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Martel732 wrote:


The secondary objectives are the minority of total points in the match. They can help tip the balance, though.

I think you have a better argument if you were to assert that the perma-los blocking 1st floor rule fundamentally changes the game. The scoring system really doesn't.

Tipping the balance affects greatly who actually wins. So it matters. And sure, the wall thing changes the game a lot too.

Is that a fundamental change? I really didn't think of it as such.

I don't like GW's missions and don't see a reason to ever use them, even if there is such a fundamental change taking place. I like less randomness and more control.

I'm constantly trying to adapt to what people are likely to bring, because you can't win with a crippled list typically.

Martel732 wrote:
Played cut off the head yesterday. It's just another exercise in tabling, imo. Way less interesting than ITC. No liability incurred for 10 man guard squads at all. Unacceptable. At least guardsmen bleed VPs in ITC.

I fail to see how IS squads have any bearing on that mission at all. Tabling happens in any mode, so why is it more relevant here?

It's really hard to table a lot of infantry squads. They are really good at protecting the IG intel guys. There is no benefit for killing them in the GW mission. You have to get to the intel guys or you are doing nothing VP-wise.

On the other hand, it's trivially simple for IG to burn down MY squads and expose my characters and then murder them. They don't even have to move, really. They never need the center if they are scoring 3 off intel to your zero by turn 4. Actually, trying to get the middle is what was getting everyonen's intel killed, as three different tables were playing this mission. In each case, the gun line won.

Martel732 wrote:
Because the best way to wax characters is to kill every thing between you and them. If you kill the intel characters, its basically an autovictory.

10 man guard squads give up "butcher's bill" points in ITC rather easily, as well as "reaper". Although most hordes qualify for reaper, but no one is quite as hordey as the IG now. In cut the head, there is no downside to having hundreds of ablative dum dums between your characters and the enemy. In fact, its desirable and has no downside.

You've failed to denote the flip side of this.

What characters are IG going to be bringing to the center of the table? IG Characters are also inherently more snipe-able than others, which means they're spending points on chimeras, which means fewer squads.

As I said up above, they just don't do that part of the mission and win anyway.

Martel732 wrote:
It's really hard to table a lot of infantry squads. They are really good at protecting the IG intel guys. There is no benefit for killing them in the GW mission. You have to get to the intel guys or you are doing nothing VP-wise.

On the other hand, it's trivially simple for IG to burn down MY squads and expose my characters and then murder them. They don't even have to move, really. They never need the center if they are scoring 3 off intel to your zero by turn 4. Actually, trying to get the middle is what was getting everyonen's intel killed, as three different tables were playing this mission. In each case, the gun line won.

Aggressors help put an end to that especially when the IS are enticed to come to the center.

I dislike comments that just say how all the stuff on one side just dies without killing anything on the other side. It's just not a real reflection of the issue.

I don't consider aggressors a meta choice. Drukhari still exist. Until Drukhari are fundamentally changed, marine choices are very constrained, imo. So you see, I am very much adapting to the situation.

Martel732 wrote:
As I said up above, they just don't do that part of the mission and win anyway.

Yea, sorry, I'm just sort of getting caught up, because my broswer didn't load the rest of the comments.


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Martel732 wrote:
I don't consider aggressors a meta choice. Drukhari still exist.

Not in ITC, but certainly when hordes are strongly involved.

Even after CA, I watched an Eldar soup list kill 900 pts of GK in one turn yesterday. fething nuts. Eldar soup is still the thing to have to build for, because they end your game the fastest if you don't.

It doesn't matter how good hordes are, until Eldar soup doesn't instawin vs my aggressors. Which they do. It's not like IG doesn't have a million ways to kill aggressors, either.

Maybe repulsors can finally help instead of hinder. I dunno.

Martel732 wrote:
Even after CA, I watched an Eldar soup list kill 900 pts of GK in one turn yesterday. fething nuts. Eldar soup is still the thing to have to build for, because they end your game the fastest if you don't.

It doesn't matter how good hordes are, until Eldar soup doesn't instawin vs my aggressors. Which they do. It's not like IG doesn't have a million ways to kill aggressors, either.

I don't know about the circumstances that led to such an event - hot dice, bad choices, bad army - I've had disintegrators rip me a new one, but never have eldar come close to taking half my army and I don't run much in the way of tzaangors.

I would think sticking to cover and playing a slow development of the mission keeps IS from being a problem (and possibly eldar). After all you are still scoring 3 points, too. If they don't commit to the center than it comes down to WL/FS/LB. And then even if you do lose you don't lose big and still have a strong spot in the tournament.

The issue with picking secondaries is it lets you tailor your army to do one thing well while minimizing what your opponent can take (this has been lessened a bit now from what it used to be, however). So it just encourages more list tailoring and bringing a skewed, gimmick list (which surprise surprise is what you see dominating ITC events).

The GW missions, by design, have things that make them different (e.g. null zone, intel points) to encourage NOT doing that and instead bringing an army that can deal with any of the situations that come up rather than build an army that's made to do one thing, and then tailoring everything possible to let it do that one thing.

ITC missions are popular because they put even more emphasis on list building which is what the competitive crowd want to be one of if not the most important part of the game, presumably so they can feel "leet" by coming up with some power combo. The GW missions discourage building a skew list.

Regarding repulsors: I think if lists keep being dominated by soup with disintegrators then a repulsor with a much cheaper tech marine makes for a solid base.

Wayniac wrote:
The issue with picking secondaries is it lets you tailor your army to do one thing well while minimizing what your opponent can take (this has been lessened a bit now from what it used to be, however). So it just encourages more list tailoring and bringing a skewed, gimmick list (which surprise surprise is what you see dominating ITC events).

The GW missions, by design, have things that make them different (e.g. null zone, intel points) to encourage NOT doing that and instead bringing an army that can deal with any of the situations that come up rather than build an army that's made to do one thing, and then tailoring everything possible to let it do that one thing.

ITC missions are popular because they put even more emphasis on list building which is what the competitive crowd want to be one of if not the most important part of the game, presumably so they can feel "leet" by coming up with some power combo. The GW missions discourage building a skew list.

I just dont see this.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not list tailoring at all. It does not have even close to the same effect. Number one, the other side gets to do it, too. Number two, it doesn't actually make any given army better at removing the other side's models. What it does do is make you think very hard about what you are facing in that match up.

Doesn't it just mean that armies that are good vs most match ups, just don't have to worry about bad missions? they just always pick the most optimal way to kill the opposing army.

Sad about the missions not being better. ITC isn't played in Poland that much.

That's the idea, yes.

Ok, but if your codex can't build such a list, then your double punished. First by not being able to overpower the opponent to farm points in later turn, and second because your army can't cover most of the scoring done in missions. Seems to buff the most optimal books a lot.


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I don't know about the circumstances that led to such an event - hot dice, bad choices, bad army - I've had disintegrators rip me a new one, but never have eldar come close to taking half my army and I don't run much in the way of tzaangors.

S spears kill of a unit of paladins soul burst in to draigo and rest of strike squad, while dark reapers kill a GM NDK. That is the closest I got to losing 900pts in a single turn with eldar.