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What are the major differences in CA 19? I don't see it changing much based on what I have played.

Not massive changes, just a few tweaks

 Xenomancers wrote:
What are the major differences in CA 19? I don't see it changing much based on what I have played.

Depends. Maelstrom is more interesting now. You build your deck now and the rules surrounding interactions with the deck are quite well written (much like secondaries). The deployment language for all missions is also much better. And there are special interactions with objectives.

They're worth a read.

My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.

I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"

When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.

I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
What are the major differences in CA 19? I don't see it changing much based on what I have played.

Well, going thru the eternal war missions:

Acceptable Casualties and the new (old) Deployment vs going first system has been added throughout.

Crusade: A new mission, very basic in structure. 6 objectives, progressive scoring starting turn 2, dawn of war deployment, and both players score objectives at the start of their turn, rather than the end, meaning you actually have to survive a full enemy turn on an objective to score it.

Scorched Earth: Tweaked from CA2017. Basically, scoring starts turn 2, and at the start of the turn like in Crusade, and they exchanged First Blood for First Strike.

Ascension: Another 2017 reprint, keeps the end of turn scoring structure rather than switching over to start of turn. Progressive scoring objectives and if you score an objective with a character in subsequent turns it's worth more. Honestly, my least favorite of the bunch, because it encourages aura-bot characters.

Front Line Warfare: IMO the best mission of the bunch. 4 objectives on the board, with progressive scoring at the end of each battle round, giving the second player a significant enough advantage to offset the tempo loss. The objective in your deployment zone is worth 1, the objectives on the centerline of the board 2, and the one in your opponent's deployment 4. IIRC, this mission was seriously hindered by being an end of game scorer when it was first printed, and since so few games actually went ot the end an otherwise very good mission was rarely relevant.

Four Pillars: The closest mission to kill points, one objective in each quadrant of the board, I believe you score 2 points if you have more objectives than your opponent at end of battle round and 1 point if you killed more of their units. The player with the first turn tends to achieve the latter objective and the player with second turn has a better chance at the former.

Lockdown: place 6 objectives on the board. Player who takes the first turn picks the objective that will be #1, player who takes the second turn picks which one will be #6. The rest are randomly determined. At the end of each battle round, the objective corresponding to the battle round number disappears. Players score 1 point for each objective they have and 1 bonus point if they control more than their opponent.

the_scotsman wrote:
My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.

I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"

When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.

I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Didn't CF or IF just sweep a GW event using GW missions?

Not sure if they used CA 2019 missions but claiming that GW missions are more "balanced" than ITC missions without any evidence doesn't contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

The lack of knowledge of ITC missions is a barrier to entry and can definitely make those matches unfair. Going into it designing your list to deal with the secondaries vs being shown the secondaries at the table is not a way to establish a fair game and is a valid criticism. I don't think ITC are ideal for pick-up games but as imbalanced as the game is currently any pick-up game is going to need a boat load of pre-game conversation to be any where near "fair and balanced" (which is why I haven't played outside of my garage since the marine supplements dropped).

I've played the CA 2019 missions in my garage and they are the best written missions GW has put out in my experience. I don't see them resolving the power imbalance between a lot of factions as blasting your opponent off objectives is still one of the best way to score/deny points. Eldar flyers are not as good but that's one of the few army comps I've seen impacted by them (although I've only played a few games and it has been with rather casual lists vs my brother who last played 40k in 1998...)

No mission format is going to make for a fair game between my space wolves and Nick's iron hands. GW screwed the pooch with the marine release and are doubling down on their mistake by just trying to buff other armies up to marine levels of absurdity.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.

I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"

When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.

I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.

I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"

When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.

I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.

The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.

as a couple examples:

Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win

They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.

Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.

I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.

bananathug wrote:
Didn't CF or IF just sweep a GW event using GW missions?

Not sure if they used CA 2019 missions but claiming that GW missions are more "balanced" than ITC missions without any evidence doesn't contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.

The lack of knowledge of ITC missions is a barrier to entry and can definitely make those matches unfair. Going into it designing your list to deal with the secondaries vs being shown the secondaries at the table is not a way to establish a fair game and is a valid criticism. I don't think ITC are ideal for pick-up games but as imbalanced as the game is currently any pick-up game is going to need a boat load of pre-game conversation to be any where near "fair and balanced" (which is why I haven't played outside of my garage since the marine supplements dropped).

I've played the CA 2019 missions in my garage and they are the best written missions GW has put out in my experience. I don't see them resolving the power imbalance between a lot of factions as blasting your opponent off objectives is still one of the best way to score/deny points. Eldar flyers are not as good but that's one of the few army comps I've seen impacted by them (although I've only played a few games and it has been with rather casual lists vs my brother who last played 40k in 1998...)

