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 Marmatag wrote:
Troops die easily regardless of format. Are you kidding me? There is no format where a tactical marine isn't complete garbage, for example.

People don't minimize troops as much as you claim. The top guard lists have quite a bit of bodies and they make amazing use out of them. Bad example because that faction is broken OP, but other factions do as well. I run 6 squads of Kabalite Warriors in my Dark Eldar list, and they perform famously. Necrons get a lot of mileage out of their troops. Tau get immense value out of firewarriors, triple riptide list depends on them, so does vehicle spam Tau. Eldar don't feature guardians but that's not because guardians are god awful it's because rangers are quite good. Rangers are troops and they do what they do very, very well. Tyranids have some of the best troops in the game. Genestealers are fantastic, hormagants and termagants also see play, but less because Ripper Swarms are overall better, despite the negligible difference in cost (40 vs 33). Genestealer Cults have fantastic troops as well, the Acolytes and Neophytes are actually worth it.

I mean the list goes on. You guys represent the ITC format as somehow being bad for troops but it's far from it. The only factions that are completely assed out worthless are the power armored sods that can't deal with weight of dice or anti-elite shooting. The profile of the guns doesn't vary based on format.

Again, don't talk about a meta you don't play.

Tell me how good intercessors are in ITC, How many intercessors do you see in top lists? Close to none!

How many intercessors do you see in CA18? LOADS! Because they are one of the best troops in the game, simply cause they are good at staying alive on an objective while contributing to the firepower.

How many terminators do you see in ITC? Zero.
How many do you see in CA18? Not loads, but a decent number.

ITC overvalues mobility due to an objective scoring system that rewards it. In CA18 you aim to have a cohesive force which can take and hold ground, because that's what gets rewarded.

Also, CA18 lists pack less firepower and mobility but more durability (also at 1750 lists tend to be less lethal than at 2000), so your termies are not going to be showered in plasma, neither your intercessors.
It's not uncommon to not score first strike, because turn 1 you will suffer few lossess except against particular lists (which usually tend to castle and auto lose as a consequence).

Different missions. Different lists. Different meta.
Don't try to apply the ITC logic to CA18, an ITC list would get hardstomped in a CA18 event.

 Marmatag wrote:


Isn't it a bit unfair to assume that a formal tournament circuit with a global ranking, as well as global in-faction rankings would measure equally as competitive/casual as GW's one-off tournament?

I just had a look at the 2018 ITC rankings, as in previous years it looks like only about 10% of the players even attended enough events to get full ranking score. The remaining 90% or so did not and the largest number of those by far attended just one tournament. The majority are not in the running for global ranking, they are not taking themselves to tournaments on a regular basis. The number of players who turned up for the correct spread of tournaments (Major/GT/RTT) to potentially rank well was relatively very small. So it turns out that people are still people and quite a few of them do not take their toy soldiers that seriously in any meta. To dismiss a different meta because you believe people in it are not as serious/competitive as the meta you prefer would be little more than unsubstantiated bias.

The GW GT is of course not a one-off tournament. That is the whole point of it, a fact that you appear to have missed. A similar proportion of the GT players only play one event that gets any publicity but we do not know if that is out of choice, after all you must actually qualify for the final by results in a heat. The base of events for this, where players try out lists and hone their mission skills, are typically small store or club events that get zero publicity outside their local area.

However the discussion is more about the different meta arising from different tournament formats and we can see a different meta arising from the pure GW ruleset than from the variant ITC ruleset. What is good in one will tend to be good in another but it is not so clear-cut; Dark Reaper spam was a bit of a flash in the pan at WHW because it turns out that building your list around T3/3+ models is not quite so sound if you do not have special terrain rules which can render them almost immune to meaningful attack. So even what is considered best is not quite the same, similar but not identical. Not only is the meta slightly different but it is a lot less settled, that can at least in part be assigned to the different level of variety between missions. The less variety you have between missions the more list-building will tend to dominate a meta and the more that meta will tend to settle quickly into an equilibrium of being "solved". A wider variety of missions makes the list building "solution" significantly harder to achieve so it takes significantly longer to happen. What this means is that whatever is best at a given point in time will much more quickly come to define the meta in a less varied mission set than in a more varied one - the ITC is fundamentally more prone to developing a well defined and static meta. The pure GW-rules mission set might eventually settle into a fixed meta but it takes a lot longer for that to happen, a timespan which is long by comparison with significant rules releases/changes so in practice it does not have time for the meta to settle.

