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Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
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.

No, it had everything to do with your opponent not shooting that Terminator with the right gun in the first instance and 4 Storm bolters (so 8 shots) only has to be slightly lucky to kill a Lone Wolf.

Also, more random doesn't mean things "even out" it means you produce closer to a pure average, but drawing cards and rolling dice are totally different things with different probabilities and governing outcomes that can vary in import significantly.

Azreal13 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:


I think that's even wrongerer than you intended.

Or is it.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I'd be loudly judging me if I were you.

However, in the spirit of the topic...

Peregrine wrote:
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.

I don't know why this wasn't originally implemented. Such a simple elegant fix. Well, besides the detailed balance of each individual super heavy, but a percentage would help sooo much.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
You cannot go into any dice based game and think that it is a competition of directed skill.

But you can, because good random dice mechanics form a bell curve of outcomes and you can make intelligent strategic decisions based on expected outcomes. It's the reason why good poker players consistently win money and bad players don't. The outcome of a single hand might involve a lot of luck, but over an entire night of playing the better player is going to end up with more money. Where 40k goes wrong is that it adds single random events that have a major effect on the game. For example, there's no strategy involved in the warlord table. You just roll the dice and see if you get something good that gives you a major advantage, or something useless that you forget before the first turn is over. Same thing with maelstrom objectives. You don't make a strategic decision to claim objective #1, knowing that you have a 70% chance of getting it each turn and that it's the best place to score VP, you draw a random card and then run over to claim whatever objective it told you to claim. That's replacing skill and player decisions with random dice.

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.

This is only true when the random events from a bell curve distribution. For example, rolling 100 dice for shooting will tend to produce more consistent results than rolling 10 dice. But maelstrom missions don't really work that way since the random events are all independent and much harder to quantify. Instead of forming a nice predictable bell curve it turns the game into a sequence of independent random events where the random dice feel like the biggest factor. Even if the total number of VP is close to even in the end it isn't a fun experience.

At most of the tournaments I've been to recently, the missions have been a merger of Eternal War and Maelstrom, and winning each component is worth tournament points. Usually the EW mission is the primary, but is only worth slightly more than the secondary. FB, LB and STW are usually worth a tournament point each too.

The logic here is that if at the end of turn one you're absolutely buggered for the primary, you can focus on the secondary and try and make some progress that way. Failing both of those, you can point every weapon in your army at their Warlord and hope for the best (playing for something at least). As a mission structure I love it, because it's a huge improvement on 5th ed (when I started), where you were often just playing out three turns because the game was a goner two turns in.

We mitigate the randomness of Maelstrom slightly by allowing players to get rid of cards drawn that are impossible to achieve. No enemy Psyker? Flag the card. No Buildings? Flag the card. Yes, you can still get shafted by getting "Claim objective X that enemy army is sitting on" 3 times, but that's just unlucky, much like your flyers not showing up until turn 4, your Land Raider parking on a rock, your deathstar whiffing its charge rolls... it's a game of dice, and people taking it all super-seriously has always amused me somewhat. But that's a personal axe I grind, and is beside the point.

Now onto the mindset change. What you need these days are multiple fast-moving, fairly resilient units that are able to zoom across the table and claim s**t (Slaanesh does this well). The gunline is in trouble if it can't blow you off the table ("Oh,do I have one Daemonette out of sight that's near an objective? Points for me!"), because they're often zoned off from most of the objectives on the board. Also, you can't slip into the Eternal War mindset of "I'll kill his killiest stuff for two/three turns or so, then push up to the mission objective for the last two when he's too munted to stop me."

You need to be a bit proactive too- things like leaving a unit within 3" of an irrelevant objective because it might be relevant in five minutes, and shooting their mooks off one just in case it matters. The local scene has been more receptive to Maelstrom than other places would be, I guess, because a lot of the lists commonly seen were Trukk Orks, several Drop Pod marine armies, my Slaaneshi CSM/Daemons, some Eldar and Dark Eldar, and quick Tyranids (to name a few). However, the mobility advantages already in these armies were definitely more emphasised on when 7th dropped.

I do find it a fun experience, and drawing cards is exactly like rolling dice if you aren't allowed to draw the same card twice( I know there are duplicates, but the cards are a time saver for the actual mechanic, which is rolling dice)

I am actually quite partial to using the city fighting mission cards. My group had a mix style game last month where you played the maelstrom mission where you start with 6 cards, and lose them over the course of the game, then at the end all objectives were worth 3 victory points.

