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Chimera_Calvin wrote:erm, Stelek, did you actually read my post?
I therefore have to ask, what's the problem?

So many.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:The problem with this is that it only applies if your army is optimised to one particular mission.

You mean 2/3 of the missions versus 1/3.

You cannot be successful in both missions.

Idiots with 180 Ork armies thinking otherwise, notwithstanding. Next.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:What GW is trying to do is prevent min/maxing of armies - an 'optimised' army is now one which is tactically flexible, capable of achieving different types of objectives.

They have failed. Next.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:I don't think that KP's are perfect by any means - and I agree that IG have disproportionate problems (at least until they get their new codex) - but a lot of the discussion around this smacks of:

"My uber-kill-death-army which pwned all before it in 4th ed now loses a lot when this new mission is played. The new mission MUST therefore be the worst rule EVER WRITTEN!
What? You want me to change my army list/tactics? How dare you!. ... etc......"

Actually it's more like this. I bought an army. I don't have to change it for friendly play, because people don't play this mission. In tournament play, I do have to change it. Another BROKEN PROMISE. Next.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Now, as I say, I don't think GW have necessarily created a great mission system, but its what we're playing, so lets look back at what and how we play and adjust accordingly.

So you aren't a fanboi, but we should just accept the gak they've given us and be happy? You sound just like the escalation apologists. "It's not OUR fault nor GW's fault that your army does not work in this part of the game system, and we are going to continue forcing this gakky mission down your throat for five years. And feth you and the whining horse you rode in on." Next.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:An optimised, tournament winning list needs to be able to win (or at least be strongly competetive) in all 9 mission variants. This means that different choices and tactics are required. Hopefully, it will mean the top tables have more diversity than the usual Nidzilla/Trifalcon/etc that we all got used to in 4th.

There are THREE missions. THREE. Deployment zones does not make for NINE MISSIONS.

The rules took care of that.

Oh and for the record, in the last five years of going to GT's I have played in a grand total of EIGHT of them. I saw trifalcon only LAST year, when the Eldar Codex was new; and all the fething GT scrubs couldn't figure out how to beat it. I saw nidzilla THREE years ago, again when the build was new; and again all the GT scrubs couldn't figure out how to beat it.

Last year, Nidzilla's ass was sitting on the back tables. Two years ago, the Eldar were sitting on the back tables.

That's how this game goes. You change the Codexes to make the armies viable not the game system.

I've steamrollered both lists run by many so-called 'top table' players and put them on the back tables with a massacre.

So to finish off, the problem is you ARE defending GW. "Well they fethed up but it's ok, we'll all be good sports about it won't we?"

No, we bloody well won't. They need to fix this bs before it ruins 5 years of fething tournaments.

You disagree? Fine, we'll make a special table just for you to play on and all it will be is the KP mission.

Oh, and EVERY army has problems with KP's. It's a dumbed down worthless idea that should never have gone to print but GW felt they had to get a new edition out before other game systems took even more market share away from them.

Please note it isn't working. You should read threads across the internet before you mention how KP's are just fine.

Been a month. It's despised.

Please note that I don't disagree with Stelek in this instance, I just like having fun with him.



BYE

Hellfury wrote:Wrathguard are a 350+point unit when maxed out. It's dead nuts hard. But a tau drone squad worth 96 points is worth the same KP. You have to dedicate alot of points to remove that wraithguard squad. probably more points than the wraithguard are worth. And what do you get for wiping them off the table? 1 KP.

Let me preface this with the fact that I don't mind the KP mission the way it is, but I can see the point made above.

Here's a quick idea. For every 100 points, rounded up, that unit is worth 1 KP when completely wiped out. Nothing at half, nothing at 2/3, full when wiped out.

If you go with a system like that Lormax, might as well go with VP's.

Which was deemed too confuzerizering for us dummies.

Maybe a "Victory Points for Dummies" book could come with every Space Marine purchase over 500$?

Stelek,

Would you say it's really a problem with kill points, or a lack of variety when it comes to missions? 3 missions really is pretty bland. Introducing primary and secondary objectives into the game worth a certain amount of points, as well as giving points for killing things, could spice things up a bit.

