krootman. wrote:

Spoiler:

luke1705 wrote: Wow way to steal the list you saw me play at TOGIT I traded out the spore squads for Rippers in the primary CAD to have 3 obsec units. If you're set on no obsec, I would probably grab Mucolids instead of the regular spores. They can assault flyers and str 8 AP 3 is much better than what the regular spores pop out, even if they do have a little more in terms of linear area denial. Of course, good luck finding/modeling 9 mucolids

Haha I had no idea that is what you ran, when I sent Nayden the list idea he said it looked like your list. I guess great minds think alike. How has it been working out for you?

I was thinking about using more mucolids as well, I might add 1 or 2 more and trim my spore mine units to 2-3 6 man units so I can use them as los blockers as well as maning coms

luke1705 wrote:
5 Flyrants is a bit of a fluke of a list. It works exceptionally well in certain mission formats (such as BAO), but also suffers from a Rock-Paper-Scissors effect in the same way that any list built out of the Tyranid codex does. For instance, a Tau list with Buffmander, 2 Skyrays, and a Skyfire burstide will be plucking 2 flyrants out of the sky per turn while taking 2-3 wounds back. There are Tau lists that are going to be unbeatable without a giant helping of luck for a good tyranid army in the BAO system. If you tailor to those lists, you will find yourself unable to compete with most other tourney builds. So your best bet is to beat them psychologically by insisting that Skyrays are not a TAC choice and that Iontides are the way to go.

Eldar are a little different. They have the tools to beat 5 flyrants, or 3 flyrants and a barbed heirodule. But usually they don't employ them preferring to stick with Wave Serpents as the source of most of their firepower. Against most Eldar Tourney lists you can compete with either 5 Flyrants or 3 Flyrants and a Barbed Heirodule. Its not an autowin, but neither is it auto lose. Personally, I think a Barbed Heirodule adds a lot vs Eldar, and if they are your primary opponent I would look in that direction.

I agree, in my humble opinion a 5 flyrant list does not have the tools to make it out of a 6-9 round gt. There are too many objective missions and with armies they have difficulty killing they will be in trouble. My current eldar list has 3 wks, 3 serpents, summon seer and some bikes and I do pretty well vs nids in objective missions. Then again wraithknights are a hard counter to flyrants as well.

luke1705 wrote: Eldar and Tau are clearly the top Codexes with undercosted units and upgrades that put them solidly on top of the heap when it comes to tournament builds. Their points efficiency allows for a much more forgiving, less luck dependent victory. With Tyranids you are always gambling, and our top builds are just like AD Lance. Unbalanced and able to beat the tar out of many opponents, but face certain matchups where we need major luck to pull it off.
I wouldn't build toward 5 flyrants only unless I was planning on playing nothing but BAO missions.

Mass flyrants are fickle imo, they can either kill a unit a turn or you will dump 3 flyrants into a tac squad in 1 turn. They can also live all game or you can fail 3 grounding checks in a turn. When it comes to gts, I like to do as little gambling as I can and stick to the shore thing. Its the same reason why people dont spam as many serpents as they can in 1850 and nothing else.

As far as lvo missions go, flyrants do ok in that if you have to go first you can snag fb and hopefully force malestron to not matter (I think flyrants are pretty meh overall with malestrom) and you can hopefully keep them out of your backfield with the flyrants you have a pretty good chance of winning. Also going 2nd is a huge advantage in lvo format, and it fixes any issues the flyrants have with scoring. However any msu army that can be everywhere(especially if has alot of obsed, I run 9 obsec units in 1850) at once will be just to much for mass flyrants to handle and I think thats where the nid players are going to struggle at lvo.

Wow... that's A LOT of good info that I would not have thought of if I hadn't asked. Thank you so much for the insight! That's a lot to think about. Always thought pentyrants was just "go to competitive list" like "serpent spam, triptide + buffmander" etc. I understand though now, that pentyrant lists might be too hit or miss now that you mention what kind of tournaments you might be taking it to or vs specific matchups. Probably not the best TAC list to do to a varied environment. Thanks!

