Yarium wrote:

However, I think there's something to be said about consistency from a competitive standpoint. The method that ITC has to calculate victory points over turns provides powerful and valuable data to the tournament circuit. In some of the GW missions it's easier (for both players) to score victory points than in others, such that what qualifies as a high scoring or low scoring game can differ quite a bit from mission to mission. That is not the case in ITC, where there is a consistent maximum possible VP count.

I think this is something I overlooked in my one-off CA 2019 missions. Although if everyone plays the same mission round 1/2/3 then scores would be normalized across the tournament and the placing at the tournaments would still be key in determining ITC placing.

Take a peak over in the "interesting stats" thread to see just how much granular ITC tournament data is worth (hint: not much) so I'm not sure you miss out on much knowing how many points per round player x with y army is scoring.

As long as the tournament scene can go "nah we are going to balance our packet instead of yours" its going to be harder to get GW to finally wake up and realize that competitive balance matters. ITC missions are consistent, but their house rules are awful. Magic boxes are a good idea in theory for dealing with LOS for things like windows giving you a view of part of a single pauldron so you can murder the whole squad, but not being able to overwatch a unit charging through a literal open doorway is awful. It also tends to make non-LOS weapons significantly more valuable.

That being said, ITC is a lot better about fixing things like running 9 man infantry squads with a heavy weapon mostly to deny reaper. In the age of "GW Playtesters" it feels like a waste of resources to try to balance multiple mission packets that share the same point values. ETC/ITC should be brought into the fold much like MTG brought EDH into the fold. Let them mostly run themselves, but we really don't need 3+ tournament formats.

 DominayTrix wrote:
As long as the tournament scene can go "nah we are going to balance our packet instead of yours" its going to be harder to get GW to finally wake up and realize that competitive balance matters. ITC missions are consistent, but their house rules are awful. Magic boxes are a good idea in theory for dealing with LOS for things like windows giving you a view of part of a single pauldron so you can murder the whole squad, but not being able to overwatch a unit charging through a literal open doorway is awful. It also tends to make non-LOS weapons significantly more valuable.

That being said, ITC is a lot better about fixing things like running 9 man infantry squads with a heavy weapon mostly to deny reaper. In the age of "GW Playtesters" it feels like a waste of resources to try to balance multiple mission packets that share the same point values. ETC/ITC should be brought into the fold much like MTG brought EDH into the fold. Let them mostly run themselves, but we really don't need 3+ tournament formats.

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

 Crimson wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

Unless it implies that GW doesn't listen to their suggestions...

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

Unless it implies that GW doesn't listen to their suggestions...

That's the thing though. GW did listen, but FLG thinks they know better than GW at this point. Because why else would they stick with their missions than use the CA2018 missions like many were asking in their feedback thread? And go against GW FAQ in rulings which I find disrespectful.

Because if anything, FLG doesn't listen.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

Unless it implies that GW doesn't listen to their suggestions...

Or maybe they know the 40K competitive is such a fickle bunch that they CAN'T switch to CA2019 because people would get pissed off with them because they'll never admit that maybe yes, ITC has grown stagnant and is a bit gak now. They'd rather entrench on the ITC side and decry anything different as inferior.

Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

Trying to parse their gak ass rules even with friends is not my definition of a good time.

Why reduce variety? If maelstrom is competitively viable, use them. Same with ITC.

Feth eternal war. Boring, one note, 'turbo boost for the win' garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

Yes they have. It's a game where two players compete against each other. It's inherently competitive. They might not have made a Tournament game, but they certainly made a competitive one.

Martel732 wrote:
Trying to parse their gak ass rules even with friends is not my definition of a good time.

My friends manage fine. But then most of us played 2nd Ed 40k as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:
Why reduce variety? If maelstrom is competitively viable, use them. Same with ITC.

Feth eternal war. Boring, one note, 'turbo boost for the win' garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

Yes they have. It's a game where two players compete against each other. It's inherently competitive. They might not have made a Tournament game, but they certainly made a competitive one.

Don't be deliberatly obtuse for the sake of argument. You know what I meant.

Yeah, so did some of us. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I kinda hate 3rd ed for making me hang around this terrible company.

"Don't be delibeeatly obtuse for the sake of argument."

And this shows WHY you need tight rules, because people will argue almost anything to save their precious plastic men.

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I personally like the new CA missions more than ITC stuff, the ITC stuff is too easy to play gimmicks with and the newer missions really do a good job of mostly being relatively balanced with less to keep track of. That said, neither are perfect.

But I'll take almost anything over Maelstrom.

Maelstroms key problem is it is too random. Cards that score D3 compared to 1. Cards that you can't score. Drawing a score objective card that you started on? Secrete objectives? Just terrible.

Have you read CA 2019?

Wasn't aware Maelstrom changed at all I have only played the eternal war missions. That is how interested everyone is here around Maelstrom. Taking out half the cards in the deck will sure help. 1 mulligan will help too. I'll try it out.

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, so did some of us. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I kinda hate 3rd ed for making me hang around this terrible company.

"Don't be delibeeatly obtuse for the sake of argument."

And this shows WHY you need tight rules, because people will argue almost anything to save their precious plastic men.

Well thats on you. I enjoyed 2nd 5th and 8th. When 6th and 7th proved to be not to my liking I played other games for a few years. Its not GWs fault you hang around them like an abused spouse because you choose to play in an environment that invites toxic behaviour, by which I mean tournament level 40k (unless you're Karol and its literally your only option and you don't get any satisfaction out of the collecting/painting side of the hobby).

Also damn you for making me use the word "toxic" like that.

 Dr. Mills wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

Unless it implies that GW doesn't listen to their suggestions...

That's the thing though. GW did listen, but FLG thinks they know better than GW at this point. Because why else would they stick with their missions than use the CA2018 missions like many were asking in their feedback thread? And go against GW FAQ in rulings which I find disrespectful.

Because if anything, FLG doesn't listen.

Why should they listen? Why wouldn't they know better than GW? It's not like GW's 40k knowledge is that high of a bar.

Do you remember Ironhands on launch? I do. Do you remember how GW was flabbergasted that players figured out a salamanders combo to do 20 mortal wounds in a phase? I do.

GW has not demonstrated any particular expertise when it comes to 40k. There's no reason to trust them over pretty much any random player on the street. When they show that they actually have special insight into the functionality of the game, then we can start critisizing TOs for modifying their rules. As it stands they've bumbled their way through the last several codexes and deserve no benefit of the doubt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, so did some of us. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I kinda hate 3rd ed for making me hang around this terrible company.

"Don't be delibeeatly obtuse for the sake of argument."

And this shows WHY you need tight rules, because people will argue almost anything to save their precious plastic men.

Well thats on you. I enjoyed 2nd 5th and 8th. When 6th and 7th proved to be not to my liking I played other games for a few years. Its not GWs fault you hang around them like an abused spouse because you choose to play in an environment that invites toxic behaviour, by which I mean tournament level 40k (unless you're Karol and its literally your only option and you don't get any satisfaction out of the collecting/painting side of the hobby).

Also damn you for making me use the word "toxic" like that.

Tournament play invites toxic behavoir? Then why are the absolute most toxic people in 40k the casual/ anti-tournament crowd? Why is it that it's only ever people like you dismissing an entire facet of how people enjoy the game? No one goes onto narrative threads an says gak like you do.

Why are you even here if you don't play tournaments? What difference does it make to you whether competitive events use ITC or CA? Do you really have so little going on?

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

So why do they make a game where you need the expertise to rejigger the points on the fly to avoid the people who bought the wrong models getting wiped off the table in a turn and a half by the people who bought the right models?

 Xenomancers wrote:
Also the parts of 40k I enjoy the most are fighting in the open and advancing at the opponent. ILOS and Character targeting rules are already kind of bonkers - they should not be made even better with automatic places to hide most of your army.

I never thought I'd see someone argue that terrain is bad and being able to avoid enemy fire is a problem. I know you play Ultramarines, but do you also happen to play any non-gunline armies to understand the other perspective? My Guard love a bare table, but my Tyranids simply don't function on planet bowling ball.

I've long maintained the opposite view: I get much more enjoyable games by applying area terrain rules (TLOS can die in a fire) and having enough terrain density that it meaningfully impacts maneuver and targeting. If I have unobstructed line of sight to even half the enemy's army after deployment, something has gone wrong.

Dense terrain + take-and-hold objectives heavily disincentivize static gunlines, and IMO that's purely a good thing. Heavier emphasis on maneuver, and having a real tradeoff to staying back in a far corner, makes for a more dynamic and less meat grinder-y, listbuilding-driven game.

ERJAK wrote:

 Dr. Mills wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

But the FLG guys are the playtesters. They suggest balance changes, it was mentioned in other threads that they offer feedback on stuff using GW missions.

And for some reason they do not think that those missions they themselves helped to balance are good enough... It makes no fething sense.

Unless it implies that GW doesn't listen to their suggestions...

That's the thing though. GW did listen, but FLG thinks they know better than GW at this point. Because why else would they stick with their missions than use the CA2018 missions like many were asking in their feedback thread? And go against GW FAQ in rulings which I find disrespectful.

Because if anything, FLG doesn't listen.

Why should they listen? Why wouldn't they know better than GW? It's not like GW's 40k knowledge is that high of a bar.

Do you remember Ironhands on launch? I do. Do you remember how GW was flabbergasted that players figured out a salamanders combo to do 20 mortal wounds in a phase? I do.

GW has not demonstrated any particular expertise when it comes to 40k. There's no reason to trust them over pretty much any random player on the street. When they show that they actually have special insight into the functionality of the game, then we can start critisizing TOs for modifying their rules. As it stands they've bumbled their way through the last several codexes and deserve no benefit of the doubt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, so did some of us. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I kinda hate 3rd ed for making me hang around this terrible company.

"Don't be delibeeatly obtuse for the sake of argument."

And this shows WHY you need tight rules, because people will argue almost anything to save their precious plastic men.

Well thats on you. I enjoyed 2nd 5th and 8th. When 6th and 7th proved to be not to my liking I played other games for a few years. Its not GWs fault you hang around them like an abused spouse because you choose to play in an environment that invites toxic behaviour, by which I mean tournament level 40k (unless you're Karol and its literally your only option and you don't get any satisfaction out of the collecting/painting side of the hobby).

Also damn you for making me use the word "toxic" like that.

Tournament play invites toxic behavoir? Then why are the absolute most toxic people in 40k the casual/ anti-tournament crowd? Why is it that it's only ever people like you dismissing an entire facet of how people enjoy the game? No one goes onto narrative threads an says gak like you do.

Why are you even here if you don't play tournaments? What difference does it make to you whether competitive events use ITC or CA? Do you really have so little going on?

The irony in this post is just too much.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

The game was not very fun to to play on the kitchen table also, that is the problem. GW rules writing, the size of armies and number of books required points rather at the fact, that the claim of not making a tournament game is just a smoke screen. And it is impossible to make an army with a winer and lose non competitive. w40k is not playing house, it is a game like chess, football or any fight sports.

tournament play invites toxic behavoir? Then why are the absolute most toxic people in 40k the casual/ anti-tournament crowd? Why is it that it's only ever people like you dismissing an entire facet of how people enjoy the game? No one goes onto narrative threads an says gak like you do.

True. I have never been to a big tournament, and played only in two store ones. At the same time, it wasn't really hard to play a few times against real donkey-caves. And there was no coleration with them playing in tournaments or not.

Karol wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everyone knows better than GW. That's the problem. GW has proven to be incompetent at rules and math since the early 90s.

Unfortunately GW never claimed to be making a competitive game. They want to make a game thats fun to play with your friends on the kitchen table/garage/wargame club.

