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Made in gb
Ultramarine Land Raider Pilot on Cruise Control





Holy Terra

During the craziness of 7th edition, and the relatively rough start that encapsulated the early days of 8th, a very strong case could be made for a custom mission pack that created a sense of order in the chaos that was 40k.
There is no doubt that the ITC missions were a good addition and a positive force in the game when 8th edition dropped.

This is no longer the case, I'm afraid to say. Frankly I am surprised that huge parts of the community are woefully ignorant of the fact that the Chapter Approved Eternal War missions in the 2018 and now 2019 books are not only well balanced and designed to reward list variety, but are also far more varied and fun than what the ITC mission pack offers.

Let's not beat about the bush. The ITC mission pack is effectively one single missions with tiny variations - there are utterly minimal changes. In addition to this, it promotes spam lists and static gun-lines. When you have a system of play where players can CHOSE what to score, it creates an environment where you spam units that make it easy to achieve the objectives you want. In ITC you can literally win most of your games without moving. Kill More, Hold More - a classic staple of gun line lists. Or how about you spam flyers and chose to focus on table quarters and behind enemy lines?
No matter how you swing it, it does create a negative play experience and it's a reason why so many abusive lists exist. Things will die in games of 40k anyway, don't make it a focus of mission objectives in every mission on top of that.

Look at the recent tournament at GW. The lists and faction variety was far greater, and looking at the top 30 the meta looks far, far healthier than what ITC events create the impression of. To put it bluntly, if you have a list that doesn't move you will typically lose 5/6 Chapter Approved missions.
They reward variety of lists - you need to bring a healthy amount of troops, fast moving units, objective scorers, characters, etc, etc in order to score the varied mission objectives.

Lack of data means we cannot categorically prove that the CA mission pack is strictly more balanced. It certainly does not promote spam/gunlines as much as the ITC missions do, that is a fact. It's also far more fun and varied than the single ITC mission with minor variations from game to game that has become the staple of so many people's gaming experience.
My eyes were opened after getting involved in some ETC style events a while back, and following on from them it was a case of experimentation and experience at smaller events that used the CA mission pack. As I have played more and more using the CA format, by comparison the ITC missions have looked more and more dull.

Let's no understate how much good work the ITC guys have done. Things like leader-boards, hobby track, promoting the game, etc. The mission pack has now become restrictive and is no longer the most positive way to play the game.

I also expect many competitive ITC players to refute what I say. They'll have limited experience with CA missions, they might refuse to believe that GW has done a good job with the pack, and they might simply be too set in they ways.
There is no question, no disputation, that the ITC mission pack is less varied. There is no question that it promotes spam lists and gun-lines due to players choosing what to score. There is no need to use it any more.

We've accepted the rules that GW put out without having to modify them. Let's accept their mission packs too.

-~Ishagu~- 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut




No ITC does not affect win rates as top armies will continue to be top armies. Also there was a thread already done here which shows, if anything, the win rate gap in ITC is less. Yes the missions in CA2019 are okay. No, they don't fox the core issue which is imbalanced codices and poor core mechanics in the base rulebook. Those need to actually be fixed instead of continuing to use that garbage.

CaptainStabby wrote:
If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.

 jy2 wrote:
BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.

 vipoid wrote:
Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?

 MarsNZ wrote:
ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
 
   
Made in gb
Ultramarine Land Raider Pilot on Cruise Control





Holy Terra

Even if balance is not improved, mission variety and the fun factor most certainly is. Unless you personally feel that playing the same mission over and over with minor variations is a better experience?

How many CA missions have you played and have you tried them in a competitive environment? Game balance is only one of the points in this discussion.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/01/23 15:39:06


-~Ishagu~- 
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




if it doesn't fix balance problems, wouldn't it just mean you are spending time and money on learning to play the game in a different way, but not better in anyway. And am considering here that the armies that are OP under ITC and are bad under CA, are balanced against the OP CA armies that are bad under a ITC rule set.

Seems to me like it is a group of people, mostly from UK, trying to force the rest of the world to play the game their way. And most people already dislike and ignore the painted restrictions, and hate the legacy thing.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in us
Pyro Pilot of a Triach Stalker





Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

Well, at the end of the day, ITC is a codified set of house rules and missions. If you don't want to use them, don't.

For tournaments, ITC just provides an easy go-to, reducing some of the randomness and some of the planning burden.

That being said, I'd support moving away from it to use GW missions for the newest CA. They're steadily improving in quality.

