood, warlord and linebreaker), along with the additional tiebreaker of points destroyed.
If i'm honest, there isn't much difference between them as a lot of ITC events. Aeldari have strong showins, Orks are doing well, Chaos probably dropped a little as with Imperium lists.
Martel732 wrote: ITC tries to remove randomness from what I can tell.
In practice it removes variety. They are all essentially one mission, the differences between them are pretty cosmetic from a list building point of view.
I tried it for one tournament and found it really dull after a while. I realise that is a matter of taste and obviously there are a lot of players who want to play essentially the same mission all weekend, just not me.
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
Top 37 "factions" at Heat 3.
Bear in mind this was 1750 points and the only highlighted players "deliberately" slow playing didn't feature in the top 20.
Okay, so I'm sympathetic to a lot of the points people NOT Marmatag are making but GW's 'Heats' are an absolute fething joke. Including them in the discussion of competitive balance is like including mascot races in the final score of a Major League Baseball game.
First Blood is a terrible mechanic that awards whoever wins the first turn rolloff.
They're finally waking up and going with the ITC created secondary (from Old School), First Strike, which is you get the point if you kill on *your* first turn, even if someone else already has it.
And it looks like this is capped early in the tournament? Because most of the scores are the same.
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
Top 37 "factions" at Heat 3.
Bear in mind this was 1750 points and the only highlighted players "deliberately" slow playing didn't feature in the top 20.
Okay, so I'm sympathetic to a lot of the points people NOT Marmatag are making but GW's 'Heats' are an absolute fething joke. Including them in the discussion of competitive balance is like including mascot races in the final score of a Major League Baseball game.
Cool, you mind explaining why that is or are you just going to grandstand?
Okay, so I'm sympathetic to a lot of the points people NOT Marmatag are making but GW's 'Heats' are an absolute fething joke. Including them in the discussion of competitive balance is like including mascot races in the final score of a Major League Baseball game.
Marmatag wrote: First Blood is a terrible mechanic that awards whoever wins the first turn rolloff.
They're finally waking up and going with the ITC created secondary (from Old School), First Strike, which is you get the point if you kill on *your* first turn, even if someone else already has it.
And it looks like this is capped early in the tournament? Because most of the scores are the same.
The new missions have first strike. As for a cap, there doesn't appear to be one. Assuming 5 matches at 3 secondaries each, nets you 15 total possible points. Since everyone can't get first strike every match (unless incredibly lucky), its plain to see the math.
Honestly, I love that the GW official tournaments have comp/sportsmanship back in a way. The champion of a Warhammer tournament should embrace all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who wins all their games. Maybe it's just because I'm oldschool so I remember when they were part of tournaments, but I think that's how it should be.
Wayniac wrote: There actually IS evidence that different missions have different results. GW's own Grand Tournaments, which currently used CA 2017 missions I believe, have VERY different armies performing well compared to the ITC missions. Therefore, the conclusion is the ITC missions is what favors the current armies we see doing well in ITC events.
You believe? how about you share some evidence you have confidence in. Are you talking about the tournament won by the slow playing ork player?
Top 37 "factions" at Heat 3.
Bear in mind this was 1750 points and the only highlighted players "deliberately" slow playing didn't feature in the top 20.
Okay, so I'm sympathetic to a lot of the points people NOT Marmatag are making but GW's 'Heats' are an absolute fething joke. Including them in the discussion of competitive balance is like including mascot races in the final score of a Major League Baseball game.
If we ignore the favourite player and army votes, we can still see which armies are performing better than the others at the events. Each victory awarded 6 "primary" points, each FB/LB/WL awarded 1 secondary point. Exactly the same as ITC missions having primary and secondary. Sure, the missions are different, therefore the listbuilding is different, but, i posted that image in response to a remark about army variety at current GW events.
In terms of them being used for "competitive analysis" i agree that they should be thrown out of the window simply because of the nature of the missions used at this event - BUT, it does give a little insight in regards to ETC "power rankings" as ETC uses CA missions. It is just comparing apples to oranges.
ITC is seen as the more competitive side of the game right now, because of the missions. The argument is now, going forward, these new missions -might- challenge that point of view and how that may, or may not, have an impact on the ITC. If heat 4 in Feb uses the new CA missions, then we might have a better comparison point - BUT we will still have the same old arguments regardless of ITC being "trash" because of this, or GW missions being "trash" because of that.
The next few months will give us some insight into how balanced these new missions are, but, we need to get out of our heads, right now, that games played with these missions can't be "competitive". If it turns out all you need to win is 150 Ork Boyz/Guard/Nids/etc then sure, we can all light our GW pitchforks again and preach about ITC, but, noone can categorically say they are trash just because reading internet comments or looking at a couple of reveals.
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Wayniac wrote: Honestly, I love that the GW official tournaments have comp/sportsmanship back in a way. The champion of a Warhammer tournament should embrace all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who wins all their games. Maybe it's just because I'm oldschool so I remember when they were part of tournaments, but I think that's how it should be.
While i agree the Champion of the Event should include sporting aspects, "Best General" and tournament winner should be based on game performance alone.
Lets face it, if you play 1 opponent and they then go on to play a youtuber, the youtuber is way more likely to get the favourite votes than just simply because of general bias. Obv it's not going to always impact on a winner, but, it does happen.
Marmatag wrote: First Blood is a terrible mechanic that awards whoever wins the first turn rolloff.
They're finally waking up and going with the ITC created secondary (from Old School), First Strike, which is you get the point if you kill on *your* first turn, even if someone else already has it.
And it looks like this is capped early in the tournament? Because most of the scores are the same.
The new missions have first strike. As for a cap, there doesn't appear to be one. Assuming 5 matches at 3 secondaries each, nets you 15 total possible points. Since everyone can't get first strike every match (unless incredibly lucky), its plain to see the math.
Yes, natural cap is at 15 points, due to there only being 5 games and the max per game was 3 - which included you picking up first blood.
First strike in the new missions is a much needed and welcomed change.
Wayniac wrote: Honestly, I love that the GW official tournaments have comp/sportsmanship back in a way. The champion of a Warhammer tournament should embrace all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who wins all their games. Maybe it's just because I'm oldschool so I remember when they were part of tournaments, but I think that's how it should be.
You're welcome to believe that it's okay to include anti-competition mechanics into a competition, just have the self-awareness to realize that you are, therefore, anti-competition.
The point of a competition, especially when money is on the line, is to win.
Wayniac wrote: Honestly, I love that the GW official tournaments have comp/sportsmanship back in a way. The champion of a Warhammer tournament should embrace all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who wins all their games. Maybe it's just because I'm oldschool so I remember when they were part of tournaments, but I think that's how it should be.
You're welcome to believe that it's okay to include anti-competition mechanics into a competition, just have the self-awareness to realize that you are, therefore, anti-competition.
The point of a competition, especially when money is on the line, is to win.
And the rules of the competition determine the winner. If theme, paint and sportsmanship are part of the competition then they are required to win.
DarknessEternal wrote: ITC is run by arrogant nonsense. They'll always think that their ideas are better.
I may disagree with some of their decisions, but let's be fair, competitive 40k in its current format more or less exists because of the efforts of ITC and FLG. They've been good for the hobby, and are doing what they do out of a genuine affection for the hobby. As for not taking feedback, perhaps if we were a little less histrionic in expressing our concerns, they wouldn't have to tune out so much of the feedback directed at them. It must suck to open their inboxes day in and day out and have neckbeards ranting at them about how they ruined the hobby. They seem to have taken the stance that the noise to signal ratio of general public discourse makes it mildly useless, and instead rely on a small inner circle of TOs as a feedback mechanism. The problem is that TOs are much more hardcore than average players, so a lot of the decisions we see and wonder what they were thinking probably come from a lack of moderating forces.
On the bright side, they did just announce a change to one of the dumbest rules GW put out in a FAQ, which was the change to wobbly models in the fall FAQ:
This will include a clarification that if you assault infantry into a building and the guy inside placed his models just so that you can't quite fit your models inside the walls, you can still assault him (just place your models on the outside of the walls and wobbly model that they are basically in the wall, in melee range). The packet will be ready prior to LVO (which now will also require you to submit your list sometime in January in the ETC format for easy data reading in their new software).
The real problem people have with ITC is the attitude of ITC players.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition. You could say that ITC removes a bit of randomness from the game, but this game is still based on dices and matchups, so if a game goes from 40% luck based to 36% luck based, means that the first one is for amateurs?
So you aren't less of a big shot tournament player just cause you don't happen to use an house rule from oversea, this is what a lot of ITC players refuse to perceive and irks a lot of canon game players.
GW missions have faults sure, but ITC has its own, and they aren't less than GW's, just different.
Also, what i really don't like about ITC tables is the extremely narrow use of terrain. Not in the sense that they don't use enough of it, but in the sense that everything is labeled as a ruin. Where are craters? Where are barricades? Where are forests? Statues? Promethum pipes? I never see these on the ITC tables, but they are part of the game. Just because someone thinks that everything non ruin isn't "fair", doesn't mean that it isn't part of the game. I could tell you that i don't feel that Ynnari are fair, but we don't remove them from the game just cause of that, right?
DarknessEternal wrote: ITC is run by arrogant nonsense. They'll always think that their ideas are better.
I may disagree with some of their decisions, but let's be fair, competitive 40k in its current format more or less exists because of the efforts of ITC and FLG. They've been good for the hobby, and are doing what they do out of a genuine affection for the hobby. As for not taking feedback, perhaps if we were a little less histrionic in expressing our concerns, they wouldn't have to tune out so much of the feedback directed at them. It must suck to open their inboxes day in and day out and have neckbeards ranting at them about how they ruined the hobby. They seem to have taken the stance that the noise to signal ratio of general public discourse makes it mildly useless, and instead rely on a small inner circle of TOs as a feedback mechanism. The problem is that TOs are much more hardcore than average players, so a lot of the decisions we see and wonder what they were thinking probably come from a lack of moderating forces.
On the bright side, they did just announce a change to one of the dumbest rules GW put out in a FAQ, which was the change to wobbly models in the fall FAQ:
This will include a clarification that if you assault infantry into a building and the guy inside placed his models just so that you can't quite fit your models inside the walls, you can still assault him (just place your models on the outside of the walls and wobbly model that they are basically in the wall, in melee range). The packet will be ready prior to LVO (which now will also require you to submit your list sometime in January in the ETC format for easy data reading in their new software).
So they are making changes that need to be made.
So, I personally hate this. Not being able to fit a model into base to base because of a wall has nothing to do with “wobbly model”. It’s a fix that is needed, sure, but, to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place, and only exists because of how ITC uses “enclosed buildings” (“enclosed because… well… you can still fire mortars out through the “solid” roof and walls...).
Yes, it is thematic to have the odd “complete” building on some battlefields, not every building is going to have been blasted to pieces, but, I also feel like this is a problem they’ve caused themselves by not really thinking through how things should work. Yes, GW are also subject to this.
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Spoletta wrote: The real problem people have with ITC is the attitude of ITC players.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
You could say that ITC removes a bit of randomness from the game, but this game is still based on dices and matchups, so if a game goes from 40% luck based to 36% luck based, means that the first one is for amateurs?
So you aren't less of a big shot tournament player just cause you don't happen to use an house rule from oversea, this is what a lot of ITC players refuse to perceive and irks a lot of canon game players.
GW missions have faults sure, but ITC has its own, and they aren't less than GW's, just different.
I do agree with this. There is a such a
Also, what i really don't like about ITC tables is the extremely narrow use of terrain. Not in the sense that they don't use enough of it, but in the sense that everything is labeled as a ruin. Where are craters? Where are barricades? Where are forests? Statues? Promethum pipes? I never see these on the ITC tables, but they are part of the game. Just because someone thinks that everything non ruin isn't "fair", doesn't mean that it isn't part of the game. I could tell you that i don't feel that Ynnari are fair, but we don't remove them from the game just cause of that, right?
There is such a noticeable split between Europe and the US. Here in the UK most of the events I go to are ITC and use their missions. I enjoy them. But, I also go to ETC style missions (don’t really enjoy the maelstrom aspect though…) and I’ve also started to enjoy standard base book missions at events alone as well. Each can be played to what level of competitiveness you want. At the end of the day, there is still a fair amount of rock-paper-scissors and dice luck involved in all of them.
In regards to the terrain, I believe the Tabletop Tactics guys said that there are “additional” or more “fleshed out” rules for certain terrain pieces in CA2018. If this is the case then we might start to see more variance.
Having a table filled with nothing but non-los blocking ruins, woods and craters is just as bad for the game, as having a table filled with nothing but “enclosed” buildings.
In regards to terrain, CA18 has rules for terrain at least in Cities of Death (according to the latest White Dwarf).
This includes soft cover (woods, crates, non-dedicated barricades) giving +1 to saves, hard cover (ruins, buildings) giving +2 and the main change, being 50% or more obscured visually gives the shooter -1 to hit. Combine this with height advantage of -1 AP extra if the shooter is 3" higher than the target. Plus 20something stratagems for extra giggles in such games, including more reliable charges, deep strikes, more AP while firing from above, grappling hooks to scale vertical distances with infantry, hunkering down in your spot for extra armour and so forth.
CA18 has 6 pages of terrain elements, but they have just consolidated all the special terrain datasheets, there is nothing new. Not like we need more terrain elements, they are already a lot, reason why using only ruins is quite narrow minded.
Spoletta wrote: The real problem people have with ITC is the attitude of ITC players.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
You could say that ITC removes a bit of randomness from the game, but this game is still based on dices and matchups, so if a game goes from 40% luck based to 36% luck based, means that the first one is for amateurs?
So you aren't less of a big shot tournament player just cause you don't happen to use an house rule from oversea, this is what a lot of ITC players refuse to perceive and irks a lot of canon game players.
GW missions have faults sure, but ITC has its own, and they aren't less than GW's, just different.
