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First off, I know Maelstrom gets a lot of flakk, and I don't think it's without it's flaws. That being said, I'm playing a game on Friday against one of my regular opponents, and I'm really excited to play. With the new Maelstrom cards with harder objectives but more points, I feel like there is more depth to the game.

Every time I play Eternal War, 90% of it is shoot everything in sight, then last turn scramble for objectives. With Maelstrom I like being always on the move, because it forces me to choose targets or move into positions I most likely wouldn't have, especially if I have to walk out in the open to grab a card.

Maelstrom can be flawed in terms of card draws and rigged objectives (looking at you, Grey Knights), but overall I much prefer it to Eternal War. I would love to see a more fine-tuned version in an 8th edition of 40k, but I truly feel a modified Maelstrom is better for the game and for players as opposed to static objectives that only count at the end. Heck, I'd even prefer something where you got a point for every turn you held an objective and 5 or 6 points at the end of the game if you held it. That way, holding it during and at the end of the game matters.

Pretty much agree with everything you say. It's fun ... until one player gets (almost) impossible objectives and the others gets several d3 objectives in a row where he/she pretty much just has to sit there. Mind you, I've only played with a shared mission deck. Not sure how much that affects the game.

Even so, more often than not a game will be fairly evenly matched. Even when one army is getting hammered. I won a game with like a handful of models left on the board, if that. GW could do a lot to improve it, but the basic idea of dynamically changing objectives works pretty well overall.

Even the objective based generic warlord traits can sometimes come in handy. Lead by example pretty much singehandedly won me a game, despite taking my juggerlord out of the game for 3 turn.

Roknar wrote:
Pretty much agree with everything you say. It's fun ... until one player gets (almost) impossible objectives and the others gets several d3 objectives in a row where he/she pretty much just has to sit there. Mind you, I've only played with a shared mission deck. Not sure how much that affects the game.

Even so, more often than not a game will be fairly evenly matched. Even when one army is getting hammered. I won a game with like a handful of models left on the board, if that. GW could do a lot to improve it, but the basic idea of dynamically changing objectives works pretty well overall.

Even the objective based generic warlord traits can sometimes come in handy. Lead by example pretty much singehandedly won me a game, despite taking my juggerlord out of the game for 3 turn.

Agreed. I've definitely had games where my opponent drew "Hold Objective 5" and "Hold Objective 6" three times and there was nothing I could do, but I've also had games where I should've been absolutely stomped, but due to playing to Objectives I won or at least made it a draw.

Maelstrom is more dynamic. Thats about it however. It's an awful mess of randomness, with gobs of either autowin or autolose objectives and huge amounts of stuff thats completely nonsensical for many factions or as a battlefield objective at all, and really emphasize the power of existing power builds.

The Eternal War missions have issues, but Maelstrom is an awful alternative.

I like a mixture of the two. We have taken to rolling a d12 to decide the mission. 1-6 are Eternal War, 7-12 are Maelstrom. Sometimes we roll a d20 and add 13-18 as Angels of Death missions (forget the name) and reroll 19-20.

As long as the objectives for both players are fair and reasonably attainable, Maelstrom does provide a good and reasonably fair gaming experience. But that's based on the very unreasonable assumption that the objectives are fair and reasonably attainable for both players.

For example, I've played plenty of Maelstrom missions where either myself or my opponent has drawn horrendous objective cards (e.g. Secure Objective 6 when, especially given where the opponent's units are, is practically impossible to achieve). I've also play plenty of Maelstrom games where not only as the aforementioned happened, but the other player has drawn really easy and/or points-rich objective cards.

If you could guarantee that the objectives each player would draw is practical to achieve and fair to all players, then Maelstrom would be a better game mode. But you can't guarantee this, and the extreme flip-side which produces incredibly unfair games happens a lot more often than you might think. So I can't agree that Maelstrom is the better game mode.

That being said, Eternal War is far from perfect, but that doesn't allow us to forgive the sins of Maelstrom.

Mostly Maelstrom for me is a way to play the game, not my opponent. I really don't care what my opponent brings, because my list is set up to maximize mobility to grab Maelstrom objectives, all while talking smack and having a grand old time out thinking rather than out rolling the other guy.

SJ

You make a good point. It also makes for a (slightly) less uphill battle for the lower tier codexes imho. I'd like to say that I like how troops matter more, but I found that people gravitate much more towards CADs in maelstrom and most troops end up being obsec on both sides. At least that's what happened in my group.

My friends and I still favour death battles with no objectives and no turn cap.

Play till wipe or concede.

