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 Mezmorki wrote:
@Canadian 5th

I'm trying to figure out your angle. Your comments continue to deflect away from or change the scope of the discussion. Or perhaps you are suggesting "there is nothing to be done" or that changes aren't likely to work or can't work? Or that the game is fine how it is?

Earlier posts in this thread have thrown out all sorts of ideas for how to respond to the original post with constructive ideas. I'd love for you to respond to any of those specific ideas and how you think they could be executed better - or to share your own ideas in kind.

1) I don't think any of the changes suggested here will actually solve the issue. They're all fine and interesting ideas, but none of them address the key reasons why the game's current lethality is so high nor seem to anticipate the list-building methods that can and will be used to bypass their attempts to reduce lethality. As is common to suggestions on this site they're hopeful but not well crafted or fully thought through.
2) I don't agree that this is the area to focus on. I feel like solving the first turn issue is far more of a pressing issue than fixing lethality or short games.
3) I don't agree that many of the ideas raised address pressing issues with the game.
4) I have serious doubts that the game can be fixed, at least to the degree desired, without changing its core rules.

Thanks for your response - that helps me better understand where you're coming from and your perspective on this topic.

FWIW, do think some of these idea raised here are worth trying out. Changing the mission and scoring structure is a relatively easy thing to play around with, because there aren't all that many other ways in which the rules hook into the raw mechanics of the scoring system. Even minor tweaks to other systems, like AP or CP are going to have a lot more ripple effects in terms of impacting dozens of rules across different codexes. In other words, tweaks to the core mechanics (your point #4) are probably harder to implement piecemeal than changing up the objectives and scoring system.

Other missions in the game (narrative ones) and from past editions are, to me, an indication that other mission designs can work and can encourage different playstyles - and they likely do play into the lethality question, even if just indirectly.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Thanks for your response - that helps me better understand where you're coming from and your perspective on this topic.

FWIW, do think some of these idea raised here are worth trying out. Changing the mission and scoring structure is a relatively easy thing to play around with, because there aren't all that many other ways in which the rules hook into the raw mechanics of the scoring system. Even minor tweaks to other systems, like AP or CP are going to have a lot more ripple effects in terms of impacting dozens of rules across different codexes. In other words, tweaks to the core mechanics (your point #4) are probably harder to implement piecemeal than changing up the objectives and scoring system.

It is a way to try to make a change, however, do you think that any number of mission changes will make Eradicators anything less than the best anti-tank choices in the Marine arsenal? Or keep players from adjusting lists to bypass attempts to slow down the game and/or reduce the lethality of offensive staples? I have serious doubts.

Other missions in the game (narrative ones) and from past editions are, to me, an indication that other mission designs can work and can encourage different playstyles - and they likely do play into the lethality question, even if just indirectly.

Most of those missions were awful and very easy to break accidentally, let alone what happened when players approached them with a mind towards optimization.

Any competitive game will have hyper-skewed games where stuff is over very quickly. It's the nature of high level, highly optimized play; sometimes stomps happen and mistakes are punished ruthlessly. Top Tekken matches can have a few rounds that are over in like 10 seconds with a Perfect. The concept of gg'ing in comp video games is one side conceding long before the actual end of the match because they realise it isn't worth fighting on.

Turn 2 GG's in competitive 40k aren't inherently an issue, especially if they aren't that common (and from my experience they actually aren't, I see a lot more games go to turn 5 now than I did in 8th). What's more important is trying to gauge the frequency of 2-3 turn stomps in casual play. Anecdotally that's something I've seen very little of either, 9th mission design and core rules are better at avoiding it than 8th was, but it's also not something we can ever really get data on either.

Some armies get a pre game GG, just by virtue of not going first.

Which by the way, at least in my opinion, is indicative of something being seriously wrong with the system right now. No idea if it is just the going first thing, or going first and the type of scoring w40k has in 9th, but armies shouldn't have a 20%+ spread in win rates between going first and second.

I agree that the scoring is a little TOO progressive at the moment. While I surely don't want to see thing like the old Eternal War missions, I think that at the end of turn 5 there should be an additional scoring of primaries. Similar to what happens with Rise the Banners High. This will also help with the first turn advantage, since this double scoring is dominated by the second player.

Also, I do like more variety in mission objectives, but the competitive community doesn't like it. At the end of 8th, we had a really good mission set with the last CA, well balanced, well designed and with a lot of variety. Did the competitive community adopt it? No, because variety is bad and the ITC ultra repetitive and standard mission design was considered better. It was unacceptable that the outcome of a match was somehow affected by the mission rolled. This obviously carried a lot of issues with ITC meta being extremely easy to solve as we all now, but it was still prefered.

