So this week, there's a matched play mission deck up for preorder.
Sight unseen, I obviously can't testify to the quality of the product.
But regarding some of the conversations we've been having over the past month, this feels like a good move- an attempt to get some of that separation from ITC style to the casual night FLGS Matched Play games night.
For those who find GT Mission Pack mission pack missions samey and dull, do you think this might help you? Do others think it has the potential to be the Casual-Matched go-to? I've never really seen anyone who regularly uses the Open War deck say a bad thing about it, so maybe there's hope.
I really enjoyed maelstrom and open war cards in the past, if these are a something like them I'm 100% on board and will buy them. at the end of the day I like my games to be fun more than anything.
Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.
Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.
Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.
What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.
Problem is that unless the competitive community makes an effort to adopt the Tempest of War missions, the majority of us will never have an opportunity to use them because our regular opponents will continue to treat every game as a practice round for their next competitive game.
Karol wrote: Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.
Karol wrote: Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.
Hecaton wrote: What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.
Go look at pre-Tournament Edition Chapter Approved books. Hell, just look at the last one that came out before 9th hit.
Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.
Honestly, that was never a real problem for me with the CA missions or the 8th edition Open War deck. Because you're (presumably) a friendly game rather than a tournament match, you can either request a redo on the mission selection or just enjoy seeing how well you do in a semi-unwinnable scenario. Heck, there were Challenge Missions where the whole point was just to see how well you could do without any realistic hope of "winning."
I really enjoyed the Open War missions. I ought to try to talk some of the local crowd into playing them instead of the mission pack stuff. They tend to tell a better story and lead to more interesting decisions mid-game. I'd go so far as to say the missions themselves tend to be even more enjoyable than Crusade missions.
Karol plays in an unholy trinity of donkey-caves, waac/Yolo, and superlists in normal pickup games with no holds barred the soup du jour. So there's that.
I love the Open War deck and like 90% of my games from 8th till now have been fun open war deck games.
I strongly encourage everyone to give em a try, you might be surprised...and that's a good thing.
I like Open War - it's so much easier to play because you're not faffing around with three secondaries on top. That also frees up your mind from juggling objective-overload and lets you enjoy the game.
They're not the most perfectly balanced thing in the world, but that's not an issue for the type of game I play. Whenever we've drawn something crazy imbalanced, we've both agreed to just draw another card till we get something within shouting distance of fair.
I like to use a draw method stolen from Star Wars Legion, rather than just draw one of each and see what happens.
It gives both players some control over the draws.
PenitentJake wrote: I've never really seen anyone who regularly uses the Open War deck say a bad thing about it, so maybe there's hope.
Nobody is ever going to be forced to play a niche variant of 40k, nobody is forced to play 6th edition or Open War, so anybody that regularly plays Open War or 6th edition are those that don't see the flaws in the systems. There is no perfect mission set for everybody.
I hate surprises, kindly keep them to yourself, I have considered joining a cult where gifts and surprise birthdays is against the rules several times. Joking aside, with Maelstrom at least most missions did not decide the game before deployment, I have just about zero interest in that type of gameplay. I don't trust my pick-up game opponents to be able to see what missions are unfair in a fun surprising way and what missions are over before deployment because they are so unfair.
I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.
The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.
I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.
current missions suck ass, its basically just a different layout and thats it.
And when they do try and make them more interesting it becomes overcomplicated for no reason.
Had a game this weekend and we got mission 12(?) of the nachmund pack. We just said feth the primary, we both read the paragraph of text explaining the plant/defuse actions and it was sooo fething complicated to parse for no reason.
And why not take more inspiration from missions like Infinity's? Have a few actions be required to achieve your 45pts from primaries, have these actions tied to different Force org slots/unit types to force diversity.
Having missions structured in a "Do x, then y, then z" way is much more interesting than "trade control of circles" all game long. (with a dash of engage/retrieve).
End of 8th Maelstrom of war was the most fun i've had with 40k missions, its a shame it got kinda scrapped with 9th
H.B.M.C. wrote: Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.
Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.
I really wish I could go to this parallel universe you're from where 40k is good for tournament play. Sounds like a nice place.
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VladimirHerzog wrote: current missions suck ass, its basically just a different layout and thats it.
And when they do try and make them more interesting it becomes overcomplicated for no reason.
Had a game this weekend and we got mission 12(?) of the nachmund pack. We just said feth the primary, we both read the paragraph of text explaining the plant/defuse actions and it was sooo fething complicated to parse for no reason.
And why not take more inspiration from missions like Infinity's? Have a few actions be required to achieve your 45pts from primaries, have these actions tied to different Force org slots/unit types to force diversity.
Having missions structured in a "Do x, then y, then z" way is much more interesting than "trade control of circles" all game long. (with a dash of engage/retrieve).
End of 8th Maelstrom of war was the most fun i've had with 40k missions, its a shame it got kinda scrapped with 9th
Ok so, you basically said 'why don't GW do X thing like infinity' while describing a mission that does that EXACT thing you said they should do. And then dismissing it as 'overcomplicated'
Apparently the reason is because anything more complicated than 'stand on 2 objectives' fries Dakka people's brains.
Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'
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oni wrote: I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.
The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.
I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.