The other feature of the GW tournaments rather than ITC is the lack of public analysis. Outside of the top few placings it is often hard to know what lists were that performed well or badly so there is far less net-listing going on at WHW. Again the ITC is set up in a way that will settle on a fixed meta as fast as possible, lots of data and opinion will tend to see players playing either to that position or trying to set themselves up as counter to it. There is an extent to which the ITC player-base acts like there is a fixed and static meta even before there really is one but that by doing so they create exactly that meta. A sort of self-fulfilling prophesy effect is unfolding.




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 Crimson Devil wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah but CA2018 uses progressive scoring too. I think what ITC added that was actually needed was the rankings/points (I forget the term that Magic uses for it but that basically). I just don't think they need to fork the game anymore with extras.

Also if we're talking terrain, ITC uses too little terrain and too symmetrical. Picking what side you deploy on is supposed to be an actual tactical choice, and doesn't work when the terrain is virtually identical.

Having symmetrical tables is a practical consideration as well as for fairness. Unless of course you enjoy walking pass a dozen other tables edge to edge in a crowded hall to get to the other side. If I lost a game at an event because of asymmetrical terrain or mission I would be pissed.


Also the CA2018 has some stinkers in them as well. "Cut off the Head" is fine unless they face off against a Vindicare.

The CA18 setup rules give one player choice of table edge, the other the choice whether to go first. The mission design handles asymmetric tables quite well and certainly does not require the level of absolute terrain predictability that is expected at some US tournaments.

I would love to play against you in Cut off the Head; you can take 3 Vindicare assassins in your list and I will take none. I am pretty confident that I will still have a very good chance to win, I have a list designed to be able to deal with this. Now if I took a typical ITC list cut down to 1750 and played against your 3 Vindicare assassin list I daresay I would get stomped but that would just be taking a terrible list for the mission set.

Some armies are good at some CA18 missions and bad at others, which by the time you try to fix your bad missions you pretty much always find you no longer have a list that will ROFLSTOMP the one it started out good at. Yes you can bring a one-trick-pony list to a CA18 tournament if all you want to do is win that one mission and be a bit of a spoiler for whoever you play in that one mission, in the real world this is not a thing I see players doing so I am not going to worry about it.

My Blood Angels are bad at all the missions, so the fact you think you would win means nothing.

My point is, if/when I lose a game I want it to be because my opponent out played me. Not because I was further disadvantaged by the terrain or this snowflake mission kicks me in the nuts. All I want is a fair chance.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
My Blood Angels are bad at all the missions, so the fact you think you would win means nothing.

My point is, if/when I lose a game I want it to be because my opponent out played me. Not because I was further disadvantaged by the terrain or this snowflake mission kicks me in the nuts. All I want is a fair chance.

Some factions are bad in all metas.

Not even CA18 can save GK, but that's not the object of the current discussion.
If you play pure blood angels you are going to struggle regardless of ITC or CA18. Random terrain or missions don't change anything.

Spoletta wrote:
Again, don't talk about a meta you don't play.

Well I play it - and while I sort of see your point, don't really agree with it.
I feel if you are seeing non-DW intercessors, I feel its because your meta is softer, not because the CA18 missions suddenly make them good.

I mean a brief summary of the eternal war missions:
Vital Intelligence - rewards movement to grab objectives, especially the 2 point one. Sort of rewards survivability to just sit on objectives, but then ITC arguably does that too.
Narrow the Search - there is only one objective, so rewards resiliency over movement to some extent - but also hordes blobing in the area, because one model is one model.
Cut off the head - bit of a variant of the above, rewards resilliency over movement due to one objective - but only up to 3 characters count. Which means you want to put bodies there so the characters cannot so easily be sniped. Rewards sniping.
The Four Pillars - kind of similar to ITC here with no prisoners and getting points for holding more objectives. But only troops count.
Supplies from above - 4 objectives, "Fly" units gain obsec, and objectives can wander a little bit.
Beachhead - 3 objectives, further up the field counts for more. Rewarding movement and aggression.

You also have first strike, slay the warlord and linebreaker, which tends to encourage damage output and some level of speed (i.e you want something to get across the table in 5 turns.)