What people don't realize is alot of these popular lists do well because they were piloted by someone who played nothing but this list for a few months leading towards the gt they won. So to expect to pick up and play and do well is unrealistic. Also if you notice at most major events there is some combination of the same group of players at the top. That is because these players all test against popular lists and know exactly how to beat it multiple ways. For example I know myself and most other people who are going to lvo from my area have played at least 25-40 practice games. Does that mean we are going to win, not at all...but it is better going in knowing exactly what your list can and cant do and modifying it accordingly. Especially for us east coasters who really have an understanding of west coast meta. It also helps if you have a very good play test grp. I know I regualary get to test with half the American ETC team as well as many current and former gt champs, and when we test we dont really care about who wins or loses, more about how the game played out.

luke1705 wrote: He's a guy who took a ton of lictors and only two Flyrants and managed to win a 6 round Grand Tournament a few months back. He's actually done very well competitively with the list since then, going on an 11 game competitive win streak after those 6 games, finally getting that streak snapped, by krootman and Verthane actually. Went 1-2 in that tournament at TOGIT. Though I can't say how things went against krootman, his game against Verthane truly could have gone either way like 3 times. And some sneaky windows that almost went unnoticed really screwed Seam over a bit.

His list: (a rough approximation)

Flyrant w/Devs and EGrubs
Flyrant w/Devs and EGrubs

Lictor
Lictor
Lictor

5 Genestealers
5 Genestealers
3 DS Rippers (I believe?)
1 Mucolid
1 Mucolid
1 Mucolid

3 Spores
3 Spores
3 Spores

Mawloc
Mawloc
Mawloc

Deathleaper Assassin Brood (consists of Deathleaper and 5 single man Lictor units)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but basically he took a list that no one saw coming at all and has been doing very well since, even with the publicity and attention that it has received as a GT-winning list.

I beat him pretty handily, but there are a few things to consider with our game.

1) Wks are his hard counter, and I had 3 of them.
2) I know exactly how his list plays as I picked his brain after 11th
3) he tried something new and it didnt work out the way he thought.
4) his dice spiked, but mine spiked way harder haha

Not making excuses one way or another but when 2 players closely matched play its usually the meta that determines the winner.

pinecone77 wrote:I doesn't look bad. Personally I would trade the Spore Mines for a couple of Swarms of Rippers, with Tunneling, so you can get a tiny amount of OS into the list. But that is a "style" thing.

I had rippers in the first build, but I didnt have the points to use them if I wanted to spam mines (the most op broken unit in the nid book)

tag8833 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
Hmmm....with all these talks a bout Pentyrant being unbalanced and really not that great for a GT, maybe I should take it to the LVO. Seems like they do have something to prove.

Great for LVO. Its basically a hard counter for my Barbed Heirodule list, and will blow alot of people out that will be a close game to me. Meanwhile there is maybe one matchup that I win that you don't. Possibly 2 if someone runs a Necron warrior blob based list.

Not so good in some other tournament system. For Instance, at 11th Company, Lictor Shame would have beat you handily. In a Maelstrom Tourney you struggle, especially if you don't autowin on a tabling. It is a list that is singularly exceptional at the BAO missions, and I don't think anyone that has tried it would argue otherwise. (Maybe some of the TAU players over at Torrent of Fire: http://www.torrentoffire.com/6486/steal-this-wisdom) If you play basically only BAO missions, and do not object to running 5 flyrants, then it is probably the best list for you.

For me it is hard to find BAO tourneys unless I run them myself, and after LVO, I'm probably done with that. Most tourneys in my region prefer to use either Maelstrom or some other mission pack all together. A few still run EW missions where 5 Flyrants work just fine. Also regionally, army comp is generally either much saner, or completely wide open. Leviathan along side a CAD is forbidden most places, and those places that allow it tend to allow unlimited detachments, So there is no reason not to build the same list as 2 CADs and an Ally.