How do we feel about the change in the new FAQ where, on turn 5, player 1 still scores in the command phase, but player 2 scores end of turn?

I like it in principle as it at least (finally) is an acknowledgment of the issue on GW's part after a lot of oblique deflection of the issue, but since games so rarely get to turn 5, I'm not sure how much it solves?

Could be enough.

The difference between going first and going second is a difference of 8 points in the primary score, according to the data.

8 point is definitely the average of what you can score in a turn, so this could actually be enough.

Sure, sometimes the games don't go to turn 5, but in that case the game was usually one sided and who went first didn't really matter.

It is turn 5 that originates the disparity between going first and second. The first player moves first on the objectives and since the second player has only 3 turns to score (2,3 and 4) he is forced to over commit and rush those objectives. Now that he has an additional turn to score, he can take it easier.

Could be enough.

The difference between going first and going second is a difference of 8 points in the primary score, according to the data.

8 point is definitely the average of what you can score in a turn, so this could actually be enough.

Sure, sometimes the games don't go to turn 5, but in that case the game was usually one sided and who went first didn't really matter.

I should look at the tourney data again and specifically for that stat. I know our groups games almost never went to turn 5 (and yes, we have the recommended amount of terrain and the recommended amount of obscuring in the recommended places etc, etc, etc) even when they were close games at the point where one player got tabled.

I would wrap terrain and a 'first-turn bid' into army building.

Terrain would be brought by the players, not just including fortifications, but craters, ruins, and even blank, open ground. The first turn bid in army-building would be the player with fewer points in their army would automatically get the first turn, meaning if you spent 1605pts on your army and 395pts on terrain vs an opponent that spent more on their army and less on terrain then you would automatically get the first turn.

Tycho wrote:

Could be enough.

The difference between going first and going second is a difference of 8 points in the primary score, according to the data.

8 point is definitely the average of what you can score in a turn, so this could actually be enough.

Sure, sometimes the games don't go to turn 5, but in that case the game was usually one sided and who went first didn't really matter.

I should look at the tourney data again and specifically for that stat. I know our groups games almost never went to turn 5 (and yes, we have the recommended amount of terrain and the recommended amount of obscuring in the recommended places etc, etc, etc) even when they were close games at the point where one player got tabled.

It was said in one of those impossibly long essays of goonhammer.

The reason why a game being decided turn 2 is that, in theory, the game is 5 turns long. A game shouldn't continue to be played after it is decided, that's just bad design.

It was said in one of those impossibly long essays of goonhammer.

Thanks! I'll go check that out!

Tycho wrote:

It was said in one of those impossibly long essays of goonhammer.

Thanks! I'll go check that out!

Was checking for something else while I happened to stumble upon it XD

It was said in the November meta review https://www.goonhammer.com/the-november-2020-40k-meta-review/

Actually I was mistaken, it wasn't 8 points, but 5-6.

Could we actually see player 2 having the advantage now?

I want there to be different missions that have different objectives, not only points on a map like now but rather killing the enemies Warlord or kill their most expensive unit while protecting your own. So some missions that hold points like now, some that are based on killing, some on holding quarters, some on crossing the battlefield. Some on preserving your forces etc. Some that score over time and some that only cares about end of the game.

Then also have the ability to suddenly end the game upon meeting a certain criteria. Game lasts for 5 or 6 rounds at most but if you have a mission to slay the warlord and your warlord personally kills the enemy warlord the game just ends. Or if you manage to move half your army from your deployment and out of the opponents table edge on a mission that rewards that.

Vastly different deployment types as well. Not just 24" away but in different weird angles that sometimes are a bit messy to mark up on the table times 9.

Could have maybe 10 different missions and 2 slight variations of each for a total of 20 missions. Perhaps some arent that well balanced at first and would need extra tweaks later or the community notices that a few of them punishes some armies a bit too much and wont show up at a competitive event but it is no problem since you still might have 10-15 lists that are together rather well rounded and could make up the mission pack for an event.

Obviously some balancing would need to be done on lethality and movement. With current rules some armies are too mobile and too lethal to work under some of the potential scenarios I proposed earlier.