That way you could play the mobile aggressive army, or the slow and steady meat grinder style army and still have a chance. What do you think of that as an option?
( I apologize for seeing aggression where it wasn't warranted, I was being overly sensitive for some reason. This morning was my first thread where I was expecting to defend my oppinion, and was waiting to defend myself)

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
and drawing cards is exactly like rolling dice if you aren't allowed to draw the same card twice

Yes, the actual object used to determine a random result is irrelevant, but the principle is different. When you're rolling dice to determine the outcome of an action you usually get a nice predictable bell curve, and over the full length of your time playing the game correctly making "in situation X do Y" decisions will give you good results. With the maelstrom missions, whether you pick the objectives with dice or cards, you don't get that bell curve at all and it's an entirely different kind of randomness. On turn 1 you randomly roll to see who is winning, then on turn 2 you roll again, etc. At no point can you predict the winner or make intelligent strategic decisions about what happens next, you just have to hope that in the end you've rolled well enough to win the game.

What do you think of that as an option?

It's still worse than the alternative where you don't use the maelstrom cards at all. Though it is amusing since it seems to be a concession from GW that the maelstrom missions in the core rulebook suck and the cards need to be less important. Now they just need to go all the way and remove them entirely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zed wrote:
The logic here is that if at the end of turn one you're absolutely buggered for the primary, you can focus on the secondary and try and make some progress that way.

Alternatively, you can be screwed on the primary objective, get random objectives that favor your opponent, and make the final outcome even more one-sided. And then there's the question of why shouldn't the game be an inevitable win if one player manages to gain a decisive advantage on the primary objectives? Tournaments are supposed to be about figuring out which player is best, not ensuring that each player always has a good chance of winning no matter how badly they play.

Yes, you can still get shafted by getting "Claim objective X that enemy army is sitting on" 3 times, but that's just unlucky, much like your flyers not showing up until turn 4, your Land Raider parking on a rock, your deathstar whiffing its charge rolls...

Except there are three big differences here:

1) Most of those things involve a lot more dice. If you've got a flyer-heavy army it isn't just one bad roll keeping your whole army in reserve, it's several failed 3+ rolls per turn. So you can occasionally have the spectacularly bad games, but most of the time it will be a lot more consistent and you'll have the majority of your flyers in by turn 3. Maelstrom missions, on the other hand, involve very few rolls so it's much easier to get a one-sided outcome.

2) Most of those things have lower chances of failure. Flyers come in on a 3+, your LR only has a 1/6 chance of being immobilized, etc. Maelstrom missions have a higher chance of failure, even if you remove the impossible ones, which brings up the chance of getting an extended streak of failure. It isn't just a single unlikely "claim a hopeless objective" outcome, usually about half of the objectives will favor the other player. And if you're trying to catch up because you're behind on the primary objective those odds get even worse.

3) Most of those things have ways to mitigate the random failures. Flyers can benefit from reserve manipulation (a re-rollable 2+ to get them, if you really want your reserves asap), Land Raiders can choose to take the longer route around terrain instead of risking the 1/6 roll, etc. With maelstrom missions there just isn't much you can do about a bad draw. Usually all you can do is accept that you got screwed, discard the objective, and hope that the next one is better.

it's a game of dice, and people taking it all super-seriously has always amused me somewhat.

You do realize that we're talking about tournaments, right?

 Peregrine wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
and drawing cards is exactly like rolling dice if you aren't allowed to draw the same card twice

Yes, the actual object used to determine a random result is irrelevant, but the principle is different. When you're rolling dice to determine the outcome of an action you usually get a nice predictable bell curve, and over the full length of your time playing the game correctly making "in situation X do Y" decisions will give you good results. With the maelstrom missions, whether you pick the objectives with dice or cards, you don't get that bell curve at all and it's an entirely different kind of randomness. On turn 1 you randomly roll to see who is winning, then on turn 2 you roll again, etc. At no point can you predict the winner or make intelligent strategic decisions about what happens next, you just have to hope that in the end you've rolled well enough to win the game.

I'm sorry, but you absolutely can. There is no rule against making an educated guess at what cards will be comming up for you and your opponent (unlike blackjack). Then you also have the pre planning of making sure that the warlord can be had if the cards turn up. You know your opponent drew 2 secure objective 1 cards last turn but wasn't able to claim it. Now you know where his attention is, but is it worth it to not claim you own objectives instead of denying him his? These are the essence of tactical decisions, made on the fly, that are entirely dependent on how you built your army and are managing your forces. The idea that the game makes these decisions for you, or that you are out of control of your own army is simply not true.

 Blacksails wrote:

Peregrine wrote:
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.

I don't know why this wasn't originally implemented. Such a simple elegant fix. Well, besides the detailed balance of each individual super heavy, but a percentage would help sooo much.

