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Escalation, Deep Strike, and Infiltration really need to be looked at.

Deepstrike is a joke anymore. There are to many units out there now that bypasses the scenario rule and always deepstrikes. The problem then becomes with units that can deepstrike are shafted because in half of the tournament games they are being outmanuvered by said units that Deep Strike anyways.

Infiltration is worthless for the most part now because the proliferation of missions without Infiltrate shafts any unit that relies on that ability. Primary example is Striking Scorpions. Most of the time you have to pay for that ability anyways so when you do play those missions without it, you are attomatically throwing those points down the drain, essentially starting with a handicap.

Escalation is probably the worst thing to come out of 4th Edition. I hate it because it is something that penalizes you for fielding a particular army. I find it extremely unfair because if you field a generally tank heavy list, and you face off against an opponent that doesn't play the same you are again starting the game with a handicap.

Now I agree with Blackmoor to a point. You shouldn't be able to take trick armies and expect them to be effective 100% of the time, but on the other hand I think you diminse to many other list builds with an all encompasing rule like Escalation.

Missions should not be defined by what special rules they have. Let Infiltration and Deepstirke in every mission, make them standard dependable rules. Where missions should come into play is objectives, make missions take more than Victory Points to win. How about a mission where your whole objective is to kill the enemy commander. That where strategy will enrich the game, not madatory "leave these units of the table an pray they show up in time to contribute unless you play a newer codex that lets you just bypass this anyways".

Also, and probably my main complain of the whole Infiltrate, Deep Strike, and Escalation mission rules are is that it prohibits different builds. Right now I can count the most effective list builds on one hand. If these rules where dependable, modified, and or erased. You would see more army lists out therewhich only is a good thing.

Posted By stormboy97 on 11/21/2006 6:08 AM

Where did you get that little gem from? :|  Unless you go all-infantry, which is not a popular option in 40k4e, Space Marines get shafted by Escalation. Practically every unit choice in their Codex is non-'infantry'.

 

well lets see I got that gem by paying attention, isnt the all infantry list the mauleed standard. Ed is the dakka lord isn't he??. Ed's list is as hard as nails and very effective. so except for a couple units he has everything on the table. I guess that would count as not really being effected.

 

You're looking at this from only one POV. If I played Ed's army in an Alpha game, everything would be on the board, and he'd be able to place his Tactical Squads one at a time where the could do the most damage. With Escalation he can no longer do that and I know exactly where everything he has is before I bring the majority of my units on-table. He's at a huge disadvantage right from the get-go.

In addition, his counter-assault unit is held up off-table, which is a major lynchpin in his strategy. His Termies are DSing anyway, so no biggie, right? Except that the opponent can now react to his Termies in a far superior fashion than before.

And for the record, of Mauleed's three power-armies, two are screwed by Escalation (this one and his WAoD one). Only his Droppoding army is unaffected...

...and even then, droppods suffer under Escalation a little. There's a big difference between being able to see your opponent's entire army deployed and his basic tactic before DPing and seeing only a fraction of it and then having the remainder arrive after some of your DPs.

The whole problem with this system is that there are only 8 events that span across the entire nation. This is not enough games to make up a good competitive gaming scene. I love the idea, but not the implementation. What they need to do is throw a bunch of small tournaments, or enable stores to throw tournaments that can contribute to your circuit scores.

Posted By Mahu on 11/21/2006 7:34 AM
Escalation is probably the worst thing to come out of 4th Edition. I hate it because it is something that penalizes you for fielding a particular army. I find it extremely unfair because if you field a generally tank heavy list, and you face off against an opponent that doesn't play the same you are again starting the game with a handicap.

Agreed, Escalation does do exactly that. But no more than Infiltration and Deepstriking, so I don't understand this vehemence players (mostly SM players in my experience) have for Escalation in particular. (I do understand the sheer love for Escalation that most IG, Tau and Eldar players have, however.)

Posted By Mahu on 11/21/2006 7:37 AM
Also, and probably my main complain of the whole Infiltrate, Deep Strike, and Escalation mission rules are is that it prohibits different builds. Right now I can count the most effective list builds on one hand. If these rules where dependable, modified, and or erased. You would see more army lists out therewhich only is a good thing.

True enough.

Drop pods are affected by escalation.

If they play against a mech army and go second, when they will drop down on turn 2 not only will they not be able to shoot anything, but be sitting ducks for the mech army coming on the board.

