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Me and my brother got into 40k around September of last year, and we've played games with proxied units, and haven't locked in armies until now. I'm playing DG (which was my dream in 7th, but Chaos sucked until TL came out, and 8th was close so I waited), he's playing Primaris Ultramarines.

The closest we've come to a mission was playing a few turns of a badly set up proxy game of Orks vs Skitarii with three objective markers, we never finished the game, but because he got first turn he would have won.

I'm tired of our usual deathmatches. What would missions would you recommend we try from the Big Book O' Rules? I'm looking for something that's well balanced for each side.

The very first one; Open War. It's a simple and effective mission to get your feet wet on using missions. After that, start trying out the Maelstrom games. Remember that you only need 1 unit left at the game to win, so you really can win on objectives, even in 8th (which is hyper-lethal).

The Prize/ The Relic could be a good one, as it forces both armies to have to move out of their deployment zone. It has a single objective in the dead center of the table. An Infantry model can end its movement phase on the objective, and pick it up. The objective then follows that model until it dies. Model, not Unit. Holding the objective at the end of 5+ turns nets you 3 Victory points, in addition to Slay the Warlord, first blood and Linebreaker.
Simple, straight forward. Does benefit aggressive/mobile armies more than it does pure gunlines.

Honestly anything from Eternal War is pretty fun.

However, one thing I've been doing lately for quick and casual matches, is making partial use of the Open War card deck. My opponent and I, if we both agree to it, will draw from that card packs Deployment, Objective and Twist decks.

They have all the different and weird deployment maps in addition to the regular maps. It has the Eternal War mission types, plus more. The twist deck adds some different effects on the board, such as meteor strikes, night fighting, extra movement, ect.

I agree with Yarium.

Maelstrom is a lot of fun. You can win the game with the less powerful army by taking objectives and playing cautious.

It doesn't matter if your opponent has a nearly unkillable unit for you, because you can maybe outmaneuver him to score points.

 Thadin wrote:
The Prize/ The Relic could be a good one, as it forces both armies to have to move out of their deployment zone. It has a single objective in the dead center of the table. An Infantry model can end its movement phase on the objective, and pick it up. The objective then follows that model until it dies. Model, not Unit. Holding the objective at the end of 5+ turns nets you 3 Victory points, in addition to Slay the Warlord, first blood and Linebreaker.
Simple, straight forward. Does benefit aggressive/mobile armies more than it does pure gunlines.

Honestly anything from Eternal War is pretty fun.

However, one thing I've been doing lately for quick and casual matches, is making partial use of the Open War card deck. My opponent and I, if we both agree to it, will draw from that card packs Deployment, Objective and Twist decks.

They have all the different and weird deployment maps in addition to the regular maps. It has the Eternal War mission types, plus more. The twist deck adds some different effects on the board, such as meteor strikes, night fighting, extra movement, ect.

Gonna try The Relic.

For someone who has never played a game...(or heck, for people who have) do not consider Malestrom (or "Drunk General" as its rightly referred to).

Drawing a half dozen objective cards, discarding them, changing them and keeping track of them is silly and no way to introduce someone to a tabletop wargame.

I'd say the Open War mission from the book.

I haven't seen an "Open War" mission, just "Only War".

Maelstrom is good.

I also like the cities of death rules, if you have enough buildings terrain to use them properly.

 MrVulcanator wrote:
I haven't seen an "Open War" mission, just "Only War".

The basic mission is called "Only War". It's on page 187. "Open War" is the card deck that modifies the Only War mission, but they are not necessary to play.

Do you guys really like Maelstrom? IMO it's terribly random and completly decoupled from the rest of the game.

It might be a terrain issue, but most players in my group don't really enjoy playing maelstrom.

Maelstrom forces people out of their comfort zones and challenges them to attempt things they'd never attempt before, it keeps the game from becoming predictable and stale. I can see how this bothers some players. But playing the same static game over and over again is kinda dull, too.

More often than not, the army with more "maelstrom-suitable" units didnt win in my group.

If you don't want your opponent to be able to contest the markers in your deployment zone, he can't.
It seems more viable to put 3 leman russ/predators and/or some devastors on one marker, a bunch of cultists, conscripts or gaunts on another and one of the above on the third marker in your zone to make sure you will contest them rather than buying the squishy fast units that more often than not are not capable to clean a marker or need to wait a turn in the back because you drew the 'hold objective X for 2 consecutive turns' card.

Trollbert wrote:
Do you guys really like Maelstrom? IMO it's terribly random and completly decoupled from the rest of the game.

It might be a terrain issue, but most players in my group don't really enjoy playing maelstrom.

I think it's the worst element of current 40K and terrible wargaming...sadly it seems to be what everyone here wants to play.

 Elbows wrote:

Trollbert wrote:
Do you guys really like Maelstrom? IMO it's terribly random and completly decoupled from the rest of the game.

It might be a terrain issue, but most players in my group don't really enjoy playing maelstrom.

I think it's the worst element of current 40K and terrible wargaming...sadly it seems to be what everyone here wants to play.

It not like I don't like the idea of Maelstrom mission, but the execution is terrible IMO.

Got to agree with Maelstrom.

It might seem at first sight too much of a hassle but it's surprisingly straight forward. You get some mission cards, you read them to know what your current missions are and then you try to execute them to score victory points.

The main reason I like Maelstrom is that the games become indeed less predictable and you have to think on your feet to succeed. The game is much more dynamic as a result.

Protip? Focus on the mission, not at the elimination of the enemy (unless the mission *is* the elimination of a spesific enemy unit). And whatever you do, don't let the objectives fall from your grasp. If you aren't holding any objectives, you won't get any mission cards and then you'll fall way behind in victory points.

Edit: Might seem obvious but try to retain that clarity in an actual game.

Trollbert wrote:
Do you guys really like Maelstrom? IMO it's terribly random and completly decoupled from the rest of the game.

It might be a terrain issue, but most players in my group don't really enjoy playing maelstrom.

Well, for me it's nice to have a mix. Eternal War is great, but often you don't need to move quite as much, as you can wait until closer to the end of the game to start concentrating on objectives. Maelstrom has you focus on objectives right away, and indeed often throughout the entire game, but is weaker in that it's possible for the draws to just go south and one player to score everything while the other scores nothing. If both played perfectly as designed, I'd likely enjoy Maelstrom more than Eternal War. As it stands, I like to play Maelstrom about 50% of the time, and Eternal War 50% of the time.