Bedouin Dynasty: 10000 pts
The Silver Lances: 4000 pts
The Custodes Winter Watch 4000 pts

MajorStoffer wrote:
...
Sternguard though, those guys are all about kicking ass. They'd chew bubble gum as well, but bubble gum is heretical. Only tau chew gum. 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I used to be a die-hard ITC defender but having played a couple games with the 2019 CA missions (2018 CA missions are still bad) I like them better than the ITC mission pack.

The secondaries of ITCs punish certain units/armies far too much and reward others.

Get rid of faction specific maelstrom cards and add all the options to customize maelstrom decks and a lot of the "I drew the right card I win" or "I drew the wrong cards I lose" seems to have been removed.

Fearless hordes still seem to have an advantage (# of bodies > value of bodies) when it comes to contesting/controlling objectives so I'm sure it will skew the meta in some ways but I'm not sure how to get around that.

I'd love to see some of the "pro" players play a couple games and get their feedback. From what I remember a lot of the ITC/Frontline guys have a hand in designing the CA missions so I wouldn't be surprised to see them moving towards the 2019 ones.

Although the game is so broken at the moment I haven't played a competitive game for a while. Who cares what the mission is when an untargetable blob of possessed can kill your entire army in 2 turns, SM artillery can blow you off any objective regardless of LOS, GK can drop down and put 20-40 mortal wounds + who knows how many psi-bolt shots, unkillable levi dreads are stomping around, untargetable chaplain dreads are blasting everything off the board, crimson hunter exarchs can table an army in 3 turns and it's just getting worse with each release...
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Xenomancers wrote:
ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.


I have no idea how to take this post. Is this sarcasm?
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.


I have no idea how to take this post. Is this sarcasm?

It was a slight rant. My main issues with ITC is automatic table elements that will be on every table and picking your objectives. This makes building your list to the mission far to easy. Also the parts of 40k I enjoy the most are fighting in the open and advancing at the opponent. ILOS and Character targeting rules are already kind of bonkers - they should not be made even better with automatic places to hide most of your army.

Also the lack in mission variety is gross in ITC.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/01/23 17:16:41


If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




While I'm not sure we have enough data to say for sure that CA2019 promotes more variety and stops spam armies I agree with the basic premise that ITC missions should probably be replaced, at least at some of the big tournaments, to give us more data to work with. ITC feels more and more like a solved system with each month that goes by and I think the lack of mission variety is a big part of that. You don't really need to think about 6 different missions. There are maybe 2 different types of mission in ITC (ones where you need to be able to hold more than 1-2 objectives and ones where 1 is often enough) and the secondaries at this point basically boil down to a cheat sheet players can refer to depending on their opponent.

At the moment the entire competitive conversation revolves around ITC, which often means all conversation about the game revolves around ITC. I don't think that's good for new players and I think the game as a whole is better off when everyone is playing the same version of it and the community isn't fractured by different sets of tournament rules.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka




NE Ohio, USA

 Xenomancers wrote:
Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?


What?

As for being shot at by things out of your LoS - like mortars & arty? Yeah, that's a valid thing in many miniatures games. That's the whole point of mortars & such. In this case it's on you to learn how to play better to counter that.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Xenomancers wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.


I have no idea how to take this post. Is this sarcasm?

It was a slight rant. My main issues with ITC is automatic table elements that will be on every table and picking your objectives. This makes building your list to the mission far to easy. Also the parts of 40k I enjoy the most are fighting in the open and advancing at the opponent. ILOS and Character targeting rules are already kind of bonkers - they should not be made even better with automatic places to hide most of your army.

Also the lack in mission variety is gross in ITC.


You do not have a solid grasp of these issues, in my opinion. I'd get into a debate, but I think it would be a little too exhausting.
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






ccs wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?


What?

As for being shot at by things out of your LoS - like mortars & arty? Yeah, that's a valid thing in many miniatures games. That's the whole point of mortars & such. In this case it's on you to learn how to play better to counter that.

By l2p im pretty sure you mean do the exact same thing myself. Spam character dreads and TFC and not give my opponent a shooting phase by hiding ? We are literally talking about uncounterable aspects of the game. Which are rewarded in ITC by have a dumb objective like (kill more) which treats a chaff infantry squad the same as an IK. Hold more is also really dumb. I miss the old cleanse mission. So much better than any modern mission types. Turn based scoring might actually be the big issue here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.


I have no idea how to take this post. Is this sarcasm?

It was a slight rant. My main issues with ITC is automatic table elements that will be on every table and picking your objectives. This makes building your list to the mission far to easy. Also the parts of 40k I enjoy the most are fighting in the open and advancing at the opponent. ILOS and Character targeting rules are already kind of bonkers - they should not be made even better with automatic places to hide most of your army.

