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.

My meta is exclusively BRB missions (not even Chapter Approved most of the time) and I'm trying to introduce other mission formats but it's been a struggle.

What would you say are the advantages of the ITC/ETC formats over BRB missions? How much better is your gaming experience? Is it pretty much the same? Is there too much unnecessary bookkeeping? Or is it as tactical and balanced as it seems to be to someone who hasn't played it but really wants to?

I've been sticking to the missions in the book. The game, the codexes, indexes, and such were built around them, not these other formats. (I don't have Chapter Approved yet, so I can't play those missions, but I'll add them to the list.)

The issue I have with the, in some cases automatic assumption, idea that everyone plays with ITC or ETC rules means that people can't easily discuss the game any more.

It creates weird moments, like when people give list advice and are referencing those formats, they tend to look down on folks that just play the missions in the book.

The main benefit of playing ITC/ETC formats is practicing for big tournaments that use them (though in the US I doubt you'll see ETC format).
Otherwise, there are some interesting/useful FAQs from ITC, like "lower levels of ruins block LOS".

My personal opinion though is that ITC missions are overall bad for the the game and the community. With the champions mission pack, ITC "jumped the shark": they revised an iteration of their mission concept that has been around since 6th/7th, rather than starting from scratch and the BRB missions because since those mission were bad in 7th, they must be bad in 8th. Basically, they created a new game where secondary objectives are king and the scoring format is very different than anything published by GW. Even when chapter approved came out, ITC doubled down on their decision to use their own missions. If the game is being played differently than designed, there's going to be balance issues. The worst part of it though is that ITC drives a wedge in the community in ways that an online forum never can; by creating an actual difference in gaming between "casual" and "competitive" players on the local level, where the tournament preppers are looking through the latest mission pack and the casual players are thumbing through the rulebook while they look for a pickup game.

I've overwhelmingly had a better experience with ITC scenarios. BRB missions for me feel stagnant, slow paced, with little need to move around the board until the last round. I actually think it also leads to more balanced play. There are armies out there that will always have hard counters. But with the secondary objectives in ITC you can still squeak out a win or a draw with smart play. I never feel like I've lost the game before the first roll in an ITC game, the same can't be said for other rule sets.

ETC I like because it basically takes the official missions and smooshes them a bit to make a more even experience. You don't really need to learn anything new to start playing it... you just have to understand you're playing 2 interwoven missions at the same time.

ITC champions missions... I sort of agree with the "jumped the shark" post above. When you have people tuning their lists by lopping off a guardsman here or there to avoid reaper, or taking exactly 5 jetbikes rather than 6 or 4 to minimize a 1pt loss... I feel like you have to admit you've introduced layers that weren't intended to be there.

In general I find the ITC scenarios better for formal competitive play. The main book missions are very dependant on killing each which, while fun, doesn't allow players to showuch strategy especially in the movement phase. Malestrom is a good step but it's so random that it often comes down to who got luckiest with their objective pulls.

ITC rules do the best job I feel at rewarding any stle of army but allowing you to kill, focus on objectives, or focus on secondaries but rarely can a player do it all which 1) allows for diverse armies to be brought and 2) keep games from devolving into a who can alpha strike the best.

Is it perfect or above crticism? Absolutely not. But for those who enjoy a formal or competitive scene I think the ITC scenarios are superior to just book or malestrom games.

ITC/ETC missions are largely unnecessary, my area uses only standard chapter approved missions for tournaments and we never felt the need to change that.

I really don't like the BRB missions. The Chapter Approved missions are ace though.

As for ITC/NOVA/<mission pack thingy>? I don't get the appeal. I play them when people want to practice their tournament lists against me, and I play Maelstrom from Chapter Approved, and I play Eternal War from Chapter Approved. It's all whatever, for me. I don't find ITC/NOVA to meaningfully improve the play experience, though there are some alterations.

Mainly, you end up with fiddly little things like "taking 19 models is better than 20, because of secondaries" or "you get 2 vps for killing a psyker, and 1 per tank and monster". They're just bizarre and fiddly, and I would consider it a stretch to call them "improvements."