Also, what i really don't like about ITC tables is the extremely narrow use of terrain. Not in the sense that they don't use enough of it, but in the sense that everything is labeled as a ruin. Where are craters? Where are barricades? Where are forests? Statues? Promethum pipes? I never see these on the ITC tables, but they are part of the game. Just because someone thinks that everything non ruin isn't "fair", doesn't mean that it isn't part of the game. I could tell you that i don't feel that Ynnari are fair, but we don't remove them from the game just cause of that, right?
GW missions are competive in a sense that buying lottery tickets is competive. Now if you actually are interested in playing game about skill then GW scenarios are lol bad.
ITC might not be perfect but it's lightyears ahead in terms of competiveness. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's equal to worthless crap.
Spoletta wrote: The real problem people have with ITC is the attitude of ITC players.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
You could say that ITC removes a bit of randomness from the game, but this game is still based on dices and matchups, so if a game goes from 40% luck based to 36% luck based, means that the first one is for amateurs?
So you aren't less of a big shot tournament player just cause you don't happen to use an house rule from oversea, this is what a lot of ITC players refuse to perceive and irks a lot of canon game players.
GW missions have faults sure, but ITC has its own, and they aren't less than GW's, just different.
Also, what i really don't like about ITC tables is the extremely narrow use of terrain. Not in the sense that they don't use enough of it, but in the sense that everything is labeled as a ruin. Where are craters? Where are barricades? Where are forests? Statues? Promethum pipes? I never see these on the ITC tables, but they are part of the game. Just because someone thinks that everything non ruin isn't "fair", doesn't mean that it isn't part of the game. I could tell you that i don't feel that Ynnari are fair, but we don't remove them from the game just cause of that, right?
GW missions are competive in a sense that buying lottery tickets is competive. Now if you actually are interested in playing game about skill then GW scenarios are lol bad.
ITC might not be perfect but it's lightyears ahead in terms of competiveness. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's equal to worthless crap.
Thank you for confirming my point, much appreciated.
Sherrypie wrote: In regards to terrain, CA18 has rules for terrain at least in Cities of Death (according to the latest White Dwarf).
This includes soft cover (woods, crates, non-dedicated barricades) giving +1 to saves, hard cover (ruins, buildings) giving +2 and the main change, being 50% or more obscured visually gives the shooter -1 to hit. Combine this with height advantage of -1 AP extra if the shooter is 3" higher than the target. Plus 20something stratagems for extra giggles in such games, including more reliable charges, deep strikes, more AP while firing from above, grappling hooks to scale vertical distances with infantry, hunkering down in your spot for extra armour and so forth.
Those cover rules absolutely should be adopted for tournament play - although I suspect the change-averse and highly conservative tournament crowd will not adopt them. Then people will continue to complain about poor terrain rules in 40K
I am not so sure about all the stratagems - although there is an extent to which they might level the playing field between factions that have great stratagems already and factions that are short of decent stratagems to spend their CP on.
Spoletta wrote: The real problem people have with ITC is the attitude of ITC players.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
You could say that ITC removes a bit of randomness from the game, but this game is still based on dices and matchups, so if a game goes from 40% luck based to 36% luck based, means that the first one is for amateurs?
So you aren't less of a big shot tournament player just cause you don't happen to use an house rule from oversea, this is what a lot of ITC players refuse to perceive and irks a lot of canon game players.
GW missions have faults sure, but ITC has its own, and they aren't less than GW's, just different.
Also, what i really don't like about ITC tables is the extremely narrow use of terrain. Not in the sense that they don't use enough of it, but in the sense that everything is labeled as a ruin. Where are craters? Where are barricades? Where are forests? Statues? Promethum pipes? I never see these on the ITC tables, but they are part of the game. Just because someone thinks that everything non ruin isn't "fair", doesn't mean that it isn't part of the game. I could tell you that i don't feel that Ynnari are fair, but we don't remove them from the game just cause of that, right?
GW missions are competive in a sense that buying lottery tickets is competive. Now if you actually are interested in playing game about skill then GW scenarios are lol bad.
ITC might not be perfect but it's lightyears ahead in terms of competiveness. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's equal to worthless crap.
Thank you for confirming my point, much appreciated.
Well, I have a big response typed out, but dunno if it’s worth it.
DarknessEternal wrote: ITC is run by arrogant nonsense. They'll always think that their ideas are better.
I may disagree with some of their decisions, but let's be fair, competitive 40k in its current format more or less exists because of the efforts of ITC and FLG. They've been good for the hobby, and are doing what they do out of a genuine affection for the hobby. As for not taking feedback, perhaps if we were a little less histrionic in expressing our concerns, they wouldn't have to tune out so much of the feedback directed at them. It must suck to open their inboxes day in and day out and have neckbeards ranting at them about how they ruined the hobby. They seem to have taken the stance that the noise to signal ratio of general public discourse makes it mildly useless, and instead rely on a small inner circle of TOs as a feedback mechanism. The problem is that TOs are much more hardcore than average players, so a lot of the decisions we see and wonder what they were thinking probably come from a lack of moderating forces.
On the bright side, they did just announce a change to one of the dumbest rules GW put out in a FAQ, which was the change to wobbly models in the fall FAQ:
This will include a clarification that if you assault infantry into a building and the guy inside placed his models just so that you can't quite fit your models inside the walls, you can still assault him (just place your models on the outside of the walls and wobbly model that they are basically in the wall, in melee range). The packet will be ready prior to LVO (which now will also require you to submit your list sometime in January in the ETC format for easy data reading in their new software).
So they are making changes that need to be made.
Competitive 40k outside the US did and still does perfectly fine without the ITC. There is a world outside of America.
DarknessEternal wrote: ITC is run by arrogant nonsense. They'll always think that their ideas are better.
I may disagree with some of their decisions, but let's be fair, competitive 40k in its current format more or less exists because of the efforts of ITC and FLG. They've been good for the hobby, and are doing what they do out of a genuine affection for the hobby. As for not taking feedback, perhaps if we were a little less histrionic in expressing our concerns, they wouldn't have to tune out so much of the feedback directed at them. It must suck to open their inboxes day in and day out and have neckbeards ranting at them about how they ruined the hobby. They seem to have taken the stance that the noise to signal ratio of general public discourse makes it mildly useless, and instead rely on a small inner circle of TOs as a feedback mechanism. The problem is that TOs are much more hardcore than average players, so a lot of the decisions we see and wonder what they were thinking probably come from a lack of moderating forces.
On the bright side, they did just announce a change to one of the dumbest rules GW put out in a FAQ, which was the change to wobbly models in the fall FAQ:
This will include a clarification that if you assault infantry into a building and the guy inside placed his models just so that you can't quite fit your models inside the walls, you can still assault him (just place your models on the outside of the walls and wobbly model that they are basically in the wall, in melee range). The packet will be ready prior to LVO (which now will also require you to submit your list sometime in January in the ETC format for easy data reading in their new software).
So they are making changes that need to be made.
Competitive 40k outside the US did and still does perfectly fine without the ITC. There is a world outside of America.
While it exists outside of America, I do believe that ITC and it’s visibility has been one of the biggest driving factors behind the growth of “competitive” 40k.
Let's be clear here, no one is complaining about the existence of ITC as a competitive circuit. In some ways, it saved 40K from it's darkest hour (7th).
Automatically Appended Next Post: The problem is the attitude of some ITC players who think they are the only ones allowed to speak about competitive 40K (even though they are by definition less entitled to do so compared to a canon player), and the fact that it simply no longer needed in its form.
ITC 40K is a house ruled version of 40K that had a meaning during 7th and during the index era of 8th. Now there is no longer a reason for this separation between the 2 formats, ITC should just endorse the canonic rules and missions like it did for Aos.
Since CA17 the game was 100% good for competitive tournaments, even more so with CA18. Some can prefer ITC missions, sure that's a matter of personal preferences, but creating a scisma in the community due to a matter of personal preferences is not justified. There is no longer a true need for ITC to adopt a different packet than the canonic one, and it is creating a lot of issues with balancing.
It is time to remove this (lifesaving) bandaid that is the ITC format, we are grateful for it, but at a certain point you have to remove bandaids.
From a harlequin's perspective (not daemons, we don't have those numbers) that mission is an almost auto lose, based on the scoring, You don't have the number of models to win with obsec most likely (and then your harlies will be on foot too), you can't get within 12" (granted the first few turns you gan stay at 18" and 15" respectively) unless you can absolutely guarantee that you can trap an enemy unit and not kill it to avoid being shot.
Sure you can play the run around the outside game, killing stuff, but that's not what wins these missions. You will need to get first strike, warlord (opponent should put warlord within 12" of objective) and linebreaker, but your opponent is going to get +1 at the end of every battle round. It's literally playing the game on hard mode. I'd rather play a Tactical marine based SM force than harlequins for this mission.
Spoletta wrote: Let's be clear here, no one is complaining about the existence of ITC as a competitive circuit. In some ways, it saved 40K from it's darkest hour (7th).
Automatically Appended Next Post: The problem is the attitude of some ITC players who think they are the only ones allowed to speak about competitive 40K (even though they are by definition less entitled to do so compared to a canon player), and the fact that it simply no longer needed in its form.
ITC 40K is a house ruled version of 40K that had a meaning during 7th and during the index era of 8th. Now there is no longer a reason for this separation between the 2 formats, ITC should just endorse the canonic rules and missions like it did for Aos.
Since CA17 the game was 100% good for competitive tournaments, even more so with CA18. Some can prefer ITC missions, sure that's a matter of personal preferences, but creating a scisma in the community due to a matter of personal preferences is not justified. There is no longer a true need for ITC to adopt a different packet than the canonic one, and it is creating a lot of issues with balancing.
It is time to remove this (lifesaving) bandaid that is the ITC format, we are grateful for it, but at a certain point you have to remove bandaids.
I don't think GW missions are there yet. I really like the strategy of picking secondary missions each game. It creates an actual small downside for guardsmen. GW hasn't figured out how to do that yet.
Also, I refuse to use maelstrom cards of any kind. They are just too swingy and random and invalidate player choices.
Maelstrom I agree is super wonky; it can be fun, but it's weird. The EW missions though I think are in a really good spot, enough where I think they could slowly supplant ITC if people would look at the potential imbalance of them as part of what makes the whole thing balanced (as you have to prepare for the potential of selecting a mission that puts your skew list at a disadvantage).
Whether the community at large can accept that is a different story. It seems the mindset has grossly changed from the days of 3rd edition where you had a variety of missions with different scenarios, some even attacker/defender, that was perfectly acceptable for tournaments at that point in time.
Something shifted over the years where that suddenly became a bad thing rather than part of the overall balance. I am not sure what, specifically, but it seems the mentality shifted more to putting the emphasis of play on list building and combo-building and anything that introduces variation that could cause list building to become less impactful is seen as something to be eliminated rather than accepted.
Incidentally, I agree with Spoletta above: We can be thankful that the ITC gave GW the kick in the butt it needed to start to care about competitive play again, but it's time to stop having a civil war (a heresy, if you will) in the game.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
Okay Go ahead and prove this point, and I think you have an argument.
(This should be good)
Isn't the proof of this:
A) GW has made Matched Play for competitive games, and EW/Maelstrom missions are Matched Play missions, ergo they are acceptable for competitive play. There isn't a separate set of missions for tournaments from GW. B) GW's own GTs use their Eternal War missions
Not sure what other proof you'd want. You can think they aren't, but GW uses them for tournaments, and they are part of the game system intended to be used for tournament games.
I don't think so. The comment wasn't that GW missions are competitive, but they are as competitive as ITC missions.
While some of the ITC missions are repetitive and boring, overall, there isn't any force that is locked out of the game by them.
But I'm judging competitive the definition of as good as or better than others.
Due to the fact that the ITC mission are not screwwing over armies, (they let their own codex do that) but the GW is, I can't say the GW missions are better or Good as.
Wayniac wrote: It is pretty clear that ITC rewards certain builds and lists. Just look at the results of GW's "official" GTs and you'll find their meta way different than ITC where it's all similar types of armies across different factions.
That's the problem. People think ITC is the standard when ITC missions are designed to cater to a specific style and meta, while the GW missions are in a different way. I even recall someone saying that the GW Grand Tournament "didn't count" because it wasn't ITC. ITC is far from perfect. It rewards a specific type of list building/combo-building that competitive players seem to think should be the main factor of the game. I am pretty sure that's WHY GW's Eternal War and Maelstrom missions vary as much as they do: So you actually have to bring a BALANCED army to a tournament instead of a gimmicky skew list (which is what dominates ITC events). ITC missions encourage the skewy type of lists we see, which is why that's mostly what we see in ITC events and nowhere else.
The idea may be noble, but the execution has just caused the entire problem.
That's because GW's GTs average about 3 turns.
Maelstrom and Eternal War ain't balanced anywhere near as well as ITC missions. They all have their time and place - bar maybe Eternal War. I love Maelstrom for some silly drawing of cards and casual gaming, while ITC is much better balanced, ref Marmatag's post.
And you definitely list build for Maelstrom and Eternal War. Anything fast and durable (Wave Serpents) is great for Maelstrom, whereas anything durable/killy is great for Eternal War (Knights).
Marmatag wrote: 12 points of out secondaries is huge. The ability to choose to score based on position if you can't kill your opponents triple super-heavy list is really important. Without ITC this game is a one dimensional kill fest. And seriously, being able to get the bonus is a huge deal.
Also being able to score on objectives with more control if you go second is a big balancing factor in going first, versus going second. Without ITC missions this game is HEAVILY decided by who goes first. With ITC missions you actually see people choosing to go second quite frequently.
They just lack the randomness to actually test a players tactical skills on the table. Since it's always "hold something/more, kill something/more", armies can be much more easily played by rote without any thought given to tactical adaptation or strategic nuances.
