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.

Personally it seems like an easy way to subtly increase the cost of the rules.

They sell the psychic power cards since it makes it easier to keep track of during every game. Now they make a table so obscene to keep track of you're almost required to use cards just to save you several minutes mid game.

I'm surprised they haven't started trying to sell Warlord Trait cards as well honestly.

Post-its man. Write down the psychic power and stick it next to the unit.

Or you make laminated cards with the character on it and then just put a dot next to it each mission and then wipe it off.

Or you just make your own.

There are plenty of things that you can do without having to buy the cards. They are a convenience. Like I printed off a bunch of copies of diviniation last edition and made my own cards since I have so many with it. I will probably do the same this edition once a good scan shows up. I bought the cards and tactical cards because they are nice to have and make my life easier.

Plus they are like 8 bucks, in the scheme of things it is miniscule for what they offer. People are more upset around here about the cards being sold out more than anything else.

I played my first two games of 7th ed. this last weekend. First was my IG vs Orks 1875 pts. The Morkanaught went down to my Knight Errant. I was really surprised by how weak the new Ork toy was. He was avenged by a dread and some killakans. We played Maelstrom: Cloak and Shadows it was meh. The Orks got the better hand and I got gak. We house ruled trading in impossible objectives immediately. The cards I had forced me into a gunline stance because of the location of the objectives. Game ended in a tie.

Second game was against Inquisition/IG mech vet with Yarrick. Maelstrom: Spoils of War was annoying. I got the better hand and jumped out to a large lead but was unable to keep him from tabling me.

My take aways for 7th edition.

The psychic phase was a complete disappointment. I love psykers. I include them in every army even when they really sucked back in 3rd. But I couldn't help but feel he was a waste of points.

The Maelstrom Cards are not dynamic, they are random. I don't like them. They are an equalizer in that they force you to play in a random way, kind of like when you first started playing and had no idea what tactics or strategy were. So if you want to Forge the Narrative: Play like a 12 yr old, then I can see them being useful for you.

Wyverns are ridiculous. The kind of no-brainer choice that ruins game balance.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
I played my first two games of 7th ed. this last weekend. First was my IG vs Orks 1875 pts. The Morkanaught went down to my Knight Errant. I was really surprised by how weak the new Ork toy was. He was avenged by a dread and some killakans. We played Maelstrom: Cloak and Shadows it was meh. The Orks got the better hand and I got gak. We house ruled trading in impossible objectives immediately. The cards I had forced me into a gunline stance because of the location of the objectives. Game ended in a tie.

Second game was against Inquisition/IG mech vet with Yarrick. Maelstrom: Spoils of War was annoying. I got the better hand and jumped out to a large lead but was unable to keep him from tabling me.

My take aways for 7th edition.

The psychic phase was a complete disappointment. I love psykers. I include them in every army even when they really sucked back in 3rd. But I couldn't help but feel he was a waste of points.

The Maelstrom Cards are not dynamic, they are random. I don't like them. They are an equalizer in that they force you to play in a random way, kind of like when you first started playing and had no idea what tactics or strategy were. So if you want to Forge the Narrative: Play like a 12 yr old, then I can see them being useful for you.

Wyverns are ridiculous. The kind of no-brainer choice that ruins game balance.

Except random is sort of the point. In battle only a few set objectives are set in stone, others become available randomly throughout combat, this is incredibly dynamic as you never know what objectives you need to work towards next

That's another thing we learned. Either go all psyker or no psyker. Had a few games where it was one or two psykers against a GK list where just about every unit adds dice to their pool. It's really depressing watching a farseer have to throw all of his dice into a single spell just to prevent a bunch of henchmen psykers from denying it with overwhelming dice.

Doesn't make it a good idea for a game. I wouldn't object to a mechanic that could alter conditions of the game during play. The cards are a bad way to do it.

Not seeing how it is a bad idea either. I have seen overwhelming support and favor for the cards as a matter of fact, only the staunchest, traditionalist veterans seem to feel otherwise in my experience

 Lobomalo wrote:
I have seen overwhelming support and favor for the cards

I think this may be an exaggeration. I think more posts saying they like the scoring element every turn as opposed to last round scoring. However the majority I think generally houserule to skip over bad cards or just remove them entirely and plenty have voiced concern over how bad draws severely impact the game. I wouldn't straight out say that the cards are getting almost universal positive support, but that with a few minor changes (that should have been included) that the game becomes more enjoyable.

Well, 7th is not perfect, but it sure as hell is better than 6th. At least, that is my impression so far.

