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1. What if I pull out mission cards which have no relevance to the game? ie having to destroy flyers,psykers when the enemy has none to begin with. What happens to these?
2 If I have objective that are kind of achievable but in practice are going to be impossible to do ie hold all 6 objectives...can these be discarded or what?
Cheers

We house rule that objective cards that could never be achived are discarded but obectives that can be, no matter how hard are kept

We discard anything obviously impossible to do, such as fliers, etc.
But, there is a reason for the 'discard a card at the end' rule, for the 'get all 6' types of card and similar. We keep them when drawn, and drop one at a time when the end of the turn comes around. If it is not impossible but highly-unlikely to claim, there's more reason to try for them. Just think if you scored one, and there were people who saw you do it. That's worth more then the points you score for doing it.

We discard and draw new cards for things like killing fliers when there are no fliers. Like, you couldn't even have done it at any point in the game. Holding all 6 we keep even if that player is no longer able to do it. That's just tough luck then. Unless we play smaller games, in which case we just switch that too.

So generally speaking, if you couldn't do it in with both armies on the board, then we skip it. If you can't do it anymore because you've taken too many losses, then you'll have to deal with it.

My house rule, that always seems to work, is slightly different than what others have expressed here:
You may freely discard objectives that are impossible to complete because of your opponent's choice. For example, if you draw "Kill a psyker" and your opponent is Necrons...well then, try again--that's in no way your fault through tactical or army-building decisions.
HOWEVER, if the card is impossible because of your own choices, then tough luck, you gotta keep it and discard in the usual way. Ie. "Manifest a psychic power" and you play pure Tau...that's on you; you knew that was a possibility and you ignored it. Or "hold all six objectives" and you only brought five units in your army list? That's on you again.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
My house rule, that always seems to work, is slightly different than what others have expressed here:
You may freely discard objectives that are impossible to complete because of your opponent's choice. For example, if you draw "Kill a psyker" and your opponent is Necrons...well then, try again--that's in no way your fault through tactical or army-building decisions.
HOWEVER, if the card is impossible because of your own choices, then tough luck, you gotta keep it and discard in the usual way. Ie. "Manifest a psychic power" and you play pure Tau...that's on you; you knew that was a possibility and you ignored it. Or "hold all six objectives" and you only brought five units in your army list? That's on you again.

That seems kind of odd. You're basically forcing some people to take allies over an objective there.

Yea, that seems a bit unfair. How exactly are you going to bring a psyker with tau?

 Roknar wrote:
Yea, that seems a bit unfair. How exactly are you going to bring a psyker with tau?

Or at least any more than you would with Necrons or Dark Eldar...

I don't see why you'd get additional benefits (like extra discards) because of your planning choices at the "Build an Army" stage of the game. Seems like the same sentiment used by MFA players if you build your list knowing that you will get house ruled to discard objectives you happen to dislike.

I know it's completely possible to build an army that has less than six units--why should you get a free discard for the "Control Six Markers" objective?

If you want to have a tactical advantage in the game, build a list that can tackle ANY objective thrown at you. The game has a mechanic for discarding objectives that you find too hard/impossible. Getting to freely discard ones you can't do because of your opponent is already a huge advantage--why press for more freebies?

Edit: Some armies are better at doing things than others. Everyone knows that. Necrons are bad at psychic stuff. A Baronial Court would be bad at holding all six objectives. Deal with it.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
I don't see why you'd get additional benefits (like extra discards) because of your planning choices at the "Build an Army" stage of the game. Seems like the same sentiment used by MFA players if you build your list knowing that you will get house ruled to discard objectives you happen to dislike.

....

Edit: Some armies are better at doing things than others. Everyone knows that. Necrons are bad at psychic stuff. A Baronial Court would be bad at holding all six objectives. Deal with it.

And building an army precludes some of that sometimes. Necrons and Black Templar are not just "bad" at psychic stuff, it is quite literally impossible for them unless you have Allies.

Should I always plan to take Psykers from other armies, even though the reason I take my main army is the lack of Psykers?

If you want to be able to achieve all the objectives in the deck, then yes, you *should* take Psykers. Taking Psykers gives you certain tactical advantages over not taking them. That is obvious.

Not taking Psykers means you are ok with not achieving those objectives, and are ok with discarding them in the normal manner proscribed in the rules.