I think we've got to escape this sort of tunnel vision where one list is the best, no matter the terrain, FAQ, or Missions. To maximize your chance to win, you tailor to those things. For BAO that means play a kill point denial list that can jump on objectives at the end. For 11th Company it means play a MSU list. For Maelstrom it means play a list with powerful central board presence. For NOVA it means play a highly mobile list which to us means Flying Circus. I'm gearing up for a 'Da Boyz format tournament. Flyrants are 0-2, so I've got to build a 2 Flyrant list that can compete in their missions some of which require a board presence. I'm leaning towards bringing Raveners.

luke1705 wrote:

 krootman. wrote:

Spoiler:

luke1705 wrote: Wow way to steal the list you saw me play at TOGIT I traded out the spore squads for Rippers in the primary CAD to have 3 obsec units. If you're set on no obsec, I would probably grab Mucolids instead of the regular spores. They can assault flyers and str 8 AP 3 is much better than what the regular spores pop out, even if they do have a little more in terms of linear area denial. Of course, good luck finding/modeling 9 mucolids

Haha I had no idea that is what you ran, when I sent Nayden the list idea he said it looked like your list. I guess great minds think alike. How has it been working out for you?

I was thinking about using more mucolids as well, I might add 1 or 2 more and trim my spore mine units to 2-3 6 man units so I can use them as los blockers as well as maning coms

luke1705 wrote:
5 Flyrants is a bit of a fluke of a list. It works exceptionally well in certain mission formats (such as BAO), but also suffers from a Rock-Paper-Scissors effect in the same way that any list built out of the Tyranid codex does. For instance, a Tau list with Buffmander, 2 Skyrays, and a Skyfire burstide will be plucking 2 flyrants out of the sky per turn while taking 2-3 wounds back. There are Tau lists that are going to be unbeatable without a giant helping of luck for a good tyranid army in the BAO system. If you tailor to those lists, you will find yourself unable to compete with most other tourney builds. So your best bet is to beat them psychologically by insisting that Skyrays are not a TAC choice and that Iontides are the way to go.

Eldar are a little different. They have the tools to beat 5 flyrants, or 3 flyrants and a barbed heirodule. But usually they don't employ them preferring to stick with Wave Serpents as the source of most of their firepower. Against most Eldar Tourney lists you can compete with either 5 Flyrants or 3 Flyrants and a Barbed Heirodule. Its not an autowin, but neither is it auto lose. Personally, I think a Barbed Heirodule adds a lot vs Eldar, and if they are your primary opponent I would look in that direction.

I agree, in my humble opinion a 5 flyrant list does not have the tools to make it out of a 6-9 round gt. There are too many objective missions and with armies they have difficulty killing they will be in trouble. My current eldar list has 3 wks, 3 serpents, summon seer and some bikes and I do pretty well vs nids in objective missions. Then again wraithknights are a hard counter to flyrants as well.

luke1705 wrote: Eldar and Tau are clearly the top Codexes with undercosted units and upgrades that put them solidly on top of the heap when it comes to tournament builds. Their points efficiency allows for a much more forgiving, less luck dependent victory. With Tyranids you are always gambling, and our top builds are just like AD Lance. Unbalanced and able to beat the tar out of many opponents, but face certain matchups where we need major luck to pull it off.
I wouldn't build toward 5 flyrants only unless I was planning on playing nothing but BAO missions.

Mass flyrants are fickle imo, they can either kill a unit a turn or you will dump 3 flyrants into a tac squad in 1 turn. They can also live all game or you can fail 3 grounding checks in a turn. When it comes to gts, I like to do as little gambling as I can and stick to the shore thing. Its the same reason why people dont spam as many serpents as they can in 1850 and nothing else.

As far as lvo missions go, flyrants do ok in that if you have to go first you can snag fb and hopefully force malestron to not matter (I think flyrants are pretty meh overall with malestrom) and you can hopefully keep them out of your backfield with the flyrants you have a pretty good chance of winning. Also going 2nd is a huge advantage in lvo format, and it fixes any issues the flyrants have with scoring. However any msu army that can be everywhere(especially if has alot of obsed, I run 9 obsec units in 1850) at once will be just to much for mass flyrants to handle and I think thats where the nid players are going to struggle at lvo.

