We have anti- horde, multi Anti-10 or more wounds, a anti- MC/tank MSU spam, anti character, etc.. there are even Secondaries that overlap the same units like 10+ wound MC/Vehicles.
What we are missing is anti-elite, mid size multi wound units, Example Skyweavers, Aggressors, Eradicators, Terminators, Grotesques, etc...
Oh, they exist already. They're called beatstick psykers. Mephiston says hi. ...oops, didn't realise we were talking Secondary Mission objectives in particular.
That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
Karol wrote: That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
And then when Custodes, Marines, and many other armies roll up with 10 units with 10-12 wounds that out kills you and can hold objectives just as easily but also has more options for secondaries compare to almost all xeno's armies. Yeah thats balanced.
Also Vehicle heavy armies gives up 2 secondaries every game.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Or modify and tone down some of the other kill secondaries.
Karol wrote: That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
A Purge the Enemy Secondary Objective that is anti-elite would have to compete with Titan Hunter, Bring It Down, and Assassinate. How would that make it any easier to score points against Thousand Sons and Grey Knights?
At the very least, Thin Their Ranks needs to be based entirely on wounds and not models killed. That would at least go some way to allowing players to pick somewhat legitimate secondaries versus MEQ lists.
GW also needs to look into making secondaries not stack, so for instance you couldn't go Abhor the Witch and Assassinate and get 8 points for killing a 2W Warlock. This is especially silly as that unit of 6 Aggressors or 9 Shining Spears gives up 0 VP's.
There is one that gives VP for wounds worth of models killed, however to max it out you have to kill 150 infantry wounds or 15 10 wound vehicles.
This is not easy at all. It needs to be about 20% less.
Change it so that instead of dividing by 10 on the tally its divided by 8. Also count total wounds dealt to monsters and vehicles, not just a flat 10 on the tally for any vehicle over 10 wounds.
Eihnlazer wrote: There is one that gives VP for wounds worth of models killed, however to max it out you have to kill 150 infantry wounds or 15 10 wound vehicles.
This is not easy at all. It needs to be about 20% less.
Change it so that instead of dividing by 10 on the tally its divided by 8. Also count total wounds dealt to monsters and vehicles, not just a flat 10 on the tally for any vehicle over 10 wounds.
This secondary would be more "fair" if it just counted up the wounds of models you killed instead of the models with those of 10+ wounds being worth 10.
That way killing 5 W2 models would be worth the same as 10 W1 models, which takes about the same amount of effort to kill. Or killing a W8 dreadnought would be worth more than 1 model out of 150 models.
To follow the spirit of the anti-hore and anti-monster choices, the "elite buster" should punish a list made almost solely of 2W and 3W models, without supporting walkers and vehicles.
1 point for every 5 2W infantry/biker/beast killed and 1 point for every 3 3+W infantry/bikers/beasts.
That would give 6 points for killing 30 marines and 9 for 27 Gravis/Outrider/Terminator models of any kind, which makes most of the 2k budget.
Mixing some vehicles, walkers, monsters or chaff could lower the available amount to 10-12 points easily.
Karol wrote: That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
That's a problem with Abhor The Witch, an awful secondary that 100% will be nerfed sooner or later because it's just terrible.
It has nothing to do with the point that the secondaries very conspicuously lack anything you can pick against Space Marines.
This was obviously a deliberate choice, as the ITC secondaries they transparently copied had much better coverage for elite armies. They're not so stupid that they just forgot to copy over gangbusters and just forgot to fix reaper to count wounds instead of models.
Karol wrote: That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
That's a problem with Abhor The Witch, an awful secondary that 100% will be nerfed sooner or later because it's just terrible.
It has nothing to do with the point that the secondaries very conspicuously lack anything you can pick against Space Marines.
It's only available to armies that do not participate in the psychic phase. They can have it.
No. If the psychic phase is overpowered (lol), nerf the psychic phase. Don't handicap psychic factions. Using secondaries to balance basic game mechanics is stupid.
You might as well have an Abhor The Boltgun secondary that gives you 3 points for each unit you kill that has a ranged weapon, as long as no more than 20% of the models in your army have ranged weapons with greater than 12" range.
And we could have Abhor the Close Combat Weapon too, for armies with no more than 20% of their models armed with something with better than S:U AP 0 weapons. 4 points for each unit armed with better than that that you kill.
If we like Abhor The Witch, we like those too, right?
McMagnus Mindbullets wrote: I think that the game desperately needs something like this too as a counter to lots of the best lists at the minute.
Just, how? How do you write one that doesn't make it an autoinclude against almost every faction?
It shouldn't be that hard. We already have Thin Their Ranks for mass model armies. We have Titan Hunter and Bring It Down for the Titanic, Vehicle, and Monster armies. So we only really need to deal with the elite Infantry, Battlesuit, and Bike list. So it could go something like this:
Bleed Their Strength The enemy forces contains a large number of elite warrior. Destroy them to prevent their ability to prosecute further offensive actions. If you select this objective, keep a tally of kill points each time an enemy Infantry, Calvary, Bike, or Battlesuit model that has more than 1 for its Wound Characteristic on its model profile, and add 1 to this tally (add 2 to the tally instead if the destroyed model's Wound Characteristic is 3 or more). <stuff about counting a model if it comes back and is destroyed a second time>. At the end of the battle, divide your kill points tally by 4 and round down - the result is the number victory points you score.
To maximize your VP count you need to kill:
* 60 Models with 2 Wounds
* 30 Models with 3+ Wounds
* 40 Models with 2 Wounds and 10 Models with 3+ Wounds
* 32 Models with 2 Wounds and 14 Models with 3+ Wounds
These are all still model intensive armies even for elite forces, so not an auto-take. The winning Space Marine List from Varberg GT (https://www.40kstats.com/varberggt) has 21 3+ Wound models plus 10 (would be) 2 W models that meet the requirement. That's just enough to get 13 VP if you table the non-vehicle elements of the list.
ITC had it figured out just fine, just copy gangbusters the way they copied everything else.
I think it'd probably be better to make it focused on 3W+ models rather than 2W+ models, because if you include 2W+ models then it hits every marine faction and you have to scale it really low accordingly. If you make it only hit 3W+ models (probably excluding troops, for the same reason ITC gangbusters did) you can turn up the scaling significantly.
E.g. 3VP for each unit composed of 3W+ models (plural) destroyed. Suddenly you're thinking a bit more before taking 3 units of eradicators and 2 units of aggressors, because that's 15VP right there for your opponent.
I really think it's a bad idea to have secondaries being used as a balance tool, whether to nerf a whole phase (Abhor the Witch) or to boost a faction or archtype (by not having a secondary for elites).
Secondaries to punish skew are fine, but you get into problems when you start using them to try to compensate for unbalanced points values or base rules.
Yeah, honestly, I feel like the real answer is to address this with points. Fixing secondaries doesn't do anything to help people in Open play, for example - and ok, I know Open is supposed to be a bit more lawless, but being run roughshod over because of points imbalance isn't fun for them either.
With that said, if we're dying on this hill - instead of doing it by Wounds, let's make it grant points by wiping units of a certain size. Let's say, a point for wiping each non-Character Infantry/Cavalry/Bike unit that started the battle with 10 models or less - and an extra point if they started at 5 or less. (Not sure how balanced that would be, I'm open to suggestions.)
I'm suggesting this approach because it should give Marine players pause, instead of just automatically taking 5-man squads or immediately combat-squadding their 10-man squads without even having to think about it.
It should also work as a nice replacement for Abhor The Witch, as Grey Knights and Thousand Sons would be a suitable force to use this against - and Tzeentch Daemon armies with big Horror mobs are good to take the existing Thin Their Ranks against anyway.
I don't think we need a secondary to punish MSU, the problem is the lack of secondary that punishes elite multi-model units.
3 VP for each squad destroyed that is made up of at least two models that each have 3+ wounds, exempting troops. Put it in the same category as the anti-vehicle/monster one, so you can't double up with that.
That's all you need. Suddenly those 3 man space marine squads have a downside instead of being pure upside. Also addresses dog spam for ad mech, and spawn spam for chaos. It'd do a number on nurglings and kataphons too if you didn't exempt troops, though I think you probably should.
Do that, remove Abhor (or put it in the same category as the new elite punisher and open it up to everyone but reduce it to 2VP per psychic squad and 3 VP per psychic character), and the secondaries would be in a usable state competitively. Still not perfect, but pretty decent.
Eihnlazer wrote: There is one that gives VP for wounds worth of models killed, however to max it out you have to kill 150 infantry wounds or 15 10 wound vehicles.
This is not easy at all. It needs to be about 20% less.
Change it so that instead of dividing by 10 on the tally its divided by 8. Also count total wounds dealt to monsters and vehicles, not just a flat 10 on the tally for any vehicle over 10 wounds.
It's not just "not easy". It's nearly impossible unless it's an army of aggressors fighting an army of grots. Even then the grots would probably win if they went first.
how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
While I agree on the not having secondaries, I much prefer the old mission style, they are in the game now and having an anti-elite army one would be nice. Whenever I play my friend's SM now I always feel there are no good secondaries against him whereas his are easy choices.
Eihnlazer wrote: There is one that gives VP for wounds worth of models killed, however to max it out you have to kill 150 infantry wounds or 15 10 wound vehicles.
This is not easy at all. It needs to be about 20% less.
Change it so that instead of dividing by 10 on the tally its divided by 8. Also count total wounds dealt to monsters and vehicles, not just a flat 10 on the tally for any vehicle over 10 wounds.
It's not just "not easy". It's nearly impossible unless it's an army of aggressors fighting an army of grots. Even then the grots would probably win if they went first.
That secondary is really, really bad.
Quite a few of the secondaries are bad. Its quite possible to pick secondaries that you can achieve but still make it mathematically unlikely you can win (unless you're clubbing inexperienced baby seals)
Some of them can even potentially be gamed due to the order of things. 'I pick X, Y and 'Cut off the Head' for my secondaries.' Opponent: Well, my warlord is going in reserve. Even if I bring it on turn 2, you're down 5 VP (and you start down 2, just for picking that one...)
I think GW needs to decide how hard secondaries should be to achieve.
FWIW my solutions:
Abhor the Witch should move to the Purge the Enemy Secondary Objectives pool. Then it can't stack with assassinate or bring it down (probably the easiest secondaries depending on your opponents list.)
GW should then probably delete all the Purge the Enemy Secondary Objectives Pool - but if they won't do that, it should probably include a guaranteed secondary versus MEQ. Everyone can then take one objective from this pool, and its a near guaranteed 15 points unless they get tabled.
Then change thin their ranks to wounds.
Then see how it shakes out. Some of the other secondaries should probably be buffed - but that can take more testing. All the psychic abilities for instance seem rooted in "forge the narrative" rather than something you'd actually accomplish in a competitive game.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Sounds like you haven’t played much. Our group is loving Secondaries and the new missions in general.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Sounds like you haven’t played much. Our group is loving Secondaries and the new missions in general.
New missions and 9th generic mechanics are a massive improvement from 8th edition, indeed.
Secondaries are iffy imo, on one hand they can be, if done correctly, a massive boon for the health of the game, strengthening balance and a "healthy" list, otoh they can be extremely oppresive torwards certain types of armies, and depending on the faction , auto includes which might become an issue.
Abhor the witch f.e.
overall it is imo an improvement, but personally i feel factions and the games parameters should be built upon encouraging themselves a balanced list first and foremost.