So you are right to some degree. You don't explicitly get points (except in the four pillars) for killing the enemy.
Perhaps more importantly though you don't have ITC's secondaries, which are typically, but not exclusively, gained from killing stuff. So while near-tabling your opponent by turn 3 might help you grab all the objectives later on, it doesn't tend to put you miles into the lead regardless.

I am not sure however you can say ITC "overvalues movement" - since movement is pretty important in most of these games as you want to be able to apply pressure at different points on the table. I feel its only really Narrow the Search (and to some degree Cut Off the Head, although thats a bit complicated) where you can take a load of tough models (preferably without invuls), walk into the middle of the middle of the table and see if your opponent can kill them fast enough to take it back.

I mean how does a classic IG+Knight build struggle with these missions? I guess you can maybe say the lack of fly for Supplies from Above. You have troops choices, raw bodies and characters. You have the damage output to shift enemy units off objectives. We are three months away from the first Nottingham GT Heat? I expect you will see IG Soup and Eldar soup everywhere.

ITC gives more value to mobility due to the following reasons:

1) It's easier to negate LOS, so being able engage the opponent from multiple angles is often necessary.
2) All ITC objectives are scored at the end of the turn. If I drop 3 rippers on an objective or jump some scatbikes on it, that objective is mine.
In CA18, in many missions those rippers or bikes will be blown away before they can score, if the opponents gives priority to it. If you want to make sure that an objective is yours, you need to put some decent meat over it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The net result of lists requiring high mobility and high firepower is that they end up being lacking on the third pillar: durability.
High firepower + low durability = High lethality

Right, ITC values so much mobility that IG keep winning while barely leaving their deployment zone.

Spoletta wrote:
ITC gives more value to mobility due to the following reasons:

1) It's easier to negate LOS, so being able engage the opponent from multiple angles is often necessary.
2) All ITC objectives are scored at the end of the turn. If I drop 3 rippers on an objective or jump some scatbikes on it, that objective is mine.
In CA18, in many missions those rippers or bikes will be blown away before they can score, if the opponents gives priority to it. If you want to make sure that an objective is yours, you need to put some decent meat over it.

I'll leave terrain aside, because I don't think that is inherent to the rules.
You are right that ITC scores "do you hold an objective" and the bonus point in your turn - whereas CA18 counts objectives at the end of the battle round.
But really, this just means ITC can be slightly more advantageous for the player going first - except its mitigated by the fact the player going second knows what they need to do to score "killed more/held more".

I'm not convinced its a massive change. After all half the players go second - so are scoring at the end of the battle round.

It would be interesting to see whether going first still gives you a better chance to win - or whether, for both ITC and CA18 the various changes have reduce that.

CA2018 does not sufficiently punish hordes in any way.

Martel732 wrote:
CA2018 does not sufficiently punish hordes in any way.

Any evidence of horde armies winning tournaments using CA missions an mass?

I often see the argument that ITC is better because it punishes hordes, but I don't see the hordes winning other tournaments outside of old stuff where some hordes won on time-outs which have nothing to do with the mission.

Tyel wrote:


Well I play it - and while I sort of see your point, don't really agree with it.
I feel if you are seeing non-DW intercessors, I feel its because your meta is softer, not because the CA18 missions suddenly make them good.

I mean a brief summary of the eternal war missions:
Vital Intelligence - rewards movement to grab objectives, especially the 2 point one. Sort of rewards survivability to just sit on objectives, but then ITC arguably does that too.
Narrow the Search - there is only one objective, so rewards resiliency over movement to some extent - but also hordes blobing in the area, because one model is one model.
Cut off the head - bit of a variant of the above, rewards resilliency over movement due to one objective - but only up to 3 characters count. Which means you want to put bodies there so the characters cannot so easily be sniped. Rewards sniping.
The Four Pillars - kind of similar to ITC here with no prisoners and getting points for holding more objectives. But only troops count.
Supplies from above - 4 objectives, "Fly" units gain obsec, and objectives can wander a little bit.
Beachhead - 3 objectives, further up the field counts for more. Rewarding movement and aggression.

You also have first strike, slay the warlord and linebreaker, which tends to encourage damage output and some level of speed (i.e you want something to get across the table in 5 turns.)

So you are right to some degree. You don't explicitly get points (except in the four pillars) for killing the enemy.
Perhaps more importantly though you don't have ITC's secondaries, which are typically, but not exclusively, gained from killing stuff. So while near-tabling your opponent by turn 3 might help you grab all the objectives later on, it doesn't tend to put you miles into the lead regardless.

