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So, I've been ruminating on the latest tournaments and something occurred to me. Tournament players, in general, don't realise who their opponent is! The game of 40k, with the addition of maelstrom objectives is no longer you versus an opponent, it is now you and your opponent trying to beat the game itself. When you look at the game in that respect, you then begin to understand why adamantium lance and wave serpent spam have been losing ground in the competitive scene. Those lists(as well as most deathstars/ superheavies) are designed to defeat other armies. That isn't how the game plays anymore. With the best army lists involving synergy, and a breadth of units that add tactical adaptability to the army winning out over pure damage output.
So, what do you think, am I wrong in this, or should people start seriously thinking about how to beat the mission instead of the guy across the table from him?

Sorry, did you just mention "maelstrom missions" and "tournaments" in the same sentence?

Yes, although most only incorporate a maelstrom light approach. The fact of the matter is that lists that don't stand a chance of wiping out their opponent are winning tournaments by simply being flexible enough to win. I think this is going to change how people plan their armies as these list become more common.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sorry, did you just mention "maelstrom missions" and "tournaments" in the same sentence?

Most tourneys I've been to ran Maelstrom.

Or Modified Maelstrom, it's a good mindset, you're not trying to wipe you're opponent out just maintain control of the mission.

Playing for the mission has always been the mindset of good tournament players.

 Thud wrote:
Playing for the mission has always been the mindset of good tournament players.

This is true, but a LARGE chunk of them don't build their list around it. The majority of the lists I see in the tactics threads are worried about how to destroy other "net lists". The playing to the mission portion of the discussion is normally " take X amount of Y unit to claim objectives"

Everything else is debated on how well they kill, or take hits from multiple wave serpents/ D weapons.
Glad to see this discussion gaining some legs

Well, you can't take objectives if you're dead, and you can take objectives a lot easier if your opponent's units are evaporating, so killing stuff is still important.

Tactics threads on forums are basically useless, but you still need ways to deal with Wave Serpents and other netlists, because there are reasons why they keep cropping up at tournaments, so knowing what to expect from them and how to deal with them is important, as, again, it's easier to take objectives when you're not tabled.

A list optimised to kill WS is going to give almost anything a hard time.

Except centurianstar, adamantine lance, Necron flyerspam. If everyone was instead trying to win the game, based on varying their armies, none of those would be relevant due to being unable to do those things effectively.

 Verviedi wrote:
Most tourneys I've been to ran Maelstrom.

Then those tournaments suck, and I have no idea why you went there. Maelstrom missions are not even remotely suitable for serious games and any event that uses them immediately loses all credibility as a competitive tournament.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Most tourneys I've been to ran Maelstrom.

Then those tournaments suck, and I have no idea why you went there. Maelstrom missions are not even remotely suitable for serious games and any event that uses them immediately loses all credibility as a competitive tournament.

That was entirely unnecessary. Those tournaments are just as valid as any other, maelstrom missions create a reason to move upfield besides gaining line of sight. The lists that are successful in those environments are mobile armies that can handle melee and shooting. To deride an entire genre of missions based on personal preference as being "unsuitable for serious games" is wrong.

The reason I started this thread was a discussion I witnessed wherein a player had this mentality, and was loudly proclaiming that the game doesn't have any strategy. When asked for his tournament list, he told everyone it was adlance, trip dakkaflyrants, and three of the troop spores. The idea occurred to me that these missions are hard to win based on destroying your opponent, and therefore, some people don't think it is a legitimate way to play. Rant over, sorry for my apparent aggravation.

Its not really wrong at all if you're playing Maelstrom 100% by the rules.

The cards you draw will have far greater impact than any attempt you make to play the mission. This is further compounded by objectives that have random VP rewards. Its literally a random mechanic with a random mechanic tacked on.

There's no real tactics or strategy. Its too luck dependent and entirely reactionary to the game and not your opponent. It is entirely fair to claim that a tournament running stock Maelstrom is not doing a good job at being a tournament, where ideally a winner is decided based on skill and the decisions they made, not on luck of the cards and rolling well for your VP.