 Lobomalo wrote:

Except random is sort of the point. In battle only a few set objectives are set in stone, others become available randomly throughout combat, this is incredibly dynamic as you never know what objectives you need to work towards next

"Random" is certainly "dynamic" but the point was it has nothing to do with a narrative battle. Generally in a real-life skirmish you have a clearly defined long-term goal (don't die, kill the other guy, get from Point A to Point B, hold point C) and your actions, your enemy's actions, and the terrain you're fighting over naturally create short-term objectives along the way (we can flank their position if we take this hill, etc).

The Maelstrom cards are like an almost-but-not-quite attempt at artificially injecting those secondary objectives into the game (since 6th edition showed that in 40k, without artificial means, deathstars and gunlines make every battle look the same regardless of objectives). I am ok with this in theory. In practice, GW just needed to playtest their stupid cards more than once or twice. It's nice that the cards exist, because it means players with even an ounce of creativity can put together better house rules for them than GW bothered to write.

It also amazes me that GW's marketing has completely twisted the concept of a narrative game in some players' minds. In a narrative game, you come up with a backstory, set up a scenario that may or may not be balanced, and play it out to see how the story unfolds using a flexible but ultimately fair ruleset. The important thing is that your decisions really make sense within the game, and you help create a story through your actions. In GW bizarro land, your narrative game starts off with your army's leader gaining random abilities, then the battle takes inexplicable turns at the whim of D66 charts and cards, and all the while players have to go through mental gymnastics to explain what the heck is happening.

 Lobomalo wrote:
Not seeing how it is a bad idea either. I have seen overwhelming support and favor for the cards as a matter of fact, only the staunchest, traditionalist veterans seem to feel otherwise in my experience

Only people who play eldar or agaisnt eldar dont like them, which is basically everyone in the competitive environment.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 Lobomalo wrote:

Except random is sort of the point. In battle only a few set objectives are set in stone, others become available randomly throughout combat, this is incredibly dynamic as you never know what objectives you need to work towards next

"Random" is certainly "dynamic" but the point was it has nothing to do with a narrative battle. Generally in a real-life skirmish you have a clearly defined long-term goal (don't die, kill the other guy, get from Point A to Point B, hold point C) and your actions, your enemy's actions, and the terrain you're fighting over naturally create short-term objectives along the way (we can flank their position if we take this hill, etc).

The Maelstrom cards are like an almost-but-not-quite attempt at artificially injecting those secondary objectives into the game (since 6th edition showed that in 40k, without artificial means, deathstars and gunlines make every battle look the same regardless of objectives). I am ok with this in theory. In practice, GW just needed to playtest their stupid cards more than once or twice. It's nice that the cards exist, because it means players with even an ounce of creativity can put together better house rules for them than GW bothered to write.

It also amazes me that GW's marketing has completely twisted the concept of a narrative game in some players' minds. In a narrative game, you come up with a backstory, set up a scenario that may or may not be balanced, and play it out to see how the story unfolds using a flexible but ultimately fair ruleset. In 40k bizarro land, your narrative game starts off with your army's leader gaining random abilities, then the battle takes inexplicable turns at the whim of D66 charts and cards, and all the while players have to go through mental gymnastics to explain what the heck is happening.

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Found these floating around on the net.

Print your own Tactical Objective Cards to fill the void until the official ones are back in stock

 MWHistorian wrote:

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 Lobomalo wrote:

Except random is sort of the point. In battle only a few set objectives are set in stone, others become available randomly throughout combat, this is incredibly dynamic as you never know what objectives you need to work towards next

"Random" is certainly "dynamic" but the point was it has nothing to do with a narrative battle. Generally in a real-life skirmish you have a clearly defined long-term goal (don't die, kill the other guy, get from Point A to Point B, hold point C) and your actions, your enemy's actions, and the terrain you're fighting over naturally create short-term objectives along the way (we can flank their position if we take this hill, etc).

The Maelstrom cards are like an almost-but-not-quite attempt at artificially injecting those secondary objectives into the game (since 6th edition showed that in 40k, without artificial means, deathstars and gunlines make every battle look the same regardless of objectives). I am ok with this in theory. In practice, GW just needed to playtest their stupid cards more than once or twice. It's nice that the cards exist, because it means players with even an ounce of creativity can put together better house rules for them than GW bothered to write.

