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Is that Battlegroup?

I'll add that in that game lethal-fire is only one of two options for attacking. Suppression fire is also an option that's very important in the game.

It's quite rare for a wargame of this approximate scale not to have some sort of pinning/suppression mechanic. 40k's morale system is literally "if some stuff died, even more stuff dies!". In 40k the only way you can affect the enemy is to kill them.
Which cuts out a lot of interesting design/play space players could interact with around morale mechanics.

 Mezmorki wrote:


(3) DESTROY/RECOVER OBJECTIVE
These objectives are focused on needing to blow up certain objectives. Threshold style objective. The variations could allow for the objective and arrangement to vary (bunkers, pipelines, supply drops power centers, comm systems) and also whether it's a symmetrical setup versus structured as an attacker/defender scenario (where one player earns VPs for destroying the target and the other for securing or keeping it intact at the end of the game). Twists relate to the process for destruction - ie need to perform an action and hold versus automatically blow it up at the end of your turn. Could also include twists for "searching" for the right objective and/or objectives dropping in over the course of play.

I quite like this concept.
I wonder if it would be feasible to have "destroy objective" mission, where rather than destroying the objective by preforming an action, instead make the objective effectively an unaligned fortification with a statline with toughness, wounds, and a save, and score VPs for each one you destroy in the course of the game. I'm imagining, for example, 2 or 3 fortification objectives as targets for each player. The interesting choices for the players would be whether to focus fire on the objectives and score points, or to take out the opponent's units to prevent them from scoring.

There would need to be a mechanic to ensure that players don't simply ignore the opponent and go all out for destroying the objectives. I'm not usually a fan of kill points , but in this instance they might be necessary. Possibly as a secondary objective which only becomes relevant as a tie-breaker.

As mentioned above this could work with asymmetrical objectives, where one player is attacking the fortifications and the other is defending them, possibly need to have a mechanic to repair a damaged objective.

But then again, this might unfairly penalise armies that lack ranged attacks and/or significant anti-tank capabilities.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Is that Battlegroup?

I'll add that in that game lethal-fire is only one of two options for attacking. Suppression fire is also an option that's very important in the game.

It's quite rare for a wargame of this approximate scale not to have some sort of pinning/suppression mechanic. 40k's morale system is literally "if some stuff died, even more stuff dies!". In 40k the only way you can affect the enemy is to kill them.
Which cuts out a lot of interesting design/play space players could interact with around morale mechanics.

Yep. Playing a game of Battlegroup really opened my eyes to just HOW garbage the 40k implementation of a d6 based igougo mass battle system actually is in terms of resolution and deadliness.

I was playing with one of my normal 40k opponents, playing a 2k point list with a relatively similar overall unit size (~100-140pts for your average medium tank, ~6-12pts for your average infantryman) and we realized, three hours in, that we were on battle round EIGHT and that both sides had over a third of their force left...and it was our first game with this system as opposed to having both played hundreds of games of 40k.

Fewer dice to roll, basically no dice to reroll, vastly simplified dice rolling for firing suppressive fire, and an actual mechanic for allowing the inactive player to defer an action and allow their units to later act in their opponent's turn resulted in a massively more interactive and quick game experience.

I don't think it would translate to 40k perfectly, simply because the 'gameplay fantasy' of 40k doesn't really jive with a system where a lot of the back and forth is pinning and unpinning units with fire rather than killing them, but man alive was it just a wild wakeup call to how much better wargames can be set up.

Playing other games like Infinity, titanicus, necromunda etc doesn't really give you that because they're such drastically different scales or they're set up totally differently.

I totally agree, I've not seen a game which handles stuff worse than 40k.
If 40k wasn't already the industry giant it'd never get anywhere.

Aash wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

(3) DESTROY/RECOVER OBJECTIVE

I quite like this concept.

Yes - the objectives could have stat lines and need to be shot to be destroyed - or could be engaged in melee. One thing I quite like about this sub-set of missions is that it gives more ranged focused armies an approach for playing and winning.

With so many objectives (currently) being about being within 3" of some exact spot, it really benefits tough close range / melee units more. I think the "zone" missions (objective archetype 2) are also more fairly balanced for ranged vs. melee, because you can be in the zone but still a fair distance away in order to leverage shooting power more.