Also the lack in mission variety is gross in ITC.


You do not have a solid grasp of these issues, in my opinion. I'd get into a debate, but I think it would be a little too exhausting.

No I have a solid grasp. There is nothing to debate.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/01/23 17:30:50


If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Xenomancers wrote:

No I have a solid grasp.


Given the recurring frequency with which you get facts painfully wrong, that statement is dubious at best.
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






Sterling191 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:

No I have a solid grasp.


Given the recurring frequency with which you get facts painfully wrong, that statement is dubious at best.
You must realize that is a logical fallacy.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Xenomancers wrote:
You must realize that is a logical fallacy.


Yes, pointing out that you routinely get basic facts wrong is a logical fallacy.

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







Odd that this is posted in "40k General Discussion" and not "Tournament Discussion".

   
Made in gb
Gore-Drenched Khorne Chaos Lord




Karol wrote:
if it doesn't fix balance problems, wouldn't it just mean you are spending time and money on learning to play the game in a different way, but not better in anyway. And am considering here that the armies that are OP under ITC and are bad under CA, are balanced against the OP CA armies that are bad under a ITC rule set.

Seems to me like it is a group of people, mostly from UK, trying to force the rest of the world to play the game their way. And most people already dislike and ignore the painted restrictions, and hate the legacy thing.


By contrast aren't ITC a group from the US trying to force people to play the game their way? Whilst the nationality of it all is only partially relevant, the rules come from the UK and it's understandable that as a locality/nationalism stand point they want to use those rules first. Represent the home team and all that.

Most of the issue is that people should be willing to play both, events should give both sets a try, but the ITC is so ingrained in peoples mentality and communities over on the US I can't see them relinquishing it.
   
Made in at
Longtime Dakkanaut




I think ITC is pretty good for beginner players and the younger and/or more casual crowd.

The whole “choose-your-own-Adventure-secondaries” and similarity of missions reduces complexity a lot and demands far less on-the-spot decision-making between sub-optimal choices and adaptation between rounds to very different win conditions.

I think the simplification of the game through ITC is one of the reasons the 40K became a lot more popular in the US in particular, opening the Hobby to people who might’ve been put off by the challenge of older book/etc-style missions.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/01/23 17:59:42


 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






Sterling191 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
You must realize that is a logical fallacy.


Yes, pointing out that you routinely get basic facts wrong is a logical fallacy.


A mistake in the past does not make you wrong now. You have to deal with the argument in front of you. Like seriously. This is debate 101. Plus I rarely get facts wrong anyways and nothing I stated above is incorrect. ITC a large number of automatic LOS blocking features (usually buildings) in each deployment zone and elseware on the table. Plus the house rule you can't shoot through cracks and windows. It creates and environment that infantry can hide all game and characters and ILOS units have free reign on the battlefield unless you have your own ILOS weapons. This is not debatable and a huge divergence from GW's core rules.


If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Xenomancers wrote:
ITC is basically a gimmick at this point. Automatic LOS blockers on every table creates a game where you can literally plan your path to victory before you have even seen the battlefield. Magic boxes are a joke. Picking your objectives is bad too.

Miss the days when 40k was about tabling your opponent. Fight to the death. Standing on poker chips and being shot by things you can't return fire at can't possible be fun for anyone can it?

At least give me variety in some missions. Some missions should have just 1 central objective (like in CA). Some tables should be bowling balls - some should be cityscapes. It's just too easy to build a list to the mission in ITC.


I think the fundamental problem I have is that the core rules of 8th just...do not support sparse terrain setups. Cover, and interruptions of LOS, NEED to exist on the table in order for anything but turn 2-3 tablings to occur.

I'm currently playtesting for a campaign I'm setting up that will involve a bunch of different warzones - basically themed terrain sets at each table that have photographs of suggested terrain densities and 1-2 unique rules per table - and to make the sparser setups work I've had to implement blanket defensive rules.

Of course, in the denser setups I've also worked to alleviate some of the problems in ITC that you run into.

My set for a Desert zone for example is

Sandstorm: shooting attacks declared from over 12" away suffer -1 to hit rolls and any charge declared where all targets are over 7" away suffers a -1 to the charge roll.

Howling Winds: The range of any Aura Abilities present on unit datasheets (excluding the tyranid Synapse ability) is reduced by ½, rounding up.

