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What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

In a game whose most basic mechanic is rolling dice.

Martel732 wrote:
What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

You think a handful of people asking why you don't like dice in a dice-based game is bullying? That's a pretty radical interpretation of the responses, IMO. If you really think the responses were bullying perhaps report them to a Mod?

You still haven't explained why you don't like dice and what you think the solution is, either. Perhaps if you actually explained your reasoning and responded to any of the comments people made both sides might be able to understand better where the other is coming from. But just like many of your recent posts where you complain about something you don't actually articulate why you feel a certain way or what the real problem is. It's hardly surprising people struggle to understand where you're coming from.

 MordinSolus wrote:
...You can select the 18 objectives that you like the most and you feel will be scoring against that oponent and fits your playstyle AFTER seeing your opponents lists, so just for starters you are customizing you're deck in each game, I like that small planning before the game and the adaptation...

People keep bringing up the "but you can build your deck!" bit, but 18 of 36 Maelstrom objectives are "hold objective (X)", so from my experience building Underworlds decks that means your 18 cards are going to be chosen from a pool of 24 (in a mono-faction army), so it doesn't seem like there's that much deck-building involved.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 MordinSolus wrote:
...You can select the 18 objectives that you like the most and you feel will be scoring against that oponent and fits your playstyle AFTER seeing your opponents lists, so just for starters you are customizing you're deck in each game, I like that small planning before the game and the adaptation...

People keep bringing up the "but you can build your deck!" bit, but 18 of 36 Maelstrom objectives are "hold objective (X)", so from my experience building Underworlds decks that means your 18 cards are going to be chosen from a pool of 24 (in a mono-faction army), so it doesn't seem like there's that much deck-building involved.

That's not really the case. There's enough deck-building that you can remove all the impossible cards and still have meaningful decisions to make about which other cards to include. You also get to choose 3 out of the 5 cards you have in hand to play at any one time which opens up a bit more flexibility when building your deck since you don't need to just include cards you can definitely score at all times. Also, your numbers are wrong - 6 of 36 are "Hold Objective X" and 6 are "Defend Objective X". Cards 11-16 are your faction-specific ones and usually about half of those are good cards to have.

Martel732 wrote:
What a glorious pack of internet bullies. All because i said i don't like dice.

Are you serious ? If you felt that was bullying, makes me wonder if you've ever seen actual bullies. As really its going to raise eye brows when you say you hate dice in a game that is seemingly all about the dice.

It's an awful lot like playing tons of Computer RPGs and being like " I hate numbers " Or playing a table top RPG and being like " I hate role playing ". You can see where it might make people go hmmm ?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

The question is why you are so obsessed with tournaments playing Champions missions?

"made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision." when do you choose which EW mission you play and against what faction? Variance decided by randomness.

Go back to your EW roulette game and let TOs use Champions missions if they want, you can host your own roulette tournaments, see what people prefer.

Well we want people to ditch ITC because its not the same game everyone else is playing. The people who want balance most is the tournament players but they want it balanced for THEIR way of playing, which is different to a majority of 40k players but they're easily the most vocal group.

So if the game is balanced only for 12 missions then that's enough? Terrain is a bigger deal than mission format, should GW mandate 12 terrain set-ups and if you use something slightly different (because ITC isn't that different) the game becomes an unbalanced mess? Stuff like the Ogryn BS or Marine release, they're not fair. If EW and/or Maelstrom were fair then Champions format would be fair as well. What change do you think negatively affects your play experience was caused by Champions? Nerf to Castellan, Lootas, Malefic Lords?

How about match-making or tournament format, don't think that changes things? I spoke with the Knight player who was on atream 5 of LVO 2020 and he said he built his list in part to satisfy the monofaction requirement for the best in faction prize. You are wrong if you think GW is close enough to balance that meta is 90% decided by mission format.

Champions missions are very fun for me. Maelstrom is as well, all Maelstrom does is give the worse general and the worse faction a better chance of winning on luck alone, this is ideal for casual games, tournament hosts aren't taking that away from you, it is just not a great way to decide who deserves to win a tournament. People get super salty when they go second and loose in a tournament because they feel like luck decided the game. Travelling for a competitive event, training etc requires a less frustrating environment. Claiming anyone that likes Champions is just uninformed is annoying. Play whatever format you enjoy, host and attend tournaments you enjoy. FLG let you use their leaderboard regardless of mission and tournament format.