I don't think Abhor the Witch is intrinsically bad, i just think it shouldn't be a core secondary objective. AFAIK the plan from GW is to introduce faction specific secondaries when the 9th ed codexes get released. Abhor the Witch seems like it would be an appropriate faction secondary for non-psyker factions like Black templars, Necrons, Tau and DE. Possibly available to SOB or an Imperial force where the warlord is an Inquisitor from Ordo Hereticus.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Sounds like you haven’t played much. Our group is loving Secondaries and the new missions in general.
all secondaries do is make it more gamey, which is a terrible thing. I like the missions but dont forsee ever playing w the secondary objectives.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Sounds like you haven’t played much. Our group is loving Secondaries and the new missions in general.
all secondaries do is make it more gamey, which is a terrible thing. I like the missions but dont forsee ever playing w the secondary objectives.
I'm not sure in what sense you're using 'gamey,' beyond that 'yes, it is a game.'
Tactical objectives beyond 'kill everything' are generally good for wargames. Especially ones that play to different army strengths and encourage more diverse composition. I've seen people take things considered 'horrible and unusable' because the objectives let them play to different strengths beyond 'damage per round.'
Faction Secondaries (why not sub faction secondaries) seems like something GW will do, but will likely be horrible for balance.
I really think a core pool of secondaries available for everyone and balanced around that is better for the game. Its just these shouldn't have "autotakes if possible" and "lol never getting 15 points this way" options, that potentially put hard skews list creation, or at a put invalidate entire factions as a competitive choice.
I dont play kill em all. we generally pick an objective that both armies need to go for and boom, no stupid oooh I picked this one cuz you're GK or Orks.
it removes some of the ability to GAME the system, no giving up points just cuz of the army you play.
But the way we play is about as far from competitive play as you can get....and we praise The Emperor for it.
Any mechanic that can punish you for the army you bring is fething stupid. "Balance" shouldnt need to be enforced thru means other than datasheet/points.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tyel wrote: Faction Secondaries (why not sub faction secondaries) seems like something GW will do, but will likely be horrible for balance.
I really think a core pool of secondaries available for everyone and balanced around that is better for the game. Its just these shouldn't have "autotakes if possible" and "lol never getting 15 points this way" options, that potentially put hard skews list creation, or at a put invalidate entire factions as a competitive choice.
this is a direction that could be a good one, but knowing GW the magic 8ball says chances unlikely.
Competitive 40k almost certainly won't be using the faction secondaries, so I wouldn't worry about those too much. There's just no way I can see it not being a disaster if they try, given how problematic the base secondaries are already in terms of balance.
I like the missions and I like the idea of secondaries. But secondaries should be a choice. Creating a sitatation where someone playing vs a psyker army, always takes the same 3 secondaries, and worse the psyker army player can not do anything about stopping their opponents fullfiling them, then we have bad design. Any time there is a no brainer option, to take or not to take, or there is just one way to play efficient, when technicaly there are multiple options, then someone droped the ball durning desing.
The anti elite secondary based around wounds or msu units would be just that.
One could as well ask for secondary for psyker heavy armies, when they play vs non psyker armies. Or melee armies vs shoting ones etc.
What about one for "Excessive Show of Force":
score 4VP if you reduced a unit from its starting strength to nothing in this turn. units split up or combined amend their starting strength accordingly, etc etc. Basically, wipe a unit out from full strength in one turn and get points.
Probably add a power level caveat or something to stop people scoring this for killing 10 gretchin, though... don't know power level well enough to say it myself though. I'd say 4VP for X power level, and 6VP for over Y power level. In points, I'd say 4VP for over 150 points in one unit, and 6VP for over 250 points in one unit, all in one go.
Score 3 VP if you hold and objective that your opponent held in his turn with an ob sec unit. Score 4 instead if you had no models within 12" of this objective at the start of your turn.
or
Score 5 VP if you completely control 1 half of the table at the end of your turn (cannot score this on turn 1). You must have at least 2 entire units wholly within 2 quarters of the table and no enemy models can be in either.
Score 3 VP if you hold and objective that your opponent held in his turn with an ob sec unit. Score 4 instead if you had no models within 12" of this objective at the start of your turn.
or
Score 5 VP if you completely control 1 half of the table at the end of your turn (cannot score this on turn 1). You must have at least 2 entire units wholly within 2 quarters of the table and no enemy models can be in either.
I like the idea of more aggressive objectives (not killing aggressive but take and hold types like this). I would still want a Kill secondary to help against elite armies though.
Voss wrote: I'm not sure in what sense you're using 'gamey,' beyond that 'yes, it is a game.'
Secondaries are the sort of thing that seem contrived to balance a game. Where primary objectives generally concern things like holding key locations, which has a strong real-world basis, the idea of a fighting force choosing what criteria are relevant to operational success seems a little silly. Historical or otherwise realistic wargames will typically award victory points for accomplishing scenario objectives, plus sometimes secondary points for attrition to the enemy (eg points killed).
I am a fan of secondary objectives that represent tactically-relevant actions like reconnaissance, but the kill-focused ones are very 'gamey' in that they are specifically rewards for fighting skew lists. Which is a decent enough justification, except that a particular kind of skew currently has no corresponding secondary, and not all secondaries are equally achievable even against comparable skew lists.
The idea of having a scoring mechanic that works against heavily skewed lists wasn't a terrible one on its face, but trying to blanket apply the same kill secondaries across all forces based on number of units killed was never going to work given the vast gulf between the number of units that appear between the most and least hordey armies.
A few possibilities:
1) Back in 3rd/4th, lots of arguments about what made a 'fluffy' list vs. not was what percentage of your army was Troops, Heavy Support, Vehicles, or the like. That seems to no longer be a thing, but what if secondary kill VP was based on destroying a certain percentage of the army that was vehicle/infantry/mauve/sous-chefs rather than number of units or models that were Heavy Support/furries/epileptic/currently cheating at backgammon?
Say, half the enemy army consisted of vehicles/monsters and you took a secondary that said that for every 10% out of the total points of the enemy army you took out that consisted of vehicles/monsters, that was 3VP, up to 15 if the enemy army was half or more vehicles/monsters or infantry or whatever.
You could instead do it by force organization type. If the enemy army is more than half HQ, Heavy Support, or Lords of War, or Discount Furniture, then taking out that half of the army would net you the VP with the given secondary.
These are mathematically awkward compared to 9th scoring, to be sure, but VP used to be based on points value of kills anyway with several minutes of points totalling at the end. If you removed all the existing kill secondaries, then a force could never give away more than one complete kill secondary unless it consisted of exactly 50% between Troops and HQ.
It would encourage broad spectrum selection from the force organization chart; YMMV on whether or not that's a good thing.
2) On the more elegant end, perhaps stating a rule like: "You can only have one kill secondary per game." It's a quick band-aid fix to the mechanic, but it'd prevent some armies from being extra screwed by constantly giving up multiple kill secondaries (e.g. Knights, Daemons, IG)
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
I see no problems with the core. Or is your definition of "core" synonymous with "marines are too strong"? There were secondaries in the old missions (StW, LB, FB). The mission scoring just make them an insignificant footnote. The total possible points was not uniform and considerably low for a tournament scoring system.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
I see no problems with the core. Or is your definition of "core" synonymous with "marines are too strong"? There were secondaries in the old missions (StW, LB, FB). The mission scoring just make them an insignificant footnote. The total possible points was not uniform and considerably low for a tournament scoring system.
GW seems to disagree. There is also just one category of kill secondaries, other secondaries like teleport homers or the ritual the very opposite of "gamey".
There are always people who will hate on any kind of change.
Super Ready wrote: Oh, they exist already. They're called beatstick psykers. Mephiston says hi. ...oops, didn't realise we were talking Secondary Mission objectives in particular.
Don't feel bad, I had no idea what this was about either. I was trying to figure out who "we" were.
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CEO Kasen wrote: The idea of having a scoring mechanic that works against heavily skewed lists wasn't a terrible one on its face, but trying to blanket apply the same kill secondaries across all forces based on number of units killed was never going to work given the vast gulf between the number of units that appear between the most and least hordey armies.
This has long been a blindspot for GW. Way before these secondaries We buy armies in points, but score in models (or rarely wounds) while a 10 point Intercessor wound and a 5 point Gretchin wound let alone a 20 point Intercessor and a 5 point Gretchin model are not created equal.
Jidmah wrote: GW seems to disagree. There is also just one category of kill secondaries, other secondaries like teleport homers or the ritual the very opposite of "gamey".
There are always people who will hate on any kind of change.
Who is gonna pick those when the others exist??? Just cuz a couple are not auto includes does not make the rest any less gamey.
I have no problem with change, I like 9th, just not the crap they're trying to shove down the throats of those who have ZERO interest in the style of gameplay they foment.
If they would have just made them an addition to the game, rather than baking it in as another balancing mechanism(for them to feth up) just to make the game SEEM more competitive oriented.
CEO Kasen wrote: The idea of having a scoring mechanic that works against heavily skewed lists wasn't a terrible one on its face, but trying to blanket apply the same kill secondaries across all forces based on number of units killed was never going to work given the vast gulf between the number of units that appear between the most and least hordey armies.
A few possibilities:
1) Back in 3rd/4th, lots of arguments about what made a 'fluffy' list vs. not was what percentage of your army was Troops, Heavy Support, Vehicles, or the like. That seems to no longer be a thing, but what if secondary kill VP was based on destroying a certain percentage of the army that was vehicle/infantry/mauve/sous-chefs rather than number of units or models that were Heavy Support/furries/epileptic/currently cheating at backgammon?
That was a leftover from second. In second instead of FOC slots, and Dets, you made a list that had to be at least 25% troops/squads/etc that varied in name only based on army flavor - and could be up to 50% characters and 50% Support while support were allies, tanks etc. Devastators etc were squads not Support. Getting 25% squads was pretty easy when Marine Squads pretty much started out at 15% of a 2,000 point list.
Say, half the enemy army consisted of vehicles/monsters and you took a secondary that said that for every 10% out of the total points of the enemy army you took out that consisted of vehicles/monsters, that was 3VP, up to 15 if the enemy army was half or more vehicles/monsters or infantry or whatever.
You could instead do it by force organization type. If the enemy army is more than half HQ, Heavy Support, or Lords of War, or Discount Furniture, then taking out that half of the army would net you the VP with the given secondary.
These are mathematically awkward compared to 9th scoring, to be sure, but VP used to be based on points value of kills anyway with several minutes of points totalling at the end. If you removed all the existing kill secondaries, then a force could never give away more than one complete kill secondary unless it consisted of exactly 50% between Troops and HQ.
In 2nd Ed - you set up the battle and drew missions at random after the fact, there were some universal secondaries that were ratio based, frequently on two points tiers. Realize Points were WAY different so the tier cutoff isn't really relevant.
If the squad/vehicle was under/over 100 points cost, you got VP for destroying half/all of a squad/vehicle You got 0 for damaging/half under 100, 1VP for over 100, 1VP for destorying all. So destroying a 325ish point tactical squad would get you two.
So making secondaries that work on a ratio basis is possible. The main missions (and I wish I knew which box in which closet I stashed them in) were usually 1VP for a partial success, 5VP for total sucess - Kill the Commander, Kill the most powerful psyker, hand to hand victories, etc. General combat damage universal secondaries tended to add up to more than the the mission. The Mission Accomplished could swing an otherwise loss to a victory, which isn't a bad thing.
It would encourage broad spectrum selection from the force organization chart; YMMV on whether or not that's a good thing.
2) On the more elegant end, perhaps stating a rule like: "You can only have one kill secondary per game." It's a quick band-aid fix to the mechanic, but it'd prevent some armies from being extra screwed by constantly giving up multiple kill secondaries (e.g. Knights, Daemons, IG)
I think getting rid of the objective cards was a mistake. I think they were flawed, but I think they had the far more potential to be outstanding than being able to select. They didn't always allow for being accomplished before you drew them - i.e. kill three tanks starting now after you already killed all three - and cycling ones that just plain didn't apply because of your opposition army comp. While it's realistic to occaisionally be told by the guy in the rear with the gear to kill that tank when there is no tank, this game has a lot more realism issues to work on before that one. I think objective cards were the mechanic to tame skew lists, not FoC/Dets/CP etc.