The game was not very fun to to play on the kitchen table also, that is the problem. GW rules writing, the size of armies and number of books required points rather at the fact, that the claim of not making a tournament game is just a smoke screen. And it is impossible to make an army with a winer and lose non competitive. w40k is not playing house, it is a game like chess, football or any fight sports.

tournament play invites toxic behavoir? Then why are the absolute most toxic people in 40k the casual/ anti-tournament crowd? Why is it that it's only ever people like you dismissing an entire facet of how people enjoy the game? No one goes onto narrative threads an says gak like you do.

True. I have never been to a big tournament, and played only in two store ones. At the same time, it wasn't really hard to play a few times against real donkey-caves. And there was no coleration with them playing in tournaments or not.

But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

 Sim-Life wrote:
...But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

Is the donkey-cave in this situation the person who says "I'm just playing my army, stop whining and get better/buy different models!" or the person who says "I want to play my army but I can't because yours is OP, stop playing your army and buy different models!"?

Just curious.

Oh this again?

ITC missions are bad (IMHO). The scoring is fine. So is, arguably, the first floor LOS blocking rule. It's just the missions that are problematic, doubly so because the AOS missions are good enough but 40k are not and need special missions to "fix" them for tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
...But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

Is the donkey-cave in this situation the person who says "I'm just playing my army, stop whining and get better/buy different models!" or the person who says "I want to play my army but I can't because yours is OP, stop playing your army and buy different models!"?

Just curious.

The first one definitely. The second most likely depending on circumstances but likely yes.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
...But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

Is the donkey-cave in this situation the person who says "I'm just playing my army, stop whining and get better/buy different models!" or the person who says "I want to play my army but I can't because yours is OP, stop playing your army and buy different models!"?

Just curious.

So everyone should just approach the game from the perspective of "I had my fun, and that's all that matters."?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
...But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

Is the donkey-cave in this situation the person who says "I'm just playing my army, stop whining and get better/buy different models!" or the person who says "I want to play my army but I can't because yours is OP, stop playing your army and buy different models!"?

Just curious.

So everyone should just approach the game from the perspective of "I had my fun, and that's all that matters."?

I don't know who you define as an donkey-cave. If your argument is that the game is designed to be a kitchen-table fun afternoon where people don't have to do prep work or analysis to produce close and interesting games isn't that an argument that as-written points and balance are more important? Or is your argument that the rules don't really matter that much and we should all be playing make-believe instead of playing a game because clear and consistent rules to resolve conflict in games of make-believe aren't "fun"? Is the donkey-cave the person who bought Grey Knights and grumbles about losing every game or is the donkey-cave the person who bought Iron Hands and crushes everyone else every game? How does your "don't play with the donkey-caves" theory prevent people from being donkey-caves when the rules of the game turn everyone into donkey-caves?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
...But the thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can choose not to play the donkey-caves (unless you're Karol etc etc). Then if EVERYONE won't play the donkey-caves eventually they might go "Am I the donkey-cave?"

Is the donkey-cave in this situation the person who says "I'm just playing my army, stop whining and get better/buy different models!" or the person who says "I want to play my army but I can't because yours is OP, stop playing your army and buy different models!"?

Just curious.

So everyone should just approach the game from the perspective of "I had my fun, and that's all that matters."?

I don't know who you define as an donkey-cave. If your argument is that the game is designed to be a kitchen-table fun afternoon where people don't have to do prep work or analysis to produce close and interesting games isn't that an argument that as-written points and balance are more important? Or is your argument that the rules don't really matter that much and we should all be playing make-believe instead of playing a game because clear and consistent rules to resolve conflict in games of make-believe aren't "fun"? Is the donkey-cave the person who bought Grey Knights and grumbles about losing every game or is the donkey-cave the person who bought Iron Hands and crushes everyone else every game? How does your "don't play with the donkey-caves" theory prevent people from being donkey-caves when the rules of the game turn everyone into donkey-caves?

It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

 Octopoid wrote:
...It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

I don't know. I applied a definition of "donkey-cave" that seems consistent with what seems to happen when you ask people to start playing a new game that is wildly out of balance because it seems to me that Sim-Life's suggestion about not playing with the donkey-caves to make them realize they're donkey-caves doesn't account for the fact that people tend to assume other people are the donkey-cave in situations like those he's described. How do you define "donkey-cave"?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
...It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

I don't know. I applied a definition of "donkey-cave" that seems consistent with what seems to happen when you ask people to start playing a new game that is wildly out of balance because it seems to me that Sim-Life's suggestion about not playing with the donkey-caves to make them realize they're donkey-caves doesn't account for the fact that people tend to assume other people are the donkey-cave in situations like those he's described. How do you define "donkey-cave"?

For me, a donkey-cave is someone who, for whatever reason, makes playing the game not fun. That's not a particularly helpful definition, though, since what makes the game "not fun" for me might be the thing that makes the game fun for someone else.

I guess, given that, I'd say a true donkey-cave is someone who doesn't care about whether or not their opponent is having fun.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
How do you define "donkey-cave"?

"Failing the Voight-Kampff test"

The donkey cave is the person who doesn't understand that playing a game is a social interaction the aim of which is for both players to enjoy themselves and walk away from the game happy that they had a good time. I guess I'm in a minority that I want my opponent to have a good time as well when I play a game?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If your argument is that the game is designed to be a kitchen-table fun afternoon where people don't have to do prep work or analysis to produce close and interesting games isn't that an argument that as-written points and balance are more important?

Thank you. I hate this idea that balance isn't important for casual play. Two players getting into an argument over whether player B keeps losing because player A's army is overpowered or because player B just sucks is not a positive, friendly, fun interaction.

 Sim-Life wrote:
The donkey cave is the person who doesn't understand that playing a game is a social interaction the aim of which is for both players to enjoy themselves and walk away from the game happy that they had a good time.

This. This says what I was trying to say better than I said it.

 Octopoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
...It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

I don't know. I applied a definition of "donkey-cave" that seems consistent with what seems to happen when you ask people to start playing a new game that is wildly out of balance because it seems to me that Sim-Life's suggestion about not playing with the donkey-caves to make them realize they're donkey-caves doesn't account for the fact that people tend to assume other people are the donkey-cave in situations like those he's described. How do you define "donkey-cave"?

For me, a donkey-cave is someone who, for whatever reason, makes playing the game not fun. That's not a particularly helpful definition, though, since what makes the game "not fun" for me might be the thing that makes the game fun for someone else.

I guess, given that, I'd say a true donkey-cave is someone who doesn't care about whether or not their opponent is having fun.

Hypothetical scenario (Sim-Life, this is for you too): Two people decide to start playing 40k. They go out, decide on which models they think are cool, buy a bunch of stuff, paint it up, bring it in, play a game. One of them decided Knights looked cool and the other decided Deathwatch looked cool so the Knight player casually rolls over the Deathwatch player. Neither one of them had any fun.

Now. Freeze-frame. Whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the Deathwatch player for picking a weak army? Is it a fault of the Knight player for picking an army the Deathwatch don't have the weapons to counter? Who's responsible for going out and buying a different army to make the game more fun next time? Or is it perhaps the fault of the rules writers, who told them that 2,000pts of Deathwatch are capable of playing a game with 2,000pts of Knights?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
...It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

I don't know. I applied a definition of "donkey-cave" that seems consistent with what seems to happen when you ask people to start playing a new game that is wildly out of balance because it seems to me that Sim-Life's suggestion about not playing with the donkey-caves to make them realize they're donkey-caves doesn't account for the fact that people tend to assume other people are the donkey-cave in situations like those he's described. How do you define "donkey-cave"?

For me, a donkey-cave is someone who, for whatever reason, makes playing the game not fun. That's not a particularly helpful definition, though, since what makes the game "not fun" for me might be the thing that makes the game fun for someone else.

I guess, given that, I'd say a true donkey-cave is someone who doesn't care about whether or not their opponent is having fun.

Hypothetical scenario (Sim-Life, this is for you too): Two people decide to start playing 40k. They go out, decide on which models they think are cool, buy a bunch of stuff, paint it up, bring it in, play a game. One of them decided Knights looked cool and the other decided Deathwatch looked cool so the Knight player casually rolls over the Deathwatch player. Neither one of them had any fun.

Now. Freeze-frame. Whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the Deathwatch player for picking a weak army? Is it a fault of the Knight player for picking an army the Deathwatch don't have the weapons to counter? Who's responsible for going out and buying a different army to make the game more fun next time? Or is it perhaps the fault of the rules writers, who told them that 2,000pts of Deathwatch are capable of playing a game with 2,000pts of Knights?

Why does someone need to be at fault? Why can't they agree to both make some changes to their armies and try again? Or agree to not play each other and find someone else to play with? Why didn't they discuss with one another beforehand what models they might bring?

In this case, the fault lies with the system, if fault there must be, but some of the fault falls on both players' shoulders as well. Neither one is a donkey-cave in this scenario, but neither one is totally blameless, either.

But why should the players be expected to know about the existence of hard counters and crap armies, let alone which is which? When the game implies, at the very least, that 2,000 points is a good match for 2,000 points.

 JNAProductions wrote:
But why should the players be expected to know about the existence of hard counters and crap armies, let alone which is which? When the game implies, at the very least, that 2,000 points is a good match for 2,000 points.

They shouldn't be expected to be masters of the game's nuances, but they should be expected to do some research into a game they're about to play, especially one with as high a buy-in as 40K. Maybe look at some netlists, maybe talk to some existing players, maybe even generalize based on previous gaming experience (if any).

If what you're looking for is a reason to blame GW, feel free to take that reason. I'm not going to say their points system couldn't use some... tweaking, let's say. But at the same time, every game is going to have a learning curve, and so players should expect said curve. If they don't do their due diligence, then some of the blame (again, if we have to blame anyone) must fall on them.

 Octopoid wrote:
...Why didn't they discuss with one another beforehand what models they might bring?...

EXACTLY.

Why does GW say "Hey, guys, we've written a game with points values intended to determine what two evenly-matched armies should look like!" if you still need to negotiate with your opponent about what army book you're allowed to use?

The situation created by GW where there is no functional objective way of making sure there is a balanced game (most games have balanced points, balanced scenarios, etc.) forces people into situations where you get subjectively labeled an "donkey-cave" for not accommodating your subjective experience, or get to label other people as "donkey-caves" for not accommodating your experience, because there is no way of figuring out what a good and interesting game is going to be outside of peoples' subjective experience.

Which means you have the choice of arguing about what should/shouldn't be on the table and risk being labeled "the donkey-cave", nodding mournfully and saying "yes maybe I should buy a different army" while seething inside at other people being donkey-caves and forcing you to go spend vast amounts of money on new stuff, or quitting and getting labeled "the donkey-cave" for not playing along with what everyone else is having fun with.

Which is why I say that the nature of the rules forces everyone to be an donkey-cave.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Octopoid wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
But why should the players be expected to know about the existence of hard counters and crap armies, let alone which is which? When the game implies, at the very least, that 2,000 points is a good match for 2,000 points.

They shouldn't be expected to be masters of the game's nuances, but they should be expected to do some research into a game they're about to play, especially one with as high a buy-in as 40K. Maybe look at some netlists, maybe talk to some existing players, maybe even generalize based on previous gaming experience (if any)...

How much of your prior gaming experience involved being told "Oh, you bought the wrong army book, you're screwed"? Do any other games work this way? I've never run across one.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
...Why didn't they discuss with one another beforehand what models they might bring?...

EXACTLY.

Why does GW say "Hey, guys, we've written a game with points values intended to determine what two evenly-matched armies should look like!" if you still need to negotiate with your opponent about what army book you're allowed to use?