I wont say that the Lotr scenarios are perfectly balanced or would work at all in 40k but I love some of the ideas from them. They are played on a board that is 4x4 in size. Some armies can have as little as a handful of models or 80+ but most fall in the bracket of 20-50 depending a bit on point levels. You have multiple warbands that are about 0-18 normal models lead by a hero.

There are 12 main missions in the rule book and they have another 6 in a supplement.

Mission 1 Domination
5 objectives
24" deep deployment zones so you can deploy 1" away from the opponent. Game ends when one force is below 25% models. Score points for objectives, wounding/killing the opponents leader and if you have killed 50%+.

Mission 2 To the Death!
Standard 12" deploy. Game ends when a force is quartered. Get points for wounding/killing leader, half their number, stay above 50%, quartering them and having Banners while they dont.

Mission 3 Hold Ground
Objective in the middle. Game randomly ends on a d6 roll of 1 or 2 at end of each turn after a force have been broken/halved. Points for holding objective, wounding/killing leader and breaking enemy(sub 50) while not being broken yourself. Maelstrom Deployment/Random deployment so you roll for each warband to see which of the 4 table edges it gets to move in from. There are rules and resources/might(kinda like CP) that can modify the result.

Mission 4 Lord of Battle
24" deep deployment. At least 1" away from enemy. Game randomly ends on a d6 roll of 1 or 2 at end of each turn after a force have been broken/halved. Gets points for number of wounds you make relative to opponent, wounding/killing leader and breaking them. Extra rule to restore resources for heroes that kill other heroes in melee.

Mission 5 Reconnoitre
Models move on from their respective table edges but you roll a die each turn to see if your warband even shows up that turn(can be modified). Games ends when a force have been quartered. You get points for moving more models of the table on the opposite side than the opponent, Wounding/killing leader and breaking them.

Mission 6 A Clash by Moonlight
Night fight so you cant normaly(thus no shooting or magic) see over 12" but shooting gets +1 to wound. 12" deploy. Game ends when quartered. Points for wounding/killing leader, breaking them and having more heroes alive than the opponent.

Mission 7 Seize the prize
12" deploy. Artifact in the middle. Game ends when force is quartered or artifact is off the table. Points for taking the artifact and moving it off the table, wounding/killing leader and breaking them.

Mission 8 Contest of Champions
Table split in half and the respective leaders must deploy within 3" from the middle. Ends when a force is quartered. Points for your leader kill total relative to opponents, your leader wounding/killing their leader and for breaking them. Heroes get resources for killing multi wound models. All the other scenarios so far make you want to protect your leader and rather have him be a support character and not a front line fighter. This is one is the complete opposite. If you have a weak leader who cant stall for time and the opponent have Sauron or the Balrog you are in deep trouble here.

Mission 9 Capture and Control
5 objectives. Semi random 12-24" deep deployment. Game randomly ends on a d6 roll of 1 or 2 at end of each turn after a force have been broken/halved. Points for objectives, wound/kill leader and breaking them.

Mission 10 Heirloom of Ages Past
6 objective markers that you flip. One is the Heirloom and it can be moved. Maelstrom/Random deployment. Ends when a force is quartered. Points for holding relic, wounding/killing leader, breaking them and having banners.

Mission 11 Fog of War
12" Deploy. Game randomly ends on a d6 roll of 1 or 2 at end of each turn after a force have been broken/halved. You write down in secret a hero of your own to protect, one of the opponents to kill and a terrain piece on their half to hold. Unless only having 1 hero(very very rare) the leader cant be chosen. Points for completing your tasks while preventing theirs and for breaking them.

Mission 12 Storm the Camp
Deploy 12" in from opposite quarters. Ends when a force is quartered. Points for having their deployment and defending yours, wounding/killing leader and breaking them.

The amount of points you get for each primary/secondary varies between the missions. Only 1 player can usually gain VP from the primary objective and if they do get the max amount the other player can only draw if he scores fully on the secondaries while the player who scored the primary didnt score any secondary. So even if there are kill secondaries on all the missions they arent giving that many points.

Lots of different things to take into consideration on these missions. You want heroes you can protect but also some that can do work on their own. You want numbers but not pointless numbers that just give up VPs. You want some speed(heroes with march, cavalry etc) for some of the missions or they can end without a single model dying. You dont want unbalanced warbands if getting random deployment. You want some expensive banners(A model with banner can cost up to 10% of the total points). Models with rules or might(CP) that can help with either reducing randomness of some of the deployments. And then the usual things for making a list in MESBG. You cant really build one list that excels in only one or two of the missions since they vary so much. Pure shooting is really bad in some of these but its great in others. 1-5 model lists cant stop people from escaping off their board edge but they have a huge advantage when it comes to relative kills. The pure horde lists are the reverse of that.