Looking back over what I just typed, did I just describe AT-43's way of doing things?

Lormax wrote:3 missions really is pretty bland.

Welcome to 5th Ed.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Lormax wrote:3 missions really is pretty bland.

Welcome to 5th Ed.

BYE

I have to agree. This is actually one of my biggest disappointments with 5th ed so far, the absolute lack of mission variety.

I mean, one of the missions, Annihilation, didn't really even need an entry in the book. Can't any game be played with a simple "Kill 'em All" theme, without a lot of instruction?

The other two seem like variations on each other.

Bland is a pretty good description. I had really hoped for better.

On the one hand, Stelek has a good point(!). If we, the players, don't like a rule that they've put out, then instead of whining about it on internet forums we should be proactive and actually email the company. We let them know exactly why we feel that the mission has problems, and suggest alternatives to fix it.

On the other hand, this is pretty much what happened with Escalation - it seriously boned some armies, and so people had to change the way they played their lists. Aside from internet whining, I doubt there was much direct feedback. In any case, it took GW several years and a new edition to remove the rule. I suspect that KP will not be going away until 6E, whenever that will be.

If that's the case, then by all means contact GW and let them know the mistake they made, but let's also deal with the reality - if you want to play 40K in a competitive situation, you need to take KP into account when building an army, whether we like it or not. It WILL come up in missions at RTTs and GTs. This means changing the way we build armies, and perhaps changing the types of armies we use.

Edit: Also, while the original three missions might be bland, take a look at pages 266-273 in the rulebook. There's some interesting variant missions with unusual victory conditions and situations. Haven't played any yet but they look like they could be fun and a nice change of pace.

H.B.M.C. wrote:But you have to remember that ****** is a skilled ad hominemist (if one can be such a thing), as such belittling or insulting you is as good as defeating your argument in his books. I assume that's how he wins games of 40K - crosses to the other side of the table and sucker punches his opponent - BAM! 20-0! You just got tabled!

I think I might have found something humourus to put in my sig

As an actual response I couldn't see what was so confuddleing aboot VP's and why the change was needed.

Dragging out the old saw again - and maybe sort of ironically because I am the OP - GW rules changes don't have to affect anything outside of tournaments and games played in their stores. They're not going to send the wargaming Stasi after you if you don't use their products as marketed. If you do give GW rules the heave-ho in your day-to-day gaming, I say welcome to the club Stelek.

I like the kill points victory conditions. It is a nice balance to maximizing the force org. chart to try and contest objectives from the other two victory conditions.

You can look at a 350pt Wraithgurd squad and a 96pt Tau Drone squad. Yes they are both worth 1 kp and in kp conditions the wraithguard are a better bang for the buck, however you can get 3 Drone squads for the price of 1 Wraithguard squad and in any objective based mission the 3 drone squads are more bang for the buck that 1 wraithguard squad.

It is really a nice way to prevent everyone from taking min sized units to fill in the force org. chart.

DarthDiggler wrote:I like the kill points victory conditions. It is a nice balance to maximizing the force org. chart to try and contest objectives from the other two victory conditions..

I think all of us like the concept, even the bitterest of the bitter.

"Encouraging" players to combine their 3 land speeders into one unit is great. It speeds games up. Encouraging players to play with 3 units of 12 infantry rather than 6 units of 6 also speeds the game up. It minimizes the number of funky special weapons options, highlights the strength of the basic non-upgraded model, and is an easier to approach game for new players.

I can't speak for everyone, but it is a safe bet that we all want that encouragement. As you say, kill points are the Yin to to the Yang of "capture" type missions.

The devil is in the details unfortunately. It wasn't tested with all of the codexes in mind ( or if it was, there was callous disregard for some of their customers), it wasn't all that well thought out, and it does NOT effect all armies equally. Different races have different playstyle 'personalities'. Many of these personalities perform naturally well in a fragile MSU state.

Those armies "as we say in america" are boned!

Escalation sucked because it worked to disadvantage units that were already pretty crappy to begin with, like melee fexes and tanks. But the overall idea of changing missions conditions a fair bit to encourage flexible playing lists is pretty sound.