Jidmah wrote: GW seems to disagree. There is also just one category of kill secondaries, other secondaries like teleport homers or the ritual the very opposite of "gamey".
There are always people who will hate on any kind of change.
Who is gonna pick those when the others exist??? Just cuz a couple are not auto includes does not make the rest any less gamey.
Did you actually play any game 9th edition games? Shadow operations and battlefield supremacy are the go-to categories for most players and armies, and neither is particularly gamey, especially compared to the secondaries of old editions. Teleport homers is a secondary many armies consider to be one of their top options.
The gamey kill stratagems you are freaking out about are almost exclusively limited to a single category and I think everyone agrees that abhor the witch is badly implemented.
A less "gamey" experience could be picking the secondaries in a totally random way, not by choosing them, like objective cards in 7th edition. I never tried, and I'm not even interested in doing that since I consider the game mechanics great, but it could be interesting for people who don't like picking secondaries to counter specific armies.
Jidmah wrote: GW seems to disagree. There is also just one category of kill secondaries, other secondaries like teleport homers or the ritual the very opposite of "gamey".
There are always people who will hate on any kind of change.
Who is gonna pick those when the others exist??? Just cuz a couple are not auto includes does not make the rest any less gamey.
Did you actually play any game 9th edition games? Shadow operations and battlefield supremacy are the go-to categories for most players and armies, and neither is particularly gamey, especially compared to the secondaries of old editions. Teleport homers is a secondary many armies consider to be one of their top options.
The gamey kill stratagems you are freaking out about are almost exclusively limited to a single category and I think everyone agrees that abhor the witch is badly implemented.
secondaries were not a good thing in any edition. what happened to playing the mission, ya know like in real combat? Didnt play secondaries before 8th, during 8th, or post 8th & it looks like the trend will continue.
and no, I havent been able to play any 9th ed games & it doesnt look like that'll be anytime soon thanks to nurgle-19.
I cant wait to get some games in, whenever that'll be
Blackie wrote: A less "gamey" experience could be picking the secondaries in a totally random way, not by choosing them, like objective cards in 7th edition. I never tried, and I'm not even interested in doing that since I consider the game mechanics great, but it could be interesting for people who don't like picking secondaries to counter specific armies.
That could be an interesting way of doing it - make Mission and Faction secondaries into a sixth table, and expand the Purge the Enemy and No Mercy, No Respite categories to six options rather than four, and you're in a position where a d66 (or d63) roll can determine a secondary. Allow for a reroll if you a, get a duplicate; or b, get an objective that can't be completed due to the composition of either army (such as the Warpcraft category, or Titan Slayers), and away you go.
Some objectives might still warrant a review to even out potential scoring (Slay the Warlord, for example, and Thin Their Ranks (which I agree should count the Wounds of removed models, not just count the models themselves)), but it would definitely add in the feel of getting strange objectives from theater commanders sat well away from the front lines.
That, and it'd be funny to hear the conniption fits from the tournament community when they realise they can't micro-manage their pre-game planning so much.
Blackie wrote: A less "gamey" experience could be picking the secondaries in a totally random way, not by choosing them, like objective cards in 7th edition. I never tried, and I'm not even interested in doing that since I consider the game mechanics great, but it could be interesting for people who don't like picking secondaries to counter specific armies.
That could be an interesting way of doing it - make Mission and Faction secondaries into a sixth table, and expand the Purge the Enemy and No Mercy, No Respite categories to six options rather than four, and you're in a position where a d66 (or d63) roll can determine a secondary. Allow for a reroll if you a, get a duplicate; or b, get an objective that can't be completed due to the composition of either army (such as the Warpcraft category, or Titan Slayers), and away you go.
Some objectives might still warrant a review to even out potential scoring (Slay the Warlord, for example, and Thin Their Ranks (which I agree should count the Wounds of removed models, not just count the models themselves)), but it would definitely add in the feel of getting strange objectives from theater commanders sat well away from the front lines.
That, and it'd be funny to hear the conniption fits from the tournament community when they realise they can't micro-manage their pre-game planning so much.
I'm not a tournament player at all and pre-game randomness does not equate fun for me.
I absolutely hated (HATED!) random warlord traits and psychic powers in earlier editions.
Secondaries should be balanced against each other, without taking the balance of the surrounding factions into account. I personally like them, even the funky ones like Psychic Ritual.
Blackie wrote: A less "gamey" experience could be picking the secondaries in a totally random way, not by choosing them, like objective cards in 7th edition. I never tried, and I'm not even interested in doing that since I consider the game mechanics great, but it could be interesting for people who don't like picking secondaries to counter specific armies.
Technically, if one truly would want to balance via randomness, one would also need to randomly create terrain and missions, at that stage you'd not even need secondaries and it would enforce a somewhat balanced list since you never know how the board or the mission looks.
That beeing said, this would put alot of pressure on tournament organisers simply for all the terrain setups...
Not to mention factions that can't build viable balanced lists, be it for a lack of worthwhile options or structure of the army will also be hard fethed.
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a_typical_hero wrote: I'm not a tournament player at all and pre-game randomness does not equate fun for me.
I absolutely hated (HATED!) random warlord traits and psychic powers in earlier editions.
Secondaries should be balanced against each other, without taking the balance of the surrounding factions into account. I personally like them, even the funky ones like Psychic Ritual.
that is not random that is randumb.
There is a difference between fixing mission and terrain parameters randomly before a match happens and randomness that impacts the capability of choosing ones list style.
one is healthy (or can be) for the game, the other is just plain stupid.
Agree, random can be fun if done right (SAG, foul blight spawn or many of the pick one/roll two tables) but deciding the game before you start by three dice rolls is just an idiotic suggestion. There are just too many secondaries that potentially yield 0 VP in a game no matter what you do. If you really think that it's fun to have random mission goals, nothing prevents you from rolling on them anyways. Strangely enough, I have never seen or heard of someone randomly generating warlord traits or psychic powers despite the game explicitly allowing you to do so - seems like random isn't that fun after all.
That said, I'm all for removing secondaries that reward killing models or units. Neither units nor models are created equal, there is no reason why killing a killa kan (5W, T5, 3+) is worth the same points as killing a foetid bloat drone (10W, T7, 3+/5++/DR).
Re psychic powers and warlord traits randomly chosen
I do. I'm not trying to derail the thread into argumentative back and forth here but I genuinely do so there you go, there is one.
Jidmah wrote: Agree, random can be fun if done right (SAG, foul blight spawn or many of the pick one/roll two tables) but deciding the game before you start by three dice rolls is just an idiotic suggestion. There are just too many secondaries that potentially yield 0 VP in a game no matter what you do.
Let's dial back the hyperbole here - I already said that secondaries that can't be achieved due to army construction should be rerolled. If you take that into account, how many of the core secondaries are truly a "potential 0 VP no matter what you do"?
Sure, you might not be able to get a full 15 VP out of some of them, but those should be looked at anyway - I have no idea how you rebalance Slay the Warlord to be worth 15 VP, but I'm sure there's something that could be done.
Racerguy180 wrote: secondaries were not a good thing in any edition. what happened to playing the mission, ya know like in real combat?
9th edition plays in a way that you actually need to primarily focus on primaries, if you don't you will usually lose the game. Primaries provide more points if you hold more objectives, so if you don't take care of your objectives, your opponent can quickly catch up or build a huge lead.
When people talk about secondaries it always reads like this doesn't matter, but essentially both players aim to score 45 or at least 40 points on primaries, so the secondaries tend to decide the games, even though you can't win the game by just relying on them.
Didnt play secondaries before 8th, during 8th, or post 8th & it looks like the trend will continue.
Well, the game has changed. If you ignore secondaries you'll either lose games or lose out on special crusade rewards.
actually stuff like slay the warlord and first strike should not score more than 7-8 points.
They are fairly easy compared to most of the others so if you take them you should be ok conceeding on your overall a bit.
The problem is, some of the ones that you can score 15 points on are rather easy to get. Granted it circumstantial based on the opponent.
Im personally not in favor of any secondary that targets a specific army type. Save that for narrative games.
All the secondaries should be something any army can do:
Can your army get anywhere on the board?
Can your army kill big stuff?
Can your army stop your enemy from getting to a specific point on the board?
Can your army hold more than one point on the board?
Can your army push your opponent off a specific point?
These are all things that any army should be able to do, opponent not considered.
After that you should have more niche secondaries that are fairly easy to do but reward less points.
Dysartes wrote: Let's dial back the hyperbole here - I already said that secondaries that can't be achieved due to army construction should be rerolled. If you take that into account, how many of the core secondaries are truly a "potential 0 VP no matter what you do"?
Grind them down when playing an army that values quantity over quality or when your opponent has ways to kill support characters While we stand, we fight defaults to 0 VP in most games Bring it down/assassinate/abhor the witch against players who have only one or two vehicles/monsters/characters/psykers is not necessary 0 VP but almost a guaranteed lost secondary as well. Investigate Sites when going second against any mobile army Teleport homers if you didn't bring units to specifically set them up tends to be 4 or 0 VP Mental Interrogation, Ritual when you have only one or two psykers and those get killed or denied or if those psykers are essential to your strategy and you cannot afford not casting with them. Pierce the Veil is nigh impossible to archive unless you specifically planned for it and it also has the same problems as the other psychic actions on top of that.
So even if you re-roll all the ones which cannot be archived or picked due to your or enemy army composition you still have 7 out of 18 which have the potential to be total duds, with titan hunter and abhor the witch having a high chance of being re-rolled. So if you roll two of those duds and your opponent rolls none, the game is over right there, you shake hands and pack up.
Sure, you might not be able to get a full 15 VP out of some of them, but those should be looked at anyway - I have no idea how you rebalance Slay the Warlord to be worth 15 VP, but I'm sure there's something that could be done.
In the tournament pack, slay the warlord is worth more the earlier you score it. However, for some faction a durable warlord that has LoS is impossible to kill before turn 3 or 4, essentially leaving your with a maximum of 6 VP here. There also would be no need for every secondary to max out at 15 if 15 VP weren't so easy to archive on many others. A guaranteed 10VP or easy to get 12VP could be more valuable than hard to get 15VP if all the secondaries were balanced properly.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Sounds like you haven’t played much. Our group is loving Secondaries and the new missions in general.
New missions and 9th generic mechanics are a massive improvement from 8th edition, indeed.
At least if you love book keeping and want games decided by who wins 1st turn.
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Jidmah wrote: While we stand, we fight defaults to 0 VP in most games
So far got 5 once, 10 most of the time(which means pretty average. Maxing out secondary is very rare unless you are dominating game anyway) and 15 quite a few times. 0 once but then again when you get wiped out in 3 turns not much you score anyway.
Lucky you. Neither my DG nor my orks have archived a single VP through that so far and not for the lack of trying. There really is no reason for an opponent to not just kill the three most expensive models on the table.
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Blackie wrote: Not at all, it was more true in 6,7,8 editions that 9th.
Well, the CA2019 missions actually did a good job at not giving any first turn advantage. Too bad we could play them so little.
Blackie wrote: A less "gamey" experience could be picking the secondaries in a totally random way, not by choosing them, like objective cards in 7th edition. I never tried, and I'm not even interested in doing that since I consider the game mechanics great, but it could be interesting for people who don't like picking secondaries to counter specific armies.
I loved the idea of the random objective cards. I thought that was a far better tool to promote TAC lists over Skew lists. If your list has to do a little of everything no matter who/what you're playing against it's a lot harder to skew.
There absolutely needs to be some sort of kill secondary against SM, though.
Look at the categories of objectives in the GT Pack.
Battlefield Supremacy:
Armies can choose any of these fine against elite armies.