---------------------------------------------

In ProHammer (which I'm designing this mission pack for, although I want it to work with 9th edition too), the objective play is more dynamic because of morale. Forcing a unit to take a morale test (even marines!) from shooting means that they can be pushed off objectives be being forced to fall back. If objective control is determined at the start of the turn, it means shooting centered armies (cough, Tau) have a pathway for pushing enemies off objectives that isn't just throwing more bodies on them. This is especially pertinent for attack/defend style scenarios.

The other thing ProHammer has is pinning and suppression. A number of weapons force pinning tests (snipers, barrage weapons, etc), units embarked on destroyed transports, and suppression fire (the unit is hit more times that it has wounds forces a pinning test). Getting pinned diminishes your shooting (snap fire only) and means you don't count for holding objectives or performing objective actions.

I know I'm trying to fix parts of 9th edition through the mission design - but so much more is just wonky with 9th edition if you ask me.

A problem with a "destroy the thing" objective is that it becomes very difficult to defend the thing from just getting obliterated from range.

You can have workarounds to that. Give it void shields etc, make it very difficult to destroy from range, heck make it small enough and stick it behind LOS terrain.

Then as an immovable object it is auto hit in CC, so it is still vulnerable.

I agree, getting the balance for a destroy a thing objective isn't straightforward. It needs to be achievable without being too easy.

As for defending it from being destroyed, as suggested above, void shields, size etc could be used, or a healing/repair mechanic.

If the scenario is symmetrical this is less important as rather than defending the object, both sides are trying to destroy their targets, and killing the enemy to reduce their lethality is a viable tactic.

Another option could be based around "stealth shields" so that the objective can't be targeted from too far away. How exactly this could work would need play-testing I think. It could be a flat can only shoot it if within 12", or half range etc, or minus to hit modifiers from outside that range etc, or a Look Out , Sir style targeting rule.

Going back to ProHammer helps (again). AV14 vehicles aren't easy to blow up, as even a S10 weapon only has a 50% chance of scoring a glancing hit. With the prohammer damage tables you can't even destroy on a glancing hit, you need a penetrating (so that's a pen hit on a 5 or 6). And then you need a 6 six to destroy it unless it's suffered prior damage (which gives a +1 to your damage roll). Melta weapons become really powerful, but of course you'd have to close range to 12" or less to get a 2D6 for the armor penetration roll (which is exactly what you'd want).

Bear in mind that you need a S9 weapon at a minimum to even get a penetrating hit vs AV14, and you can see how much more durable armor is in classic 40k than in the new game (where even a T10 bunker can be wounded by a measly S5 weapon).

One thing I would like missions to go back to is letting players place the objectives like they used to. I'm not overly keen on them always being fixed although I appreciate that for organised play and tournaments that makes things easier and faster.

 BlackLobster wrote:
One thing I would like missions to go back to is letting players place the objectives like they used to. I'm not overly keen on them always being fixed although I appreciate that for organised play and tournaments that makes things easier and faster.

^^^^ 100%

We've been house-ruling that once the objectives are placed, players alternate picking an objective and moving it up 6" away from it's starting spot. This makes getting objectives placed into cover or other locations a bit easier.

For the missions I'm writing now, the plan is to basically stipulate how many objectives have to go in each zone (either a player's deployment zone or in neutral ground). Beyond that, objectives will need to be X" from a table edge (usually 6") and at least 12" from another objective. There are of course some objectives that require exact placement (e.g. a center board position), but that will be called out in the setup and would usually require terrain or something special to be placed there in conjunction with an objective marker.

Another thing I'm toying with in my mission system is that when rolling for various parameters of the missions, having it so that players can use Command Points to modify certain die rolls. So for example, after rolling a D6 to determine the deployment zone layout, you could spend a CP to add +1 / -1 to the roll. It could become a sort of bidding exercise among players to use CP's to try and get favorable mission parameters.

This is part of a larger effort looking at how to bolt a "lite" version of the command point system onto ProHammer (which basically has just a VERY stripped down and universal set of stratagems, and mostly uses CP's for pre-battle related elements like mission setup). I'm also considering how this lite version of CP's might apply to 9th edition - but I'm not there yet.

make all codexes release at the same time to avoid some being OP with new gak and others left behind like some civilizations 5 swords vs machineguns kinda scenario.

Balance first and foremost through that means, then we can always look at properly making balance.


Edit: You can forgo my post here, i just completely answered something irrelevant to the thread. I read the title wrong I thought it was just a general: How would you balance the game? post.

Greetings!

