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Raw Dogger busts out a Necron commission we recently completed in a video bat rep vs. Reecius' Mighty, Mighty Footdar in a 1750pt Video Bat Rep, testing out Maelstrom mission 6 of the new 7th ed rules. Also, the terrain you see in the video was created by our new terrain studio!

On the Maelstrom of War issue, I talked with a TO today while I played him. We used the normal old missions, but for Maelstrom if you preset when each card is drawn it makes more sense. Example: Turn 1, both players receive the "Overwhelming Firepower" card turn 2, both players receive "secure objective 1" and "secure objective 6". If a GT used 3 Maelstrom of War missions and 3 Eternal war Missions, it would be supremely balanced with preset cards to eliminate useless ones, or a choice, where turn 3 is "You may choose to take kill enemy Monstrous creature, or Kill enemy vehicle".

I really love the idea, but in a tournament it needs to be equal for all the games I think.

I think a significant part of the problem was that he basically had no mobility in his list facing off against a super mobile army when most of the maelstrom missions are objectives. I mean he has two doomsday arks in his list....seriously.

That being said I think that indeed for tournament play the cards need to be adjusted somehow. Maybe redraw all the cards you cant do, on top of being able to get a full discard?

The problem is you can play multiple cards in a turn and you always draw back up to 6. This means if you get a good opening hand you can play out your hand and draw a ton of cards. Compared to a bad hand where they are only drawing one card a turn. That momentum will be too much to overcome in 5 or so turns.

How it should be played is you can only play one card a turn and you can discard any number of cards. This means you can dump any cards that don't matter like kill a flyer or building, and you can keep cards you think will be strategically sound for you.

That mission started at 6 and counts down total cards available until each player can only score 1.

Here's the problem (well a problem): eldar/Deldar are the MOST agile factions. Positional dominance is what they do. Resilience, not as much (except wraith knights). The maelstrom objectives overall play to the eldar strengths.

That said, try rolling the tactical warlord traits - they seem helpful to get the most out of your objective cards.

Secondly, try flipping the scoring so you generate your cards on your turn as normal, but can't "cash in" until the enemy end of turn step. That would really increase interaction and give each player a chance to impact the endgame even vs a fast army like this one.

Also for tournaments I think assigned maelstrom objectives for each turn could be fun, but I prefer more a house rule that allows swapping 100% unattainable objectives for new ones.

How about we stick with that mission packet your were developing or using?

This is yet another battle report where there's a 40k game going and a card game going. Win or lose was determined by the cards, where the game was doing something different. Had it been a standard mission, the crons could still be in it to win it.

Maybe try some of these:

Cards should be turned in at the end of every game turn. This gives your opponent a chance to counter, so you can't throw away jet bikes to win.

Objectives should be more spread, required 2 in each section (no man, & deployment). At least 12" from other objectives and table edge.

Discard any card that is impossible.

Rewrite some of the stupid cards. Warp charge gen, really?

Maybe use the name differences for objectives to distinguish when it's turned in. For the 3rd salt, instead of scoring it, clear your opponent from it.

Also in the game I played if it said destroy X unit and they had none you got the point. A penalty for not having a fully flushed out list.

Thanks for posting the report. I guess I'm looking at things a bit different. I'm really not seeing the cards as being unfair. What I'm seeing are armies that may already be geared to play Maelstrom of War and armies which are not (IE: mobile Eldar build vs a less mobile Necron build).

On turn 1, the Eldar had the mobility to score the objectives quick and the Necron army really had no way to go after objectives that were far away. To me, that is an issue with list design in 7th. Imagine this same game except it was Eldar vs. Drop Pod Marines...

Not saying that a person can't draw some unfavorable cards; this same thing existed already, but in a different format (IE: Hammer and Anvil deployment, Emperor's Will Objectives against an IG gun line = unfavorable matchup for me). But, I've had games where I can see what cards have not been drawn yet and begin to predict what will likely appear and make preparations towards it.

I'm not overly familiar with the Necron Codex, but isn't the transport a Troop choice and would benefit from Objective Secured? This would mean the Hellions/Farseer combo could not have taken the objective, it would have been contested, if I'm understanding the mechanics correctly.

I suppose the most revealing fact for me is that there needs to be some reorganizing of army list design when factoring these kinds of missions. Movement may be as or more important than shooting/psychics/assault phases.

Looking forward to getting more games in and viewing a few more 7th edition video battle reports.

Disclaimer i have not gotten any games of 7th yet, so only theorizing at this point.

Reece, i know you guys are trying to make a point with these battle reports, and documenting your thoughts as you go. As some of the above have mentioned there are three things on trial here.

Mission, Ruleset, Army Lists, (plus Dice). You are doing an experiment with three distinct variables which is going to make it hard for you to make too many claims about the game as yet. the game can't be teased apart beyond its specific 3 variables.