I played at the gamesday in Atlanta. I take an all foor slogging space marine force that hasn't lost a game since 3rd edition came out. So let me tell you a couple things about escalation. The only units I didnt get on the board were my two dreadnoughts. I played an escalation against another marine player who had a decent amount of vehicles and completely destroyed him. You can not bring your vehicles on somewhere that you can't be shot at.
You guys have obviously not played on any GW sanctioned boards. The field of fire are WAY OPEN and at the best you might be able to get a tank or two into a little bit of cover. Escalation heavily favors an all foot army. There is no question about it. My oppenent got somewhere around 120 victory points and i got like 2000. And he got the first turn........

Posted By Blackmoor on 11/21/2006 9:24 AM
Drop pods are affected by escalation.

If they play against a mech army and go second, when they will drop down on turn 2 not only will they not be able to shoot anything, but be sitting ducks for the mech army coming on the board.

Yes, but in order for this to be true, your opponent has to be COMPLETELY mechanized. Only Eldar and Tau go for these builds. And even so those units coming on the board are arriving 50% at a time on average. So the Drop Podders just kill your units one at a time.

Every other time the Drop pods will just kill the half of the army on the board the turn they drop and wait for the rest to be killed as they come in piecemeal.

Escalation should be removed from the game, plain and simple. It is a good idea that in practice just doesn't work.

I would argue that pred/land raiders are a waste of a hvy slot that should go to devs in a non-blood angel marine list. More kills/point and more resliant at the cost of mobility.

So if you're being affected by escalation, you're already playing a sub-par list.

Also, just like there are more than podding marines, there are more than mech tau/eldar builds.

BTW, isn't it amusing that the number one army with always deep strike even w/o deep strike are marines.

Posted By Mahu on 11/21/2006 7:34 AM
Escalation, Deep Strike, and Infiltration really need to be looked at.

I agree with Deepstrike and Infiltrate, but disagree with Escalation. I find adds a lot to shake up the scenarios that everyone's played over and over again.  Just about everyone gets hit.  Thumbs up.

Escalation was a good idea to kill rhino rushes (that and the various vehicle damage results that further punish the mechanized). But nowadays, with codexes becoming ever more balanced (IMO) Escalation has lost alot of what it was trying to destroy.

What I mean to say is that the armies being put out recently, are already somewhat restricted in how mechanized works. Escalation is getting to the point that it is a rule that is unneeded in tournies any more.

I used to despise Escalation, but after playing with it allowing models to move on from the portions of the short board edges that make up your deployment zone I've found that it actually makes the games rather exciting and fluid.

I also strongly disagree with Mahu regarding making Deep Strike and Infiltration permanent. Perhaps if all of the army lists were designed from the ground up with that in mind it might work, but with the current set of army lists allowing players to always utilize these rules creates overly abusive situations in tournaments.

IMO, haivng some units become useless in non-Deep Strike/Infiltration games is a far better solution than allowing all infiltrating/Deep Strike armies run completely rampant.

This soup is either too hot or too cold. I agree with Yak that making infiltration and deepstrike automatic would create abusive situations. But certain armies definitely get stomped hard by escalation. Deepstriking and/o infiltrating in any mission is too powerful to sustain game balance across the system. But doing without makes the game too vanilla.

The current system is not ideal, but it does work adequately, IMO, insofar as it forces people to weigh difficult decisions as they construct their lists.
Tournaments should stretch armies and force people to adapt their playing strategies and tactics from game to game. Given the diversity of armies in the system, this means mixing alpha, gamma, and omega-level missions in any given tournament. Which will mean that some players will be forced to fight some uphill battles. But at least it keeps people their toes. I love the feeling of going into a tournament and not knowing quite what to expect from game to game.

Posted By Gaaargh on 11/15/2006 6:54 AM
I think this looks like a great step forward.

The GW Canada system embraces indy tourny's, but not on as large a scale as their own Conflicts, though I don't know of any Canadian Indy's that are as large.

I agreed that this looks great - As to large Canadian Indy's - we have one/three depending on how you look at it.

Astronomi-con is a set of three events - each two day, each absolutely top notch. Christian and Mike run an event in Vancouver, one in Winnipeg and one in Toronto. They are also currently negotiating for a chance to run a fourth event - this one at GW HQ in the UK.

I have run over 30 tournaments and played in many more - Astro is hands down the best I have ever been to (though I have to admit because of my Job schedule I have never been able to attend Adepticon)

tkkultist

Making Deepstrike Standard isn't going to be abusive because most of the best deepstrikers do so anyways. Really, the only thing we will see is more Chaos Terminators.

Infiltration on the other hand can be abusive, only because of the sheer amount of Troop Choices out there that have access to it. I wish that units that depends on Infiltration had an "always" infiltrate ability.

Yeah...Alpha Legion should have the 'always infiltrate' rule.