I'll admit I've only played ITC missions but I do like their terrain rules and the way the scenerios are set up. It would be nice if they had more options for secondary scoring since it seems like I always take the same ones regardless of my opponent.

I enjoy the huge mix I tend to get between Maelstrom, Eternal War, and ITC/ETC missions. These three mission styles reward and penalise a lot of different styles of armies. I do find ITC to be the most balanced out of all of them, but the diversity suffers a bit, as you find your opponents will almost always pick the same kind of objectives against you. Still, it's a great system for determining a winner at a tournament and beyond. Maelstrom is a lot of fun as you scurry in a mad panic to score objectives and not fall behind, but a couple bad pulls while your opponent pulls hot can decide a game in a way that is a little outside player control, even if that occurrence is pretty rare. Eternal War is great for making a simple battle develop into a story. With points only being scored at the end, a natural dynamic and story develops. Eternal War is least like a game, and most like an event, which can be a lot of fun for pick-up matches.

If I had to choose between them, I'd pick Maelstrom, but I like having a range of each.

 greyknight12 wrote:
The main benefit of playing ITC/ETC formats is practicing for big tournaments that use them (though in the US I doubt you'll see ETC format).
Otherwise, there are some interesting/useful FAQs from ITC, like "lower levels of ruins block LOS".

My personal opinion though is that ITC missions are overall bad for the the game and the community. With the champions mission pack, ITC "jumped the shark": they revised an iteration of their mission concept that has been around since 6th/7th, rather than starting from scratch and the BRB missions because since those mission were bad in 7th, they must be bad in 8th. Basically, they created a new game where secondary objectives are king and the scoring format is very different than anything published by GW. Even when chapter approved came out, ITC doubled down on their decision to use their own missions. If the game is being played differently than designed, there's going to be balance issues. The worst part of it though is that ITC drives a wedge in the community in ways that an online forum never can; by creating an actual difference in gaming between "casual" and "competitive" players on the local level, where the tournament preppers are looking through the latest mission pack and the casual players are thumbing through the rulebook while they look for a pickup game.

Generally agree with this. I think the ITC missions are very well intended but both divide the community and present a skewed perspective of the state of the game. Too many gimmicky secondary objectives that are pretty easy to build around creates a dangerous sense of "what's OP" in an era where GW is taking a more active role in reacting to balance issues. That said, in terms of gameplay I can absolutely understand why people feel they taste better; I just think they're likely unhealthy long term.

I think if GW remains willing to take the wheel, its best for the game to let them. I think they really need a real tourney pack with options for painting requirements, updated scenarios, and terrain guidelines. ITC is very much what happens when the community gets impatient and fixes their own problems, but the game as a whole will benefit if GW takes the responsibility on themselves.

How do you play Eternal War/Maelstrom and not feel like the loser of the roll-off for placing objectives has a massive advantage? Personally, I almost always win 6 objective marker missions when I lose the roll-off.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/40k-tactics-winning-the-objectives-before-the-game-starts-part-1/

karandrasss wrote:
How do you play Eternal War/Maelstrom and not feel like the loser of the roll-off for placing objectives has a massive advantage? Personally, I almost always win 6 objective marker missions when I lose the roll-off.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/40k-tactics-winning-the-objectives-before-the-game-starts-part-1/

That's hilarious, because I play a CC army. If the enemy dumps all the objectives in their deployment zone, my Slaanesh will be all over them turn 1, because I don't have to dork around leaving CC-daemonettes on objectives in my own DZ.

My army is more hampered by having stuff in my DZ than it is by the enemy having more stuff in theirs. 20 girl daemonette squads standing on my home objectives are doing nothing for ~160 points.

 greyknight12 wrote:

My personal opinion though is that ITC missions are overall bad for the the game and the community. With the champions mission pack, ITC "jumped the shark": they revised an iteration of their mission concept that has been around since 6th/7th, rather than starting from scratch and the BRB missions because since those mission were bad in 7th, they must be bad in 8th. Basically, they created a new game where secondary objectives are king and the scoring format is very different than anything published by GW. Even when chapter approved came out, ITC doubled down on their decision to use their own missions. If the game is being played differently than designed, there's going to be balance issues.

