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This has often been labelled as a problem in competitive 40k, but the third 'Ard Boyz mission is a great example. I never have a problem with any mission as long as they are posted online ahead of time.

The most common argument I have seen against the third mission is this: "It makes bad armies good." This statement I simply cannot, for the life of me, understand. If the bad armies are suddenly good, they aren't bad armies now are they? The only real way to determine what is good and what is bad is by what has the highest probability of winning. If not by that, then what? Another thing to consider is that by this train of logic, GW should never, ever release new codices because when they do they are also making the bad armies good.

Past the basic tactics like target priority, knowing how to counter outflankers and deepstrikes etc. I believe the most important skill for tournament players is to adapt to unexpected situations. This means unexpected armies, unexpected terrain, and unexpected missions. I consider it part of an all-comers army. Sure, we could sit at home and dream about what would be good in a "competitive" tournament, and then blame our lack of success on the tournaments themselves, but that gets us nowhere. Living in Canada, I have the worst of it: http://astronomi-con.com/. Again, I could complain endlessly, or I can adapt to the situation and try to win. I choose to do the latter.

What I look for in scenarios is balance, and I think the 'Ard Boyz missions reflected balance quite nicely. What so many people are neglecting to consider is that the first mission was favored towards mech, because it was an objective mission where the ability of mech armies to tank-shock and move across the board quickly gives them a big advantage. I think everyone will agree that the second mission favors neither foot nor mech. So this means that the missions allowed almost army to compete, and by definition, that makes the missions balanced. They do not force you into playing a certain army, which is the same reason why comp is such a bad idea.

The people who I have seen complaining about the third mission are the ones who just got their brand new "Critical Mass" spamfest list and got beaten by what they considered a sub-par army (foot Eldar for instance). The other player was obviously a good player because they got up to the top tables in the first place. Now if Foot Eldar is as bad as some people claim, and "Critical Mass" lists are as good as some people claim, the mech player should just steamroll the foot Eldar player anyway. But that is why the 'Ard Boyz missions were so good; they rewarded skill, not interwebz copy-paste lists. To be honest I think most of the people who complain about the mission are just complaining because the mission didn't favor their army. They are looking for any reason other than that they just got outplayed.

Let's try not to get this thread locked please.

MorbidlyObeseMonkey wrote:What I look for in scenarios is balance, and I think the 'Ard Boyz missions reflected balance quite nicely. What so many people are neglecting to consider is that the first mission was favored towards mech, because it was an objective mission where the ability of mech armies to tank-shock and move across the board quickly gives them a big advantage. I think everyone will agree that the second mission favors neither foot nor mech. So this means that the missions allowed almost army to compete, and by definition, that makes the missions balanced. They do not force you into playing a certain army, which is the same reason why comp is such a bad idea.

Is it balanced, though? Does an abundance of killpoints in round three overshadow not making it to that many objectives in round one?

Would it have been more balanced to swap round 2 and round 1 around? Mech armies wouldn't have been favoured to hit the high tables going into round 2, and then round 3, for instance.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Would it have been more balanced to swap round 2 and round 1 around? Mech armies wouldn't have been favoured to hit the high tables going into round 2, and then round 3, for instance.

Yes, I had thought about that and I think it would've been a better way to do it. In fact, I would have done it in the following order: S3, S1, S2. I don't think this would have made a major difference though.

My overall point is not just about the 'Ard Boyz scenarios, it's about all the "bad" scenarios people complain about. The only bad scenarios in my opinion are the ones that cause the game to be heavily influenced by one or two dice rolls (random objectives for instance). For the most part, I don't any reason to complain if the scenarios are posted online ahead of time. The best players will always adapt, while the scrubs will sit at home and whine.

The only problem I had with the 3d scenario was in how easy it was to score a major victory or a massacre. With only a 4 KP difference, you could have a major win plus any bonus points. One destroyed rhino could be the difference between a draw and a major win; and that is a big swing, particulalrly when you consider typical armies were in the 30's or more in KP's.

I won that round 18-14 (IIRC) and was floored to realize I had a major victory.

Well, I want to explain why it does make 'bad' armies good.