Wow... that's A LOT of good info that I would not have thought of if I hadn't asked. Thank you so much for the insight! That's a lot to think about. Always thought pentyrants was just "go to competitive list" like "serpent spam, triptide + buffmander" etc. I understand though now, that pentyrant lists might be too hit or miss now that you mention what kind of tournaments you might be taking it to or vs specific matchups. Probably not the best TAC list to do to a varied environment. Thanks!

What people don't realize is alot of these popular lists do well because they were piloted by someone who played nothing but this list for a few months leading towards the gt they won. So to expect to pick up and play and do well is unrealistic. Also if you notice at most major events there is some combination of the same group of players at the top. That is because these players all test against popular lists and know exactly how to beat it multiple ways. For example I know myself and most other people who are going to lvo from my area have played at least 25-40 practice games. Does that mean we are going to win, not at all...but it is better going in knowing exactly what your list can and cant do and modifying it accordingly. Especially for us east coasters who really have an understanding of west coast meta. It also helps if you have a very good play test grp. I know I regualary get to test with half the American ETC team as well as many current and former gt champs, and when we test we dont really care about who wins or loses, more about how the game played out.

luke1705 wrote: He's a guy who took a ton of lictors and only two Flyrants and managed to win a 6 round Grand Tournament a few months back. He's actually done very well competitively with the list since then, going on an 11 game competitive win streak after those 6 games, finally getting that streak snapped, by krootman and Verthane actually. Went 1-2 in that tournament at TOGIT. Though I can't say how things went against krootman, his game against Verthane truly could have gone either way like 3 times. And some sneaky windows that almost went unnoticed really screwed Seam over a bit.

His list: (a rough approximation)

Flyrant w/Devs and EGrubs
Flyrant w/Devs and EGrubs

Lictor
Lictor
Lictor

5 Genestealers
5 Genestealers
3 DS Rippers (I believe?)
1 Mucolid
1 Mucolid
1 Mucolid

3 Spores
3 Spores
3 Spores

Mawloc
Mawloc
Mawloc

Deathleaper Assassin Brood (consists of Deathleaper and 5 single man Lictor units)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but basically he took a list that no one saw coming at all and has been doing very well since, even with the publicity and attention that it has received as a GT-winning list.

I beat him pretty handily, but there are a few things to consider with our game.

1) Wks are his hard counter, and I had 3 of them.
2) I know exactly how his list plays as I picked his brain after 11th
3) he tried something new and it didnt work out the way he thought.
4) his dice spiked, but mine spiked way harder haha

Not making excuses one way or another but when 2 players closely matched play its usually the meta that determines the winner.

pinecone77 wrote:I doesn't look bad. Personally I would trade the Spore Mines for a couple of Swarms of Rippers, with Tunneling, so you can get a tiny amount of OS into the list. But that is a "style" thing.

I had rippers in the first build, but I didnt have the points to use them if I wanted to spam mines (the most op broken unit in the nid book)

It's a tough choice, but I wound up going with 3 ripper squads for the obsec over the spore spam. I can certainly see spores being like lictors in that once you reach a saturation point, the hits start coming pretty fast in the thunder dome. If I had my heart super set on the spores, I would probably take just 2 ripper squads and then drop down to 4 lictors, as that would net you 9 spore units and still have some obsec.

As for how I've done with the list, my only loss out of ~ 10 games was to Nick's LVO list (or close to it) and I'm ok with that. It was the first time I ran across that list and man is it tough as nails! Not all of them were against LVO caliber lists, but it really puts a stranglehold on the objectives late game. Three times I've had opponents just concede around turn 4 as the writing was on the wall, and one of those was to the guy who tied for third at the TOGIT tournament (battle points OP).