The situation created by GW where there is no functional objective way of making sure there is a balanced game (most games have balanced points, balanced scenarios, etc.) forces people into situations where you get subjectively labeled an "donkey-cave" for not accommodating your subjective experience, or get to label other people as "donkey-caves" for not accommodating your experience, because there is no way of figuring out what a good and interesting game is going to be outside of peoples' subjective experience.

Which means you have the choice of arguing about what should/shouldn't be on the table and risk being labeled "the donkey-cave", nodding mournfully and saying "yes maybe I should buy a different army" while seething inside at other people being donkey-caves and forcing you to go spend vast amounts of money on new stuff, or quitting and getting labeled "the donkey-cave" for not playing along with what everyone else is having fun with.

Which is why I say that the nature of the rules forces everyone to be an donkey-cave.

Well, sounds like you've got yourself a position there. Maybe you should just not play Warhammer 40K?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
[How much of your prior gaming experience involved being told "Oh, you bought the wrong army book, you're screwed"? Do any other games work this way? I've never run across one.

It's happened a time or two. I bought the Monster Manual for AD&D before I knew what the game really was, and was told I needed a different book to play it. Fair enough, my fault, I didn't do my due diligence. At the end of the day though, I still had a fun book with some cool monsters in it.

Maybe instead of looking for someone to blame, you should focus on finding out how to have fun with what you already have? Just a thought.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
...It's amazing, I've managed to play games my entire adult life and have only run into one or two donkey-caves. And yet, the rules apparently turn everyone into [donkey-caves]? Huh. Maybe I've been the cave in every game all along...

I don't know. I applied a definition of "donkey-cave" that seems consistent with what seems to happen when you ask people to start playing a new game that is wildly out of balance because it seems to me that Sim-Life's suggestion about not playing with the donkey-caves to make them realize they're donkey-caves doesn't account for the fact that people tend to assume other people are the donkey-cave in situations like those he's described. How do you define "donkey-cave"?

For me, a donkey-cave is someone who, for whatever reason, makes playing the game not fun. That's not a particularly helpful definition, though, since what makes the game "not fun" for me might be the thing that makes the game fun for someone else.

I guess, given that, I'd say a true donkey-cave is someone who doesn't care about whether or not their opponent is having fun.

Hypothetical scenario (Sim-Life, this is for you too): Two people decide to start playing 40k. They go out, decide on which models they think are cool, buy a bunch of stuff, paint it up, bring it in, play a game. One of them decided Knights looked cool and the other decided Deathwatch looked cool so the Knight player casually rolls over the Deathwatch player. Neither one of them had any fun.

Now. Freeze-frame. Whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the Deathwatch player for picking a weak army? Is it a fault of the Knight player for picking an army the Deathwatch don't have the weapons to counter? Who's responsible for going out and buying a different army to make the game more fun next time? Or is it perhaps the fault of the rules writers, who told them that 2,000pts of Deathwatch are capable of playing a game with 2,000pts of Knights?

Do the players know each other? How long? Were they friends prior to starting 40k? Who suggested starting 40k? Are they going to regularly play each other? Does one player have more money than the other? Did either player seek advice on the internet? Will the Knight player insist on continuing to use Knights knowing he will easily beat the DG player? Are they the only players in the area? Do they have an FLGS or similar group? Did they have a lot of terrain? Did they play a scenario or just try to kill each other? Did someone actually teach them how to play or are they learning themselves? Did they make lists or just buy models and plonk them on the table?

I could keep going. Unfortunately social interaction isn't as simple as you'd like to make it out to be. For example a new guy joined our group recently and he's never played an actual game before. Never written a list even. So I wrote a really soft tyranid list full of sub-optimal units. He was playing space marines. If I'd played against him like I would any of our other group members I would have steamrolled him. He wouldn't have fun, I'd feel gakky, both people have a bad time and at least one is potentially out of the game because his first game was awful.

But by the logic of some on here I should have lost because SM are OP currently and Tyranids are near the bottom of the power rankings. It would be nice if everything was as simple as "tournament rankings are the be all and end all" but there are far more factors in a game at play than people like to admit.

ITC continues to exist only to stroke the egos of the people that run it. If they aren't allowed to have 40k play exactly according to their rules, they aren't interested.

 Sim-Life wrote:
The donkey cave is the person who doesn't understand that playing a game is a social interaction the aim of which is for both players to enjoy themselves and walk away from the game happy that they had a good time.

Bingo.

If people are engaging with each other in good faith, you will laugh about imbalance and adjust the lists/mission as needed to have fun.

If people aren't engaging in good faith... well, who cares about their opinion anyway?

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The donkey cave is the person who doesn't understand that playing a game is a social interaction the aim of which is for both players to enjoy themselves and walk away from the game happy that they had a good time.

Bingo.

If people are engaging with each other in good faith, you will laugh about imbalance and adjust the lists/mission as needed to have fun.

If people aren't engaging in good faith... well, who cares about their opinion anyway?

I lament that I can give you but one Exalt, good sir.

Except Wizards of The Coast don’t TELL YOU that you only need the MM to play! (And TSR before them as well.)

While it is labeled a core book, it is one of three-and with those three books, you have functioning game. (At least for 4E and 5E. 3.5 is a mess, and I lack experience with before then.) 40k, if you go off what GW says, can easily result in a game so one-sided as to be non functional.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Except Wizards of The Coast don’t TELL YOU that you only need the MM to play! (And TSR before them as well.)

While it is labeled a core book, it is one of three-and with those three books, you have functioning game. (At least for 4E and 5E. 3.5 is a mess, and I lack experience with before then.) 40k, if you go off what GW says, can easily result in a game so one-sided as to be non functional.

So make it functional! Change the missions, have one player play down some points, fiddle with it to make it fun! Or don't play it!

Yes, GW should make a "better" game, where "better" means "more balanced." Feel free to quote me on that. At the same time, if you hate it so much, why play it? And if you don't play it, why do you come to squat on those who do?

I’m not crapping in anyone but GW. I do have fun playing, but here’s the thing-I don’t play SM anymore. They’re too powerful-it’s not fun to play as them.

GW needs to do a better job. We can have fun IN SPITE of GW’s crappy work. But they need to do a better job.

 Octopoid wrote:
Why does someone need to be at fault? Why can't they agree to both make some changes to their armies and try again? Or agree to not play each other and find someone else to play with? Why didn't they discuss with one another beforehand what models they might bring?

I've seen this play out before.

'Hey, I think your Knights army might be a bit too effective against my Deathwatch, can you change up your army?'

Pick from any one of the following responses:

'I don't think so, I think you may just be playing wrong.'
'Okay.' [swaps a single Knight for a pair of Armigers, same result]
'I don't have any other models, what am I supposed to do?'
'I like my army. Why don't you try taking different models instead?'

You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

 Octopoid wrote:
In this case, the fault lies with the system, if fault there must be, but some of the fault falls on both players' shoulders as well. Neither one is a donkey-cave in this scenario, but neither one is totally blameless, either.

Nah, I don't think it's at all reasonable to blame players for playing the game as written, running into a massive imbalance caused by the game's writing, and not having fun as a result. They've done literally nothing wrong.

Also, if I HAVE offended anyone with my words, I apologize. I don’t mean to be mean to anyone but GW. GW has done crappy work, but those who play it are fine folk, generally.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I’m not crapping in anyone but GW. I do have fun playing, but here’s the thing-I don’t play SM anymore. They’re too powerful-it’s not fun to play as them.

GW needs to do a better job. We can have fun IN SPITE of GW’s crappy work. But they need to do a better job.

I actually don't disagree but more because I think GW are being too heavy handed in there attempts to make balanced. Indexhammer was pretty balanced but got pretty boring pretty quickly because no of the units made me excited to field. Part of why I dropped 7th was the same thing. Necrons and Nids were just boring to play and I started Warmachine and delighted in finding weird synergies and combos in the armies and to this day I will choose to play my janky Old Witch1 or Rhyas1 list because I love the interactions they have over the tournament lists that have been done to death. Assassinating a character with Old Witch teleporting from across the board will always be more satisfying and fun to me than whatever metalisting nonsense most people will expect at tournaments.

But to drag this thread kicking and screaming back to the topic the CA2019 missions are actually something GW have done a good job on. I haven't had such close game in years and often the game is fairly even until turn 4. Something has to go seriously wrong early on for one player for them to be totally dominated by the opponent in terms of VP.

Let's not get into the weeds of why 40k is a crappy game. There are a million threads for that.

I'm curious to see people experience with the CA 2019 missions vs the ITC champion mission pack or just your experiences with the CA 2019 missions (as I've played enough ITC to know how it works and where it falls short).

Has anyone actually tried to play a competitive tournament using the CA 2019 missions? Where do you think they promote imbalance/skew? What are your favorite parts and what do you think could be changed?

I've only played casual games with the 2019 missions (no marine supplements). I think they favor fearless hordes at the expense of more expensive troops. They break once you include faction specific maelstrom cards in your deck. Also, not a huge fan of the variable VP (d3 sucks almost as bad as d6). You need troops that can hold objectives and you actually are punished for going first which kind of makes up for how much of your opponents army you can kill with alpha strikes.

No amount of mission massaging can fix the broken mess that GW has made of 8th edition but I find the list building restrictions of the ITC secondaries to be more imbalanced and less fun than the CA 2019 missions with some small tweaks.

 catbarf wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
Why does someone need to be at fault? Why can't they agree to both make some changes to their armies and try again? Or agree to not play each other and find someone else to play with? Why didn't they discuss with one another beforehand what models they might bring?

I've seen this play out before.

'Hey, I think your Knights army might be a bit too effective against my Deathwatch, can you change up your army?'

Pick from any one of the following responses:

'I don't think so, I think you may just be playing wrong.'
'Okay.' [swaps a single Knight for a pair of Armigers, same result]
'I don't have any other models, what am I supposed to do?'
'I like my army. Why don't you try taking different models instead?'

You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

 Octopoid wrote:
In this case, the fault lies with the system, if fault there must be, but some of the fault falls on both players' shoulders as well. Neither one is a donkey-cave in this scenario, but neither one is totally blameless, either.

Nah, I don't think it's at all reasonable to blame players for playing the game as written, running into a massive imbalance caused by the game's writing, and not having fun as a result. They've done literally nothing wrong.

Why not? Do they live somewhere that has Warhammer but no internet access? Do they not use Facebook? Are they Chinese and Google is banned? Who are these mysterious people who live on a desert island with only each other for company and only a single, unstaffed Warhammer store and no internet access?

 catbarf wrote:
You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

That's a straw man, and you know it. I CAN reasonably expect casual players to do some research before dropping a hundred or more dollars on a new game, EACH, and then also expect them to come to some kind of agreement about how to have fun playing that game.

And the research shows that Deathwatch and Knights are both good, but not top tier. And yet, one hard counters the other-seems obvious to those who play it, but for a new player? Might not be so clear till AFTER they sink hundreds of dollars.

 JNAProductions wrote:
And the research shows that Deathwatch and Knights are both good, but not top tier. And yet, one hard counters the other-seems obvious to those who play it, but for a new player? Might not be so clear till AFTER they sink hundreds of dollars.

What, exactly, do you want me to say?

That new players cannot be reasonably expected to know what works and what doesn’t, even with appropriate research, because GW is such a colossal feth-up? Something like that

 Octopoid wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

That's a straw man, and you know it. I CAN reasonably expect casual players to do some research before dropping a hundred or more dollars on a new game, EACH, and then also expect them to come to some kind of agreement about how to have fun playing that game.

There are, what, twenty 'armies' with unique standalone Codexes in the game, plus three types of soup, plus however you want to define all the available sub-factions. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect a newbie to fill out a 23*23 (or bigger ) grid of how all armies fare in every possible match-up when they need to dig through a lot of random arguments (endlessly derailed by Martel who wants to make everything about Blood Angels) to get even a vague sense of what one square of their grid looks like before they decide what army to purchase/what models to purchase?