I think Maelstrom is a pile of garbage. Though it is practically what I play every game. Quite often the interactions between units have nothing to do with the outcome of the game. An army that is getting literally leveled can still win based on lucky d3's and the opponent drawing crappy cards.

 IllumiNini wrote:
As long as the objectives for both players are fair and reasonably attainable, Maelstrom does provide a good and reasonably fair gaming experience. But that's based on the very unreasonable assumption that the objectives are fair and reasonably attainable for both players.

For example, I've played plenty of Maelstrom missions where either myself or my opponent has drawn horrendous objective cards (e.g. Secure Objective 6 when, especially given where the opponent's units are, is practically impossible to achieve). I've also play plenty of Maelstrom games where not only as the aforementioned happened, but the other player has drawn really easy and/or points-rich objective cards.

If you could guarantee that the objectives each player would draw is practical to achieve and fair to all players, then Maelstrom would be a better game mode. But you can't guarantee this, and the extreme flip-side which produces incredibly unfair games happens a lot more often than you might think. So I can't agree that Maelstrom is the better game mode.

That being said, Eternal War is far from perfect, but that doesn't allow us to forgive the sins of Maelstrom.

I respectfully disagree. New Maelstrom cards would make the missions work fine, they'd just need to be balanced to avoid being totally one-sided.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Maelstrom is more dynamic. Thats about it however. It's an awful mess of randomness, with gobs of either autowin or autolose objectives and huge amounts of stuff thats completely nonsensical for many factions or as a battlefield objective at all, and really emphasize the power of existing power builds.

The Eternal War missions have issues, but Maelstrom is an awful alternative.

But new Maelstrom cards could fix that by being balanced. That or instead of having it only be "Secure objective X", have any card be able to be scored by either player, i.e. a neutral objective pile.

Neither maelstrom nor EW are particularly great when it comes to mission setup. Maelstrom is better than EW, however.

Sure, Maelstrom is essentially determining the winner of the game through a series of random die rolls with the better constructed/played army getting more rolls than than the other. That's basically what 40k is in a nutshell - the idea that randomness multiplied by large sample size = close to the average, with variation to create excitement.

Eternal war is, frequently, determining the winner of the game with a SINGLE die roll before the models are even set up, primarily because of the way the missions are structured.

Did you roll Relic or Kill Points? Select the army with fewer, more beefy units. They will most likely win.

Did you roll Lots O' Objectives? Select the MSU army that can avoid the fight until the end and score lots of objectives. They will most likely win.

Did you roll The Emperor's Tie? Have fun, the game will probably be determined by first blood.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Spoiler:

 IllumiNini wrote:
As long as the objectives for both players are fair and reasonably attainable, Maelstrom does provide a good and reasonably fair gaming experience. But that's based on the very unreasonable assumption that the objectives are fair and reasonably attainable for both players.

For example, I've played plenty of Maelstrom missions where either myself or my opponent has drawn horrendous objective cards (e.g. Secure Objective 6 when, especially given where the opponent's units are, is practically impossible to achieve). I've also play plenty of Maelstrom games where not only as the aforementioned happened, but the other player has drawn really easy and/or points-rich objective cards.

If you could guarantee that the objectives each player would draw is practical to achieve and fair to all players, then Maelstrom would be a better game mode. But you can't guarantee this, and the extreme flip-side which produces incredibly unfair games happens a lot more often than you might think. So I can't agree that Maelstrom is the better game mode.

That being said, Eternal War is far from perfect, but that doesn't allow us to forgive the sins of Maelstrom.

I respectfully disagree. New Maelstrom cards would make the missions work fine, they'd just need to be balanced to avoid being totally one-sided.

If you're referring to the relatively new objective cards, then they are just as imbalanced as the regular Tactical Objective Cars but in different ways. The fact that there are two different decks of cards does't fix the problem by any means. In fact, the fact tat there are two different decks makes the problem with Maelstrom Missions even worse if you consider the case where one player/side uses the old deck and one the other player/side uses the new deck.

I've been playing Maelstrom for the entirety of 7th edition up until about a month ago when I started playing the Eternal War missions. It's been a welcome change of pace to keep the cards in the box and play a more dependable game. That being said, I've had a load of fun with Maelstrom - the cards keep the game dynamic and mobile, and I love the army-specific decks that give armies even more character. I think it can be really swingy and I think houserules are necessary though - for instance, being able to mulligan any cards that there are no way of accomplishing, like shooting down a flyer when you're fighting an army without them and so on.

Eternal War missions are very predictable as soon as Seize the Initiative is rolled.

Maelstrom is not.

 IllumiNini wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Spoiler:

 IllumiNini wrote:
As long as the objectives for both players are fair and reasonably attainable, Maelstrom does provide a good and reasonably fair gaming experience. But that's based on the very unreasonable assumption that the objectives are fair and reasonably attainable for both players.