Nothing more needs to be said.

ITC is way more fun than BRB missions. I never play the BRB missions anymore. With that said, no one in my play group makes lists in an attempt to deny VPs with the ITC format, so that might be why we enjoy it so much. I really dislike the card draws, where games are part decided by lucky/unlucky draws.

I'm pretty flexible when it comes to missions imo. I play all kinds, I just love 40k.

However, the ONLY thing I bring up when we are playing, that I think the ITC should take credit for, is to modify maelstrom with 2 sets of three objectives instead of using 6. IE: you draw a 1-2, it's 1, 3-4 it's 2, 5-6 it's 3. Both players get a 1, 2, and 3 objective.

That change alone makes the games MUCH more enjoyable imo.

karandrasss wrote:
My meta is exclusively BRB missions (not even Chapter Approved most of the time) and I'm trying to introduce other mission formats but it's been a struggle.

What would you say are the advantages of the ITC/ETC formats over BRB missions? How much better is your gaming experience? Is it pretty much the same? Is there too much unnecessary bookkeeping? Or is it as tactical and balanced as it seems to be to someone who hasn't played it but really wants to?

The advantage is that it's scored every turn, like maelstrom, but isn't random. 1 point for holding a point, 1 point for.holding more points, 1 point for killing a unit, 1 point for killing more units, 1 bonus point based on the mission, which I've only seen scored once by tabling all but one rhino and then playing the next 3 turns.
The disadvantage is that there are a dozen secondaries, each of which is worth up to 4 points, and you pick 3 to go for before the game. I don't like them. They're very list skewing among other things, and there are quite a few idiosyncrasies that appear in lists because of them [that's why Guard infantry squads need mortars in them, there's an objective for killing 10-model units]. In addition, I think they're worth too many points, since they must be achieved to have a chance at winning though the objectives, so they're more like primaries with taking the points as secondaries.

Honestly, is my game better for using ITC missions? No. Not at all. I like the idea of scoring objectives each turn, but their secondaries are awful.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

karandrasss wrote:
How do you play Eternal War/Maelstrom and not feel like the loser of the roll-off for placing objectives has a massive advantage? Personally, I almost always win 6 objective marker missions when I lose the roll-off.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/40k-tactics-winning-the-objectives-before-the-game-starts-part-1/

If the enemy dumps all the objectives in their deployment zone

It's not like they have to. In fringe cases it might be better to place the objectives elsewhere. Being able to place second (i.e. reactively) and choose your zone after is still a huge advantage. How's your Slaneesh performing btw?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Northern85Star wrote:
ITC is way more fun than BRB missions. I never play the BRB missions anymore. With that said, no one in my play group makes lists in an attempt to deny VPs with the ITC format, so that might be why we enjoy it so much. I really dislike the card draws, where games are part decided by lucky/unlucky draws.

How do you stop it from being a tabling game anyway? The main concern of people unfamiliar with ITC/ETC is none of it will matter if you can table your opponent or cripple them so badly that you can just scoop up objectives late game.

I like the chapter approved ones, mixing both eternal war and maelstrom missions. The games always feel balanced and engaging because you not only need to complete the maelstrom objetives, you have at the end of the game an specific task that you need to acomplish, and if you are behind in maelstrom but you have been intelligent and have completed the eternal war objetive thats a bunch of points that can put you ahead.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Honestly, is my game better for using ITC missions? No. Not at all. I like the idea of scoring objectives each turn, but their secondaries are awful.

I like progressive scoring in theory, but its a little hard in 40k. Getting overrun can be so game ending that its a little tricky to design scenarios around standing in the middle of the table turn 1. I think it could be done, but it probably requires something more akin to Steamroller zones as scoring areas, and maybe as a compromise start scoring turn 3 or so?

Maelstrom is really, really random. You can and will have games decided by the cards you or your opponent drew, especially if you are playing a format where the margin of victory matters. It’s fun, but it’s not competitive.

