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One of the problems but also the benefits of the maelstrom use of tactical objectives is that it is dependent on the random nature of card draw and scoring objectives is relatively easy in games particularly with obsec.

I was wondering what people thought about the idea of changing the rules for scoring VP from objectives so that you could only score them at the start of your turn rather than the end. The point being that you had to hold the objective through your opoonents turn.

I'm not sure if it will help with the randomness so much as it would help with the lack of counter play in capturing objectives. It is a good house rule and helps stop those "I scored 3 objectives on the top of turn 1" situations where the other person has basically zero ability to respond.

As for reducing randomness I think having more active objectives (a bit of casual play testing has 4 or 5 active objectives being a good number) and the ability to discard any number of objectives at the end of the turn (instead of just 1).

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You might try out the newer ITC format missions and see what you think. They now have you scoring objectives at the start of your turn (before you generate new ones) , so your opponent gets a turn to push you off of important locations. It also has you roll thrice on a chart of 6 random objectives and lets you pick your two favorites. So you're still incentivized not to gunline and win purely through attrition (the things people like about Maelstrom), but the randomness is significantly toned down.

Why not double up on the cards drawn, but you must immediately discard half of them?

It is still random, yes, but it gives both players twice the chance to score.

Otherwise, yeah, check ITC and other tournament comps. They have turn by turn scoring that isn't maelstrom.

Wyldhunt wrote:
You might try out the newer ITC format missions and see what you think. They now have you scoring objectives at the start of your turn (before you generate new ones) , so your opponent gets a turn to push you off of important locations. It also has you roll thrice on a chart of 6 random objectives and lets you pick your two favorites. So you're still incentivized not to gunline and win purely through attrition (the things people like about Maelstrom), but the randomness is significantly toned down.

Thanks I will definitely check it out. Seems similar to my idea.
Does anyone think this causes any major unbalancing. It would favour certain armies of course.

One of the things I love and hate about the current situation is highly mobile armies just dominate. This would tone it down a bit maybe.

One problem that just ocurred to me is how would you handle objectives drawn on the last turn. or even worse the variable game length turns?

One of the things I've done with Maelstrom is to draw 20 cards at the beginning of the game, then discard 10. Every turn you can score up to 2 of them. This way the mission of the game is up to you, it changes every time, and it lets you plan out what you are going to do when.

We've had no issues since switch to a format of "discard and redraw any card that's impossible to score regardless of what you have" and "only play mission 1".

So if you get Witchhunter, and there's no psyker, redraw. But if you get Take Objective 6, and it's 3 feet away from your nearest unit, tough, that one was your fault.

Deadlock and Tactical Escalation are the only problem missions, but it just seemed easier this way. Those 2 missions are badly designed though; don't play them.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
We've had no issues since switch to a format of "discard and redraw any card that's impossible to score regardless of what you have" and "only play mission 1".

So if you get Witchhunter, and there's no psyker, redraw. But if you get Take Objective 6, and it's 3 feet away from your nearest unit, tough, that one was your fault.

Deadlock and Tactical Escalation are the only problem missions, but it just seemed easier this way. Those 2 missions are badly designed though; don't play them.

I agree with this basically. Escalation is alright but it tends to favor trying to obliterate your opponent and then score later in the game when there are more points out there. Deadlock is a cluster feth that is won or lost on the initial draw. If you play with the 1 card discard rule and your initial hand is crap then you can't do anything (other than table them) because your discarding 1 card but your card pool is shrinking so you are stuck with the same dud objectives. Even the others like Cloak and Shadows doesn't add anything to the game (and might encourage cheating) while Spoils of War is hit or miss but usually just causes snowballing one way or the other.

Contact Lost is actually a great mode because it encourages sitting on objectives and wanting to force the enemy off of theirs (even when they don't have a card to claim that objective). Play with lots of LoS blocking terrain and it really encourages people to move around the board and fight for objectives.

We found that Contact Lost favored the deployment roll far too much.

For maximum fun, you want the game to come down to as few single rolls as possible (which is why Seize the Initiative is the stupidest rule in the game).

I like 5 card hand size, discard 2 a turn and can only score 2 cards a turn.

This way you cycle through more cards at a time so you should always have score-able objectives and a cap on how many cards you can score keep the the score normalized and doesn't let the game be about "who ever drew the most score-able cards"

That's going to be everyone scoring 2 points a turn though. Except for lucky d3's. It puts more emphasis back on luck that your D3's come up >1.

You want to limit the number of objectives that can be scored, as that puts a cap on what can be done and re-emphasizes "just kill everything your opponent has".

 DarknessEternal wrote:
That's going to be everyone scoring 2 points a turn though. Except for lucky d3's. It puts more emphasis back on luck that your D3's come up >1.

You want to limit the number of objectives that can be scored, as that puts a cap on what can be done and re-emphasizes "just kill everything your opponent has".

cards are public knowledge so the game focuses on scoring your more optimal cards and trying to deny your opponent's optimal cards

Instead of dropping 1 card, allow you do drop all cards at the end of your turn.

I really dislike maelstrom. Losing because your opponent drew more D3 objective cards is pretty darn stupid. If you have a cool group I'd suggest coming up with new mission objectives entirely. IMO there is nothing like good old cleanse and kill points.

Well, at least maelstorm is infinitely better than old killpoints and cleansing where you got screwed for playing in a certain way in the first place and could really do nothing about it.

If you want to minimize randomness, get rid of d3 - make it straight 2 points. Re-roll objectives that can't be achieved like kill a flyer if noone has one.

Another way is to make the VP scoring process more interactive. One thing that ITC did good with their missions is make them accounted at the start of your next turn instead of the end of your current turn. It allows the opponent to react. However, the thing they did awful is the amount of killpoint missions every turn that are way easier to perform than scoring. However, if you apply this concept to maelstorm, where there are way less Kill X missions, it would work wonders.