It also amazes me that GW's marketing has completely twisted the concept of a narrative game in some players' minds. In a narrative game, you come up with a backstory, set up a scenario that may or may not be balanced, and play it out to see how the story unfolds using a flexible but ultimately fair ruleset. In 40k bizarro land, your narrative game starts off with your army's leader gaining random abilities, then the battle takes inexplicable turns at the whim of D66 charts and cards, and all the while players have to go through mental gymnastics to explain what the heck is happening.

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Hell, man, thank you for serving! (and not so secretly, thank you for backing me up on this, all the history books I read will always pale in comparison to what you've actually done, but I know these cards are crap for wargaming with the way GW has written them)

Savageconvoy wrote:That's another thing we learned. Either go all psyker or no psyker. Had a few games where it was one or two psykers against a GK list where just about every unit adds dice to their pool. It's really depressing watching a farseer have to throw all of his dice into a single spell just to prevent a bunch of henchmen psykers from denying it with overwhelming dice.

For me, that's pretty realistic. A whole army of psykers is going to find it pretty easy to shut down one opposing psyker. They might get the odd blessing through [hence needing 6s to block] but are very unlikely to get any offensive spells off. Much more realistic than one psyker casting blessings with impunity and only being very rarely denied the chance to blow stuff up with warp power.

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Pretty sure things never go perfectly in war, like in Black Hawk Down where they drive round for miles getting shot trying to reach objectives. Again, for me pretty realistic. Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

Yes, so now its turboboost around onto objectives every turn, for a guaranteed win. Such a change.

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

Yes, so now its turboboost around onto objectives every turn, for a guaranteed win. Such a change.

I haven't seen that really play out in such a way yet, but I'd love for my Eldar playing friends to bring more jet bikes instead of some other units heh.

I think the turn by turn actually hurts jetbikes, or at least makes people take more than the minimum 3 man squad.

I recently had a team game where a guy lost his jetbikes early on because he was trying to swoop in and grab objectives for an easy point and had to restrain my team mate from diving forward with Piranha just to get a single objective.

And to the Black Hawk down comment, it's more like this:
They assemble a small armed force for searching and securing 6 known areas suspected of holding supplies or hostages or whatever. During the first half hour of combat they decided they only care locations 4 and 6 and that one of the Sergeants wants to punch an enemy officer in the face. After that half hour they celebrate having two locations and the sarge gives up his dream for tactical reasons.
Then suddenly the word gets passed around the radio that enemy aircraft are now the most important along with fortified buildings and location 2.
After a half hour units report back to command stating that there are no enemy aircraft, no buildings are being fortified, and objective 2 is beyond reach behind enemy lines.
Next half hour the army decides that 4 is important again, they're still on the hunt for enemy aircraft, have discarded the idea of taking out enemy buildings, and have given up on 2.

Rinse and repeat.

You all make it sound like there is one squad running around after objectives like a headless chicken. A saner strategy would be to manoeuvre your army so it can challenge as many objectives as possible. Fast things may be able to grab some early points but they'll likely expose themselves if they do.

I've not tried Maelstrom missions but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

 Gunzhard wrote:

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

Yes, so now its turboboost around onto objectives every turn, for a guaranteed win. Such a change.

I haven't seen that really play out in such a way yet, but I'd love for my Eldar playing friends to bring more jet bikes instead of some other units heh.

I in fact wasnt talking just about jet bikes.
Wave serpents do it just as well, although it would forfit a turn of shooting. But hey, a turn of shooting for a victory point? Fair enough.

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:

 ninjafiredragon wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

Yes, so now its turboboost around onto objectives every turn, for a guaranteed win. Such a change.

I haven't seen that really play out in such a way yet, but I'd love for my Eldar playing friends to bring more jet bikes instead of some other units heh.

I in fact wasnt talking just about jet bikes.
Wave serpents do it just as well, although it would forfit a turn of shooting. But hey, a turn of shooting for a victory point? Fair enough.

I haven't seen that play out either but I suppose it's certainly possible. You do however highlight exactly why these missions work, because you have to make a _choice_; you actually have to think, during the game, and not just at the list building phase. Fair enough indeed.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

Savageconvoy wrote:That's another thing we learned. Either go all psyker or no psyker. Had a few games where it was one or two psykers against a GK list where just about every unit adds dice to their pool. It's really depressing watching a farseer have to throw all of his dice into a single spell just to prevent a bunch of henchmen psykers from denying it with overwhelming dice.

For me, that's pretty realistic. A whole army of psykers is going to find it pretty easy to shut down one opposing psyker. They might get the odd blessing through [hence needing 6s to block] but are very unlikely to get any offensive spells off. Much more realistic than one psyker casting blessings with impunity and only being very rarely denied the chance to blow stuff up with warp power.