Introducing the ITC terrain setup and rules adds to a lot to the game.

The ruins that block line of sight make a lot of infantry units that are more or less unplayable even in non-competitive play are actually usable and movement matters more because being able to get into the ruins and charge out of them creates kind of a death zone for your enemy.

Balanced armies that contain artillery, mobile short ranged shooting and melee are encouraged by this setup, which I think is really nice.

 buddha wrote:
In general I find the ITC scenarios better for formal competitive play. The main book missions are very dependant on killing each which, while fun, doesn't allow players to showuch strategy especially in the movement phase. Malestrom is a good step but it's so random that it often comes down to who got luckiest with their objective pulls.

ITC rules do the best job I feel at rewarding any stle of army but allowing you to kill, focus on objectives, or focus on secondaries but rarely can a player do it all which 1) allows for diverse armies to be brought and 2) keep games from devolving into a who can alpha strike the best.

Is it perfect or above crticism? Absolutely not. But for those who enjoy a formal or competitive scene I think the ITC scenarios are superior to just book or malestrom games.

Is this actually your personal experience, or are you simply parroting the common defense of ITC?

Because the BRB and chapter approved missions, with one exception, don't reward you for killing the enemy unless you table them. In the ITC champions missions, 50% of the primary is ALWAYS related to body count (kill a unit, kill more units). Furthermore, most of the secondaries involve killing something. But I'll take my criticism a step further: Unless you are dead you will always hold an objective, and if you build killy enough you will always kill something. If you decide to prioritize killing and board control, you will also get "killed more" and with the distribution of objectives in the champions missions it's not difficult to deny "hold more" to your opponent. For the sake of argument though, we'll assume your opponent gets it. You would be tied, except that player A built his/her list to table their opponent, and picked the secondaries that involve killing specific things. By turn 3, player B is tabled. The problem is that Player B took the "objective" secondaries, and can only score 1 point per turn with their army spread across 4 table quarters, in their opponent's deployment zone, etc while there is no max per turn score on the "killing" secondaries. Player A achieved all their secondaries on their turn 3, and so has more points and wins even without the bonus for tabling. And the result of a table in the BRB and ITC missions is the same.
The point is that by focusing on killing over objectives you can reliably score 3/4 of the points a turn, and achieve your secondaries faster and in a way that compliments your overall army strategy. Playing for objectives is more difficult and requires you haphazardly disperse your army and hope it survives long enough to score enough to win. And in 8th edition, nothing can survive sustained firepower. Even a mixed strategy won't survive against one built solely to kill quickly.
I'm not trying to attack you personally @buddha, I've just heard the defense you gave a lot and don't think that it matches reality. Complexity doesn't equal balance.

karandrasss wrote:
How do you play Eternal War/Maelstrom and not feel like the loser of the roll-off for placing objectives has a massive advantage? Personally, I almost always win 6 objective marker missions when I lose the roll-off.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/40k-tactics-winning-the-objectives-before-the-game-starts-part-1/

By being a casual player group. But yeah, it's a pretty bad mechanic, which is why I usually just make sure that the objectives are somewhere FUN, not where they're going to win me the game.

On the core question: I've only played once with a similar ruleset to ITC (I think they used it as the basis and further modified it), and I didn't really like it. It's not bad, but regular Maelstrom missions are more fun to me - especially the CA ones.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Honestly, is my game better for using ITC missions? No. Not at all. I like the idea of scoring objectives each turn, but their secondaries are awful.

I like progressive scoring in theory, but its a little hard in 40k. Getting overrun can be so game ending that its a little tricky to design scenarios around standing in the middle of the table turn 1. I think it could be done, but it probably requires something more akin to Steamroller zones as scoring areas, and maybe as a compromise start scoring turn 3 or so?

That's the point. If you drive them back off the objective and deny them access, they should lose unless they can counterattack quickly, and in force. If you get totally overrun it should be game ending.