I am not sure however you can say ITC "overvalues movement" - since movement is pretty important in most of these games as you want to be able to apply pressure at different points on the table. I feel its only really Narrow the Search (and to some degree Cut Off the Head, although thats a bit complicated) where you can take a load of tough models (preferably without invuls), walk into the middle of the middle of the table and see if your opponent can kill them fast enough to take it back.

I mean how does a classic IG+Knight build struggle with these missions? I guess you can maybe say the lack of fly for Supplies from Above. You have troops choices, raw bodies and characters. You have the damage output to shift enemy units off objectives. We are three months away from the first Nottingham GT Heat? I expect you will see IG Soup and Eldar soup everywhere.

They had the last of the heats a couple of weeks ago and it was using the new CA18 missions.

Top 3 were
Marines, G-man gunline plus smash captains
Mixed chaos (not sure exactly what)
T'au, mobile rather than gunline so no Broadsides for example

No Castellan/AM or Ynnari/Eldar soup up at the top. Possibly a durable horde with the mixed chaos but I have not seen the list so I cannot comment.

Now for all I know when they have the final someone will work out ways to make those ITC top lists work in CA18 and roll over everyone but so far that is not what has happened. I expect to see people take Eldar soup and Castellan/AM lists but some of the features of ITC which make those top dogs are not present in CA18 missions so perhaps they are just worthy competitors rather than rulers of the roost.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Not because I was further disadvantaged by the terrain or this snowflake mission kicks me in the nuts. All I want is a fair chance.

If you take an army that can't handle terrain or missions that you know might be at the event, isn't that just a bad list?

 Crimson Devil wrote:
My Blood Angels are bad at all the missions, so the fact you think you would win means nothing.

My point is, if/when I lose a game I want it to be because my opponent out played me. Not because I was further disadvantaged by the terrain or this snowflake mission kicks me in the nuts. All I want is a fair chance.

Well it was you that said

Also the CA2018 has some stinkers in them as well. "Cut off the Head" is fine unless they face off against a Vindicare

So if adding 3 vindicare to your list still does not make your list good in that mission then the vindicare is not really a problem unit for that mission after all, the mission is fine. Which was all the point I was making.

As for the rest - I think it is just a matter of taste if you want highly predictable terrain in missions that are essentially all the same as each other. Which is good for you but which has effects on the meta - effects which a lot of players are complaining about without understanding that it is the very predictability which is magnifying them.

If you are happy with the ITC meta and enjoy the missions and terrain rules then all is good in your world. Coolio.

catbarf wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Not because I was further disadvantaged by the terrain or this snowflake mission kicks me in the nuts. All I want is a fair chance.

If you take an army that can't handle terrain or missions that you know might be at the event, isn't that just a bad list?

You can make that argument. But it really depends on your goal. If I want to win the event then a Castellan or Ynarri list would be the best choice. If I'm just looking to have some fun games than no.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

As for the rest - I think it is just a matter of taste if you want highly predictable terrain in missions that are essentially all the same as each other. Which is good for you but which has effects on the meta - effects which a lot of players are complaining about without understanding that it is the very predictability which is magnifying them.

If you are happy with the ITC meta and enjoy the missions and terrain rules then all is good in your world. Coolio.

Predictable terrain removes a variable. I don't think choosing your deployment zone should be a major factor in winning the game is all.

BTW, I play all the missions. I'm more partial to the Open War cards tbh. When I set up terrain I try to make the table fair and look like a real place at the same time.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
You can make that argument. But it really depends on your goal. If I want to win the event then a Castellan or Ynarri list would be the best choice. If I'm just looking to have some fun games than no.

Believe me, I get that. In an optimally-balanced game, taking a fun, fluffy list would also be a competitive option that you could win a tournament with.

But I feel like a lot of criticism of the CA missions that I hear essentially boils down to people taking min-maxed, ITC-oriented lists that aren't prepared for CA objectives, losing when they run into those objectives, and then blaming the missions for being 'auto-lose' or similar. If that wasn't your intent then I apologize for misinterpreting.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

As for the rest - I think it is just a matter of taste if you want highly predictable terrain in missions that are essentially all the same as each other. Which is good for you but which has effects on the meta - effects which a lot of players are complaining about without understanding that it is the very predictability which is magnifying them.

