Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, some thoughts I'd like to share.

t seems to me all the 40k missions are very monotone, either a simple take and hold (not even that as if the game ends a turn early a the three conscripts take the point despite the Carnefix in charge range) or just killing things, the result seems to be lots of armies emerging that are very good at taking objectives last turn and killing things. There have been a lot of attempts to make more balance or strategic missions but they all seem to come down to new ways of taking objectives or killing things.

If we want more balanced fluffy lists and more tactical play maybe we need to start thinking about creating a wider range of scenarios? How you have to play a smash and grab with an object centerfield against an opponent set up in a defensive ring in the middle is very different from a normal scouring or emperors will. For missions where one side clearly has an advantage from the scenario you could have participants take both a 1500 point list and a 1850/2000, so the disadvantaged player can take the larger army.

I was thinking for scenarios, maybe…

Get to the Choppa! - Player 1 must fight his way through enemy infested terrain to reach the landing pad and evacuate his troops There is an landing pad on the far side of the board, player 1 deploys his troops on the opposite side of the board, he must reach the landing pad to evacuate his troops, once he reaches the pad every turn the pad can evacuate 2d3 units. Player 2 may deploy up to 50% of his troops within 24" of the landing pad the rest come in via deep strike within 12" of the enemy (ignoring mishaps in the same way a drop pod does) as they have been lying in wait all this time.

Escort - Player 2 has set an ambush for player 1 to retrieve a valuable artifact that is being carried in a transport
Player 1 deploys in the center and must reach either of the short edges with the transport (chimera stats) carrying the artifact none dare fire at the artifact as it could damage the artifact, any wrecked damaged or immobilized result on the vehicle results in a loss for both players, A player can take control of the artifact moving a non monstrous creature into base contact with it, if it is contested neither player has control of the vehicle, Player 2 deploys along the long edges and must get the artifact off one of the long edges.

Breakthrough - Player 1 must get as many of his units off the enemies side of the board
pretty standard.

I think with a little refienment these could work and could be fun. However I can see the breakthrough being a little to easy..... I tend to run a lot of bikes, so I can move 24" and with white scars I get a 3+ jink..... so depending on deployment, turn 2 or 3 win

There used to be a whole bunch of missions like this, the old 3rd edition book had several varieties of the breakthrough mission. Unfortunately I can't seem to find them online. Guess I'll have to scan from my book, which is falling apart.

In most of those old school missions there was a singular objective that determined victory. Do you control more quadrants than the enemy? Did you successfully plant the demo charge on the shield generator? Did half of your force escape the table?

I liked the flavor in those missions, especially with the attacker having a full force on the table, but a hard objective, and the defender forced to start with elites and heavy support in reserve. They reflected real battles more accurately, with a scramble to call in reserves in response to an offensive, rather than the 6E system of pitched, symmetric battles.

Yeah, an eldar Bike list would break that first game, 12" move, 24" turbo, 2d6 jump, turn 1-2 win probably.

Most of these missions would require restrictions on the army list or sneaky scenario-building rules; if I recall correctly the linebreaker mission on the GW website long ago was set up assuming a fairly long narrow board with the narrow table edge as a goal and very little terrain, giving the defender some extra fixed guns (equivalent to an Aegis line quad-gun) might be another way of balancing out the inclusion of crazily fast units.

Biker armies as well as flyer heavy armies might accomplish it too easily, what if you were to include refugees, Relic, or maybe planetary governor who can only move 12" a turn, that's at least 4 Turns to get across, multiple groups of refugees/archeologists/prisoners in chimeras might work best though. I just think if you want varied lists that convey the fluff, you need missions that convey the fluff.

you'd have to get a good gamer with a themed list for these to work well. I know for a fact that if you ran that breakthrough mission against eldar, first turn everything would flat-out and be on the pad. second turn they're gone. I wrote a similar idea called "attack on the skylift" or some such, and that's exactly what happened.

the old rulebook has a mission where the defender deploys a barricade across the middle of the board, and deploys in the central third. if the armies are all on the ground (no skimmer/jetbikes) then it would be a brilliant game. if the eldar opponent can just jump over with a look of contempt and be gone, it won't.

perhaps have a "shield generator" with 2 gates so you can't jump over and can't speed through without fighting your way in, then you can try and destroy the generator, letting fliers & skimmer move over.

these types of game work well in campaigns, where there are consequences for just ignoring the opponent in later games. give them some objectives to destroy that give you bonuses in the next game if he doesn't.