 Blacksails wrote:
Its not really wrong at all if you're playing Maelstrom 100% by the rules.

The cards you draw will have far greater impact than any attempt you make to play the mission. This is further compounded by objectives that have random VP rewards. Its literally a random mechanic with a random mechanic tacked on.

There's no real tactics or strategy. Its too luck dependent and entirely reactionary to the game and not your opponent. It is entirely fair to claim that a tournament running stock Maelstrom is not doing a good job at being a tournament, where ideally a winner is decided based on skill and the decisions they made, not on luck of the cards and rolling well for your VP.

Except there is a warlord table devoted to rectifying those exact situations. I agree that there are things that could change, but I think a tournament where if your opponent draws a card they could not score at the beginig of the game they get the victory point would really change the lists you see on the table. Allying in psyckers, guaranteed flyers and m.c.'s dedicated shooting and assault based units. It would be an interesting way to give comp, without adding comp.

What do you folks think about that?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

Except there is a warlord table devoted to rectifying those exact situations.

Are you seriously advocating another random element as a fix for a random element?

I agree that there are things that could change, but I think a tournament where if your opponent draws a card they could not score at the beginig of the game they get the victory point would really change the lists you see on the table. Allying in psyckers, guaranteed flyers and m.c.'s dedicated shooting and assault based units. It would be an interesting way to give comp, without adding comp.

No, it wouldn't. Change the mission, not force players to bring allies in forces they may not want to ally. A pure Tau or Necron force can't bring psykers, and players shouldn't be punished or forced to bring in allies for the sole reason of providing points.

What do you folks think about that?

I think Maelstrom needs to be fundamentally changed. At the very least, heavily modified; fixed VPs, remove all cards from your deck you can't accomplish (or auto-discard), and I'd be a bigger fan if you could just select the objectives you want. You know, include player decision making in the process.

Typically, if one has to work this hard to make something work, one throws it in the bin...

 Azreal13 wrote:
Typically, if one has to work this hard to make something work, one throws it in the bin...

Well, yeah, there's that too.

I'm just offering some help within the confines of what's given lest I be called out for being overly negative/critical/hating/bitter or any number of other adjectives.

To be perfectly honest, this game is too random to be competitive to begin with, and there is very little anyone can do to convince me otherwise.

First and foremost is the random opponent aspect. While one could argue any game suffers this mentality, none seem to have as dire consequence as 40k. A game can often be decided before models even hit the table. Mission or no mission. That is a terrible, terrible sign for this allegedly 'competitive' game. No match up should ever be truly decided before people even exchange their names and the opening hand shake. Not many other games out there have such concluding match ups as 40k.

Second is the sheer randomness of game prep. Warlord traits, psychic powers, mission set up, night fighting. Are you kidding me? Before the game even STARTS, you have a MINIMUM of 4 dice rolls to make just to decide what the feth is going on! MORE rolls if you get to reroll Warlord traits or if you have higher than Mastery Lvl 1.

Army building half the time is random. You can't even build proper army themes despite the 'forge the narrative' idea behind the game. Warlord and Psychic abilities are all totally random, as mentioned above. You will either get exactly what you wanted, or you wasted time. Usually, you waste time. The game could be more competitive and overall INTERESTING if these options were priced with points and had restrictions where needed (Such as only one Psyker being able to use Invisibility per army, so such a douche power cannot be spammed). You have no idea how many times I'd love to get the Infiltrate trait for my Orks in a fluffy list I built, or some other useful trait.

Battlefields in general, are random. What terrain (or lack there of) is on the board could totally screw you. If you're a Tau player fighting on a cityscape themed board, with plenty of blocking LOS, you will probably have a horrible time. Or if you're an Ork player and play on Planet Bowling Ball with nothing but a few hills that don't even provide cover, you're screwed.