As a courtesy to my opponent, I allow him/her to freely discard objectives that cannot be achieved through my own choices--aka when I don't bring a Fort, they can discard the "Kill a Fortification" card and try for another one. I give them that option because I like being nice to my opponent.

I do not claim that I can circumvent the rules because of a decision I knowingly made at time of army creation. That is an attitude of entitlement and nonsense I do not enjoy in myself.

licclerich wrote:
1. What if I pull out mission cards which have no relevance to the game? ie having to destroy flyers,psykers when the enemy has none to begin with. What happens to these?
2 If I have objective that are kind of achievable but in practice are going to be impossible to do ie hold all 6 objectives...can these be discarded or what?
Cheers

The common houseule is that literally impossible objectives, like manifesting psychic powers when your army has no psykers, or killing one when your opponent isn't fielding one, are discarded automatically. For the later part about objectives, well shucks, I'm sorry you think that's so tough. Suck it up and play it out.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

HOWEVER, if the card is impossible because of your own choices, then tough luck, you gotta keep it and discard in the usual way. Ie. "Manifest a psychic power" and you play pure Tau...that's on you; you knew that was a possibility and you ignored it.

This is why they made card packs for most armies.
I assume the Tau pack has no mention of casting powers.

I like the suggestion of only discarding those imposed on by the opponent's list design decisions.

I think in the future I will follow Elric Greywolf's courtesy to my opponents.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

HOWEVER, if the card is impossible because of your own choices, then tough luck, you gotta keep it and discard in the usual way. Ie. "Manifest a psychic power" and you play pure Tau...that's on you; you knew that was a possibility and you ignored it.

This is why they made card packs for most armies.
I assume the Tau pack has no mention of casting powers.

I'm pretty sure they all have the same generic objectives so Tau would have that.

 Skinnereal wrote:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

HOWEVER, if the card is impossible because of your own choices, then tough luck, you gotta keep it and discard in the usual way. Ie. "Manifest a psychic power" and you play pure Tau...that's on you; you knew that was a possibility and you ignored it.

This is why they made card packs for most armies.
I assume the Tau pack has no mention of casting powers.

It does though, because the codex-specific card decks only replace 11-16, all of which are "secure objective 1-6" in the BRB. The rest of the objectives are the same as the BRB.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If you want to be able to achieve all the objectives in the deck, then yes, you *should* take Psykers. Taking Psykers gives you certain tactical advantages over not taking them. That is obvious.

Not taking Psykers means you are ok with not achieving those objectives, and are ok with discarding them in the normal manner proscribed in the rules.

As a courtesy to my opponent, I allow him/her to freely discard objectives that cannot be achieved through my own choices--aka when I don't bring a Fort, they can discard the "Kill a Fortification" card and try for another one. I give them that option because I like being nice to my opponent.

I do not claim that I can circumvent the rules because of a decision I knowingly made at time of army creation. That is an attitude of entitlement and nonsense I do not enjoy in myself.

Sounds like a reason for someone playing you to insist on playing only Eternal War missions, to be honest.

 doctortom wrote:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If you want to be able to achieve all the objectives in the deck, then yes, you *should* take Psykers. Taking Psykers gives you certain tactical advantages over not taking them. That is obvious.

Not taking Psykers means you are ok with not achieving those objectives, and are ok with discarding them in the normal manner proscribed in the rules.

As a courtesy to my opponent, I allow him/her to freely discard objectives that cannot be achieved through my own choices--aka when I don't bring a Fort, they can discard the "Kill a Fortification" card and try for another one. I give them that option because I like being nice to my opponent.

I do not claim that I can circumvent the rules because of a decision I knowingly made at time of army creation. That is an attitude of entitlement and nonsense I do not enjoy in myself.

Sounds like a reason for someone playing you to insist on playing only Eternal War missions, to be honest.

That's a bit harsh. The reasoning makes sense: if you can't achieve an objective because of something you've done, then you shouldn't get a free pass.

That said, it's still not a house rule that I'd use, personally. It's too restrictive and forces some armies to rely on allies while others can do anything. If you're playing Tau, Necrons, Black Templars, World Eaters, or any other (sub)faction that can't take psykers, you need to make sure you allocate a significant number of points to allies, while other armies can get by without an allies tax.