They are great at simplifying the game, I guess, accounting for the greater number of players and success of large events in the US, but they just aren't even remotely as cerebral as GW missions where you cannot predict the win conditions as easily and as predictably and actually need some skills to adapt to sometimes very different win condition that challenge players to change the way they play their army from game to game.
They just lack the randomness to actually test a players tactical skills on the table. Since it's always "hold something/more, kill something/more", armies can be much more easily played by rote without any thought given to tactical adaptation or strategic nuances.
They are great at simplifying the game, I guess, accounting for the greater number of players and success of large events in the US, but they just aren't even remotely as cerebral as GW missions where you cannot predict the win conditions as easily and as predictably and actually need some skills to adapt to sometimes very different win condition that challenge players to change the way they play their army from game to game.
I wouldn't call ITC missions a joke, they are just a different take on the game.
They just lack the randomness to actually test a players tactical skills on the table. Since it's always "hold something/more, kill something/more", armies can be much more easily played by rote without any thought given to tactical adaptation or strategic nuances.
They are great at simplifying the game, I guess, accounting for the greater number of players and success of large events in the US, but they just aren't even remotely as cerebral as GW missions where you cannot predict the win conditions as easily and as predictably and actually need some skills to adapt to sometimes very different win condition that challenge players to change the way they play their army from game to game.
I think this is a good distinction. ITC and the USA tournament meta (especially) want to be able to predict win conditions with as little randomness/deviation/surprises as possible. I suspect this is due to wanting the emphasis and primary skill of the game to be in creating an "uber" list that can beat people, rather than having to build a balanced list that can adapt to a variety of situations where you have to react to more than just your opponent's moves.
Technically, neither one is bad. There is a lot to be said about the MtG/X-Wing approach where it is all in what you bring and that's where the majority of skill lies. I Just don't feel that's appropriate for a true wargaming hobby. Others clearly disagree and think that's the right way to go.
Wayniac wrote: It is pretty clear that ITC rewards certain builds and lists. Just look at the results of GW's "official" GTs and you'll find their meta way different than ITC where it's all similar types of armies across different factions.
That's the problem. People think ITC is the standard when ITC missions are designed to cater to a specific style and meta, while the GW missions are in a different way. I even recall someone saying that the GW Grand Tournament "didn't count" because it wasn't ITC. ITC is far from perfect. It rewards a specific type of list building/combo-building that competitive players seem to think should be the main factor of the game. I am pretty sure that's WHY GW's Eternal War and Maelstrom missions vary as much as they do: So you actually have to bring a BALANCED army to a tournament instead of a gimmicky skew list (which is what dominates ITC events). ITC missions encourage the skewy type of lists we see, which is why that's mostly what we see in ITC events and nowhere else.
The idea may be noble, but the execution has just caused the entire problem.
That's because GW's GTs average about 3 turns.
Maelstrom and Eternal War ain't balanced anywhere near as well as ITC missions. They all have their time and place - bar maybe Eternal War. I love Maelstrom for some silly drawing of cards and casual gaming, while ITC is much better balanced, ref Marmatag's post.
And you definitely list build for Maelstrom and Eternal War. Anything fast and durable (Wave Serpents) is great for Maelstrom, whereas anything durable/killy is great for Eternal War (Knights).
Marmatag wrote: 12 points of out secondaries is huge. The ability to choose to score based on position if you can't kill your opponents triple super-heavy list is really important. Without ITC this game is a one dimensional kill fest. And seriously, being able to get the bonus is a huge deal.
Also being able to score on objectives with more control if you go second is a big balancing factor in going first, versus going second. Without ITC missions this game is HEAVILY decided by who goes first. With ITC missions you actually see people choosing to go second quite frequently.
To be fair, most competitive games, GW, ITC or ETC often don’t get past turn 4 due to a tabling. In my 5 games at heat 3, I tabled 2 people in turn 4, got tabled in turn 5 and again in a 6th turn, and then had 1 game end naturally on turn 6.
By comparison, a lot of my previous ITC or ETC style games were often finishing around turn 4, and very rarely finished naturally on turn 6.
Now that is just personal experience, so I can’t claim that it is the “norm”, but, I will easily and confidently say that ITC games are just as likely to end “early” as GW games are. The only instances where they won’t finish early in ITC is where smart players will draw out the game for the additional points. Most players don’t do this though and just pick up the additional points from tabling and less effort.
In regards to the Marm quote, going second will give you a big advantage in the GW missions as well.
A good chunk of the CA18 missions are scored at the end of the battleround, not the end of the player turn (the much cried about Narrow the Search mission being a good example). The mission where 1 or all 5 objectives is worth double points is also scored in the same way.
ITC missions no longer have a monopoly on all the reasons why they are the best, as GW has adopted some of the better changes.
Also, now that you deploy your whole army in one go, it reduces the concern in regards to number of drops and number of kill points and allows people to consider options that would previously screw them over in ITC (i.e running additional drones in Pathfinders or Fire Warriors)
Kdash wrote: Also, now that you deploy your whole army in one go, it reduces the concern in regards to number of drops and number of kill points and allows people to consider options that would previously screw them over in ITC (i.e running additional drones in Pathfinders or Fire Warriors)
I think, regardless of anything else, ITC should adopt this new style of deployment in their next update.
In ITC missions you have to react to the player across from you. The people playing the game have the agency. Each side has the same chance to score points as those conditions are clear and equal at the outset of the game.
In GW missions, the win conditions don't give each army an equal chance of scoring points/achieving victory. This is a pretty standard definition of non-competitive. Sure it's fun to have to overcome all odds a pull out a victory but knowing that your opponent has an advantage over you means it's not a equal contest.
bullyboy wrote: From a harlequin's perspective (not daemons, we don't have those numbers) that mission is an almost auto lose, based on the scoring, You don't have the number of models to win with obsec most likely (and then your harlies will be on foot too), you can't get within 12" (granted the first few turns you gan stay at 18" and 15" respectively) unless you can absolutely guarantee that you can trap an enemy unit and not kill it to avoid being shot.
Sure you can play the run around the outside game, killing stuff, but that's not what wins these missions. You will need to get first strike, warlord (opponent should put warlord within 12" of objective) and linebreaker, but your opponent is going to get +1 at the end of every battle round. It's literally playing the game on hard mode. I'd rather play a Tactical marine based SM force than harlequins for this mission.
I don't believe this mission is not an auto lose at all for Harlequin armies. It would absolutely be difficult, but its definitely possible to win. Win the objective for three turns while preventing First Strike and/or Warlord, and you have an excellent chance at winning after 5 or tying after 6.
bananathug wrote: In ITC missions you have to react to the player across from you. The people playing the game have the agency. Each side has the same chance to score points as those conditions are clear and equal at the outset of the game.
In GW missions, the win conditions don't give each army an equal chance of scoring points/achieving victory. This is a pretty standard definition of non-competitive. Sure it's fun to have to overcome all odds a pull out a victory but knowing that your opponent has an advantage over you means it's not a equal contest.
I'm not sure how this is hard to understand.
Because, as in the old days, the mission giving a potential advantage is part of the overall balance. It encourages not simply taking a better list than your opponent and being able to win just on that. You need to bring a balanced force to account for getting a worse mission.
This approach worked fine for 15 years. It's only relatively recently that there's been a desire to change it. Does nobody remember the 3rd and 4th edition missions? Tournaments worked pretty well back in those days without custom missions.
bananathug wrote: In ITC missions you have to react to the player across from you. The people playing the game have the agency. Each side has the same chance to score points as those conditions are clear and equal at the outset of the game.
In GW missions, the win conditions don't give each army an equal chance of scoring points/achieving victory. This is a pretty standard definition of non-competitive. Sure it's fun to have to overcome all odds a pull out a victory but knowing that your opponent has an advantage over you means it's not a equal contest.
I'm not sure how this is hard to understand.
I'm not sure you understand we are talking about CA 18 missions. Everyone recognizes that CA 17 and the BRB missions are not balanced.
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
Okay Go ahead and prove this point, and I think you have an argument.
(This should be good)
I see it as obvious, but since you don't see it i guess we should start from the basis. What is your definition of "Competitive"?
Why do you think that a scenario like for example Scorched Earth is not competitive?
I'm going with Def 2, Competitive as in better or good as.
Some of the GW missions are in the good as. Taken in totality, I don't feel they are even as good as, and a number are terrible as I understand them.
I do agree the GW missions are more favorable and perhaps have some innovation missing in ITC, but unless its fair to all forces, it can't be as good as.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
Exactly this. The different missions are meant to make you bringing a flexible army. ITC missions put most things in your hands so you can listbuild and pick things that suit your list the most.
I feel like the new format, especially the fact you don't auto-win for tabling, is huge. So huge, in fact, I foresee this being standard in many formats.
Reason being, it punishes people who focus on alpha-strike, non-mobile armies, in favor of those who tackle the mission, and focus on more than just "I roll more dice and steamroll you"
Its a great change, IMO. Now, I still feel like some missions should have a kill based objective in some way though; because this prevents things like min-maxing to have so many targets your opponent can't kill them all.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
Exactly this. The different missions are meant to make you bringing a flexible army. ITC missions put most things in your hands so you can listbuild and pick things that suit your list the most.
Good. Just Do it. Make the event. I'll even come to one that is local to me.
Get people in, get them to walk away saying okay that was a better experience than ITC is, and I think you will see people switch, or ask for more of that format.
But the idea that ITC should just swap over isn't going to happen (although I think you might see some of the ideas incorporated into ITC quickly).
GW missions are as a competitive as ITC missions by definition.
Okay Go ahead and prove this point, and I think you have an argument.
(This should be good)
I see it as obvious, but since you don't see it i guess we should start from the basis. What is your definition of "Competitive"?
Why do you think that a scenario like for example Scorched Earth is not competitive?
I'm going with Def 2, Competitive as in better or good as.
Some of the GW missions are in the good as. Taken in totality, I don't feel they are even as good as, and a number are terrible as I understand them.
I do agree the GW missions are more favorable and perhaps have some innovation missing in ITC, but unless its fair to all forces, it can't be as good as.
ITC though is not fair to all forces, that too is a common accepted fact. So why it is a requirement for GW missions but not for ITC missions?
Examples of this:
IG is greatly empowered by the LoS rules of ITC. If you play against Aeldari, you are severely limited in what you can select for secondaries. Big characters such as Magnus are punished by being a double target for secondaries. MSU lists are handicapped by the primary objectives. Slow lists are handicapped by primary objectives.
And so on.
Often this "unfairness" is aimed at limiting popular builds, so it is tacitly accepted. This doesn't mean that the format does not warp the meta.
ITC missions are not fair to all armies and builds, so in the competitive scale it qualifies as "Barely good enough", which is the same level of GW missions. The only difference between the 2 formats is that in one the unfairness is always the same, so you can build within its limitations, while GW mission's unfairness isn't predictable, so you cannot "solve" it during list building.
To be fair, most competitive games, GW, ITC or ETC often don’t get past turn 4 due to a tabling. In my 5 games at heat 3, I tabled 2 people in turn 4, got tabled in turn 5 and again in a 6th turn, and then had 1 game end naturally on turn 6.
By comparison, a lot of my previous ITC or ETC style games were often finishing around turn 4, and very rarely finished naturally on turn 6.
Now that is just personal experience, so I can’t claim that it is the “norm”, but, I will easily and confidently say that ITC games are just as likely to end “early” as GW games are. The only instances where they won’t finish early in ITC is where smart players will draw out the game for the additional points. Most players don’t do this though and just pick up the additional points from tabling and less effort.
In regards to the Marm quote, going second will give you a big advantage in the GW missions as well.
A good chunk of the CA18 missions are scored at the end of the battleround, not the end of the player turn (the much cried about Narrow the Search mission being a good example). The mission where 1 or all 5 objectives is worth double points is also scored in the same way.
ITC missions no longer have a monopoly on all the reasons why they are the best, as GW has adopted some of the better changes.
Also, now that you deploy your whole army in one go, it reduces the concern in regards to number of drops and number of kill points and allows people to consider options that would previously screw them over in ITC (i.e running additional drones in Pathfinders or Fire Warriors)
From my visit to WHW, they didn't have that many LoS-blockers per table, which wouldn't really help. ITC have some guidelines, which helps to get a "fairer" game.
I don't disagree massively, tbh. Some of the new missions look pretty solid, so this is more of a general view of things. I'd say the incentives to table someone in ITC games are smaller than in Maelstrom and certainly in EW. I might eschew a unit's shooting in Maelstrom or ITC to get a hold more or grab an objective I just drew, and in the case of ITC, not necessarily murder every single unit I can every time as the scoring doesn't encourage that. Generally in EW (I know the newer missions use some progressive scoring and end of battle round) it's easier to just murder my opponent's units by T5. It means they get it, but it doesn't quite solve the issue either - not that ITC does either, just that it's not as pronounced. I recently tabled an opponent in T5 in ITC, but that was because my opponent went for a riskier certain win than a probable win, which didn't work out for him.
The main issue is the YGIG system combined with the current price of durability vs. firepower they insist on.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
Exactly this. The different missions are meant to make you bringing a flexible army. ITC missions put most things in your hands so you can listbuild and pick things that suit your list the most.
That's the point. In order to accurately test relative player capability, the outside influences, such as the battlefield and missions, must be tightly controlled.
If you're just testing yourself, covering a wide range of changing conditions provides a more complete view of your performance, but when conducting a comparative test, the variance in parameters outside the control of the players should be controlled to a minimum.
bananathug wrote: In ITC missions you have to react to the player across from you. The people playing the game have the agency. Each side has the same chance to score points as those conditions are clear and equal at the outset of the game.
In GW missions, the win conditions don't give each army an equal chance of scoring points/achieving victory. This is a pretty standard definition of non-competitive. Sure it's fun to have to overcome all odds a pull out a victory but knowing that your opponent has an advantage over you means it's not a equal contest.
I'm not sure how this is hard to understand.
