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A post about 2nd edition 40k has me feeling a bit nostalgic. 2nd Edition wasn't like 6th in that the missions were rolled for each player, not for each game. That is to say that you could (and often did) have two players trying to achieve different mission goals.

Does anybody do this in their 6th edition games? Would this present problems in competitive environments if used as an alternative to the current system?

Balance and simplicity are what I'd assume. Personally, I think asymmetrical missions are the bee's knees and I'd love to see more of them. There's nothing keeping you from playing 2nd ed missions with modern rules though; for the most part the same principles should apply.

There was a league I was in a few years ago that played with a module called Rules of Engagement. Asymmetric objectives worked shockingly well, actually. And that's in a system with a lot of different kinds of objectives.

Really, the only thing I'd change is that there are a few missions that are blatantly defensive (have more units in your own deployment zone than your opponent does, defend your two objectives in your deployment zone, etc.) which I'd scrub in favor of more offensive ones. People don't need incentives to hang out and gunline in their deployment zone. Not in this edition, at least.

What was interesting as well is that there are so many different kinds of missions that you can't just sort of make your list to do one thing and then hope. On the other side, you could build in more curious things into your army, but there would be a place for them.

The problem with asymmetrical missions is that it leads to a lot more draws (if our objectives are different we can both accomplish them), while 6th edition's secondary VPs suggest that GW wants to make draws less frequent. Then there's also the problem of interaction. In an asymmetrical mission it's possible for each player to do their own thing without much fighting (for example, each player camps their separate vital objective and is unwilling to take any risks to engage the enemy effectively). 40k's zero-sum objectives, on the other hand, force you to interact because you're fighting over the same objectives and each VP you score has to be taken away from your opponent.

We tried this one time , was only good for marine players. It doesn't matter for them if they have to kill someones HQ or hvy supports .On the other hand extra VP for killing units in melee for IG sucked hard and I had the mission 3 times out of 4.

Instead of Warlord Traits table we should've had a Mission table in each codex, tailored to that army's strengths/inclinations.

 Shandara wrote:
Instead of Warlord Traits table we should've had a Mission table in each codex, tailored to that army's strengths/inclinations.

Well, we are getting these in supplements at least.

A system of having different primary *and* secondary objectives would probably help the win/draw/lose problem Peregrine brought up. In fact, I have a funny feeling 2nd ed *did* have this, but not finely-tuned enough.

One thing I found from running games like this is that it's by far the most fun when you write down the objectives you've generated at the start of the game, then put them face down to keep them secret from your opponent. This means that unless you're looking at a complete wipe situation, it's genuinely tense right to the end as nobody has any idea how well their opponent has done.