No Mercy, No Respite:
1)Thin their ranks? No, won't score against elites.
2) Grind them down? Mayyybeee. But you need to be even more elite than they are. Won't necessarily work. In addition, marines are often quite tanky, even with MSU.
3) While we stand we fight? Army dependent, but this one is a bit mad against SM, which can absolutely have no issue tabling armies.
Purge the enemy:
1) Grind them down? Strong elite armies often bring too few vehicles. On the flip side, a lot of armies rely on their transport just to play the game, and will probably be down 10-15 VPs against their elite army opponents because Bring it Down is almost always an auto take.
2) Titan Hunter? No applicable.
3) Cut off the head? The opponent has too much control of this -- they'll simply hide their HQ until turn 3. Also, good luck killing that T7, -1 to wound, 3++ Bike captain.
4) Assassinate? This is actually a maybe, depending on the SM army. But elite armies are bring less characters due to the new force org rules.
Shadow Operations:
Plethora of good options.
Warpcraft:
Nothing reliable.
So most armies will struggle for that 3rd option against elite armies, when the opposite is unlikely to be true.
Not only do armies potentially give up a free 15 VPs just for showing up (Bring it down), they'll be unlikely to choose a good secondary back.
Dai wrote: Re psychic powers and warlord traits randomly chosen
I do. I'm not trying to derail the thread into argumentative back and forth here but I genuinely do so there you go, there is one.
Well imagine trying to do that based on an army which whole power comes from specific psychic powers on specific units and specific warlord traits being used, alongside specific relics.
Plus rolling 3 troops, 3-4 elites, 3 psykers , some with multiple powers would make the opponent hate you for a 30 min pre game phase.
Karol wrote: That would be very unbalanced vs armies like 1ksons and GK, who already give up the psyker secondary in every game. If there was also an anti elite one, then in all games the opponents of those two armies would be getting max points without even trying very hard.
It wouldn't be a problem if the psyker killing one was moved to the category that includes all the anti-skew objectives anyway.
which is where it should be currently, i.e. NOT stackable with the character killing secondary.
That's one of the stupidest things about the new mission setup: The fact that you can make Character Psykers worth EIGHT secondary points each by taking assassinate+Abhor.
Sorry, guard player, but you took a couple 25-point astropaths, looks like they're worth more points to kill than fething imperial knights!!!
Dai wrote: Re psychic powers and warlord traits randomly chosen
I do. I'm not trying to derail the thread into argumentative back and forth here but I genuinely do so there you go, there is one.
Well imagine trying to do that based on an army which whole power comes from specific psychic powers on specific units and specific warlord traits being used, alongside specific relics.
Plus rolling 3 troops, 3-4 elites, 3 psykers , some with multiple powers would make the opponent hate you for a 30 min pre game phase.
Yep, it definitely does, I remember 7th ed!
OK, this is my thousand sons army, now hold up a sec while I roll 89 times on this stupid fething table and write stuff down on a piece of paper, I should be done in roughly an hour!
Sure, you might not be able to get a full 15 VP out of some of them, but those should be looked at anyway - I have no idea how you rebalance Slay the Warlord to be worth 15 VP, but I'm sure there's something that could be done.
In the tournament pack, slay the warlord is worth more the earlier you score it. However, for some faction a durable warlord that has LoS is impossible to kill before turn 3 or 4, essentially leaving your with a maximum of 6 VP here. There also would be no need for every secondary to max out at 15 if 15 VP weren't so easy to archive on many others. A guaranteed 10VP or easy to get 12VP could be more valuable than hard to get 15VP if all the secondaries were balanced properly.
Ah, I've not picked the Chapter Approved pack up yet, as it's not clear when I'll get to play a game safely - are other secondaries tweaked? That sounds like a reasonable tweak to StW, off-hand.
Karol wrote:Plus rolling 3 troops, 3-4 elites, 3 psykers , some with multiple powers would make the opponent hate you for a 30 min pre game phase.
We're talking 10-15 rolls there - how the heck is that taking you half an hour?
Racerguy180 wrote: secondaries were not a good thing in any edition. what happened to playing the mission, ya know like in real combat?
9th edition plays in a way that you actually need to primarily focus on primaries, if you don't you will usually lose the game. Primaries provide more points if you hold more objectives, so if you don't take care of your objectives, your opponent can quickly catch up or build a huge lead.
When people talk about secondaries it always reads like this doesn't matter, but essentially both players aim to score 45 or at least 40 points on primaries, so the secondaries tend to decide the games, even though you can't win the game by just relying on them.
Didnt play secondaries before 8th, during 8th, or post 8th & it looks like the trend will continue.
Well, the game has changed. If you ignore secondaries you'll either lose games or lose out on special crusade rewards.
how can you lose out on stuff if both players dont use secondaries????
awww shucks, looks like the old adage of "if both players agree....." applies.
but it would be unfathomable for you to even imagine not playing by the book.
Racerguy180 wrote: how about not having secondary objectives in the first place. it's a stupid mechanic and yet another way for GW to feth up. if anything they need to reduce the gamey bs and stop adding it in before they get a handle on the core functionality.
Exactly!
The reason objectives exist in a game like this is to force action. The reason we are battling with armies is to destroy each others army. This is the objective in all war - to destroy the enemy.
Well, no. In fact, the objective is almost never to destroy the enemy, it's to accomplish something in particular. This is especially true in 40k, where the stories they tell are almost always about doing something, with the enemy just an obstacle, not the objective itself. Every once in a while you have the "orks just love to krump!" or "chaos just wants to kill!" storylines, but they're few and far between compared to the "Ahriman wants to break into the black library" or "the dark angels want to catch a member of the fallen" or whatever.
Tyranids and orks are really the only factions in the game where the objective is usually just to krump 'em.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well, no. In fact, the objective is almost never to destroy the enemy, it's to accomplish something in particular. This is especially true in 40k, where the stories they tell are almost always about doing something, with the enemy just an obstacle, not the objective itself. Every once in a while you have the "orks just love to krump!" or "chaos just wants to kill!" storylines, but they're few and far between compared to the "Ahriman wants to break into the black library" or "the dark angels want to catch a member of the fallen" or whatever.
Tyranids and orks are really the only factions in the game where the objective is usually just to krump 'em.
Actually no. Destroying the enemy is always an objective. Secondary objectives in real war are like...engage the enemy and take this position so we can gain an advantage and destroy the enemy in the next battle. Not speaking of 40k lore which is full of all kinds of imaginary scenarios which don't start by making sure each army is equal on both sides (points). "Our objective is to win the war!" - Captain Miller
My point in any case is the only reason we need objectives at all in a game of toy soldiers is so people don't just hide behind walls all game and just win every game by making an immobile gun line. Because the player leaving cover to cross the table loses the advantage of cover and exposes their units to more damage. Objectives force you to move...that is a good thing overall but really that is the only reason they need to exist. They don't add anything else to the game - they just become gamey the more complicated they get.
This game is supposed to simulate battles...not covert operations. If you want covert ops...go play infinity or kill team.
40k should be about swirling melee and fights to the death. I will consider any rules system in 40k that does not grant you victory and max points for tabling your opponent.
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Racerguy180 wrote: primary objectives achieve this and they're not all just kill stuff.
Aye...and a primary objective can be really simple like...he/she who holds the center of the table at the end of 5 turns wins...Or He/she who has more units in the enemy deployment zone wins.
Tell me how much more dynamic the game gets by adding other objectives here?
Way more dynamic. The game would be extremely boring with only primary, objective-control based scoring, and it would also very quickly be "solved" and the few factions that are really good at standing on objectives would be the only ones played competitively.
Secondary objectives are what keep the game varied.
We're talking 10-15 rolls there - how the heck is that taking you half an hour?
simple. I need specific units with specific powers, and my characters are using the PA psychic school, while the units have to use the codex one. So I am going to be fishing for specific powers. It is not going to be, take 3 dice for 3 units of termintors and roll in go. Same with the two apothecary, my paladin unit. Some units, like the dreadnought would have to be cut from the army, because without being able to fire outside of LoS it becomes a really overcosted and bad unit.
It can easily be multiple 10s of minutes if I have to decide, specialy if I have to take accout terrain, opposing army etc. Some powers like the PA ones are so crucial to GK working, that playing without them or with the wrong ones on wrong characters, you may as well not play GK at all, because you get a pre PA evel of army. It would be as if someone else had to roll basic gear on their units.
yukishiro1 wrote: Way more dynamic. The game would be extremely boring with only primary, objective-control based scoring, and it would also very quickly be "solved" and the few factions that are really good at standing on objectives would be the only ones played competitively.
Secondary objectives are what keep the game varied.
IMO, secondary objectives in the ITC style make the game far less varied than simple primary objectives.because suddenly half your scoring potential you can basically just build in to your list...or you instantly know seeing your opponent's list what you're going to try and kll for secondary points.
ITC makes the game more "solved." not less. A simple, randomized mission set, where you might have to control the center, you might have to control the corners, you might have to break through an enemy defense, you might have to hold a defensive line, you might have to move around the board grabbing different objectives, and you might have to control board area is a much more variable game experience than every mission primary being "hold the majority of the board" and choosable secondaries.
Heck, you could even make it NOT a randomized mission set, and allow the player taking the second turn to determine exactly what mission the two armies will play...wouldn't that be a trip! an advantage to going second! Wild!
Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
Yeah, I think you're agreeing with him here dude.
If you put me in charge of designing missions for 40k, I would go for this:
First, the players roll off. The winner then determines 1 of 2 courses of outcome:
1) Roll randomly to determine the mission. After deployment, roll randomly to determine who goes first.
2) That player then chooses a mission, choosing whether they attack or defend in the mission where relevant. The opposing player then always goes first.
Mission 1: Hold objectives in a cluster near the center of the board
Mission 2: Attacker/Defender mission. Objectives are on Defender's deployment zone line, and the defender scores 1 point progressively for each turn they hold them, while the attacker burns them down for several points when they seize them.
Mission 3: Hold objectives toward the back corners of the map. Score double points for the objectives in your opponent's map quarters.
Mission 4: Players deploy 6 objectives scattered across the battlefield, and each turn determines randomly up to 2 objectives they must go and seize - only objectives they aren't currently holding can be targeted.
Mission 5: One objective in each DZ, one objective in the dead center.
Mission 6: Each player nominates 3 models on the battlefield from their army to defend. Their opponent scores points for killing them, and when they are destroyed an objective is placed down on the map where the unit was, which either player can score points for at the end of the battle (more points if you score an objective spawned by an opposing unit).
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
Nah I am in total disagreement. The game would be a better game without secondaries straight up. The game does not need them.
On your point scotty. Yeah - I like that kind of layout you are suggesting. Though instead of being random - the player going second will automatically get to choose the mission type and deployment zone and obviously no STI. I would however remove all progressive scoring. primary objective is scored at the end of the game. In situations where there is a draw of some kind. You just count numbers of points destroyed as a tie breaker.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
Glad I'm not the only one that finds this type of scoring to be asinine. Random mission is great. Building a list to the mission is boring to me. I want to make a TAC list to fight my opponents army - not to hide behind walls and achieve gamey objectives.
We're talking 10-15 rolls there - how the heck is that taking you half an hour?
simple. I need specific units with specific powers, and my characters are using the PA psychic school, while the units have to use the codex one. So I am going to be fishing for specific powers. It is not going to be, take 3 dice for 3 units of termintors and roll in go. Same with the two apothecary, my paladin unit. Some units, like the dreadnought would have to be cut from the army, because without being able to fire outside of LoS it becomes a really overcosted and bad unit.
It can easily be multiple 10s of minutes if I have to decide, specialy if I have to take accout terrain, opposing army etc. Some powers like the PA ones are so crucial to GK working, that playing without them or with the wrong ones on wrong characters, you may as well not play GK at all, because you get a pre PA evel of army. It would be as if someone else had to roll basic gear on their units.
