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I'm getting tired of going to events and tournies where there are prizes on the line or entry fees, and after I've shown up and paid I learn that they're running some sort of custom mission during all three matches, or has strange non play tested missions.

I literally got back from and event where at 500 points they had the audacity to have each mission be the same, where your HQ started embarked in a box in the enemy deployment, and the goal was to break out your HQ and get them to your deployment. If neither side achieved this it was a kill points game. Getting the HQ free and in your deployment was an auto win. You could shoot and attack the box, and CC it on your opponent's turn.

Essentially the man with a flyrant auto won the game each match because each match he broke out on his opponent's turn, went second and just flew to his deployment. I had my cadre fireblade on the other side of the board which defeated the point of a buff HQ. After two matches and the third one starting without any breaks I left. My head hurt (I'm on the back end of a cold), I was hungry and the prize pool was 40% off a store purchase when I'm broke.

The people running the event said it was fair because nobody knew the rules beforehand, but frankly having half the people playing have their list and army messed with each match is annoying. It wouldn't of been so bad if the game didn't boil down to either auto winning or getting kill points. I don't like when events run "surprise" missions that aren't from the books or ITC stuff. It isn't zany or fun, it just over complicates things and sometimes breaks the game. At least warn people do they can plan accordingly, or don't run the odd ball missions at all.

So tell me how you really feel

 Bi'ios wrote:
So tell me how you really feel

Well, it all started when my dad sold me to the circus...

Oh, I hate this crap.

I always ask what the mission is ahead of time for an event. If they won't release the specific mission rules, (or won't commit to a small selection of missions that will be possible, such as the Eternal War missions, the Maelstrom missions, or the ITC missions) then I won't play.

This 'surprise mission' garbage is horrible. Too often, the person who wrote the rules hasn't thought everything through, and runs into rules ambiguities they don't know how to deal with. Or they accidentall (or purposefully) give a huge advantage to one army or disadvantage to another.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves at events, and it's definitely a deal breaker for me at this point.

 Jaxler wrote:

 Bi'ios wrote:
So tell me how you really feel

Well, it all started when my dad sold me to the circus...

That refund request was the real stinger :p

But yeah. For organised play, publish your custom missions beforehand, or stick to standard ones.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Oh, I hate this crap.

I always ask what the mission is ahead of time for an event. If they won't release the specific mission rules, (or won't commit to a small selection of missions that will be possible, such as the Eternal War missions, the Maelstrom missions, or the ITC missions) then I won't play.

This 'surprise mission' garbage is horrible. Too often, the person who wrote the rules hasn't thought everything through, and runs into rules ambiguities they don't know how to deal with. Or they accidentall (or purposefully) give a huge advantage to one army or disadvantage to another.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves at events, and it's definitely a deal breaker for me at this point.

I once went to a kill team thing where one of the missions was where one player picked a 200 point (or less) single model of any kind vs the enemy's kill team. Nobody knew this would be a mission. I ran a riptide and tabled my opponent, and another guy took out his dreaknight. Besides this though it was a fun kill team event until on day two of three someone showed up with tomb blades.

I'm pretty sure we played at the same tournament. It was fun but massively favoured some armies. I brought a glass cannon HQ and found he busted out of the cage to immediately get killed because the squad I was planning on him being in was on the other side of the board. But still I didn't bring a beat face list in the first place so wasn't expecting much. But still rules like that that cripple certain lists should be announced ahead of time. But still had fun.

I don't think the issue is that the mission was a surprise-the issue is that the mission was wildly unbalancing, depending on your list.

A better balanced mission wouldn't be as much an issue.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think the issue is that the mission was a surprise-the issue is that the mission was wildly unbalancing, depending on your list.

A better balanced mission wouldn't be as much an issue.

I mean, that's fine. I've had surprise missions where the rules were balenced or brought from earlier editions of the game, but when you have an unbalanced mission and it's a surprise, it's annoying.

Not only does that sound like a horrendous mission structure (and it's amazing that no one putting those rules together managed to figure out how stupid it would have been just on paper alone, let alone with even the slightest bit of playtesting), but the fact that they didn't even tell anyone before hand just utterly kills any legitimacy such a tournament might have. It's also ludicrously stupid to have that one mission, which is already heavily biased towards a few very specific army builds, be the only mission for an entire tournament. It's the kind of thing that would make me even consider the possibility of collusion.