If you are happy with the ITC meta and enjoy the missions and terrain rules then all is good in your world. Coolio.

Predictable terrain removes a variable. I don't think choosing your deployment zone should be a major factor in winning the game is all.

BTW, I play all the missions. I'm more partial to the Open War cards tbh. When I set up terrain I try to make the table fair and look like a real place at the same time.

Predictable terrain enables players to know what terrain they can rely on at list building time. If you know at list building time that there will be huge LOS blockers then expensive units of mobile glass-cannons (like ynnari shining spears) are a reliably good choice rather than the gamble they would be on less predictable terrain. Predictable consistent terrain along with missions that do not really functionally vary across the weekend put a huge emphasis on list building in a competitive format because you can account for all variables at the list building stage. That leads to a meta dominated by a small number of list archetypes very quickly after any rules release or rules change. If you are happy with that sort of meta then that is the exact right set of rules for you.

As for open play, I think they are the best format for getting good at the game because they throw up some incredible challenges and make you think hard. I have played one tournament with them and sure enough I got the classic "unwinnable game" - but I had a real good go and in the end had my opponent sweating the last dice rolls of the game as he made saves for his troops against my T'au in CC trying to grab the key objective. He made the saves and I lost but I played a better game of 40K than probably any other in the past 2 years. With open play the predictability is almost zero so having symmetrical terrain on tables definitely does not risk promoting a stable/static meta in the same way that having that approach to terrain in the ITC does.

catbarf wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
You can make that argument. But it really depends on your goal. If I want to win the event then a Castellan or Ynarri list would be the best choice. If I'm just looking to have some fun games than no.

Believe me, I get that. In an optimally-balanced game, taking a fun, fluffy list would also be a competitive option that you could win a tournament with.

But I feel like a lot of criticism of the CA missions that I hear essentially boils down to people taking min-maxed, ITC-oriented lists that aren't prepared for CA objectives, losing when they run into those objectives, and then blaming the missions for being 'auto-lose' or similar. If that wasn't your intent then I apologize for misinterpreting.

That is pretty much it. the ITC missions put everything on you. The "missions" are really identical other than objective placement since none of them have other things beyond "control objectives, kill units" so there's no real variety in them at all (this seems to be something common in the tournament crowd; they want close to zero variety in missions, like back in WHFB you only saw the basic mission never anything else). The secondaries you can tailor (so more list building) either your list to minimize or against your opponent to maximize. This is why you see the same "type" of lists do well at ITC evens and totally different sorts of lists (I am *not* talking about factions, I'm talking about list comp) do well at non-ITC events. For instance if I recall the latest GT Heat was won by Eldar (what a surprise, right?) but it was.. actually a pretty standard (albeit good) Eldar list. No Ynnari. No horsegak like that double Airwing 7 Flyer list that came in 2nd at LVO.

This is my issue with ITC. The way their missions and house rules are, it's changing how the game is played so much that there's a drastic difference between ITC and non-ITC lists. That causes a schism in the game itself because you have people who aren't playing the same version of the game.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

As for the rest - I think it is just a matter of taste if you want highly predictable terrain in missions that are essentially all the same as each other. Which is good for you but which has effects on the meta - effects which a lot of players are complaining about without understanding that it is the very predictability which is magnifying them.

If you are happy with the ITC meta and enjoy the missions and terrain rules then all is good in your world. Coolio.

Predictable terrain removes a variable. I don't think choosing your deployment zone should be a major factor in winning the game is all.

BTW, I play all the missions. I'm more partial to the Open War cards tbh. When I set up terrain I try to make the table fair and look like a real place at the same time.

Predictable terrain enables players to know what terrain they can rely on at list building time. If you know at list building time that there will be huge LOS blockers then expensive units of mobile glass-cannons (like ynnari shining spears) are a reliably good choice rather than the gamble they would be on less predictable terrain. Predictable consistent terrain along with missions that do not really functionally vary across the weekend put a huge emphasis on list building in a competitive format because you can account for all variables at the list building stage. That leads to a meta dominated by a small number of list archetypes very quickly after any rules release or rules change. If you are happy with that sort of meta then that is the exact right set of rules for you.

