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Eternal war missions are no more exciting that ITC champion missions.

They are in essence the same exact thing.

The fun you experience at a tournament should not come from the mission packet. It should come from the experience of the event as a whole, and interactions with your opponents.



The TO's are just there to make everything run smoothly and reduce arguments that detract from the event. ITC missions are written to provide a fair experience that runs smoothly.

Thats as far as they should be expected to go. Everything else is on you.

Only partly agree. The experience yes, but i'm there to play and have fun playing games. If i'm not having fun during the games, then what's the point?

So, in essence then, you'd have no problem with the theoretical possibility of ITC dropping their missions and using the CA EW ones then?

In theory I wouldn't, as long as the majority of the ITC participants agreed they were fair enough.


I don't have any particular reason to favor the ITC champ missions other than that I know they are fair for everyone.


Gideon, as I stated, you can have fun during the games, but it mostly has to do with who your playing againgst. The missions themselves shouldn't be responsible for this. The mission is more responsible with a fair and balanced interaction.

Hm, I have to disagree to a certain extent. Your opponent is certainly part of the experience ( a good or crap opponent can make or break a game certainly). But apparently a lot of people disagree with you judging by the fact this thread is nearly 10 pages long of people arguing the toss about it.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
If you can fool yourself into thinking skill will trump bad luck I'd ask why you aren't making millions at the casino right now.


If someone draws bad maelstrom cards, and the opponent draws good ones, he will not win, no matter how good he is.

Sure, but statistically, over the course of enough games, this will even out and skill will win. This is why professional poker players can lose big events to new players, but they consistently win or go deep in tournaments. You think a guy like Phil Hellmuth is the luckiest guy in Vegas?

This exact same argument can be applied to dice rolls. A great player can roll nothing but 1's and 2's and lose to a scrub because of randomness. Yet no one is advocating we remove dice rolls?

You cant remove dice, as they are required to play the game. You can change the missions.

Not really an equivilent argument.

Let's not pretend that there is no luck involved in ITC tournaments.

Matchups are fairly random and they skew the results of a tournament far more than any mission could ever do.

Every time there is an unconventional list winning, what everyone says is always "He must have had a lucky matchup".

Actually, mathematically speaking having an additional skew on tournament results given by missions (not saying that CA18 missions are skewed, i think that they are perfectly balanced) reduces the randomness of the results.

It's like having a roll on 2d6 instead of a single d6.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
You cant remove dice, as they are required to play the game. You can change the missions.

Not really an equivilent argument.

The reference to equivalency is about randomness. ITC changed rules regarding terrain, missions, and other things, so what's to stop them from removing dice? We can just have an app that determines the averages and uses those values. Now its much less random, yay! There is only skill now!

Spoletta wrote:
Let's not pretend that there is no luck involved in ITC tournaments.

Matchups are fairly random and they skew the results of a tournament far more than any mission could ever do.

Every time there is an unconventional list winning, what everyone says is always "He must have had a lucky matchup".

There is a bit of luck - but assuming winners play winners (which is the typical way of organising a tournament), top lists (and players) tend to come out on top in the end. Its hard to go 5-0 unless your unconventional list somehow manages to encounter 2 other unconventional lists in games 4 and 5 from an ever shrinking pool.

Some tournaments can however have rules which do result in this. For example we saw that tournament where I think if you won the first 3 games, you were in the top 8 bracket even if you proceeded to lose your next two 20-0. In that situation you are going to get softer lists and weirder results.

 Crimson wrote:
It is really the randomness in itself which requires more skill, it is the variety of missions. If different missions require different strengths from the army, it forces you to build more balanced list and vary your tactics accordingly.

Randomness does not require more skill. In fact, it reduces the skill gap between a bad player and a good player by introducing elements that are completely outside of their control. The more factors you have control over in a game, the more skill determines the winner. The less control you have, ie the more rng the game has, the more luck will determine the winner. I'm not sure why you are pretending to be willfully ignorant of this established fact. This is why cars in NASCAR don't have random horsepower, everyone is the same, players in Dota choose their heroes rather than each team being given 5 random heroes, a first down in football is always 10 yards, not a random number, both players start with the exact same pieces in chess, effects in MtG have you choose a card, player, whatever rather than targeting random things, because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Why should I have to? You said yourself above the missions are boring. Why should I spend my time playing a mission that's boring after the time, effort and money I put into making the army? Why shouldn't the ITC adapt instead and make their missions fun?

Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Only partly agree. The experience yes, but i'm there to play and have fun playing games. If i'm not having fun during the games, then what's the point?

If you don't have fun playing a certain mission packet, don't attend events that use that mission packet. Wow, what a concept! Mind = blown! I find it hard to believe that your events are dominated by the ITC in France.

Randomness does not require more skill. In fact, it reduces the skill gap between a bad player and a good player by introducing elements that are completely outside of their control. The more factors you have control over in a game, the more skill determines the winner. The less control you have, ie the more rng the game has, the more luck will determine the winner. I'm not sure why you are pretending to be willfully ignorant of this established fact. This is why cars in NASCAR don't have random horsepower, everyone is the same, players in Dota choose their heroes rather than each team being given 5 random heroes, a first down in football is always 10 yards, not a random number, both players start with the exact same pieces in chess, effects in MtG have you choose a card, player, whatever rather than targeting random things, because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.

Only partially true,
Randomness is something that hinders competition when it is completely random, without any way to mitigate it through correct skill and preparation like GW missions.

You have many world level competitive games, even olimpic ones with random elements,

 Toofast wrote:
because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.