I really wish we had some of these things above in 40k so you dont tailor the list for the only mission we have. Capture 4-6 objectives in the middle of the table and hold them while we duke it out in melee in the center until one force is left standing.

I just read three missions from the BRB yesterday; I'm getting closer to my first Crusade game, so I wanted to familiarize myself with the Combat Patrol missions from the Crusade section of the BRB.

Just in those three missions, the WAS a Kill the Warlord mission that ended the game as soon as the objective was achieved. I only read three, and one of them turned out to be one of the things you are asking for and insisting we don't have.

I will say, as a Crusade player, I have far less skin in the mission game than you Matched play types; secondaries for me just earn experience for units, not victory points for my army, so they don't interact with mission parameters in the same way that they do in Matched play. The difference between winning and losing a Crusade game often comes down to a single Requisition Point, so you're unlikely to fall so far behind that you aren't having fun anymore; even if you do, you have Crusade Blessings to help offset the impact of fielding a smaller force. Finally, my focus tends to be on the overall health of my army rather than the results of any given battle.

I know that "Just play Crusade" isn't a viable solution for everyone- some people live in remote areas and can only find games by playing one off games in stores with strangers or whatever.

But honestly, playing Crusade with friends and family rather than Matched with strangers would solve 80-90% of the "problems" that I read about in the forums.

PenitentJake wrote:

But honestly, playing Crusade with friends and family rather than Matched with strangers would solve 80-90% of the "problems" that I read about in the forums.

Dingdingdingding.

It just really sucks if you can't do it.

PenitentJake wrote:
I know that "Just play Crusade" isn't a viable solution for everyone- some people live in remote areas and can only find games by playing one off games in stores with strangers or whatever.

But honestly, playing Crusade with friends and family rather than Matched with strangers would solve 80-90% of the "problems" that I read about in the forums.

I second this. Crusade really feels like The Way It Was Meant To Be Played, but you need a group.

Spoletta wrote:
Was checking for something else while I happened to stumble upon it XD

It was said in the November meta review https://www.goonhammer.com/the-november-2020-40k-meta-review/

Actually I was mistaken, it wasn't 8 points, but 5-6.

Could we actually see player 2 having the advantage now?

It would be interesting to see the stats after say 5-6 weeks.
While hoping to be wrong, I doubt that player 2 will have an advantage.

When the average game where player 1 wins see's them score 17.5 more points on the primary than player 2, its often not going to make a huge difference. Its going to be close games where the swing occurs.

Unfortunately from the Goonhammer statistics I don't think we have a clear percentage on how many games would qualify.

Really again, as per their article and playing, I think the issue is that player 1 (with a mobile army) gets to put player 2 effectively "in check" before they get a go. They have to instantly respond, or player 1 walks away on the primary. Certain armies are bad at doing this - and all armies can bounce. I'm not sure changing turn 5 is going to change this dynamic. I think its good because it makes the last turn matter - but the game has to have got the point where it matters to begin with.
Edit-Edit.
To be fair, it alters player 2's turn 4, since they can spend it entirely denying player 1 scoring in turn 5, and *then* spend their turn 5 to get on to objectives. So its a bit earlier than I implied above (although not by much.) But I still think you'd see a lot of "player 1 wins" are games where they start ahead and just get further ahead so hurting their turn 5 scoring is still probably not that critical.

So really, the Goonhammer guys should be able to give a reasonable guess as to the outcome by crunching games but giving player 1 5 less points (seemingly the average gain in turn 5).

To be negative, I think this could move the needle barely 1-2%. Which if we are saying player 1 tends to win 58% of the time or something, isn't enough. As said, could be wrong though.

Edit.
Actually I'll go further. Someone like say Harlequins *loves* this change. Slower armies, who are usually less good, are probably not going to benefit as much. So it will probably exacerbate faction imbalance in terms of going second win rates.

I'm optimistic, but clearly I can't predict what is going to happen either.

I expect some factions to benefit more than others. In particular, those that can get to turn 5 will surely reap the benefits. So, no GSC or the factions that need to go all out.

IMHO, the effect will be minimal with current lists. If lists though get tweaked to get advantage of that, it will have a much bigger impact.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Lot of discussion has transpired recently about secondaries, mission structure, mission objectives, and how all of this impacts the gameplay at both the list-building and table-play stage of the game.