A very important part to this (and many many gaming and real-life scenarios) is the ability to manoeuvre. In 5th edition, transports do that handily. They can react quickly to a complex situation while most infantry are stuck almost in place to a trick move; basically, they allow you to cover your mistakes easier and capitalize on your opponent's mistakes readily.

5th edition added insult to injury by taking these transports and giving them ridiculous vehicle damage tables that allow them to survive quite readily. You now have all the tools to win.

The final scenario went a little too far to punish these lists. Theoretically, you could lose 4 transports in a game, and still lose to an army that has one model on the table that hid from you for the final turns (while you still have 2200 points on the table). Should this truly qualify as a win? (no) Did you not bring the best tools to win considering the way the game is currently designed? (yes) Obviously this skews results.

There are other factors too, obviously, like experience and situational awareness. These, however, will only take you so far if you did not bring the best tools to win. Do pro athletes depend only on their skill, or do they purchase the highest quality gear and use that to compliment it? (obviously)

It is a relatively known fact that the individual responsible for writing it also owns and ran foot orks in this tournament (just a fun sidenote).


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Note: The first two scenarios support the abilities that mech provides, so usually you would be against another mech army in the final game anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I was running a 52 KP army, but I still managed 24 battlepoints in the final game. That being said, the scenario did not impress me whatsoever, and could have been replaced with a very short description of 'Just Kill the Opponent'.

Fearspect wrote:5th edition added insult to injury by taking these transports and giving them ridiculous vehicle damage tables that allow them to survive quite readily.

Which means in order to prevent everyone from running mech, we need to make balanced scenarios, meaning scenarios that allow all types of armies to work, not just mech.

Theoretically, you could lose 4 transports in a game, and still lose to an army that has one model on the table that hid from you for the final turns (while you still have 2200 points on the table). Should this truly qualify as a win? (no)

Yes it should because the player who won is the player who satisfied the criteria for a win. One of the things that makes 40k interesting is that there is more to the game than just lining up and killing models. So yes, that player would have deserved the win because they played smart (hiding the one model) and built their list intelligently (taking the missions into consideration).

Did you not bring the best tools to win considering the way the game is currently designed? (yes)

No you didn't because if the best tools to win cause you to lose, they are obviously not the best tools to win.

There are other factors too, obviously, like experience and situational awareness. These, however, will only take you so far if you did not bring the best tools to win.

See above.

It is a relatively known fact that the individual responsible for writing it also owns and ran foot orks in this tournament (just a fun sidenote).

That is indeed interesting because they were very strong in all three missions (they are always strong though). I am surprised that he was allowed to play though.


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Eldanar wrote:The only problem I had with the 3d scenario was in how easy it was to score a major victory or a massacre. With only a 4 KP difference, you could have a major win plus any bonus points. One destroyed rhino could be the difference between a draw and a major win; and that is a big swing, particulalrly when you consider typical armies were in the 30's or more in KP's.

I won that round 18-14 (IIRC) and was floored to realize I had a major victory.

Agreed fully on this one.

The problem with scenario construction (and I sympathise with those who have to write them) is that there are a number of competing elements to ensure 'fairness'.

Any scenario could be termed intrinsically 'fair' if both players are given the same victory conditions (provided that all players are aware of the mission requirements before the event, of course).

However, terrain is invariably neither consistent nor symmetrical. Different types and densities of terrain will favour certain builds depending on the mission. How do you ensure that for a given mission, the terrain is equally favourable to all builds (this is probably impossible).

Similarly, different builds are better suited to certain mission types. As has already been said, mech armies (or other armies capable of quickly moving scoring units to objectives) have an inherent advantage in games requiring multiple objective capture. MSU armies are likely to be disadvantaged in KP games and so on. Again, it is probably impossible to devise a mission that is equally fair to all builds.

Finally, the Codices themselves add to the problem by making some build types difficult if not impossible to acheive for certain armies. Any mission favouring such a build type automatically puts any build from that Codex at a disadvantage.

The only way these effects can be countered is by having multiple missions that balance each other. For every mission that favours fast/mech armies, you need one that favours slow/footslogging armies. For every mission that favours MSU builds you need one that favours FLU builds and so on. The art of a mission designer for an event is to try and cover all the bases whilst at the same time providing missions which capture the interest of the players.