If were to design a "Katherine's Mission Pack", I'd go:
5 Objectives. At the end of the battle round, each objective is worth 1 point for controlling it. 6 different distributions for 6 missions.
1 Bonus Point, scenario dependent, that should be accomplish-able in early turns and from a position of disadvantage, so that way a player who's only slightly behind in position can keep up and the score not turn into a runaway snowball, but if you really get rolled back it won't help you.


Hold on, that's a good idea, I think, I'm going to do that right now.

I think the progressive scoring of ITC missions makes for a more engaging game without the randomness of the maelstrom cards (where lucky or unlucky draws will decide the outcome of a lot of games).

I don't like the secondaries of ITC missions. I feel like the concept is a good idea but they are too gamey (reaper), punish certain armies too much (sorry celestine, pask, chronos), or are too easy for certain armies to get.

I wish they went further with their terrain rules (intervening models/terrain providing cover, LOS from/to center of models base/hull, movement penalties for woods/craters/generic difficult terrain...)

All that being said the book missions are gak and CA has some stinkers but I think they tried to move in the right direction. I'm not familiar with ETC/ATC missions so maybe that's something I should look into.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 buddha wrote:
In general I find the ITC scenarios better for formal competitive play. The main book missions are very dependant on killing each which, while fun, doesn't allow players to showuch strategy especially in the movement phase. Malestrom is a good step but it's so random that it often comes down to who got luckiest with their objective pulls.

ITC rules do the best job I feel at rewarding any stle of army but allowing you to kill, focus on objectives, or focus on secondaries but rarely can a player do it all which 1) allows for diverse armies to be brought and 2) keep games from devolving into a who can alpha strike the best.

Is it perfect or above crticism? Absolutely not. But for those who enjoy a formal or competitive scene I think the ITC scenarios are superior to just book or malestrom games.

Is this actually your personal experience, or are you simply parroting the common defense of ITC?

Because the BRB and chapter approved missions, with one exception, don't reward you for killing the enemy unless you table them. In the ITC champions missions, 50% of the primary is ALWAYS related to body count (kill a unit, kill more units). Furthermore, most of the secondaries involve killing something. But I'll take my criticism a step further: Unless you are dead you will always hold an objective, and if you build killy enough you will always kill something. If you decide to prioritize killing and board control, you will also get "killed more" and with the distribution of objectives in the champions missions it's not difficult to deny "hold more" to your opponent. For the sake of argument though, we'll assume your opponent gets it. You would be tied, except that player A built his/her list to table their opponent, and picked the secondaries that involve killing specific things. By turn 3, player B is tabled. The problem is that Player B took the "objective" secondaries, and can only score 1 point per turn with their army spread across 4 table quarters, in their opponent's deployment zone, etc while there is no max per turn score on the "killing" secondaries. Player A achieved all their secondaries on their turn 3, and so has more points and wins even without the bonus for tabling. And the result of a table in the BRB and ITC missions is the same.
The point is that by focusing on killing over objectives you can reliably score 3/4 of the points a turn, and achieve your secondaries faster and in a way that compliments your overall army strategy. Playing for objectives is more difficult and requires you haphazardly disperse your army and hope it survives long enough to score enough to win. And in 8th edition, nothing can survive sustained firepower. Even a mixed strategy won't survive against one built solely to kill quickly.
I'm not trying to attack you personally @buddha, I've just heard the defense you gave a lot and don't think that it matches reality. Complexity doesn't equal balance.

Have you seen the top ITC players' streamed games on Twitch? Most of their games are nowhere near bloodbaths, lots of tying up while taking objectives.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bananathug wrote:
I think the progressive scoring of ITC missions makes for a more engaging game without the randomness of the maelstrom cards (where lucky or unlucky draws will decide the outcome of a lot of games).

I don't like the secondaries of ITC missions. I feel like the concept is a good idea but they are too gamey (reaper), punish certain armies too much (sorry celestine, pask, chronos), or are too easy for certain armies to get.

I wish they went further with their terrain rules (intervening models/terrain providing cover, LOS from/to center of models base/hull, movement penalties for woods/craters/generic difficult terrain...)

All that being said the book missions are gak and CA has some stinkers but I think they tried to move in the right direction. I'm not familiar with ETC/ATC missions so maybe that's something I should look into.