And you still think 40k is designed to be a simple casual beer-and-pretzels game?

I haven't played any CA missions to date. But my dudes tell me they're awesome. I play a lot of ITC, the missions don't bother me, but I do wish for more variation. One GT I was in did modified ITC and Nova missions. I actually liked the Nova style missions and scoring. They seemed a little contrived at first reading, once I actually got in the event it made way more sense.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That new players cannot be reasonably expected to know what works and what doesn’t, even with appropriate research, because GW is such a colossal feth-up? Something like that

Good luck. It seems to me that if GW were such a colossal failure, there would never be new players, or old players, or players at all. The fact that so many people seem able to derive an enjoyable game from what they have produced, yourself included, seems to indicate they may have done exactly what they wanted and made a game that reasonable people communicating reasonably can manage to eke some fun out of.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Why not? Do they live somewhere that has Warhammer but no internet access? Do they not use Facebook? Are they Chinese and Google is banned? Who are these mysterious people who live on a desert island with only each other for company and only a single, unstaffed Warhammer store and no internet access?

Yeah, actually, I spent a couple of years in sub-Saharan Africa where the only Internet access was through the embassy and we weren't going to tie up the diplomat's phone line to look up wargame metas. Maybe an extreme example, but we're talking about a completely physical product with no Internet-based component whatsoever. It shouldn't need Internet commentary from the fanbase to be made playable.

I also was alive before the Internet was ubiquitous, and we had wargames back then too. It's easier than ever to find house rules and commentary to help fix a game- but by the same token it's easier than ever to conduct playtesting and get substantive feedback to deliver a better game and, more importantly, fix it after the fact.

 Octopoid wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

That's a straw man, and you know it. I CAN reasonably expect casual players to do some research before dropping a hundred or more dollars on a new game, EACH, and then also expect them to come to some kind of agreement about how to have fun playing that game.

That's not a straw man; that's just the (very high) requirement for two casual players to know exactly how their game is imbalanced and agree on the best resolution. Otherwise if they recognize a problem but disagree on the severity, cause, or solution, you get the kinds of arguments I posted right above that line.

But okay, let's say everyone's on the same page and they figure out exactly what's wrong with their matchup and how to address it. Now is 'sorry, I guess we can't build the armies we wanted, the rules will break, take these units you have no interest in but the Internet says are essential' someone's idea of fun?

You're asking casual players to do the designer's job of balancing out their respective armies, before they even buy into the game. Lots of great games out there don't have that requirement. Back in the pre-Internet days that wasn't even an option.

Let me be clear: I'm not asking for perfect design. I'm asking to not blame the players for not having the foresight and expertise to go on the Internet, figure out that their matchup is broken, and figure out how they can fix it before they even play the game. I'm also asking to not use 'well you can just sort it out with your friends' to justify bad design, as if the fact that we can put on our designer hats and fix it ourselves means those flaws don't exist. I don't think these are unreasonable things to ask.

Then you got what you want several posts ago. I already said that if anyone is to blame it’s the system, and that GW should make it better. So... maybe call it good and stop stretching my arguments to their most absurd lengths to get what I already gave?

 Octopoid wrote:
Then you got what you want several posts ago. I already said that if anyone is to blame it’s the system, and that GW should make it better. So... maybe call it good and stop stretching my arguments to their most absurd lengths to get what I already gave?

......???

but some of the fault falls on both players' shoulders as well.

'Yeah the game is broken, but also you didn't go on the Internet and become an armchair expert on the meta so that you could preemptively fix the game before you even play it, so really nobody's blameless here'?

 catbarf wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
Then you got what you want several posts ago. I already said that if anyone is to blame it’s the system, and that GW should make it better. So... maybe call it good and stop stretching my arguments to their most absurd lengths to get what I already gave?

......???

but some of the fault falls on both players' shoulders as well.

'Yeah the game is broken, but also you didn't go on the Internet and become an armchair expert on the meta so that you could preemptively fix the game before you even play it, so really nobody's blameless here'?

There’s that straw man again. Never said expert, armchair or otherwise, never said preemptively fixing anything, never said game was broken. What I said was, and apparently I have to say it again, it is reasonable to expect reasonable people to do reasonable research into a game before dropping a lot of money on it, and that those same reasonable people using reasonable communication should be able to find fun in said game.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You can't reasonably expect casual players to look up the competitive meta, get a comprehensive sense for how each army matches up, develop a competitive perspective for the relative strengths of their units, end up with the exact same perspective so that they don't instantly launch into disagreement (see: any balance thread on Dakka), and then modify their armies as a result. That's way too much to ask.

That's a straw man, and you know it. I CAN reasonably expect casual players to do some research before dropping a hundred or more dollars on a new game, EACH, and then also expect them to come to some kind of agreement about how to have fun playing that game.

There are, what, twenty 'armies' with unique standalone Codexes in the game, plus three types of soup, plus however you want to define all the available sub-factions. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect a newbie to fill out a 23*23 (or bigger ) grid of how all armies fare in every possible match-up when they need to dig through a lot of random arguments (endlessly derailed by Martel who wants to make everything about Blood Angels) to get even a vague sense of what one square of their grid looks like before they decide what army to purchase/what models to purchase?

And you still think 40k is designed to be a simple casual beer-and-pretzels game?

I don't know why you think its so hard to go to google and type in "Death Guard advice" or go to Facebook, type "Death Guard", join one of the multiple groups (one of which has 15k members and averages 90 posts a day) and say "We just started 40k and my friend plays knights but I can't beat him, advice please?"
But then I suppose when you apply any sort of autonomy or initative to these players your argument falls apart.

Oky. And what happens when the advice is “Buy a double-thermal Renegade Knight”?

That’s about $200 on the model and codex.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Oky. And what happens when the advice is “Buy a double-thermal Renegade Knight”?

That’s about $200 on the model and codex.

I know you weren’t asking me, but my response is, if that’s the only advice they get, they got bad advice. Maybe the Knights player could play down some points, or maybe since he already has the codex, they could share for a bit. Maybe they both want to try new armies, or maybe the DW player could try adding more terrain or objectives.

The point is, it’s not a white room scenario. People make bad investments in bad games all the time and still manage to have fun with them. Reasonable people communicating reasonably can derive fun from a broken system.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Oky. And what happens when the advice is “Buy a double-thermal Renegade Knight”?

That’s about $200 on the model and codex.

People starting off don't need to,and often won't be, ultra cutting edge.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Oky. And what happens when the advice is “Buy a double-thermal Renegade Knight”?

That’s about $200 on the model and codex.

Can you please stop with these ridiculous hypotheticals and straw men (which you seem to be clutching at the innards of).

Currently you've presented us with two fictional players, the two of which are the only players in the area, who are apparently mute except for when playing a game of Warhammer, have no ability to work things out for themselves and have found a Facebook group where the only advice via the unanimous consensus of 15000 people is "buy a knight as well". It's off topic and silly.

Why has this thread about ITC Missions versus Chapter Approved 2019 Missions transformed into a discussion about two new players playing highly specialized list against each other? It's not really on topic.

On topic is why does every discussion of ITC vs CA2019 descend into someone saying FLG are evil overlords attempting to form WH40K into their own image?

I have to assume people making these accusations don't actually do any research into that FLG is thinking. They have literally said on many occasions that the run their tournaments the way people want to play them. From 2K point, developing and updating the ITC Missions, and everything else it is all about getting the players in the door with their dollar. They must be doing something right since over 1000 people decided to buy tickets to the LVO Championship Tournament.

As for giving up the ITC Missions, they have actually said they will be discussing with the community for the next ITC Season (aka after LVO) about changing the missions for future tournaments. If you are one of the people that playing their events, they will want to hear your opinion.

 Ishagu wrote:
During the craziness of 7th edition, and the relatively rough start that encapsulated the early days of 8th, a very strong case could be made for a custom mission pack that created a sense of order in the chaos that was 40k.
There is no doubt that the ITC missions were a good addition and a positive force in the game when 8th edition dropped.

This is no longer the case, I'm afraid to say. Frankly I am surprised that huge parts of the community are woefully ignorant of the fact that the Chapter Approved Eternal War missions in the 2018 and now 2019 books are not only well balanced and designed to reward list variety, but are also far more varied and fun than what the ITC mission pack offers.

Let's not beat about the bush. The ITC mission pack is effectively one single missions with tiny variations - there are utterly minimal changes. In addition to this, it promotes spam lists and static gun-lines. When you have a system of play where players can CHOSE what to score, it creates an environment where you spam units that make it easy to achieve the objectives you want. In ITC you can literally win most of your games without moving. Kill More, Hold More - a classic staple of gun line lists. Or how about you spam flyers and chose to focus on table quarters and behind enemy lines?
No matter how you swing it, it does create a negative play experience and it's a reason why so many abusive lists exist. Things will die in games of 40k anyway, don't make it a focus of mission objectives in every mission on top of that.

Look at the recent tournament at GW. The lists and faction variety was far greater, and looking at the top 30 the meta looks far, far healthier than what ITC events create the impression of. To put it bluntly, if you have a list that doesn't move you will typically lose 5/6 Chapter Approved missions.
They reward variety of lists - you need to bring a healthy amount of troops, fast moving units, objective scorers, characters, etc, etc in order to score the varied mission objectives.

Lack of data means we cannot categorically prove that the CA mission pack is strictly more balanced. It certainly does not promote spam/gunlines as much as the ITC missions do, that is a fact. It's also far more fun and varied than the single ITC mission with minor variations from game to game that has become the staple of so many people's gaming experience.
My eyes were opened after getting involved in some ETC style events a while back, and following on from them it was a case of experimentation and experience at smaller events that used the CA mission pack. As I have played more and more using the CA format, by comparison the ITC missions have looked more and more dull.

Let's no understate how much good work the ITC guys have done. Things like leader-boards, hobby track, promoting the game, etc. The mission pack has now become restrictive and is no longer the most positive way to play the game.

I also expect many competitive ITC players to refute what I say. They'll have limited experience with CA missions, they might refuse to believe that GW has done a good job with the pack, and they might simply be too set in they ways.
There is no question, no disputation, that the ITC mission pack is less varied. There is no question that it promotes spam lists and gun-lines due to players choosing what to score. There is no need to use it any more.

We've accepted the rules that GW put out without having to modify them. Let's accept their mission packs too.

I despise ITC rules and avoid them at all costs. Using CA18-19 is my preferred way of playing along with Open War which I personally think is best for events. It's quick and fun!

 alextroy wrote:

I have to assume people making these accusations don't actually do any research into that FLG is thinking. They have literally said on many occasions that the run their tournaments the way people want to play them. From 2K point, developing and updating the ITC Missions, and everything else it is all about getting the players in the door with their dollar. They must be doing something right since over 1000 people decided to buy tickets to the LVO Championship Tournament.

As for giving up the ITC Missions, they have actually said they will be discussing with the community for the next ITC Season (aka after LVO) about changing the missions for future tournaments. If you are one of the people that playing their events, they will want to hear your opinion.

Well, that is new, as last time they definitely didn't want to hear anyone's opinion if it differed from their preconceived notions. Their previous* questionnaire literally didn't even list using CA missions as an option, they merely asked about various ways to improve their own missions. When I pointed this out, they seemed perplexed, and were just "oh, no one wants to use CA missions, so we didn't put the option there."

(* I think it was the previous one, but I'm not absolutely sure.)

 Crimson wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

I have to assume people making these accusations don't actually do any research into that FLG is thinking. They have literally said on many occasions that the run their tournaments the way people want to play them. From 2K point, developing and updating the ITC Missions, and everything else it is all about getting the players in the door with their dollar. They must be doing something right since over 1000 people decided to buy tickets to the LVO Championship Tournament.

