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Having played a lot of 5th edition games, watched even more, and participated in a lot of discussions I have noticed an apparent pattern. The 5th edition rules for missions seem generally very poor and imbalanced.

To set the argument, there are 3 missions essentially, for KP, for 2 objectives, and for multiple objectives. This basically comes down to 2 missions 1/3rd of the time for KP and 2/3rds of the time for 2 or more objectives. So there are really only 2 missions with a variety of ways to set up.

These two missions are either fights for KP, which after weeks of KP imbalance discussion I will not expand on here, and then, objective games. Conceding that KP games are inherently imbalanced, the discussion becomes about objective games.

What's wrong with objective games?

Objective game missions seemed like a very good idea initially to emphasize the importance of troops in the game and redress their minimum presence in some armies. The concept of scoring/nonscoring units and objectives seemed an excellent counterbalance to lopsided armies of elites and heavies. However; in the majority of games I have played or witnessed there are a variety of new aberations that make the objective games reversed, and the side that wins or looses is not really indicative of what happened in the game, who had more troops, or who played better. For example:

Non scoring units can not take objectives (in the presence of NO contesting enemy of any sort).

Non scoring units contest objectives from scoring units.

A single unit (not even a scoring one) contests an objective from multiple scoring units that hold it.

Some armies have ways to ignore the morale rules and keep essentially broken models on the table (use to have to be over 50% to score).

Points values are no longer a factor.

These situations give rise to some very peculiar games, where one side has clearly dominated the field, and held the objectives, yet they loose. Just looking at the board is often absurd. For example:

An emtpy weaponless rhino contests multiple objectives on the last turn.
A damaged waveserpent makes a 2 foot move to contest multiple objectives on the last turn.
A bike unit, often a single model, turbo boosts and contests an objective from multiple scoring enemy units.
An army looses all its troop choice units and destroys the enemy army almost entirely, but still looses because they can not take any objectives even though they hold all 4 quadrants (by the old rules) or control the board with greater than 50-75% of their army left.
A single fearless model from a bigger unit hides by an objective out of LOS.
A tyranid unit with out number makes run moves onto a board objective within 12 inches of their edge, making it essentially untakeable unless the tyranids dont go last.
A single unit stretches out to contest one or more objectives, creating a major geometry aboration in armies with squad sizes over 10.
Immobile drop pods automatically contest all objectives within 3 inches of their doors.
etc.

All these situations have left me feeling generally unsatisfied when seeing objective games where an army clearly holding 2 or more objectives that was skillfully played, is beaten by a single emtpy transport contesting its objectives and the opposing army, in tatters, with a single single objective, wins the game. Or seeing objectives with mountains of troops in CC they are winning on the objective still loose when they have superior forces.

Because of absurd situations like these I no longer think any of the missions in 5th edition are very satisfying games anymore. I dont think the mission victory conditions represent who has played better very often either.

What say you?

I think you have to adjust your idea of what 'skillfully played' might mean.

Playing skillfully in 4th ed is not the same as playing skillfully in 5th ed, and what would have been a well-played 4th ed game can lose in 5th ed. That's a lack of 5th ed skill, IMO.

However, I do agree with you that games feel less satisfying, and I've thought that since 5th ed was released.

Too many 'Capture and Control' games end in draws. One player realizes that they have no chance to both hold their own objective and seize the other, so they alter their plan to do one, or the other.

Too many KP games are essentially decided before the first dice are picked up, based on who brought more KP to the table.

Too many units have become glass hammers. The combination of harsher morale penalties for kills in CC and the inability to consolidate into new units has, in my experience, turned all but the toughest of CC units into one-shot deals, where you fight through whatever enemy fire there is to make it to combat, slaughter one squad, and then get shot to bits.

Is it any surprise that the game's heavy hitters are now things like assault termies, bloodcrushers and nob bikers. If you don't run these overly tough units, you get one fight and then lose the unit.

Redbeard wrote:I think you have to adjust your idea of what 'skillfully played' might mean.

Well certainly. In my games and those of others I have just seen an awful lot of objective games turn over at the end because of a single bike, or a single waveserpent, ar a WoN squad coming back. Its hard to see that as skillfull play, and not tricks from army design and rules oversimplifcation.