Many armies do not have more than one fortification or flyer. What do you guys do if those units has been destroyed and after that you get those annoying "destroy flyer/fortification" cards? I think it is very unlucky and kind of a punishment. I mean you already did it - why shouldn't you get the reward? You'll get the points for the warlord, too...

Anyway we play it strikt after the rulebook: You are able to discard one card. And even if you forgot to discard a mission that is your own fault. As long as everyone agrees with it...

 Cheexsta wrote:

 doctortom wrote:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If you want to be able to achieve all the objectives in the deck, then yes, you *should* take Psykers. Taking Psykers gives you certain tactical advantages over not taking them. That is obvious.

Not taking Psykers means you are ok with not achieving those objectives, and are ok with discarding them in the normal manner proscribed in the rules.

As a courtesy to my opponent, I allow him/her to freely discard objectives that cannot be achieved through my own choices--aka when I don't bring a Fort, they can discard the "Kill a Fortification" card and try for another one. I give them that option because I like being nice to my opponent.

I do not claim that I can circumvent the rules because of a decision I knowingly made at time of army creation. That is an attitude of entitlement and nonsense I do not enjoy in myself.

Sounds like a reason for someone playing you to insist on playing only Eternal War missions, to be honest.

That's a bit harsh. The reasoning makes sense: if you can't achieve an objective because of something you've done, then you shouldn't get a free pass.

That said, it's still not a house rule that I'd use, personally. It's too restrictive and forces some armies to rely on allies while others can do anything. If you're playing Tau, Necrons, Black Templars, World Eaters, or any other (sub)faction that can't take psykers, you need to make sure you allocate a significant number of points to allies, while other armies can get by without an allies tax.

It's kind of a harsh houserule. I think I'd be good with it if it was a little looser as far as things you actually are not able to take for your faction, I know allies are a thing (and I use them sometimes) but I don't think people should be forced to do that. The objectives are theoretically like some commander saying "We need to do *this*!" or something similar. I don't see Khorne Daemonkin being told "Okay! Unleash our psychic might upon them!"

So if you get a "cast a power" card and your faction literally has no psykers you could have taken, go ahead and discard it and redraw right away, imo. If you need to hold all 6 objectives, but you wrote your army list with 5 units, then no, discard it at the end of your turn like usual. If you were able to do something at the beginning of the game but are no longer able to do it when you draw a card to do it, tough cookies, discard at the end.

Similarly, if you bring a flyer and I blow it out of the sky, then on my next turn draw a card to kill a flyer, I have to keep that card and discard it at the end of my turn. If you never had a flyer, I would be able to redraw, as there's no reason orders would come to destroy something that's not there.

I'm going to give a different viewpoint for the OP to decide. Make of it what you want to.

I HATE the discarding cards houserule, and Maelstrom missions work better when there are no discards whatsoever. The main reason is that it removes an element of list building prior to the game and rewards/penalizes players for bringing what they want with no consequence for drawing the un-achievable cards. Prior to any Maelstrom game, each player has the choice of 3 Decks now to build a list around. Generic, Supremacy, and Faction. At this point, all 36 cards affect list building. I COMPLETELY understand why players think it's unfair to have cards in an army that don't fit the playstyle or are even an option. Destroy a unit in an Assault as Tau, or Psykers in a Necron army are difficult to accomplish, but if a player REALLY wants to be able to claim the VP's for those, then he will have to find a way to put those elements into his lists.

The reverse application is also true. This is one of my favorite aspects of Maelstrom Missions and the houserule destroys it completely. Just like we have access to what objectives we can achieve, we also have a bit of control over how difficult it is to make our opponents gain some VP's. I can choose to exclude certain elements in my army to make it as difficult for my opponent to claim those VP's. Want to kill a psyker? I won't run any. Get VP's for killing a Vehicle? I'm going to challenge myself and not run any specifically to give you another dead card. Houseruling these out rewards my opponent by completely ignoring my decision to not bring an element in my list, which is on top of me not having that aspect in my list in the first place.