What do you play then?

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Honestly, is my game better for using ITC missions? No. Not at all. I like the idea of scoring objectives each turn, but their secondaries are awful.

I like progressive scoring in theory, but its a little hard in 40k. Getting overrun can be so game ending that its a little tricky to design scenarios around standing in the middle of the table turn 1. I think it could be done, but it probably requires something more akin to Steamroller zones as scoring areas, and maybe as a compromise start scoring turn 3 or so?

That's the point. If you drive them back off the objective and deny them access, they should lose unless they can counterattack quickly, and in force. If you get totally overrun it should be game ending.

If were to design a "Katherine's Mission Pack", I'd go:
5 Objectives. At the end of the battle round, each objective is worth 1 point for controlling it. 6 different distributions for 6 missions.
1 Bonus Point, scenario dependent, that should be accomplish-able without having practically won the game, so that way a player who's only slightly behind in position can keep up and the score not turn into a runaway snowball, but if you really get rolled back it won't help you.

Right, the trick is figuring out the right timing for getting overrun. The game is designed in such a way that overrun armies often can cross the table and still succcessfully overrun the opponent. Putting a requirement to get to the center of the board turn 1 pretty much guarantees it will happen. There is just a little too much melee disparity in the game for scenarios to force a scrum in the way they do for Warmachine. I agree though with what you're saying, I just think the trick is finding a middle ground between first turn scoring and end of game scoring that works with the cadence of the game.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 buddha wrote:
In general I find the ITC scenarios better for formal competitive play. The main book missions are very dependant on killing each which, while fun, doesn't allow players to showuch strategy especially in the movement phase. Malestrom is a good step but it's so random that it often comes down to who got luckiest with their objective pulls.

ITC rules do the best job I feel at rewarding any stle of army but allowing you to kill, focus on objectives, or focus on secondaries but rarely can a player do it all which 1) allows for diverse armies to be brought and 2) keep games from devolving into a who can alpha strike the best.

Is it perfect or above crticism? Absolutely not. But for those who enjoy a formal or competitive scene I think the ITC scenarios are superior to just book or malestrom games.

Is this actually your personal experience, or are you simply parroting the common defense of ITC?

Because the BRB and chapter approved missions, with one exception, don't reward you for killing the enemy unless you table them. In the ITC champions missions, 50% of the primary is ALWAYS related to body count (kill a unit, kill more units). Furthermore, most of the secondaries involve killing something. But I'll take my criticism a step further: Unless you are dead you will always hold an objective, and if you build killy enough you will always kill something. If you decide to prioritize killing and board control, you will also get "killed more" and with the distribution of objectives in the champions missions it's not difficult to deny "hold more" to your opponent. For the sake of argument though, we'll assume your opponent gets it. You would be tied, except that player A built his/her list to table their opponent, and picked the secondaries that involve killing specific things. By turn 3, player B is tabled. The problem is that Player B took the "objective" secondaries, and can only score 1 point per turn with their army spread across 4 table quarters, in their opponent's deployment zone, etc while there is no max per turn score on the "killing" secondaries. Player A achieved all their secondaries on their turn 3, and so has more points and wins even without the bonus for tabling. And the result of a table in the BRB and ITC missions is the same.
The point is that by focusing on killing over objectives you can reliably score 3/4 of the points a turn, and achieve your secondaries faster and in a way that compliments your overall army strategy. Playing for objectives is more difficult and requires you haphazardly disperse your army and hope it survives long enough to score enough to win. And in 8th edition, nothing can survive sustained firepower. Even a mixed strategy won't survive against one built solely to kill quickly.
I'm not trying to attack you personally @buddha, I've just heard the defense you gave a lot and don't think that it matches reality. Complexity doesn't equal balance.

.

Most certainly my anecdotal experience. I'm a sterotypical mid range tournament player and when I go to small and large events I like seeing ITC missions are being played. They do encourage different playstyles in lists so I don't have to play against the same army every game which is appreciated. For my side I like the choice of selecting secondaries based on each game.

I avoid the rule book missions.