 MWHistorian wrote:

As someone who has been in combat I find the maelstrom randomness irritating and stupid.

Pretty sure things never go perfectly in war, like in Black Hawk Down where they drive round for miles getting shot trying to reach objectives. Again, for me pretty realistic. Definitely more so than hanging back for four turns then turbo-boosting onto objectives to win.

Wait, are you telling a combat vet how real battles are?

Wait, are you telling us that Orks are not real? C'mon dude seriously?

It's a futuristic miniatures wargame designed to carry out narrative battles, no actual combat experience is required to play; but some imagination is.

 Gunzhard wrote:
Wait, are you telling us that Orks are not real? C'mon dude seriously?

It's a futuristic miniatures wargame designed to carry out narrative battles, no actual combat experience is required to play; but some imagination is.

Yeah it's a game, but it's supposed to be a war game. When even your mission objectives give up all pretense of making sense you get even further from that idea. That's OK though, 40k has never been very good for simulating combat. Every step away from that and towards making pew pew noises with dinobot models makes that clear, and makes the game more honest with itself in a way.

Also there's a difference between suspending disbelief over green skinned aliens (the game setting) and suspending disbelief over why your army is being made to run around in a schizophrenic fervor during a 10 minute long battle (the game itself). Bad mechanics are bad whether you buy into the back story or not.

Edit: Just have to add this, because I'm so tired of seeing it said: there is nothing narrative about 40k. NOTHING. There are ZERO narrative elements to 40k. There's no campaign system, your units don't gain experience or skills, nothing about the mechanics of the game really encourages roleplaying - everything is clunky mechanisms for moving units and dealing damage to the enemy while trying to carry out objectives that are essentially symmetrical. You have to use your imagination to add narrative to a 40k game, but you can do that with ANY wargame. I cannot repeat this enough, nothing about 40k is inherently narrative driven. Any good wargame can be used to construct and play out a narrative, and some are specifically designed to do it. 40k is not one of them.

Furthermore, there are plenty of elements of 40k that can actually IMPEDE any narrative you're trying to create. Things like random warlord traits and psychic powers, where the leaders of your army, the characters you probably most identify with and whose exploits you build a story around, learn potentially useless skills picked out of a hat just before battle begins. Or the Maelstrom cards, where any possible story behind the battle is immediately destroyed by the ever-changing crap you're tasked with doing each turn. Games Workshop actually go out of their way to make it HARDER to construct a narrative during a game of 40k these days.

The heaviest burden on your imagination isn't suspending disbelief at the existence of orks, it's coming up with reasons why your warlord has had a personality change since your last battle, and why you can't tell whether the random terrain you're walking into is about to eat you until you're literally inside it, and why the heck your army doesn't have an actual objective in this skirmish, it's just running around jumping on hot spots and shooting down planes to score imaginary points every 30 game-seconds. Those are the things that require true suspension of disbelief, and mental gymnastics to form any kind of narrative around.

Seriously, don't use the word "narrative" again until you've thought about what it actually means.

I dont get the examples being used against these cards.

One unit in your army isnt running back and forth, your whole army should be working to maximize the gaining these card benefits. So instead of one unit running back and forth, you will probably have units heading to these objectives anyways with support spread between the advancing parties.

No idiot would send a his whole force at one objective knowing he may need to take the one on the other end of the field next.

Its nothing like headless chickens. If you play it properly and play it to win, you wont have darting armies moving in unison to get one objective at a time.

I think they are ok, just a bit too random maybe but still. Its not like these objectives are being given to just one squad in your force (unless you only have one squad) so your army can work on the premise that one objective can become important. rather than focusing on the objective at hand 100%.

 Swastakowey wrote:
I dont get the examples being used against these cards.

One unit in your army isnt running back and forth, your whole army should be working to maximize the gaining these card benefits. So instead of one unit running back and forth, you will probably have units heading to these objectives anyways with support spread between the advancing parties.

No idiot would send a his whole force at one objective knowing he may need to take the one on the other end of the field next.

Its nothing like headless chickens. If you play it properly and play it to win, you wont have darting armies moving in unison to get one objective at a time.

I think they are ok, just a bit too random maybe but still. Its not like these objectives are being given to just one squad in your force (unless you only have one squad) so your army can work on the premise that one objective can become important. rather than focusing on the objective at hand 100%.

