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So I've been playing roughly once a week for the past couple of years with my regular gaming crew and I've been trying to figure out a good balance of the flux and excitement of Maelstrom and the focused objective play of Eternal War missions. In Maelstrom unfortunately you often get a blowout first turn or two, or a come from behind blowout later, based on the luck of the draw with the cards. I can't tell you how often I draw the Issue a Challenge or Claim All the Objectives cards when I just need a number, or draw the same objective number three times in a row and it's right in an Iron Hands controlled objective held by 1000 points of Marines. I sometimes miss the focus of the old Cleanse and Control and such of older play style, but I do like the cards.

So what techniques do you guys use to strike that balance? I've seen a technique where you ditch ten cards of your choice from your deck which I think would help. I'm not a huge fan of ITC because I think it leads to spam lists and unfairly favors the deep striker/death star/jetbike play style too strongly. Has anyone had good success combining styles or altering Maelstrom to make more sense for your group?

I am with you on most of that as well. I like the randomness between rounds on what the goals will be with maelstrom, but that is better in a full 5+ rounds of play game.

Our local monthly tournament players are trying to figure out a style of play that is better for 2-3 rounds of total play to fit within the time limit, but keeps the balance between casual and high end players.

I have also seen one where you pick out 10 cards after deployment but before round 1. Then each round you choose the one you want to try and achieve, it is then discarded and you have to pick another one for the next round.

I prefer Maelstrom Missions and play them as often as I can. They've really change up armies, make some of the less Competetive ones playable, and have given me some of the best stories I've had. It has been the best thing to happen to 40k, and I'll admit it took me a while to come to that. I don't mind the EW missions either, but the game had stagnated, especially with all the net listing becoming so common.

It's not without its problems though, and I've found that it doesn't really do well under the 1500 point mark. I can't tell you how much I dislike it when players use the 'Discard immediately if you can't get it' fix, because I don't believe an opponent should be rewarded for a player opting to not take the element in his list. Everyone knows what the objectives are before list building and should factor it in. Remove that and you're back to the same problems as before.

I also can't stand the ITC format. It's become really difficult to find a game where I don't have to play or deal with the scenarios, rules, or headcases that think it's the only way to play 40k. I'm not against FLG or what they're doing. It just needs to be contained to those events. A player should never have to hear 'It would never do,well in the ITC', 'We only play the ITC scenarios', or 'That's why I only play ITC, so I don't have to deal with that'. If you don't agree with me it's fine, but don't limit yourself to one format and expect everyone else to play by yours.

aushlo wrote:
So I've been playing roughly once a week for the past couple of years with my regular gaming crew and I've been trying to figure out a good balance of the flux and excitement of Maelstrom and the focused objective play of Eternal War missions. In Maelstrom unfortunately you often get a blowout first turn or two, or a come from behind blowout later, based on the luck of the draw with the cards. I can't tell you how often I draw the Issue a Challenge or Claim All the Objectives cards when I just need a number, or draw the same objective number three times in a row and it's right in an Iron Hands controlled objective held by 1000 points of Marines. I sometimes miss the focus of the old Cleanse and Control and such of older play style, but I do like the cards.

So what techniques do you guys use to strike that balance? I've seen a technique where you ditch ten cards of your choice from your deck which I think would help. I'm not a huge fan of ITC because I think it leads to spam lists and unfairly favors the deep striker/death star/jetbike play style too strongly. Has anyone had good success combining styles or altering Maelstrom to make more sense for your group?

Honestly, I havent found a version of randomly changing objectives that I like. Asymmetric objectives are great, but dynamically changing directives with no cause and effect relationship to the battle results really are just immersion breaking and prone to wild swings in RNG favor. The ITC system is better than the rulebook Maelstrom missions, but largely only in that it cuts down on some of the impossible objectives and record keeping, but keeps all the other main problems with Maelstrom.

The fundamental nature of the dynamic random objectives thing just doesnt work well at all and theres really no fixing that. The fact that they often have zero relevance to the forces on the table doesnt help (e.g. Tau having to kill stuff in CC, Necrons having to cast psychic powers, having to kill enemy aircraft when none exist, Daemons getting gobs of free objective points just for casting the psychic powers they were going to cast anyway, etc). The extra record keeping also doesnt help. I just absolutely cannot stand Maelstrom from just about any perspective

However, choosing from an array of static objectives before the battle starts which may be different from the opponents can be great. If your objective is to kill their HQ and destroy all their transports, while their objective is to hold the centerpoint objective, that can result in a very interesting game with very different approaches that still make narrative and tactical sense and open up the results a lot more (meaning more interesting draws or double win/double losses are possible).