Because it goes right in the face of GW's main objective of selling you as much plastic/paper as possible at any and all instances.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
There is no rule against making an educated guess at what cards will be comming up for you and your opponent (unlike blackjack).

There's no rule against it, but that doesn't mean that it's practical to do so. Your predictive ability is much lower than, for example, knowing the average result of a whole tactical squad shooting bolters at BS 4. You can carefully keep track of which objectives have rolled already and can't be re-rolled, but that knowledge is overwhelmed by the sheer randomness of the rest of the table.

Also, the reason counting cards works in blackjack is that the house has such a tiny advantage in the un-counted game that even a small shift in favor of the card counter can make it a profitable game. And even then you don't win by predicting a single outcome, you win by playing for a really long time and accumulating small advantages to offset your inevitable losses. That's not how it works in 40k. Nor is it illegal in blackjack, the casino just won't let you keep playing blackjack unless you're losing money and giving them profit.

Now you know where his attention is, but is it worth it to not claim you own objectives instead of denying him his?

No, because scoring your own easy VP is more important than potentially denying your opponent's. If they didn't claim their objectives immediately last turn it's because they got a bad roll/draw, so you put up token resistance while securing your own VP. That's how you win malestrom missions, you use MSU jetbikes and similar fast scoring units to complete your own objectives and draw new ones as fast as possible.

And I'd like to point out that this decision exists in normal missions, and the only difference is that you don't have a random die roll separating the objectives into "his" and "yours". Objectives are just objectives, and it's entirely up to each player to decide which ones are most important. So maelstrom missions reduce the depth of strategy by replacing player decisions with random dice.

The idea that the game makes these decisions for you, or that you are out of control of your own army is simply not true.

Denying that something is true doesn't make it false. Consider the two scenarios:

Normal mission: there are five objectives, and the game doesn't tell you which ones are most important. All of them score equal VP for the player that controls them, and you just need a 1-VP advantage to win the game. So you have a whole range of strategies available: you can claim any combination of 1+ objectives as long as you deny at least that many to your opponent. There's no difference between claiming one, contesting one, and both players ignoring the other three vs. claiming two, allowing your opponent to claim one, contesting one, and ignoring the final objective. The only thing that makes one objective more important than another is your own desire to claim it and/or your guess that your opponent considers it important.

Maelstrom: there are five objectives, the game tells you which ones are the most important. You can still decide which of that subset to focus on, but the game tells you that you can only score VP by claiming #2 and your opponent can only score VP by claiming #5. You can both ignore the other three objectives because the cards don't allow either of you to benefit from them. You don't have to identify which objective you need to focus on claiming, and you don't have to guess what objective your opponent's plan depends on, the random dice decide those things for you. Until you draw new cards at least, at which point all of your carefully-crafted strategies disappear and you have to obey new priorities.

Maelstrom missions indisputably take away player choices and replace them with random dice.

I am sorry but did I hear "strategy" and "40k player" in the same sentence?
The main strategy is to get the most bang for points in list building.
This is then supplemented with optimizing to have as little dice/random influence as possible.
Even then, the true randomness of results can make a mockery of many plans (you can only plan so many contingencies).
It is interesting to try to get away from just kill the other army scenarios.
The mechanics unfortunately seem more random for random sake.
It is sad in a game when strategic decisions are forced into random rolls.
This just seems the OP is to be trying to make it a game that it is not.

LVO rolls random objectives each turn.

Maelstrom is part of the game. You can choose not to play with or against it, but don't pretend that your choice is anything but a house rule

 Peregrine wrote:
Alternatively, you can be screwed on the primary objective, get random objectives that favor your opponent, and make the final outcome even more one-sided. And then there's the question of why shouldn't the game be an inevitable win if one player manages to gain a decisive advantage on the primary objectives? Tournaments are supposed to be about figuring out which player is best, not ensuring that each player always has a good chance of winning no matter how badly they play.

It is a win if you gain a decisive advantage over the primary objective. You get more points for it than you do for winning the Maelstrom (if you win both it's a stomp, and they happen a lot), so if you split the rewards you come out better off. So the best player usually comes through in the end. As to random objectives, it can happen, but in most games I've played the objectives are balanced enough to not warrant some kind of knee-jerk, coat-hanger abortion on the entire Maelstrom system. I consider the occasional unbalanced loss or win no different to watching your entire army evaporate improbably despite your best efforts, due to his 6's and your 1's.

1) Most of those things involve a lot more dice. If you've got a flyer-heavy army it isn't just one bad roll keeping your whole army in reserve, it's several failed 3+ rolls per turn. So you can occasionally have the spectacularly bad games, but most of the time it will be a lot more consistent and you'll have the majority of your flyers in by turn 3. Maelstrom missions, on the other hand, involve very few rolls so it's much easier to get a one-sided outcome.