As a pre-amble to this post, I was reading battle reports from a recent GT. I was struck by how many of the games were essentially *over* by turn 2. I think there is a general recognition that the game is very lethal and Turn 1 and 2 can be super decisive. I but wonder if a large part of this is a consequence not of "just the mechanics" but also partly due to the primary objectives (holding control points), the way they are scored, and the aggressive style of play they demand.

Cheers!

Yes, the progressive scoring system shifts even further weight to the early turns and makes games over by turn 2. There are a lot of things I don't like about the current missions, and they very strongly favor the first player. The stupendous difference between go first and second W/R is almost exclusively because of the missions and the way they play and are scored.

First off, deployment. The old mechanism of deployment enabled the second player to deploy with additional information about where the first player's units are, and what they're intending. This is a considerable benefit that goes a little bit of the way to making up for being on the losing side of lanchester's square law.

Second off, scoring. Scoring progressively moves weight forward in the game, to a degree that is catastrophic to the gameplay experience. Latter turns are irrelevant once you've built up a lead, and are mostly just sealing the deal. Scoring at the end of the game moves weight backwards in the game towards the end. Right now, there's basically no comeback ability.


Now, there's some positive points too:
take-and-hold scoring lends interactivity to the missions that terrible missions like maelstrom never had, so you're truly playing your opponent and not the mission. Before any player scores points, the opponent has the opportunity to oppose.
Another good point is doing away with thematic or story or narrative themed missions. Like seriously, all those random things like "in this battle, you can't use invulnerable saves" was just stupid. Forge your own narrative of your guys with your imagination, you don't need 6 scripted stories about seizing an area where force fields don't work to play out ad nauseam.


Now, if I were to redesign the missions, I'd do something like:
First player deploys all, second player deploys all.
End of Battle Round progressive scoring. I don't think we can truly go back to end-of-game scoring for basic scoring, but moving the scoring to the end of the battle round would empower the second player to offset the first player's advantage, since the second player would control the scoring. It would also encourage an attacker-defender dynamic, with the attacker having to take and hold and the defender having only to keep back the attacker.
I would also replace the secondaries [which are terrible] with an end of game scoring round that serves to lend weight to the end of the game, enable come-from-behind plays, and prevent an early lead from becoming insurmountable.

Kill objectivs can't be double dipped. Easiest to do, give the lowest VP

Then movment capturing objectives, harder to do, maybe with a rule when you do something with a specific type of unit it gives extra VP, to entice the use of for example actual recon units to grap quarters, and not just deep striking a base of nurlgings.

The action objectives, hardest to do, with biggest VP pay off. The harder to do, the more stuff can go wrong, the higher the VP gain.

Primaris give VP between kill objectives and the movment ones, easy to do, but with progressive turn scoring. As in holding the middle for 3ed turn back to back, should give more VP, then rolling on to it turn 1, just because you won the start roll. Primaris should be build in a such a way, that they entice the players to move out of their deployment zones with something else then recon or deepstrike units

So I've been mapping out mission structures across editions and also doing a lot of brainstorming for ways in which missions might be better constructed. I wanted to share some of these ideas for feedbacks

==============================

At a high level, victory can be determined in a few fundamental ways:

(1) END GAME: The game ends (fixed or variable turn limit) and the player controlling the most (or specific) control points (or territorial zones) wins. Thematically, this makes sense for missions based on securing and holding key locations for a certain period of time (eg waiting for reinforcements to arrive).

(2) PROGRESSIVE: Players earn points each turn for controlling/activating points. When the game ends (fixed or variable end turn) the player that accrued the most points wins. Point award can be fixed, escalating (eg earn points equal to battle round), accruing (points worth more each turn until cashed out with actions) and various other ways. Thematically, these type of missions make more sense for things like hacking data terminals, re-routing power, destroying supply drops, etc.

(3) THRESHOLD: This is a variation on progressive scoring, but works in that the game has a target point limit (or some other required "feat") and once a player hits that limit (or achieves the feat) the game ends. Sort of an alternative to a variable end game length. This can be implemented using progressive style scoring, or alternatively by accomplishing discrete objectives (eg blow up your opponent's bunker first). Has a lot of thematic possibilities.

==============================

For #2 and #3 above, the timing of VP awards from points can also be structured in a few different ways as well:

(I) END Of TURN: Gain points at the end of your turn - which leads to a bit more tactical play since you can dive onto a location and score without necessarily needing to plan ahead for how you will hold it.