At this point, there’s only one marginal army that’s really hurt by VPs, the IG, and while it sucks for them, the answer isn’t to move to samey, repetitive scenarios. The answer is to make IG a solid army with greater flexibility.

Also, having a scoring system that that demands no more than counting up dead units and having no triple digit addition of VPs is great when a game ends at two in the morning and everyone is more than a little drunk.

VP's sucked. It took too much time to calculate. I think the KP concept was great just poorly implemented.

Our club has been talking about combining KPs and mission objective in the same game for tournies.

Either along the lines of Primary and secondary objectives or something like a loot counter is equal to 3 KPs. Total Kps wins.

Pete

Pdeflorio wrote:VP's sucked. It took too much time to calculate. I think the KP concept was great just poorly implemented.

Dunno how long it took you to add up the points value of things still on the table, but with the paper your army list is on, a pencil and a $0.99 pocket calculator, it took about 2 minutes to figure out. Just how long did it really take? That just blows me away

Seriously, other than Pdeflorio, and my main man Jonny-Boy, who actually found VP's difficult or confusing to work out?

Seriously? If you can work out an army list, you can work out Victory Points.

BYE

Basic math = fail.

Isn't it more:

Fail at basic math = Joh... no... can't say that. I'll get in trouble. I'll start again.


Isn't it more:

Fail at basic math = Epic fail at 40K.

BYE

lol. you guys are dicks. I work in Finance!

In all seriousness though VPs really slowed down tournaments. It's less about the time and more about breaking down army lists. Everyone uses different formats. Some programs include the transport in the total, some include the character in the retinue, blah blah blah. 5th ed would probably be a little better because their is no more half credit but anyway....

My point is that we are talking about a game where the game designers are reluctant to add in negative modifiers. Having to do math at the end of the game to see who wins makes no sense under that premise.

KPs are clean and easy, and they keep people from min maxing. Otherwise we'd all be playing 30 scoring daemon units and a Nurgle bike squad.

I think including transports as KPs was an error, but I also think non walker vehicles shouldn't have been able to contest objectives either.

From a tourny perspective we will probably run missions with a blend of victory conditions based in VPs and mission objective. This is probably what they shoudl have done in the first place.

Pete

I'm curious - do any of you think the Kill Points concept would work if the rules had specified that kill points are only awarded for scoring units? This seems like it would be better if the mission type was really intended to disprut the tendency to maximize scoring unit counts for the objective missions. I haven't finished my army or played a game yet, so I don't have a great sense of how this would affect it. Reading through the guard and marine codicies, though, it seems like the armies would tend to be closer to equal in these terms, and would have more flexibility to build forces that strike a balance between having too few scoring units or too many kill points.

The fact that transports are counted as a KP is really irritating for Speed Freaks and Dark Eldar. It basically means you're gonna auto lose most annihilation games.
I really like Stelek and Yakface's proposed solution, I'm going to see if my gaming group will go with it. (Unfortunately a couple of them are pretty big fanboys at times.)

Mort wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Lormax wrote:3 missions really is pretty bland.

Welcome to 5th Ed.

BYE

I have to agree. This is actually one of my biggest disappointments with 5th ed so far, the absolute lack of mission variety.

I mean, one of the missions, Annihilation, didn't really even need an entry in the book. Can't any game be played with a simple "Kill 'em All" theme, without a lot of instruction?

The other two seem like variations on each other.

Bland is a pretty good description. I had really hoped for better.

Exactly. Which is why I feel that fixing this issue starts with the missions and not with KPs. After you make the missions all objective based, then KP become a non issue as KP wouldn't even be present any more, at least not in their current incarnation.

Pdeflorio wrote:VP's sucked. It took too much time to calculate. I think the KP concept was great just poorly implemented.

Our club has been talking about combining KPs and mission objective in the same game for tournies.

Either along the lines of Primary and secondary objectives or something like a loot counter is equal to 3 KPs. Total Kps wins.

Pete

Pete, I would like to introduce you to this thread:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/216087.page

You will find that you and I share the same basic thought here.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Seriously, other than Pdeflorio, and my main man Jonny-Boy, who actually found VP's difficult or confusing to work out?

Seriously? If you can work out an army list, you can work out Victory Points.