Lists,
- Eldar are using what is a footlist but way faster due to eldar mechanics. This mobility benefit plays directly into your hands and makes it so that you can grab objectives before the opponent.

- Necrons built a list and didn't optimize it for 7th with the ruleset and using objective secured benefits. Necrons didn't consider the mobility benefit offered by night scythes. If your opponent had taken the ubiquitous wraithwing cron list it would have been a very different game.

Missioncards/mission
- tough break with the mission cards but if your opponent had a different list would it still have been as bad? This game could be more even if lists had been more even. As you yourself said you were just throwing units away at the end. whats to say in 6th edition your list doesn't crush the necron list to begin with. Seems like it would. Point being its hard to separate list from mission success.

Ruleset
- the ruleset itself seems pretty tight. with the exception to the madness that can happen in the psychic phase. I think it just needs a little tweak as someone suggested a tax for summoning units seems like a good option (tax equals x-1 warp charge per turn, where x equals to the amount of warp charge needed to summon the unit in question.)
- the first turn thing seems like it might be an attempt to modify drop pod/alpha strike. If the first player deploys and the second null deploys then you can say ok you take first turn, cause at least that way there is a chance of reprisal.
I must say its a bit shoddily done. It should really be that if one player null deploys he automatically gives the choice of first/second to his opponent.

I disagree with you on first turn. I think they needed to make it that way now that full reserves is a thing again. Otherwise you would set everything up, then the other player goes full reserve and we are back to that crap where one side diddles their pud the first two turns. This way if either side decides to full reserve the other can at least react.

You can now fight into a challenge if theres nothing else to fight in the cobat. so the wraithknight could have been smacking his Dlord

Eternal War mission Daemons vs GK with a competent GK player next please?

Playing Maelstorm missions is a lot like playing poker. In this case, Jason drew out 2,3,4,7,9 whereas Reece got Aces-full (A,A,A,K,K). Hard to come back from behind when the cards are like that. Yes, these new missions are more like a card game than an actual, "traditional" 40K game.

However, with that said, Jason was playing a dinosaur of an army build - the static gunline. Nowadays, if you don't have mobility and if you don't play aggressively, you are the underdog. The key word is "Mobile Scoring". If you want to be able to compete in 7th, that is what you must have.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I disagree with you on first turn. I think they needed to make it that way now that full reserves is a thing again. Otherwise you would set everything up, then the other player goes full reserve and we are back to that crap where one side diddles their pud the first two turns. This way if either side decides to full reserve the other can at least react.

It's a HUGE advantage to be able to deploy first, see how the opponent deploys, and then be able to choose to go 1st or 2nd. GW messed up on this one big time. Now anyone who wins the roll to go first has a major, major advantage. I am surprised that you don't see this.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Eternal War mission Daemons vs GK with a competent GK player next please?

Sounds like a job for my Crowe-Purifiers.

What about playing the Maelstrom missions with a communal hand that both players seek to complete missions from?

 Eldarain wrote:
What about playing the Maelstrom missions with a communal hand that both players seek to complete missions from?

I like that idea! Kinda like Texas Hold'em, only we will call it Maelstrom Hold'em.

Each player gets 2 secret objective cards, of which they can discard/draw 1 per game.

Then the rest of the objective cards that come out are then shared by both players. If the card is useless to even 1 of the players (i.e. kill building where 1 army doesn't have any), then it is discarded and another card is drawn.

 jy2 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
What about playing the Maelstrom missions with a communal hand that both players seek to complete missions from?

I like that idea! Kinda like Texas Hold'em, only we will call it Maelstrom Hold'em.

Each player gets 2 secret objective cards, of which they can discard/draw 1 per game.

Then the rest of the objective cards that come out are then shared by both players. If the card is useless to even 1 of the players (i.e. kill building where 1 army doesn't have any), then it is discarded and another card is drawn.

Exactly. I'm excited to try it out as I love the concept of the constantly shifting objectives just not their implementation.

I guess the reason I have less issue with the way they chose to handle first turn is because SO many armies want to go second in 6th. I don't see that changing in 7th, now at least if you want to have the chance to declare you will be going 2nd you need to reveal your deployment first which lets them counter deploy. I can't count how many games I have played where the initial die roll is really to see who goes last. It's insult added to injury when they can also counter deploy on you to mitigate first turn.

Many aren't considering the game with null deployment either. 6th was annoying in regard to the speed of certain builds straight from deployment (I'm looking at you guys eldar and necrons). Now you can go full reserve again like mech eldar used to. Again, at least they have to reveal that to you now first before deciding to go second.

That said set up and first turn will ALWAYS be one sided and unbalancing in a massive way. As the scale increases this becomes worse. that's just the nature of any game where one side moves everything before their opponent does. Nit picking over it at all with out turning to squad activation seems silly to me.