As for open play, I think they are the best format for getting good at the game because they throw up some incredible challenges and make you think hard. I have played one tournament with them and sure enough I got the classic "unwinnable game" - but I had a real good go and in the end had my opponent sweating the last dice rolls of the game as he made saves for his troops against my T'au in CC trying to grab the key objective. He made the saves and I lost but I played a better game of 40K than probably any other in the past 2 years. With open play the predictability is almost zero so having symmetrical terrain on tables definitely does not risk promoting a stable/static meta in the same way that having that approach to terrain in the ITC does.

Having unpredictable terrain can also be counted as competitive, since you have to build list that is good on different terrain. That make optimizing lists harder and will test players tactical thinking in different environments.

Marin wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

As for the rest - I think it is just a matter of taste if you want highly predictable terrain in missions that are essentially all the same as each other. Which is good for you but which has effects on the meta - effects which a lot of players are complaining about without understanding that it is the very predictability which is magnifying them.

If you are happy with the ITC meta and enjoy the missions and terrain rules then all is good in your world. Coolio.

Predictable terrain removes a variable. I don't think choosing your deployment zone should be a major factor in winning the game is all.

BTW, I play all the missions. I'm more partial to the Open War cards tbh. When I set up terrain I try to make the table fair and look like a real place at the same time.

Predictable terrain enables players to know what terrain they can rely on at list building time. If you know at list building time that there will be huge LOS blockers then expensive units of mobile glass-cannons (like ynnari shining spears) are a reliably good choice rather than the gamble they would be on less predictable terrain. Predictable consistent terrain along with missions that do not really functionally vary across the weekend put a huge emphasis on list building in a competitive format because you can account for all variables at the list building stage. That leads to a meta dominated by a small number of list archetypes very quickly after any rules release or rules change. If you are happy with that sort of meta then that is the exact right set of rules for you.

As for open play, I think they are the best format for getting good at the game because they throw up some incredible challenges and make you think hard. I have played one tournament with them and sure enough I got the classic "unwinnable game" - but I had a real good go and in the end had my opponent sweating the last dice rolls of the game as he made saves for his troops against my T'au in CC trying to grab the key objective. He made the saves and I lost but I played a better game of 40K than probably any other in the past 2 years. With open play the predictability is almost zero so having symmetrical terrain on tables definitely does not risk promoting a stable/static meta in the same way that having that approach to terrain in the ITC does.

Having unpredictable terrain can also be counted as competitive, since you have to build list that is good on different terrain. That make optimizing lists harder and will test players tactical thinking in different environments.

This point, i think, gets to the root of the issue: People seem to want the competitive focus to be almost 100% on you and what you bring. They don't want any randomness at all that can be gotten rid of (I'm sure if they could they would try to remove dice). Unpredictable terrain means less emphasis on listbuilding, therefore it's bad because listbuilding should be the major "skill" in Warhammer. Nevermind the fact varied terrain is supposed to make the choice of picking a side/deployment type matter; having it the same on both means there's no difference and removes an element of surprise that can affect what you do. It seems like anything which reduces listbuilding as the primary thing is seen as something that needs to be removed or reduced to keep listbuilding the main focus of competitive play.

I saw thi same thing in Warmahordes and it was lambasted as being silly as the choice of side was supposed to matter and it was removing that as part of the game by hving symmetircal terrain layouts.

The most important thing about terrain this edition is that it needs to block LOS. ITC does this very well. However, they go a bit to far in the extreme and when that happens guns that ignore LOS become pretty ace. Its also one of the reason Dark Reapers are one of the most broken units in the game they can hop out shoot fade back into the first level of the ruin and face 0 retaliation unless you have an LOS ignoring gun.

All in all its a very hard balance to strike. 8th is such a killy edition that you need lots of LOS blocking terrain or units that are so ridiculously tanky they can take the firepower of an entire army and still survive (LOOKING AT YOU CASTELLEN).

Wayniac wrote:


This point, i think, gets to the root of the issue: People seem to want the competitive focus to be almost 100% on you and what you bring. They don't want any randomness at all that can be gotten rid of (I'm sure if they could they would try to remove dice). Unpredictable terrain means less emphasis on listbuilding, therefore it's bad because listbuilding should be the major "skill" in Warhammer. Nevermind the fact varied terrain is supposed to make the choice of picking a side/deployment type matter; having it the same on both means there's no difference and removes an element of surprise that can affect what you do. It seems like anything which reduces listbuilding as the primary thing is seen as something that needs to be removed or reduced to keep listbuilding the main focus of competitive play.