 Akar wrote:
I prefer Maelstrom Missions and play them as often as I can. They've really change up armies, make some of the less Competetive ones playable, and have given me some of the best stories I've had. It has been the best thing to happen to 40k, and I'll admit it took me a while to come to that. I don't mind the EW missions either, but the game had stagnated, especially with all the net listing becoming so common.

It's not without its problems though, and I've found that it doesn't really do well under the 1500 point mark. I can't tell you how much I dislike it when players use the 'Discard immediately if you can't get it' fix, because I don't believe an opponent should be rewarded for a player opting to not take the element in his list. Everyone knows what the objectives are before list building and should factor it in. Remove that and you're back to the same problems as before.

I also can't stand the ITC format. It's become really difficult to find a game where I don't have to play or deal with the scenarios, rules, or headcases that think it's the only way to play 40k. I'm not against FLG or what they're doing. It just needs to be contained to those events. A player should never have to hear 'It would never do,well in the ITC', 'We only play the ITC scenarios', or 'That's why I only play ITC, so I don't have to deal with that'. If you don't agree with me it's fine, but don't limit yourself to one format and expect everyone else to play by yours.

So Tau/Crons and Harness the Warp is their fault? Or Scour the Skies when your enemy has no fliers is their fault too?

It's not much of a solution but we usually roll a D2 after lists are written and before terrain is put down to determine whether we'll play Maelstrom or Eternal War. It means you've got to write a list with both possibilities in mind and can't (or shouldn't) just go maximum MSU or maximum large, unkillable units.

My personal preference is Maelstrom, it's got huge flaws but I think it's more fair than EW missions.

I'd STRONGLY recommend reading my mission here; Planned Assault - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/698889.page

Note some of the adjustments I made through the thread. I've had 3 games of this so far and they are THRILLING games! Generally speaking, this mission rewards knowing both your and your opponent's lists, as there's lots to decide at the beginning of the game that will reward you for making the correct decisions. However, if your opponent does something unexpected, you can find yourself on the back-foot. As an added bonus, almost everything that people find "cheesy" in the game has some sort of natural counterbalance in effect on turn 1 - the turn it'll matter most!

One of the house rules my group has implemented for Maelstrom is if you generate an objective, that would have been able to be achieved at the start of the game, you may immediately discard it and generate a new one.

For example, if you are running Necrons with no allies, and generate "Harness the Warp" you may discard it fro free, and generate a new objective.

Conversely, if you are running and Eldar army and your Farseer dies and you then generate "Harness the Warp" you cannot discard it since you were able to complete it earlier in the game.

 Happyjew wrote:
One of the house rules my group has implemented for Maelstrom is if you generate an objective, that would have been able to be achieved at the start of the game, you may immediately discard it and generate a new one.

For example, if you are running Necrons with no allies, and generate "Harness the Warp" you may discard it fro free, and generate a new objective.

Conversely, if you are running and Eldar army and your Farseer dies and you then generate "Harness the Warp" you cannot discard it since you were able to complete it earlier in the game.

Same with our group, except we don't use the "at the start of the game" part of it. If there were flyers, but they're all destroyed, then the card is discarded.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So Tau/Crons and Harness the Warp is their fault? Or Scour the Skies when your enemy has no fliers is their fault too?

ABSOLUTELY.

Before you pick your list, ALL players have their choice of 3(?) Objective Decks/Charts. The standard one, the army specific one, and the Supremacy or whatever it's called (I don't have it yet). So before you even get to playing a game, all of the possible objectives are known. It's now up to each player to DECIDE how important each objective is worth getting, and how preventing those same objectives from being achieved by your opponent.

If you, as a Tau/Cron player really want to get that 'Harness the Warp' card, guess what, you're going to have to take an allied detachment with a Psyker. Otherwise you're going to have to use your Discard for when it shows up. Also have to accept that your opponent is now also going to be able to get Witch Hunter. Same goes for most of the Cars. If a player takes a Flyer, or MC, Vehicle, building, etc, he has to accept that his opponent could get that objective. Some are one sided and only offer VP's to your opponent, but it's still up to the owning player to decide if he's going to give it up. I understand the reasoning behind thinking it's stupid even giving certain armies certain objectives. For those of us that like to play mono Dex armies it seems odd. Like so many things, it's just not how the game is played anymore.