No mission format is going to make for a fair game between my space wolves and Nick's iron hands. GW screwed the pooch with the marine release and are doubling down on their mistake by just trying to buff other armies up to marine levels of absurdity.

Strange thing about that GT heat was it was Imperial Fists bossing it (along with Crimson Fists). I think you had to be there to see what was going on (I was not) but IF/CF are krytponite for mech lists of any kind so maybe a handful of really good players decided to second-guess the meta and bring deliberately anti-meta lists that would kill IH and Eldar flyer lists.

They were not even Dev Centurion/siegebreaker lists - or at least neither of the lists I have seen was.

The top Iron Hands list was 12th.

That would have been CA18 missions but I do not think that is the big factor here. I think it was more that some players anticipated a vehicle-heavy meta and built lists to crush that. If the pattern continues then I would have to agree that the balance in CA missions is merely different rather than better, let's wait and see.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).

Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.

Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.

You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?

the_scotsman wrote:
...I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.

The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.

as a couple examples:

Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win

They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.

Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.

I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.

The Open War sudden death conditions feel sort of half-baked to me because differing army comp can make them vary from trivially easy to nigh-useless. Of the three you've listed 1 appears to be a big middle finger to Guard and Tau (who have no reason to move forward after they've got a few objectives other than the risk of you drawing that card), 2 is trivial if you've got a fast melee Warlord and your opponent's Warlord isn't a tank (how are you going to prevent a Dawneagle Shield-Captain from reaching your Guard Senior Officer?), and 3 is impossible for Eldar (in my experience they either table you faster than that or get crushed faster than that), and trivial for spammy lists or skew lists fighting small elite lists.

I do like the concept and I like them much better if you've got a neutral third party curating the Open War cards instead of pulling randomly from the deck and hoping the RNG isn't going to screw over your army comp/matchup too badly.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
...I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.

The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.

as a couple examples:

Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win

They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.

Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.

I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.

The Open War sudden death conditions feel sort of half-baked to me because differing army comp can make them vary from trivially easy to nigh-useless. Of the three you've listed 1 appears to be a big middle finger to Guard and Tau (who have no reason to move forward after they've got a few objectives other than the risk of you drawing that card), 2 is trivial if you've got a fast melee Warlord and your opponent's Warlord isn't a tank (how are you going to prevent a Dawneagle Shield-Captain from reaching your Guard Senior Officer?), and 3 is impossible for Eldar (in my experience they either table you faster than that or get crushed faster than that), and trivial for spammy lists or skew lists fighting small elite lists.

I do like the concept and I like them much better if you've got a neutral third party curating the Open War cards instead of pulling randomly from the deck and hoping the RNG isn't going to screw over your army comp/matchup too badly.

That is for sure the biggest weakness of the Open War cards: They work REALLY well if you curate the mission carefully, and REALLY poorly as a pick up game random draw setup.But I have gotten a ton of mileage out of leveraging their mechanics and tweaking them for the various custom mission events I've organized.

Although, sometimes it is funny to put a faction in a "fish out of water" situation. I've played a Tau vs Guard game inspired by one of the recent scenarios where the Guard's big advantage was that the "Crush Them" stratagem was 0CP and could be used any number of times in a turn, and they had to break through the Tau lines and get off the board.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).

Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.

Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.

You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?

I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .

 Xenomancers wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).

Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.

Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.

You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?

I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .

That is 1000% the main reason I got so into apoc when it came out. It is a much, MUCH less deadly game overall (Unless you're a character...)

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.

It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.

Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....

It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.

Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).

Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.

Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.

You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?

I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .

That is 1000% the main reason I got so into apoc when it came out. It is a much, MUCH less deadly game overall (Unless you're a character...)

I enjoyed certain elements if apoc. The alternating detachments and casualties removing at the end of turns was great. The cards ruined it for me though. Also the balance was a lot worse than in 40k standard (that is saying a lot!) and things like being able to deep strike and take aim at the same time...I think it would be a good base for a 9th eddition game system. I didn't like the blast marker system ether.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).

Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.

I have a vague recollection that the 2nd edition might have had something remotely resembling this. I mean randomised secret objectives. Or maybe I'm imagining it, I'm not sure...

CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

Yoyoyo wrote:
CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

So, a unit with the IRON HANDS keyword would not be allowed to use any defensive stratagem or psyhic power, because it already has 1 defensive ability (The CT?)

Because IIRC The situation you're complaining about is 1 chapter tactic, 1 strat, and 1 Datasheet ability.

 Xenomancers wrote:

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.

Karol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.