And my setup for an LOS blocking Zone Mortalis board is

Lifts, Doors, and Ladders: Any unit that ends their movement phase within 1" of a door can choose to open the door or close it if it is already open. Remove the door from the terrain piece, it no longer blocks movement or line of sight. If a unit ends its movement phase wholly within 3" of a ladder or lift, it can elect to use that to climb to the top of the terrain structure. Remove the unit from the board and set it back up wholly within 3" of the top of the ladder or lift and over 1" away from enemy models. If any model in the unit cannot be placed in such a way, the ladder or lift cannot be used by any models in the unit.

Dense Sprawl: Any weapon that normally has an ability that allows it to ignore line of sight loses that ability in this warzone.

Wall of Death: When any unit is chosen to shoot in the shooting phase, GRENADE weapons and weapons that hit automatically roll 2 dice and choose the highest when determining the number of shots they fire. Additionally, when any unit fires Overwatch, GRENADE and weapons that hit automatically may still attack even if the unit that declared them as a charge target is out of line of sight. (This rule is not subject to Dense Sprawl above)

So, no LOS-ignoring weapons, and there is a limitation on the ability to hide a model out of LOS and declare a charge, at least on that board.

My goal is always to see models on the table at turn 5, which is when all the missions end. IMO any game that ends in tabling is a failure of the mission set, because then you may as well have not played with any mission.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
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Illinois

Dudeface wrote:
Karol wrote:
if it doesn't fix balance problems, wouldn't it just mean you are spending time and money on learning to play the game in a different way, but not better in anyway. And am considering here that the armies that are OP under ITC and are bad under CA, are balanced against the OP CA armies that are bad under a ITC rule set.

Seems to me like it is a group of people, mostly from UK, trying to force the rest of the world to play the game their way. And most people already dislike and ignore the painted restrictions, and hate the legacy thing.


By contrast aren't ITC a group from the US trying to force people to play the game their way? Whilst the nationality of it all is only partially relevant, the rules come from the UK and it's understandable that as a locality/nationalism stand point they want to use those rules first. Represent the home team and all that.

Most of the issue is that people should be willing to play both, events should give both sets a try, but the ITC is so ingrained in peoples mentality and communities over on the US I can't see them relinquishing it.

As someone from the US I would say that mentality is only really ingrained among the con going crowd. I have met people that hate ITC events but they don't go to the cons as much or just go anyway and accept the rules because they basically have to. At lot of people are very apathetic about it as well. Outside of cons you will find plenty of people that play using GW missions or their own custom missions that are not ITC.

Edit:. Also I would say that if GW did put forward a supported tournament format with a packet GW wrote and financially supported ITC would probably fall away in popularity.

Edit 2:. Also I would say that ITC being popular among the con crowd has very little to do with ITC. GW doesn't give event organizers a tournament packet to work with and in that vacuum people just use ITC. It's easier to just copy someone else's packet then make your own and competitive tournaments in the US are very popular at cons.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2020/01/23 18:34:18


 
   
Made in us
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 Xenomancers wrote:

A mistake in the past does not make you wrong now.


You're so far beyond "one mistake" it's not even funny.

 Xenomancers wrote:

. It creates and environment that infantry can hide all game and characters and ILOS units have free reign on the battlefield unless you have your own ILOS weapons. This is not debatable and a huge divergence from GW's core rules.


Case in point: the above is fundamentally wrong.

But please continue to tell us how you never get anything wrong, ever, when you just got done accusing a guy of cheating because you couldnt be bothered to check your information regarding his actual tournament results.
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






Sterling191 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:

A mistake in the past does not make you wrong now.


You're so far beyond "one mistake" it's not even funny.

 Xenomancers wrote:

. It creates and environment that infantry can hide all game and characters and ILOS units have free reign on the battlefield unless you have your own ILOS weapons. This is not debatable and a huge divergence from GW's core rules.


Case in point: the above is fundamentally wrong.

But please continue to tell us how you never get anything wrong, ever, when you just got done accusing a guy of cheating because you couldnt be bothered to check your information regarding his actual tournament results.

I am asking you politely to just stop diverting conversation topics to personally attack me. You are the instigator. You are going of topic. Everyone has gotten things wrong before. Even you get things wrong.

Also the above is not fundamentally wrong. That is precisely how it works. It is the reason a white scars lists with 12 assault cents a few MSU of scouts and an ironhands detachment with 2 character dreads and 2 TFC and eliminators can win a game. Because of house rule magic boxes. That list would get stomped so hard in a CA mission on a standard 40k table with TLOS.