Redbeard wrote:However, I do agree with you that games feel less satisfying, and I've thought that since 5th ed was released. Too many 'Capture and Control' games end in draws.

I didn't think that since 5th was released, but I do now after seeing the practices that are devloping. I have also seen a lot of ties, I don't even like to play my IG at all because the idea of a capture and control game or a KP game 2/3rds of the time feels like bowling against someone with a 150 pin handicap...

Redbeard wrote:Too many KP games are essentially decided before the first dice are picked up, based on who brought more KP to the table.

Yes, certainly. I don't want to make this thread about KP ranting but isn't 1/3 rd of the games, being nearly automatically decided evidence enough that the 5th ed missions are poor?

Augustus wrote:Having played a lot of 5th edition games, watched even more, and participated in a lot of discussions I have noticed an apparent pattern. The 5th edition rules for missions seem generally very poor and imbalanced.

I believe the GW party line here would be, if you don't like the standard missions, make up your own! The missions are ment to be fun and exciting, who really cares if you win or loose!

My comment would be, are you really surprised the missions are balanced? I mean come on, they have basically given up on balancing the game in any fashion beyond "what feels right."

well missions will mature.

it is just easier to play these set missions as everyone gets up to speed on 5th.

adepticon has always made good missions.

the heart of fire seatle tourney at the end of march is making new missions. they are adding two new deployments and two new basic missions. changing the possible missions from 9 to 25.

I enjoy objective based games. In a tournament setting they work very well, of course I use scout filled Land Speeder storms or "scorning" Land Raiders to do my dirty work. However, I wish that there were a couple of the old 4th edition missions.

Think caputure the terrain piece but only troops can hold or contest it, with the higher number of total troop units ultimatly controling it.

skkipper wrote:adepticon has always made good missions.

Yes I think they are the best available, the primary secondary and tertiary concept being superior!

skkipper wrote:...the heart of fire seatle tourney at the end of march is making new missions. they are adding two new deployments and two new basic missions. changing the possible missions from 9 to 25.

Interesting, I'd like to see what they are? Are they published online? What are they?

Also what is your experience with the 5th ed missions, do you like them or not skkipper?

asugradinwa wrote:...caputure the terrain piece but only troops can hold or contest it, with the higher number of total troop units ultimatly controling it.

The more objective games I play the more I think that only troops should contest as well as score. Having the half beast of other units contesting equates damaged dedicated transports as effective as troops choices ina defensive sense, which seems contrary to what was intended (make troops more valuable).

But, then, I have a lot of ideas for fixes...

I have said it before, and I will say it again.

It is a crying shame that 5th ed didn't follow the formula set by AT-43 (or the numerous other games that use the same mechanic) on its missions. In essence, the missions are one of 5th ed's greatest failings.

The reason being is such instances as the last turn grab and hold is complete and utter bollocks. Sure, you have a somewhat random game length, but it doesn't reward a player for holding it the whole game just for a unit to suddenly contest it in the 11th hour. There is nothing tactical about this.

I won't get long winded about AT-43 or its scenarios in detail, but a rough idea is basically:

After AT-43's version of the assault phase, there is a control phase.

The turn you 'capture' an objective, you gain a set amount of VP. You can only 'capture' an objective once. Thereafter, you either 'control' it or you don't.

The player with the most models within 10cm is counted as 'controlling' the objective and gets a certain amount of VP's depending on the scenario. (usually 1 or 2 VP's depending on how hard it is to control)

The objective remains in that players control until the next control phase when it is again calculated to see who now controls the objective for that turn (and gains a set number of VP for the objective)

The game ends when a certain number of VP's have been accumulated by a player, or if the opposing side is wiped out (and thus one side wins by default)

Its pretty damned simple and makes a billion times more sense than anything GW has yet set forth concerning scenarios to date.
No more @$$holes sitting outside of any threat range just to swoop in on the last minute to contest the objective that you see in 5th ed. Good job Bucky Fellini, you just won the game based on the merits of....no tactics whatsoever. Be sure to go pick up your best general trophy ASAP.