ERJAK wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

@Martel
Sounds like you're playing the wrong game. I actually don't think you play 40k as a matter of fact - you don't seem to like anything about it. I certainly wouldn't spend hours of my free time doing something I dislike lol
Are you just a forum troll who likes to complain? Saying you hate dice games is a bit on the nose lol

Imma go the other way with it.

Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

If you wanna ditch ITC, then fine. But ditch it for the new Maelstrom missions, not Eternal Snore.

That said, why ditch any of them? As much as I think Eternal Snore is a waste of a game, I wouldn't just reject all of them outright, I would add them to the mission pool.

Age of Sigmar has 18+ Matched play missions just from GW. Some are great and get played a lot, some are bad and get played very seldomly. Just carry that over to all available missions.


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Martel732 wrote:
Theres no reason 40k has to use dice. You like dice. I dont
Simple.

Stupid*

You haven't played the new CA missions at all, evidently.
This is an example of the community writing something off without ever sampling it.

Go and play all of the Eternal War mission in CA19 a few times.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not in my experience. What is OP in CA is still OP in ITC and vice versa. ITC doesn't really fix the balance at all. It just gives you a different way to play the game. Whether or not it is a better way to play is very subjective IMO.

The imbalances in the rulebooks are there for all missions. What the ITC does is remove variance which narrows the statistical bell curve of results - it is like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to highlighting imbalances in the game. Yes, it does serve a bit of a purpose for that but also for that exact reason I do not want to play ITC tournaments.

The CA19 missions have variance between the missions which broadens the statistical bell curve - it has a wider catchment of what is tolerably competitive and might do OK for you at the top tables.

Its really, REALLY, hard to look at the LVO top 8 and say that the ITC missions with fixed terrain have done anything other than magnify the imbalances in the game. Compare and contrast with the recent results at Caledonian Uprising and the GW GT finals which were run with the exact same set of rules permitted.


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 Ishagu wrote:


You haven't played the new CA missions at all, evidently.
This is an example of the community writing something off without ever sampling it.

Go and play all of the Eternal War mission in CA19 a few times.

Even more than this - go and play a tournament using CA19 missions. You only really understand the difference when people are bringing the filth and playing hard for prizes.

I have only played one CA19 tournament so far but after doing so I would not go back to playing ITC missions. Unless FLG radically overhaul that mission I am just skipping past tournaments which use them when looking for my next event.


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ERJAK wrote:


Eternal war is boring. They're 'kill your opponent' missions with some half assed 'turbo boost ftw' tacked on.

I have to conclude that not only have you never played the CA19 missions you have not even read them.

So anything you say has zero value because it is based on nothing.

 MordinSolus wrote:
I'm not saying that is better than Eternal War (that's the new winner for me, more than ITC at least) but I found it more interesting than the dull ITC system and a lot less random than people say. The only thing I would change is getting rid off the faction objectives, some of them are busted.

Busted good, or busted bad? Maybe it's just a case of them needing a review pass now all the expected Codex books have been released, to make sure they're broadly on par with each other?

After I took part in events using the CA missions I lost any and all interest in the game using ITC rules to the point where I'm not even looking at the LVO results or even watching the games. It's really unfortunate that people still haven't sampled what GW has made, and have no understanding of the drastic improvement that has taken place in their mission design.

People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

 Ishagu wrote:
After I took part in events using the CA missions I lost any and all interest in the game using ITC rules to the point where I'm not even looking at the LVO results or even watching the games. It's really unfortunate that people still haven't sampled what GW has made, and have no understanding of the drastic improvement that has taken place in their mission design.

That is pretty much how I feel.

The CA18 missions still had one or two oddball missions in there, in general, they were good. The CA19 missions have cleaned that up and are more consistently good; I am in two minds about just one of the missions - partly because I have not played it in real competition so I will suspend judgment on it until I do.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

That is what makes it balanced and helping find the imbalances though.

Not in my experience. What is OP in CA is still OP in ITC and vice versa. ITC doesn't really fix the balance at all. It just gives you a different way to play the game. Whether or not it is a better way to play is very subjective IMO.

The imbalances in the rulebooks are there for all missions. What the ITC does is remove variance which narrows the statistical bell curve of results - it is like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to highlighting imbalances in the game. Yes, it does serve a bit of a purpose for that but also for that exact reason I do not want to play ITC tournaments.

The CA19 missions have variance between the missions which broadens the statistical bell curve - it has a wider catchment of what is tolerably competitive and might do OK for you at the top tables.