I used to like ITC but after playing it a ton. It is probably the least fun and least competitive way to play the game. Fundamentally though the game has such poor balance to begin with it is pretty hard to make the situation worse. You can just change the parameters around why it's bad.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/01/23 18:32:45


If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Xenomancers wrote:

I am asking you politely to just stop diverting conversation topics to personally attack me. You are the instigator. You are going of topic. Everyone has gotten things wrong before. Even you get things wrong.


I'm not the one in this conversation claiming that I'm infallible. But by all means, please continue to play the victim card when you get called on your hyperbolic bs. It's a very simple equation: if you dont want to continue to be called a liar, stop lying.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Also the above is not fundamentally wrong. That is precisely how it works. It is the reason a white scars lists with 12 assault cents a few MSU of scouts and an ironhands detachment with 2 character dreads and 2 TFC and eliminators can win a game. Because of house rule magic boxes. That list would get stomped so hard in a CA mission on a standard 40k table with TLOS.


You're moving the goalposts again. You just claimed that artillery is the only counterplay to magic boxes. That statement is definitively false, yet here you are trying to wiggle your way out by changing the subject.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/01/23 18:37:43


 
   
Made in us
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I gotta make sure to bring those characters on bikes and thunder fire cannons in my DA army so I can deepstrike my knights next to my landspeeders and play my army that is more powerful than iron hands...

Xeno is definitely a person on here we should listen to about game balance...

Most ITC games come with pre-positioned objectives which the majority are placed out in the open. Being able to grab those and score them at the end of your turn instead of the way the CA missions score is another way where a small difference in wording has changed the way the game plays in my couple of CA games.

I think adding in variable terrain set-up (pile it on the table, take turns deploying it on the table BEFORE you know deployment zones) would change the way the game is played (vs static terrain deployment). Where the volume of the terrain is consistent (preventing table bowling ball) the arrangement of that terrain is different (some rules to terrain deployment, > 9" from a table edge, each player deploys a piece in each quadrant, some more rules that people smarter than me can come up with).

But, at the end of the day it is becoming more and more clear that GW doesn't want a balanced game. Releasing such powerful supplements piecemeal leaves the game in such an unbalanced state for such a prolong period of time that any ideas around balanced missions just falls apart due to GWs piss poor pay to win power creep half-assed attempts at balance.
   
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Biloxi, MS USA

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I think ITC is pretty good for beginner players and the younger and/or more casual crowd.
.


ITC is terrible for the casual crowd. It pushes for power builds rather than throwing your dudemans on the table, pushing them around, and playing to play. Most casuals play for the spectacle, and ITC stifles that more than promotes it.

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Sterling191 wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:

I am asking you politely to just stop diverting conversation topics to personally attack me. You are the instigator. You are going of topic. Everyone has gotten things wrong before. Even you get things wrong.


I'm not the one in this conversation claiming that I'm infallible. But by all means, please continue to play the victim card when you get called on your hyperbolic bs. It's a very simple equation: if you dont want to continue to be called a liar, stop lying.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Also the above is not fundamentally wrong. That is precisely how it works. It is the reason a white scars lists with 12 assault cents a few MSU of scouts and an ironhands detachment with 2 character dreads and 2 TFC and eliminators can win a game. Because of house rule magic boxes. That list would get stomped so hard in a CA mission on a standard 40k table with TLOS.


You're moving the goalposts again. You just claimed that artillery is the only counterplay to magic boxes. That statement is definitively false, yet here you are trying to wiggle your way out by changing the subject.

Uhh yeah the counter magic boxes is ILOS...This is pretty obvious to most people. So I am not going to explain it. At no point did I say it was the only counter ether. So you are misquoting me.

In actual GW rules the counter to magic boxes is there are no magic boxes. If there is a window or a doorway and I can see into a nub on one of your models I can shoot.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/01/23 19:22:08


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 Xenomancers wrote:

Uhh yeah the counter magic boxes is ILOS...This is pretty obvious to most people. So I am not going to explain it.


You cant even be consistent with your own argument. Beautiful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Xenomancers wrote:
At no point did I say it was the only counter ether. So you are misquoting me.


 Xenomancers wrote:
It creates and environment that infantry can hide all game and characters and ILOS units have free reign on the battlefield unless you have your own ILOS weapons.


I'm sorry, what were you lying about this time?

This is what happens every single time. You make a hyperbolic, and factually deficient, off the cuff statement, get called on your lies, and spend the next several pages ranting about how you're never wrong.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/01/23 19:28:04


 
   
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On moon miranda.

I personally like the new CA missions more than ITC stuff, the ITC stuff is too easy to play gimmicks with and the newer missions really do a good job of mostly being relatively balanced with less to keep track of. That said, neither are perfect.

But I'll take almost anything over Maelstrom.

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