I would like to preemptively ask the people who think they know everything about everything to with hold judgment before they decide to poo-poo what I just wrote. It didn't make much sense to me either until I actually played it and was able to make a decision based on experience concerning the differences between the two.

I think the kill point mission is rough for too many armies. It really hurts creative list selection. I would prefer a victory point game.

the capture and control is nice. you really have to play a good game to get a massacre.

the 5 objective games is a good standard game.

To be honest, while I haven't played a ton of 5e games compared to 4e -- I like 5e more because there's more grand strategy required to *win*. I like that draws are a lot more common, and I like that VPs are gone. Even though I dislike KPs, I much prefer that the majority of games are actually about objectives -- 4e games always had a habit of turning into VP shooting galleries, even in (most) objective missions.

5e is much more about movement and area control than raw killing power, which to me is an upgrade from 4e.

What I mean by "grand strategy" is that to win against a good opponent, you need to look more into the future -- to win, you need to know where each unit you set down is going to be at the end of the game. 4e was much more forgiving in this aspect -- consider, even the most (imo, at least) degenerate 4e strategy of points denial, where what units did on the board were irrelevant, they won games by picking off low-hanging fruit and just not dying.

I am, of course, probably biased -- my biggest gripe with 4e is that mechanized forces were (generally speaking) non-viable, and I just find such armies vastly more interesting from a gaming point of view. I like 5e alone because mechanized armies can win competitive games, and games are far less often decided solely on who blew up more matériel.

To me, 5e games feel more like a war game and less like a shooting gallery. Frequent inconclusive results are part of that. After all, a draw is the most common result in master level chess...

The reduction in importance on raw killing power broadens the range of competitive lists, in my experience, which is a good thing.

Hellfury wrote:I have said it before, and I will say it again.

It is a crying shame that 5th ed didn't follow the formula set by AT-43 (or the numerous other games that use the same mechanic) on its missions. In essence, the missions are one of 5th ed's greatest failings.

I do agree, objective based missions should be different, there should be some award for holding it during the game, but at the end of the game you should get bonus points. For instance, you get 1vp every turn that you held an objective, and at the end of the game the objectives are worth 5pts, maybe 10pts. That'll encourage what otherwise would be drawn games because lets say both opponents realize that in a game with 2 objectives, neither one has the ability to steal the objective away from the other, and at the end of the game neither player will have enough models left on the board to contest his opponents objective on the last turn. Thus, you'll see tactics like disrupting control one turn to deny your opponent a single vp, now you have a situation where after 6tursn one player has 11pts (for holding the objective for 6 turns, and 5pts for having it on the last turn) and the other has just 10pts because you were able to disrupt his control for one turn. This would be akin tactically to disrupting supply lines as was commonly done in WWII and other major engagements, which over time gives you an advantage.

The concept of kill points is reasonable, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Dedicated Transports being worth 1kp each makes taking them not viable, but in the hard boyz tournaments they were worth zero kp, so taking them was a no brainer. You can't have the unit and the transport both share the same kp, as tracking the two during the game could be a nightmare and slow the game down even further. I think the best solution is victory points. No Idea.

The problem with an AT 43 solution is that horde armies will control objectives every turn, and non-horde armies will never outnumber them. Take Orks vs Space Marines for example, at 1500pts One can easily feild well over 200orks and still have 45 str7 guns firing from 45 to 135 str7 board reaching shots per turn. Space marines at best will have less than 100 if you just take a commander and basic marines.

There's a solution out there.

Ours gaming group agreed, we there for all went back to 4th edition of the rule.

Lowinor wrote:What I mean by "grand strategy" is that to win against a good opponent, you need to look more into the future -- to win, you need to know where each unit you set down is going to be at the end of the game.

One question though.

If the end game is so important, why is it necessary to play anything more than a single turn?

I realize that question over simplifies any tactics of maneuvering involved through the course of the game, but essentially as long as one person swoops in to contest the objective at the end of the game, it amounts to the game being moot. Too much emphasis on the end game, whether through design or accident on GW's part, to really make the 5th ed missions really matter a whole lot tactically.