This is it, right here. Well put sir. Hey - we're going to be doing a fun / casual escalation league on the side. Me and some of my team mates + Thomas are going to be doing it. Let me know if you're in. You don't need to buy new models. I am, because, you know, i'm a whale. And so is Tom. But it's not required. Black Templars would probably be viable.
Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
What if the competition is to see how well you compensate for bad missions compared to others? What if "winning despite the odds" is part of the test?
The whole point of playing 6 games is that you'll inevitably encounter a mission that your army is "disadvantaged" in, unless it's built well. If everyone encounters a mission like that, then the only players who will win it despite the disadvantage are obviously better than the players who lose it despite the disadvantage.
On the other hand, if the player builds their army well enough that even despite these missions, they never are disadvantaged, then they're also a good player, because they know how to build a good army that can deal with a wide variety of situations (which is, itself, good play).
Is competition trying to find out who the most skilled player is? If so, then, I would argue that the pinnacle of skill is not what ITC tests; the pinnacle of skill is to be able to go into an unpredictable environment (including missions that you have no control over) and still be skilled enough to come out ahead.
Conversely, playing your opponent is only some portion of a smaller whole. Being a good player in an ITC environment has no correlation with how good you are at 40k. Unless you admit the missions don't matter.
Reemule wrote: You guys feel this has weight and can roll.
Good. Just Do it. Make the event. I'll even come to one that is local to me.
Get people in, get them to walk away saying okay that was a better experience than ITC is, and I think you will see people switch, or ask for more of that format.
But the idea that ITC should just swap over isn't going to happen (although I think you might see some of the ideas incorporated into ITC quickly).
The ITC have said they are quite open to refreshing their missions for next season after the LVO. Whether they would go so far as to suggest using the CA missions I really do not know, although that is exactly their suggestion for AoS in the ITC.
Other than finding the ITC missions rather dull I do not object to them. I do think that their terrain rules were a crude but necessary band-aid that should no longer be necessary. The improved terrain rules in CA look a lot better to me than the rather binary way that ITC just defines terrain to block LOS.
They just lack the randomness to actually test a players tactical skills on the table. Since it's always "hold something/more, kill something/more", armies can be much more easily played by rote without any thought given to tactical adaptation or strategic nuances.
They are great at simplifying the game, I guess, accounting for the greater number of players and success of large events in the US, but they just aren't even remotely as cerebral as GW missions where you cannot predict the win conditions as easily and as predictably and actually need some skills to adapt to sometimes very different win condition that challenge players to change the way they play their army from game to game.
It is not a lack of randomness, it is a lack of variety. It would be like having an olympic decathlon where you run 10 110m hurdles races but there is a slight variation in the placing and sizes of the hurdles. Athletes would only need to prepare for the running, jumping, hurdling challenges which means that they would typically be better at that sort of event but if the format were changed back to what Decathlon has been before there would be the same complaints of some of the events being unfair to some athletes.
Bringing back the variety of missions that was around in earlier editions feels like that. The tournament circuits have decided that the precise combination challenge they have is fine and why would they want to bring back all those other challenges when the current players - especially those who currently love the format and hence they see the most - do not want to see a change.
The decathlon is not unfair because some parts of it are more challenging for some athletes. It is widely considered one of the best tests of all-round athleticism precisely because of the variety of the challenges it poses.
From my visit to WHW, they didn't have that many LoS-blockers per table, which wouldn't really help. ITC have some guidelines, which helps to get a "fairer" game.
I agree. GW doesn't generally do "good" tables at WHW or their events. Sure, they are adequate and some tables are great, but most are "alright" or "lacking". This is something they need to address, but, they are also pretty limited on what they can do due to the terrain kits they make and sell. Maybe we'll eventually see them sell a "building" kit or something similar, then we'll start to see more LoS blocking on their tables, but until then we have to rely on statues (some of which are actually big enough to hide a Helverin or Dreadnough) or stacks of Crates.
I think its great to incorporate ITC and GW missions. I know we have done this with our group after everyone shows up with their army. That way people try to bring a more flexible army that can play any type of game and typically leads to more balanced engagements. For example, if you built for having few drops then play one of the new missions where you only have a 50% chance to go first regardless it could bite you. So people will not bring an army that has to go first
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
This is another important point that is getting lost in the ITC vs. non-ITC argument. We all agree it's important for GW to balance the game around tournaments, yes? Well, part of the issue here is that they aren't balancing the game against ITC missions (because they are unofficial, despite widespread acceptance), they are balancing them around Eternal War and maybe even Maelstrom missions. I think this might be why we tend to see a strange discrepancy with the adjustments GW comes up with: They are, presumably, reacting to data provided by ITC and kneejerk reacting to them when not all of those issues are present (or present in different quantities) in non-ITC missions. For example, it's commonly accepted that ITC missions favor Aeldari due to how the secondaries work (I believe, based on things I've read in many places), which is why you see Aeldari usually dominating ITC tournaments. While they are undoubtedly good, the results from GW's tournaments show Aeldari as strong but not dominating. Is the data GW getting faulty then, because it's provided under a different context than the norm?
If the data that is given to GW (I'm not sure if this is given by FLG or what) says that Unit X is too good because in ITC missions they can dominate, is it right for GW to nerf them if they aren't nearly as bad in non-ITC missions? Why are ITC missions the baseline approach to giving GW suggestions and information on what constitutes "too good" or "not good enough"?
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
Exactly this. The different missions are meant to make you bringing a flexible army. ITC missions put most things in your hands so you can listbuild and pick things that suit your list the most.
That's the point. In order to accurately test relative player capability, the outside influences, such as the battlefield and missions, must be tightly controlled.
If you're just testing yourself, covering a wide range of changing conditions provides a more complete view of your performance, but when conducting a comparative test, the variance in parameters outside the control of the players should be controlled to a minimum.
So then why is there a variance in terrain? Why is there a variance in the measuring devices and dice used to play the game? The notion that everything is tightly controlled is complete malarkey. The game has so many random elements, that randomness must be accepted completely. If you're truly going to put forth the notion that randomness must be controlled, then there should be a standard terrain setup, to include the exact same terrain for every table, for each mission/deployment type. Measuring devices and dice should be provided and players should not be allow to use their own.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
Exactly this. The different missions are meant to make you bringing a flexible army. ITC missions put most things in your hands so you can listbuild and pick things that suit your list the most.
That's the point. In order to accurately test relative player capability, the outside influences, such as the battlefield and missions, must be tightly controlled.
If you're just testing yourself, covering a wide range of changing conditions provides a more complete view of your performance, but when conducting a comparative test, the variance in parameters outside the control of the players should be controlled to a minimum.
So then why is there a variance in terrain? Why is there a variance in the measuring devices and dice used to play the game? The notion that everything is tightly controlled is complete malarkey. The game has so many random elements, that randomness must be accepted completely. If you're truly going to put forth the notion that randomness must be controlled, then there should be a standard terrain setup, to include the exact same terrain for every table, for each mission/deployment type. Measuring devices and dice should be provided and players should not be allow to use their own.
In fact, if you really wanted to control for randomness, just have a machine that calculates the average outcome of any given attack and apply that. No need for dice at all!
Wayniac wrote: For example, it's commonly accepted that ITC missions favor Aeldari due to how the secondaries work (I believe, based on things I've read in many places), which is why you see Aeldari usually dominating ITC tournaments. While they are undoubtedly good, the results from GW's tournaments show Aeldari as strong but not dominating. Is the data GW getting faulty then, because it's provided under a different context than the norm?
I would tentatively agree. Shining Spears probably didn't need a point increase. Playing with GW terrain and terrain rules, they are far more likely to be shot of the table turn 1, than they are in ITC.
Inversely, Tau probably didn't need as much of a drop and, as an army, is generally stronger in "normal 40K" with no auto-LOS block and far less opportunities for armies to charge them from out-of-LOS buildings, "kill something/kill more" not being a thing in most missions and only 1, maybe 2 KP missions in a 5-6 round tournament, etc..
Etc.., etc..,
But that's the crazy world we're living in. Overall, it's (atm) still better than 7th, so you take the bad/weird with the good.
It is not a lack of randomness, it is a lack of variety. It would be like having an olympic decathlon where you run 10 110m hurdles races but there is a slight variation in the placing and sizes of the hurdles. Athletes would only need to prepare for the running, jumping, hurdling challenges which means that they would typically be better at that sort of event but if the format were changed back to what Decathlon has been before there would be the same complaints of some of the events being unfair to some athletes.
Bringing back the variety of missions that was around in earlier editions feels like that. The tournament circuits have decided that the precise combination challenge they have is fine and why would they want to bring back all those other challenges when the current players - especially those who currently love the format and hence they see the most - do not want to see a change.
The decathlon is not unfair because some parts of it are more challenging for some athletes. It is widely considered one of the best tests of all-round athleticism precisely because of the variety of the challenges it poses.
Randomizing helps to make it less predicable and forces players to "make decisions on the table" rather than just setting a plan pre-game.
- If you have something like "hold something/hold more" but maybe a random mechanic that "disables" 2 objectives on the table or different objectives are worth different "amounts" for the purpose of hold more each turn, you couldn't sync the optimal positioning of your army for points with the optimal positioning for killing-power/defense, e.g. you'll have to weigh risks/opportunities and make a tactical choice in ways you don't in current ITC.
- If you have something like "kill something/kill more", but the units eligible for these points were randomized in your opponents army (along more randomized secondaries), you would again create trade-offs and decision making between the optimal target-priority for taking out threats and the optimal target priority for scoring points. In current ITC, this tactical choice again doesn't exist and you can always pick the "no brainer", creating a less tactical and flatter game where the player is never "under pressure" to make a choice between two (or more) suboptimal alternatives.
IMOGW should balance the game around killing, defensive power, and mobility. Everything else falls into place. Mission objectives should not be considered during balance.
Currently - GW charges practically nothing for mobility - charges way to much for armor saves and undercosts the 1W statstic. It also charges large units too much for degraded stats in a lot of cases. IMO.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
This is an excellent point, but it's also mathematically easy to show which units are bad. Sure there are things like mobility and various rules that are hard to take into account, but overall we can get a decent idea of how a unit should perform.
They just lack the randomness to actually test a players tactical skills on the table. Since it's always "hold something/more, kill something/more", armies can be much more easily played by rote without any thought given to tactical adaptation or strategic nuances.
They are great at simplifying the game, I guess, accounting for the greater number of players and success of large events in the US, but they just aren't even remotely as cerebral as GW missions where you cannot predict the win conditions as easily and as predictably and actually need some skills to adapt to sometimes very different win condition that challenge players to change the way they play their army from game to game.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
When some people say "the mission disadvantaged my army" what they are actually admitting is "my army wasn't flexible enough to achieve the objective." Earlier in the thread, I illustrated a plan with which I, as daemons, could potentially win the Null Zone mission. There's no way of knowing, without actually playing the game, of course. But I am willing to give it a go, because I like the challenge it causes. Other people would rather build "their" list as how they want it, and want to be as disadvantaged (or advantaged!) by the mission as little as possible.
I suppose the difference is what we want from the wargame. I want to have to confront difficulty in the course of play. I want a reason to have a different plan for each game, for each turn, for each model, for each attack. I want the missions to make me think, to present my list with unforseen challenges.
I view army lists like D&D Characters - you plop them in a world and see how they do. ITC is the other way around - army lists are static, and you can bend the world (choose the mission objectives) to match what you'd like your army to do. I have much more fun seeing how my 'character' overcomes challenges, then I do having the challenge difficulty able to be dialed on the fly in the name of "competition."
Playing the mission is just as challenging as playing the opponent sometimes, and that's a good thing imo.
This is my favorite post so far. With no tabling what's to stop you from just slamming everything you have in their path to keep them from getting deeper into the objective? Just try the damn mission first.
(ITC is still great, but I do hope they adopt some of these aspects)
This is also a great post (I'm on both sides).
In ITC missions you have to react to the player across from you. The people playing the game have the agency. Each side has the same chance to score points as those conditions are clear and equal at the outset of the game.
In GW missions, the win conditions don't give each army an equal chance of scoring points/achieving victory. This is a pretty standard definition of non-competitive. Sure it's fun to have to overcome all odds a pull out a victory but knowing that your opponent has an advantage over you means it's not a equal contest.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
This is an excellent point, but it's also mathematically easy to show which units are bad. Sure there are things like mobility and various rules that are hard to take into account, but overall we can get a decent idea of how a unit should perform.
Correct, but you don't get the overall picture when the missions factor so heavily into it. I'm fairly sure there are things that are at least somewhat viable in non-ITC missions that aren't viable at all with ITC missions due to how they work. That's skewed data to GW because, while those units still might need a buff, they aren't getting the whole picture to know what needs to be adjusted. It might be why we generally see them only making points adjustments and thinking units that are never taken (in ITC) are just too expensive. If they could see those units maybe being taken but underperforming, it might indicate there's more than just points to be fixed, because they'll see that they don't work rather than they may as well not exist at all.
Well I played one of the CA18 Eternal War today, it was the first mission, don't remember the name. 5 fixed objectives, the player who had first turn rolled at each new round, on a 6 every objective is "active" and give two points when controlled at the end of the battle round, on any other number it's the objective on the dice that is active, the non active ones give only one point.
What was interesting is that having second turn is actually great in the way that you can react to your opponent's movement by shooting or charging the controlling units to retake his objectives, so having first turn effectively means having to defend each objective you capture, as you have to keep it until the end of the opponent's turn. I really liked it and my opponent too, even if he lost. He wished he had given me first turn.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
DarknessEternal wrote: ITC is run by arrogant nonsense. They'll always think that their ideas are better.