Linked below is the start of a draft for the new mission design format. I've drafted the "Clear & Secure" (most analogous to 9th edition control point-based missions) and "Seek & Destroy" mission archetype (bunker busting or pipeline attacks).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1brLLro_8XAutunsTkNYz9BMnfEV41GwNj4alB9WGvGI/edit?usp=sharing

I'd love to get some feedback on how this is looking to people. Cheers!

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Is that Battlegroup?

I'll add that in that game lethal-fire is only one of two options for attacking. Suppression fire is also an option that's very important in the game.

It's quite rare for a wargame of this approximate scale not to have some sort of pinning/suppression mechanic. 40k's morale system is literally "if some stuff died, even more stuff dies!". In 40k the only way you can affect the enemy is to kill them.
Which cuts out a lot of interesting design/play space players could interact with around morale mechanics.

Agreed. I really miss stuff like pinning, morale tests, even fear, terror, and stupidity!

 Mezmorki wrote:


Linked below is the start of a draft for the new mission design format.

Have sent you an access request.
Having read what you've put in this thread, I may have to lift your missions wholesale for my own 40k rewrite. Mission design has been one of two sections I've struggled with. The other being terrain.
Either way I'll be taking notes from your posts as you've been very comprehensive and I really like your approach.

Gah, the link should've been open to read by anyone. Try it now...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1brLLro_8XAutunsTkNYz9BMnfEV41GwNj4alB9WGvGI/edit?usp=sharing

I'm only though 2 of the overall archetypes - hoping to get the rest done in a week or so.

Take a look at the terrain section in ProHammer if that's helpful - might be a good source of inspiration.

Yep it works now.
I'll have to have a proper read soon.
What I can say from my quick read through is, if I copy paste any of your work, one major thing I'll change is to drop most of the randomness. I prefer to have a series of standard missions, with notes on how they can be modified to diversify play when desired.
I simply don't get to play frequently enough to need that many variables to keep the game interesting.

For sure, that's understandable.

For the "Clear & Secure" Mission - that's essentially taking the bulk of the GT 2020 style missions and rolling them into one mission pattern with some variations. The most impactful variations are with end game vs. progressive vs. threshold scoring, because that drives the strategy entirely. The variations related to the number of control points and their locations could be streamlined out easily if desired.

No paint bonus. Simple deployment zones and objective placement to make getting the game started quick.

Secondary objectives should span the entire mission set to punish spam and skew in a uniform way. This could take a number of forms, a First Blood objective that doesn't trigger on the first three units with a given Wounds value. So killing four units with a Wounds characteristic of exactly 24 or 4 units with an exact Wounds characteristic of 1 would give the reward. Something like what we have now with objectives you choose is a little more fun, but as long as it punishes spam and skew I am happy.

Primary objectives should reward map control. Staying hidden and doing nothing all game should not be rewarded.

 Mezmorki wrote:
So more thinking on missions. I think I have a mission set broken down into 6 archetypes. I'm thinking that each of these archetypes has its own mini-mission generator that defines some variable parameters (ie twists) within the mission being played. So while there are just 6 big types, there are likely dozens of different ways each type could play out.

Spoiler:

I'm also envisioning that all missions are structured around their unique primary objective - but if the mission results in a tie for primary objective then, and only then, the secondaries are used (these described further below).

(1) CLEAR & SECURE
These are missions based on controlling objective points - focused on controlling points at the end of the game. Variable deployment zone setups can be used, along with variable control point layouts. Eg, a 3-0-3 layout would have each players deployment zone containing 3 objectives, a 1-3-1 would have three in a middle and one in each players DMZ, etc. Twists could relate to whether points need exclusive control near the point or simple majority.

(2) RECON
These missions are similar to the above but based around table zones instead of control points, and can use threshold instead of end game. This is typically table quarters but could also be other arrangements. Could even be about needing to recon into opponents DMZ. Twists similarly relate to when and how you need to recon - eg spending action, needing to have it clear from enemies when reconing, etc.

(3) DESTROY/RECOVER OBJECTIVE
These objectives are focused on needing to blow up certain objectives. Threshold style objective. The variations could allow for the objective and arrangement to vary (bunkers, pipelines, supply drops power centers, comm systems) and also whether it's a symmetrical setup versus structured as an attacker/defender scenario (where one player earns VPs for destroying the target and the other for securing or keeping it intact at the end of the game). Twists relate to the process for destruction - ie need to perform an action and hold versus automatically blow it up at the end of your turn. Could also include twists for "searching" for the right objective and/or objectives dropping in over the course of play.

