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2019/12/31 14:08:40
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
I don't play as often as I'd like, so maybe folks with more regular games can sound off. It seemed at a glance that the changes would bring better first turn / second turn balance and eliminate some of the randomness of the objective cards by letting you craft a deck. Is anyone loving or hating the new changes?
I'm enjoying them so far but only played a couple games. Need to try maelstrom since it has a lot more strategy now than it used to.
Granted that it wasn't a high bar to pass originally but I think they did a good job at making you think about your deck and leveraging the missions in your favor. Plus anything that encourages CP usage on something other than nuking the other guy is probably a good thing these days.
I also like how eternal war has you scoring per turn and some of the missions involve disappearing or destroying objectives. That's always fun and something more wargames should incorporate. Being able to deny points to the enemy or smash and grab is a blast
'I've played Guard for years, and the best piece of advice is to always utilize the Guard's best special rule: "we roll more dice than you" ' - stormleader
"Sector Imperialis: 25mm and 40mm Round Bases (40+20) 26€ (Including 32 skulls for basing) " GW design philosophy in a nutshell
2019/12/31 15:42:50
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
I like the escalation missions in the linked game section; I've always played Kill Team/ 40k/ Apocalypse as an integrated suite of games, but I'm glad GW is finally trying to give other players more tools.
Any time someone complains about 40k, I always recommend this style of play to them. It amazes me how few people are willing to solve their own problems by expanding their idea of what the game is; admittedly, there's a cost... Buying BSF, all the Kill Team books, the 40kBRB + CA + your dex and Apocalypse is a lot to spend.
But escalation is definitely the way to overcome any faults in any one system.
2019/12/31 17:12:48
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
The new Maelstrom missions are great. They pretty much completely remove the previous problems Maelstrom had and add some extra strategy to the game as well. Not played too many of the new Eternal War missions but they also seem like a pretty good step forward.
The one thing I'd like to see a little bit more of in the missions is disruptive deployment rules. The Recon mission tried, but failed, to do something like this. I'd like to see 1 or 2 missions that have deployment rules similar to previous GW games, like the old WH scenario that had elements of your army forced to deploy on one flank or another. It gets pretty old pretty fast seeing the same deployment time after time with guaranteed aura buffs for the units that need it and no real thought required.
2019/12/31 17:54:31
Subject: Re:What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
There are still a lot of people who haven't tried them yet - including myself. These are the rules so those who don't have the book can get an inkling of how the system works now:
Spoiler:
Before playing one of the following Maelstrom of War
missions, after your opponent has shared their army
roster with you, you must construct an Objective deck.
This deck should be made up of a minimum of 18 Tactical
Objective cards, chosen from the pool available to your
army. No more than one copy of each uniquely named
Tactical Objective can be included in the deck.
At the start of the first battle round, each player shuffles
their Objective deck and draws 5 Tactical Objective cards.
If either player is not happy with the initial cards that they
have drawn, they can choose to place them at the bottom
of their Objective deck, in any order, and draw 4 new
Tactical Objective cards.
At the start of your turn, put Tactical Objective cards
from your hand into play until you have three in-play
Tactical Objectives or there are no more cards left in
your hand. A Tactical Objective card is considered to be
generated when it is put into play.
When putting a Tactical Objective card into play, place
it either face up for both players to see, or face down – its
details kept hidden from your opponent until such a point
as it is either achieved or discarded. No player can have
more than one face-down, in-play Tactical Objective at
any point (unless otherwise specified).
After you have finished putting any Tactical Objectives
into play, draw Tactical Objective cards until you have a
hand of 5 cards
.
When you draw a Tactical Objective card, take the top
card from your Objective deck and add it to your hand.
A player’s hand is kept hidden from their opponent for
the duration of the battle. If there are no cards left in
the Objective deck when instructed to draw a Tactical
Objective card, do nothing instead.
At the end of the Morale phase, you can discard any of
your in-play Tactical Objectives.
The missions all interact with the decks in some way:
Spoiler:
DISRUPTIVE TACTICS
At the start of each player’s turn, before
putting any Tactical Objectives into
play, that player reveals the top three
cards of their Objective deck (if that
Objective deck has fewer than three
cards remaining, reveal as many as are
available). That player’s opponent can then
select one of those cards to be placed on
the bottom of that player’s Objective deck,
and the remaining cards are returned
to the top of the deck in an order of the
opponent’s choice.
And all missions use the roll off, defender chooses map and zone, attacker full deploy, defender full deploy, and attacker decides who takes first (and only Defender can seize).
2019/12/31 18:09:38
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
ERJAK wrote: They're good missions. Not great, but not bad either. Like most other tournament style missions.
I wish they had alternating deployment again though.
I kind of like that the defender gets to counter deploy the attacker gives you a way to be a little better defended against the first turn alpha strike from many armies.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/31 18:21:37
Blood for the bloo... wait no, I meant for Sanguinius!
2020/01/01 09:04:53
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
I thought the new Maelstrom missions would ruin the uber-casual nature of it, I've played a couple of games with it now and I'm not sure, it wasn't a catastrophe and the deck construction went more smoothly than I imagined. I still think trying to make Maelstrom work in competitive events is silly, having a bit more control was okay and I still got blown out by lucky draws in one of the games which I appreciate because the game was meant to be casual.
2020/01/02 22:25:22
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
Very cool... thanks for the insights. I don't have the book, but I think I can find a way to access and transcribe the missions. It seems like all of the Maelstrom varieties share a common deployment, game length, and scoring profile, with just one or two mission-specific rules about managing objectives and cards, while the Eternal War missions have quite a bit more diversity built in... does that ring true?
MacPhail wrote: Very cool... thanks for the insights. I don't have the book, but I think I can find a way to access and transcribe the missions. It seems like all of the Maelstrom varieties share a common deployment, game length, and scoring profile, with just one or two mission-specific rules about managing objectives and cards, while the Eternal War missions have quite a bit more diversity built in... does that ring true?
Pretty much yeah, 1 of the missions let’s you keep all of your tactical objectives secret if you are behind at the start of the round, I like that gives you a small advantage to possibly catch up, but not to much.
Blood for the bloo... wait no, I meant for Sanguinius!
2020/01/02 23:53:57
Subject: What's the verdict on the CA '19 mission overhaul?
The Eternal War missions are very nicely balanced and really lend themselves to an event where each one is played. They require completely different objectives to achieve victory and it really tests different aspects of the list you take. This is, without a doubt the best way to actually play 40k, hands down.
My group also trialed the new maelstrom missions (the ones that allow deck-buliding with a minimum of 18 cards). In the most recent game using my Ultras I tried taking the lowest amount of cards possible, whilst my opponent took around 30. Here's the crazy thing; I managed to score 15 points from the 18 cards in the first 4 turns and literally ran out of things that can score me points! My opponent still had objectives to play for on turn 5/6 and thus won the game. There is a lot to consider when building the decks. Either way, the game was great fun and very close, finishing 16-15 in favour of the Tau.
I will try to avoid ITC events in future where possible as they are far less fun. A single mission with minor variation is an inferior way to play the game, to put it bluntly.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/01/03 10:59:01