This reads like a 'friendzoned nice guy' copypasta.
oni wrote: I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.
The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.
I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.
I don't suppose you & the other shunned veteran players have ever thought to just play games amongst yourselves. And snag some of the new players while you're at it.
Ok so, you basically said 'why don't GW do X thing like infinity' while describing a mission that does that EXACT thing you said they should do. And then dismissing it as 'overcomplicated'
the idea of the mission is simple, but why the feth do GW feel like they need to write it that poorly, its a fething paragraph of lawyer speach
Prime Explosives (Action): One unit from your army can start to perform this action at the end of your Movement phase if it is wholly within your opponents territory and it is more than 9" away from any Primed Explosives objective markers (see below). If the unit performing this action has the Objective Secured ability or a similar rule, this action is completed at the end of your turn; otherwise, it is completed at the end of your next Command phase. If this action is successfully completed, set up 1 Primed Explosives objective marker on the battlefield that is wholly within your opponents territory and wholly within 3" of the unit that completed this action - this represents a cache of Primed Explosives, but does not count as an objective marker for any rules purposes other than for the Defuse Explosives action and the Detonation primary objective (see below).
Defuse Explosives (Action): One unit from your army can start to perform this action at the end of your Movement phase if it is within range of a Primed Explosives objective marker within your own territory and no enemy units (excluding AIRCRAFT) are within range of the same Primed Explosives objective marker. This action is completed at the end of your turn provided the unit attempting it is still within range of the same Primed Explosives objective marker. If this action is successfully completed, roll one D6 and add 3 to the result if the unit that performed this action has the Objective Secured ability or a similar rule: on a 4+, remove that Primed Explosives objective marker from the battlefield.
And i shouldve added that we were both trying out the Aeldari codex for the first time so we didnt want to make it more complex.
Even the most complicated missions in infinity (Mindwipe, Biotechvore) are way easier to parse than this gak
Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'
did you try end of 8th maelstrom, you could remove cards from your deck, you had a hand to chose from, you could draw additional cards. It was random but not true random so you wouldnt get dumb gak like "cast or deny a spell" when playing tau/admech
I'm not really sure why you characterize things that way, but the rules for Mindwipe are...not brief or simple. I feel like you're just familiar with Infinity and unfamiliar with Nachmund and more inclined to be aggravated with GW.
Mind Wipe is also basically just objectives that only score at the end and it's otherwise a similar method of scoring ( do x, do x more than opponent, don't let opponent do y )
Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'.
Compared to now where after seeing lists and who goes first you can predit pretty much infallibly. I'm yet to fail predict one At least in AOS I failed once as one player did silly rookie mistake in heat of a moment giving needlessly redeploy which costs battle tactic 100% sure(opponent needed to roll 1+ on d6)
I disliked the current card deck missions due to the 18'' no mans land and the twist which i find to penalizing or rewarding depending on army.
I would love a way to play that does not take me 15mins to figure out secondaries
I really liked my first few games of Maelstrom, but the "drunken commander" thing really made it hard for me to visualize a story tied to the game. One turn, the hill the enemy is standing on is so important that my endangered species space elves are willing to sacrifice precious lives to take it. The next, that hill is totally worthless, but it's super important that I stand in the bushes that I've been standing on this whole time or that I was standing on until I had to send dudes forward to take that hill. And the turn after that, it's super important that my farseer cast a psychic power even though that's exactly what he's been doing this whole time.
Compared to that, Open War and even Eternal War and Tournament Pack missions are a lot more "fluffy." At least in the sense that you can sort of get the general idea of what it is the army's are fighting over and trying to accomplish. I think that's where the tournament pack missions (and EW in general) kind of fall short for me. There are so many secondary objectives floating around that change from game to game that it's a little tough to Forge the Narrative. Does my army care about controlling the battlefield by standing on objectives, or is it preoccupied with keeping its most expensive units alive? Or is the priority killing the enemy faster than kill you? Or is it countering whatever the enemy's three secondaries are? You functionally have 7 different goals (that sometimes break down into multiple sub-goals) to keep track of during a single game. That's a little much.
Hmm. I wonder how hard it would be to give each codex-level faction a handful of secondaries to choose from and then have the game's goals be:
* The mission primary objective.
* Player A's single secondary objective.
* Player B's single secondary objective.
You could even give each faction goals their opponents can choose from representing the fluff of that faction.
For instance:
* Mission: Progressive scoring; hold more objectives than your opponent at the start of your turn.
* Disrupt the Horde: Player A scores 15/30/45 VP for killing some/half/all of the ork player's character units.
* Loot Da Gubbinz!: Player B scores X VP each time a unit completes the Looting action while within 3" of an objective marker. (Each objective marker can only be looted once per turn.)
tneva82 wrote: He said GOOD for it. Maybe read what others write once in for a change? You might actually like it.
Then why the feth did he quote me, given I didn't say 40k was good for tournaments either?
I stick by what I wrote. He was trying to argue that the idea that the current edition of 40k isn't tournament-focused. This is not true. It is laser focused on tournament play. Just because it's gak doesn't change that fact.
If that's not what he was saying, then he can defend himself rather than having you come along to snark your way to another ugly reply.