For example, I've played plenty of Maelstrom missions where either myself or my opponent has drawn horrendous objective cards (e.g. Secure Objective 6 when, especially given where the opponent's units are, is practically impossible to achieve). I've also play plenty of Maelstrom games where not only as the aforementioned happened, but the other player has drawn really easy and/or points-rich objective cards.

If you could guarantee that the objectives each player would draw is practical to achieve and fair to all players, then Maelstrom would be a better game mode. But you can't guarantee this, and the extreme flip-side which produces incredibly unfair games happens a lot more often than you might think. So I can't agree that Maelstrom is the better game mode.

That being said, Eternal War is far from perfect, but that doesn't allow us to forgive the sins of Maelstrom.

I respectfully disagree. New Maelstrom cards would make the missions work fine, they'd just need to be balanced to avoid being totally one-sided.

If you're referring to the relatively new objective cards, then they are just as imbalanced as the regular Tactical Objective Cars but in different ways. The fact that there are two different decks of cards does't fix the problem by any means. In fact, the fact tat there are two different decks makes the problem with Maelstrom Missions even worse if you consider the case where one player/side uses the old deck and one the other player/side uses the new deck.

Sorry, I should've specified. I think the new cards are better, but like you said, only if both players use them. I meant a new "New" set of cards that are designed to be one per 2 players would be better and hopefully more balanced.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Eternal War missions are very predictable as soon as Seize the Initiative is rolled.

Maelstrom is not.

I have to agree, neither is perfect but at least with maelstrom it isn't the same thing on repeat. And with my experience typically the army that plays better does better. NOT the army that kills more mind you. Though thatis a legitimate maelstrom strategy. Wipe your opponent out so he can't score, but it isn't the only or even best way all the time. And that's why I prefer it.

 jreilly89 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Maelstrom is more dynamic. Thats about it however. It's an awful mess of randomness, with gobs of either autowin or autolose objectives and huge amounts of stuff thats completely nonsensical for many factions or as a battlefield objective at all, and really emphasize the power of existing power builds.

The Eternal War missions have issues, but Maelstrom is an awful alternative.

But new Maelstrom cards could fix that by being balanced. That or instead of having it only be "Secure objective X", have any card be able to be scored by either player, i.e. a neutral objective pile.

sure, if we scrapped the current system and rebuilt it we might get something better, but that doesnt help the current system. That said, I have zero faith that GW is either capable of, or even remotely interested in, that, and would certainly still suffer from a whole lot of extraneous record keeping and coherency (e.g. why is high command giving us random senseless objectives) issues.

Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

I agree 100%. I think that eternal war is all basically kill points with a last turn scramble, save for the relic, which has a first turn scramble.

Maelstrom may be random, but so is the game. I really like the new maelstrom as well. They favor melee just a little bit, which having played a shooty army for the past year, I am OK with, but I have encountered people who straight up refuse them because those cards favor melee a little. I like them because the new variety of the objectives. I wish more people were less concerned about the tally of points at the end of the game, and more concerned with the gameplay. I have more fun playing with the new objective cards, win or lose.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Maelstrom is more dynamic. Thats about it however. It's an awful mess of randomness, with gobs of either autowin or autolose objectives and huge amounts of stuff thats completely nonsensical for many factions or as a battlefield objective at all, and really emphasize the power of existing power builds.

The Eternal War missions have issues, but Maelstrom is an awful alternative.

But new Maelstrom cards could fix that by being balanced. That or instead of having it only be "Secure objective X", have any card be able to be scored by either player, i.e. a neutral objective pile.

sure, if we scrapped the current system and rebuilt it we might get something better, but that doesnt help the current system. That said, I have zero faith that GW is either capable of, or even remotely interested in, that, and would certainly still suffer from a whole lot of extraneous record keeping and coherency (e.g. why is high command giving us random senseless objectives) issues.

Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

Love to see a cartoon with a schizophrenic warlord that has a serious case of adhd. Better yet, make him a psyker that doesn't know when how to use psyhcic powers properly. Bonus points for random mutations.
" Go kill that squad. Wait, nvm, I just remembered this spell...Oooh shiny."

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

the reasons the battles take place may be irrational, however every fluff battle I can think of is described and plays out far more closely to what an Eternal War mission portrays than Maelstrom. Nobody is juggling a dozen or more random directives in a platoon level firefight.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

the reasons the battles take place may be irrational, however every fluff battle I can think of is described and plays out far more closely to what an Eternal War mission portrays than Maelstrom. Nobody is juggling a dozen or more random directives in a platoon level firefight.