*shrug*

It feels that GW really missed the trees for the woods when they brainstormed the missions for 5th ed and the interactions it would have with other armies. I agree mechanized armies are much more viable now, but that viability turned into "snatch and grab at the last second, FTW".

Perhaps I am seeing this from a biased perspective as well though, as I personally feel that the whole course of the game should be taken into consideration for matters of resolving the victor, instead of the last turn. Am I missing something glaringly obvious that makes 5th ed missions really matter?

Kill points were implimented in the way they were because GW didnt like the way armies were being built, with lots of small, often non-troop, units. There are inherent advantages associated with having many squads of small units rather than fewer squads of many, so in 4th it was obvious what you did, you kept your units small. KP is meant to correct this, which it does, and it is a very simple (if somewhat blunt) way of doing so. The pendulum has swung the other way. Rather than 6man las/plas you get hordes of orks/templars/gaunts or whatever.

If you want to say that kill points dont apply to dedicated transports then where do you draw the line? With a rhino its fine, but what about a razorback or chimera? They are decent vehicles in their own right. What about a landraider? Do you really want to go to all that effort of killing it just to find out that it isnt worth anything?

Sazzlefrats wrote:

Hellfury wrote:I have said it before, and I will say it again.

It is a crying shame that 5th ed didn't follow the formula set by AT-43 (or the numerous other games that use the same mechanic) on its missions. In essence, the missions are one of 5th ed's greatest failings.

I do agree, objective based missions should be different, there should be some award for holding it during the game, but at the end of the game you should get bonus points. For instance, you get 1vp every turn that you held an objective, and at the end of the game the objectives are worth 5pts, maybe 10pts. That'll encourage what otherwise would be drawn games because lets say both opponents realize that in a game with 2 objectives, neither one has the ability to steal the objective away from the other, and at the end of the game neither player will have enough models left on the board to contest his opponents objective on the last turn. Thus, you'll see tactics like disrupting control one turn to deny your opponent a single vp, now you have a situation where after 6tursn one player has 11pts (for holding the objective for 6 turns, and 5pts for having it on the last turn) and the other has just 10pts because you were able to disrupt his control for one turn. This would be akin tactically to disrupting supply lines as was commonly done in WWII and other major engagements, which over time gives you an advantage.

The concept of kill points is reasonable, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Dedicated Transports being worth 1kp each makes taking them not viable, but in the hard boyz tournaments they were worth zero kp, so taking them was a no brainer. You can't have the unit and the transport both share the same kp, as tracking the two during the game could be a nightmare and slow the game down even further. I think the best solution is victory points. No Idea.

For AT-43, it gets a bit more complicated than that since they have whats called primary and secondary objectives. it is hardly ever a game where it is stalemated due to two armies hovering over their respective objective markers.
Secondary objectives include such things as the attacker getting to a certain objective by X turn, or that very same objective becoming destroyed before X turn, etc. Sometimes it is only one side that can claim victory points of a certain type of primary objective, where the attacker must cause wounds to achieve their primary objective.
In other words, there is not normally instances of swooping in on the last turn to claim victory.

To me, GW's idea of KP was basically their unsuccessful attempt at translating AT-43's VP and RP rules into 40K. By trying to fix VP's, they created a bigger mess in their own lack of scalability on a basis per army (IG players no this scalability issue all too well) by not including designations for KP on a unit by unit basis in their respective codecies, or even easier, in the back of the rulebook where it would be of most benefit.

Sazzlefrats wrote:The problem with an AT 43 solution is that horde armies will control objectives every turn, and non-horde armies will never outnumber them.

Agreed. You cannot directly translate the rules from AT-43 in to 40K due to scalability. It wouldn't work simply on the example you have given. But if you say, made it for each unit within x inches or what have you, then I think the mission the designers of 5th ed would still have its integrity intact by the merit of promoting bloody close fire games.

Regwon wrote:Kill points were implimented in the way they were because GW didnt like the way armies were being built, with lots of small, often non-troop, units. There are inherent advantages associated with having many squads of small units rather than fewer squads of many, so in 4th it was obvious what you did, you kept your units small. KP is meant to correct this, which it does, and it is a very simple (if somewhat blunt) way of doing so. The pendulum has swung the other way. Rather than 6man las/plas you get hordes of orks/templars/gaunts or whatever.