Your unit choice happens before the game, in listbuilding.
You would show up to the game and do this for all your psyker units :
1.Roll a dice
2.Check the psychic power lists
3.Write it down.
it really doesnt take much time and there is no such thing as "fishing for powers" since the whole point of that is to randomise everything.
still. i'm glad its not part of the game anymore, i just wish some of the less used powers saw more use (When is the last time an elf cast mind war?)
@Xenomancer
Agreed on the random mission but i thought that was already how it was. Are there tournaments playing with predetermined missions in 9th?
Personally i like the secondaries but i'd get rid of anything "kill" related. The primary already rewards it enough.
The action based secondaries are an excellent concept to reduce the lethality in the game.
The only other real option other than what we have currently is to make secondaries fixed.
This falls back in line with the original First strike, warlord, and linebreaker objectives.
If you were gonna do this in the current edition i would use the following 3:
Sever the head- At the end of player turn 5, if you have killed both the enemies warlord and at least half of their total character models you gain 15pts.
Area Secured- At the end of each of your turns make a tally of how many table corners you control (you control a table quarter if you have more units wholly within that corner than your opponent). On turn 5 each table corner counts as three and the center of the table counts as two (the center of the table is a 9" circle in the middle of the table). Divide your total tally by 2 and you score this many victory points.
True Leader- At the end of the battle, compare the PL of the surviving units to your armies starting PL. If you have 25% of your army remaining you score 5 points, 50% gives you 10 points, and 75% grants 15 points (Always round down if its necessary).
This adds enough variation in points and rewards good play. Saves time at the game start and is fair to most armies.
Draw 7 secondary objectives and place them face up before deployment. After you deploy, roll off; the player who wins the roll off decides whether to play first, or draft first. Draft taking turns until both players have 3 secondaries, then discard the one that remains.
You can offset first turn advantage, add variation to secondaries, and add a meaningful element of decision making during deployment.
Eihnlazer wrote: The only other real option other than what we have currently is to make secondaries fixed.
This falls back in line with the original First strike, warlord, and linebreaker objectives.
If you were gonna do this in the current edition i would use the following 3:
Sever the head- At the end of player turn 5, if you have killed both the enemies warlord and at least half of their total character models you gain 15pts.
Area Secured- At the end of each of your turns make a tally of how many table corners you control (you control a table quarter if you have more units wholly within that corner than your opponent). On turn 5 each table corner counts as three and the center of the table counts as two (the center of the table is a 9" circle in the middle of the table). Divide your total tally by 2 and you score this many victory points.
True Leader- At the end of the battle, compare the PL of the surviving units to your armies starting PL. If you have 25% of your army remaining you score 5 points, 50% gives you 10 points, and 75% grants 15 points (Always round down if its necessary).
This adds enough variation in points and rewards good play. Saves time at the game start and is fair to most armies.
I like these objectives. Maybe not the exact points granted but I like the concept. Instead of fighting over objective markers - fighting over entire table quarters is a better way to progressive score I think.
One of the problems with an anti-elite secondary is also the reason they added 0-6 instead of 0-3 Elites. All the command squad style things were turned into 3+ Elite Slots if you want to take them all. They turned so many of those specialist and added even more Mini-characters.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
IMO, ideally, the kill-oriented secondaries are a counter to skew lists. If folks haven’t figured it out, this is 100% intended, as GW doesn’t like seeing skew lists winning tournaments. They have a vision of ideal armies and they are a mix of unit types.
If you want to bring 300 grots go ahead, but that’s 15 points for your opponent. Full knight army? 15 points (that one is a teensy bit unfair as pure Knights are TERRIBLE for scoring the primary, which currently makes them the worst army in my opinion.
The issue is that the current kill secondaries don’t quite have enough choices, and the ones that exist need some tweaking.
Random objectives are a bad idea, I think. If you want that kind of game, use the open war deck.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
IMO, ideally, the kill-oriented secondaries are a counter to skew lists. If folks haven’t figured it out, this is 100% intended, as GW doesn’t like seeing skew lists winning tournaments. They have a vision of ideal armies and they are a mix of unit types.
If you want to bring 300 grots go ahead, but that’s 15 points for your opponent. Full knight army? 15 points (that one is a teensy bit unfair as pure Knights are TERRIBLE for scoring the primary, which currently makes them the worst army in my opinion.
The issue is that the current kill secondaries don’t quite have enough choices, and the ones that exist need some tweaking.
Random objectives are a bad idea, I think. If you want that kind of game, use the open war deck.
You literally prove your own point wrong by stating knights are the worst because they are a skew list and it hurts their chance at taking primary objective. Yet it is the only way to play them. Your army comp should have 0% to do with scoring objectives. 0 - None - Nada. You bring the list you want to play and you have a fair shot at winning - that is how the game should work (outside of objective secured units or maybe only troops being able to score or something). Not building your list around making it hard to score against at the list building phase. Skew lists have an in build counter to them that if they run into a certain kind of list they get obliterated. They don't need objective point disadvantage as well.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
No one is saying we should play competitive malestrom. What people are saying is we should have 3-5 primary objectives that are randomly determined at the start of the game.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
IMO, ideally, the kill-oriented secondaries are a counter to skew lists. If folks haven’t figured it out, this is 100% intended, as GW doesn’t like seeing skew lists winning tournaments. They have a vision of ideal armies and they are a mix of unit types.
If you want to bring 300 grots go ahead, but that’s 15 points for your opponent. Full knight army? 15 points (that one is a teensy bit unfair as pure Knights are TERRIBLE for scoring the primary, which currently makes them the worst army in my opinion.
The issue is that the current kill secondaries don’t quite have enough choices, and the ones that exist need some tweaking.
Random objectives are a bad idea, I think. If you want that kind of game, use the open war deck.
You literally prove your own point wrong by stating knights are the worst because they are a skew list and it hurts their chance at taking primary objective. Yet it is the only way to play them. Your army comp should have 0% to do with scoring objectives. 0 - None - Nada. You bring the list you want to play and you have a fair shot at winning - that is how the game should work (outside of objective secured units or maybe only troops being able to score or something). Not building your list around making it hard to score against at the list building phase. Skew lists have an in build counter to them that if they run into a certain kind of list they get obliterated. They don't need objective point disadvantage as well.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
No one is saying we should play competitive malestrom. What people are saying is we should have 3-5 primary objectives that are randomly determined at the start of the game.
this makes too much sense for those primarily focused on screwing over the person you're playing WITH. removal of secondaries would only take away their tourney bull gak, which can only be a good thing. keep that gak where it belongs, far, far away the the game.
It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
I would be playing very different games, if abhore the witch didn't exist. The same with being forced in to If we stand, we fight. It very much changes how I can play or even what units I could potentialy take. For example I can't take GM NDKs anymore or try out a storm raven or a land raider, because they give up points too easily, comparing to a master or librarian on foot or a big unit of paladins.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
I would be playing very different games, if abhore the witch didn't exist. The same with being forced in to If we stand, we fight. It very much changes how I can play or even what units I could potentialy take. For example I can't take GM NDKs anymore or try out a storm raven or a land raider, because they give up points too easily, comparing to a master or librarian on foot or a big unit of paladins.
I mean, abhor the witch is pretty situational and has a pretty big restriction to it. In my eyes its no different then picking big game hunter against admech or guard. You automatically give your opponent 15pts. The problem is that not while Abhor or BGH are trivial to max out, a list with 60 intercessors doesn't really have a good secondary to pick against.
oh and i just want to point out that when people talk about marines, they most likely aren't including GK in them.
You can still run your GMNDK & co. you just gotta accept that they'll be giving points away. And if youre bringing only one land raider or storm raven, chances are your opponent won't pick BGH against you anyway since thats only 3vp.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Karol, I honestly have not been talking about you. Considering how exclusively take extreme inflammatory positions, twist any and every argument to be about grey knights and eventually respond to every train of thoughts with a surreal story from dystopian Poland, my need for engaging in discussions with you has disappeared.
And yes, abhor the witch is idiotically over-rewarding players for killing random units in psychic armies, but the vast majority of armies are not psychic.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Karol, I honestly have not been talking about you. Considering how exclusively take extreme inflammatory positions, twist any and every argument to be about grey knights and eventually respond to every train of thoughts with a surreal story from dystopian Poland, my need for engaging in discussions with you has disappeared.
And yes, abhor the witch is idiotically over-rewarding players for killing random units in psychic armies, but the vast majority of armies are not psychic.
And aside from that, it's not just psychic armies that suffer from very easy to score against them secondaries. That's a problem that quite a few armies face and now have to deal with. So, I would actually be in favour of abolishing all the killing secondaries because they only seem to reward eliteness.
And besides, things like assassinate where little characters are worth points whereas elite infantry, who cost more points per model, aren't worth anything just feel so silly.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Karol, I honestly have not been talking about you. Considering how exclusively take extreme inflammatory positions, twist any and every argument to be about grey knights and eventually respond to every train of thoughts with a surreal story from dystopian Poland, my need for engaging in discussions with you has disappeared.
And yes, abhor the witch is idiotically over-rewarding players for killing random units in psychic armies, but the vast majority of armies are not psychic.
And aside from that, it's not just psychic armies that suffer from very easy to score against them secondaries. That's a problem that quite a few armies face and now have to deal with. So, I would actually be in favour of abolishing all the killing secondaries because they only seem to reward eliteness.
And besides, things like assassinate where little characters are worth points whereas elite infantry, who cost more points per model, aren't worth anything just feel so silly.
Agreed, get rid of the kill secondaries and add more action-based secondaries.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Karol, I honestly have not been talking about you. Considering how exclusively take extreme inflammatory positions, twist any and every argument to be about grey knights and eventually respond to every train of thoughts with a surreal story from dystopian Poland, my need for engaging in discussions with you has disappeared.
And yes, abhor the witch is idiotically over-rewarding players for killing random units in psychic armies, but the vast majority of armies are not psychic.
And aside from that, it's not just psychic armies that suffer from very easy to score against them secondaries. That's a problem that quite a few armies face and now have to deal with. So, I would actually be in favour of abolishing all the killing secondaries because they only seem to reward eliteness.
And besides, things like assassinate where little characters are worth points whereas elite infantry, who cost more points per model, aren't worth anything just feel so silly.
Agreed, get rid of the kill secondaries and add more action-based secondaries.
Absolutely, although actions also need some work because right now it seems like generally, durability is the most rewarded trait in a unit. Light infantry of all sorts finds it very difficult to complete any before just getting blown up.
Dolnikan wrote: And aside from that, it's not just psychic armies that suffer from very easy to score against them secondaries. That's a problem that quite a few armies face and now have to deal with. So, I would actually be in favour of abolishing all the killing secondaries because they only seem to reward eliteness.
And besides, things like assassinate where little characters are worth points whereas elite infantry, who cost more points per model, aren't worth anything just feel so silly.
Agreed, get rid of the kill secondaries and add more action-based secondaries.
Absolutely, although actions also need some work because right now it seems like generally, durability is the most rewarded trait in a unit. Light infantry of all sorts finds it very difficult to complete any before just getting blown up.
I'm on board with this. Kill secondaries don't make the game more interesting, I'd gladly have something else in their stead.
Sure, but at least actions push the game away from kill city which is a good thing in my eyes.
Heck, i'd be down to have actions that only vehicles/monsters could do even.
Clear a path Action (vehicle or monster)
Do this while within a piece of terrain bigger than 5", ends at the end of your next command phase, get Xvp at the end of the battle for each zone where you completed this action (deploymen, no mans land, enemy deployment)
Sure it would reward tanky units but that would simply mean that people start to value resilience more than killing power. Which is a good thing to lower lethality.