Wyldhunt wrote: I really liked my first few games of Maelstrom, but the "drunken commander" thing really made it hard for me to visualize a story tied to the game. One turn, the hill the enemy is standing on is so important that my endangered species space elves are willing to sacrifice precious lives to take it. The next, that hill is totally worthless, but it's super important that I stand in the bushes that I've been standing on this whole time or that I was standing on until I had to send dudes forward to take that hill. And the turn after that, it's super important that my farseer cast a psychic power even though that's exactly what he's been doing this whole time.
I find another issue with Maelstrom/Open War and also the general calls for more random terrain, missions, etc is:
It works fine for Space Marines or Eldar, etc who can produce a combined arms list of infantry, troop transports, heavy infantry elements, scouting elements, main battle tanks, artillery, fast attack elements, etc. You can play randomised missions/terrain that you need a TAC list for.
Then you try it for Death Guard or Slaanesh Daemons. "Oh wait" says the Death Guard player "I don't seem to have any scouting or fast attack elements, that maelstrom card says I need to hold an objective four turns of movement away..." Or, the Slaanesh Daemons player wonders where their heavy infantry, main battle tanks and artillery are hiding in the codex..
Then the Slaanesh Daemon player sees the mission rules "oh my invulnerables are turned off in the centre of the board, it is a shame my entire codex is built around those. What about you Mr Combined Arms Space Marine, are there any missions that screw you over? No!? I am surprised!" It is funny, I've yet to see the Eternal War mission where in the centre of the board everyone gets a +1 to their invulnerable saving throws, odd that.
He said GOOD for it. Maybe read what others write once in for a change? You might actually like it.
But it is actually. At least considering the history of 40k.
What we have now is a much more balanced environment in tournaments, where pretty much every faction has its moment of glory at some point and in each moment there are multiple factions that can win an event with solid odds. In the past we had fewer factions and fewer lists as top tiers, and their level of competitiveness stayed the same for years. That wasn't good for tournaments.
IMHO40k has never been enjoyable at competitive levels, and in fact I've never even been tempted to go to events in over 20 years of experience in 40k, but now it's certainly more enjoyable than ever.
Daedalus81 wrote: I'm not really sure why you characterize things that way, but the rules for Mindwipe are...not brief or simple. I feel like you're just familiar with Infinity and unfamiliar with Nachmund and more inclined to be aggravated with GW.
Mind Wipe is also basically just objectives that only score at the end and it's otherwise a similar method of scoring ( do x, do x more than opponent, don't let opponent do y )
Spoiler:
Notice the formatting CB used for it compared to GW? Nice short blurbs of text, with some lists explaining the skills like every other skills in the game. takes me much less time to parse than the way GW presents it.
Because when you call an edition tournament edition you are implying that most of the rules are designed for or good for tournament play. When most of the rules are for crusade and the rules are only good for crusade, then it doesn't make sense to call it tournament edition.
vict0988 wrote: Because when you call an edition tournament edition you are implying that most of the rules are designed for or good for tournament play. When most of the rules are for crusade and the rules are only good for crusade, then it doesn't make sense to call it tournament edition.
Yes,you're implying it's designed with tournaments in mind(see: Street Fighter 2 Tournament edition). 9th Ed is definitely designed with tournaments in mind(they wouldn't have included so many ITC "innovations" otherwise or have formed their new ITC alliance), it just fails to be good at it.
The open war cards in eighth edition were a constant source of fun for me, so if these are anything at all like those, I'll be happy to pick up a copy.
40K is so alien to me now. I'm just starting to get games in of ninth edition and I already hear people talking about tenth!
Yeah, and second, third, fourth, fifth, even sixth… less eighth and ninth though, unless re tournament edition, which codex is gonna be last, how strats should either disappear or become fewer and more standard, yada…
I came here looking for info on what this might be as well.
I'm curious to know if it's going to be Open War 2.0, or something else. I love the Open War decks for playing games. It would be interesting to see if they improve on it somehow. If the team that designed the 'Matched Play' ruleset was involved with it, then it'll probably be garbage like everything else they've involved themselves with. I'm hoping that they give us some reveal on what it is soon.
So the info we have about the deck very specifically calls it a matched play deck, and it does mention secondaries. It doesn't mention if they are existing secondaries put in card form for randomization purposes (I hope not- that would be a terrible product) or entirely new secondaries created specifically for the deck in order to provide interesting interactions with the other card types.
Given that "Tempest" is pretty similar to "Maelstrom", I'd guess this might be the return of Maelstrom-style objective play. If so, that would be a welcome new approach to Matched Play. The version of Maelstrom they had at the end of 8th was really good and it still annoys me that they removed it from 9th.
PenitentJake wrote: There is a White Dwarf 9th ed Maelstrom of war. I never tried it, but I think there's a review of it on Goonhammer if you search.
It's awful. Doesn't even hold a candle to previous Maelstrom missions. One is better off just pulling out the 8th edition Maelstrom missions and re-playing them.
Current Tournament style rules are getting a bit boring (need to bring this and that unit, often not much choice of secondary's, mainly hiding and drip feeding your opponent your units).
Personally like Maelstrom even better than Open War, so hoping it's more like that.
Current Tournament style rules are getting a bit boring (need to bring this and that unit, often not much choice of secondary's, mainly hiding and drip feeding your opponent your units).