Oh and just FWIW, I can't take credit for all of the things you attributed to me in that wall of text lol. It doesn't matter, and I know the ghosts in the machine do what they want in complex quotes inside of quotes. I only even mention it because I don't agree with all of what was said

 Sinful Hero wrote:
@tag8833
I'm curious why you would take Ravenors over Shrikes(other than no having the models). Only advantages Ravenors have over them are the beast type and they can take two CC weapons and a gun. Shrikes have a better range of weapon options(both melee and ranged), synapse, access to grenades, and shadow in the warp. They can move a the same speed as well(generally speaking, Beasts can ignore terrain).

 krootman. wrote:
What makes you think bao packet is really good for the pentaflyrant list? I am curious your reasoning

luke1705 wrote:
Tag,

I'm surprised that you had the majority of the games won by people who went first. You are scoring the maelstrom objectives at the end of the game turn, not the player turn, right? I feel like that is a flaw of the BAO format - that it favors the player who goes second. But maybe that's not as pronounced as I think it is.

 Frozocrone wrote:
I was looking at the assassins recently for DE purposes and I came across something that someone had posted that they said they had found devasting.

They combined a Culexus assassin with the Neurothropes and pitted them both against a Psyker unit. With the combined special rules, the enemy unit don't generate any warpcharges by themselves, so you could cast Spirit Leech relatively easy without being denied, and then make them do a Ld test on 3D6 with a -6 modifer.

Thoughts?

 Tyran wrote:
PenTyrant murders Wave Serpents IIRC.

rigeld2 wrote:
Still, 4 Tyrants should be murdering Serpents and Hornets.

rigeld2 wrote:
Still, 4 Tyrants should be murdering Serpents and Hornets.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
3 Flyrants(720), 3 Mucolids(45), 2 Devilfexes(300), and 2 Tyrannocytes(150) run at 1215. Not enough points to run SkyBlight, but could fit in a LAN or SkyTyrant. Maybe upgrade some Mucolids to rippers or other Objective scorers.

tag8833 wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
3 Flyrants(720), 3 Mucolids(45), 2 Devilfexes(300), and 2 Tyrannocytes(150) run at 1215. Not enough points to run SkyBlight, but could fit in a LAN or SkyTyrant. Maybe upgrade some Mucolids to rippers or other Objective scorers.

That works ok, but you need reserves modifiers, and you aren't coming in all at once, so the Serpents can shoot unmolested at the flyrants for a couple turns before the Carnifexes show up, so it doesn't work out great for you.

Crones are a better choice against wave serpents because they can arrive at the same time as the flyrants and they are much more survivable against this list.

Deathleapers assassin brood works OK against serpents because lictors don't scatter when they come in, and so they always get back armor which forces the serpent player to make a tough call on whether to jink or not, and if they aren't dealt with, you are assaulting the serpents and killing them that way.

This is what I might suggest:

Spoiler:

Leviathan
Hive Tyrant (Wings, E. Grubs, 2 TL-Devourers)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, E. Grubs, 2 TL-Devourers)
Hive Tyrant (Wings, E. Grubs, 2 TL-Devourers)

Malanthrope
Lictor

Mucolid
Mucolid
Mucolid

Crone
Crone
Crone

Deathleaper's Assassin Brood.
Deathleaper
Lictor
Lictor
Lictor
Lictor
Lictor

Total: 1745

Its a decent list that is light on Scoring, but solid on anti-Wave serpent power. Should be able to kill 1 serpent on turn 1, and 2-3 on turn 2. You will lose 2 Flyrants, but should have enough to mop up the Eldar. Its not autowin, but we are talking about the Tyranid Codex, so there is a very limited toolset. Its a shame you have to roll on Leviathan for Warlord powers.

Eldercaveman wrote:
Well you could always make Deathleaper your Warlord for a single roll on Strategic.

tag8833 wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:
Well you could always make Deathleaper your Warlord for a single roll on Strategic.

Nope. Unfortunately, he comes with a fixed warlord trait, and it is essentially useless.

ETA. Making him the warlord would probably be a good idea, especially in this matchup, but his Warlord trait is so impractical that you are better off rolling on Leviathan.

tag8833 wrote:

luke1705 wrote:
Tag,

I'm surprised that you had the majority of the games won by people who went first. You are scoring the maelstrom objectives at the end of the game turn, not the player turn, right? I feel like that is a flaw of the BAO format - that it favors the player who goes second. But maybe that's not as pronounced as I think it is.