If you want to say that kill points dont apply to dedicated transports then where do you draw the line? With a rhino its fine, but what about a razorback or chimera? They are decent vehicles in their own right. What about a landraider? Do you really want to go to all that effort of killing it just to find out that it isnt worth anything?

This is exactly why KP's are a nice idea, just badly implemented.
Its either broken one way, or broken the other.

The fact remains that it is still broken.

Hellfury wrote:One question though.

If the end game is so important, why is it necessary to play anything more than a single turn?

I realize that question over simplifies any tactics of maneuvering involved through the course of the game, but essentially as long as one person swoops in to contest the objective at the end of the game, it amounts to the game being moot. Too much emphasis on the end game, whether through design or accident on GW's part, to really make the 5th ed missions really matter a whole lot tactically.

Because you have those turns to deny your opponent the ability to contest objectives. This is a lot easier said than done, but that's the game behind 5e. Army lists are explicitly visible per the rules now; you know what you have, you know what your opponent has, you have yourself some turns to deny him enough space around one more objective than he does to you to win the game.

Now, there are problems with the system, of course -- I suspect (though I'm not convinced) the game would be more interesting if empty transports and skimmers under an arbitrary point cost couldn't contest objectives -- but it's not quite that degenerate.

Yes, it ends up being a game of "flush out the skimmer" in many cases, but that's still a game and has interesting strategic ramifications. As I said, you have to think of board control from when you set your pieces on the board -- grand strategy.

Perhaps I am seeing this from a biased perspective as well though, as I personally feel that the whole course of the game should be taken into consideration for matters of resolving the victor, instead of the last turn. Am I missing something glaringly obvious that makes 5th ed missions really matter?

Eh, as I see it, the turns before the last turn give you time to control space and neutralize threats. That there are potential large differences in raw killing power and game-winning potential of units on the board (e.g., compare a Devastator squad to an unupgraded Land Speeder -- the devs can hurt you more, but the Speeder can pull out a win with a late-game swoop: which do you kill first?) gives more strategic depth to the game.

My biggest complaints, though, are probably that it's too difficult to reliably prevent a vehicle from having objective contesting status and that going first is too weak compared to going second -- the setup advantages largely negate the direct benefits of going first, and then going second has swooping advantages on top of it.

Anyway, 5e is a different game than 4e. I like 5e more. Neither is hugely ideal as a wargame, though -- there's plenty of room for improvement. But when one degenerates to a shooting gallery and the other to counterswooping, I find that counterswooping has more strategic depth.

Hellfury wrote:...essentially as long as one person swoops in to contest the objective at the end of the game, it amounts to the game being moot. Too much emphasis on the end game, whether through design or accident on GW's part, to really make the 5th ed missions really matter a whole lot..."snatch and grab at the last second, FTW".

Essentially thats it, agreed.

Hellfury wrote:...the whole course of the game should be taken into consideration for matters of resolving the victor, instead of the last turn. Am I missing something glaringly obvious that makes 5th ed missions really matter?

I don't think your missing anything glaringly obvious. In fact I think your idea of whole game vs. last turn only, or reworded points/turn for holding objectives make a lot more sense. Interesting!

Lowinor wrote:5e is much more about movement and area control than raw killing power, which to me is an upgrade from 4e.

Really? What about the old quadrant control missions? Werent those entirely about maneuver, and holding ground, and they were almost half the scenarios because they were also worth VP when VP were used.

Lowinor wrote:What I mean by "grand strategy" is that to win against a good opponent, you need to look more into the future -- to win, you need to know where each unit you set down is going to be at the end of the game.

What strategy is there in hiding a landspeeder for 4 turns and making a 24 inch contest-a-dash?

Lowinor wrote:...broadens the range of competitive lists, in my experience, which is a good thing.