BYE

I said it above. The game ends at two in the morning and you’re drunk, you really don’t want to crank out the pocket calculator to figure out who won.

Also, victory points were a bitch to calculate turn by turn. Coming in to the last turn or two it can make for a more interesting game if you know you’re a point or two up or down, giving you the option to adjust your strategies to protect your lead or steal victory. With the old system you needed your opponent’s list and a minute to sit down and add up a string of triple digit numbers, often resulting in ‘great game... who won?’ situations. With KPs you know where you’re at each turn.

So what you're saying is, SOMEONE is too stupid or lazy to be bothered with complicated VP's, and instead a system you can count on your bloody fingers is best.

Please people stop playing 40k.

It appears it's a serious threat to the brainpan.

Hellfury: I was getting to it. lol

sebster wrote:Also, victory points were a bitch to calculate turn by turn. Coming in to the last turn or two it can make for a more interesting game if you know you’re a point or two up or down, giving you the option to adjust your strategies to protect your lead or steal victory. With the old system you needed your opponent’s list and a minute to sit down and add up a string of triple digit numbers, often resulting in ‘great game... who won?’ situations. With KPs you know where you’re at each turn.

I have to say this is the best argument in favor of KP I have yet seen. it still doesnt make KP good, but I can see the merit.

@Stelek, I would edit your last comment if I was you.

Hellfury wrote:

sebster wrote:Also, victory points were a bitch to calculate turn by turn. Coming in to the last turn or two it can make for a more interesting game if you know you’re a point or two up or down, giving you the option to adjust your strategies to protect your lead or steal victory. With the old system you needed your opponent’s list and a minute to sit down and add up a string of triple digit numbers, often resulting in ‘great game... who won?’ situations. With KPs you know where you’re at each turn.

I have to say this is the best argument in favor of KP I have yet seen. it still doesnt make KP good, but I can see the merit.

Actually this is exactly how VP's worked, for those with the ability to count in their head.

GW declared this miraculous ability to be 'unsporting' and replaced it with 1.

No more complicated 328 + 172 + 59 + 231...and I need to not lose this 175 else he'll win...

Now it's 1 + 1 + 1 + 2...and I need to not lose this 1 else he'll win...

Utter crap if you ask me.

Kill Points - the new escalation? In that my gaming group won't be using it either? Yes. We got tired of KPs during "Beta Testing". Done.

As for the lack of missions in 5th, that is exactly the GW plan. Future expansions will give us options.

Likely Future releases:
Combat Patrol: Reloaded
Mighty Empires (40k version)
Kill Teams: Reloaded (Also known as Quasi-Necromunda 40k)
Apocalypse: Re-Reloaded

Stelek wrote:So what you're saying is, SOMEONE is too stupid or lazy to be bothered with complicated VP's, and instead a system you can count on your bloody fingers is best.

Please people stop playing 40k.

It appears it's a serious threat to the brainpan.

Stelek,


Please remember that not everyone plays 40K for the same reasons you do and there is absolutely no reason to ever start insulting others just because they disagree with you.


While I have absolutely no trouble calculating Victory Points, I can also recognize that this process takes a fair amount of time at the end of the game and, especially when you don't have access to your opponent's army list and/or aren't particularly familiar with their codex, it can be hard mid-game to figure out exactly where both sides stand (which can be both a positive or negative trait depending on your preference).

The point is, a simple elegant game mechanic is always better than one that takes more time and effort to achieve essentially the same thing.

I don't think Kill Points as they stand are a replacement for Victory Points but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of replacing Victory Points with something more elegant is a stupid one.

Stelek wrote:So what you're saying is, SOMEONE is too stupid or lazy to be bothered with complicated VP's, and instead a system you can count on your bloody fingers is best.

Please people stop playing 40k.

It appears it's a serious threat to the brainpan.

Hellfury: I was getting to it. lol

Meh. There's a difference between what you can do and what you want to do after the game is over, especially if its late and you're drunk, which is fairly typical for most 40K games around these parts.

And then there's the folk who aren't as capable with their basic maths, either because they're a bit younger or they just aren't that good at maths. Remember 40K is the maintstream minis game, or at least as mainstream as minis games get.