Personally like Maelstrom even better than Open War, so hoping it's more like that.
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Maelstrom over Open War?
Finally this week for Warhammer 40,000 is the Tempest of War card pack. These decks let you generate missions for your matched play games quickly and, with thousands of combinations available, they’ll really test your tactical prowess. With cards for deployment, primary objectives, secondary objectives, and special mission rules, this is an easy way to create Incursion- and Strike Force-sized games.
Personally like Maelstrom even better than Open War, so hoping it's more like that.
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Maelstrom over Open War?
I'm with him. Maelstrom was the best mission format to be released to date for 40k. The 7th edition was fine as long as you weren't playing a smaller game, but there were no issues at higher points. 8th edition was a bit of a let down, but it was an attempt to refine the format. By the end of 8th, the CA adjustments made the format almost as unplayable as the Tournament format. We were promised a Maelstrom Mission pack in 9th in the BRB, what we got was another version of 'Matched Play' with 'Maelstrom' written on it.
Seems like a steep price for what is basically a simplified / bland Version of Maelstrom. But for people who don't have 8th missions/ CAs anymore it might be of use.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You get two decks, so don't need to buy two copies. I think that's better overall.
I think the random secondaries are the biggest improvement over the standard Matched Play missions. Anything that prevents people "building for the secondaries" is great IMHO. That's one of the things that I dislike the most about the Matched Play missions.
Current Tournament style rules are getting a bit boring (need to bring this and that unit, often not much choice of secondary's, mainly hiding and drip feeding your opponent your units).
Personally like Maelstrom even better than Open War, so hoping it's more like that.
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Maelstrom over Open War?
With Maelstrom it was (almost) always worth continuing fighting, because you could draw good cards and your opponent bad cards, getting someone back into the fight. And your goals changed every round, depending on the cards you got.
So the game changed per round and you always had a fighting chance is why I liked Maelstrom more.
(I'm not one for 'balance', there are too many armies and units for that to be feasible is my opinion, all players should have a fighting chance and have fun).
generally, they are quite complementary of the card deck, discribing it as
Put simply, Tempest of War is the best version of Maelstrom Games Workshop has ever produced. If you’re a casual player who wants a good format for matched play that’s easier to pick up and jump into than the GT missions, this card pack is a must-buy. If you’re a competitive player looking to mix things up or try a new format, this is also worth looking at. It’s lowkey one of the best, most well thought-out and designed rules products I’ve seen from GW in the last two editions and it’ll be a damn shame if it flies under the radar.
emphasis in original.
i might actaully look into getting this for my local club. it could be fun, and might make for some extra, unpredictable fun for those not chasing the tournament scene.
In fact, they have a Battle Report using the deck on their channel already.
Glad I bought a set, 'cause current Matched Play seems like an absolute fustercluck. Even just the [i]"you can place objectives in buildings"/[i] is a massive leap forward.
This looks so much better than the standard Matched Play missions. It's really bizarre that gw isn't hyping it at all. Hopefully the efforts of people like Winters and Tabletop Tactics will help get people interested in it.
I watched the tabletop tactics game where they use the tempest of war deck and it honestly looks like great fun. I'm really looking forward to trying the deck and I'm really surprised that GW hasn't done more marketing for it. It kind of flew under the radar a bit.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You get two decks, so don't need to buy two copies. I think that's better overall.
I think the random secondaries are the biggest improvement over the standard Matched Play missions. Anything that prevents people "building for the secondaries" is great IMHO. That's one of the things that I dislike the most about the Matched Play missions.
Amen.
Makes every game way too reliant on the listbuilding.
"ill build a list that can do stranglehold/engage/retrieve easily"
fething snoozefest. I loved Maelstrom because it forced you to bring a TAC list
Tiberias wrote: I watched the tabletop tactics game where they use the tempest of war deck and it honestly looks like great fun. I'm really looking forward to trying the deck and I'm really surprised that GW hasn't done more marketing for it. It kind of flew under the radar a bit.
Yeah, I'm kind of puzzled. I don't think I saw anything other than 'yeah, you can also buy this thing today among our other releases, but we aren't really going to tell you anything about it.'
Just watched TTT review and games with these. I am definitely buying and using. Seems so much more interesting that current missions and seems to have been done well. Also two secondary decks in the box so only one person needs to own this to use? That is so un-GW like and a welcome change.
Current Tournament style rules are getting a bit boring (need to bring this and that unit, often not much choice of secondary's, mainly hiding and drip feeding your opponent your units).
Personally like Maelstrom even better than Open War, so hoping it's more like that.
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer Maelstrom over Open War?
With Maelstrom it was (almost) always worth continuing fighting, because you could draw good cards and your opponent bad cards, getting someone back into the fight. And your goals changed every round, depending on the cards you got.
So the game changed per round and you always had a fighting chance is why I liked Maelstrom more.
(I'm not one for 'balance', there are too many armies and units for that to be feasible is my opinion, all players should have a fighting chance and have fun).
I'm probably in the minority, but I didn't like 8th Edition tactical objectives, and these remind me of those. For me, changing objectives each turn and managing a card deck detract from the game.