As for giving up the ITC Missions, they have actually said they will be discussing with the community for the next ITC Season (aka after LVO) about changing the missions for future tournaments. If you are one of the people that playing their events, they will want to hear your opinion.

Well, that is new, as last time they definitely didn't want to hear anyone's opinion if it differed from their preconceived notions. Their previous* questionnaire literally didn't even list using CA missions as an option, they merely asked about various ways to improve their own missions. When I pointed this out, they seemed perplexed, and were just "oh, no one wants to use CA missions, so we didn't put the option there."

(* I think it was the previous one, but I'm not absolutely sure.)

Well, the previous CA missions also were not as refined as the current ones.

"Refined". This is Geedubs.

Martel732 wrote:
"Refined". This is Geedubs.

And we're capable of judging them on their actual merits are we not?

 alextroy wrote:
Why has this thread about ITC Missions versus Chapter Approved 2019 Missions transformed into a discussion about two new players playing highly specialized list against each other? It's not really on topic.

On topic is why does every discussion of ITC vs CA2019 descend into someone saying FLG are evil overlords attempting to form WH40K into their own image?

I have to assume people making these accusations don't actually do any research into that FLG is thinking. They have literally said on many occasions that the run their tournaments the way people want to play them. From 2K point, developing and updating the ITC Missions, and everything else it is all about getting the players in the door with their dollar. They must be doing something right since over 1000 people decided to buy tickets to the LVO Championship Tournament.

As for giving up the ITC Missions, they have actually said they will be discussing with the community for the next ITC Season (aka after LVO) about changing the missions for future tournaments. If you are one of the people that playing their events, they will want to hear your opinion.

Because a few pages back someone said that maybe GW really does know what they're doing and the ITC folks are pushing their flawed and static format out of inertia, and then some other folks said "GW knows what they're doing? Are you mad?", and the rest of the argument was an attempt to establish that GW doesn't know what they're doing in general.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

I have to assume people making these accusations don't actually do any research into that FLG is thinking. They have literally said on many occasions that the run their tournaments the way people want to play them. From 2K point, developing and updating the ITC Missions, and everything else it is all about getting the players in the door with their dollar. They must be doing something right since over 1000 people decided to buy tickets to the LVO Championship Tournament.

As for giving up the ITC Missions, they have actually said they will be discussing with the community for the next ITC Season (aka after LVO) about changing the missions for future tournaments. If you are one of the people that playing their events, they will want to hear your opinion.

Well, that is new, as last time they definitely didn't want to hear anyone's opinion if it differed from their preconceived notions. Their previous* questionnaire literally didn't even list using CA missions as an option, they merely asked about various ways to improve their own missions. When I pointed this out, they seemed perplexed, and were just "oh, no one wants to use CA missions, so we didn't put the option there."

(* I think it was the previous one, but I'm not absolutely sure.)

Well, the previous CA missions also were not as refined as the current ones.

Refined or otherwise is irrelevant, if you're only presented with multiple types of chocolate ice cream to choose from, you're only ever going to end up with chocolate ice cream.

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm currently playtesting for a campaign I'm setting up that will involve a bunch of different warzones - basically themed terrain sets at each table that have photographs of suggested terrain densities and 1-2 unique rules per table.

This is pretty interesting, I like the idea of different biomes and different terrain.

I think competitive players sometimes value repetition over diversity, hence the ITC. But obviously units have different strengths. A lot of people are talking about "balance" but they really only mean within a single mission, terain setup, and points level.

 solkan wrote:
Odd that this is posted in "40k General Discussion" and not "Tournament Discussion".

Maybe because ITC missions are used outside tournaments as well?


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Sunny Side Up wrote:
I think ITC is pretty good for beginner players and the younger and/or more casual crowd.

The whole “choose-your-own-Adventure-secondaries” and similarity of missions reduces complexity a lot and demands far less on-the-spot decision-making between sub-optimal choices and adaptation between rounds to very different win conditions.

I think the simplification of the game through ITC is one of the reasons the 40K became a lot more popular in the US in particular, opening the Hobby to people who might’ve been put off by the challenge of older book/etc-style missions.

ITC meanwhile adds set of secondaries you need to build with in mind in advance AND then think based on opponents army. So not sure how that makes it more easier for new players who needs to learn to minimize secondaries opponent can score during list building and what secondaries to take vs each opponent.

 Octopoid wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
The donkey cave is the person who doesn't understand that playing a game is a social interaction the aim of which is for both players to enjoy themselves and walk away from the game happy that they had a good time.

Bingo.

If people are engaging with each other in good faith, you will laugh about imbalance and adjust the lists/mission as needed to have fun.

If people aren't engaging in good faith... well, who cares about their opinion anyway?

I lament that I can give you but one Exalt, good sir.

will do my humble duty.

and go one further, if the balance issues get too deep, you might aswell adjust locally and implement handicapp systems for certain factions, handicapp systems for certain players, etc.
Maybee you switch it up and do some outlandish narrative style campaign that doesn't allow for certain unit types, etc.


That doesn't however excuse GW from responsibility.

This thread quickly devolved into gakking all over GW and certain forum members...

OT though, I think ITC missions are becoming a relic of the past with the newer CA missions just being overall more fun and adding some flair whilst the ITC are just several bowls of absolutely serviceable porridge. It's filling, it gets the job done, and there are some grumpy bears defending it.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
This thread quickly devolved into gakking all over GW and certain forum members...

OT though, I think ITC missions are becoming a relic of the past with the newer CA missions just being overall more fun and adding some flair whilst the ITC are just several bowls of absolutely serviceable porridge. It's filling, it gets the job done, and there are some grumpy bears defending it.

The ITC do have one redeeming factor for tournament use though. Consistent points. Unless you go for simplistic "win=x pts, draw=y pts, loss=z pts" then it matters quite a lot if some scenarios have 18 pts max and others have 12 pts max. Or you need to create tournament point convertor for each scenario...Basically if you rate grade of victory consistent point scale for each scenario is essential.

That's something for CA20 to work for!

Martel732 wrote:
Trying to parse their gak ass rules even with friends is not my definition of a good time.

I mean, literally nobody is making you play it, so why don't you just find something you *do* enjoy to do instead? Cos as far as I can tell you just sit on this forum, year after year, pissing and moaning about something you hate. Get a better hobby, pal.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills as each talk of playing warhammer falls into the same issues.

" This would be better. "

" No it's not, GW is awful with rules "

" The rules aren't supposed to be good, they're supposed to be fun if you're wasted "

" Well they aren't even fun then "

On and on it goes. You know, as has been said now a million times at least. The whole they are making a game to be fun is great, but the tighter rules are the easier it is to have balanced fun. The easier it is to imbalance it if that is what players want as you know you're starting from a inherently balanced system.

GW talks out both sides of its mouth. They say they don't make the game to be balanced, then sell balance patches and crow about how good they balance things, until they fail then it was never their intention.

If GW missions are that cool, then they should get used at the higher levels as stagnation is bad. However the people who run the scenes have vested interest in keeping the status quo and are hardly impartial to their system.

The only way it would change is if GW too a hard line stance on it to force their missions being used. However for that to happen they'd need to tighten up their rules. Which while it is difficult to imagine, depends on how much they want to push their missions. They'd also need to front and organize large tournaments and denounce the others. I don't see GW doing that unless it goes to their bottom line in a big way in the positive.

I'd say people should try the missions out though, all you have to waste is a few games worth of time and it could be much fun. I mean, GW has to do something right sometime. It's inevitable.

I wish this thread had a poll. I'd be curious to see how many ITC die-hards have actually played the CA2019 mission as it seems many of them haven't even looked at them.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Refined". This is Geedubs.

And we're capable of judging them on their actual merits are we not?

HOWEVER, do you blame people not bothering to look at something new they did due to past efforts? It took me about a whole month to even bother to look at the new missions before saying "oh I guess these aren't that terrible".

tneva82 wrote:

The ITC do have one redeeming factor for tournament use though. Consistent points. Unless you go for simplistic "win=x pts, draw=y pts, loss=z pts" then it matters quite a lot if some scenarios have 18 pts max and others have 12 pts max. Or you need to create tournament point convertor for each scenario...Basically if you rate grade of victory consistent point scale for each scenario is essential.

That's something for CA20 to work for!

Can you explain this to me because I feel like there is something I'm missing?

If everyone uses the 14 point max scenario for round one and the 18 point max for round 2 how does this lead to any imbalance? If I get a blow out in the 14 point round and a close game in the 18 point? I feel that encourages true TAC lists not just builds that squeak by in some scenarios and ROFL PWN in others. If we are talking about season long ITC rankings, I'm not sure how ITC does the tie-breaker stuff and could present a problem but I'm ignorant about how much your margin of victory or total VPs impact your ITC rankings.

Edit:
I didn't look at the CA 2019 missions until I stopped playing competitively and was shocked. The book missions CA 2017 and CA 2018 were really bad, unbalanced RNG nightmares and I was shocked at how well CA 2019 worked (with a couple of small changes).

I agree with the OP but its not something that's going to happen overnight. What needs to happen is a major event or 2 needs to use CA19 to generate feedback and build community trust.

At the core of the matter though, we WANT GW to control the mission pack for the same reasons we want them providing regular errata. When the community is playing the game the designers are designing, the feedback is a lot better and as long as you're working with a receptive design team it will lead to overall better missions.

CA19 may not be better than ITC, but if we invest and play it, it will improve. The best games are the ones where the developers and community are working together to make the best game possible, and using CA19 is part the other side of the trust coin. It's a way to encourage the generally good behavior GW has shown in 8th and not something we want them to give up on.

The new marine codex and supplements is NOT good behavior

 LunarSol wrote:
I agree with the OP but its not something that's going to happen overnight. What needs to happen is a major event or 2 needs to use CA19 to generate feedback and build community trust.

Honestly I don't see that happening. Look at how the tournament community react in threads like this, then imagine if at the end of this years LVO (just an example cause its happening now) they said "Next year we'll be using CA2020. No, you don't have a choice and no there will be no houserules." As much as I would love to mine the salt of that particular announcement I don't see it happening.


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Martel732 wrote:
The new marine codex and supplements is NOT good behavior

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

Martel732 wrote:
The new marine codex and supplements is NOT good behavior

The core concept behind supplements is great Are there balance issues? Sure. Marine codex 2.0 is a big improvement over the first one IMO.

Too much of an improvement one might say.

Martel732 wrote:
Too much of an improvement one might say.

I wasn't referring to balance. The supplements give players more options. The successor system is also great. I have a strong dislike of soup lists so I like the super doctrines conceptually. Etc.

Edit I played Marines a lot in 8th, with the old codex Marines felt very bland as an army. They reminded me a lot of Skorne from M2 Warmahordes and not in a good way.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Too much of an improvement one might say.

I wasn't referring to balance. The supplements give players more options. The successor system is also great. I have a strong dislike of soup lists so I like the super doctrines conceptually. Etc.

Edit I played Marines a lot in 8th, with the old codex Marines felt very bland as an army. They reminded a lot of Skorne from M2 Warmahordes and not in a good way.

Yes and no. Yes the supplements add more stuff, but 8e reminds me a lot of D&D 3e in that the core system ("I move 30ft and roll an attack!") is pretty dull and the scramble to extend it with more and more and more WTs/Relics/Stratagems feels like 3e's push to hundreds and hundreds of pages of spells and feats and prestige classes. Bloat piled on top of a shaky foundation because without the bloat it isn't a very interesting game.

More options is the last thing gw needs to make available.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Too much of an improvement one might say.

I wasn't referring to balance. The supplements give players more options. The successor system is also great. I have a strong dislike of soup lists so I like the super doctrines conceptually. Etc.