Unless my codex is out of date, the stratagem is actually

"Use when a GREY KNIGHTS VEHICLE suffers a mortal wound. Roll a D6 for that and every subsequent mortal wound the vehicle suffers that phase. On a 5+ the wound is not lost."

So it's any phase, and you don't just have to tank the first wound that allows you to use the strat. You could use it against MW spam in the shooting phase from wrath of mars or haywire or something if you wanted.

Karol wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.

GK have the worst stratagems in the entire game. No standard to go by. All marines have that ability though. The ability to save against mortal wounds is special because mortal wounds are special. It works the whole phase I believe also.

So it's any phase, and you don't just have to tank the first wound that allows you to use the strat. You could use it against MW spam in the shooting phase from wrath of mars or haywire or something if you wanted.

Well if it works like that, then it is better. Am still not sure what vehicles other then dreadnoughts GK use a lot though. And those in general hide out of line of sight.

I thought it only worked on smite and other psychic powers, and only after the first psychic power targeted and proced it effect. At least that is how it was explained to me. Not big difference for my rhinos, as they die fast anyway.

Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious. IMO at least the secondaries need to be changed so the positional ones are more of a rational choice with more armies. Or possibly there needs to be some variation to boost "hold more" over kill more.

I just feel too many games go "I'm going to get hold something, I'm going to get kill something, I'm hopefully going to get kill more and in doing so I'm going to get at least 2 secondaries that are about killing. Then because your stuff is dead, and my units are tough rather than a melange of MSU, you get fewer and fewer points and eventually collapse by turn 3 while I mop up hold more/kills more/everything".

I feel outside ITC - and especially if you include Maelstrom - the game is a lot softer. Not that Marines/Eldar etc are not "good" (killing stuff is almost always better than being killed) - but there is a bit more variance in the game. You can have units which would be horrible in ITC due to giving up secondaries/kill more so easily - but it doesn't matter.

Arguably you might say in Maelstrom - even with the deck building - there is too much variance, as an army that seems to be getting absolutely pasted just ticks through the points while the other guy gets a duff draw. Which you may or may not find fun - but its certainly less "I'm just playing out my statistical superiority, pls remove your models as I coast to victory".

Really though I wouldn't expect GW to take any urgent action until at least summer - possibly beyond. They will want to give the changes in CA a reasonable run out. I have to think Marine nerfs are going to be in CA20 - but then I'd have thought Crimson Hunter Exarchs would be nerfed into oblivion so...

Some interesting data:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/eik4z3/december_2019_meta_analysis_identifying_which/?st=k5779lvy&sh=e2c04fce

https://imgur.com/gallery/IKBmEe9

The additional CP based on the str/size of the unit seems a good idea to me and is used in other strategems for sure (off the top of my head the terrible DA strat that lets termies shoot the turn the land for 2 cp for 5, 3 cp for 6+). Hell, increase the relic tax to "any strategems spent on a unit with the relic keyword cost an additional CP." Or you could change it to be +1 cp when used on any dreadnought with a wounds characteristic of 10+. More value = more cost.

But these are the types of small quality of life changes that GW just seems incapable of anticipating and implementing because they just don't give a feth (it has to be the only answer).

I mean the # of levi dreads seen at top tables is negligible (1 out of 13 winning SM lists) though and not contributing significantly to the imbalance of marines (at least as far as I've seen the data parsed out).

Tyel wrote:
Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.

The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.

IMO at least the secondaries need to be changed so the positional ones are more of a rational choice with more armies. Or possibly there needs to be some variation to boost "hold more" over kill more.

You can easily build a durable army that is capable of taking advantage of non-killing based secondaries.

Really though I wouldn't expect GW to take any urgent action until at least summer - possibly beyond. They will want to give the changes in CA a reasonable run out. I have to think Marine nerfs are going to be in CA20 - but then I'd have thought Crimson Hunter Exarchs would be nerfed into oblivion so...

There won't be point changes, but if marine dominance is solidified at LVO despite CA and recent PAs then we I'm highly confident we'll see some sort of errata in March.

Woof, my Thousand Boyz have the straight-up worst mono win percentage in the game. That honestly doesn't surprise me.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.

The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.

.

Surely the dramatically different performance of many sub-factions or factions in ITC and non-ITC tournements is a clear indication that a (sub-)factions armies effectiveness may be heavily dependent on whether it is operating in ITC environment or not?

Cornishman wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.

The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.

.

Surely the dramatically different performance of many sub-factions or factions in ITC and non-ITC tournements is a clear indication that a (sub-)factions armies effectiveness may be heavily dependent on whether it is operating in ITC environment or not?

Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.