I wasn't fond of Maelstrom either, but it was because some of the objectives were just unobtainable.
"Kill an enemy Psyker." Cool. I'll ask my Necron opponent which of his units are psykers...
This, on the other hand, appears to be far more thought through, leaving fewer (if any) roadblocks to scoring, and turning Secondary Objectives into one-and-done things rather than things you build your list around (despite their name, secondary objectives are primary in Matched Play 40k due to how much influence they have, which is ridiculous).
Stands to reason then that GW would come out with a well realised set of mission rules and then basically not talk about them, promote them in any way, and essentially act as if they don't exist. They never do miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity...
Tiberias wrote: I watched the tabletop tactics game where they use the tempest of war deck and it honestly looks like great fun. I'm really looking forward to trying the deck and I'm really surprised that GW hasn't done more marketing for it. It kind of flew under the radar a bit.
Yeah, I'm kind of puzzled. I don't think I saw anything other than 'yeah, you can also buy this thing today among our other releases, but we aren't really going to tell you anything about it.'
It certainly seems the sort of release that should've had at least one article about it on WHC - and maybe even a W+ battle report to showcase it?
I wonder if there'll be anything about it in the next couple of issues of White Dwarf.
This, on the other hand, appears to be far more thought through, leaving fewer (if any) roadblocks to scoring, and turning Secondary Objectives into one-and-done things rather than things you build your list around (despite their name, secondary objectives are primary in Matched Play 40k due to how much influence they have, which is ridiculous).
Can't remember who it was, but one of the sites (maybe goonhammer) crunched the numbers on this and win/loss is nearly always based on who scores the most primary. I would like to see them keep tweaking the secondaries though, as with all things regarding GW rules, the basic concept is decent, but their execution is poor.
what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
That is easily avoidable, just like with sports, you need to train. If you play enough games and your army is good, you don't have to think a lot about what to do. And vs specific match ups there is sometimes only one proper way to do an opening and play the game. Or there is two depending if you went first or second vs an army like tau for example. Training removes the need to think and recalculate everything from scratch for each game.
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
Well no, the vast majority of secondaries are chosen during listbuilding while maybe a lone secondary is dependant on the opponent's list and it's typically a choice between 3-4 secondaries, with one of them typically the best option by a large margin that is immediately spotted. There's not really much need to think anything once you get to the table. The thinking is done before arriving, during listbuilding.
I hate to tie listbuilding to objectives instead: during listbuilding I'd like to create a force that could face any kind of game with any possible objective to score. It's a kind of randomness that helps keeping the game more healthy.
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
Watch a battle report on Youtube if you don't want to think. You have always needed to think for Maelstrom, objective placement and deployment was an especially important part of the game when tables were larger.
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
That is easily avoidable, just like with sports, you need to train. If you play enough games and your army is good, you don't have to think a lot about what to do. And vs specific match ups there is sometimes only one proper way to do an opening and play the game. Or there is two depending if you went first or second vs an army like tau for example. Training removes the need to think and recalculate everything from scratch for each game.
Time is and always will be a factor. But the only time it took our group as long as now to start deploying and playing was during the random WL and PSI area, and that feels to much.
I play 8+ armies vs. basically all other armies except Custodes and besides points i do not know what the oponent will play nor the mission till we meet up.
Blackie wrote:
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
Well no, the vast majority of secondaries are chosen during listbuilding while maybe a lone secondary is dependant on the opponent's list and it's typically a choice between 3-4 secondaries, with one of them typically the best option by a large margin that is immediately spotted. There's not really much need to think anything once you get to the table. The thinking is done before arriving, during listbuilding.
I hate to tie listbuilding to objectives instead: during listbuilding I'd like to create a force that could face any kind of game with any possible objective to score. It's a kind of randomness that helps keeping the game more healthy.
My thinking is for an army list is:
a) did i just recently finished painting something?
b) is there a style I want to try (mechanized, infantry etc.)?
c) Do I have the tools to take on different types of units, can i move to objectives?
d) any synergy i can created following the 3 above
and list done. I do not care about the secondaries, thus this new mission type is a god send, as it cuts away.
vict0988 wrote:
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
Watch a battle report on Youtube if you don't want to think. You have always needed to think for Maelstrom, objective placement and deployment was an especially important part of the game when tables were larger.
I like to think in the game not 15+minutes before starting to setup.
Ok which secondary will give me with this table setup, deployment zones and enemy army the highest chance to score any points?
I figured that I always take one secondary from the army i play and then mostly just engange and no priosners.
This is as everything meta dependent, and I only play against mates with whom I play since 3rd edition so we know how we like to play and the secondaries are disliked in our group in their current form.
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
That is easily avoidable, just like with sports, you need to train. If you play enough games and your army is good, you don't have to think a lot about what to do. And vs specific match ups there is sometimes only one proper way to do an opening and play the game. Or there is two depending if you went first or second vs an army like tau for example. Training removes the need to think and recalculate everything from scratch for each game.
While Fwlshadowalker has already responded, the point is many players have more time available to paint than they do to play. If you are getting in your once a month 40K game, you won't have the training necessary to make quick decisions on Secondaries. Having that taken away via the Tempest of War Secondary Deck makes getting to moving models and rolling dice much faster.