Its really, REALLY, hard to look at the LVO top 8 and say that the ITC missions with fixed terrain have done anything other than magnify the imbalances in the game. Compare and contrast with the recent results at Caledonian Uprising and the GW GT finals which were run with the exact same set of rules permitted.

The only variance ITC removes is the random game length compared to CA 2019 Eternal War. There are six different missions yes but if you really think different missions every round of an event is a problem you could always just run the same mission every round. There is nothing stopping people from just using crusade every round.

Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

 Ishagu wrote:
Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

I don't know what you mean. A scenario with 4 objectives plays exactly the same as a scenario with a single objective. Are you mad? Being sarcaatic obviously.

 Ishagu wrote:
Again, you have clearly not played them. The missions are significantly different from one another, and the objectives are specific to each one.

If you think there is no variation and that they compare to the ITC it indicates you definitely haven't experienced them in any great detail. This is my biggest issue with the community at the moment, there is a great level of wilful ignorance in terms of what GW has done in recent times in terms of their mission design and balance.

Heck, even the Maelstrom missions deserve attention due to the deck building that exists now, but this isn't the topic for that.

I was talking about the amount of random elements within the missions. If you compare one ITC champion mission to any of the eternal war missions the only random element present in CA 2019 Eternal War missions not present in ITC is random game length. That is it. ITC missions aren't even the same every round either due the number and placement of objectives changing.

Also I have played CA 2019 and have run events using them. So take your ignorant assumptions elsewhere.

And yet you seem to have reached a conclusion different from everyone else that has.

The ITC missions are just one mission with minimal variation, with players selecting what to score based on what favours them from one opponent to another.

 Ishagu wrote:
And yet you seem to have reached a conclusion different from everyone else that has.

Oh really? What conclusion did I reach that everyone else hasn't? Since you were dead wrong on your first assumption I personally curious what you think my conclusion is.

Are you actually trying to tell me that the missions in Chapter Approved 2019 offer no more variation than the ITC missions in terms of gameplay and mission design?

That's a staggering position to take.

 Ishagu wrote:
Are you actually trying to tell me that the missions in Chapter Approved 2019 offer no more variation than the ITC missions in terms of gameplay?

That's a staggering position to take.

Another swing and another miss. There is more variation between the six CA 2019 eternal missions primary objectives vs the six ITC championship missions however the isn't much more random elements. Both formats randomize the deployment type and who gets first turn. CA also has random game length but that is it. That was my point. CA missions aren't super random.

If you really don't like the different missions for events you can also run the same mission every round or pick the missions that are similar.

Yoyoyo wrote:
People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

I'm not stubborn. I want assertions supported by evidence and analysis. Something that is severely lacking in these discussions.

I'm incredibly open-minded and I'm all for making a push, but if you want to prove the system then someone needs to record sufficient data from tournaments they run.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

I'm not stubborn. I want assertions supported by evidence and analysis. Something that is severely lacking in these discussions.

I'm incredibly open-minded and I'm all for making a push, but if you want to prove the system then someone needs to record sufficient data from tournaments they run.

What data? That IH are still OP?

 Sim-Life wrote:


What data? That IH are still OP?

That CA fundamentally affects the balance of the game.

If say, the balance is equivalent then the case can be made that CA is preferable, because it is more dynamic and therefore more fun. But if it doesn't then there would be little reason to change right now.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Are you actually trying to tell me that the missions in Chapter Approved 2019 offer no more variation than the ITC missions in terms of gameplay?

That's a staggering position to take.

Another swing and another miss. There is more variation between the six CA 2019 eternal missions primary objectives vs the six ITC championship missions however the isn't much more random elements. Both formats randomize the deployment type and who gets first turn. CA also has random game length but that is it. That was my point. CA missions aren't super random.

If you really don't like the different missions for events you can also run the same mission every round or pick the missions that are similar.

And where in the original topic post do I specifically push for maximum radom elements?

The topic makes two specific arguments:

1: ITC does not seem to offer any increase in balance of the game, in fact by allowing players to chose what they score it actually pushed people into spamming units that excel in a certain function and chose objectives around that function.

2: The ITC missions offer minimal variation and are less interesting and less enjoyable than what CA offers. The ITC missions are not the most enjoyable or optimum way to enjoy the game, and are very fatigued at this point.

You might enjoy only playing 1 mission. That's perfectly fine. The majority will enjoy greater variation that plays on the strengths of different lists.
I did say that trying to remove all random elements is going against the intent behind the game. There were people in this topic saying they hate dice games. That's just silly in a 40k discussion.