It's funny too, because it wouldn't be hard to tweak the mission to be a lot more reasonable for all armies, even going in blind (which you still shouldn't have to). It would actually make for a pretty fun scenario if done right. Just make it so the unit in the box is a generic profile that's the same for each army, and allow everyone's list to function normally. Not something I'd want to run through for an entire tournament, but having it as a single mission amongst a greater series of scenarios would be great fun, even if not the most absolutely competitive.

I've once run a campaing with hidden missions - every side had their own mission they had to keep secret from the other side. Furthermore, there were some surprise events and even some mission changes.

For example, the first mission was CSM+renegades attacking an imperial fort guarded by dark angels and imperial guard. The backstory that both of them knew beforehand is that CSM wanted to make a surprise attack but screwed up and got noticed. Imperials have called for support but it wouldn't arrive in time to help them guard the fort. So, CSM leader decides to attack the fort as soon as possible. The fort has 4 strong defensive weapons - a twin-linked gattling cannon, a rapid-fire battlecannon, a 2-shot rapier weapon with optional skyfire and a plazma annihilator - the building with a massive s7 ap2 blast. All was surrounded by trenches, an aegis defence line on the front and some impass walls on the sides. Loyalist forces are 1500 pts total (witgout the buildings). Furthermore, the fort's located in such a place that attackers wouldn't have a lot of defences going on for them - other than a couple trees and a couple tiny ruins at the edge of the board. It's offset by the attackers having twice the numbers - 3000 pts total. The attack happens at night, so 1-st turn is a nightfight.

As for the secret missions:
Imperials have to wipe the attackers.
CSM start 1-st, have only 1500 pts arriving from the opposing table edge (hammer and anvil) first turn, others come as normal reserves. Have to keep as many defensive weapons intact as possible. But the thing that only they know is that all fully destroyed units come back with outflank from the 3-d turn onward - representing the other parts of the warband arriving as a cunning csm move.

So, the 3-d turn Loyalists find out that CSM aren't going to end and there's no hope of holding up and their mission of wiping the attacker secretly changes to destroying the defensive weapons so that CSM wouldn't be able to utilise them later on.

Is it oddball enough?

That would work very well for a campaign, especially if the results of that mission ended up impacting future ones down the road, but not a tournament, especially one with prize support (you could run a campaign with prize support, but you'd have to make the criteria for winning extremely clear and standardized for everyone).

Sounds like the organizer of the tournament thought "hey, this seems like a really great new mission!" And proceeds without:

1. Fleshing out the rules for every eventuality.
2. Play testing it to see if it actually works
3. Getting his new mission looked at by experienced tournament players for loop holes.

Sounds like a case of overenthusiastic fail, rather than collusion. But, still, at a prize winning tournament there's no excuse for such a feth up IMHO.

Yeah. eldar would probably have liked that mission. either the farseer breaks out of the box in the combat phase and turbo boosts for the win or shoots the crap out of the box with scatt bikes and turbo boosts for the win

Aye..

No lists or info means people don,t know what to run..
Be fairer if you told everyone then they can outfit army and HQ appropriately. Custom mission always involve some adapting for scenario.

Example a marine player not taking a foot hq and using a biker pr jump pack.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don't think the issue is that the mission was a surprise-the issue is that the mission was wildly unbalancing, depending on your list.

A better balanced mission wouldn't be as much an issue.

Agreed. I'm fine with surprises, so long as it is a surprise for everyone and it's balanced (multiple ways to win). But, as you say, if it clearly favors one army or certain list type, then don't do it. OR, put it out there for everyone to see ahead of time.

It's close to impossible to make a balanced mission. that's why gw introduces a lot of random stuff. To make it less than a 100% win for one playstyle over another.

 koooaei wrote:
It's close to impossible to make a balanced mission. that's why gw introduces a lot of random stuff. To make it less than a 100% win for one playstyle over another.

...Not that that works particularly well in any capacity...

It's probably the best possible option if you still want to have variety in armies you face.

Try to figure out a non-random mission that would favor every or at least most type of armies and won't take an extra book of space to write down.

 koooaei wrote:
It's close to impossible to make a balanced mission. that's why gw introduces a lot of random stuff. To make it less than a 100% win for one playstyle over another.

Making completely balanced missions certainly isn't easy but there's a spectrum of success with "utterly unbalanced pile of gak" at one end and "the very paragon of balance itself" at the other. It's possible to produce something more towards the latter end of the spectrum without too much work.

One thing I've seen over and over again is missions that promote a certain playstyle or army, either deliberately or accidentally and these need to be avoided. That's why missions that involve multiple, different objectives are usually better than ones that are just "kill lots of things" or "capture all the objectives".