They aren't wrong, a bunch of monkeys banging away at typewriters would eventually come up with something more balanced and with less print errors than most of what GW puts out. I'm just glad ITC exists and has come into general acceptance so I can play games with strangers that have decent missions. A few years ago you were stuck playing rulebook missions and hoping to agree on a set of house rules beforehand.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
Randomization does the exact opposite. That's why a noob can beat a pro player in Hearthstone but would lose 100 out of 100 games to a pro player in MtG. Randomization narrows the gap between a good player and bad player. That's why casual games have more random aspects and more competitive games tend to have less.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
The cards are way too swingy. They are trash.
Those six-sided dice are way to swingy too. Should drop them as well for those poor sensitive souls in the US competitive scene, I assume
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
The cards are way too swingy. They are trash.
Those six-sided dice are way to swingy too. Should drop them as well for those poor sensitive souls in the US competitive scene, I assume
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
Toofast wrote: Randomization does the exact opposite. That's why a noob can beat a pro player in Hearthstone but would lose 100 out of 100 games to a pro player in MtG. Randomization narrows the gap between a good player and bad player. That's why casual games have more random aspects and more competitive games tend to have less.
You do realize that MtG is randomized as well, right?
Wayniac wrote: I think the GW missions need to be the baseline. GW apparently does their points adjustments with their new missions in mind, while ITC is essentially a completely different game due to how it changes things (this is why there are generally great differences in the meta between ITC events and like GW's own GTs). Unfortunately, ITC is so ingrained in the USA that I doubt anyone will care about these missions; I already see people bitching over the one that Warhammer Community previewed because not allowing invulnerable saves near the objective "screws over Daemons and Harlequins"
I'm honestly tired of seeing ITC held up as the standard when it's fan-made stuff, basically house rules. Sure, Reece and his cronies might be "playtesting" for GW, but they have essentially forked the game. GW can't balance matched when the very guys they're getting input from on what to change don't even use the missions they are doing the balancing based around! I hope that ITC will adopt these missions but I doubt it and I am betting nothing will change as a result; the issue isn't so much the points/rules (which are problems, don't get me wrong) but the fact the missions are not helping and are actually CAUSING the meta we see in the major tournaments.
I think at this point ITC only needs to be ranking and not their own mission pack. Same like they do for AOS; the AOS ITC rules are basically "Use the matched play rules from the General's Handbook" and that's it. Only the 40k ones are completely deviant and, as a result, fork the game.
ITC plays a different game because too many of the GW missions have a built-in advantage or disadvantage to certain types of armies that would decide games before dice are even rolled. If GW would start making missions more for balance than storyhammer, ITC wouldn't need its own mission packet. As BoomWolf said, some of the missions punish you for having characters, not having characters, only having invuln saves, etc. None of the ITC missions are structured this way because that's a stupid way to decide a competitive game where listbuilding already plays too large a part in deciding the outcome of games. You shouldn't auto lose just because you're playing Chaos Daemons or only have 1 character in your army.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
The cards are way too swingy. They are trash.
Those six-sided dice are way to swingy too. Should drop them as well for those poor sensitive souls in the US competitive scene, I assume
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
Fine, forget the cards. Let's roll for them instead using dice! Problem solved
Tamwulf wrote: CA 17/18 missions affect army selection. ITC missions affect army selection. An army that would be good in a CA18 mission may not be good in an ITC mission and vice versa. As long as ITC continues to think they know best for 40K and playing the game, this is always going to be an issue. For me, personally, I find the ITC missions bland and uninspiring to play.
Yes, it's much better to play the CA missions and auto lose because you are playing an army based on invuln saves.
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
You don't need large numbers of dice to make a good tournament game. A psychic test roll or a steal the initiative roll don't use many, and anticipating the result of either of those is a much more tactically interesting aspect of the game than anticipating the result of 100 Ork attacks. The latter is basically irrelevant to tactical considerations, precisely because of the law of large numbers.
Weighing risk and reward of low-number of dice roll also makes games like Blood Bowl excruciatingly tactical.
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
You don't need large numbers of dice to make a good tournament game. A psychic test roll or a steal the initiative roll don't use many, and anticipating the result of either of those is a much more tactically interesting aspect of the game than anticipating the result of 100 Ork attacks. The latter is basically irrelevant to tactical considerations, precisely because of the law of large numbers.
Weighing risk and reward of low-number of dice roll also makes games like Blood Bowl excruciatingly tactical.
Not really. But keep thinking that. I don't care how you play. But I'm not playing maelstrom of any kind.
Tamwulf wrote: CA 17/18 missions affect army selection. ITC missions affect army selection. An army that would be good in a CA18 mission may not be good in an ITC mission and vice versa. As long as ITC continues to think they know best for 40K and playing the game, this is always going to be an issue. For me, personally, I find the ITC missions bland and uninspiring to play.
Yes, it's much better to play the CA missions and auto lose because you are playing an army based on invuln saves.
You mean exactly like a footslogging Harlequin army would fare against Plaguebearer spam in any ITC mission?
Tamwulf wrote: CA 17/18 missions affect army selection. ITC missions affect army selection. An army that would be good in a CA18 mission may not be good in an ITC mission and vice versa. As long as ITC continues to think they know best for 40K and playing the game, this is always going to be an issue. For me, personally, I find the ITC missions bland and uninspiring to play.
Yes, it's much better to play the CA missions and auto lose because you are playing an army based on invuln saves.
*literally posts a game plan and plays through a bit of the game with another poster as a Daemons player in the relevant mission*
Come on, man, I play Slaanesh Daemons and I'd be willing to give that mission a go. I have a plan to keep it from being auto-lose. Are you afraid you won't be able to come up with such a plan on the fly if /you/ played Daemons or something?
Wayniac wrote: I think the GW missions need to be the baseline. GW apparently does their points adjustments with their new missions in mind, while ITC is essentially a completely different game due to how it changes things (this is why there are generally great differences in the meta between ITC events and like GW's own GTs). Unfortunately, ITC is so ingrained in the USA that I doubt anyone will care about these missions; I already see people bitching over the one that Warhammer Community previewed because not allowing invulnerable saves near the objective "screws over Daemons and Harlequins"
I'm honestly tired of seeing ITC held up as the standard when it's fan-made stuff, basically house rules. Sure, Reece and his cronies might be "playtesting" for GW, but they have essentially forked the game. GW can't balance matched when the very guys they're getting input from on what to change don't even use the missions they are doing the balancing based around! I hope that ITC will adopt these missions but I doubt it and I am betting nothing will change as a result; the issue isn't so much the points/rules (which are problems, don't get me wrong) but the fact the missions are not helping and are actually CAUSING the meta we see in the major tournaments.
I think at this point ITC only needs to be ranking and not their own mission pack. Same like they do for AOS; the AOS ITC rules are basically "Use the matched play rules from the General's Handbook" and that's it. Only the 40k ones are completely deviant and, as a result, fork the game.
ITC plays a different game because too many of the GW missions have a built-in advantage or disadvantage to certain types of armies that would decide games before dice are even rolled. If GW would start making missions more for balance than storyhammer, ITC wouldn't need its own mission packet. As BoomWolf said, some of the missions punish you for having characters, not having characters, only having invuln saves, etc. None of the ITC missions are structured this way because that's a stupid way to decide a competitive game where listbuilding already plays too large a part in deciding the outcome of games. You shouldn't auto lose just because you're playing Chaos Daemons or only have 1 character in your army.
The rationale here is that you should build a balanced army. Maybe you shouldn't only take 1 character because that's what theoryhammer shows is the most optimal approach to building the list and God forbid you not min/max 110% of the list.
I think the underlying problem here is wanting to approach 40k like deckbuilding in Magic. The GW missions are the way they are by design to encourage (some might say "force") non-skew armies that can deal with a variety of scenarios. That is absolutely by intent to reduce the huge effect listbuilding has on games. If you know you could run into a mission that doesn't favor you, it will influence your army selection to prepare against it so it doesn't completely catch you off guard.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
The cards are way too swingy. They are trash.
Those six-sided dice are way to swingy too. Should drop them as well for those poor sensitive souls in the US competitive scene, I assume
The number of dice rolled in 40k effectively ameliorates the randomness to controllable and predictable levels.
Also, the significance of any given die roll is pretty tiny, compared to the card draws.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: The number of dice rolled in 40k effectively ameliorates the randomness to controllable and predictable levels.
So then why go through the motions at all? Just put a tag-on app to BCP that calculates averages - if your whole claim is that "dice tend towards average over the tournament" then just use the averages and stop wasting time.
It would also resolve the question of whose time saves are rolled on, because you don't have to roll saves. Just use your BCP app to calculate how many dead X's there are / how many wounds X suffered and bingo, move along. If "dice aren't random because in large quantities they average and that's the desirable state" then skipping straight to the averages is both faster and more efficient.
The irony here is supposedly the new missions are what the updated points costs in Chapter Approved are balanced against, not ITC missions.
The points are balanced against the idea of "how to shift what sells around". Not to concept of balance.
And as usual GW scenarios are lol bad for competive use. Fun enough if you don't care about competive game but if you want competive game burn them with fire until they stay down. Only way to be sure.
Oh enough with this conspiracy nonsense.
Most models are either always has been bad, or always has been good.
If GW was shifting points to make sells, what is good and what is bad would change, and often. but it doesn't, at all.
The same things that were great from the day they dropped were always at the very least OK, and usually good or better, and many models were released with bad rules, and never got better.
How about shining spears, which went from being the worst unit in the entire Eldar/Dark Eldar arsenal to one of the best units in the entire game? Or jetbikes that went from almost never played, to 20-30 in every army, back to never played.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
Except that scenario is literally impossible to achieve as defend takes two turns and as I stated there is only one left.
If they were drawn at the beginning of one turn, and scored at the end of the next, then they might be decent. Because then you'd be able to take extra steps to accomplish them, plan around them, and you'd be able to react to and deny the enemy theirs.
At this point, though, it's basically a measure of occupying as much of the board as possible.
I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Ah yes. The old "Defend the objective that's under my opponents biggest blob of troops with one turn left". What a test of my abilities.
Indeed. It is. Just as much as rolling a bunch of 1s on your saves or wound rolls.
Newbs blame bad dice or bad card draws. Good players know how to stack the odds in their favour and win regardless. That's why randomisation separates the wheat from the chaff.
The cards are way too swingy. They are trash.
Those six-sided dice are way to swingy too. Should drop them as well for those poor sensitive souls in the US competitive scene, I assume
Honestly you showed why the system needs to move beyond D6 so...
Marmatag wrote: I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Buuuuutttt if your army is built with the understanding that the no-invulnerable-save mission is a possibility, then you're basically in the same position as understanding that failing a charge from deepstrike is also a possibility, and planning to mitigate/circumvent that.
The cards missions are, indeed, oftentimes frustratingly random, I'm not exactly talking about those. I don't think GW uses those in their tournaments either.
The new maelstrom missions still are a bit too random, but are much much better already.
You don't play with the full deck, there is a deck building phase before the game starts, so you can avoid drawing the objective deep in the other player's deploy area.
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
This thread is littered with comments like that - all from Americans so far as I can make out. I think part of the issue is that the US tournament scene never tried maelstrom in any serious way and pretty much dismissed them out of hand.
The ETC uses maelstrom in its missions. Those are some serious competitive tournaments and players using those missions, maybe they worked out something that you have not.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
If GW could come up with halfway balanced missions that don't completely screw over one faction or another because reasons, big tournaments would use them. ITC and Nova have to come up with their own house rules and missions because GW gives us a clusterfeth made for nothing but beer and pretzels casual play.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
If GW could come up with halfway balanced missions that don't completely screw over one faction or another because reasons, big tournaments would use them. ITC and Nova have to come up with their own house rules and missions because GW gives us a clusterfeth made for nothing but beer and pretzels casual play.
Pretty much all the big tournaments in the UK do use them. Mostly with the ETC rules pack (play an EW and MW mission simultaneously).
I agree. GW doesn't generally do "good" tables at WHW or their events. Sure, they are adequate and some tables are great, but most are "alright" or "lacking". This is something they need to address, but, they are also pretty limited on what they can do due to the terrain kits they make and sell. Maybe we'll eventually see them sell a "building" kit or something similar, then we'll start to see more LoS blocking on their tables, but until then we have to rely on statues (some of which are actually big enough to hide a Helverin or Dreadnough) or stacks of Crates.
Last time I was there I would say there was good terrain on 3/5 tables and OK terrain on the other two.
Not as much LOS blocking as at the LGT but I would happily go back to WHW and you would need to pay me to even consider going to the LGT.
In any even the whole LOS block thing is far too binary, it is like that is the only way that terrain can work in the minds of some players. There are better rules in CA that scale in a much less binary manner, let us see if anyone uses them. I can say that if WHW uses them that all 5 of my tables would have had good functional terrain on that last visit.
Toofast wrote: Randomization does the exact opposite. That's why a noob can beat a pro player in Hearthstone but would lose 100 out of 100 games to a pro player in MtG. Randomization narrows the gap between a good player and bad player. That's why casual games have more random aspects and more competitive games tend to have less.
You do realize that MtG is randomized as well, right?
Card draw order is random. Few if any cards have random effects. Card draw is equivalent to dice rolling in 40k. Random effects are the equivalent of maelstrom cards.
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
This thread is littered with comments like that - all from Americans so far as I can make out. I think part of the issue is that the US tournament scene never tried maelstrom in any serious way and pretty much dismissed them out of hand.
The ETC uses maelstrom in its missions. Those are some serious competitive tournaments and players using those missions, maybe they worked out something that you have not.
I did try maelstrom. I played through every maelstrom mission a couple times with 2 different factions. Myself and everyone else in my group came to the conclusion that we would be better off flipping a coin to see who won and heading to the pub for a pint because whoever draws the cards that are easier to achieve wins nearly every game. There is no skill involved. It's like your central command is headed by an 8 year old with ADHD that can't make up his mind about what your army should be doing.
HQ - "Go over here!" "Now go over there!" "Now kill their flyer!"
Me - "But sir, they don't have any flyers..."
It's much too gamey and nothing like actual combat. It doesn't work well for narrative gaming or competitive gaming, at least in my opinion and the opinion of everyone I ever played the missions with.