2) Most of those things have lower chances of failure. Flyers come in on a 3+, your LR only has a 1/6 chance of being immobilized, etc. Maelstrom missions have a higher chance of failure, even if you remove the impossible ones, which brings up the chance of getting an extended streak of failure. It isn't just a single unlikely "claim a hopeless objective" outcome, usually about half of the objectives will favor the other player. And if you're trying to catch up because you're behind on the primary objective those odds get even worse.

3) Most of those things have ways to mitigate the random failures. Flyers can benefit from reserve manipulation (a re-rollable 2+ to get them, if you really want your reserves asap), Land Raiders can choose to take the longer route around terrain instead of risking the 1/6 roll, etc. With maelstrom missions there just isn't much you can do about a bad draw. Usually all you can do is accept that you got screwed, discard the objective, and hope that the next one is better.

Yes, you could get shafted. So we go back to the old 40k rule that making the appropriate list to maximise your chances (ie, have the option to tick as many cards as you feasibly can). No different to someone bringing a slow as balls army and watching someone head off with the Relic, or having your big ol' deathstar holding one objective while 5-man tac squads hold 3 while pointing and laughing.

In any case, struggling to catch up on a secondary because you've been hurt on a primary (assuming something important got killed or board control was yielded) would only support having the best player win, wouldn't it? Also, a good player would be able to think about Eternal and Maelstrom simultaneously, you'd think.

Maelstrom produces its own arms race, same as Eternal War. Putting them both together has produced a large variety of curious and interesting lists, depending on how you weighted the missions, and has improved the generalship of the players locally as it requires a lot more thinking.

You do realize that we're talking about tournaments, right?

As I stated, it's a personal axe I grind and I considered it beside the point. However, I've always viewed a wargaming tournament as an excuse to play some games, drink some beer, catch up with friends who have traveled in for them and have a good time. And frankly, if you're looking for a balanced, sensible system to make a serious, perfect tournament where someone gets to be the very best at playing with wardollies, 40k is the wrong game.

MarsNZ wrote:
Maelstrom is part of the game. You can choose not to play with or against it, but don't pretend that your choice is anything but a house rule

Maelstrom missions are only some of the missions, not a core rule.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zed wrote:
As I stated, it's a personal axe I grind and I considered it beside the point. However, I've always viewed a wargaming tournament as an excuse to play some games, drink some beer, catch up with friends who have traveled in for them and have a good time. And frankly, if you're looking for a balanced, sensible system to make a serious, perfect tournament where someone gets to be the very best at playing with wardollies, 40k is the wrong game.

And this invalidates everything you have to say on the subject of competitive tournament mission design. You aren't looking for a competitive game, you just want to screw around for a few hours and have some guaranteed opponents for a weekend. Maelstrom might be fine for that (I think it sucks just as much in that context, but I guess that's a preference thing) but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea in competitive games.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
There is no rule against making an educated guess at what cards will be comming up for you and your opponent (unlike blackjack).

There's no rule against it, but that doesn't mean that it's practical to do so. Your predictive ability is much lower than, for example, knowing the average result of a whole tactical squad shooting bolters at BS 4. You can carefully keep track of which objectives have rolled already and can't be re-rolled, but that knowledge is overwhelmed by the sheer randomness of the rest of the table.

Also, the reason counting cards works in blackjack is that the house has such a tiny advantage in the un-counted game that even a small shift in favor of the card counter can make it a profitable game. And even then you don't win by predicting a single outcome, you win by playing for a really long time and accumulating small advantages to offset your inevitable losses. That's not how it works in 40k. Nor is it illegal in blackjack, the casino just won't let you keep playing blackjack unless you're losing money and giving them profit.

Now you know where his attention is, but is it worth it to not claim you own objectives instead of denying him his?

No, because scoring your own easy VP is more important than potentially denying your opponent's. If they didn't claim their objectives immediately last turn it's because they got a bad roll/draw, so you put up token resistance while securing your own VP. That's how you win malestrom missions, you use MSU jetbikes and similar fast scoring units to complete your own objectives and draw new ones as fast as possible.

And I'd like to point out that this decision exists in normal missions, and the only difference is that you don't have a random die roll separating the objectives into "his" and "yours". Objectives are just objectives, and it's entirely up to each player to decide which ones are most important. So maelstrom missions reduce the depth of strategy by replacing player decisions with random dice.

The idea that the game makes these decisions for you, or that you are out of control of your own army is simply not true.