I saw thi same thing in Warmahordes and it was lambasted as being silly as the choice of side was supposed to matter and it was removing that as part of the game by hving symmetircal terrain layouts.

There's a happy medium somewhere between "everything's completely random" and "everything's set in stone" and I agree that ITC rules are too far towards the latter. Some elements of randomness in terms of terrain and mission are good. Anything that forces you to adapt and think about things on the fly rather than enacting whatever plan your list is built around should be encouraged, IMO. Far too often tournament players (especially ITC ones) will complain about the merest possibility of something not being 100% fair or any tiny amount of randomness as being unsuited for a tournament game whereas I think those are exactly the sort of challenges that separate the great players from the good ones.

Slipspace wrote:

Wayniac wrote:


This point, i think, gets to the root of the issue: People seem to want the competitive focus to be almost 100% on you and what you bring. They don't want any randomness at all that can be gotten rid of (I'm sure if they could they would try to remove dice). Unpredictable terrain means less emphasis on listbuilding, therefore it's bad because listbuilding should be the major "skill" in Warhammer. Nevermind the fact varied terrain is supposed to make the choice of picking a side/deployment type matter; having it the same on both means there's no difference and removes an element of surprise that can affect what you do. It seems like anything which reduces listbuilding as the primary thing is seen as something that needs to be removed or reduced to keep listbuilding the main focus of competitive play.

I saw thi same thing in Warmahordes and it was lambasted as being silly as the choice of side was supposed to matter and it was removing that as part of the game by hving symmetircal terrain layouts.

There's a happy medium somewhere between "everything's completely random" and "everything's set in stone" and I agree that ITC rules are too far towards the latter. Some elements of randomness in terms of terrain and mission are good. Anything that forces you to adapt and think about things on the fly rather than enacting whatever plan your list is built around should be encouraged, IMO. Far too often tournament players (especially ITC ones) will complain about the merest possibility of something not being 100% fair or any tiny amount of randomness as being unsuited for a tournament game whereas I think those are exactly the sort of challenges that separate the great players from the good ones.

I absolutely agree, and I vehemently maintain that having that element of surprise will help to balance things out because you have to take it into consideration with your lists. This is why I like the CA18 missions so much over ITC: The fact some missions are like you need heroes or units with Fly get a benefit will affect what you bring. That to me is better than letting you know from the start what you need to focus on (i.e. hold objectives and kill units) and listbuild around maximizing those two things and those two things only.

 Ordana wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
CA2018 does not sufficiently punish hordes in any way.

Any evidence of horde armies winning tournaments using CA missions an mass?

I often see the argument that ITC is better because it punishes hordes, but I don't see the hordes winning other tournaments outside of old stuff where some hordes won on time-outs which have nothing to do with the mission.

I don't know of any tournament results with CA 2018 missions. I'm extrapolating some punishment vs no punishment. Still didn't stop 80 guardsmen from winning it all, so I can't imagine CA 2018 being any kind of improvement.


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Wayniac wrote:

catbarf wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
You can make that argument. But it really depends on your goal. If I want to win the event then a Castellan or Ynarri list would be the best choice. If I'm just looking to have some fun games than no.

Believe me, I get that. In an optimally-balanced game, taking a fun, fluffy list would also be a competitive option that you could win a tournament with.

But I feel like a lot of criticism of the CA missions that I hear essentially boils down to people taking min-maxed, ITC-oriented lists that aren't prepared for CA objectives, losing when they run into those objectives, and then blaming the missions for being 'auto-lose' or similar. If that wasn't your intent then I apologize for misinterpreting.

That is pretty much it. the ITC missions put everything on you. The "missions" are really identical other than objective placement since none of them have other things beyond "control objectives, kill units" so there's no real variety in them at all (this seems to be something common in the tournament crowd; they want close to zero variety in missions, like back in WHFB you only saw the basic mission never anything else). The secondaries you can tailor (so more list building) either your list to minimize or against your opponent to maximize. This is why you see the same "type" of lists do well at ITC evens and totally different sorts of lists (I am *not* talking about factions, I'm talking about list comp) do well at non-ITC events. For instance if I recall the latest GT Heat was won by Eldar (what a surprise, right?) but it was.. actually a pretty standard (albeit good) Eldar list. No Ynnari. No horsegak like that double Airwing 7 Flyer list that came in 2nd at LVO.