(4) INTEL / POWER INTERCEPT
Objective points represent control nodes for intel or power or warp energy or whatever. Scoring is progressive using escalating or accruing methods. Twists can relate to how control works for the points and/or getting bonuses for linking points. Victory can also be threshold based (ie need to recover X-amount of power or intel to win).

(5) CRITICAL FOCUS
These missions are based primarily around having one single objective in the center of the table. Can be structured as attacker or defender missions. Can also include variants like Relic missions where players race to try and secure a relic in the middle of the table and get it off
their table edge.

(6) BREAKTHROUGHS
These missions primarily require one (or both) players to get units off of opposing
table edges. Can be structured as attacker-defender missions (like ambushes) or also as cross-infiltrator missions representing instances where players are both trying to slip forces past one another.

I feel like the 6 archetypes above could, once built out with their variations, cover nearly any range of mission types pretty well.

Spoiler:

------------------------------
SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

Secondaries would only be used if neither player accomplishes the primary objective (or ties). I tried to boil down secondaries to a few types that are applicable to all armies:

* Assassinate - VP for killing enemy warlord
* Forward Push - VP for getting units into enemy DZ
* Secure the Line - VP for keeping enemy out of your own DZ
* Destroy Forces - VP for reducing enemy army to 25%, 50%, or below 75% strength.
* Force Preservation - VP for maintaining your own forces.

------------------------------

That's where I am at the moment.

I'm sure you could generate a good competitive mission set within these types of missions, randomly determining the victory condition seems like a bad idea for a competitive mission set though. I think you should make one victory condition THE victory condition and make any others you come up with alternatives that people can replace the regular victory condition with if both players agree.

Getting bonus victory points in the event of a draw seems unfair, if both I score 40 VP against Sam and he scores 30 against me, while Dan and Terry score 40 against eachother then why should the two people that tie get more VP?

 vict0988 wrote:
I'm sure you could generate a good competitive mission set within these types of missions, randomly determining the victory condition seems like a bad idea for a competitive mission set though. I think you should make one victory condition THE victory condition and make any others you come up with alternatives that people can replace the regular victory condition with if both players agree.

That's what I said

 vict0988 wrote:
Getting bonus victory points in the event of a draw seems unfair, if both I score 40 VP against Sam and he scores 30 against me, while Dan and Terry score 40 against eachother then why should the two people that tie get more VP?

I also agree on this point. Secondaries should always contribute to the total score, however they should be secondary in terms of points. Say the max score for primary is 90, and the max score for secondary is 10. Note that these are arbitrary figures. Achieving all your secondaries won't win you the game when you ignore the primary, but it may tip the balance in a close game. I get where Mezmorki is coming from with the secondaries only counting as a 'minor victory' in event of a tie in the primary objective. This works perfectly fine in home play and even club play, but as soon as you go into planning tournaments, you need all points to count all of the time.


Mezmorki, now that I'm at home (and ignoring the kitten ) I can read the ProHammer mission document properly:

Under Preparing for Battle, I see you've gone with a triple roll off for going first, deploying first and taking first turn. This means once every 6 games, one player will have the advantage of choosing sides, combined with the advantage of deploying second and the advantage of going first (win, loss, win). I see this as very bad. I much prefer: roll once, winner choses which player gets to pick sides. Player who picks sides deploys first. Then roll a second time to determine first turn.

As previously mentioned, I prefer having a set of missions with options for altering them rather than having everything randomly generated each game. Having so many things random not only adds to pre-game time, but puts an artificial influence on the rules designer to make the options come in 2s, 3s and 6s. What if there are 7 archetypes? Better to just drop the dice roll and let players choose. There's nothing stopping players from deciding to roll if they can't decide - the rules do not need to suggest this. Then, rather than you're (current 2) missions, I'd produce say 12 or more missions using different combinations. Probably broken into two categories -- those you have as pitched battle and those you have as attacker/defender.

Mission Approach. Just commenting that these options could simply be called 'symmetric' and 'asymmetric'.

Victory Conditions. I haven't seen it anywhere, so forgive me if I've missed it, but consider mission balance may be aided by having a mix of progressive and end-game points. I'd treat this similarly to secondaries vs primary. Progressive points might only be 3 points per objective per round, while end game might be 10 points per objective. Again, these numbers are totally arbitrary.