Edit I played Marines a lot in 8th, with the old codex Marines felt very bland as an army. They reminded a lot of Skorne from M2 Warmahordes and not in a good way.

Yes and no. Yes the supplements add more stuff, but 8e reminds me a lot of D&D 3e in that the core system ("I move 30ft and roll an attack!") is pretty dull and the scramble to extend it with more and more and more WTs/Relics/Stratagems feels like 3e's push to hundreds and hundreds of pages of spells and feats and prestige classes. Bloat piled on top of a shaky foundation because without the bloat it isn't a very interesting game.

And? You can't fix that with a codex. You would have make a new edition to change that.

That said it has been clear to me for awhile that GW is copying the old rpg rules model. One that I am very familiar with.

bananathug wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

The ITC do have one redeeming factor for tournament use though. Consistent points. Unless you go for simplistic "win=x pts, draw=y pts, loss=z pts" then it matters quite a lot if some scenarios have 18 pts max and others have 12 pts max. Or you need to create tournament point convertor for each scenario...Basically if you rate grade of victory consistent point scale for each scenario is essential.

That's something for CA20 to work for!

Can you explain this to me because I feel like there is something I'm missing?

If everyone uses the 14 point max scenario for round one and the 18 point max for round 2 how does this lead to any imbalance? If I get a blow out in the 14 point round and a close game in the 18 point? I feel that encourages true TAC lists not just builds that squeak by in some scenarios and ROFL PWN in others. If we are talking about season long ITC rankings, I'm not sure how ITC does the tie-breaker stuff and could present a problem but I'm ignorant about how much your margin of victory or total VPs impact your ITC rankings.

Many tournaments use Victory Points gained to determine the winner, either as the score or the tie breaker. So let's take a 5 round Tournament in which the top two players go 4-1. The maximum VP per round are 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 due to the different scenario rules. Each player gets maximum points in 4 of the scenarios and 0 in the fifth.

Player A got 10 - 12 - 14 -16 - 0 VP, total of 52
Player B got 0 -12 - 14 - 16 - 18 VP, total of 60

Should the winner of the Tournament really be decided by which player lost their game in the round that had a higher VP total available? If the VP per round was equal, they would have identical scores.

 alextroy wrote:

bananathug wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

The ITC do have one redeeming factor for tournament use though. Consistent points. Unless you go for simplistic "win=x pts, draw=y pts, loss=z pts" then it matters quite a lot if some scenarios have 18 pts max and others have 12 pts max. Or you need to create tournament point convertor for each scenario...Basically if you rate grade of victory consistent point scale for each scenario is essential.

That's something for CA20 to work for!

Can you explain this to me because I feel like there is something I'm missing?

If everyone uses the 14 point max scenario for round one and the 18 point max for round 2 how does this lead to any imbalance? If I get a blow out in the 14 point round and a close game in the 18 point? I feel that encourages true TAC lists not just builds that squeak by in some scenarios and ROFL PWN in others. If we are talking about season long ITC rankings, I'm not sure how ITC does the tie-breaker stuff and could present a problem but I'm ignorant about how much your margin of victory or total VPs impact your ITC rankings.

Many tournaments use Victory Points gained to determine the winner, either as the score or the tie breaker. So let's take a 5 round Tournament in which the top two players go 4-1. The maximum VP per round are 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 due to the different scenario rules. Each player gets maximum points in 4 of the scenarios and 0 in the fifth.

Player A got 10 - 12 - 14 -16 - 0 VP, total of 52
Player B got 0 -12 - 14 - 16 - 18 VP, total of 60

Should the winner of the Tournament really be decided by which player lost their game in the round that had a higher VP total available? If the VP per round was equal, they would have identical scores.

I can see why. The last games should be harder fought since you've made your way up the field. Sure the 1st game might have been hard, but it's not as guaranteed as the last game being hardest.

A lot of tournaments, even big ones, have always used the CA missions since 2017. It's just that they do not figure in bcp, so people don't know that they exist.

When doing those kind of tournaments, you play using the following tiebreakers:

1) Wins are wins. If you win by 10 point or by zero points, no one cares.

2) Total score on secondaries is the first tiebreaker. So first strike, slay the warlord and linebreaker.

3) The second tiebreaker is the difference in destruction points suffered and inflicted.

As you see, there are no problems in that area, we have been doing that for years.

I would like to point out that the rule 1, is one of the biggest differences in the CA meta. In ITC to compete you don't only need a list that wins, but you need one which wins big or you will not make it to the top. In CA a list which wins barely but consistently is an excellent list.

Having played both formats, but neither to extremes.

I've never won nor placed well in any ITC tournaments. I have had a few good placements in local, small scale tournaments using custom packets (from 1 detachment, mono-codex, no-FW, ITC style missions to narrative events with very customized mission packs and scoring systems). I'd like to give my perspective. I also play kitchen-hammer a lot, both against begginers/curious people but also against veteral kitchen-hammers and smaller player groups.

For the TL;DR crowd: CA2019 eternal war missions are the most fun, most balanced and most varied missions I have ever played in 8th edition. I like some of the strengths of ITC format but ultimately, IMHO, for a semi-casual semi-competitive player base I could see more overall enjoyment, in-game and meta-game agency and more leveled playing field in the CA2019 mission packs.

Now let me define that I understand that ITC format brings in very positive aspects: the standardized scoring system allows for easier meta and tournament pairing analysis and discussion. The standardized table and terrain makes it easy to run large events and have terrain for all tables.

However, IMHO as a not so successful competitive player who also enjoys the more narrative moments of a game, I have to say I have found my ITC matches to be too restrictive. I dislike not encountering situations I have to severely change my game plan to adapt to, the decisions around what secondaries to pick and how to ruin my army become flattened if compared to the wild nature of CA2019 missions. Granted, it's great for people who crave that predictability of "I built my army so tight I can deal with it all" but it does result in flatter decision-making. It ultimately mostly boils down to realizing what unit combinations pay the best for your buck and keep you still tactically-flexible to deal with the current top-meta and gatekeeper builds. However, generally, upon hitting the table there is one predictable method to play against each type of opponent deployment/style and that's it, irregardless of what table, mission or secondaries you are taking. The game is set and it has been pre-set even before when you are building your list.

What I have enjoyed on the events and home games I played with using 2019CA is that some of the missions really throw a wrench in the plans. Now this can result in what people would identify as imbalance: running into the quintessential knight list with a deathwatch army in a mission that favors killing. now that is not an inherent flaw of the missions themselves, but rather the tournament structure. Players could have the ability to bid for deployment/missions, or have some control over what mission gets played in this specific round, and that should be part of solving for these so called "imbalanced missions".

So onto the topic of 2019CA missions themselves, I've played them all in different points-values, sometimes aiming for the WAAC and sometimes just for narrative's sake. What I have found is that they usually put both players in interesting scenarios that can really change their gameplan. The trifecta of Warlord kill, first strike and line breaker are always there to add some ways to have assured scoring, but they mostly pose interesting challenges that are not easily solved by the same tools:
1 - Crusade is pretty much standard 40k with fixed objectives.
2 - Scorched Earth is cool because you can deny your opponents objectives by destroying them, usually using throwaway units that can infiltrate or something that can get in and out fast. It creates interesting trade-off scenarios and can be extremely rewarding to play when both players are circling about trying to deny each other and end up swapping deployment zones =P
3 - Ascension is the kind of "broken" mission I can see lots of players complaining about, but it's interesting how it can lock your characters in place and how that can change the game so much.
4 - Front-Line Warfare is like Crusade on steroids as there are less objectives, but the aggression level can be much higher and a last-minute grab on your opponent's side of the table can flip over the game to your side.
5 - The Four Pillars is very interesting in the fact that scoring tends to be very balanced despite opponents sometimes being extremely lopsided on board control. Even if you control 1 and the enemy controls 3, he only gets 1 point. That is sometimes enough for a specialist force to be able to kill more consistently and eventually flip the score over on a horde.
6 - Finally Lockdown is the most fun I have ever had. It's very tactically challenging as the board basically narrows down to a few locations as the game progresses.

At the end of the day, I like the volatile nature of CA2019 missions more when also coupled with more varied terrain placement. Now granted, I understand the frustration of building an army and then finding out the mission+terrain greatly favors your opponent. That's why I also believe that players should set the terrain beforehand for each mission (then it's on their hands to make sure they have the proper conditions) as well as having some control over their mission-selection (bidding for mission-selection with command-points as an example).

However I also entertain why for a large event those can pose issues: having pre-set terrain/missions speeds up games, especially when you have to play 3-4 games a day across dozens of tables.

But for me, I'll keep playing my CA2019 and organizing small-scale events around those. I'll play major GTs and etc with ITC rules and just accept it as that's whats available, but if it was up to me I'd chase that higher variance, flatter playing field instead of the flattened variance, steeper challenge that ITC provides.

Couple other unrelated notes:
- Setting up terrain before the match is an art in itself and increases the skill ceiling, but I think arguably most players (both casual and competitive) would enjoy that.
- ITC missions flattening would do a good job of making it easier for a beginner in theory, but in practice, the extremely unique meta fallout of the preplaced terrain/objectives makes it a steeper learning curve that alienates some players (myself included) from ever truly having any chance.
- GW terrain rules are mucky but I also believe that a flat 1st floor blocks LoS is too simplistic and steers from the nature of the game. There should be more wiggle room. This is entirely GW's fault with having terrain kits that mismatch their rulesets.

Thanks for reading and I hope I have provided some insight into CA2019 missions if you are interested in them.

That's a great write up.

I've just been watching the LVO live and I tuned it out after a while. The ITC missions are just a poor, homebrew game at this point.

The game is very offensive, and the ITC missions reward killing units even more in every single mission you play. The moment I heard "ooh he got kill and kill more" I simply started to tune it out. The way they play out is so dull, and the games are definitely more static.

The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not in my experience. What is OP in CA is still OP in ITC and vice versa. ITC doesn't really fix the balance at all. It just gives you a different way to play the game. Whether or not it is a better way to play is very subjective IMO.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not true at all. ITC clearly does not create a more balanced meta. It's home brew rules that don't provide a better experience than the official rules, which are ironically in turn being ignored by large portions of the community.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?


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 Ishagu wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not true at all. ITC clearly does not create a more balanced meta. It's home brew rules that don't provide a better experience than the official rules, which are ironically in turn being ignored by large portions of the community.

They're ignored because everyone doesn't expect GW to do even a mediocre job with the core rules and missions!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not true at all. ITC clearly does not create a more balanced meta. It's home brew rules that don't provide a better experience than the official rules, which are ironically in turn being ignored by large portions of the community.

They're ignored because everyone doesn't expect GW to do even a mediocre job with the core rules and missions!

People expect GW to do a poor job but not bad enough they don't want to play it. The minute you fully balance and iron out everything, the second you add an additional variable in, you have to start the whole lot again. So yes using ITC as a controlled environment would allow for increased balance on the grounds you never played any other mission, any other way and retested the whole shebang every release.

I actually don't disagree with Slayer, just feel that isn't such a huge concern. ITC missions DO help isolate what might be a balance issue because it removes so many unknowns. But for me those unknowns are intended balance, whether right or wrong. The imbalanced missions are, IMHO, intended to encourage more rounded armies. So removing that may help show X is too good (and remove cases where X was nullified by a mission condition) but also removes part of the game specifically intended to help lessen the effectiveness of X. So it sort of causes its own problems. The unknown/randomness so loathed by the ITC is the very thing which is intended to keep things in check. So of course removing that means something else needs to fill the void left. IMHO of course.