I think the biggest problem with the 3rd hard boyz scenario is it really amplified one of the base problems with kill points-The 'What do you mean I won?' issue.

This is where, when you look at the table, it really looks like one player obviously won, but when you tally the kill points, it turns out the other player won by a massacre.

...and this is different from "real life" how?

Just having more troops and looking like you are in a stronger position (because you have more troops...) does not mean you have fulfilled your goals at that point.

Case in point: WWII, british troops defending a bridge against German forces, massively outnumbered. They "won" because they held the advance up long enough to achieve the greater battlefield objective.

This is what 40k 5th ed seems to want to achieve - there are ways to win that dont involve masacring your opponent. You are stuck in 4th ed and the line em up and shoot mentality if you think otherwise.

Reminds me of the time that my surviving 3 Gretchin pulled a tie in a seize ground game. =p

Morbidly:

I get what you are trying to say, and you would be right had the scenarios been known well in advance.

People are saying it makes bad armies good because usually, armies that fail to put in strong finishes will get a bonus here, whereas those that overperform were made significantly weaker on a week's notice.

nosferatu1001 wrote:...and this is different from "real life" how?

Just having more troops and looking like you are in a stronger position (because you have more troops...) does not mean you have fulfilled your goals at that point.

Case in point: WWII, british troops defending a bridge against German forces, massively outnumbered. They "won" because they held the advance up long enough to achieve the greater battlefield objective.

This is what 40k 5th ed seems to want to achieve - there are ways to win that dont involve masacring your opponent. You are stuck in 4th ed and the line em up and shoot mentality if you think otherwise.

And this is only true in Objective games, not kill point games.

If all I do is kill 5 rhinos (15KP) and you kill all 6 troops choices, 3 Elites, and a Heavy squad, do you really feel you won the game? Or do you feel because the mission hamstringed your oponnent so much that you could litaery fire 5 rockets and win the game as long as you hide one model.

I disagree with your OP. The reason S3 is a terrible scenario isn't because it makes "bad armies good", or whatever, it's because the difference between a draw and a massacre is 20% or less of the KP totals involved.

Two armies play each other in S2. One kills 15% of the opponent's army (325 pts), the other kills almost 1/3 of the opponent's army (800 pts). In S2, this is a minor victory.

Let's say that these armies give up 45 KP in S3. The exact same points distribution, assuming all KPs are roughly equivalent in value, results in 7 KP versus 15 KP, a Massacre.

How does killing the exact same volume of each others' army go from a minor win to a massacre? Kill Points are already a pretty flawed system, inflating Kill Points by a massive factor simply amplifies the effect of the flaw. It's inconvenient when DE give 27 KP to a Marine army's 18; it's inconceivable when DE give 60 to a Marine army's 32.

sourclams wrote:How does killing the exact same volume of each others' army go from a minor win to a massacre? Kill Points are already a pretty flawed system, inflating Kill Points by a massive factor simply amplifies the effect of the flaw. It's inconvenient when DE give 27 KP to a Marine army's 18; it's inconceivable when DE give 60 to a Marine army's 32.

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

People can say you adapt to the scenarios all you want. You have to have many more points of resources on hand already, otherwise it is nearly impossible both in time and money to change an army in a week's time. A lot have players have collected the models they need for a specific army and that is about it.

I'm not hating on the 3rd scenario too much though. I was unlucky to draw a tyranid swarm on round 3. Aside from only getting through 3 turns (his turns took 45 min each, mine took 8. I only know this because I bring a timer) though this game is a perfect example of a subpar list and player pulling a draw, 6kps to 6kps. Calculating VPS post game I had tabled 1700ptsof his army, he had killed 2 rhinoes. One can argue about dqing for slow play, but there are a lot of TOs afraid to do this. (btw, the rhinoes were popped by sporing zoanthropes and a carnifex who were wiped out the turn they came in)

Inconceivable means unbelievable or incredible. Reliably pulling off wins that require you to be twice as good as your opponent, all factors equal, is indeed incredible.

Great use of your forum time, by the way.