I'm sorry, but that is one of the poorest reasons for not liking Maelstrom. The lore is far, FAR off from the Table Top. Just look at number of Space Marines and Grav weaponry and the unkillable Dreadnoughts.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

the reasons the battles take place may be irrational, however every fluff battle I can think of is described and plays out far more closely to what an Eternal War mission portrays than Maelstrom. Nobody is juggling a dozen or more random directives in a platoon level firefight.

I'm sorry, but that is one of the poorest reasons for not liking Maelstrom. The lore is far, FAR off from the Table Top. Just look at number of Space Marines and Grav weaponry and the unkillable Dreadnoughts.

Which is why you'll notice it wasnt really the thrust of my original point. That said, trying to play out battles with random "whack-a-mole" objectives isn't conducive to an immersive experience either, which, for a game so heavily reliant on its IP for its continued existence (nobody would be touching this ruleset with a 40ft pole without the lore attached) is a legitimate problem (though admittedly not exclusivr to Maelstrom, just most apparent).

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

the reasons the battles take place may be irrational, however every fluff battle I can think of is described and plays out far more closely to what an Eternal War mission portrays than Maelstrom. Nobody is juggling a dozen or more random directives in a platoon level firefight.

I'm sorry, but that is one of the poorest reasons for not liking Maelstrom. The lore is far, FAR off from the Table Top. Just look at number of Space Marines and Grav weaponry and the unkillable Dreadnoughts.

Which is why you'll notice it wasnt really the thrust of my original point. That said, trying to play out battles with random "whack-a-mole" objectives isn't conducive to an immersive experience either, which, for a game so heavily reliant on its IP for its continued existence (nobody would be touching this ruleset with a 40ft pole without the lore attached) is a legitimate problem (though admittedly not exclusivr to Maelstrom, just most apparent).

Agreed. I'm fine with people not liking Maelstrom for it's tactics (or lack there of), it just bugs me when people try to drag lore into the tabletop game

Maelstrom is a random mess that favors the fortunate over the skillful. It also contains cards that have victory conditions that can be literally be impossible to achieve. It favors already powerful armies and punishes armies with a lack of mobility. Is Eternal War any better? Only somewhat so but I'd rather play eternal war where at the very least I won't be screwed over by a bad draw of cards.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


Battles are built around a goal, be it to seize ground or destroy a specific target or to recover something. Once accomplished, a force either leaves the field or consolidates its hold, it doesnr get sent around doing a laundry list of random tasks.

So what part of the 40k universe's 30 years of real life backstory about the crapsack nature of it's setting gives you even the slightest indication that their battles take place for reasons we (real people) think are rational?

the reasons the battles take place may be irrational, however every fluff battle I can think of is described and plays out far more closely to what an Eternal War mission portrays than Maelstrom. Nobody is juggling a dozen or more random directives in a platoon level firefight.

I'm sorry, but that is one of the poorest reasons for not liking Maelstrom. The lore is far, FAR off from the Table Top. Just look at number of Space Marines and Grav weaponry and the unkillable Dreadnoughts.

Which is why you'll notice it wasnt really the thrust of my original point. That said, trying to play out battles with random "whack-a-mole" objectives isn't conducive to an immersive experience either, which, for a game so heavily reliant on its IP for its continued existence (nobody would be touching this ruleset with a 40ft pole without the lore attached) is a legitimate problem (though admittedly not exclusivr to Maelstrom, just most apparent).

Agreed. I'm fine with people not liking Maelstrom for it's tactics (or lack there of), it just bugs me when people try to drag lore into the tabletop game

Heaven forbid. It's not like there are numerous rules made to reflect the lore at all.

I don't minds maelstrom, but in too many games where I feel like I won the battle, I lost the game. Also true the other way around.

Aye, and its the tactical aspect that bothers me most, though 40k is so hugely reliant on its lore that there are some things which I feel are legitimate issues to bring up. I have the same issues with missions like Big Guns, tactically it makes HS units a detriment for no reason, while the fluff description appears to describe such a mission as one where HS units should be a boon (and they were under 6E...they apparently forgot to copypaste properly) and the fluff aspect has some impact there on top of the tactical aspect.

I feel like meal storm ID better, but I'd prefer people sometimes rolled for eternal was vs mealstorm, and then rolled for which mission. I really feel like when making a list, the danger of it ending up as a kill point game should be a real concern. The only reason I run MSU tau is because I know I'll never run into an eternal war game.

The kind of missions you get in eternal war are far more varried too, which forces you to at least be prepared for a verity of circumstances, as apposed to raw field control on certain stages of the game.