I have warmed up to ITC missions, but I still feel they deviate too far from "normal" 40k and that by itself is bad. I think the biggest problem I have is the sort of lists they encourage building. We can wax philosophical all day about the missions and how those affect the game, and that's mostly perception (as illustrated in the other thread talking about statistics or whatever). But IMHO it's objective fact that you see different list builds in ITC events than you do in non-ITC events, and not often for the better (again IMHO). You are more likely to see variety in non-ITC events than in ITC ones, and I feel variety is great for 40k.

But Eternal War missions aren't random. They have static objectives and point scoring.

 Sim-Life wrote:
But Eternal War missions aren't random. They have static objectives and point scoring.

To know that, people would need to actually read & use chapter approved rather than ITC. There is a blind assumption maelstrom is the GW way to play for some reason.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Not really. You don't need to play ITC to see the Castellan was a problem prenerf for instance. There is too many variables that aren't controlled to make ITC missions somehow much better for testing than CA 2019 missions for tournaments or pickup games. Things like luck with dice rolls, player skill, terrain, etc. are arguably more important than the mission really. Also 2019 CA has maelstrom and eternal war. Maelstrom missions are more random sure, but eternal war only randomizes deployment zone, who gets first turn, and game length. ITC randomizes first turn as well and deployment with the championship missions. Which leaves game length, which is by far the least important of those three. So no they aren't "super" random.

Just play ITC and add 2d6 to your score at the end of the game if you want more randomness and excitement, its not competitive. My mission format even makes it so you have to finish the game to know who wins omg guys I am a genius stop playing the game how you like. I hereby also introduce a new tiebreaker rule (because ties are omg not lol), whoever does the most jumping jacks wins, no time limit, tournaments will have to wait until a contestant gives up.

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

I think these variables you describe just randomize the outcome, just the way GW likes it. In most tournament formats of most games I'm aware of, the unknowns are minimized on purpose to filter that out of the results. Also, "well-rounded" is ill-defined and seems far from guaranteed by adding in more randomness.

Martel732 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

I think these variables you describe just randomize the outcome, just the way GW likes it. In most tournament formats of most games I'm aware of, the unknowns are minimized on purpose to filter that out of the results. Also, "well-rounded" is ill-defined and seems far from guaranteed by adding in more randomness.

The only thing more random about the CA 2019 eternal war missions is the game length. Most 40k games are decided by the end of turn 5 anyway so...

Martel732 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

I think these variables you describe just randomize the outcome, just the way GW likes it. In most tournament formats of most games I'm aware of, the unknowns are minimized on purpose to filter that out of the results. Also, "well-rounded" is ill-defined and seems far from guaranteed by adding in more randomness.

"Randomness " makes competitive games more interesting. It's why we don't call off football games just because it fething snows. This is a war game after all and wars aren't fought in ideal conditions. A good tactician brings a force that can adapt to changing conditions and adjusts his tactics to those conditions.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

No, because the data set may be skewed towards scenarios that diverge too far from the design space of the product-as-intended. It only really provides "balancing data" for ITC.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Nevermind - misread maybe

I guess we're looking for different things, then. That's fine. I understand the idea that ca 2019 missions are more fun or varied, but ultimately i think they are less probative.

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

Which is why tournament players love re-rolls. The more re-rolls you have, the less random your results.

Wayniac wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

What I don't understand is why the ITC uses the same terrain set up on every board. Even Warmahordes uses different terrain on every table. Just seems weird to me.

Wayniac wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

I'd like dice to be gone.

Martel732 wrote:

I'd like dice to be gone.

Seriously, stop playing 40K. Just stop. You don't like the basic fething premise of the game, it is not for you.

Martel732 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

I'd like dice to be gone.

Try Malifaux. It uses a deck of cards, so you know exactly how many of each result you have in your deck. If you get a run of low cards you know you have a bunch of high ones left, you also have a hand of cards that act like miracle dice. Except they're cards. Seems like your thing.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Not really. You don't need to play ITC to see the Castellan was a problem prenerf for instance. There is too many variables that aren't controlled to make ITC missions somehow much better for testing than CA 2019 missions for tournaments or pickup games. Things like luck with dice rolls, player skill, terrain, etc. are arguably more important than the mission really. Also 2019 CA has maelstrom and eternal war. Maelstrom missions are more random sure, but eternal war only randomizes deployment zone, who gets first turn, and game length. ITC randomizes first turn as well and deployment with the championship missions. Which leaves game length, which is by far the least important of those three. So no they aren't "super" random.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not true at all. ITC clearly does not create a more balanced meta. It's home brew rules that don't provide a better experience than the official rules, which are ironically in turn being ignored by large portions of the community.

They're ignored because everyone doesn't expect GW to do even a mediocre job with the core rules and missions!

They are ignored by most people because they are house rules. That is it really.

If that were really the case, it wouldn't have taken GW as long as they did to actually nerf said Castellan.
Also since when is CA considered house rules?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If that were really the case, it wouldn't have taken GW as long as they did to actually nerf said Castellan.
Also since when is CA considered house rules?

I was referring to ITC not CA.

Edit: Rereading the posts again I think I misread them, ignore that last part.

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

I'd like dice to be gone.

Seriously, stop playing 40K. Just stop. You don't like the basic fething premise of the game, it is not for you.

What do you consider the premise?

Martel732 wrote:
I'd like dice to be gone.

All talk of 40k aside, I enjoy the vibe you bring to the forum

Martel732 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

I'd like dice to be gone.

Seriously, stop playing 40K. Just stop. You don't like the basic fething premise of the game, it is not for you.

What do you consider the premise?

It is a miniature wargame that uses dice. Wanting to get rid of dice makes about as much sense than wanting Star Trek to stop being set in space.

Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Martel732 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

I'd like dice to be gone.

Seriously, stop playing 40K. Just stop. You don't like the basic premise of the game, it is not for you.

What do you consider the premise?

Nah, this is about you here - what do you consider the premise of a dice-based tabletop game? It's not like dice are a new thing. Why did you get involved in 40k, a dice based game, and continue to frequent 40k gaming boards (not lore or background or modelling), for a dice based game, when you dislike the fact that they use dice?

Actually, just so I get an idea if you're being consistent with your logic here, would you take me seriously if I said I play Chess but hate that both teams have the same pieces? What about any card based game, but I hate cards? How about any grid/tile-based game, but I dislike the limited movement? What if I was playing Bolt Action, but actually wanted to play as Iron Age Mesopotamians?

If I started playing MTG, and hated the fact they use cards, wouldn't you think that me playing MTG would be a terrible decision, and that my opinion isn't really contiguous to those of other players?

Just to get an idea if this is a general opinion of yours.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

So why do you play it? Or, if you don't, why are you on a 40k board?

If I didn't like the core system of how a game was played, the basic mechanic it's always been played with, why on earth would I interact with it in any way, shape, or form?

What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

 Ishagu wrote:

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

But then they couldn't blame bad luck or GW when they lose.

 Crimson wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

But then they couldn't blame bad luck or GW when they lose.

Yeah, damn those Grey Knight and Ork and Dark Angels for not taking blame for their poorly written codices!

There is such a thing as randumb. Some randomness is okay. However, too much is uncalled for (especially with the number of DD3 or DD6 weapons going on). This is especially true with last edition, rolling for your powers and Warlord Traits and one army entirely at mercy to it (Daemons).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

This is a stupid post, but losing some of the randomness in weapons would be very much welcomed.

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

Imma go the other way with it.

Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

If you wanna ditch ITC, then fine. But ditch it for the new Maelstrom missions, not Eternal Snore.

That said, why ditch any of them? As much as I think Eternal Snore is a waste of a game, I wouldn't just reject all of them outright, I would add them to the mission pool.

Age of Sigmar has 18+ Matched play missions just from GW. Some are great and get played a lot, some are bad and get played very seldomly. Just carry that over to all available missions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Stupid*

ERJAK wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

Imma go the other way with it.

Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

If you wanna ditch ITC, then fine. But ditch it for the new Maelstrom missions, not Eternal Snore.

That said, why ditch any of them? As much as I think Eternal Snore is a waste of a game, I wouldn't just reject all of them outright, I would add them to the mission pool.

Age of Sigmar has 18+ Matched play missions just from GW. Some are great and get played a lot, some are bad and get played very seldomly. Just carry that over to all available missions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Stupid*

Interesting to note for all the ITC has better comments, that for AOS ITC doesn't feth with the missions. They only handle scoring and seemingly think the AOS battleplans are suitable for competitive play without modification.

Wayniac wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

Please don't act like the Tournament community is a monolithic entity that all want the same thing. It is not and even if it was, you've never had enough desire to understand(rather than judge) to get what they actually want.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

Imma go the other way with it.

Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

If you wanna ditch ITC, then fine. But ditch it for the new Maelstrom missions, not Eternal Snore.

That said, why ditch any of them? As much as I think Eternal Snore is a waste of a game, I wouldn't just reject all of them outright, I would add them to the mission pool.

Age of Sigmar has 18+ Matched play missions just from GW. Some are great and get played a lot, some are bad and get played very seldomly. Just carry that over to all available missions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Stupid*

Interesting to note for all the ITC has better comments, that for AOS ITC doesn't feth with the missions. They only handle scoring and seemingly think the AOS battleplans are suitable for competitive play without modification.

That's largely because the AoS battleplans are, and have always been, far superior for what AoS is than the 40k ones are. The book 40k missions were utter trash until literally THIS chapter approved. The AoS missions being good meant there was never a reason to design their own mission packets.

The problem that remains is that they're basically just copy pasting AoS missions into 40k with a twist or two, which means they have some significant issues that aren't present in the Sigmar version. 40k is a faster(in terms of area covered by models per turn on average) deadlier game and GW hasn't really adjusted their mission paradigm to deal with it.

The new missions are good, if boring in the case of Eternal War, but they're not AS good for 40k as the missions GW designed for AoS are for AoS.

And you know what, I'm going to take this a step further. AoS is a far superior tournament game to 40k as well and it is clear that either the teams are different and the AoS one is far more competent, or the teams are the same and they just understand AoS better. While Sigmar is by no means perfect, it doesn't have the constant weight around it's neck that 40k seems to when you try organized play.

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

The question is why you are so obsessed with tournaments playing Champions missions?

"made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision." when do you choose which EW mission you play and against what faction? Variance decided by randomness.

Go back to your EW roulette game and let TOs use Champions missions if they want, you can host your own roulette tournaments, see what people prefer.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

The question is why you are so obsessed with tournaments playing Champions missions?

"made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision." when do you choose which EW mission you play and against what faction? Variance decided by randomness.

Go back to your EW roulette game and let TOs use Champions missions if they want, you can host your own roulette tournaments, see what people prefer.

Well we want people to ditch ITC because its not the same game everyone else is playing. The people who want balance most is the tournament players but they want it balanced for THEIR way of playing, which is different to a majority of 40k players but they're easily the most vocal group.

A lot of players discussing have not even read the ca19. Lol at the turbo boost comment...

I don't quite understand the hate against Maelstrom of War with the new Schemes of war system.

It's true it still has some random component in it, but for me it has just the right point of random objectives and prebattle selection ITC style.

You can select the 18 objectives that you like the most and you feel will be scoring against that oponent and fits your playstyle AFTER seeing your opponents lists, so just for starters you are customizing you're deck in each game, I like that small planning before the game and the adaptation.

Then you draw 5 objectives, and put 3 on the table, one being hidden to play some mind games, and you have 3 stratagems to play with the cards and have even more gimmicks to choose from.

I'm not saying that is better than Eternal War (that's the new winner for me, more than ITC at least) but I found it more interesting than the dull ITC system and a lot less random than people say. The only thing I would change is getting rid off the faction objectives, some of them are busted.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

I refuse to believe that you posted this and actually mean it.

If everything keeps being super randomized all the time, it becomes harder to look at the data to show GW stuff is broken. Yes or no?