Denying that something is true doesn't make it false. Consider the two scenarios:

Normal mission: there are five objectives, and the game doesn't tell you which ones are most important. All of them score equal VP for the player that controls them, and you just need a 1-VP advantage to win the game. So you have a whole range of strategies available: you can claim any combination of 1+ objectives as long as you deny at least that many to your opponent. There's no difference between claiming one, contesting one, and both players ignoring the other three vs. claiming two, allowing your opponent to claim one, contesting one, and ignoring the final objective. The only thing that makes one objective more important than another is your own desire to claim it and/or your guess that your opponent considers it important.

Maelstrom: there are five objectives, the game tells you which ones are the most important. You can still decide which of that subset to focus on, but the game tells you that you can only score VP by claiming #2 and your opponent can only score VP by claiming #5. You can both ignore the other three objectives because the cards don't allow either of you to benefit from them. You don't have to identify which objective you need to focus on claiming, and you don't have to guess what objective your opponent's plan depends on, the random dice decide those things for you. Until you draw new cards at least, at which point all of your carefully-crafted strategies disappear and you have to obey new priorities.

Maelstrom missions indisputably take away player choices and replace them with random dice.

Their are no guaranteed easy points, only ones where the reward is greater than the risk. In the maelstrom mission you described, ignoring the other three because you only drew #2 is out and out wrong. You will attempt to claim the others, they have just as much chance of appearing in the next round. You have to be able to focus on short term gains in addition to a long term strategy in order to play maelstrom effectively. Where the eternal war missions you are simply killing the opponent for a few rounds then claiming objectives. The age of jetbike zipping around claiming objectives is a thing of the past, if they die the round after, you cannot use their mobility to do it again. And how hard is it to kill a 3 man tactical squad. Eternal war missions were far to easy to win in the list building phase because you either alpha strike and coast on that victory, or held back and jumped onto objectives at the end.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
You will attempt to claim the others, they have just as much chance of appearing in the next round.

No you don't, unless they just happen to be conveniently available when you're already there to kill something or contest an objective. When you draw a new card you have a ~1/6 chance of it being the objective you just moved to claim, which means you have a 5/6 chance of spreading out your force unnecessarily and putting you out of position to claim the objective you actually got. The better strategy is to claim only the objectives you roll and keep a reserve in a central location to sprint out and grab whatever you roll next turn.

And, again, think about what you're saying: you attempt to claim the other objectives because they have a chance of being relevant. In normal missions you attempt to claim those objectives because they are relevant, you don't need to see what the dice say. Maelstrom missions replace player decisions and strategy with random dice.

The age of jetbike zipping around claiming objectives is a thing of the past, if they die the round after, you cannot use their mobility to do it again.

So? They already scored the VP and gave me a new card to score next turn. The best your expensive slow unit can do is finally crawl its way over to an objective and score the same VP, after a turn or three of having that objective card sitting unclaimed in your pile. You don't get any bonus for absolutely locking down an objective instead of just briefly touching it with a single model, so why pay extra points for something that doesn't score extra VP? The real reason MSU jetbikes disappeared is that you might as well spam Wave Serpents for your fast objective claimers and get a durable gun platform as a bonus. Take away that one broken unit and I suspect you'd see a lot more MSU jetbikes.

Eternal war missions were far to easy to win in the list building phase because you either alpha strike and coast on that victory, or held back and jumped onto objectives at the end.

And maelstrom missions aren't? A perfectly-designed maelstrom list is going to beat a less-optimized list in a maelstrom mission. List building doesn't become any less important, the random objectives just change what the dominant list is. And I don't see how trading one netlist for another is such a major improvement that it justifies adding a new mechanic that replaces player decisions and strategy with even more random tables to roll on.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Zed wrote:
As I stated, it's a personal axe I grind and I considered it beside the point. However, I've always viewed a wargaming tournament as an excuse to play some games, drink some beer, catch up with friends who have traveled in for them and have a good time. And frankly, if you're looking for a balanced, sensible system to make a serious, perfect tournament where someone gets to be the very best at playing with wardollies, 40k is the wrong game.

And this invalidates everything you have to say on the subject of competitive tournament mission design. You aren't looking for a competitive game, you just want to screw around for a few hours and have some guaranteed opponents for a weekend. Maelstrom might be fine for that (I think it sucks just as much in that context, but I guess that's a preference thing) but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea in competitive games.

No it doesn't . I've been to competitive tournaments that had well-written missions (like the blends I've mentioned), and I've been to "competitive" tournaments that had appallingly written and gimmicky missions that were wildly unbalanced one way or the other. And despite my ignorance and apparent naivete , I was able to tell the difference. Both types featured my friends, beer, a good time and 40k play too, as well as me trying to place as highly as possible with what has proven to be a solid Chaos list. They also featured Maelstrom.