Kill secondaries were my main problem with ITC. Killing in itself is already a reward since its the best way to deny objectives from your opponent. So being explicitely rewarded for it made them TOO rewarding
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
How could anyone not understand how they work? They are objectives you pick at the start of the game tailored against the list you are fighting. I'm saying they don't add anything but "gaminess" (unfun ways to win).
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
How could anyone not understand how they work? They are objectives you pick at the start of the game tailored against the list you are fighting. I'm saying they don't add anything but "gaminess" (unfun ways to win).
The kill objectives are, the rest isnt. You build a list with Psychic ritual or engage on all fronts in mind, you don't build a list with Big game hunter in mind.
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
I would be playing very different games, if abhore the witch didn't exist. The same with being forced in to If we stand, we fight. It very much changes how I can play or even what units I could potentialy take. For example I can't take GM NDKs anymore or try out a storm raven or a land raider, because they give up points too easily, comparing to a master or librarian on foot or a big unit of paladins.
So the secondaries are affecting your army build and making list choices for you...that sounds great actually. Less list choices or you auto lose. Good stuff.
So the secondaries are affecting your army build and making list choices for you...that sounds great actually. Less list choices or you auto lose. Good stuff.
Now I like 9th, incomperably more then 8th. Like and 8th is not something I could comprehend. That doesn't mean 9th has its problems. As I said to me 9th equals good.
As the affecting the army building goes, it kind of a depends, if someone starts in 9th or comes from 8th. I am used to core rules eliminating the viability of multiple units or options. So secondaries doing it too, doesn't bother me at all. But I can imagine that if someone thinks that his army should have options or wants to try out different things, and core rules make it that option X, Y and Z are something you should never take, they may not be happy about it. Plus on top of everything, I don't own a land raiders, storm raven or a NDK, just a ton of foot characters and terminators, so it doesn't limit me personaly.
So how good the situation is, seems to be a personal thing.
Karol, I honestly have not been talking about you. Considering how exclusively take extreme inflammatory positions, twist any and every argument to be about grey knights and eventually respond to every train of thoughts with a surreal story from dystopian Poland, my need for engaging in discussions with you has disappeared.
And yes, abhor the witch is idiotically over-rewarding players for killing random units in psychic armies, but the vast majority of armies are not psychic.
I don't know "some people" seems to include multiple people posting in this thread and I think that includes me, and you were generalize, and this means it does include an army like GK. I speak about GK, because it is the army I play, so I give examples according to what I know. I doubt a 1ksons players feels much different about abhore the witch, then a GK player.
Ah and vast majorities goes. Vast majority of players play marines, and people like you want to make those armies worse in favour of minority played armies. So you are not being very consistent.
I do like there being asymmetric objectives in the game alongside the symmetric primaries. It does add an interesting layer - though some of them are too easy depending on the armies played, and many do seem to give smaller Elite style armies advantages, as they are harder to score against them. Though it does make it a bit gamey as player attempt to list build around the objectives. Making them random avoids this, but then potentially makes it un-fun when you get an objective that you cannot achieve.
A partially random way might be a good compromise. Randomly decide on the category, but then you get to pick which objective from that category you are going to achieve.
Perhaps one based on PL might work against those Elite type armies.
Reduce their Manpower
Pick up to 3 non-Character Infantry enemy units, gain as many VP as they cost in PL for each of these units are destroyed at the end of the game. Up to a maximum of 15 VP scored.
Or something to that effect, maybe a smaller ratio of VP to PL might be better possibly (1 to 2) (may also need adjusting for Knights).
I doubt a 1ksons players feels much different about abhore the witch, then a GK player.
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
Most armies i play against can't even use abhor because they include psykers of their own. And the armies that don't include them basically give me a free 15pts from a secondary, usually big game hunter
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
How could anyone not understand how they work? They are objectives you pick at the start of the game tailored against the list you are fighting. I'm saying they don't add anything but "gaminess" (unfun ways to win).
its ok, at this point I don't think those that are wanting to keep/add more stupid secondaries understand that, they like gaminess and unfun(for the person they're playing AGAINST).
Jidmah wrote: It's hilarious how you can clearly read from some people's posts that they have neither seriously played nor understood how secondaries work, but still are vehemently against them.
I can imagine why someone playing a psychic heavy elite army may not be very enthusiastic about secondaries the way they are not, specialy if they are just starting the game and haven't played 1ksons or GK in 8th, and they don't know that how ever bad it may seem it is no way near as bad as things could be.
They are very unbalanced as far as how easy it is to do them.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
I would be playing very different games, if abhore the witch didn't exist. The same with being forced in to If we stand, we fight. It very much changes how I can play or even what units I could potentialy take. For example I can't take GM NDKs anymore or try out a storm raven or a land raider, because they give up points too easily, comparing to a master or librarian on foot or a big unit of paladins.
So the secondaries are affecting your army build and making list choices for you...that sounds great actually. Less list choices or you auto lose. Good stuff.
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
I mostly play with vehicles based lists (worthy of 30ish VPs in total if there wasn't any cap) and I accept giving up 15 points to the opponent for Bring It Down. I feel like it's a fair trade: I get to play a better list while the opponent is also getting some advantage in scoring points. I definitely don't auto lose because of that, nor I autowin against psyker based armies.
Abhor the Witch for GK and 1K players could need a fix IF they really can't win thanks to that secondary. Is it true? I don't think so, both armies are pretty solid even if they give up those 15 points. What if all their units barring characters lose the psychic ability? It's a tradeoff, and while I don't think it's particularly well implemented it doesn't look that unbalanced either.
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
I mostly play with vehicles based lists (worthy of 30ish VPs in total if there wasn't any cap) and I accept giving up 15 points to the opponent for Bring It Down. I feel like it's a fair trade: I get to play a better list while the opponent is also getting some advantage in scoring points. I definitely don't auto lose because of that, nor I autowin against psyker based armies.
Abhor the Witch for GK and 1K players could need a fix IF they really can't win thanks to that secondary. Is it true? I don't think so, both armies are pretty solid even if they give up those 15 points. What if all their units barring characters lose the psychic ability? It's a tradeoff, and while I don't think it's particularly well implemented it doesn't look that unbalanced either.
Exactly my point, many armies just have to accept that theyre giving up some secondary. At least Abhor is situational compared to bring it down.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
IMO, ideally, the kill-oriented secondaries are a counter to skew lists. If folks haven’t figured it out, this is 100% intended, as GW doesn’t like seeing skew lists winning tournaments. They have a vision of ideal armies and they are a mix of unit types.
If you want to bring 300 grots go ahead, but that’s 15 points for your opponent. Full knight army? 15 points (that one is a teensy bit unfair as pure Knights are TERRIBLE for scoring the primary, which currently makes them the worst army in my opinion.
The issue is that the current kill secondaries don’t quite have enough choices, and the ones that exist need some tweaking.
Random objectives are a bad idea, I think. If you want that kind of game, use the open war deck.
You literally prove your own point wrong by stating knights are the worst because they are a skew list and it hurts their chance at taking primary objective. Yet it is the only way to play them. Your army comp should have 0% to do with scoring objectives. 0 - None - Nada. You bring the list you want to play and you have a fair shot at winning - that is how the game should work (outside of objective secured units or maybe only troops being able to score or something). Not building your list around making it hard to score against at the list building phase. Skew lists have an in build counter to them that if they run into a certain kind of list they get obliterated. They don't need objective point disadvantage as well.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
No one is saying we should play competitive malestrom. What people are saying is we should have 3-5 primary objectives that are randomly determined at the start of the game.
Uh, no? I said pure Knights is a skew list. Titan Hunters gives a bonus for killing titanic units, which a pure Knight army will most likely give up 15 points, and almost certainly give up 12 in any realistic tournament-strength-army matched play game.. That's a counter to skewing with Titanic units. It needs tweaked, as the bonus for killing a single Knight and maybe even two Knights is too high (considering their current lack of board control).
Your suggestion of removing secondaries at this point is almost even worse for the Knight player, as they are terrible for scoring primaries, which I pointed out. Knights have their own specific problems this early in 9th, but that's not the point of this thread.
My point is that the secondaries need tweaking or additions. Nothing I said counters or disproves that. You seem to think that if something isn't perfect it should be removed, while I think it should be refined.
yukishiro1 wrote: Well sure, if you change the whole primary scoring method. I was responding to people who seemed to think the game would be better with the current missions and primary scoring method but no secondaries, and that just isn't true.
In the current system the secondaries are the only thing that makes one game different from another.
Would not a different primary objective change the game?
Control center? Control Quarters? Control Deployment zone?
Each of these requires a different strategy and is going to have different action points on the map. The secondary objectives you think ad to game variety actually just reduce the number of unit selections that are viable. They force you to build a list a certain way or you lose because you are "too easy to score against" or some other stupid reason.
Know what is actually really boring? Playing a game you are down 20 points with no chance at recovering because of stupid secondary objectives.
bingo, the game should never be won in the building of lists. I'm a big fan of randomly determining the mission/objective, makes it harder to effectively run a skew list since the mission can make that skew a liability.
IMO, ideally, the kill-oriented secondaries are a counter to skew lists. If folks haven’t figured it out, this is 100% intended, as GW doesn’t like seeing skew lists winning tournaments. They have a vision of ideal armies and they are a mix of unit types.
If you want to bring 300 grots go ahead, but that’s 15 points for your opponent. Full knight army? 15 points (that one is a teensy bit unfair as pure Knights are TERRIBLE for scoring the primary, which currently makes them the worst army in my opinion.
The issue is that the current kill secondaries don’t quite have enough choices, and the ones that exist need some tweaking.
Random objectives are a bad idea, I think. If you want that kind of game, use the open war deck.
You literally prove your own point wrong by stating knights are the worst because they are a skew list and it hurts their chance at taking primary objective. Yet it is the only way to play them. Your army comp should have 0% to do with scoring objectives. 0 - None - Nada. You bring the list you want to play and you have a fair shot at winning - that is how the game should work (outside of objective secured units or maybe only troops being able to score or something). Not building your list around making it hard to score against at the list building phase. Skew lists have an in build counter to them that if they run into a certain kind of list they get obliterated. They don't need objective point disadvantage as well.
Quite literally if you remove secondaries - the game play does not change at all. Your army will likely still move the same and fight the same because the primary objective does not change. You might have different target priority...like...You might be able to chose your targets instead of having them picked for you...IMAGINE THAT.
No one is saying we should play competitive malestrom. What people are saying is we should have 3-5 primary objectives that are randomly determined at the start of the game.
Uh, no? I said pure Knights is a skew list. Titan Hunters gives a bonus for killing titanic units, which a pure Knight army will most likely give up 15 points, and almost certainly give up 12 in any realistic tournament-strength-army matched play game.. That's a counter to skewing with Titanic units. It needs tweaked, as the bonus for killing a single Knight and maybe even two Knights is too high (considering their current lack of board control).
Your suggestion of removing secondaries at this point is almost even worse for the Knight player, as they are terrible for scoring primaries, which I pointed out. Knights have their own specific problems this early in 9th, but that's not the point of this thread.
My point is that the secondaries need tweaking or additions. Nothing I said counters or disproves that. You seem to think that if something isn't perfect it should be removed, while I think it should be refined.
They actually aren't terrible at the real primary of any war game- destroying their opponents army. Practically every game I have won as knights I have won by tabling my opponent (you know - back when that was a victory condition)
Just ask yourself. Why should I lose a game where I removed every single model of yours from the table?
Imagine winning a game of chess because of secondary objectives? "My knight was on this square all game so It doesn't matter my king is dead"...That would be a really dumb game.
Realistically and this has always been the case even in 8th. There aren't any models left after 3-4 turns (UNLESS) players are refusing to engage and hiding..