Yeah, you're really missing the point. Yes, you don't literally send your whole army after every objective every turn. And random objectives do tend to break up gunline armies by forcing you to move and cover more options. But if you had to try to imagine your game of 40k as a battle (crazy talk, I know), what would you say is going on? What possible coherent story could you make out of your random smattering of objectives, some of which are plain stupid? Seriously, cast psychic powers, gain points?

Random cards might force you to be quicker and more flexible, but so does a game of whack-a-mole. The mission cards as implemented just make it even less of a wargame and more of a plain old game. One more disconnect from being a wartorn battlefield instead of two people pushing enormously expensive plastic toys around.

 Swastakowey wrote:

No idiot would send a his whole force at one objective knowing he may need to take the one on the other end of the field next.

But an idiot will demand his troops to destroy all enemy building, shoot down his aircraft, and to have a sergeant challenge an enemy officer to fisticuffs when there are no building, no aircraft, and the enemy officer is a walking slaughterhouse.

It's not one unit running back and forth. It's switching objectives and goals randomly. A small force is set up to go claim objectives and deny others. This is dynamic because the enemy is countering your attempts while trying for his own.
It is not dynamic because upper command keeps changing its mind on where to best have a picnic or what enemy unit most needs to suffer high velocity lead poisoning.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I dont get the examples being used against these cards.

One unit in your army isnt running back and forth, your whole army should be working to maximize the gaining these card benefits. So instead of one unit running back and forth, you will probably have units heading to these objectives anyways with support spread between the advancing parties.

No idiot would send a his whole force at one objective knowing he may need to take the one on the other end of the field next.

Its nothing like headless chickens. If you play it properly and play it to win, you wont have darting armies moving in unison to get one objective at a time.

I think they are ok, just a bit too random maybe but still. Its not like these objectives are being given to just one squad in your force (unless you only have one squad) so your army can work on the premise that one objective can become important. rather than focusing on the objective at hand 100%.

Yeah, you're really missing the point. Yes, you don't literally send your whole army after every objective every turn. And random objectives do tend to break up gunline armies by forcing you to move and cover more options. But if you had to try to imagine your game of 40k as a battle (crazy talk, I know), what would you say is going on? What possible coherent story could you make out of your random smattering of objectives, some of which are plain stupid? Seriously, cast psychic powers, gain points?

Random cards might force you to be quicker and more flexible, but so does a game of whack-a-mole. The mission cards as implemented just make it even less of a wargame and more of a plain old game. One more disconnect from being a wartorn battlefield instead of two people pushing enormously expensive plastic toys around.

Sorry, you've served and you are whining about the randomness of objectives? Where and when may I ask have you served? Outside of WW2 every conflict the US has been in has been a series of random objectives that the soldiers don't really know much about as they shouldn't have been there in the first place, hence why we lost Vietnam, Korea was a standstill, Iraq 1/2 were failures. Had objectives been clearly defined and thought out, the results of these would be different.

I understand that you do not like the cards and you think there is no narrative in the game and that is fine, you have a right to your opinion. Except it is based on zero logic and more emotion than anything else. You sound more like an angry vet ranting about how normal people will never understand what you went through blah, blah blah. It isn't helpful to the discussion and is flat out offensive to a degree.

You don't like something, that's okay. State your opinion and move along, no reason to sit there and belittle others simply because they can find something of value from this and you cannot.

And as for strategy, not to be a douche or anything, but since when does a grunt have an impact on the strategy of a battleground? You are given orders from someone on high who, more often than not isn't even on the ground with you, these orders are relayed down the pipeline until it gets to your squad captain, which is who you hear the orders from.

Back to the thread. This thread is about how and why people love 7th. If you feel otherwise, why not create a thread talking about why you hate 7th and leave those who like it be?

Yea I guess so.

So i'll try make sense of one....

You have 3 objective cards.. 1 kill psyker, 1 hold Objective 2 and one hold objective 1 (for example).

The commander has asked that these objectives are currently priority. The objectives need to be taken and psykers are a huge threat if any are present. The enemy have no psykers, so you confirm there are no psykers and they go ok and give you something else to look out for. Which ends up being another one of the cards. So you have that in mind as you go to claim the objectives.

What if the objectives are places where enemy movement is expected, so every time you get an objective card your commander is asking you to make sure no new enemy movement has been noticed when you check it.

Who knows. The unfortunate issue is the fact its dependent on the cards drawn. I couldn't forge a narrative
if I got 2 kill psykers in a row in a game without psykers.

I see what you mean, but I thinks it far better than the mysterious objectives we never played. I think it can work, but it can also make no sense at all.