Marmatag wrote: I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Buuuuutttt if your army is built with the understanding that the no-invulnerable-save mission is a possibility, then you're basically in the same position as understanding that failing a charge from deepstrike is also a possibility, and planning to mitigate/circumvent that.
The cards missions are, indeed, oftentimes frustratingly random, I'm not exactly talking about those. I don't think GW uses those in their tournaments either.
This is not even remotely true. To put it simply: you are wrong. Deep strike charge is a choice i am making. I have no input whatsoever in what mission is chosen. You can try to design a list around all of the different missions you might face, but that is not strategy, and it's still blind, dumb luck if you encounter it or not. Hopefully you can understand the difference between tactics and luck. Who knows.
GW uses maelstrom cards in their games. So what you think doesn't really matter when it's factually incorrect lol.
Toofast wrote: Randomization does the exact opposite. That's why a noob can beat a pro player in Hearthstone but would lose 100 out of 100 games to a pro player in MtG. Randomization narrows the gap between a good player and bad player. That's why casual games have more random aspects and more competitive games tend to have less.
You do realize that MtG is randomized as well, right?
Card draw order is random. Few if any cards have random effects. Card draw is equivalent to dice rolling in 40k. Random effects are the equivalent of maelstrom cards.
The laws of large numbers of dice says that's wrong, actually. If you want to play with the cards, fine. But I won't be. Tournaments shouldn't use them either.
This thread is littered with comments like that - all from Americans so far as I can make out. I think part of the issue is that the US tournament scene never tried maelstrom in any serious way and pretty much dismissed them out of hand.
The ETC uses maelstrom in its missions. Those are some serious competitive tournaments and players using those missions, maybe they worked out something that you have not.
I did try maelstrom. I played through every maelstrom mission a couple times with 2 different factions. Myself and everyone else in my group came to the conclusion that we would be better off flipping a coin to see who won and heading to the pub for a pint because whoever draws the cards that are easier to achieve wins nearly every game. There is no skill involved. It's like your central command is headed by an 8 year old with ADHD that can't make up his mind about what your army should be doing.
HQ - "Go over here!" "Now go over there!" "Now kill their flyer!"
Me - "But sir, they don't have any flyers..."
It's much too gamey and nothing like actual combat. It doesn't work well for narrative gaming or competitive gaming, at least in my opinion and the opinion of everyone I ever played the missions with.
As was pointed out a few posts back, the new CA Maelstrom missions allow you to remove 6 cards from your deck at the start of the game. It’s not much, but, it will make a difference.
Pair that with the general event house rule of “if you couldn’t score the card at the start of the game then you can discard and re-draw” then the whole “But they have no flyers” argument is null and void. There are also stratagems inside most of the Maelstrom missions that allow you to re-draw cards.
Sure, Maelstrom is not perfect, and I personally think more needs to be done in regards to making it more towards “pre event”/”pre casual game” deck building, more akin to how AoS Champions works – x number of 1 type of card, x number of type 2, x-y number of everything else. Maybe then, once there is a bit more “control” over the game, then we can see it being more competitive. Right now, in ETC, all it does is either make you happy or seriously frustrate you.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
If GW could come up with halfway balanced missions that don't completely screw over one faction or another because reasons, big tournaments would use them. ITC and Nova have to come up with their own house rules and missions because GW gives us a clusterfeth made for nothing but beer and pretzels casual play.
General question for everyone involved in this thread on both sides of the argument.
We have 6 new EW missions in CA18. Which armies do each of the missions “screw over” or “greatly favour” and why?
Marmatag wrote: I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Buuuuutttt if your army is built with the understanding that the no-invulnerable-save mission is a possibility, then you're basically in the same position as understanding that failing a charge from deepstrike is also a possibility, and planning to mitigate/circumvent that.
The cards missions are, indeed, oftentimes frustratingly random, I'm not exactly talking about those. I don't think GW uses those in their tournaments either.
This is not even remotely true. To put it simply: you are wrong. Deep strike charge is a choice i am making. I have no input whatsoever in what mission is chosen. You can try to design a list around all of the different missions you might face, but that is not strategy, and it's still blind, dumb luck if you encounter it or not. Hopefully you can understand the difference between tactics and luck. Who knows.
GW uses maelstrom cards in their games. So what you think doesn't really matter when it's factually incorrect lol.
It is strategy, in the actual meaning of the term. If you aren't sure what the mission will be, but know that it will be one of X known missions (say, from CA18 for an example), you will indeed take that into consideration in your list building if you want to do well. The ITC set is more akin to tactics in that regard, as you already know the situation your forces are going into (since the missions are pretty close in their parameters). Luck has a say in what the mission will be, but being prepared for it with a generally capable allrounder list is part of your strategic skill as a player. I personally find this a lot more interesting and a better measure for competitive wargaming than basically repeating the same scenario over and over again. Fortune favours the prepared, as the saying goes.
The irony here is supposedly the new missions are what the updated points costs in Chapter Approved are balanced against, not ITC missions.
The points are balanced against the idea of "how to shift what sells around". Not to concept of balance.
And as usual GW scenarios are lol bad for competive use. Fun enough if you don't care about competive game but if you want competive game burn them with fire until they stay down. Only way to be sure.
Oh enough with this conspiracy nonsense.
Most models are either always has been bad, or always has been good.
If GW was shifting points to make sells, what is good and what is bad would change, and often. but it doesn't, at all.
The same things that were great from the day they dropped were always at the very least OK, and usually good or better, and many models were released with bad rules, and never got better.
How about shining spears, which went from being the worst unit in the entire Eldar/Dark Eldar arsenal to one of the best units in the entire game? Or jetbikes that went from almost never played, to 20-30 in every army, back to never played.
Two adecdotal cases, out of how many?
Because I can throw so many counter-ancedotes.
Tau jets and riptide came out the same time, at no point the riptide wasnt good, at no point the jets were worth a second look.
Oblits and muties? one always good, the other always bad. possessed-were never good princes were never not good, rubrics got a brand new (amazing) kit at 7th when you could expect them to be much better if the "rules for sells" conspiracy was true, but they kept they sucky rules they had for SO long, and only now getting a minor discount to be semi-viable.
Necrons? the wraiths and destroyers were always their top shelf. monoliths? sucking forever.
Heck, how about the brand new line of primaris who take front and center? speaking of marines, has their AA tanks EVER seen competitive play? how about land raiders and terminators only now getting sorta-viable after HOW long? (and only sorta, not really.)
Sure, SOME things swing from good to bad, but that's just a logical effect of balancing attempts that don't go well-if you overcompensate, a good thing turns bad and vice versa. and these are the exception, not the norm.
But in the COMMON case, most things gets undercompensations. heck, base marines/CSM are unchanged for several editions despite sucking for a long time, and these are supposed to be the main line units of the "main factions"
Spoletta wrote: Both cases are common, a lot of models went from good to bad and viceversa, and other models stood were they were.
There is no general rule, all cases are equally represented.
There is no commercial conspiracy behind those models (99% of times), balancing follows its own indipendent process.
I think the process is they all get really drunk, put blindfolds on, then throw darts at a giant wall with pictures of the models on them to determine what gets buffed and what gets nerfed.
Spoletta wrote: Both cases are common, a lot of models went from good to bad and viceversa, and other models stood were they were.
There is no general rule, all cases are equally represented.
There is no commercial conspiracy behind those models (99% of times), balancing follows its own indipendent process.
I think the process is they all get really drunk, put blindfolds on, then throw darts at a giant wall with pictures of the models on them to determine what gets buffed and what gets nerfed.
I think it works like that for 95% of the units. Something like 5% of them it's about grudges.
Marmatag wrote: I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Buuuuutttt if your army is built with the understanding that the no-invulnerable-save mission is a possibility, then you're basically in the same position as understanding that failing a charge from deepstrike is also a possibility, and planning to mitigate/circumvent that.
The cards missions are, indeed, oftentimes frustratingly random, I'm not exactly talking about those. I don't think GW uses those in their tournaments either.
This is not even remotely true. To put it simply: you are wrong. Deep strike charge is a choice i am making. I have no input whatsoever in what mission is chosen. You can try to design a list around all of the different missions you might face, but that is not strategy, and it's still blind, dumb luck if you encounter it or not. Hopefully you can understand the difference between tactics and luck. Who knows.
GW uses maelstrom cards in their games. So what you think doesn't really matter when it's factually incorrect lol.
It is strategy, in the actual meaning of the term. If you aren't sure what the mission will be, but know that it will be one of X known missions (say, from CA18 for an example), you will indeed take that into consideration in your list building if you want to do well. The ITC set is more akin to tactics in that regard, as you already know the situation your forces are going into (since the missions are pretty close in their parameters). Luck has a say in what the mission will be, but being prepared for it with a generally capable allrounder list is part of your strategic skill as a player. I personally find this a lot more interesting and a better measure for competitive wargaming than basically repeating the same scenario over and over again. Fortune favours the prepared, as the saying goes.
Explain to me the strategy behind rock-paper-scissors. I'll wait.
Spoletta wrote: Both cases are common, a lot of models went from good to bad and viceversa, and other models stood were they were.
There is no general rule, all cases are equally represented.
There is no commercial conspiracy behind those models (99% of times), balancing follows its own indipendent process.
I think the process is they all get really drunk, put blindfolds on, then throw darts at a giant wall with pictures of the models on them to determine what gets buffed and what gets nerfed.
They actually said at a Q&A panel recently that they do, in fact, have a formula for stats it's not random. Whether we believe that is another story...
Xenomancers wrote: Marm there is actually a stratagy for winning at RPS. Data has shown rock is like 35% of thrown choices. Paper is like 31%. So paper is king LOL.
Marmatag wrote: I would play with a computer rolling the dice / generating outcomes for both players. There is an acceptable level of randomness. For instance, if we played purely with expected value, deep strike charge would actually be impossible. There is a difference between blind luck and a calculated risk.
Drawing a maelstrom card, or getting a lucky eternal war based mission, has 0 input from either player.
Meanwhile, trying for a deep strike charge is random, yes, but it's also a choice i'm making - a calculated risk.
There is a huge gulf between these two kinds of random.
"I failed my charges" is entirely different from "We played the no invulnerable save mission, so naturally i lost," or, "He drew cards to control his side of the map and I drew stuff to make him fail morale checks, and take his objectives which had 100 guardsmen on it."
I like mission variety. The secondaries add a lot of this. GW forces you to take fixed secondaries (first strike, slay the warlord). Seems kind of silly really.
Buuuuutttt if your army is built with the understanding that the no-invulnerable-save mission is a possibility, then you're basically in the same position as understanding that failing a charge from deepstrike is also a possibility, and planning to mitigate/circumvent that.
The cards missions are, indeed, oftentimes frustratingly random, I'm not exactly talking about those. I don't think GW uses those in their tournaments either.
This is not even remotely true. To put it simply: you are wrong. Deep strike charge is a choice i am making. I have no input whatsoever in what mission is chosen. You can try to design a list around all of the different missions you might face, but that is not strategy, and it's still blind, dumb luck if you encounter it or not. Hopefully you can understand the difference between tactics and luck. Who knows.
GW uses maelstrom cards in their games. So what you think doesn't really matter when it's factually incorrect lol.
It is strategy, in the actual meaning of the term. If you aren't sure what the mission will be, but know that it will be one of X known missions (say, from CA18 for an example), you will indeed take that into consideration in your list building if you want to do well. The ITC set is more akin to tactics in that regard, as you already know the situation your forces are going into (since the missions are pretty close in their parameters). Luck has a say in what the mission will be, but being prepared for it with a generally capable allrounder list is part of your strategic skill as a player. I personally find this a lot more interesting and a better measure for competitive wargaming than basically repeating the same scenario over and over again. Fortune favours the prepared, as the saying goes.
Explain to me the strategy behind rock-paper-scissors. I'll wait.
Depends on the setting, really. If you can play enough games of RPS with someone, you can gather enough data on how they choose their picks. Almost everyone has a pattern, even if a weak and chaotic one, and people have built AIs that take notes, adapt and start beating them. So if you go in blind and refuse to adapt, in an infinite game you will lose to the machine. Just going by the averages would probably land you an over 50 % win ratio. But this is a digression and you know it.
The relevant point here is that in a wargame like this it is indeed very important for many folks to keep the variability after listbuilding quite high so that one has to adapt to the missions on the fly, rather than adapt the missions to their force as seems to be the case with ITC. Having a varied bunch of missions that might favour certain unit types, as long as that set is well-known beforehand, is very different from dumb luck. If you say "I might as well give up" when the mission is chosen, that is your fault for having built a list that is too skewed. This is good, especially when it is combined with progressive scoring and tabling being a non-factor. The set of missions that are possible is a limiter one has to live with and is a strategic consideration. Go heavy on some unit types, have some of all? That's a call you have to make instead of going for the "solved" list that does the best under one set of conditions. Also, as we very well know, we don't live in the land of ad infinitum and any set of tournament missions is going to be relatively small, say, half a dozen maybe. If you can hammer out a good list for one, you can do that for the others too and create a combined force that does well in all. Sure, it looks a bit different from the optimized killing machine that is the core of ITC. I find that pleasing, personally.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
If GW could come up with halfway balanced missions that don't completely screw over one faction or another because reasons, big tournaments would use them. ITC and Nova have to come up with their own house rules and missions because GW gives us a clusterfeth made for nothing but beer and pretzels casual play.
Nonsense. ITC is far more imbalanced than GW missions. It favours a very limited type of list, so that's naturally all we see. It's clear that players can tolerate, even champion, imbalanced missions as long as they're consistently imbalanced in their favour - hence ITC. Hopefully someday we'll abandon that house rules favouritism bs.
Crimson wrote: Frankly, I think big tournaments should use GW missions, completely irrespective of how good or bad they are. GW relies on tournament results for balancing, but if tournaments are not even using the actual 40K rules that feths up the data.