It's not without it's problems though. I've found the biggest problem hasn't been with what armies are chosen, but how big the game is. Smaller games make it increasingly unlikely to see more of the Cards, and the VP's for scoring the incremental Cards becomes unbalancing assuming you can even score them. You can even gain an advantage by choosing the Generic Deck over the Army Decks. Really Large games can seriously affect the multi VP cards by limiting them in later turns, etc. While I don't mind the variable VP cards, I still struggle with someone getting 3 VP's while the other person only gets 1 VP for doing the same thing. Same goes for the ability to Discard a card at the end of the turn. It's a way for players to get rid of unwanted cards already in the system. No it's not great, but it's already in there.

With the 'Discard Objectives' is it's a step backward and removes that aspect when incorporating them into list building, and goes back to previous edition mentality of taking a more standard/Net based list over a varied one designed to do multiple things. My personal problem is the number of objectives becomes different for each player. Both players have 36 Objectives. Discarding the objective shortens the number of objectives a player draws, and it can vary greatly based on points, list, or army. It's the same as going through each players deck before the game begins and pulling out each card that can't be achieved and then playing. If you count up the objectives available to each player one player could easily end up with 30, while the other still has all 36. Anyone who's played MTG can explain card advantage better than I can, but you get the idea. Just as one side of the argument feels it's 'Unfair' to have to score an objective that isn't possible, it's just as 'unfair' for a player who chooses to build a list to make it as difficult as possible for an opponent to score those objectives, when BOTH are a valid option when playing Maelstrom.

It's this aspect of Maelstrom missions that the ITC has failed to capture. Please understand that I'm not against the ITC missions. They work well for what they're trying to accomplish, but they are not a Maelstrom mission because it's missing that key element. It's the mentality that it's a replacement for Maelstrom that 'works' that I usually clash with some people about, when they don't really have any similarities at all. This is also a factor in why I don't find the ITC scenarios very fun, because I'm not playing against someone who has put the same thought into their lists. The result after doing it for so long is that I've lost interest in which armies are 'Top Tier' at events that don't run Maelstrom missions.

It's my opinion based on my experience. I'm aware that I'm in the minority on this, but I'm not the only one.

You're punishing people for fluffy lists, then. Tau and Necrons shouldn't have Psykers-that goes against their lore. (And the faction specific doesn't help-that replaces objectives 11-16, which are all Secure Objective X.)

If that's how you want to play, that's fine, but it seems contrary to trying to build a fun game.

 JNAProductions wrote:
You're punishing people for fluffy lists, then. Tau and Necrons shouldn't have Psykers-that goes against their lore. (And the faction specific doesn't help-that replaces objectives 11-16, which are all Secure Objective X.)

If that's how you want to play, that's fine, but it seems contrary to trying to build a fun game.

That's pretty harsh to say that I am punishing players for playing fluffy lists, when it's up to them to decide to accept the Maelstrom objectives for playing a fluffy list. The addition of the Allies/Allies Matrix, Rules for IC's joining Allies, sharing transports, actual changing of fluff (Chaos / Demons), Unbound, and Formations all destroyed fluffy lists. Maelstrom missions with their objectives are just another message that the game isn't played that way anymore.

Again, the Maelstrom setup is still an infant and hasn't been through the fires yet. The Army decks replacing standard objectives are one example of poor implementation. It's also never been done before, so it's understandable. The current 'fixes' to Maelstrom only re-enforce the older edition mentality imo, and no one is really looking at improving the format, only ignoring it. I also feel that making the 'rare' objectives in the 6's should be grouped up, so they can be removed for smaller games. If that was done then the army specific ones could replace them instead. Who knows what's going to happen when the next ed. comes out. I just hope they keep it instead of discarding it altogether.

I hear you though. I miss the fluffy lists. I miss the Mono Faction/Single CAD tournament days. I also miss the days where players bought a dex, read the actual fluff, then built an army on that as opposed to netlisting. The rules are much more flexible than they used to be. If you have a group that wants to play fluffy lists, then that's great, but we can't require everyone to play that way. That's my struggle with the ITC right now. It's so strong in my local, that even in casual play they only play ITC scenarios, list restrictions, etc. Finding players that want to just play 7e can be difficult.

Draco765 wrote:
I am with you on most of that as well. I like the randomness between rounds on what the goals will be with maelstrom, but that is better in a full 5+ rounds of play game.

Our local monthly tournament players are trying to figure out a style of play that is better for 2-3 rounds of total play to fit within the time limit, but keeps the balance between casual and high end players.

I have also seen one where you pick out 10 cards after deployment but before round 1. Then each round you choose the one you want to try and achieve, it is then discarded and you have to pick another one for the next round.