If someone focuses on painting then why do they care how their gaming ends up with. Imagine if I suddenly said that painting takes too much time. I would like to sit down and just paint a GD winning , or at least a local paint event, winning army. If you don't put in the work in to something, you do not get the results. It is rather simple.
Time is and always will be a factor. But the only time it took our group as long as now to start deploying and playing was during the random WL and PSI area, and that feels to much.
I play 8+ armies vs. basically all other armies except Custodes and besides points i do not know what the oponent will play nor the mission till we meet up.
I don't know. Don't play 8 armies at the same time then? In sports school around year two, even if you are very succesful you are told to pick max 2 things, and you really have to be a genius to do 2, most people just do one thing. No one is doing track and field and wrestling at the same time. Or pole vault and football.
Karol wrote: If someone focuses on painting then why do they care how their gaming ends up with. Imagine if I suddenly said that painting takes too much time. I would like to sit down and just paint a GD winning , or at least a local paint event, winning army. If you don't put in the work in to something, you do not get the results. It is rather simple.
Time is and always will be a factor. But the only time it took our group as long as now to start deploying and playing was during the random WL and PSI area, and that feels to much.
I play 8+ armies vs. basically all other armies except Custodes and besides points i do not know what the oponent will play nor the mission till we meet up.
I don't know. Don't play 8 armies at the same time then? In sports school around year two, even if you are very succesful you are told to pick max 2 things, and you really have to be a genius to do 2, most people just do one thing. No one is doing track and field and wrestling at the same time. Or pole vault and football.
really? you don't understand why someone that paints a lot would want an enjoyable game when they do find time to play?
40k isn't a sport, and the desolate wasteland that Karol (and apparently 90% of the world's TFGs) occupy is not a normal place.
Blackie wrote: Easy fix: discard an objective that is impossible to achieve due to lists' compositions and draw another card. That's how we've always played it.
Cool, but that's a house rule, and this new set makes such a thing unnecessary. It's an improvement. An upgrade.
Karol wrote: If someone focuses on painting then why do they care how their gaming ends up with.
Can't do two things at once? Can't care about painting and playing?
Wyldhunt wrote: Because you're (presumably) a friendly game rather than a tournament match,
Karol doesn't believe friendly matches exist and that life is a constant competition against literally everyone else.
It pretty much is. You compete with other people for a husband/wife. You compete with coworkers for raises, promotions, etc. You probably compete in your hobbies whether it's showing your car, playing pool, bowling league, adult soccer/baseball leagues, poker night, 40k, etc. You compete with your neighbors to have the greenest yard or best xmas decorations. It doesn't mean you can't play 40k for fun but I'm not sure what society you're living in that competition for literally everything isn't a daily part of your life. The people who are successful at everything they do are also the type that are highly competitive and make their kids cry when playing board games Tom Brady style. It seems like it's Brits that complain the most about wanting fluffhammer. I guess the American sense of competition doesn't prevail over there (which is probably why we're America and not the colonies of West Britain...)
Right, so... dystopian interpretations of American nostalgia and public school sports aside, I really like how general this card set is. No specifics about psykers, factions, etc, and in general its meta and even edition agnostic. Its a self contained scenario generator that you can just run with.
It could perhaps do with a few more primary mission options, but that's really the only complaint.
I was really hoping that this would be something to look forward to, and wish I'd known about it sooner. While there are some sideways 'Improvements' in here, there are still too many elements of 'Matched Play' in here. The Deployment zones are a complete waste like Matched Play since there doesn't seem to be any difference between them once the game begins. You still end up with 2-5 Primary Objectives every mission with Secondaries being a thing of the past. I really don't understand why the commitment to the worst scoring system ever implemented by any game system.
Just release a true 'Maelstrom' set, put back all the rules that have been removed, get rid of the 'Matched Play' ruleset and we can get back to playing 40k again.
Wyldhunt wrote: Because you're (presumably) a friendly game rather than a tournament match,
Karol doesn't believe friendly matches exist and that life is a constant competition against literally everyone else.
It pretty much is. You compete with other people for a husband/wife. You compete with coworkers for raises, promotions, etc. You probably compete in your hobbies whether it's showing your car, playing pool, bowling league, adult soccer/baseball leagues, poker night, 40k, etc. You compete with your neighbors to have the greenest yard or best xmas decorations. It doesn't mean you can't play 40k for fun but I'm not sure what society you're living in that competition for literally everything isn't a daily part of your life. The people who are successful at everything they do are also the type that are highly competitive and make their kids cry when playing board games Tom Brady style. It seems like it's Brits that complain the most about wanting fluffhammer. I guess the American sense of competition doesn't prevail over there (which is probably why we're America and not the colonies of West Britain...)
And as gw games can't be played competively you just make fool of yourself if you try compete in 40k. You have better shot at traveling over speed of light.
Blackie wrote: Easy fix: discard an objective that is impossible to achieve due to lists' compositions and draw another card. That's how we've always played it.
Cool, but that's a house rule, and this new set makes such a thing unnecessary. It's an improvement. An upgrade.
by the end of 8th, you could thin your deck by up to 15 cards in maelstrom, so you wouldnt get these unachievable objectives
Fwlshadowalker wrote: what I dislike most about the secondaries is that i have to think before playing. I mean when i finaly arrive at the table i want to start deploying and playing. Not trying to calculate which secondary might be possible for the most VPs based on match up.