If GW could come up with halfway balanced missions that don't completely screw over one faction or another because reasons, big tournaments would use them. ITC and Nova have to come up with their own house rules and missions because GW gives us a clusterfeth made for nothing but beer and pretzels casual play.
Nonsense. ITC is far more imbalanced than GW missions. It favours a very limited type of list, so that's naturally all we see. It's clear that players can tolerate, even champion, imbalanced missions as long as they're consistently imbalanced in their favour - hence ITC. Hopefully someday we'll abandon that house rules favouritism bs.
Now here's the rub. ITC is no more imbalanced, but it's less obvious and you can game it. Ergo, it is good. GW missions are more flavorful so yes, you might have the occasional mission where your army is at a disadvantage and some where you are at an advantage, but somehow this is bad.
Again, the GW missions are the way they are BY DESIGN. That mission imbalance is INTENTIONAL to try and encourage ("force" is too strong a word but would also be apt) a well-rounded army rather than a 100% min/maxed skew where the only real skill is making sure your list is the best it can be. That has always been the case at Warhammer tournaments. You can't guarantee which mission you'll get so you have to bring a force that can cope with getting "that" mission where you get a handicap. That's the entire fething point of them. And as expected the response is to whine how it's imbalanced and houserule that design goal away instead of seeing the reason why and adapting to it. That's why ITC is the way it is; they're removing an intentional part of balancing the game, and then crying that the game isn't balanced as well as they'd like. No gak it's not balanced, you're taking away an intended balancing mechanic because you don't like that it's an intended balancing mechanic, and then have the balls to say that your Frankenstein version of the game isn't balanced.
I completely understand how some people feel random mission types show true skill, but in reality they don't.
Randomness takes away from skill, no matter how you feel about it. It improves the chance of some scrub beating a top teir player by getting everything in his favor.
ITC missions are far more true to player skill. Are they boring? Yes sometimes. Are they fair? Yes, basically all the time.
In a highly competitive scene (major tournaments) you don't want random. Randomness is fine for casual play and for fast paced games, that don't last for more than 30min. It doesn't cut it for 40k.
If you don't enjoy playing ITC missions then you don't have to, but don't expect tournaments to drop em when they are currently the most balanced missions available.
Eihnlazer wrote: I completely understand how some people feel random mission types show true skill, but in reality they don't.
Randomness takes away from skill, no matter how you feel about it. It improves the chance of some scrub beating a top teir player by getting everything in his favor.
Surely that should mean that this "top tier player" has even more of a chance to show their skill by beating the opponent who has the game in their favour through their own skill and tactical ability?
It is really the randomness in itself which requires more skill, it is the variety of missions. If different missions require different strengths from the army, it forces you to build more balanced list and vary your tactics accordingly.
Why should I have to? You said yourself above the missions are boring. Why should I spend my time playing a mission that's boring after the time, effort and money I put into making the army? Why shouldn't the ITC adapt instead and make their missions fun?
House rules should adapt to the main rules, not the other way around. There's no real reason why ITC has to deviate so much from base 40k now. They don't deviate in AOS, so why 40k?
Eihnlazer wrote: If you can fool yourself into thinking skill will trump bad luck I'd ask why you aren't making millions at the casino right now.
If someone draws bad maelstrom cards, and the opponent draws good ones, he will not win, no matter how good he is.
Question.
What luck is involved in regards to the CA18 Eternal War missions?
No-one is really advocating the Maelstrom become the "standard", rather, that Eternal War becomes to standard whereas Maelstrom still needs work in regards to "competitive" play.
Eternal war missions are no more exciting that ITC champion missions.
They are in essence the same exact thing.
The fun you experience at a tournament should not come from the mission packet. It should come from the experience of the event as a whole, and interactions with your opponents.
The TO's are just there to make everything run smoothly and reduce arguments that detract from the event. ITC missions are written to provide a fair experience that runs smoothly.
Thats as far as they should be expected to go. Everything else is on you.
Only partly agree. The experience yes, but i'm there to play and have fun playing games. If i'm not having fun during the games, then what's the point?
In theory I wouldn't, as long as the majority of the ITC participants agreed they were fair enough.
I don't have any particular reason to favor the ITC champ missions other than that I know they are fair for everyone.
Gideon, as I stated, you can have fun during the games, but it mostly has to do with who your playing againgst. The missions themselves shouldn't be responsible for this. The mission is more responsible with a fair and balanced interaction.
Hm, I have to disagree to a certain extent. Your opponent is certainly part of the experience ( a good or crap opponent can make or break a game certainly). But apparently a lot of people disagree with you judging by the fact this thread is nearly 10 pages long of people arguing the toss about it.
Eihnlazer wrote: If you can fool yourself into thinking skill will trump bad luck I'd ask why you aren't making millions at the casino right now.
If someone draws bad maelstrom cards, and the opponent draws good ones, he will not win, no matter how good he is.
Sure, but statistically, over the course of enough games, this will even out and skill will win. This is why professional poker players can lose big events to new players, but they consistently win or go deep in tournaments. You think a guy like Phil Hellmuth is the luckiest guy in Vegas?
This exact same argument can be applied to dice rolls. A great player can roll nothing but 1's and 2's and lose to a scrub because of randomness. Yet no one is advocating we remove dice rolls?
Let's not pretend that there is no luck involved in ITC tournaments.
Matchups are fairly random and they skew the results of a tournament far more than any mission could ever do.
Every time there is an unconventional list winning, what everyone says is always "He must have had a lucky matchup".
Actually, mathematically speaking having an additional skew on tournament results given by missions (not saying that CA18 missions are skewed, i think that they are perfectly balanced) reduces the randomness of the results.
It's like having a roll on 2d6 instead of a single d6.
Eihnlazer wrote: You cant remove dice, as they are required to play the game. You can change the missions.
Not really an equivilent argument.
The reference to equivalency is about randomness. ITC changed rules regarding terrain, missions, and other things, so what's to stop them from removing dice? We can just have an app that determines the averages and uses those values. Now its much less random, yay! There is only skill now!
Spoletta wrote: Let's not pretend that there is no luck involved in ITC tournaments.
Matchups are fairly random and they skew the results of a tournament far more than any mission could ever do.
Every time there is an unconventional list winning, what everyone says is always "He must have had a lucky matchup".
There is a bit of luck - but assuming winners play winners (which is the typical way of organising a tournament), top lists (and players) tend to come out on top in the end. Its hard to go 5-0 unless your unconventional list somehow manages to encounter 2 other unconventional lists in games 4 and 5 from an ever shrinking pool.
Some tournaments can however have rules which do result in this. For example we saw that tournament where I think if you won the first 3 games, you were in the top 8 bracket even if you proceeded to lose your next two 20-0. In that situation you are going to get softer lists and weirder results.
Crimson wrote: It is really the randomness in itself which requires more skill, it is the variety of missions. If different missions require different strengths from the army, it forces you to build more balanced list and vary your tactics accordingly.
Randomness does not require more skill. In fact, it reduces the skill gap between a bad player and a good player by introducing elements that are completely outside of their control. The more factors you have control over in a game, the more skill determines the winner. The less control you have, ie the more rng the game has, the more luck will determine the winner. I'm not sure why you are pretending to be willfully ignorant of this established fact. This is why cars in NASCAR don't have random horsepower, everyone is the same, players in Dota choose their heroes rather than each team being given 5 random heroes, a first down in football is always 10 yards, not a random number, both players start with the exact same pieces in chess, effects in MtG have you choose a card, player, whatever rather than targeting random things, because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.
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Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Why should I have to? You said yourself above the missions are boring. Why should I spend my time playing a mission that's boring after the time, effort and money I put into making the army? Why shouldn't the ITC adapt instead and make their missions fun?
Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.
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Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Only partly agree. The experience yes, but i'm there to play and have fun playing games. If i'm not having fun during the games, then what's the point?
If you don't have fun playing a certain mission packet, don't attend events that use that mission packet. Wow, what a concept! Mind = blown! I find it hard to believe that your events are dominated by the ITC in France.
Randomness does not require more skill. In fact, it reduces the skill gap between a bad player and a good player by introducing elements that are completely outside of their control. The more factors you have control over in a game, the more skill determines the winner. The less control you have, ie the more rng the game has, the more luck will determine the winner. I'm not sure why you are pretending to be willfully ignorant of this established fact. This is why cars in NASCAR don't have random horsepower, everyone is the same, players in Dota choose their heroes rather than each team being given 5 random heroes, a first down in football is always 10 yards, not a random number, both players start with the exact same pieces in chess, effects in MtG have you choose a card, player, whatever rather than targeting random things, because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.
Only partially true,
Randomness is something that hinders competition when it is completely random, without any way to mitigate it through correct skill and preparation like GW missions.
You have many world level competitive games, even olimpic ones with random elements,
Toofast wrote: because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.
Poker is built on randomness, and how you deal with getting randomly dealt a bad hand is a key part of the game. I've yet to hear anyone claim that poker isn't suitable to competition. I'm surprised you would bring up MtG given that randomness is a key part of that game, too. if the objective is complete predictability, and randomness in preconditions detracts from skill, why not allow players to arrange their deck before the game, rather than shuffling?
In any case, it's not like we're talking about randomly giving one side more points, or other such insurmountable disadvantage. If a list isn't capable of playing some of the missions and objectives known in advance to be part of the event, it's not 'bad luck', it's a bad list.
We don't call it unfair when a player brings a list that can't handle Knights and then gets randomly matched up against a Knight army- they knew in advance that it was a possibility, and failed to adequately prepare. They don't get to complain that luck of the draw gave them an army matchup they can't win. Why is failing to adequately prepare for possible objectives more excusable?
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
Toofast wrote: because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.
Poker is built on randomness, and how you deal with getting randomly dealt a bad hand is a key part of the game. I've yet to hear anyone claim that poker isn't suitable to competition. I'm surprised you would bring up MtG given that randomness is a key part of that game, too. if the objective is complete predictability, and randomness in preconditions detracts from skill, why not allow players to arrange their deck before the game, rather than shuffling?
In any case, it's not like we're talking about randomly giving one side more points, or other such insurmountable disadvantage. If a list isn't capable of playing some of the missions and objectives known in advance to be part of the event, it's not 'bad luck', it's a bad list.
We don't call it unfair when a player brings a list that can't handle Knights and then gets randomly matched up against a Knight army- they knew in advance that it was a possibility, and failed to adequately prepare. They don't get to complain that luck of the draw gave them an army matchup they can't win. Why is failing to adequately prepare for possible objectives more excusable?
In poker you get a bad hand you just fold and 4/5 times that isn't even going to cost you a dime. Terrible comparison. You get dealt a crappy match in 40k you have to play it.
Xenomancers wrote:In poker you get a bad hand you just fold and 4/5 times that isn't even going to cost you a dime. Terrible comparison. You get dealt a crappy match in 40k you have to play it.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:You also can't bluff you got a good Maelstrom card.
Anyone else want to point out how 40K is not exactly identical to poker, in lieu of actually addressing the point (that randomness is hardly anathema to competitive games)?
Yeah, in 40K if you get a 'crappy match' you have to play it and can't bluff your way out. Unlike in poker, you have the power to prevent a 'crappy match', by taking an army list that is able to flexibly play objectives rather than min-max for a specific win condition.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.
But these missions are meant to be used in casual settings too. Are you saying that if we happen to roll a certain mission, I should just say, before we even roll any more dice, "Good game, you win,"?
I mean I've seen Harlequins demolish lists in 3 turns. With some planning you can probably avoid being in the Null Zone - or at least not unless you are going in to kill something fairly important.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.
But these missions are meant to be used in casual settings too. Are you saying that if we happen to roll a certain mission, I should just say, before we even roll any more dice, "Good game, you win,"?
Sorry thought we were comparing competetive formats. In casual just pick your mission. Also 'Quins and Demons have a chance against casual lists in Null sind. Outscore turn 1and 2 whilst trying to cripple the enemy. Let them have the objective T3 and 4, whilst doing as much damage as possible. Take it again in T5. Score more or tie secondaries. Then on T6/7 lack of invuls il hurt you bad, but hopefully you've already won.
Also note that both armies are advantaged by other missions.
Also note that both armies are advantaged by other missions.
That's the entire problem. Those armies are at a disadvantage in certain missions, and have an advantage in others before dice are even rolled. The entire point of ITC missions is to remove that sort of imbalance. Whether you're playing IK, Harlequins, or Daemons, as long as you brought the best list possible from your given codex, you have just as good a chance of winning one ITC mission as you do another. That's exactly why they exist. Nobody should start a tournament with an automatic loss somewhere in the day just because of the faction they chose. ITC eliminates that as much as possible without rewriting codexes and point values of entire factions.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.
Wayniac wrote: The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.
So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?
Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.
Please explain in more detail.
Someone went over that fairly extensively earlier in the thread. I'll link it if I can get the chance. In any case playing the mission would give you a better understanding - if you went into it with the right mindset, that is.
Well for one they can win buy tabling you if the objectives are not in their favor....
So... not saying that's what is happenning but in this case why would a player not build a list to table people instead of playing the objective ? If objective are a variable, you just remove it and go for tabling your opponent.
And in this case, why even have missions ?
Toofast wrote: Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.
Genuine question : What would be the ratio of ITC to non ITC tournaments in the US ? High Profile/Not so high profile.
Crimson wrote: It is really the randomness in itself which requires more skill, it is the variety of missions. If different missions require different strengths from the army, it forces you to build more balanced list and vary your tactics accordingly.
Randomness does not require more skill. In fact, it reduces the skill gap between a bad player and a good player by introducing elements that are completely outside of their control. The more factors you have control over in a game, the more skill determines the winner. The less control you have, ie the more rng the game has, the more luck will determine the winner. I'm not sure why you are pretending to be willfully ignorant of this established fact. This is why cars in NASCAR don't have random horsepower, everyone is the same, players in Dota choose their heroes rather than each team being given 5 random heroes, a first down in football is always 10 yards, not a random number, both players start with the exact same pieces in chess, effects in MtG have you choose a card, player, whatever rather than targeting random things, because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.