Variable End Game. I personally don't want to go back to 4 turn games. 5 already seems too short some times. Game length only needs to be variable if using solely end-game scoring as it forces players to really push for the objectives in the final turns. In any progressive scoring game, that push will already be there and not require any further encouragement.

Your numbering of deployment zones is out of whack. The 36" gap in short table edges would be hideous for a lot of armies.

Zustiur wrote:
Under Preparing for Battle, I see you've gone with a triple roll off for going first, deploying first and taking first turn. This means once every 6 games, one player will have the advantage of choosing sides, combined with the advantage of deploying second and the advantage of going first (win, loss, win). I see this as very bad. I much prefer: roll once, winner choses which player gets to pick sides. Player who picks sides deploys first. Then roll a second time to determine first turn.

1/8 games, 1*1*1/2/2/2. Then there's all the other pre-game things that can go against one player more than the other. I don't really have a problem with the random tables the same way Zustiur does, I only have a problem with them in a competitive context specifically. I think having randomness in casual games is important, but ideally it should be spread out across the game or weighted at the end to avoid ending the game turn 1 as the Berzerker list has its Movement cut in half because of muddy terrain going second against a shooting list that ignores cover because of targeting matrix objectives.

 vict0988 wrote:
1/8 games, 1*1*1/2/2/2.

Don't do maths while trying to play with your cat folks!
Yes, 1 in 8. Though the number isn't super important here- the point is, every now and then someone is going to have a bad time.

Thanks all for the terrific feedback thus far! I'll respond to as much of it as I can right now.

 vict0988 wrote:
No paint bonus. Simple deployment zones and objective placement to make getting the game started quick.

We played one match so far using these rules. It was pretty straightforward and didn't take long to setup. One big thing I don't like in the current missions is the exact / fixed locations for the objective tokens. Setting those up is really fiddly. Much easier to alternate placing objective markers, and allows for more variety in how the map plays out. But overall I agree with you here.

 vict0988 wrote:
Secondary objectives should span the entire mission set to punish spam and skew in a uniform way. This could take a number of forms, a First Blood objective that doesn't trigger on the first three units with a given Wounds value. So killing four units with a Wounds characteristic of exactly 24 or 4 units with an exact Wounds characteristic of 1 would give the reward. Something like what we have now with objectives you choose is a little more fun, but as long as it punishes spam and skew I am happy.

Primary objectives should reward map control. Staying hidden and doing nothing all game should not be rewarded.

Yeah, the secondaries I have listed are universal across the whole set.

I agree that the primary should focus on map control and movement. However, I also think there is something to be said for having variation in "when" you move on an objective.

 vict0988 wrote:
I'm sure you could generate a good competitive mission set within these types of missions, randomly determining the victory condition seems like a bad idea for a competitive mission set though. I think you should make one victory condition THE victory condition and make any others you come up with alternatives that people can replace the regular victory condition with if both players agree.

Getting bonus victory points in the event of a draw seems unfair, if both I score 40 VP against Sam and he scores 30 against me, while Dan and Terry score 40 against eachother then why should the two people that tie get more VP?

I mean, the whole point of this effort is to provide a more diverse set of primary objectives . If there is just one victory condition across the set, then we're right back to basically what we have now.

Regarding tie scores, I'm not thinking about this mission in terms of tournament scoring, but you bring up good points about that. My intent with the secondary scoring isn't that you would add the secondary points, but rather you'd toss out the primary points (since it was a draw) and ONLY score for the secondaries.

But all of this is predicated on a different mindset, one which doesn't care about the absolute number of VP's earned but only in the binary outcomes of "did you win or lose?" Tournaments could do something where if a player achieves a primary victory, they get 10 points and their opponent get's zero. Could have a margin of victory table as well to divide the 10 points between players based on their relative scores. Regarding minor victories, if players tie on a primary, then the player getting a minor victory could gain a flat 6 points and their opponent gains 4 (i.e. splitting to the 10 points for a major victory).

This is, IMHO, a better approach for tournaments (or something like it), because it normalizes the VP awards across different missions. A victory is a victory, and in a tournament all missions should have equal point potential regardless of the mission's details and scoring system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zustiur wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Getting bonus victory points in the event of a draw seems unfair, if both I score 40 VP against Sam and he scores 30 against me, while Dan and Terry score 40 against eachother then why should the two people that tie get more VP?