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
I mostly play with vehicles based lists (worthy of 30ish VPs in total if there wasn't any cap) and I accept giving up 15 points to the opponent for Bring It Down. I feel like it's a fair trade: I get to play a better list while the opponent is also getting some advantage in scoring points. I definitely don't auto lose because of that, nor I autowin against psyker based armies.
Abhor the Witch for GK and 1K players could need a fix IF they really can't win thanks to that secondary. Is it true? I don't think so, both armies are pretty solid even if they give up those 15 points. What if all their units barring characters lose the psychic ability? It's a tradeoff, and while I don't think it's particularly well implemented it doesn't look that unbalanced either.
Exactly my point, many armies just have to accept that theyre giving up some secondary. At least Abhor is situational compared to bring it down.
1) Abhor isn't in the same category as other kill secondaries, so it's in addition to anything else you may be giving up. GKs and Tsons will typically give up at least 24 points for abhor/assassinate, for example, usually 27 or 30, so the game basically just becomes about whether you can keep your characters alive or whether your opponent can kill them, which is a very boring sort of game to play.
2) It skews the meta because you can't take it if you don't have a psyker, meaning there's a strong disincentive to take a single psyker in a list.
3) Why should some armies - but not others - "just have to accept" they give up an automatic 15-30 points? This makes no sense from a balance perspective.
The best argument for abhor is "it doesn't completely destroy the game." There's no reason why it's actually a good thing. Not having it would be better than having it, and that's the sign of a very bad secondary.
This can be illustrated very easily with a thought experiment. Suppose Abhor had never existed. Would anyone be making a thread like this one about how what the game really needed was a secondary that specifically punished taking psykers? Nobody would even think of that as something the game needed, as opposed to the anti-elite secondary that is glaringly missing from the list.
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
I mostly play with vehicles based lists (worthy of 30ish VPs in total if there wasn't any cap) and I accept giving up 15 points to the opponent for Bring It Down. I feel like it's a fair trade: I get to play a better list while the opponent is also getting some advantage in scoring points. I definitely don't auto lose because of that, nor I autowin against psyker based armies.
Abhor the Witch for GK and 1K players could need a fix IF they really can't win thanks to that secondary. Is it true? I don't think so, both armies are pretty solid even if they give up those 15 points. What if all their units barring characters lose the psychic ability? It's a tradeoff, and while I don't think it's particularly well implemented it doesn't look that unbalanced either.
Exactly my point, many armies just have to accept that theyre giving up some secondary. At least Abhor is situational compared to bring it down.
1) Abhor isn't in the same category as other kill secondaries, so it's in addition to anything else you may be giving up. GKs and Tsons will typically give up at least 24 points for abhor/assassinate, for example, usually 27 or 30, so the game basically just becomes about whether you can keep your characters alive or whether your opponent can kill them, which is a very boring sort of game to play.
2) It skews the meta because you can't take it if you don't have a psyker, meaning there's a strong disincentive to take a single psyker in a list.
3) Why should some armies - but not others - "just have to accept" they give up an automatic 15-30 points? This makes no sense from a balance perspective.
The best argument for abhor is "it doesn't completely destroy the game." There's no reason why it's actually a good thing. Not having it would be better than having it, and that's the sign of a very bad secondary.
This can be illustrated very easily with a thought experiment. Suppose Abhor had never existed. Would anyone be making a thread like this one about how what the game really needed was a secondary that specifically punished taking psykers? Nobody would even think of that as something the game needed, as opposed to the anti-elite secondary that is glaringly missing from the list.
I do not play a psyker heavy army but it is kind of ridiculous the Abhor the Witch secondary exists. It’s such an unfair handicap. Personally I think secondaries are a great idea and can really help balance this game eventually, however they obviously need a lot of tweaking.
I play thousand sons and tzeentch demons and i dont care about abhor the witch. I just accept that i'll be giving my opponent 15vp.
I mostly play with vehicles based lists (worthy of 30ish VPs in total if there wasn't any cap) and I accept giving up 15 points to the opponent for Bring It Down. I feel like it's a fair trade: I get to play a better list while the opponent is also getting some advantage in scoring points. I definitely don't auto lose because of that, nor I autowin against psyker based armies.
Abhor the Witch for GK and 1K players could need a fix IF they really can't win thanks to that secondary. Is it true? I don't think so, both armies are pretty solid even if they give up those 15 points. What if all their units barring characters lose the psychic ability? It's a tradeoff, and while I don't think it's particularly well implemented it doesn't look that unbalanced either.
Exactly my point, many armies just have to accept that theyre giving up some secondary. At least Abhor is situational compared to bring it down.
1) Abhor isn't in the same category as other kill secondaries, so it's in addition to anything else you may be giving up. GKs and Tsons will typically give up at least 24 points for abhor/assassinate, for example, usually 27 or 30, so the game basically just becomes about whether you can keep your characters alive or whether your opponent can kill them, which is a very boring sort of game to play.
2) It skews the meta because you can't take it if you don't have a psyker, meaning there's a strong disincentive to take a single psyker in a list.
3) Why should some armies - but not others - "just have to accept" they give up an automatic 15-30 points? This makes no sense from a balance perspective.
The best argument for abhor is "it doesn't completely destroy the game." There's no reason why it's actually a good thing. Not having it would be better than having it, and that's the sign of a very bad secondary.
This can be illustrated very easily with a thought experiment. Suppose Abhor had never existed. Would anyone be making a thread like this one about how what the game really needed was a secondary that specifically punished taking psykers? Nobody would even think of that as something the game needed, as opposed to the anti-elite secondary that is glaringly missing from the list.
Literally all secondaries are like this.
You pick something about the opponents army you want to attack and get rewarded for it. They can get rewarded by not putting anything on the list of secondaries in their army.
"Its just the killing secondaries that suck"
Cause getting rewarded twice for doing something is...stupid?
"Secondaries add lots to the game"
Except they just reduce viable unit selection AND make the game less engaging because you gain more from protecting your "secondary units" than you do using them.
How about this. We remove all these stupid secondaries from the game and just go back to the way things used to be. The "OLD SCHOOL" objectives.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @ Class - you balance the game by making the points right bub...in reality the mission has nothing to do with balance - provided it is not slanted toward attacker or defender.
No, not all secondaries are like that. Please read my post before responding to it. I even numbered the points so you could easily read each one.
Points 1) and 2) are completely unique to Abhor. Point 3 is also semi-unique in that Tsons and GKs *have* to give up Abhor; there is no choice. None of the other kill secondaries are like this, except Titan Killers for a Knights list. Certain *lists* in other factions may give up max points on a kill secondary, because they skew - which is precisely why the secondaries are there, to punish skew.
Abhor doesn't punish skew, it just arbitrarily punishes two factions for no reason, while discouraging any other faction from taking psykers unless the faction absolutely doesn't work without them.
Again, if Abhor didn't exist, nobody would be demanding they implement it. It wouldn't even occur to people to ask for something so targeted and so punishing. Just like it wouldn't occur to anybody to demand they add an "Condemn the bigots" secondary that gives you 5 VP for each religiously-themed character (chaplains, ethereals, every SoB character, every black templar character, etc) you kill and 2 for each religiously themed unit.
I see 3 problematic secondaries. Thin their ranks is too weak, abhor the witch, and bring it down are too strong. Here are my fixes!
Thin their ranks: keep a tally of the total number of wounds of all opponent's models destroyed (maximum of 5 per model) (including resurrected models) and divide that number by 10. Score that many victory points at the end of the game (rounding down)
This would makes this a fair choice against elite infanry armies, particularly marines, while not being an auto take. It also doesn't double up as well vs vehicle lists with bring it down.
Abhor the witch: Cant take if you have a psyker. Score 3 points for destroying an enemy psychic character, or 5 points instead of that character was destroyed by a character model from your army. In addition score 2 victory points for each enemy psychic power that is denied or resisted during the game.
Less auto take. Still possible to max vs psychic spam, but more fluffy from a "witch hunter" aspect added in.
Bring it down: Same as before, but capped at 12.
Why do harder secondaries not give max points? This slight nerf should alleviate some of the list building burden this objective creates.
yukishiro1 wrote: No, not all secondaries are like that. Please read my post before responding to it. I even numbered the points so you could easily read each one.
Points 1) and 2) are completely unique to Abhor. Point 3 is also semi-unique in that Tsons and GKs *have* to give up Abhor; there is no choice. None of the other kill secondaries are like this, except Titan Killers for a Knights list. Certain *lists* in other factions may give up max points on a kill secondary, because they skew - which is precisely why the secondaries are there, to punish skew.
Abhor doesn't punish skew, it just arbitrarily punishes two factions for no reason, while discouraging any other faction from taking psykers unless the faction absolutely doesn't work without them.
Again, if Abhor didn't exist, nobody would be demanding they implement it. It wouldn't even occur to people to ask for something so targeted and so punishing. Just like it wouldn't occur to anybody to demand they add an "Condemn the bigots" secondary that gives you 5 VP for each religiously-themed character (chaplains, ethereals, every SoB character, every black templar character, etc) you kill and 2 for each religiously themed unit.
For my Guard, I'm very much obliged to build an army that bleeds secondary points. I can't think of any functional list that doesn't give up a lot. Especially with the whole 'kill more' one that absolutely favours elites. And Thin Their Ranks. And Bring it Down.
They actually aren't terrible at the real primary of any war game- destroying their opponents army. Practically every game I have won as knights I have won by tabling my opponent (you know - back when that was a victory condition)
Just ask yourself. Why should I lose a game where I removed every single model of yours from the table?
Imagine winning a game of chess because of secondary objectives? "My knight was on this square all game so It doesn't matter my king is dead"...That would be a really dumb game.
Realistically and this has always been the case even in 8th. There aren't any models left after 3-4 turns (UNLESS) players are refusing to engage and hiding..
Why should I lose a game where I removed every single enemy model? That's easy to head-canon. Just think of the innumerable circumstances where holding a particular location long enough is more important than surviving.
Chess? It's an established game with a single victory condition and pre-defined unit movement on a static field of squares. If chess had "editions" where the scoring was altered to achieve an effect on the gameplay, then yeah, I could imagine winning a game of chess because of secondary editions. I'm honestly not sure what you're getting at here.
Sometimes refusing to engage and hiding is a valid tactic, and I find it interesting that this tactic is being explored for secondaries.
yukishiro1 wrote: No, not all secondaries are like that. Please read my post before responding to it. I even numbered the points so you could easily read each one.
Points 1) and 2) are completely unique to Abhor. Point 3 is also semi-unique in that Tsons and GKs *have* to give up Abhor; there is no choice. None of the other kill secondaries are like this, except Titan Killers for a Knights list. Certain *lists* in other factions may give up max points on a kill secondary, because they skew - which is precisely why the secondaries are there, to punish skew.
Abhor doesn't punish skew, it just arbitrarily punishes two factions for no reason, while discouraging any other faction from taking psykers unless the faction absolutely doesn't work without them.
Again, if Abhor didn't exist, nobody would be demanding they implement it. It wouldn't even occur to people to ask for something so targeted and so punishing. Just like it wouldn't occur to anybody to demand they add an "Condemn the bigots" secondary that gives you 5 VP for each religiously-themed character (chaplains, ethereals, every SoB character, every black templar character, etc) you kill and 2 for each religiously themed unit.
For my Guard, I'm very much obliged to build an army that bleeds secondary points. I can't think of any functional list that doesn't give up a lot. Especially with the whole 'kill more' one that absolutely favours elites. And Thin Their Ranks. And Bring it Down.
Guard are definitely one of the armies that are hit harder by the secondaries, I agree. But you don't give up an auto 15 on literally any list you can bring no matter what the way Tsons and GK (and Knights, to be fair) do. Not that that is really the point. Some of the other kill secondaries need tweaking too - but that's what they need, tweaking. Abhor needs to just be deleted from the game entirely, or fundamentally reworked.