Reserves are RANDOM, which means you cannot decide the optimal time for key units to come into play. I can't count the times I've wanted to flip a table because I CAN'T roll my reserves at all for whatever reason, and it costs me games. It's a load of horse doodie. Even in a non serious game.

Run and charge distance is random, as is moving through terrain, meaning most forms of movement are not reliable enough to make strongly weighed decisions. You have to hope to Mork you roll well if you've got to move through terrain or you're guys could barely take a step...which is horse doodie.

Malestrom is fun, but it IS random. Random objectives for random points. It does force people to actually do more than gunline a majority of the time, but random IS random.

Mysterious objectives are mysterious and random. They either have a huge benefit, or most often become a Skyfire Nexus and has no use. They should be decided before the start of the game, not halfway through when their effects are pointless by that time. "HEY! Skyfire Nexus! To bad your fliers are already on board and out of range, or already back in reserves on the last turn!"

I love 40k, I really do. But I find tournaments for it to be an incredible waste of time. I don't mind big conventions where people can play lots of games, but pitting money or prizes on the game...it's never something I'll understand. Nor will I partake in throwing my money away because I got beat automatically by the dude who brought the horridly cheesy list because it's the only way to ensure his victory, or because I had no say in the board I was fighting on, or because my Psyker forgot the good selection of powers he had last game and suddenly remembered new ones, or because my reinforcements are too busy playing Uno to come onto the board to fight.

To be fair, the penalty only has a 1/36 chance of happening, but I digress.
I play where you discard impossible draws, so i know the flaws of the system. This discussion isn't about the tactical objectives in the corebook, its about what tournaments are doing with them, and how the players are dealing with the change in format. Do you think with the introduction of maelstrom style fluid objectives, making net lists a thing of the past.

Edit for autocorrect and to not sound like a jerk

 Blacksails wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Typically, if one has to work this hard to make something work, one throws it in the bin...

Well, yeah, there's that too.

I'm just offering some help within the confines of what's given lest I be called out for being overly negative/critical/hating/bitter or any number of other adjectives.

Look, that's not good enough. You've been issued your Apocalypse Donkey, now bloody well ride it.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
That was entirely unnecessary.

No, it's entirely necessary. Maelstrom missions are too random for competitive play (or even serious games of any kind). They minimize the importance of skill and reward good luck with the objective cards. A competitive game, on the other hand, should make skill more important than dice and allow the best player to win, not the luckiest player.

Those tournaments are just as valid as any other, maelstrom missions create a reason to move upfield besides gaining line of sight.

Normal missions already have that reason: objectives. If both players camp in their deployment zones then the game is probably going to be a draw (or decided by first blood, if the mission includes that) because each player has the same number of objectives in their half and nobody is willing to attack the objective(s) in the middle. To win you have to move out of your deployment zone and attack the middle of the table, and you may even have to attack your opponent's deployment zone. The only thing maelstrom missions do is replace the strategic decisions about which objectives you want to focus on with a random deck of cards that makes the decision for you.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Except there is a warlord table devoted to rectifying those exact situations.

Which just adds another layer of randomness to the mess. The solution to an excessively random mission system is to make new missions, not to roll even more dice to see which dice you roll to see which dice you roll.

I think a tournament where if your opponent draws a card they could not score at the beginig of the game they get the victory point would really change the lists you see on the table. Allying in psyckers, guaranteed flyers and m.c.'s dedicated shooting and assault based units. It would be an interesting way to give comp, without adding comp.

This is a terrible idea. Why should I have to take allied psykers in my Tau army just so that my opponent doesn't automatically score points from their "kill a psyker" rolls?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
To be fair, the penalty only has a 1/36 chance of happening, but I digress.

It doesn't matter if it happens to you in a tournament game that throws out a potential win. When it comes to odds, single important rolls and events have a far greater impact and the chance is mostly irrelevant for the single game you're playing. Its like seize the iniative; its only a 1/6 chance, but damn if it doesn't really affect the current game if it does go off.

I play where you discard bad draws, but this discussion isn't about the tactical objectives in the codebook, its about what tournaments are doing with them, and how the players are dealing with the change in format.