That is easily avoidable, just like with sports, you need to train. If you play enough games and your army is good, you don't have to think a lot about what to do. And vs specific match ups there is sometimes only one proper way to do an opening and play the game. Or there is two depending if you went first or second vs an army like tau for example. Training removes the need to think and recalculate everything from scratch for each game.
Yup, this pretty much sums up how pathetic the current mission design is and adding to that, how the fixed terrain layouts are complete gak. No thought needed, just point and click with the most powerful army list.
The current mission design and fixed terrain layout have not made the game more 'tactical', they have not made the game more 'balanced'. They have only made the game more 'predictable'. I hate that people so often get it so twisted that somehow predictability equates to balance. A game being predictable, a game that does not require thought is no good.
The Tempest of War cards aim to correct this critical flaw (i.e. the current missions), to make the game fun again, to make people think about changing and adapting tactics and actively engage their opponent.
And it's not like 40k even requires training more than handful games. GW games is so simple that as long as you can read english even elementary school kids can figure it out. Only ones who can't are those who can't read english(so non-native speakers generally)
tneva82 wrote: And it's not like 40k even requires training more than handful games. GW games is so simple that as long as you can read english even elementary school kids can figure it out. Only ones who can't are those who can't read english(so non-native speakers generally)
idk about that, i speak english perfectly yet the way GW writes their rules often requires me to do multiple passes to understand properly
tneva82 wrote: And it's not like 40k even requires training more than handful games. GW games is so simple that as long as you can read english even elementary school kids can figure it out. Only ones who can't are those who can't read english(so non-native speakers generally)
Yup, my 5 & 8yo nephews had no problem understanding the game...which is actually a total knock on GW.
VladimirHerzog wrote: by the end of 8th, you could thin your deck by up to 15 cards in maelstrom, so you wouldnt get these unachievable objectives
Was that a house rule?
The 2019 CA rules had this for making your deck:
CONSTRUCTING YOUR OBJECTIVE DECK
Before playing one of the following Maelstrom of War missions, after your opponent has shared their army roster with you, you must construct an Objective deck. This deck should be made up of a minimum of 18 Tactical Objective cards, chosen from the pool available to your army. No more than one copy of each uniquely named Tactical Objective can be included in the deck.
VladimirHerzog wrote: by the end of 8th, you could thin your deck by up to 15 cards in maelstrom, so you wouldnt get these unachievable objectives
Was that a house rule?
The 2019 CA rules had this for making your deck:
CONSTRUCTING YOUR OBJECTIVE DECK
Before playing one of the following Maelstrom of War missions, after your opponent has shared their army roster with you, you must construct an Objective deck. This deck should be made up of a minimum of 18 Tactical Objective cards, chosen from the pool available to your army. No more than one copy of each uniquely named Tactical Objective can be included in the deck.
you also had a hand of 5(?) cards from which you picked the 3(?) active ones for the turn, and strats to recycle/draw new cards.
Oh, and you could put one of your objectives face down for some mindgames
VladimirHerzog wrote: by the end of 8th, you could thin your deck by up to 15 cards in maelstrom, so you wouldnt get these unachievable objectives
Was that a house rule?
The 2019 CA rules had this for making your deck:
CONSTRUCTING YOUR OBJECTIVE DECK
Before playing one of the following Maelstrom of War missions, after your opponent has shared their army roster with you, you must construct an Objective deck. This deck should be made up of a minimum of 18 Tactical Objective cards, chosen from the pool available to your army. No more than one copy of each uniquely named Tactical Objective can be included in the deck.
you also had a hand of 5(?) cards from which you picked the 3(?) active ones for the turn, and strats to recycle/draw new cards.
Oh, and you could put one of your objectives face down for some mindgames
That did improve Maelstrom, but at that point we were taking so many steps to reduce randomness that it kind of made me question the usefulness of the randomness in the first place. Again, I like Maelstrom well enough. It just seems like a lot of steps to end up with semi-random objectives that are tricky to frame a narrative around.
I remember the biggest upside to Maelstrom simply being that many objectives made your opponent leave his deployment zone. 8th was pretty gunline-heavy and unfriendly to melee units. Having the enemy do something other than remove models at a distance made the game a lot less frustrating.
it was still random, you still had to position your army in a way where you could do any objectives you would draw on the next turn.
Nowadays, most of the game is made during listbuilding. you can basically plan what you're gonna do every turn before even showing up to the game because every mission is the same
VladimirHerzog wrote: it was still random, you still had to position your army in a way where you could do any objectives you would draw on the next turn.
Nowadays, most of the game is made during listbuilding. you can basically plan what you're gonna do every turn before even showing up to the game because every mission is the same
Fair. But like I said before, that level of randomness kind of made it hard to hang a story on the game. I'm not trying to downplay the genuine upsides of Malestrom. It's just not my favorite way to play the game.
I felt like the last incarnation of Maelstrom in 8th did too little to vary games. Essentially it had the some problem matched play/GT has now, every games was the same game with the same army, even if what you had to archive was randomized a bit.