I really like the holdem idea BTW. I could see that as being the perfect balance while keeping the game fluid. My only suggestion is why not pull all the useless cards out first

Are you playinf with the ADL Quad gun so it has to snap fire because they changed the rules for skyfire and interceptor

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

First, yeah, for sure the cron army wasn't optimized for Tue missions. That wasn't on purpose, though. Jason just brought stuff hevliked from the commission. I brought the same Footdar list ive beeen playing since the Eldar book came out. We rolled a random mission. We didn't set anything up, so to speak, just played a game and recorded what we saw happen and thought about it.

So far, in the 8 games we've played with cards, all of them have been determined by who drew the better hand , first. As is, they're mega unbalancing. With house rules, they could work.

We did play the quad gun snap firing at ground targets (except skimmers).

We did play (and mention) that the Wraithknight could hit the DLord in a challenge, he just kept whiffing, lol!

The roll to go first is too powerful now, it needs to be toned down, IMO.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Eternal War mission Daemons vs GK with a competent GK player next please?

Sounds like a job for my Crowe-Purifiers.

Yes please! Would like to see the new powers in action.

 invisiblade wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Eternal War mission Daemons vs GK with a competent GK player next please?

Sounds like a job for my Crowe-Purifiers.

Yes please! Would like to see the new powers in action.

Seconded

Reece.... your BTILC shirt is just too cool for words. I'm so jealous! Thanks for posting the batreps... they're very educational and helpful. Though... I am somewhat despondant now.



I don't know how applicable this would be to all of the missions that use cards, but the following might well solve the card imbalance issue with this particular mission.

- each player draws six cards as normal
- if a player doesn't like their cards, they may "Mulligan" (like MTG), discarding them all and drawing 5 in their place (the 6th is the penalty for the Mulligan).

This still allows them to discard one card and draw a replacement in each round as they'll start one card short, allowing them some hope even if their second draw is as bad as their first and they aren't able to score any of the replacement cards either (worst case scenario). I'd think this would go a long way in making the cards for this mission much more equitable.

Thoughts?

You dont have to use the cards. There are still the EW missions.

 Reecius wrote:

So far, in the 8 games we've played with cards, all of them have been determined by who drew the better hand , first. As is, they're mega unbalancing. With house rules, they could work.
.

Glad to see folks trying them and not simply rejecting them. But I have a hard time reconciling this observation with my experiences with the missions. The mission on the video starts with a 6 card hand, and reduces size from there. This is horrible mission design for two reasons. The person going first gets to grab all of the objectives first, and if someone gets a bad starting hand, there is no good way to cycle those cards.

But...

The other missions are not like that. Most of them only start you with 2-3 cards, and #2 starts you with only a single card. Getting a 'good starting hand' is almost meaningless.


As for this particular BatRep:
Maelstrom missions are about tactical flexibility, and RD (the necron player) decided it would be a great idea to turtle up in the corner behind an ADL. That is just never going to work. It is not a good idea for most missions... but especially ones with any sort of progressive scoring. It was a very static army list, played in a very static manner.... for a very dynamic mission.

RD was complaining because the cards he had were on the 'other side of the board'... yet Reese managed to get *all* of the objectives**... RD couldn't even stop him from getting the objective that was behind his own ADL.. I mean c'mon.... This was not the fault of the cards nor of a 'bad hand'.

They could have swapped cards and board sides, and Reese would still have won. They could have picked almost any mission in the book, and reese would have won.

RD had never played necrons before, and the list was based on a commission, so that might be why he hid in the corner instead of trying to control objectives... but the reality is the Necrons were not not at all prepared for a dyanamic tactical game. He was going to sit in the corner and let Eldar have the run of the board. And then spent the last half of the video blaming the loss on the cards....


Now, again, I agree that mission #6 is poorly designed, there is almost no way to come if turn 1 is really bad; but that just was not the cause of the loss. If you are playing a progessive scoring mission, and sit in a corner, and let your opponent score the entire board, *including* your own corner.... you are going to lose. Cards or no cards.



**I will say, it appeared that the objectives were much closer to the Eldar side than the Necon side. Not sure if that was accurate, but it looked that way.

That is good to know the other card missions are better balanced.

it seems that starting with 6 cards is way too many. It also makes no sense that the way objectives are scored is at the end of the turn. This means that the second player is always playing catchup since he has to get you off the objective before he can score on it.
I haven't seen the cards or rules yet, but would it be better to not score objective secured until the beginning of your next turn?

I like the idea of starting with 2-3 cards, but drawing an additional card at the end of each turn, but being allowed to discard as many as you want to during your turn and then drawing back up to the max.

This is one of six maelstrom missions and they are beginners I mean we are all beginners when it comes to these missions will take some time to get use to.

The other missions have been better (except the Cloak and Dagger one, that one is rough, too). But, still, in every game but one, the player with the better initial hand has won.

I think if you changed it to like, 3 objectives, all in no man's land, and limited each player to 3 cards with a redraw for a card you can't score, it becomes quite fair and fun.