Absolutely agreed, more competative lists is more interesting, but I think that's not happening in 5th, as whole codexes have just been swept under the rug, because they have way to many KP (Tau and IG) or have very little assault capability (IG, Tau) or no transports/DS troop choices (Tyranids), can't hide in TLOS land (Dark ELdar), or were outright discontinued (LaTD, Swordwind, Ironwarriors, Chaos with Daemons, Craftworld Eldar, Feral Orks, Armored Company...)

What are the big common lists?

Marines
Bugzilla
Lash Chaos
Eldar Flying Circus
Demons
Orks

Augustus wrote:

Lowinor wrote:5e is much more about movement and area control than raw killing power, which to me is an upgrade from 4e.

Really? What about the old quadrant control missions? Werent those entirely about maneuver, and holding ground, and they were almost half the scenarios because they were also worth VP when VP were used.

In my experience, quadrant missions were hardly ever different than pure VP, largely because the VP awards for controlling quadrants were relatively small in comparison to simply blowing up the other guy. Quadrants were bonus points, the meat was simply blowing up the other guy.

Your experience may be different, but the vast majority of the 4e games I played were decided before VP for objectives were ever calculated.

Augustus wrote:

Lowinor wrote:What I mean by "grand strategy" is that to win against a good opponent, you need to look more into the future -- to win, you need to know where each unit you set down is going to be at the end of the game.

What strategy is there in hiding a landspeeder for 4 turns and making a 24 inch contest-a-dash?

The strategic depth is involved with countering the swoop, not so much in the swoop itself. You only have to have one more uncontested objective than your opponent; in effect, you only have to prevent one objective from being swooped. There are multiple ways of doing this -- killing off everything that can swoop, killing off everything that can swoop within swooping range, blocking non-skimming swoopers with models, controlling more objectives than the opponent has swoopers, etc.

It also appears to me that swooping is at or near zenith in the metagame -- the current metagame is favoring melta style (i.e., close range higher lethality) as opposed to lascannon style (i.e., long-range high-strength but no extra penetration dice or AP1) weapons, which when overused leads to lists with trouble killing many light vehicles (or few fast skimmers). Orks withstanding (as Lootas give them exceptional killiness against small vehicles compared to other lists), I suspect we'll start to see less emphasis on meltas over lascannons as the GT season progresses.

Augustus wrote:

Lowinor wrote:...broadens the range of competitive lists, in my experience, which is a good thing.

Absolutely agreed, more competative lists is more interesting, but I think that's not happening in 5th, as whole codexes have just been swept under the rug, because they have way to many KP (Tau and IG) or have very little assault capability (IG, Tau) or no transports/DS troop choices (Tyranids), can't hide in TLOS land (Dark ELdar), or were outright discontinued (LaTD, Swordwind, Ironwarriors, Chaos with Daemons, Craftworld Eldar, Feral Orks, Armored Company...)

I'm not sure I'd agree that Tau and Tyranids are weak. IG and DE are problematic, definitely, but they're 3e codices in a 5e universe, and I'm very hesitant to say that they are an example of a failure of 5e as opposed to a failure of GW's product strategy as a whole (as they are, well, 3e codices in a 5e universe).

Augustus wrote:

Hellfury wrote:...the whole course of the game should be taken into consideration for matters of resolving the victor, instead of the last turn. Am I missing something glaringly obvious that makes 5th ed missions really matter?

I don't think your missing anything glaringly obvious. In fact I think your idea of whole game vs. last turn only, or reworded points/turn for holding objectives make a lot more sense. Interesting!

This I have to disagree with.

Any unit in any position on the last turn is there because it survived 5-7 getting there and staying there. Every turn before the last is spent -- at least, by a mindful general -- setting up a winning position in the last turn. The whole course of the game exists to set up a winning position on the last turn.

I don't think there's any compelling reason to say that continuous scoring is better as opposed to different.

If the last turn is the only thing that's important, would you give your opponent a free turn during the game, prior to it?

Lowinor wrote:..., 3e codices in a 5e universe).

Absolutely true.

I don't think stopping swoopers is the entire game, by a long shot. But when it is, it feels awfully gimicky to me. I can see your point, I just disagree. Tastes will vary.

Perhaps the IG will recover a spine in the new codex, but I do not expect it.