Since nobody suggested making things super randomised, who cares? You need randomness to force players to adapt in-game. ITC at the moment is far too prescriptive, to the point of even being able to decide secondaries pre-tournament in many cases because secondaries are fundamentally independent of terrain, and often independent of your opponent's army. There's a level of randomness that is good. Original Maelstrom rules were too random but ITC swings far too far the other way.

Which I think goes back to the idea that tournament players WANT that. They seem to want everything to be predictable and prescriptive, for some unknown reason. I bet if someone found a way to remove dice, the tournament players would be all over that to "balance" things.

I'd like dice to be gone.

Try Malifaux. It uses a deck of cards, so you know exactly how many of each result you have in your deck. If you get a run of low cards you know you have a bunch of high ones left, you also have a hand of cards that act like miracle dice. Except they're cards. Seems like your thing.

I like the setting for Malifaux, but I really didn't dig the card system. It felt like most attacks tended to be very middle of the road and did very little aside from the rare big swings. Just felt like games of slap and tickle that took forever with a zillion different victory conditions. Which is about how I thought it would feel using cards instead of dice.

What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

In a game whose most basic mechanic is rolling dice.

Martel732 wrote:
What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

You think a handful of people asking why you don't like dice in a dice-based game is bullying? That's a pretty radical interpretation of the responses, IMO. If you really think the responses were bullying perhaps report them to a Mod?

You still haven't explained why you don't like dice and what you think the solution is, either. Perhaps if you actually explained your reasoning and responded to any of the comments people made both sides might be able to understand better where the other is coming from. But just like many of your recent posts where you complain about something you don't actually articulate why you feel a certain way or what the real problem is. It's hardly surprising people struggle to understand where you're coming from.

 MordinSolus wrote:
...You can select the 18 objectives that you like the most and you feel will be scoring against that oponent and fits your playstyle AFTER seeing your opponents lists, so just for starters you are customizing you're deck in each game, I like that small planning before the game and the adaptation...

People keep bringing up the "but you can build your deck!" bit, but 18 of 36 Maelstrom objectives are "hold objective (X)", so from my experience building Underworlds decks that means your 18 cards are going to be chosen from a pool of 24 (in a mono-faction army), so it doesn't seem like there's that much deck-building involved.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 MordinSolus wrote:
...You can select the 18 objectives that you like the most and you feel will be scoring against that oponent and fits your playstyle AFTER seeing your opponents lists, so just for starters you are customizing you're deck in each game, I like that small planning before the game and the adaptation...

People keep bringing up the "but you can build your deck!" bit, but 18 of 36 Maelstrom objectives are "hold objective (X)", so from my experience building Underworlds decks that means your 18 cards are going to be chosen from a pool of 24 (in a mono-faction army), so it doesn't seem like there's that much deck-building involved.

That's not really the case. There's enough deck-building that you can remove all the impossible cards and still have meaningful decisions to make about which other cards to include. You also get to choose 3 out of the 5 cards you have in hand to play at any one time which opens up a bit more flexibility when building your deck since you don't need to just include cards you can definitely score at all times. Also, your numbers are wrong - 6 of 36 are "Hold Objective X" and 6 are "Defend Objective X". Cards 11-16 are your faction-specific ones and usually about half of those are good cards to have.

Martel732 wrote:
What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

Are you serious ? If you felt that was bullying, makes me wonder if you've ever seen actual bullies. As really its going to raise eye brows when you say you hate dice in a game that is seemingly all about the dice.

It's an awful lot like playing tons of Computer RPGs and being like " I hate numbers " Or playing a table top RPG and being like " I hate role playing ". You can see where it might make people go hmmm ?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

The question is why you are so obsessed with tournaments playing Champions missions?

"made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision." when do you choose which EW mission you play and against what faction? Variance decided by randomness.

Go back to your EW roulette game and let TOs use Champions missions if they want, you can host your own roulette tournaments, see what people prefer.

Well we want people to ditch ITC because its not the same game everyone else is playing. The people who want balance most is the tournament players but they want it balanced for THEIR way of playing, which is different to a majority of 40k players but they're easily the most vocal group.

So if the game is balanced only for 12 missions then that's enough? Terrain is a bigger deal than mission format, should GW mandate 12 terrain set-ups and if you use something slightly different (because ITC isn't that different) the game becomes an unbalanced mess? Stuff like the Ogryn BS or Marine release, they're not fair. If EW and/or Maelstrom were fair then Champions format would be fair as well. What change do you think negatively affects your play experience was caused by Champions? Nerf to Castellan, Lootas, Malefic Lords?

How about match-making or tournament format, don't think that changes things? I spoke with the Knight player who was on atream 5 of LVO 2020 and he said he built his list in part to satisfy the monofaction requirement for the best in faction prize. You are wrong if you think GW is close enough to balance that meta is 90% decided by mission format.

Champions missions are very fun for me. Maelstrom is as well, all Maelstrom does is give the worse general and the worse faction a better chance of winning on luck alone, this is ideal for casual games, tournament hosts aren't taking that away from you, it is just not a great way to decide who deserves to win a tournament. People get super salty when they go second and loose in a tournament because they feel like luck decided the game. Travelling for a competitive event, training etc requires a less frustrating environment. Claiming anyone that likes Champions is just uninformed is annoying. Play whatever format you enjoy, host and attend tournaments you enjoy. FLG let you use their leaderboard regardless of mission and tournament format.

ERJAK wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

Imma go the other way with it.

Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

If you wanna ditch ITC, then fine. But ditch it for the new Maelstrom missions, not Eternal Snore.

That said, why ditch any of them? As much as I think Eternal Snore is a waste of a game, I wouldn't just reject all of them outright, I would add them to the mission pool.

Age of Sigmar has 18+ Matched play missions just from GW. Some are great and get played a lot, some are bad and get played very seldomly. Just carry that over to all available missions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Stupid*

You haven't played the new CA missions at all, evidently.
This is an example of the community writing something off without ever sampling it.

Go and play all of the Eternal War mission in CA19 a few times.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not in my experience. What is OP in CA is still OP in ITC and vice versa. ITC doesn't really fix the balance at all. It just gives you a different way to play the game. Whether or not it is a better way to play is very subjective IMO.

The imbalances in the rulebooks are there for all missions. What the ITC does is remove variance which narrows the statistical bell curve of results - it is like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to highlighting imbalances in the game. Yes, it does serve a bit of a purpose for that but also for that exact reason I do not want to play ITC tournaments.

The CA19 missions have variance between the missions which broadens the statistical bell curve - it has a wider catchment of what is tolerably competitive and might do OK for you at the top tables.

Its really, REALLY, hard to look at the LVO top 8 and say that the ITC missions with fixed terrain have done anything other than magnify the imbalances in the game. Compare and contrast with the recent results at Caledonian Uprising and the GW GT finals which were run with the exact same set of rules permitted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:


You haven't played the new CA missions at all, evidently.
This is an example of the community writing something off without ever sampling it.

Go and play all of the Eternal War mission in CA19 a few times.

Even more than this - go and play a tournament using CA19 missions. You only really understand the difference when people are bringing the filth and playing hard for prizes.

I have only played one CA19 tournament so far but after doing so I would not go back to playing ITC missions. Unless FLG radically overhaul that mission I am just skipping past tournaments which use them when looking for my next event.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:


Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

I have to conclude that not only have you never played the CA19 missions you have not even read them.

So anything you say has zero value because it is based on nothing.

 MordinSolus wrote:
I'm not saying that is better than Eternal War (that's the new winner for me, more than ITC at least) but I found it more interesting than the dull ITC system and a lot less random than people say. The only thing I would change is getting rid off the faction objectives, some of them are busted.

Busted good, or busted bad? Maybe it's just a case of them needing a review pass now all the expected Codex books have been released, to make sure they're broadly on par with each other?

After I took part in events using the CA missions I lost any and all interest in the game using ITC rules to the point where I'm not even looking at the LVO results or even watching the games. It's really unfortunate that people still haven't sampled what GW has made, and have no understanding of the drastic improvement that has taken place in their mission design.

People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

 Ishagu wrote:
After I took part in events using the CA missions I lost any and all interest in the game using ITC rules to the point where I'm not even looking at the LVO results or even watching the games. It's really unfortunate that people still haven't sampled what GW has made, and have no understanding of the drastic improvement that has taken place in their mission design.

That is pretty much how I feel.

The CA18 missions still had one or two oddball missions in there, in general, they were good. The CA19 missions have cleaned that up and are more consistently good; I am in two minds about just one of the missions - partly because I have not played it in real competition so I will suspend judgment on it until I do.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not in my experience. What is OP in CA is still OP in ITC and vice versa. ITC doesn't really fix the balance at all. It just gives you a different way to play the game. Whether or not it is a better way to play is very subjective IMO.

The imbalances in the rulebooks are there for all missions. What the ITC does is remove variance which narrows the statistical bell curve of results - it is like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to highlighting imbalances in the game. Yes, it does serve a bit of a purpose for that but also for that exact reason I do not want to play ITC tournaments.

The CA19 missions have variance between the missions which broadens the statistical bell curve - it has a wider catchment of what is tolerably competitive and might do OK for you at the top tables.

Its really, REALLY, hard to look at the LVO top 8 and say that the ITC missions with fixed terrain have done anything other than magnify the imbalances in the game. Compare and contrast with the recent results at Caledonian Uprising and the GW GT finals which were run with the exact same set of rules permitted.

The only variance ITC removes is the random game length compared to CA 2019 Eternal War. There are six different missions yes but if you really think different missions every round of an event is a problem you could always just run the same mission every round. There is nothing stopping people from just using crusade every round.

Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

 Ishagu wrote:
Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

I don't know what you mean. A scenario with 4 objectives plays exactly the same as a scenario with a single objective. Are you mad? Being sarcaatic obviously.

 Ishagu wrote:
Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

I was talking about the amount of random elements within the missions. If you compare one ITC champion mission to any of the eternal war missions the only random element present in CA 2019 Eternal War missions not present in ITC is random game length. That is it. ITC missions aren't even the same every round either due the number and placement of objectives changing.

Also I have played CA 2019 and have run events using them. So take your ignorant assumptions elsewhere.

And yet you seem to have reached a conclusion different from everyone else that has.

The ITC missions are just one mission with minimal variation, with players selecting what to score based on what favours them from one opponent to another.

 Ishagu wrote:
And yet you seem to have reached a conclusion different from everyone else that has.

Oh really? What conclusion did I reach that everyone else hasn't? Since you were dead wrong on your first assumption I personally curious what you think my conclusion is.

Are you actually trying to tell me that the missions in Chapter Approved 2019 offer no more variation than the ITC missions in terms of gameplay and mission design?

That's a staggering position to take.

 Ishagu wrote:
Are you actually trying to tell me that the missions in Chapter Approved 2019 offer no more variation than the ITC missions in terms of gameplay?

That's a staggering position to take.

Another swing and another miss. There is more variation between the six CA 2019 eternal missions primary objectives vs the six ITC championship missions however the isn't much more random elements. Both formats randomize the deployment type and who gets first turn. CA also has random game length but that is it. That was my point. CA missions aren't super random.

If you really don't like the different missions for events you can also run the same mission every round or pick the missions that are similar.

Yoyoyo wrote:
People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

I'm not stubborn. I want assertions supported by evidence and analysis. Something that is severely lacking in these discussions.

I'm incredibly open-minded and I'm all for making a push, but if you want to prove the system then someone needs to record sufficient data from tournaments they run.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

I'm not stubborn. I want assertions supported by evidence and analysis. Something that is severely lacking in these discussions.

I'm incredibly open-minded and I'm all for making a push, but if you want to prove the system then someone needs to record sufficient data from tournaments they run.

What data? That IH are still OP?