I'm struggling to see the difference between these "Spawn-of-the-Devil-What-Are-You-Even-Doing-Using-It-Maelstrom" Tournaments and "Normal" Tournaments, given that:

- Missions are put out for players to see before list writing.
- Players are therefore aware that Maelstrom is a part of it (not all of it, not even half of it, but a part of it), and can plan accordingly, being aware of how the game mode works. Just like they would if it was "Scouring-Relic-Big Guns-Emperor's Will" This means that they will bring board control lists if they have any sense.
- Players bring an army that they believe will allow them to handle the missions.
- Players compete with one another across a series of games, with the most points at the end winning overall (factoring in sports and painting).
- Players also drink beer, catch up with one another and have a good time (while playing their game competitively).

You can harp on about how wildly unbalanced you believe Maelstrom is. But I refuse to accept that someone is going to win a tournament structured solely in this manner due to a "brokenly random" mission type, especially when they can mitigate the potential damage in the list building phase and they're rolling dice to determine what happens anyway.

I feel for any miserable people who can't have a laugh while playing a competitive game. You see it in sport, in esport, in board games, in damn near everything.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
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?

7-th with everything scoring and maelstorm missions is a completely different beast. For example, i've had games won with assaulty armies without even engaging in close combat. Board controle is very important now. This alone has made assault armies and tactical marines with obsec viable. I think it's a good thing.

I generally find people who are still locked in the old 'kill everything' mindset loose more often than win. And they hate maelstorm. Just my observation. They're playing a different game and thus have to fight an uphill battle cause raw firepower doesn't meen everything no more imo.

 Zed wrote:
I'm struggling to see the difference between these "Spawn-of-the-Devil-What-Are-You-Even-Doing-Using-It-Maelstrom" Tournaments and "Normal" Tournaments, given that:

The difference is that maelstrom missions are much more random than normal missions. Knowing in advance that the missions will be badly designed and preparing an army that can exploit the flaws doesn't excuse bad design, nor does the fact that you can drink beer while playing the badly designed missions.

But I refuse to accept that someone is going to win a tournament structured solely in this manner due to a "brokenly random" mission type, especially when they can mitigate the potential damage in the list building phase and they're rolling dice to determine what happens anyway.

Solely? No, but it does make a difference. The overall winner of the tournament might have earned a place in the top game at the end, but if they win that final game over a superior player because the maelstrom dice favored them then the tournament missions didn't do their job properly.

I feel for any miserable people who can't have a laugh while playing a competitive game. You see it in sport, in esport, in board games, in damn near everything.

Since when does "these missions suck" mean "I can't have fun while playing competitively"?

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

I guess this guy hasn't been to too many tournaments lately or even followed them.

Regardless of preferences or "right vs wrong":

LVO already incorporated Secondary Maelstrom'ish Objectives and Adepticon has also has Modified Maelstrom'ish Objectives (removing the D3 ones).

So OP's statement about Tournaments having to be strategized and played slightly differently stands.

 KiloFiX wrote:
Regardless of preferences or "right vs wrong":

LVO already incorporated Secondary Maelstrom'ish Objectives and Adepticon has also has Modified Maelstrom'ish Objectives (removing the D3 ones).

So OP's statement about Tournaments having to be strategized and played slightly differently stands.

Agreed.

This has turned into a "my opinion is better than yours" thread. Heck my local FLGS puts on Maelstrom events. Guess they suck.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
You will attempt to claim the others, they have just as much chance of appearing in the next round.

No you don't, unless they just happen to be conveniently available when you're already there to kill something or contest an objective. When you draw a new card you have a ~1/6 chance of it being the objective you just moved to claim, which means you have a 5/6 chance of spreading out your force unnecessarily and putting you out of position to claim the objective you actually got. The better strategy is to claim only the objectives you roll and keep a reserve in a central location to sprint out and grab whatever you roll next turn.

And, again, think about what you're saying: you attempt to claim the other objectives because they have a chance of being relevant. In normal missions you attempt to claim those objectives because they are relevant, you don't need to see what the dice say. Maelstrom missions replace player decisions and strategy with random dice.

The age of jetbike zipping around claiming objectives is a thing of the past, if they die the round after, you cannot use their mobility to do it again.

So? They already scored the VP and gave me a new card to score next turn. The best your expensive slow unit can do is finally crawl its way over to an objective and score the same VP, after a turn or three of having that objective card sitting unclaimed in your pile. You don't get any bonus for absolutely locking down an objective instead of just briefly touching it with a single model, so why pay extra points for something that doesn't score extra VP? The real reason MSU jetbikes disappeared is that you might as well spam Wave Serpents for your fast objective claimers and get a durable gun platform as a bonus. Take away that one broken unit and I suspect you'd see a lot more MSU jetbikes.