Picking objectives seems like it could be interesting, like maybe if you play a Maelstrom mission pick 21 (three per round) and then either randomly draw or choose each turn? This would actually make some of the the objective-based Warlord Traits in the BRB very useful. I definitely like to get in at least 5 rounds, but I usually have that luxury because I'm at my friend's place which is a big help.



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 Akar wrote:
I prefer Maelstrom Missions and play them as often as I can. They've really change up armies, make some of the less Competetive ones playable, and have given me some of the best stories I've had. It has been the best thing to happen to 40k, and I'll admit it took me a while to come to that. I don't mind the EW missions either, but the game had stagnated, especially with all the net listing becoming so common.

It's not without its problems though, and I've found that it doesn't really do well under the 1500 point mark. I can't tell you how much I dislike it when players use the 'Discard immediately if you can't get it' fix, because I don't believe an opponent should be rewarded for a player opting to not take the element in his list. Everyone knows what the objectives are before list building and should factor it in. Remove that and you're back to the same problems as before.

I was very excited about Maelstrom from the start as it makes for more dynamic play for sure. I kind of like a bit of tailoring of objectives myself, only because there are some armies that can never get some Maelstrom objectives without allies or the opponent's taking a certain unit type, and we tend to be sort of sparing on Allies in my group- an Inquisitor or Knight here and there, that sort of thing. In my group we discard objectives immediately when drawn if they are completely impossible to achieve later in the game but if it's a very long shot you still keep. Some of them end up being kind of weird and unfluffy to hold like destroying a DE Fortification for example or Tyranids caring about Challenges, and I've yet to ever see anyone manage to get Domination (or for that matter get tabled) in our group. On the other hand, Recon ends up being a free point every game! That said, if your army plays in a certain way I think it can be really cool to work those kinds in. But it would be really unfair and silly to keep drawing Challenge in CC objectives vs. Draigo/WolfStar for example when playing Guard or Tau. I agree completely that some of the more challenging to play armies got a real boost from Maelstrom. Unfortunately we also now see some of those armies starting to struggle vs. the strongest handful of codices though, what with Drop Pods and Bike/Jetbikes, not to mention TeleportingINvisible psykers and the like being maybe too strong in Maelstrom for the points. I really like the Codex Objectives, by the way, though some are pretty much a free point.



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 Vaktathi wrote:

Honestly, I havent found a version of randomly changing objectives that I like. Asymmetric objectives are great, but dynamically changing directives with no cause and effect relationship to the battle results really are just immersion breaking and prone to wild swings in RNG favor. The ITC system is better than the rulebook Maelstrom missions, but largely only in that it cuts down on some of the impossible objectives and record keeping, but keeps all the other main problems with Maelstrom.

The fundamental nature of the dynamic random objectives thing just doesnt work well at all and theres really no fixing that. The fact that they often have zero relevance to the forces on the table doesnt help (e.g. Tau having to kill stuff in CC, Necrons having to cast psychic powers, having to kill enemy aircraft when none exist, Daemons getting gobs of free objective points just for casting the psychic powers they were going to cast anyway, etc). The extra record keeping also doesnt help. I just absolutely cannot stand Maelstrom from just about any perspective

However, choosing from an array of static objectives before the battle starts which may be different from the opponents can be great. If your objective is to kill their HQ and destroy all their transports, while their objective is to hold the centerpoint objective, that can result in a very interesting game with very different approaches that still make narrative and tactical sense and open up the results a lot more (meaning more interesting draws or double win/double losses are possible).

I feel like our group's simple fixes have been good for some of the dumber bits of the randomness, but it can seem very arbitrary and I've had more than one mission in which the command structure has clearly gone stark raving mad and are randomly screaming orders that make no sense tactically. Which is kind of dramatically appropriate when you're playing Guard or Orks or Daemons and losing badly, but is a real bummer when you're winning the first turns and then can't draw an achievable card to save your life in later turns! Maybe we should try a combination of selecting a number of cards at the start and attempting to achieve them in a certain order. If you're Drop Pod Marines, you may want to front-load for numbered Objective scoring, while Orks or Nids might want to hold back their Challenge and Assault cards for turns two and three. Maybe select your cards, put them in order before first turn/sides are determined, and reveal, then instead of discarding at the end of your turn if they aren't ideal, you can cycle them to the bottom of your pile?


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xlDuke wrote:
It's not much of a solution but we usually roll a D2 after lists are written and before terrain is put down to determine whether we'll play Maelstrom or Eternal War. It means you've got to write a list with both possibilities in mind and can't (or shouldn't) just go maximum MSU or maximum large, unkillable units.

My personal preference is Maelstrom, it's got huge flaws but I think it's more fair than EW missions.