I also agree on this point. Secondaries should always contribute to the total score, however they should be secondary in terms of points. Say the max score for primary is 90, and the max score for secondary is 10. Note that these are arbitrary figures. Achieving all your secondaries won't win you the game when you ignore the primary, but it may tip the balance in a close game. I get where Mezmorki is coming from with the secondaries only counting as a 'minor victory' in event of a tie in the primary objective. This works perfectly fine in home play and even club play, but as soon as you go into planning tournaments, you need all points to count all of the time.

See my comment above on this topic. I don't think there should be a straight usage of in-game VP's into tournament points. Winning a primary vs. winning/losing with secondaries should reward different "tournament points." It's a way to normalize score potential across missions too.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zustiur wrote:

Mezmorki, now that I'm at home (and ignoring the kitten ) I can read the ProHammer mission document properly:

Under Preparing for Battle, I see you've gone with a triple roll off for going first, deploying first and taking first turn. This means once every 6 games, one player will have the advantage of choosing sides, combined with the advantage of deploying second and the advantage of going first (win, loss, win). I see this as very bad. I much prefer: roll once, winner choses which player gets to pick sides. Player who picks sides deploys first. Then roll a second time to determine first turn.

Good point. We do deployment in classic fashion where players alternate deploying units, starting with heavy support, then troops, elite, HQ, and fast attack. So the deployment process is a bit more nuanced and tactical. But I could see eliminating a roll by just linking the "pick sides" and "deployment" rolls together. Player picking sides starts deployment.

Zustiur wrote:

As previously mentioned, I prefer having a set of missions with options for altering them rather than having everything randomly generated each game. Having so many things random not only adds to pre-game time, but puts an artificial influence on the rules designer to make the options come in 2s, 3s and 6s. What if there are 7 archetypes? Better to just drop the dice roll and let players choose. There's nothing stopping players from deciding to roll if they can't decide - the rules do not need to suggest this. Then, rather than you're (current 2) missions, I'd produce say 12 or more missions using different combinations. Probably broken into two categories -- those you have as pitched battle and those you have as attacker/defender.

Having written the second mission in the set (Seek & Destroy) I think it will be better to split that into two missions (one for Bunker Busting, one for Pipeline Panic). Others might follow a similar course. If I end up with lots of archetypes, I can use a D26, or D33 roll or whatever else to select one randomly.

Zustiur wrote:

Mission Approach. Just commenting that these options could simply be called 'symmetric' and 'asymmetric'.

Yes, it could be. But I'm also trying to inject a little bit thematic rationale / setup for the missions as well.

Zustiur wrote:

Victory Conditions. I haven't seen it anywhere, so forgive me if I've missed it, but consider mission balance may be aided by having a mix of progressive and end-game points. I'd treat this similarly to secondaries vs primary. Progressive points might only be 3 points per objective per round, while end game might be 10 points per objective. Again, these numbers are totally arbitrary.

Yes, this is something I already have in mind for one of the other mission archetypes. But it might make sense to weave into others. That said, escalating points (VP's earned based on current battle round) kind of achieves a similar effect at the end of the day.

Zustiur wrote:

Variable End Game. I personally don't want to go back to 4 turn games. 5 already seems too short some times. Game length only needs to be variable if using solely end-game scoring as it forces players to really push for the objectives in the final turns. In any progressive scoring game, that push will already be there and not require any further encouragement.

I agree that 4 turns is probably to short, and it would simplify things to keep games at 5-7 turns. Variable end-game is also relevant for threshold-style scoring. But I could see that being fixed at the shorter end.

Zustiur wrote:

Your numbering of deployment zones is out of whack. The 36" gap in short table edges would be hideous for a lot of armies.

I'm currently playing an eldar vs. nids list with the short edges, and the tyranids are doing quite well. Just one anecdote, and we're also using ProHammer (Classic 40K), so the situation is different. I'll consider dropping down to 30" apart. I'm trying to have some missions force more space, and if it's only 24" apart that's not that much different than playing long edges.

If memory serves, Eldar have historically been a short range army, I'm assuming for the moment this holds true for Pro Hammer.
I imagine that in your Tyranids vs Eldar game that both have approached each other. This works for Tyranids, any enemy that comes closer is a tasty enemy.
Now imagine guard or Tau vs Tyranids. Particularly guard with a lot of tanks with long range guns. Basilisks for example. Deployed on the extreme table edge, forcing the Tyranids to run for multiple turns, possibly pinning them in place as well... Token guard squads arranged out front in nice screening lines...