Hmm...

I agree that GW should have published the missions sooner; about a month prior to the event would've been nice. I also agree that it was too easy to get a massacre and draw/minor/majors were too rare.

However, the Hardboy was really not that bad for mech. As many people's battle reports have shown, they did just fine. So did foot armies, which to me is excellent balance.

I started this thread because I want to know how people feel about odd scenarios, I was just using S3 as an example. Do you change your list to be better for that particular tournament, or do you just use your standard all-comers list? I would certainly change my list, but where I live the TOs never post their scenarios online ahead of time. As I said in the OP, I think the best skill of a tournament player is to adapt to change. That's why I would never have a problem with any scenario as long as it's posted beforehand. Having multiple armies really helps I guess.


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wtf... I just posted something and it seems to have disappeared.


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oh there it is.

Well, using this 'Ard Boyz as an example:

Had I known well in advance these scenarios, I would have brought an army that is good but doesn't require vehicles (Tyranids or Tau) instead of my Imperial Guard.

I had a lot of things going against me, and even with mech vs mech, the scenario comes down to who gets the first turn. Had I the time to assemble a new army, I would have done this and just flooded the table with gaunts.

sourclams wrote:Inconceivable means unbelievable or incredible. Reliably pulling off wins that require you to be twice as good as your opponent, all factors equal, is indeed incredible.

Great use of your forum time, by the way.

I take it you have never seen the Princess Bride?

MorbidlyObeseMonkey wrote:Hmm...

I started this thread because I want to know how people feel about odd scenarios, I was just using S3 as an example. Do you change your list to be better for that particular tournament, or do you just use your standard all-comers list? I would certainly change my list, but where I live the TOs never post their scenarios online ahead of time. As I said in the OP, I think the best skill of a tournament player is to adapt to change. That's why I would never have a problem with any scenario as long as it's posted beforehand. Having multiple armies really helps I guess.

I like odd scenarios, as long as they make sense and have a clear win/lose/draw configuration.

I played in a recent tournament that had a bunch of screwball missions, where you got points by achieving mission objectives; and it was possible for both players to achieve many of the same objectvies. In one or two of the missions, it was possible for the "winner" to get 20 points and the 'loser" to score a 13. I have problems with these types of missions, which in my opinion reward mediocrity and are just silly. I also do not like mission objectives/rules where I somehow gain control of some of my opponents figures, or am rewarded for doing inane things like running units off the board, etc.

With that said, I liked all three missions in the 'Ard Boyz. The only critiques I have are my previously mentioned issue with how easy it was to get a major/massacre in S3, and possibly needing to flip the order of S2 and S3.

I had my list prepared about a month before GW came out with the missions. Luckily, I only ended up hitting 23 KP's, so did not feel the need to change my army (particularly when people were reporting lists with 50+ KP's). If I had been much higher I probably would have made some adjustments.

The last scenario could have been impemented differently, but in principle a mission that hampers mechanized lists (when one of the others favors them) is not a bad idea. A better idea might have been something that made speed more difficult to use, like making all the targetted units take an "overheat" test every turn and on a 1 they sit there doing nothing, or some similar mechanic. Monkeying with the scoring is simply punative and I didn't liek it any more when it was non-troops a couple of years ago. The biggest problem was that it didn't really stop the armies it was targetting (parking lot IG, Razorspam) but virtually crippled certain weaker theme lists (Bikes, Jump BA).

That is somewhat of a misconception. I do not think GW was trying to punish people from taking mech lists; nor do I like missions where game play mechanics are tinkered with for specific unit types.

Rather, I think GW was trying to dissuade people from taking heavily meched-up lists. Judging from posted army lists, battle reports and tournament results, it does not appear to have been very successful.

If they were that worried about meched-up armies, IG Leafblower armies, etc., they could have done things like: make all vehicles start in reserve; have an all-night fight mission; have an ambush type mission where the side with more vehicles has to start in the middle of the board (with no reserves), with the opponent on or moving on from the the periphery, etc. (You want to make a leafblower army player scared, make him set up so his side and rear armors are exposed, with his opponent not showing up until automatically on the opponents first turn.)

Just a thought...