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 Sim-Life wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
People are stubborn.

They'll eventually come around.

I'm not stubborn. I want assertions supported by evidence and analysis. Something that is severely lacking in these discussions.

I'm incredibly open-minded and I'm all for making a push, but if you want to prove the system then someone needs to record sufficient data from tournaments they run.

What data? That IH are still OP?

Game balance is not the only argument being made. Does greater mission variation not matter in your opinion?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:


What data? That IH are still OP?

That CA fundamentally affects the balance of the game.

If say, the balance is equivalent then the case can be made that CA is preferable, because it is more dynamic and therefore more fun. But if it doesn't then there would be little reason to change right now.

To get that data you would need both IH to be nerfed and for the tournament/ITC crowd to actually be willing to try it for a year. Only one of those things will ever happen.

The thing is if you'll remember back to previous threads many CA2019 players have said that the armies in their meta are more balanced than ITC. I would argued that "tournament data" is basically only useful for finding out what models are the best at killing stuff

 Sim-Life wrote:


To get that data you would need both IH to be nerfed and for the tournament/ITC crowd to actually be willing to try it for a year. Only one of those things will ever happen.

The thing is if you'll remember back to previous threads many CA2019 players have said that the armies in their meta are more balanced than ITC. I would argued that "tournament data" is basically only useful for finding out what models are the best at killing stuff

Those are still unverifiable statements. People are playing CA tournaments. We should be logging similar data to that of ITC/ETC/WZ.

Even with all the changes to Maelstrom missions there is still a heavy RNG factor involved. I don't think they are great for competitive play as you are stacking more RNG into an already RNG heavy game. You are lessening the impact of player interaction and decisions the more RNG you add into the system. Its one reason why ITC missions are popular you can plan several turns in advanced on how you are going to complete your objectives.

The Salt Mine wrote:
Even with all the changes to Maelstrom missions there is still a heavy RNG factor involved. I don't think they are great for competitive play as you are stacking more RNG into an already RNG heavy game. You are lessening the impact of player interaction and decisions the more RNG you add into the system. Its one reason why ITC missions are popular you can plan several turns in advanced on how you are going to complete your objectives.

I make a case for the Eternal War missions, not the Maelstrom.

You are aware there are two sets of missions in CA2019, right?

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The biggest problem I have with ITC missions, as I frequently say, is the let you basically pre-plan everything before the game. Having some sort of variable that can come up SHOULD encourage building a more well-rounded force to account for the unknowns. Since there are basically zero unknowns in ITC missions barring dice and maybe specific terrain placement, you can build a skew or jank list and plan out every move before you ever play the game. So at the table you're just mechanically going through predefined steps versus actually playing.

I think these variables you describe just randomize the outcome, just the way GW likes it. In most tournament formats of most games I'm aware of, the unknowns are minimized on purpose to filter that out of the results. Also, "well-rounded" is ill-defined and seems far from guaranteed by adding in more randomness.

"Randomness " makes competitive games more interesting. It's why we don't call off football games just because it fething snows. This is a war game after all and wars aren't fought in ideal conditions. A good tactician brings a force that can adapt to changing conditions and adjusts his tactics to those conditions.

this, so so very much this. WAR ISNT FAIR!

Sim-Life wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
What's the obsession with removing anything remotely random from the game?
Eternal War isn't random by the way, it's simply more varied and makes it hard for a list to perform well in every mission, thus actually pushing for more balanced and varied lists.

For those obsessed with having control over everything, have you guys ever heard of chess? Go try it out lol

The question is why you are so obsessed with tournaments playing Champions missions?

"made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision." when do you choose which EW mission you play and against what faction? Variance decided by randomness.

Go back to your EW roulette game and let TOs use Champions missions if they want, you can host your own roulette tournaments, see what people prefer.

Well we want people to ditch ITC because its not the same game everyone else is playing. The people who want balance most is the tournament players but they want it balanced for THEIR way of playing, which is different to a majority of 40k players but they're easily the most vocal group.

The game, without variance is boring and is a+b=c. The game, with a pretty good amount of variety is incredibly fun and makes the outcome reliant on the tactician, rather than min/max spammers.


I'm thankful that my flgs has players that aren't soooo focused on "ITC this" and "tournament that". We even have players who went to LVO this year & the best part is, they'll even play open war deck and non-ITC missions.