Poker is built on randomness, and how you deal with getting randomly dealt a bad hand is a key part of the game. I've yet to hear anyone claim that poker isn't suitable to competition. I'm surprised you would bring up MtG given that randomness is a key part of that game, too. if the objective is complete predictability, and randomness in preconditions detracts from skill, why not allow players to arrange their deck before the game, rather than shuffling?

In any case, it's not like we're talking about randomly giving one side more points, or other such insurmountable disadvantage. If a list isn't capable of playing some of the missions and objectives known in advance to be part of the event, it's not 'bad luck', it's a bad list.

We don't call it unfair when a player brings a list that can't handle Knights and then gets randomly matched up against a Knight army- they knew in advance that it was a possibility, and failed to adequately prepare. They don't get to complain that luck of the draw gave them an army matchup they can't win. Why is failing to adequately prepare for possible objectives more excusable?

The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

catbarf wrote:

 Toofast wrote:
because randomness should be used as little as possible to determine a winner in a contest of skill.

Poker is built on randomness, and how you deal with getting randomly dealt a bad hand is a key part of the game. I've yet to hear anyone claim that poker isn't suitable to competition. I'm surprised you would bring up MtG given that randomness is a key part of that game, too. if the objective is complete predictability, and randomness in preconditions detracts from skill, why not allow players to arrange their deck before the game, rather than shuffling?

In any case, it's not like we're talking about randomly giving one side more points, or other such insurmountable disadvantage. If a list isn't capable of playing some of the missions and objectives known in advance to be part of the event, it's not 'bad luck', it's a bad list.

We don't call it unfair when a player brings a list that can't handle Knights and then gets randomly matched up against a Knight army- they knew in advance that it was a possibility, and failed to adequately prepare. They don't get to complain that luck of the draw gave them an army matchup they can't win. Why is failing to adequately prepare for possible objectives more excusable?

In poker you get a bad hand you just fold and 4/5 times that isn't even going to cost you a dime. Terrible comparison. You get dealt a crappy match in 40k you have to play it.

You also can't bluff you got a good Maelstrom card.

Xenomancers wrote:In poker you get a bad hand you just fold and 4/5 times that isn't even going to cost you a dime. Terrible comparison. You get dealt a crappy match in 40k you have to play it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:You also can't bluff you got a good Maelstrom card.

Anyone else want to point out how 40K is not exactly identical to poker, in lieu of actually addressing the point (that randomness is hardly anathema to competitive games)?

Yeah, in 40K if you get a 'crappy match' you have to play it and can't bluff your way out. Unlike in poker, you have the power to prevent a 'crappy match', by taking an army list that is able to flexibly play objectives rather than min-max for a specific win condition.

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

How does eternal war do that while itc fails?

Martel732 wrote:
How does eternal war do that while itc fails?

Well for one they can win buy tabling you if the objectives are not in their favor....

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.

Drager wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.

But these missions are meant to be used in casual settings too. Are you saying that if we happen to roll a certain mission, I should just say, before we even roll any more dice, "Good game, you win,"?

In a casual setting try it and see?

I mean I've seen Harlequins demolish lists in 3 turns. With some planning you can probably avoid being in the Null Zone - or at least not unless you are going in to kill something fairly important.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Drager wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Play Aeldari or Chaos. Same as ITC or any other format. Pure Harlequins or Demons are skew lists and underpowered compared to soup. In other words not a good competetive choice.

But these missions are meant to be used in casual settings too. Are you saying that if we happen to roll a certain mission, I should just say, before we even roll any more dice, "Good game, you win,"?

Sorry thought we were comparing competetive formats. In casual just pick your mission. Also 'Quins and Demons have a chance against casual lists in Null sind. Outscore turn 1and 2 whilst trying to cripple the enemy. Let them have the objective T3 and 4, whilst doing as much damage as possible. Take it again in T5. Score more or tie secondaries. Then on T6/7 lack of invuls il hurt you bad, but hopefully you've already won.

Also note that both armies are advantaged by other missions.

Drager wrote:

Also note that both armies are advantaged by other missions.

That's the entire problem. Those armies are at a disadvantage in certain missions, and have an advantage in others before dice are even rolled. The entire point of ITC missions is to remove that sort of imbalance. Whether you're playing IK, Harlequins, or Daemons, as long as you brought the best list possible from your given codex, you have just as good a chance of winning one ITC mission as you do another. That's exactly why they exist. Nobody should start a tournament with an automatic loss somewhere in the day just because of the faction they chose. ITC eliminates that as much as possible without rewriting codexes and point values of entire factions.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.

Spoletta wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.

Please explain in more detail.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The point continually gets made and missed/ignored that this supposed "imbalance" in the GW Eternal War missions IS INTENDED TO FORCE A BALANCED LIST. That's the entire point. ITC removes that which is why you often see incredibly skewed lists dominating it.

So, for the Null Zone mission-how do I build a balanced Daemons list that can handle it? Or a balanced Harlequin list?

Build a list to go second, then harli and demons become actually really good at that mission.

Please explain in more detail.

Someone went over that fairly extensively earlier in the thread. I'll link it if I can get the chance. In any case playing the mission would give you a better understanding - if you went into it with the right mindset, that is.

If you could find the post number, that'd be appreciated.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How does eternal war do that while itc fails?

Well for one they can win buy tabling you if the objectives are not in their favor....

So... not saying that's what is happenning but in this case why would a player not build a list to table people instead of playing the objective ? If objective are a variable, you just remove it and go for tabling your opponent.
And in this case, why even have missions ?

 Toofast wrote:
Because the majority of people do not agree with you or ITC events wouldn't be selling out months in advance.

Genuine question : What would be the ratio of ITC to non ITC tournaments in the US ? High Profile/Not so high profile.