I like it better too, although going back for a nostalgic feel could be fun. I kind of dislike Big Guns and the Fast Attack one because they are so dependent on your opponent's list though. Maybe a roll off pregame is in order.


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 Yarium wrote:
I'd STRONGLY recommend reading my mission here; Planned Assault - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/698889.page

Note some of the adjustments I made through the thread. I've had 3 games of this so far and they are THRILLING games! Generally speaking, this mission rewards knowing both your and your opponent's lists, as there's lots to decide at the beginning of the game that will reward you for making the correct decisions. However, if your opponent does something unexpected, you can find yourself on the back-foot. As an added bonus, almost everything that people find "cheesy" in the game has some sort of natural counterbalance in effect on turn 1 - the turn it'll matter most!

Probably a hard sell on my group I'm afraid because they tend to want to get rolling sooner than later and it's a fair bit to digest. I do like the Special Circumstances though, especially the Night Fight and Warp ones. We've toyed with the idea of eliminating Mysterious Objectives in favor of a blanket status rule affecting the table all game. I'm surprised there's not a scenario for an all-game night fight already. Hey, does anyone remember Strategy Ratings? Maybe that's a option to consider bringing back...



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 Happyjew wrote:
One of the house rules my group has implemented for Maelstrom is if you generate an objective, that would have been able to be achieved at the start of the game, you may immediately discard it and generate a new one.

For example, if you are running Necrons with no allies, and generate "Harness the Warp" you may discard it fro free, and generate a new objective.

Conversely, if you are running and Eldar army and your Farseer dies and you then generate "Harness the Warp" you cannot discard it since you were able to complete it earlier in the game.

That sort of gives the feel of a fog of war situation. "Um, our psykers are all dead, sir..."



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 Akar wrote:


I hear you though. I miss the fluffy lists. I miss the Mono Faction/Single CAD tournament days. I also miss the days where players bought a dex, read the actual fluff, then built an army on that as opposed to netlisting. The rules are much more flexible than they used to be. If you have a group that wants to play fluffy lists, then that's great, but we can't require everyone to play that way. That's my struggle with the ITC right now. It's so strong in my local, that even in casual play they only play ITC scenarios, list restrictions, etc. Finding players that want to just play 7e can be difficult.

This I can definitely feel you on. I read through ITC, watched battle reports and thought it was very net-listy. I've played since not long after 3rd ed came out. In a lot of ways I really like the newer innovations, but I can definitely say I'll never have much love for tournament mentality. It kills my enthusiasm right quick and is a little too math hammer focused for me to appreciate. I mean, we all do it on some level to assess our units. I was just thinking I miss the days of seeing a 0-1 in front of a unit type. But that's actually very bad for selling models, so I get it. Just like Special Characters used to be "With Opponent's Permission".

aushlo wrote:
Probably a hard sell on my group I'm afraid because they tend to want to get rolling sooner than later and it's a fair bit to digest. I do like the Special Circumstances though, especially the Night Fight and Warp ones. We've toyed with the idea of eliminating Mysterious Objectives in favor of a blanket status rule affecting the table all game. I'm surprised there's not a scenario for an all-game night fight already. Hey, does anyone remember Strategy Ratings? Maybe that's a option to consider bringing back...

Trust me, have them give it a go, and it'll turn some heads. There's marginally more setup time required, but it doesn't feel like "wait for random lulz", since these decisions are highly impactful on the game itself. Rather, it feels like you're really planning an attack, taking a moment to try and anticipate the battle ahead of you. Note, you generate your Warlord Traits and Psychic Powers and the like BEFORE choosing all the mission details. This means that you can better take advantage of rolls that are sometimes randomly useless, because you can adjust your objectives, deployment zones, and special circumstances to reflect those details.

The Altar of War missions can be fun. Also, I like the ITC's missions, they're a mix of Maelstrom and semi-randomized objectives

Like many things GW, I think the idea of having board objectives - beyond "table the opponent" would help the game.

However, I think the random card draws just tend to make things frustrating moreso than they make the game enjoyable. Facing attempting to complete a bunch of unreachable goals while your opponet is literally already sitting on objectives he holds doesn't make for an interesting or fair game.

I think it would turn out a better game if with Maelstrom all the objectives were active, and you could score them at any time. Change the random VP objectives to be cumulative - score 1 VP the first time, 2 the next, 3 after that and so on. You could leave objectives in this that one army or the other army can't score - this then provides some motivation to balanced force lists, but doesn't overly punish those that lack a particular option.

Having also one or two "secret objectives" would be nice, but they would HAVE to be something the army can accomplish. These could be pretty army or even scenario specific.