If your faction is underpowered your faction needs a buff, not a free 15VP vs TS and GK. "We need to nerf TS and GK so that bad factions without psykers can occasionally win a game by tilting the playing field via a secondary" is nonsensical from a design point of view.
If the psychic phase is overpowered (it isn't, but for the sake of argument here) the solution is to nerf psykers directly, not to give people a secondary that punishes you for taking something that's overpowered.
But overall it doesn't seem that GK and TS are in such bad state, they are actually both quite solid.
And no, the existence of Abhor the Witch is not a strong disincentive to take a single psyker in a list. We assume we build TAC lists having no idea about what armies we're going to face.
I constantly see a couple of psykers in most of eldar or harlequins lists, a librarian in SM armies is not mandatory but still useful and quite common just like psykers for AM, a weirdboy (even two) is always a good option for a footslogging oriented ork army, tyranids will also likely have psykers etc...
Actually the caveat on Abhor the Witch seems to make it a lot weaker than, say, Bring it Down, which you can also pick even if your army also has Monsters or Vehicles, or Assassinate, which you are free to pick even if you also have Characters. Etc..
yukishiro1 wrote: 1) Abhor isn't in the same category as other kill secondaries, so it's in addition to anything else you may be giving up. GKs and Tsons will typically give up at least 24 points for abhor/assassinate, for example, usually 27 or 30, so the game basically just becomes about whether you can keep your characters alive or whether your opponent can kill them, which is a very boring sort of game to play.
2) It skews the meta because you can't take it if you don't have a psyker, meaning there's a strong disincentive to take a single psyker in a list.
We've actually had 9th ed events during a global pandemic, bafflingly - this means we have some degree of data which can be reviewed regarding these assertions.
Does the data back up your claims? Are factions that could take psykers apparently choosing not to, given ATW exists?
For that matter, are secondary objectives being tracked as part of the tournament dataset - and if not, why not?
I'm also wondering about the assassinate combo - are GK and TS really bring that many additional characters? If they only yield 9 VP from assassinate, wouldn't a battlefield dominance and shadow operation choice be superior as those tend to be fairly secure 12VP?
They actually aren't terrible at the real primary of any war game- destroying their opponents army. Practically every game I have won as knights I have won by tabling my opponent (you know - back when that was a victory condition)
Just ask yourself. Why should I lose a game where I removed every single model of yours from the table?
Imagine winning a game of chess because of secondary objectives? "My knight was on this square all game so It doesn't matter my king is dead"...That would be a really dumb game.
Realistically and this has always been the case even in 8th. There aren't any models left after 3-4 turns (UNLESS) players are refusing to engage and hiding..
Because if your only goal is to table your opponent it makes the game boring and removes a lot of the strategy, it becomes "my anti tank shoots at your tanks, my anti infantry shoots at your infantry" and aggravates the lethality problem of 40k.
And some battles can be won even by getting tabled. What if i have to defend a thunderhawk while it refuels and launches into space and you kill my last model as it launches sucessfully : i won that fight.
Literally all secondaries are like this.
You pick something about the opponents army you want to attack and get rewarded for it. They can get rewarded by not putting anything on the list of secondaries in their army.
"Its just the killing secondaries that suck"
Cause getting rewarded twice for doing something is...stupid?
"Secondaries add lots to the game"
Except they just reduce viable unit selection AND make the game less engaging because you gain more from protecting your "secondary units" than you do using them.
How about this. We remove all these stupid secondaries from the game and just go back to the way things used to be. The "OLD SCHOOL" objectives.
Ahhh yes, engage on all fronts, linebreaker, all the actions ones are clearly based on your opponent more than on your planning before the game. The only secondaries that match your description of "double reward" are the kill ones, the positioning ones and the actions ones are completely fine and act as a way to reduce lethality.
Vlad? why are we talking about a lethality problem...and trying to cover it up with objectives. If the rules are too lethal...you change the rules - not shorten the game and come up with random secondary objectives to cover a problem. Honestly it is not a problem though - you just don't enjoy battling to the death...this is what 40k is and it's always been that way. At least 80% of all games end in someone getting tabled.
How is it boring to fight to the death? I find it fun - in fact it's how I have always played. I assure you it is fun for my opponents. They have a target rich environment because I am coming for them or gunning for them and we are laughing having a good time. Looking back at an ITC table its usually 2 dudes...not smiling...and I can walk up and see just what happend.
Oh you dropped in assault cents turn 1 and practically tabled this DE army in 1 turn. WOW. SO much strategy!
Oh wow look! These nurglings (brainless fungus type creatures) are too short to be shot...must be gathering some important intel from that hidden spot and their lack of brains. Cant shoot that Giant daemon behind them though...cause it's a character.
This games rules just keep getting worse and worse. I am glad I have a group of friends who are tired of the gameiness. We are just gonna play crusade and campaigns so we can actually manage to have fun.
Xenomancers wrote: Vlad? why are we talking about a lethality problem...and trying to cover it up with objectives. If the rules are too lethal...you change the rules - not shorten the game and come up with random secondary objectives to cover a problem. Honestly it is not a problem though - you just don't enjoy battling to the death...this is what 40k is and it's always been that way. At least 80% of all games end in someone getting tabled.
How is it boring to fight to the death? I find it fun - in fact it's how I have always played. I assure you it is fun for my opponents. They have a target rich environment because I am coming for them or gunning for them and we are laughing having a good time. Looking back at an ITC table its usually 2 dudes...not smiling...and I can walk up and see just what happend.
Oh you dropped in assault cents turn 1 and practically tabled this DE army in 1 turn. WOW. SO much strategy!
Oh wow look! These nurglings (brainless fungus type creatures) are too short to be shot...must be gathering some important intel from that hidden spot and their lack of brains. Cant shoot that Giant daemon behind them though...cause it's a character.
This games rules just keep getting worse and worse. I am glad I have a group of friends who are tired of the gameiness. We are just gonna play crusade and campaigns so we can actually manage to have fun.
Objectives and terrain rules allow to keep the big punch of your guns while nerfing the lethality. Its not just about killing the other guy now, you're rewarded for making decisions (ie: i wont shoot with my aggressors because i really need to raise the banner on that objective).
If you enjoy tabling and getting tabled thats fine, each are free of their opinion, which is why we won't agree on the removal of secondaries.
I think they still need tweaking (removal of the "kill" objectives first) but the concept is there to make the game have more depth (in general).
And your example with the assault centurions is exactly what i feel secondaries help against (with the exception of the "kill" ones). You can drop in and kill half my army but i still have a chance because my goal isnt only to table you.
Jidmah wrote: I'm also wondering about the assassinate combo - are GK and TS really bring that many additional characters? If they only yield 9 VP from assassinate, wouldn't a battlefield dominance and shadow operation choice be superior as those tend to be fairly secure 12VP?
The only reason a GK or Tsons list wouldn't have at least four characters is if they deliberately took only 3 to try to avoid giving up the obvious combo.
Jidmah wrote: I'm also wondering about the assassinate combo - are GK and TS really bring that many additional characters? If they only yield 9 VP from assassinate, wouldn't a battlefield dominance and shadow operation choice be superior as those tend to be fairly secure 12VP?
The only reason a GK or Tsons list wouldn't have at least four characters is if they deliberately took only 3 to try to avoid giving up the obvious combo.
My average Tsons list only has 3 characters (batallion + patrol).
And some battles can be won even by getting tabled. What if i have to defend a thunderhawk while it refuels and launches into space and you kill my last model as it launches sucessfully : i won that fight.
I think a narrative objective like that can be useful in giving context to victory.
Without it, one can only scratch one's head as to why an army "won" despite being utterly annihilated, just because some of its models managed to sit in the enemy deployment zone for a few turns. Were they snapping beautiful panorama pictures of an untouched paradise just beyond the edge of the table, in order to fill the Imperium's desperate need for new postcard designs?
And some battles can be won even by getting tabled. What if i have to defend a thunderhawk while it refuels and launches into space and you kill my last model as it launches sucessfully : i won that fight.
I think a narrative objective like that can be useful in giving context to victory.
Without it, one can only scratch one's head as to why an army "won" despite being utterly annihilated, just because some of its models managed to sit in the enemy deployment zone for a few turns. Were they snapping beautiful panorama pictures of an untouched paradise just beyond the edge of the table, in order to fill the Imperium's desperate need for new postcard designs?
Agreed, i was giving him an example because he seems to lack imagination.
Xenomancers wrote: At least 80% of all games end in someone getting tabled.
Can you cite your sources for that because that's definetly NOT my experience playing the game.
This is what happens when armies actually fight.
It is probably has to do with most games not having tones of cover and I am speaking about my entire 40k experience not just 8th or 9th ed.
And some battles can be won even by getting tabled. What if i have to defend a thunderhawk while it refuels and launches into space and you kill my last model as it launches sucessfully : i won that fight.
I think a narrative objective like that can be useful in giving context to victory.
Without it, one can only scratch one's head as to why an army "won" despite being utterly annihilated, just because some of its models managed to sit in the enemy deployment zone for a few turns. Were they snapping beautiful panorama pictures of an untouched paradise just beyond the edge of the table, in order to fill the Imperium's desperate need for new postcard designs?
How could that be an objective if I don't have the option to shoot down the thunderhawk to win the battle? Sounds like a bad movie or something.
Yeah I get your point but it's still a won battle. Might have won the battle but lost the war. Since we only have command of our tiny forces and not an entire armada...it only seems relevant to rate our performance on the battle.
How could that be an objective if I don't have the option to shoot down the thunderhawk to win the battle? Sounds like a bad movie or something.
Yeah I get your point but it's still a won battle. Might have won the battle but lost the war. Since we only have command of our tiny forces and not an entire armada...it only seems relevant to rate our performance on the battle.
because the thunderhawk is in a hangar further away and my force has intercepted yours halfway there, before your guns got in range?
Like come on. I don't know in what universe you play 40k but your perception of it is quite different from most people i've played against.
Xenomancers wrote: They actually aren't terrible at the real primary of any war game- destroying their opponents army. Practically every game I have won as knights I have won by tabling my opponent (you know - back when that was a victory condition)
Just ask yourself. Why should I lose a game where I removed every single model of yours from the table?
Any decent wargame will have scenarios where killing the enemy is not the goal, because that's how it works in real life.
The 'real primary' of a fighting force is to accomplish whatever is needed to further the operational goals of their unit, in service of forcing (at a national level) the enemy to surrender. Sometimes that means eliminating their forces directly. Sometimes it means holding significant terrain to provide a beachhead for further activity. Sometimes it means time-sensitive actions to exfiltrate POWs or VIPs, seize a structure or vessel before it can be scuttled, or knock out an emplacement threatening friendly forces, and holding the field or wiping out the enemy are completely irrelevant to operational success.
I don't think the current progressive scoring model should be used for all scenarios, but there are absolutely ones where tabling the opponent but losing the mission makes sense. Three of the Strike Force scenarios- Retrieval Mission, The Four Pillars, and Vital Intelligence- have primary objectives that are explicitly unrelated to killing the enemy. If your mission is extracting an intelligence asset, you don't get a medal if you let him die while you're busy racking up kills.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Xenomancers wrote: Yeah I get your point but it's still a won battle. Might have won the battle but lost the war. Since we only have command of our tiny forces and not an entire armada...it only seems relevant to rate our performance on the battle.
How many officers do you think get promotions for completely failing in their given objectives, but still defeating an equivalent enemy force? Let alone if they sustain significant losses in the process?
That's not a win. If your objective was to extract a HUMINT asset, deny the enemy reconnaisance of your positions, or kidnap a VIP, and you failed to do that, you lost the battle. You don't get a participation trophy for shooting the enemy real good.