I don't think Tyranids are weak, in fact I think they are decent, but they decidely lack mobility (the swoop objective taking power), and transports which makes taking/contesting someone elses obj harder.

I think Tau are almost completely junk outside of railguns seeker missiles and pop and shoot suits.

Lowinor wrote:The whole course of the game exists to set up a winning position on the last turn.

I don't think there's any compelling reason to say that continuous scoring is better as opposed to different.

If the last turn is the only thing that's important...?

Lowinor, how about this, could I ask you to change your focus for a bit? About a "winning position" do you think, in an average game, when a waveserpent moved to be within 3 inches of an objective, and that objective was surrounded by 3 different scoring units in 3 inches also, from the opposing army, it is fair to call that a "winning position"?

3 scoring units, vs. 1 weaponless transport, Eldar win. WHo really had the stronger position there?

That's not a winning position, that's a rules aberation, the infantry obviously control the objective. It's a very artifical gamey device.

5th edition missions are stolen from Warmachine/Hordes IMO. While they work for one system they are an aborition for the other because of different rule sets and game mechanics.

Agreed, the aberrations in 5th are really annoying. Also the 5thed missions allow for strange resolutions to games. I had a game where I had absolute board control, one Farseer on foot vs 3 Landraiders and some BT terminators, but because I couldn't get the little bastard out from behind his rock and I had no troops left to control an objective thats a tie? Seriously WTF? How does that in any way equate to a tie? I had more than half my army still on the table in good health vs a wounded single T3 model, how is that good? I have also seen games where a single Herald has DS onto an objective to tie a game when he is the only model left in the ARMY! What about wave serpents? With their move fast save and forcefield they can tank shock stuff off objectives with next to no danger! And with the changes to tank shocking and the skimmer dodge you can't even push them off with another tank.

Lowinor wrote:I don't think there's any compelling reason to say that continuous scoring is better as opposed to different.

I totally agree. While I do feel it is better personally, I can see the merit of having objective sniping as a valid mission objective.

I think the perceived problem is the lack of any other options however. I really do hope the proposed missions book coming out in the future is more of a great gaming tool, and less of wasted money.

The lack of variety in 40K scenarios is pretty dismal.

Hellfury wrote:

Lowinor wrote:I don't think there's any compelling reason to say that continuous scoring is better as opposed to different.

I totally agree. While I do feel it is better personally, I can see the merit of having objective sniping as a valid mission objective.

I think the perceived problem is the lack of any other options however. I really do hope the proposed missions book coming out in the future is more of a great gaming tool, and less of wasted money.

The lack of variety in 40K scenarios is pretty dismal.

A missions book? Oh that could be very cool indeed! I hadn't heard about that in rumors?

Augustus wrote:Lowinor, how about this, could I ask you to change your focus for a bit? About a "winning position" do you think, in an average game, when a waveserpent moved to be within 3 inches of an objective, and that objective was surrounded by 3 different scoring units in 3 inches also, from the opposing army, it is fair to call that a "winning position"?

3 scoring units, vs. 1 weaponless transport, Eldar win. WHo really had the stronger position there?

That's not a winning position, that's a rules aberation, the infantry obviously control the objective. It's a very artifical gamey device.

If you're looking at it from a fluff perspective, maybe. If so, it's easy enough to say that whatever "controlling" an objective entails, troops are just too embarrassed to do it if anyone is watching

I do think it's somewhat silly, though, from a game perspective it's irrelevant. I think 5e is a more strategic game than 4e overall; both have plenty of cases where game rules create silly situations if one tries to look at them through the fanciful lens of "simulating reality".

I heard about it on BOLS. Basically, some dude talked to Jervis and Jervis has been cited that the proposed missions book is going to happen in the near future.
Though looking at the release schedule from now until July (yay 6 month window... *rolleyes* ) it isn't on the charts yet.
Perhaps this year...who knows? All I know is I am not going to hold my breath for something that will quite likely fail due to GW's 'exemplary' playtesting skillz.

Yeah, thats very cynical of me, but GW hasn't really proved me wrong yet on how wonderful their rules writing is. At least if it does turn out to be good, I will be happier than most people due to being pleasently surprised.

Lets hope Hellfury!