This is my issue with ITC. The way their missions and house rules are, it's changing how the game is played so much that there's a drastic difference between ITC and non-ITC lists. That causes a schism in the game itself because you have people who aren't playing the same version of the game.

I don't like GW's version. Plain and simple.

Martel732 wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
CA2018 does not sufficiently punish hordes in any way.

Any evidence of horde armies winning tournaments using CA missions an mass?

I often see the argument that ITC is better because it punishes hordes, but I don't see the hordes winning other tournaments outside of old stuff where some hordes won on time-outs which have nothing to do with the mission.

I don't know of any tournament results with CA 2018 missions. I'm extrapolating some punishment vs no punishment. Still didn't stop 80 guardsmen from winning it all, so I can't imagine CA 2018 being any kind of improvement.

The recent GW GT heat used CA18 eternal war missions IIRC. I can try to find the results but while you saw similar factions (i.e. Eldar and Guard) they were not like the LVO lists. I don't think you saw a Castellan for example, and the Eldar list that won wasn't Ynnari it had 3 detachments with different craftworlds but nothing too out of the ordinray.

Undercosted units are good regardless of mission type. That is the primary lesson. They kill better and survive better.

I think the fundamental argument that is really key is how much flexibility should be required and when does flexibility/variability stop being a minor change that players should be able to adapt to and become a well hope you didn't brink X or you loose.
Example Tau vrs demons, if its planet bowling ball, well sucks to be deamon player, but if its max 3 inches between ruins well that'll suck to be Tau, their should be variable terrain but it can't be too extreme.

I do think CA2018 has too much of the rock paper scissors instead of actually being skill based, however ITC has probably been too similar in terms of what's going on in each mission, hence the development of the meta lists.

Secondary objectives in ITC are a diffrent level again, I get them but at sometimes it would be nice to be able to maybe split some so you can take 2 instead of 1 and only get point for the 2 or 3 score.
As lists that have been built to deny secondary missions 1 limit list building options 2 can make certain match ups feel like grinding sessions more than fun close games.

I havnt played ETC missions, but it seems the randomsness is the issue. What if they changed it to be less random. Where you get to pick half the cards and then randomize the other half. Could that change things?

I like the idea of being more tactical objective based rather than just a rock paper scissors of killing stuff ITC can be.

Wayniac wrote:


The recent GW GT heat used CA18 eternal war missions IIRC. I can try to find the results but while you saw similar factions (i.e. Eldar and Guard) they were not like the LVO lists. I don't think you saw a Castellan for example, and the Eldar list that won wasn't Ynnari it had 3 detachments with different craftworlds but nothing too out of the ordinray.

Pretty sure that was heat 3. Heat 4 was won by Spess Mahreens with no armies having pointy ears or Castellan mega-bots featuring in the top 3.

I think the book-standard terrain rules and the lack of ITC secondaries really hamper the Ynnari lists in a CA18 environment, they are still good but nowhere near the level of crazy that they typically are in ITC missions.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

Wayniac wrote:


The recent GW GT heat used CA18 eternal war missions IIRC. I can try to find the results but while you saw similar factions (i.e. Eldar and Guard) they were not like the LVO lists. I don't think you saw a Castellan for example, and the Eldar list that won wasn't Ynnari it had 3 detachments with different craftworlds but nothing too out of the ordinray.

Pretty sure that was heat 3. Heat 4 was won by Spess Mahreens with no armies having pointy ears or Castellan mega-bots featuring in the top 3.

I think the book-standard terrain rules and the lack of ITC secondaries really hamper the Ynnari lists in a CA18 environment, they are still good but nowhere near the level of crazy that they typically are in ITC missions.

Sounds right. And that's my point. The official, company-sponsored GT at their HQ uses 1750 points with CA18 Eternal War missions. I think that should be the standard for competitive 40k as it's what GW themselves are saying is their competitive baseline. You don't see as crazy lists or certain things cropping up all the time in non-ITC missions. To me that indicates that the ITC missions, however good or bad they may be, are helping exacerbate the game's problems rather than minimize them. That alone is IMHO the biggest condemnation of them. Sure, appreciate what they did to make GW pull their head out of the sand (at least partially) but they don't need to have their own version of the game anymore. Otherwise they might as well go back to having to add their own FAQs like they did in 7th because it's not like GW is still hitting the mark right with certain thinsg despite trying more than they did before.

This whole thread assumes a ton of causation from correlation, and has not done anything to prove it. I'll be taking leave.