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Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Why should I have to? You said yourself above the missions are boring. Why should I spend my time playing a mission that's boring after the time, effort and money I put into making the army? Why shouldn't the ITC adapt instead and make their missions fun?
Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.
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Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Only partly agree. The experience yes, but i'm there to play and have fun playing games. If i'm not having fun during the games, then what's the point?
If you don't have fun playing a certain mission packet, don't attend events that use that mission packet. Wow, what a concept! Mind = blown! I find it hard to believe that your events are dominated by the ITC in France.
Who said i was in France? And where is it selling out? I don't think i've seen an ITC event for god knows how long. Show's how popular it is from my location.
Let me showcase exactly what’s going on in this thread.
There are 3 types of posters
1) People who live in the U.S. and have adopted to ITC. They prefer ITC over GW missions and are extremely unlikely to change their mind despite whatever logic is thrown at them.
2) People who live in Europe and have adopted to GW missions. They prefer these missions over ITC and are extremely unlikely to change their minds dispite whatever logic is thrown at them.
3) Somewhat casual players who win more games with GW missions because those missions favor weaker lists (more in game luck can offset the disadvantage a weaker list has). Because GW missions favor these players “balanced lists” ‘more, they will prefer those mission over ITC ones, despite whatever logic is thrown at them.
So there you have it. I still believe that ITC missions are the best choice (even if I know I’m biased), because they feel the most balenced out all the msisions I’ve played.
Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.
Unfortunately this is a moot point. The vast majority of events, ITC missions or not, that award ITC POINTS sell out remarkably quickly over here in the UK. Likewise, some other events (big and small) that aren't part of the ITC circuit also sell out quickly - i mean, all the tickets for all 4 GW Heats originally sold out within like an hour or 2, and each time they released extra tickets they were also instantly snapped up.
The ITC circuit is, in part, responsible for this, but, it also goes to show how popular the game is getting once more. The missions themselves are often a secondary point used to determine what style of list you take to said event.
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Salt donkey wrote: Let me showcase exactly what’s going on in this thread.
There are 3 types of posters
1) People who live in the U.S. and have adopted to ITC. They prefer ITC over GW missions and are extremely unlikely to change their mind despite whatever logic is thrown at them.
2) People who live in Europe and have adopted to GW missions. They prefer these missions over ITC and are extremely unlikely to change their minds dispite whatever logic is thrown at them.
3) Somewhat casual players who win more games with GW missions because those missions favor weaker lists (more in game luck can offset the disadvantage a weaker list has). Because GW missions favor these players “balanced lists” ‘more, they will prefer those mission over ITC ones, despite whatever logic is thrown at them.
So there you have it. I still believe that ITC missions are the best choice (even if I know I’m biased), because they feel the most balenced out all the msisions I’ve played.
As someone in the UK that plays the majority of games with ITC missions, prior to this CA, i'd agree with ITC being better in regards to offering ever sort of army the opportunity to score points. The ITC missions doesn't offer every army the opportunity to win however - only to score points.
Also, right now looking at the CA18 Eternal War missions, i am struggling to see where "game luck" will overcome you playing a weak list vs a strong list. It's just not going to happen, except in the rarest of occasions (something of which also occasionally happens with ITC missions).
I am personally reserving my judgement on whether these new missions are better or worse than the current ITC missions until i've played a few games with them. I do however firmly believe that the "gap" between them is waaaaaaay smaller than what a lot of commentators on here actually believe. It might turn out, after a month of testing that the new missions are hot garbage. However, it might also turn out that the new missions are way more balanced, inclusive and diverse than ITC missions.
Noone can say for sure that this is the case, unless you were part of the playtest time. Until then, people need to stop saying that ITC is "better" because it's more "balanced", whilst referencing the missions from the rulebook and CA18.
All the Codices aren't balanced. ITC missions aren't balanced in a way that allows all Codices to win events. GW rulebook missions aren't balanced. GWCA17 missions aren't balanced. Hell, i'm prepared to say GWCA18 Maelstrom missions aren't balanced. However, the jury is firmly out on whether or not GWCA18 Eternal War missions are balanced or not, and where they fit in the sliding scale of "fairness".
Ok I can see wanting to wait and see if the new missions are good. Still it’s undeniable these missions do have more an element of luck than ITC, missions, which depending on your position could be good or bad. From the sounds of it Frontline might consider adding elements from the new missions into ITC, but will keep their own missions.
BTW From what I understand, Frontline gaming will be handing/emailing out questionair's to all attendee's of the LVO about changes they would like to see at the next LVO.
There are going to be around 800 guys attending the Warhammer champs event this year, so we should see either some major changes or almost no changes depending on whether people like the current ruleset or want something more random.
Well for one they can win buy tabling you if the objectives are not in their favor....
So... not saying that's what is happenning but in this case why would a player not build a list to table people instead of playing the objective ? If objective are a variable, you just remove it and go for tabling your opponent.
And in this case, why even have missions ?
Toofast wrote: Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.
Genuine question : What would be the ratio of ITC to non ITC tournaments in the US ? High Profile/Not so high profile.
All of the biggest events except for NOVA use ITC or a slight variation of it. Nearly every small event at FLGS I've been to used ITC or their own variation of it. My FLGS here in Cape Coral does a monthly 2k tournament using ITC rules and mission packet. Most games people play in between tournaments are 2k and using ITC missions to practice for the events. I don't think it's very popular in Europe due to ETC doing their own thing, gaming clubs being prevalent and having their own sets of house rules, etc. However, here in the US, it's become the standard. A few years ago I had to beg people to use ITC rules and missions so I could get enough practice games in, but now it's the norm even for casual games.
So having picked up Chapter Approved today and reading the Eternal War missions, IMHO they are really, really good. Like, really good. I love that they encourage you to bring a well-rounded force (I've been arguing this more than once in this very thread).
I stand by what I said before even more now: These are what should be used for tournaments moving forward over the ITC missions. They really espouse what a solid game of Warhammer 40,000 should be.
The Maelstrom missions are... well they are Maelstrom. They are what they are; fun but can be too random. The Eternal War ones though I think are top notch.
Played cut off the head yesterday. It's just another exercise in tabling, imo. Way less interesting than ITC. No liability incurred for 10 man guard squads at all. Unacceptable. At least guardsmen bleed VPs in ITC.
Martel732 wrote: Played cut off the head yesterday. It's just another exercise in tabling, imo. Way less interesting than ITC. No liability incurred for 10 man guard squads at all. Unacceptable. At least guardsmen bleed VPs in ITC.
Why should there be a liability for 10 man guard squads? Is this to encourage all units to spend 5 pounds on a mortar. Seems a niche thing to deem a mission unacceptable for lacking. Or am I misunderstanding?
I don't get how Cut the Head is an "exercise in tabling" because it uses Intel Points on characters, and has the tabling is not an auto victory thing in play anyways. Maybe I missed something in what Martel was talking about.
Martel732 wrote: Played cut off the head yesterday. It's just another exercise in tabling, imo. Way less interesting than ITC. No liability incurred for 10 man guard squads at all. Unacceptable. At least guardsmen bleed VPs in ITC.
Ok, let me understand this.
So you are saying that ITC missions are better than GW missions because they are more fair to models and builds than GW's missions, but an ITC missions is better than a GW missions because it penalizes guards? Did i miss something? Where's the logic in this?
Because the best way to wax characters is to kill every thing between you and them. If you kill the intel characters, its basically an autovictory.
10 man guard squads give up "butcher's bill" points in ITC rather easily, as well as "reaper". Although most hordes qualify for reaper, but no one is quite as hordey as the IG now. In cut the head, there is no downside to having hundreds of ablative dum dums between your characters and the enemy. In fact, its desirable and has no downside.
Martel732 wrote: Because the best way to wax characters is to kill every thing between you and them. If you kill the intel characters, its basically an autovictory.
10 man guard squads give up "butcher's bill" points in ITC rather easily, as well as "reaper". Although most hordes qualify for reaper, but no one is quite as hordey as the IG now. In cut the head, there is no downside to having hundreds of ablative dum dums between your characters and the enemy. In fact, its desirable and has no downside.
If you have to put your chars in the middle, you can remove them by old good assault.
You don't have to. That only yields a single point. It's more important to keep them alive. That's one point PER character. It comes down to character murder. The middle is a sideshow, imo.
GK can harvest many VPs from weak squads that they are good at killing with stormbolters. Most eternal war missions give them nothing for this. Again, ITC gives a downside to the most obnoxious unit in the game.
Martel732 wrote: Because the best way to wax characters is to kill every thing between you and them. If you kill the intel characters, its basically an autovictory.
10 man guard squads give up "butcher's bill" points in ITC rather easily, as well as "reaper". Although most hordes qualify for reaper, but no one is quite as hordey as the IG now. In cut the head, there is no downside to having hundreds of ablative dum dums between your characters and the enemy. In fact, its desirable and has no downside.
If you have to put your chars in the middle, you can remove them by old good assault.
I'd wager something based around being able to tailor your secondaries. That seems to be held as the main reason ITC is "better". You can basically pick what you need to do based on what your opponent brings, rather than have to adapt to the mission. ITC gives 1 point for each objective you held, and 1 point if you killed any units (can't remember if it's more than your opponent did, or just any unit) and then up to 4 for each secondary so like, if you face a horde you can pick Reaper, if you fight knights you can pick one of the ones against big guys. Unlike the GW missions where you have to change, you can basically change the mission to suit what your army can do best.
I'd wager something based around being able to tailor your secondaries. That seems to be held as the main reason ITC is "better". You can basically pick what you need to do based on what your opponent brings, rather than have to adapt to the mission. ITC gives 1 point for each objective you held, and 1 point if you killed any units (can't remember if it's more than your opponent did, or just any unit) and then up to 4 for each secondary so like, if you face a horde you can pick Reaper, if you fight knights you can pick one of the ones against big guys. Unlike the GW missions where you have to change, you can basically change the mission to suit what your army can do best.
Wait what? You can pick your secondary objectives? That's just crazy, ITC is even more bonkers than I thought.
Martel732 wrote: Yes, picking secondary objectives is one of the key features that makes it interesting.
That has basically the same effect than list tailoring, which is usually frowned upon. ITC obviously should be excluded from any discussion of the 40K balance, as they're not really playing 40K.
That's not list tailoring at all. It does not have even close to the same effect. Number one, the other side gets to do it, too. Number two, it doesn't actually make any given army better at removing the other side's models. What it does do is make you think very hard about what you are facing in that match up.
Martel732 wrote: That's not list tailoring at all. It does not have even close to the same effect. Number one, the other side gets to do it, too. Number two, it doesn't actually make any given army better at removing the other side's models. What it does do is make you think very hard about what you are facing in that match up.
If you get to choose your objectives, you don't need to build a balanced list that can achieve varied objectives. And regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' these missions are, it is such an fundamental change that it is not really playing the same game anymore.
Isn't the idea to have certain missions favor different style lists thus encouraging you to run a more balanced army?
So far the new GW mission seem to do a good job of this (i have not yet played a game with them as I just got the book last night) But from the first look at it they have a variety
>only troops can gold objectives
>only flyers can hold objectives
>only characters can hold objectives
>objectives scored at the being of rounds
>objectives scored at the end of rounds
>one central objective
>hidden objectives
and on and on. From what I'm reading if you are truly playing a random mission from the pack you are going to need a very well rounded army and the best part is killing an army to the man doesn't guarantee a win so you can build the nastiest gun line of all time but if you don't have mobility early in the game you will most likely still not win
Martel732 wrote: That's not list tailoring at all. It does not have even close to the same effect. Number one, the other side gets to do it, too. Number two, it doesn't actually make any given army better at removing the other side's models. What it does do is make you think very hard about what you are facing in that match up.
If you get to choose your objectives, you don't need to build a balanced list that can achieve varied objectives. And regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' these missions are, it is such an fundamental change that it is not really playing the same game anymore.
The secondary objectives are the minority of total points in the match. They can help tip the balance, though.
I think you have a better argument if you were to assert that the perma-los blocking 1st floor rule fundamentally changes the game. The scoring system really doesn't.
Asmodios wrote: Isn't the idea to have certain missions favor different style lists thus encouraging you to run a more balanced army?
So far the new GW mission seem to do a good job of this (i have not yet played a game with them as I just got the book last night) But from the first look at it they have a variety
>only troops can gold objectives
>only flyers can hold objectives
>only characters can hold objectives
>objectives scored at the being of rounds
>objectives scored at the end of rounds
>one central objective
>hidden objectives
and on and on. From what I'm reading if you are truly playing a random mission from the pack you are going to need a very well rounded army and the best part is killing an army to the man doesn't guarantee a win so you can build the nastiest gun line of all time but if you don't have mobility early in the game you will most likely still not win
Martel732 wrote: That's not list tailoring at all. It does not have even close to the same effect. Number one, the other side gets to do it, too. Number two, it doesn't actually make any given army better at removing the other side's models. What it does do is make you think very hard about what you are facing in that match up.
If you get to choose your objectives, you don't need to build a balanced list that can achieve varied objectives. And regardless of how 'good' or 'bad' these missions are, it is such an fundamental change that it is not really playing the same game anymore.
The secondary objectives are the minority of total points in the match. They can help tip the balance, though.
I think you have a better argument if you were to assert that the perma-los blocking 1st floor rule fundamentally changes the game. The scoring system really doesn't.
You just admitted that it does because you can punish guards.
It was the dumbest game I've played in a while. I gobbled up Imperial Soup, Custodes, Guard Castellan and all, with my Nids. But only because I went first. If my opponent had gone first, clear victory the other direction. I'll be editing the draw of Open War games from now on.
terrain, doesn't mean that every event in the 