It was as close to even as you could possibly have with an odd number of games. We haven't tracked who went first in any other events, but Reecius from FLG who helped designed the missions reported that at BAO going second won a fraction of a percent more if I recall. So they are actually quite balanced in regards to who goes first.

I try to explain the balance here:

Spoiler:

Much of the balance has to do with the importance of first blood. As I said in the post above the Maelstrom Objectives are of fairly trivial importance. No one in any of the 3 events that we tracked primary and secondary separately has ever won a mission while losing the primary. In rare cases you can tie the primary and win a mission based on the secondary, but that is pretty rare. Meanwhile First Blood have been the difference between a Win and a Tie quite often, and less often between a tie and a win.

After a bit of discussion with Reecius I believe that the maelstrom scoring was probably setup in that fashion in an attempt to offset the power of First Blood and the advantage of an Alpha Strike.

Here are my provisional plans to improve on the BAO missions and Army Comp for our future tourneys:

Spoiler:

1st, its important to understand that all of the local 40k players love Maelstrom. It promotes a much more interactive and fun game where lists are more balanced and in line with fluff, and the ratio between list building and gameplay is shifted a bit towards gameplay in relation to BAO missions. However, I feel like BAO missions were generally on the right track, and so I will be attempting to modify them to downplay some of the negatives while capturing most of the positives.

Here are my initial plans for the missions:
#1 Make Maelstrom the primary, and EW the secondary.
#2 Roll for and score Maelstrom on the Player turn, not the game turn.
#3 Change the objective placement rules so that all maelstrom objectives are placed in No-Mans Land.
#4 Replace 1st blood with "Marked for Death" or some other option.
#5 Alter the Maelstrom list to remove the positional objectives (Have 3 of your units in your deployment zone, Have a unit in the enemy deployment) with Successfully make a charge, and Control more objective markers than your opponent.

After that I will consider adjusting the tertiary objectives to be different for each mission. I am concerned that I might make EW as irrelevant in my modified missions as Maelstrom is in the unmodified one. In which case I will make Primary and Secondary both worth 3, and add a 4th Tertiary point.

Here are my initial plans for army Comp.
#1 a Codex specific detachment will count as a CAD, and you will be limited to 0-1 CAD.
#2 Your primary detachment must have at least 55% of your points. (I will probably round this to 1,000 points in an 1850 tourney)
#3 You can take multiple formations so long as they don't violate #2, and come from the same faction as your primary detachment.
#4 Dedicated Transports are only Objective Secured if there is an Objective Secured unit inside of them.

There is quite a bit of support for banning Ad Lance, Fire Support Cadre, Angel's Fury Spearhead Force, and possibly Skyblight, but I'm going to try to hold out as long as possible before banning any formations, and my hope is that forcing Large formations to draw their warlord from those formations will help nerf them a tiny bit.

 syypher wrote:
Any cut and dry standards you guys use for determining when to jink game turn 1 if your going second and eating an alpha strike? Like, if I get my 2+ Malanthrope save don't jink, unless they ignore cover and ignore my 3+ save? That's what I was thinking..

Also, do FMCs block lanes of movement? Say I fly my Harpy in front of a unit and now it has to walk around it to move?

 jy2 wrote:

 syypher wrote:
Any cut and dry standards you guys use for determining when to jink game turn 1 if your going second and eating an alpha strike? Like, if I get my 2+ Malanthrope save don't jink, unless they ignore cover and ignore my 3+ save? That's what I was thinking..

Also, do FMCs block lanes of movement? Say I fly my Harpy in front of a unit and now it has to walk around it to move?

In a ways they do. If they are in gliding mode, then they act as any other model. However if a FMCS is in swooping mode, you can actually move through their base so long as you can end your move with no models within 1" of the FMC.

 syypher wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 syypher wrote:
Any cut and dry standards you guys use for determining when to jink game turn 1 if your going second and eating an alpha strike? Like, if I get my 2+ Malanthrope save don't jink, unless they ignore cover and ignore my 3+ save? That's what I was thinking..

Also, do FMCs block lanes of movement? Say I fly my Harpy in front of a unit and now it has to walk around it to move?