The second reason is a result of the first. Card Advantage. While it is time consuming to do it this way, but by removing objectives that cannot be accomplished prior to the game you're reaching the same conclusion as the houserule. After doing it you'll find that one player could have significantly fewer objectives that can be achieved that his opponents. The result is that one player has the potential to reach the better objectives sooner. THAT is the true unfairness in the Houserule method. One player could be rewarded with as little as 28-30 objectives while his opponent is still stuck with a much higher number. For me, I don't understand why you should be rewarded by being able to skip over objectives because I choose to not run Flyers, Vehicles, Multiple Characters, Monstrous Creatures, and don't have access to Fortifications (Formation restrictions usually), Psykers, or Super Heavy/Garg stuff.

-----
I'm not saying it's without it's faults. Maelstrom missions are harder to play the lower the points the game is. Not having enough units to cover all the objectives or the simple likelihood that a player will have the points to even bring units that are on the cards are less likely to be seen are just two reasons Maelstrom is legitimately rough. I find that games under 1.5k are difficult to play Maelstrom because of the potential of drawing multiple Objectives that can't be claimed while your opponent draws those that can, becomes a more common scenario. On the otherside, games at 2k+ are more likely to have multiple elements, and the draw advantage is usually around 1-3 cards, and the games are usually close.

It's also not a developed mechanic that could definitely use some improvement. The Houserule was a good 'fix' when the rules came out to allow us to get used to this new system, but should be eliminated by now. The alternative is the horrible 'ITC Maelstrom' objectives which attempt to capture the Maelstrom feel when it is nothing like Maelstrom missions at all. Here are some 'houserules' that my group tried for a little while that worked before we just simply stopped caring, and just stuck with not eliminating any un-achievable objectives. We even found that some armies or playstyles actually benefited from using the generic deck if you didn't want to fluff out your list to take advantage of the Faction decks.

- Low point games, both players removed the same objectives from BOTH decks, even if they included those elements in their list. This switched to removing X number of cards of choice by each player (we settled on 3 for a while). This kept each players decks containing the same number of objectives to draw from. Think of it like a minimum deck size, and if there were still un-achieveable elements left after that, then they had to stick.
- Removing cards that matched the preferred playstyle in our group. For example, my group didn't like to use any LOW/SHV/Garg/Fort in casual gaming. So we usually left those out of our decks for our games within the group.
- We tried to devise a system where we altered the Cards to put the uncommon ones in the 6,1-6,6 groups and remove them for lower point games or replace that set with the Faction based ones. I still think the idea is good, but the amount of work involved made us think that it's something GW should do, and we should just stick to the existing system. This made it easier to play with players outside of our group rather than make it like a clique.
- Create a 'House' objective deck. We used some of the other ones out there and tested them. This ended up being too much like removing cards that fit our playstyle, and also closer to the ITC Maelstrom where all objectives are achievable by any army. This ended up going back to rewarding players for not having to learn to include elements to claim the VP's to being able to win with lists that they believe are 'competitive'.

-----
There is an opposing view. Take what you want from it, discuss it with your group and go from there. I've been taking a break and playing more AoS recently. Since I have a new group of 40k players that I play with, I don't get games too often because I refuse to play the houserules (and the local area are ITC Mafia). When I do, the games are fun, close, and the lists that are generally considered OP are pretty narrow margins. Some of the more fanatical people have said they're going to play Unbound, which is fine and this is usually when I check lists to see if they built a list purposely to abuse something, or are simply playing with the models they own. That's a different story, so I'll end here.

Thanks for reading.

licclerich wrote:
1. What if I pull out mission cards which have no relevance to the game? ie having to destroy flyers,psykers when the enemy has none to begin with. What happens to these?
2 If I have objective that are kind of achievable but in practice are going to be impossible to do ie hold all 6 objectives...can these be discarded or what?
Cheers

I usually play with this houserule:

Was the card achievable at the start of the game? If not, discard it for free and draw a new one.

Examples:

The harness a warp charge card can be discarded if you didn't include a psyker in your army. It cannot be discarded if you had a psyker that died the turn before.
The demolish a building card can be discarded if there weren't any buildings to begin with. If all buildings have been destroyed before, you cannot discard it for free.


It's not a perfect system (Tau drawing "destroy units in melee" still happens), but it's always 100% clear whether or not you're allowed to ditch the card or not.

@Akar: How exactly do you achieve any of those examples above with a Necron army in a match where your opponent brought no fliers and no buildings?
I've had games where I literally drew a hand full of unachievable cards. There's no way to get back from that, depending on which Maelstrom mission you're playing. You just lost the game due to no fault of your own.

nekooni wrote:
You just lost the game due to no fault of your own.