My thoughts on the new version:
+ doesn't burden casual players with secondary selection. Set up board, deploy armies and play away - just like in older editions.
+ players place objectives and they are allowed to be placed in terrain. Restrictions on where to deploy them still force the armies to move out of their deployment zone and punishes castles.
+ no codex-specific objectives, no warping effect on list building (nachtmund data), no cherry picking. Every army needs to be able to handle all objectives.
+ twists are not as game-warping as the ones from the open war deck, but still interesting.
+ inbuild discard mechanic for unarchivable objectives, no more CP investment necessary.
+ no stratagem overhead, just one stratagem for redrawing one objective
+ two objective decks, one for each player. No more dice table nonsense.
+ proper 24" no-mans land
+ split into traditional primaries and maelstrom secondaries. Even if the great randomizer hates you, you can still try to win.
+ kept the hand/in play mechanism from last maelstrom incarnations
o close enough to matched play to not scare people used to that away. Those hardcore "train for tournament" guys will likely not even try though.
o no deckbuilding component. Keeps it simple, but I like deckbuilding o almost all objectives are worth the same amount of VP. Time will tell if that approach works better than the previous one. At least there are no random VP.
- just six deployment maps. Open war has something like 18?
- primaries could have been a bit more varied.
- price
Anyways, I pre-ordered mine. First release worth my money this year.
Jidmah wrote: I felt like the last incarnation of Maelstrom in 8th did too little to vary games. Essentially it had the some problem matched play/GT has now, every games was the same game with the same army, even if what you had to archive was randomized a bit.
My thoughts on the new version:
+ doesn't burden casual players with secondary selection. Set up board, deploy armies and play away - just like in older editions.
+ players place objectives and they are allowed to be placed in terrain. Restrictions on where to deploy them still force the armies to move out of their deployment zone and punishes castles.
+ no codex-specific objectives, no warping effect on list building (nachtmund data), no cherry picking. Every army needs to be able to handle all objectives.
+ twists are not as game-warping as the ones from the open war deck, but still interesting.
+ inbuild discard mechanic for unarchivable objectives, no more CP investment necessary.
+ no stratagem overhead, just one stratagem for redrawing one objective
+ two objective decks, one for each player. No more dice table nonsense.
+ proper 24" no-mans land
+ split into traditional primaries and maelstrom secondaries. Even if the great randomizer hates you, you can still try to win.
+ kept the hand/in play mechanism from last maelstrom incarnations
o close enough to matched play to not scare people used to that away. Those hardcore "train for tournament" guys will likely not even try though.
o no deckbuilding component. Keeps it simple, but I like deckbuilding o almost all objectives are worth the same amount of VP. Time will tell if that approach works better than the previous one. At least there are no random VP.
- just six deployment maps. Open war has something like 18?
- primaries could have been a bit more varied.
- price
Anyways, I pre-ordered mine. First release worth my money this year.
From the cards I've seen, the deck doesn't work if you cut objectives. Some things are based on holding multiple objectives that are/are not in a deployment zone.
From my experience with playing combat patrol, performing actions is more likely to be a bottleneck for 500 point armies than holding objectives anyways. Raising a banner or deploying teleporter homers (both are objective cards) might not be a good thing to do when the infantry unit performing that action is a quarter of your firepower.
The problem is symmetrical though, so you could just give incursion a try (same board size) and just accept that some objectives are harder to archive.
Yeah, I'm probably going to pick up a set of these. I've been thinking about it since the first announcement; I read the Goons review.
I feel like these will be easy to use for folks less familiar with the game. I play with a lot of folks who fit that description, so it's kind of a no-brainer.
They talk to Tyranid player fan favourite Robin Cruddace!
.
A true Hero of our time...
OT, we were discussing the open war vs tempest pros/cons the yesterday in my local discord and our consensus is maybe a mix of the two is best. My buddy is gonna buy a deck and we are going to sit down and look at all the options from both decks and kinda pick n choose the best/worst of both to give the most diverse mission set irrespective of balance.
They talk to Tyranid player fan favourite Robin Cruddace!
Oh, I thought this was the GW April Fool's post for the day. When he said "alongside the help of our playtesting teams" I was certain I'd spotted the joke, then when I saw "fair and balanced gameplay" I said to myself they aren't even trying.
EightFoldPath wrote: Oh, I thought this was the GW April Fool's post for the day. When he said "alongside the help of our playtesting teams" I was certain I'd spotted the joke, then when I saw "fair and balanced gameplay" I said to myself they aren't even trying.
Well it is Cruddace, a man who got called out for writing a terrible Tyranid Codex, acknowledged it was no good, said he'd do better next time, and then somehow wrote an even worse book when it came time, so there's no guarantee that he knows what he's talking about.
OT, we were discussing the open war vs tempest pros/cons the yesterday in my local discord and our consensus is maybe a mix of the two is best. My buddy is gonna buy a deck and we are going to sit down and look at all the options from both decks and kinda pick n choose the best/worst of both to give the most diverse mission set irrespective of balance.
Unfortunately, I think the Goon review said the Tempest carads are bigger than the open cards, so mixing decks could be awkward,
Not sure though- seems like an obvious design flaw if true- combining decks was one of the first things I thought of too.
At least in 