The whole point is that its almost irrelevant what tournaments are doing to fix them. The point is that random mechanics that decide game outcomes are inherently bad and do not produce any meaningful way of determining who played better. You may as well play a combination of poker and yahtzee instead.

Do you think with the introduction of maelstrom style fluid objectives, are net lists a thing of the past.

It doesn't matter if net lists are a thing of the past. The focus should be on making tournaments driven by player decisions, being, you know, the skillful, tactical portion of playing. Maelstrom, short of changing it so that its hardly recognizable of what is was, does not do this, and therefore shouldn't be used in tournaments where the purpose is to declare one person as being a better player than the others and likely receiving an award or sexual favours from the crowd of on looking, attractive people that want to hear all about your converted Slaanesh army.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Do you think with the introduction of maelstrom style fluid objectives, making net lists a thing of the past.

No. Even if you manage to come up with a variant of maelstrom missions that doesn't suck it's still not going to do anything to remove netlists. The only thing it could possibly do is change which list is best, and then once people figure it out that list will become the new netlist.

I don't understand why there is so much directed negativity. This is a discussion where everyone has a viable opinion, so please try not to be too harsh with each other.

I take it you don't like superheavies in the core game? Why is that? I've enjoyed the few games my group has played with them on the field, so I don't really understand the dislike of them...

 Azreal13 wrote:


Look, that's not good enough. You've been issued your Apocalypse Donkey, now bloody well ride it.

It rides the donkey or it gets the hose again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I don't understand why there is so much directed negativity. This is a discussion where everyone has a viable opinion, so please try not to be too harsh with each other.

I take it you don't like superheavies in the core game? Why is that? I've enjoyed the few games my group has played with them on the field, so I don't really understand the dislike of them...

Criticism =/= negativity.

You can have a discussion with people who's opinions you don't share. Nothing said so far has been particularly harsh.

*Edit* There was even humour in my post!

 Blacksails wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


Look, that's not good enough. You've been issued your Apocalypse Donkey, now bloody well ride it.

It rides the donkey or it gets the hose again.

I think that's even wrongerer than you intended.

 Azreal13 wrote:


I think that's even wrongerer than you intended.

Or is it.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I don't understand why there is so much directed negativity.

Because bad ideas deserve criticism.

I take it you don't like superheavies in the core game? Why is that? I've enjoyed the few games my group has played with them on the field, so I don't really understand the dislike of them...

There are two issues with superheavies:

1) Some of them are very poorly balanced. Warhound and Revenant titans with d-weapons are several hundred points too cheap, so they ruin games just like other overpowered units.

2) Even when they're reasonably balanced (or even relatively weak) they often reduce the game to "kill the superheavy". A 1000 point game with a Baneblade is not a clash of opposing armies, it's a single tank attempting to kill everything before it is destroyed. The rules just don't work very well when a single unit makes up such a large percentage of your army, whether it's superheavies or a traditional death star unit.

Of course if these issues had been fixed then superheavies would be fine. For example, the 30k rules limit LOW to 25% of your army, which keeps them in the bigger games where they belong. Impose a similar cap (maybe 33% for 40k, since the point limits are usually lower) and fix the few overpowered units and it would be much less of an issue.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


I think that's even wrongerer than you intended.

Or is it.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I am typing via phone, sorry if I am responding WAY after you guys do!

This game is indeed a game of random chance, and each player has the chance to draw spectacularly well, or horribly bad. I had a lone wolf terminator take 465 point worth of shooting in one phase without failing a save, then next game he died to 4 storm bolters in one round. Neither of those outcomes had anything to do with my tactical ability, or even what my cards were. You cannot go into any dice based game and think that it is a competition of directed skill.
Also, the law of averages and big numbers states that the MORE random numbers that are being used, the better the odds of things being even. If I am on a rolling hot streak, but my opponent is drawing better cards, we actually have a more competitive game because of it. The more randomness in a system, the more your decisions actually mean in the long term. That's the math of it.