We're playing a dice game. Statistics aside, luck is a real thing and can have a real impact. You know this going in. If your grav unit gets 0/30 hits on the Wraithknight and fails miserably, and then dies in the subsequent turn, leading to a cataclysmic overrunning of your forces, you don't get to complain about how it "wasn't my fault." You still lost the game through "no fault of your own." It was the dice's fault. In your example, it's the cards' fault. Exact same situation.

My FLGS often runs the "Discard Impossible" houserule for casual games, and that works fine there. When we had our Friendly Tournament (Hobby and Sportsman prizes) we used Maelstrom decks, but our TO had a different twist. We started with a full deck each game, but had the opportunity to discard 6 cards before each round. You would have the opportunity to pitch after you saw your opponents list, and tailor from that. 6 seemed perfect, just enough to tweak the odds of getting an achievable Objective, but depending on the matchup, you may still get stuck with a fistful of garbage. This also allowed armies that could do a little of everything to be more flexible with their discards, and gave well rounded forces an edge, as they didn't have to tailor their discards against their own lists unachievable cards. It worked very well for a casual event.

I'm of the opinion that there are two types of impossible objectives:

-- Literally Impossible Objectives (such as 'Capture Objective 6' when there are only 5x Objective Makers on the field or 'Destroy a Fortification' when there are none on the field).
-- Practically Impossible Objectives

I define 'Practically Impossible Objectives' as objectives that - realistically speaking - a player is never going to be able to achieve. Take - for example - a 2,000 Point Game on a 6'x4' Table where the significant portion one player's army has been destroyed/routed while the remaining elements are surrounded and forced into a corner of the table, and their opponent has a significant advantage over them as a result. At the start of this player's turn, they draw an objective card that requires them to take a single Objective Marker that is in the opposite corner of the playing field. This is, if you think about it, a 'Practically Impossible Objectives'.

Now, I am definitely OK with allowing 'Practically Impossible Objectives' to be discarded (though this is hard to police when playing missions like 'Cloak and Shadows' where you have secret orders). I also most definitely allow the 'Literally Impossible Objectives' to be discarded.

@Eric: I think your views on disallowing the immediate discard of 'Manifest a Psychic Power' when you don't have any psykers in your army (and other such scenarios that are a result of a player's list choice) is a bit harsh. I personally would allow such automatic discards.

@IllumiNono: I don't understand--are you calling the BRB harsh? That really doesn't make any sense. I've never heard anyone anywhere call the rules of the game "harsh." Seems silly.

So if the rules themselves aren't harsh, it is therefore impossible for a more lenient interpretation to be called harsh. And any allowance for discards more than "one at the end of your turn" is more lenient than the rulebook. My houserule, which no one has ever objected to, is very lenient compared to the rulebook. It's a gentle, or mild, or even pleasant interpretation

I wouldn't call it gentle or pleasant.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
@IllumiNono: I don't understand--are you calling the BRB harsh? That really doesn't make any sense. I've never heard anyone anywhere call the rules of the game "harsh." Seems silly.

I'm not calling the BRB or it's rules harsh, I'm calling your House Rule with regards to what is effectively unnecessary punishment for players' list choices. The rule regarding the objectives themselves are - if you ask me - broken because it allows players to drawn Practically or Literally Impossible Objectives with relatively alarming frequency.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
So if the rules themselves aren't harsh, it is therefore impossible for a more lenient interpretation to be called harsh. And any allowance for discards more than "one at the end of your turn" is more lenient than the rulebook. My houserule, which no one has ever objected to, is very lenient compared to the rulebook. It's a gentle, or mild, or even pleasant interpretation

Well if we ever met on the tabletop, I might be the first to object in favour more more leniency.

I don't understand the need to houserule anything. In all the maelstrom games I've played (and its a lot, using BA, and Dark Eldar, straight) we've played it exactly as outlined in the BRB, and the one discard at the end of the turn was more than enough to deal with "impossible" objectives, either because they were across the board, or literally impossible. And all of those games were close to boot.

And my DE run with no psykers, neither myself nor my opponents play fortifications, etc. so we know there will be dead cards. I really have not found it to ever be an issue.