And the only abusive deepstrike lists are Lysander wings (Can always deepstrike) and drop pods (always deepstrike). So having deepstrike in all the missions doesn't hurt anything.

Posted By BryanC on 11/21/2006 7:44 AM
The whole problem with this system is that there are only 8 events that span across the entire nation. This is not enough games to make up a good competitive gaming scene. I love the idea, but not the implementation. What they need to do is throw a bunch of small tournaments, or enable stores to throw tournaments that can contribute to your circuit scores.

This could be the start of GW bringing back the RTT Hall of Fame. They can keep it at the upper level now with only a few evens to worry about. Then if it works out and is popular, they can start to add lower level events.

Plus, on the WHFB side, when I still paid attention to who was winning in the US, the big names would play at all the GTs anyway. You seldom saw a GT without seeing Marc Robson, Adam Clark, Don Riddeck, etc in the standings somewhere.

 

 

" have run over 30 tournaments and played in many more - Astro is hands down the best I have ever been to (though I have to admit because of my Job schedule I have never been able to attend Adepticon) "

Well - you have at least four months to plan with Adepticon at the end of March.  Knowing the dates 8+ months in advance should help in the future.  Come on down - it would be kewl to hear your thoughts afterwards. 

Posted By skyth on 11/22/2006 6:56 AM
Yeah...Alpha Legion should have the 'always infiltrate' rule.

Why?

 So what if there is no infiltrate? They only pay a few points for that ability, so they don't lose much.

The only downside is that they don't have to bring a balanced list. Heaven forbid if an army can't infiltrate! What would they do? Chaos space marines can't win without it.

 

 Alpha Legion can use everything in the chaos codex and they get cultists, so if they lose infiltrate, they should not lose much of their effectiveness. Maybe then an Alpha Legion army would have to take rhinos, raptors, bikes, or whatever to add some mobility, like all of the other chaos lists. Maybe that will make them more rounded, and flexable instead of one trick ponys.  

 

I never saw Alpha Legion as big on using bikes and Rhinos...Just doesn't seem to fit thier personality really to me.

The downside is that they, like other lists, do not get to use an ability they paid points for. (You pay points for abilities. If they were free, then taking them away wouldn't be a big deal. But they are not.) Which is fine if any ability could get the shaft (hey, look we rolled no BS4 shooting! Cool!) but it is very selectively applied. This penalizes armies for no really good reason except that some people don't like certain lists. Yet, we don't have rules that routinely disallow, say rending or cover saves or movement over 6 inches.

I also don't buy that deep strikers and infiltators would dominate- if so redesign the objectives, don't disallow otherwise valid armies. You could change up rules if it causes problems. IE in this scenario, infiltators may deploy up after other units up to 4 inches outside the normal deployment zones or Deep Striking models instead select one piece of terrain not in the enemies deployment zone and may deploy in base contact with that feature. Whatever, just disallowing it smacks of poor design.

Oh, and AL sacrifice daemons and marks to get the better access to Infiltrate and cultists (who also rely on Infiltrate). I hardly see how infiltrating is a "one trick pony". It is actually more akin to a movement mode and if it is a OTP, I guess so are transports, jump packs, depp strikers, etc....

Posted By Inquisitor_Malice on 11/22/2006 7:14 AM

Well - you have at least four months to plan with Adepticon at the end of March.  Knowing the dates 8+ months in advance should help in the future.  Come on down - it would be kewl to hear your thoughts afterwards. 

I would love to make it to adepticon and have been invited to come and teach there each year. I have even been part of the masterclass painters auction - the Orteza demon prince piece - I painted and mailed in my entry even though I could not attend.

Unfortunately my reasons for not coming down are the same as the reasons ill never make it to mrdi Gras - I am a Highschool Art teacher - and while my holidays are great they are not flexible. As such there is little possibility of me making it to a multi day tourney like this outside of the country and during the school year - the logistics just dont work..

Ah well.

James K. Craig AKA Tkkultist

In the case of escalation, deepstrike, infiltrate.

It does make the game intresting and does shake things up. However giving an "always" Deepstrike and "Always" Infiltrate then you will have armies that are basically a one trick pony army and in some cases make for powerful 1st turn charges that can win a game just on a first turn roll.

Someone said earlier and I agree with is it is best to make these rules in moderation have a 50/50 with deepstrike and infiltrate but I would put escalation at 33%. 1 or 2 missions with Escalation is enough to keep some armies honest while at the same time doesnt hamper them to an extreme degree.

  My personal opinion with Escalation it has forced a playing style of either infantry or really fast non infantry to makeup being held in reserves. Marc's issue with escalation is the situation of reserves in which you can possiably lose the game just by a few poor rolls on the reserves either by coming in peicemeal or not coming in at all.