Eternal war missions were far to easy to win in the list building phase because you either alpha strike and coast on that victory, or held back and jumped onto objectives at the end.

And maelstrom missions aren't? A perfectly-designed maelstrom list is going to beat a less-optimized list in a maelstrom mission. List building doesn't become any less important, the random objectives just change what the dominant list is. And I don't see how trading one netlist for another is such a major improvement that it justifies adding a new mechanic that replaces player decisions and strategy with even more random tables to roll on.

Actually, yes you do. Don't forget that there are cards that award points for claiming multiple objectives, and your token defense will be crushed if he needs double your number held and gets #1 twice. If you aren't playing that way, your opponent will crush you on points do to a (wait for it) poor strategy on your part. You can, and should be playing a tactical battle with maelstrom missions. I don't understand how you can think you don't.
If those bikes or wave serpents need to move up and claim objectives in round two and three, your opponent actually has a chance to kick them inn the teeth. Armies relying on these crutch units are losing to armies with an actual strategy built into them. That has EVERYTHING to do with the maelstrom style missions.

Maelstrom is just a mechanic that adds another level of uncertainty for objectives.
I am sure you can claim it is not predictable = not boring.

Typically you know, when playing a war-game it has some semblance of reflecting warfare: "So today the general cannot quite figure out what he wants, so scout around the field of battle and report if you find something interesting!"
Ah! the enemy has something, we do not know what it is but we want it!...
It does fit in well with leaders not knowing what they are skilled at until the day of battle or the fickle / random warp gifting something to the psychers...
It certainly IS never boring.

It makes strategy and planning so much more interesting with all these random elements.

Seems like while there's debate over opinions on Maelstrom missions (my input: they suck), everyone is in agreement on OP's thesis: Maelstrom or Maelstrom-ish missions at tournaments do necessitate a different strategic mindset. However it sounds like tournament players already know this, since the new missions didn't eliminate net lists, they just changed their composition.

 Talizvar wrote:
Maelstrom is just a mechanic that adds another level of uncertainty for objectives.
I am sure you can claim it is not predictable = not boring.

Typically you know, when playing a war-game it has some semblance of reflecting warfare: "So today the general cannot quite figure out what he wants, so scout around the field of battle and report if you find something interesting!"
Ah! the enemy has something, we do not know what it is but we want it!...
It does fit in well with leaders not knowing what they are skilled at until the day of battle or the fickle / random warp gifting something to the psychers...
It certainly IS never boring.

It makes strategy and planning so much more interesting with all these random elements.

Warlord traits = the general deciding on the fly what the best tool for the job is, he can be wrong.
Psycker powers= what gifts the psycker has always manifested. The primaris power is there so you can have a semblance of knowledge about what they are doing. (Both of these are going to be permanent stats on the models after the first game in an upcoming campaign I have planned)
The random objectives do fit with how war is made in the real world, just the game takes place over a shorter period of time. My old supervisor was a Sargent in the army in Vietnam. He had to take and leave one specific hill on 3 separate occasions during the course of a few months, for no reason other than they wanted the war to be shifting on a regular basis. When we place objectives, we try to put them in places of strategic importance within the story of the game, not the mechanics of it. If there is an objective out in the open, it was obviously placed there as a lure to bring me out. Objectives that are on upper levels of ruins are good vantage points to determine what the enemy is doing. That is a dangerous mission, and the team getting there needs to either be able to hold it against all odds, or leave it as soon as possible when they have finished reporting g on what they can see.
Making the objectives more than just a marker on the table will give you the reason why you may need to get there and get out in a hurry.

While random elements may make sense from a background standpoint (I'm not sure I agree with that but just playing along) it doesn't make for a good game. Fluff doesn't always equate to gameplay, for good reasons. Random charts are not a good thing in a game. It's a cop out for lack of balance, most of the time.

 Peregrine wrote:


Then those tournaments suck.

Lol, yeah, Adepticon, LVO, BAO, a good chunk of the ITC, what stupid major GTs and such those are

A few thoughts:

To the OP: I think we are all already there. I build my lists with playing the missions and the objectives in mind, I'm sure to keep at least 3 units near the back field. To everyone bashing Malestorm, why do you think so many of the big tournys are using Malestrom or modified versions of it?