In a ways they do. If they are in gliding mode, then they act as any other model. However if a FMCS is in swooping mode, you can actually move through their base so long as you can end your move with no models within 1" of the FMC.

Interesting... I can think of some ways that can play in especially vs slower or real large things like Termies or Imperial Knights >:}


New question...
What do you guys think is the best wargear loadout for a CC Skyrant? OA + Reaper for sure. What else?

luke1705 wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

luke1705 wrote:
Tag,

I'm surprised that you had the majority of the games won by people who went first. You are scoring the maelstrom objectives at the end of the game turn, not the player turn, right? I feel like that is a flaw of the BAO format - that it favors the player who goes second. But maybe that's not as pronounced as I think it is.

It was as close to even as you could possibly have with an odd number of games. We haven't tracked who went first in any other events, but Reecius from FLG who helped designed the missions reported that at BAO going second won a fraction of a percent more if I recall. So they are actually quite balanced in regards to who goes first.

I try to explain the balance here:

Spoiler:

Much of the balance has to do with the importance of first blood. As I said in the post above the Maelstrom Objectives are of fairly trivial importance. No one in any of the 3 events that we tracked primary and secondary separately has ever won a mission while losing the primary. In rare cases you can tie the primary and win a mission based on the secondary, but that is pretty rare. Meanwhile First Blood have been the difference between a Win and a Tie quite often, and less often between a tie and a win.

After a bit of discussion with Reecius I believe that the maelstrom scoring was probably setup in that fashion in an attempt to offset the power of First Blood and the advantage of an Alpha Strike.

Here are my provisional plans to improve on the BAO missions and Army Comp for our future tourneys:

Spoiler:

1st, its important to understand that all of the local 40k players love Maelstrom. It promotes a much more interactive and fun game where lists are more balanced and in line with fluff, and the ratio between list building and gameplay is shifted a bit towards gameplay in relation to BAO missions. However, I feel like BAO missions were generally on the right track, and so I will be attempting to modify them to downplay some of the negatives while capturing most of the positives.

Here are my initial plans for the missions:
#1 Make Maelstrom the primary, and EW the secondary.
#2 Roll for and score Maelstrom on the Player turn, not the game turn.
#3 Change the objective placement rules so that all maelstrom objectives are placed in No-Mans Land.
#4 Replace 1st blood with "Marked for Death" or some other option.
#5 Alter the Maelstrom list to remove the positional objectives (Have 3 of your units in your deployment zone, Have a unit in the enemy deployment) with Successfully make a charge, and Control more objective markers than your opponent.

After that I will consider adjusting the tertiary objectives to be different for each mission. I am concerned that I might make EW as irrelevant in my modified missions as Maelstrom is in the unmodified one. In which case I will make Primary and Secondary both worth 3, and add a 4th Tertiary point.

Here are my initial plans for army Comp.
#1 a Codex specific detachment will count as a CAD, and you will be limited to 0-1 CAD.
#2 Your primary detachment must have at least 55% of your points. (I will probably round this to 1,000 points in an 1850 tourney)
#3 You can take multiple formations so long as they don't violate #2, and come from the same faction as your primary detachment.
#4 Dedicated Transports are only Objective Secured if there is an Objective Secured unit inside of them.

There is quite a bit of support for banning Ad Lance, Fire Support Cadre, Angel's Fury Spearhead Force, and possibly Skyblight, but I'm going to try to hold out as long as possible before banning any formations, and my hope is that forcing Large formations to draw their warlord from those formations will help nerf them a tiny bit.

All solid points and I like the interactivity of putting the maelstrom objectives in no man's land. It would go a long way towards making assault more viable as well. My only qualm would be that you somewhat enforce a different kind of meta. What you lose is long range fire support (or at least invalidate some of the advantage that it used to offer). Why would I bring a War Walker if it has to get all up close and personal to score? That being said, it really feels a little more thematic. Wars should be won and lost in the trenches, not from far away.

 syypher wrote:
What do you guys think is the best wargear loadout for a CC Skyrant? OA + Reaper for sure. What else?