I'm going to put it forward that players like it/want it/ask for it... otherwise it wouldn't be there. If impossible objectives are tossed when drawn (kill my pyskers, I have none) the TOs are fairly balanced and make a ton of fun. It makes the game matter as it goes, instead of late game, last turn, objective grabs (cause that was so more tactical than Malestrom... or wasn't).

As far as superheavies... not many tournaments just let them in carte blanche. ITC format (which many RTTs use) has a list. Only the Lynx might be undercosted there, and even then at the LVO only one made top 8.

I really see the anti-tactical objective, anti-FW, anti-SH crowd as a dying generation of gamers that either are dug in or simply unwilling to evolve their play-style to a new format. I feel like I have much more control over my game's outcome with Malestorm than everything waiting until the last turn and then only very few lists and codicies excel. For once I can accrue meaningful, game winning points, each and every turn... not just Warlord, Firstblood and then only the last turn (which is a random element too) matters.

Why is everything riding on a clock and a single dice roll to see which turn is last so more strategic, tactical, and balanced than controllable, incremental, scoring throughout the game that allows both killpoint and objective control lists to excel?

 Lobukia wrote:
To everyone bashing Malestorm, why do you think so many of the big tournys are using Malestrom or modified versions of it?

The key part is modified. When its modified sufficiently, it is functional, but still lacking in balance/player interaction. That, and as you mention, some players may like it.

If impossible objectives are tossed when drawn (kill my pyskers, I have none) the TOs are fairly balanced and make a ton of fun. It makes the game matter as it goes, instead of late game, last turn, objective grabs (cause that was so more tactical than Malestrom... or wasn't).

Don't forget making random VPs a set number. However, neither of those changes puts control in the player's hands. Its still a random objective of varying difficulty, with your opponent doing the same. It could very well mean a game is decided on the ease of completing the cards drawn.

I really see the anti-tactical objective, anti-FW, anti-SH crowd as a dying generation of gamers that either are dug in or simply unwilling to evolve their play-style to a new format.

They're a dying generation because they're moving on to better designed games.

I feel like I have much more control over my game's outcome with Malestorm than everything waiting until the last turn and then only very few lists and codicies excel. For once I can accrue meaningful, game winning points, each and every turn... not just Warlord, Firstblood and then only the last turn (which is a random element too) matters.

You objectively have less control in Maelstrom than any previous mission types. Yes, random game length is random and promotes last minute objectives, but you have far more control over the game's outcome when you're not drawing a random card to tell you what to complete. There is no possible way you can argue that a random mechanic telling you what you can or can't complete to get VPs somehow puts more control in the player's hands than letting them simply decide for themselves.

If players could simply select the objectives they'd like to go after, I'd buy that Maelstrom was better.

Why is everything riding on a clock and a single dice roll to see which turn is last so more strategic, tactical, and balanced than controllable, incremental, scoring throughout the game that allows both killpoint and objective control lists to excel?

Why is everything riding on a random card draw and random VP rolls to determine a winner seen as more strategic, tactical, and balanced than letting the players develop a plan to achieve victory in the last three turns.

Admittedly, neither of the mission formats are ideal and both could be improved dramatically.

 Lobukia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


Then those tournaments suck.

Lol, yeah, Adepticon, LVO, BAO, a good chunk of the ITC, what stupid major GTs and such those are

A few thoughts:

To the OP: I think we are all already there. I build my lists with playing the missions and the objectives in mind, I'm sure to keep at least 3 units near the back field. To everyone bashing Malestorm, why do you think so many of the big tournys are using Malestrom or modified versions of it?

I'm going to put it forward that players like it/want it/ask for it... otherwise it wouldn't be there. If impossible objectives are tossed when drawn (kill my pyskers, I have none) the TOs are fairly balanced and make a ton of fun. It makes the game matter as it goes, instead of late game, last turn, objective grabs (cause that was so more tactical than Malestrom... or wasn't).

As far as superheavies... not many tournaments just let them in carte blanche. ITC format (which many RTTs use) has a list. Only the Lynx might be undercosted there, and even then at the LVO only one made top 8.

I really see the anti-tactical objective, anti-FW, anti-SH crowd as a dying generation of gamers that either are dug in or simply unwilling to evolve their play-style to a new format. I feel like I have much more control over my game's outcome with Malestorm than everything waiting until the last turn and then only very few lists and codicies excel. For once I can accrue meaningful, game winning points, each and every turn... not just Warlord, Firstblood and then only the last turn (which is a random element too) matters.

Why is everything riding on a clock and a single dice roll to see which turn is last so more strategic, tactical, and balanced than controllable, incremental, scoring throughout the game that allows both killpoint and objective control lists to excel?

Exalted. You good Sir have a very sound and sensible approach. Bravo.