(II) START OF TURN: Gain points at the start of your turn. This requires a bit more look ahead and strategic planning, as you need to not only plan to control the point, but also to be able to hold it for at least a turn. This can create some issues with the final game turns and players being "short" a turn of scoring. This issue needs to be accounted for.

==============================

The next aspect of mission structure is related to how control points (or territorial zones) are actually held. There are generally a few approaches to this as well:

(A) DOMINANCE: In this method, to control a point (or zone), you need to have more scoring models than your opponents within X" of the objective or within the zone. How this works thematically is a bit unclear. Gameplay wise it can create a nice tug war situation and certainly encourages more attrition-focused fights.

(B) SUPREMACY: A player controls a point or zone if they have exclusive control - ie they are the only player with models within x" proximity of the marker (or within the zone). Thematically works well when trying to depict the need to definitively hold the point - but gameplay wise more difficult to achieve (requires more coordination and/or power advantage to hold)

(C) ACTION: Players can use/activate a control point in lieu of a unit taking a shooting and charge action in order to gain VPs. Thematically had lots of possibilities to reflect a unit needing to do some task (hack a terminal, identify supplies, etc). This can be dovetailed with A or B above to reflect needing to control the point or secure the location before the action can be started (and/or maintain control until a subsequent turn). This does create a trade off between being able to use a unit to score points versus using it to attack your enemy - which can add another layer to the decision depth.

==============================

Another interesting aspect to consider is what happens when players tie for end game control or points (or don't have a big enough score difference) or both players fail to achieve the threshold or feat needed to win. This is where,
I think, there are opportunities to have things like secondary missions play a role.

So for example, the earlier points could all relate to different approaches for a primary objective, and a player that accomplished that earns a "major victory." If no player gets a major victory, then it goes to secondaries to determine a minor victory. If that still is a draw, then it goes to kills (or something else) to determine a Pyrrhic victory or something.

==============================

Yet another aspect is what the actual point awards are. Fundamentally, there are a few approaches:

(a) FIXED: In this method, all control points or zones are equal for scoring purposes and the VP awards are consistent across the game.

(b) ESCALATING: In this method, the points vary and grow in value over the course of the game. For example, controlling a point might be worth VPs equal to the current battle round. Another example approach is having the points gradually accumulate points each turn until they are "cashed out" by being activated by a player. These approaches add a bit more depth and strategic choices given the timing of when a point is taken.

(c) LINKED: In this method, points are worth an amount of VPs based how many other control points are held and/or activated at the time the VPs are awarded. Like the above, this method can require more strategy in setting up a coordinated action to gain more points at once instead of eating points in a one off manner.

(d) LOCATION BASED: In this method, certain control points are worth more points. For example, a central point might be worth more, or controlling points in your opponents deployment zone might be worth more. This method can help incentivize more board movement and mobility.

==============================

Missions can also be further diversified by not being symmetrical. This shows up in attacker-defender style missions, which usually incorporates an aspect of asymmetric goals. One player might be trying to accomplish some feat, and they win if they do, while the other player is trying to prevent them from doing so (and they win if they can hold out long enough). But it's also possible to envision scenarios where players each have a different central feat they are trying to accomplish.

Building on the above, and speaking of feats, feats as objectives can take a bunch of different forms. In no particular order:

- Destroying objective markers
- Destroying bunkers
- Getting units into enemy deployment zones
- Getting units across the board and off an opponent's table edge
- Performing X-number of objective actions
- Killing / protecting certain units (eg warlords)
- Finding the right marker

There are plenty more that can likely be drummed up.

==============================

At the end of the day, I'm trying to sift through these and find about a dozen combinations that can be stitched into missions, with roughly equal representation of the major types.

I'm really interested in having the set of missions have equal opportunities for fast, aggressive action as there are missions that encourage slower more methodical moves (with a few in-between). I think that's a useful continuum to keep in mind (ie fast versus slow missions) - as needing to account for both possibilities in your army list is going to help encourage more balanced armies that have a range of roles rather than being designed to perform optimally in just one type of mission parameter.

Phew. I think that's all for now. More to come as I sift through this and try to come up with an interesting mission set.

 Mezmorki wrote:
So I've been mapping out mission structures across editions and also doing a lot of brainstorming for ways in which missions might be better constructed. I wanted to share some of these ideas for feedbacks

Spoiler:

==============================

At a high level, victory can be determined in a few fundamental ways:

(1) END GAME: The game ends (fixed or variable turn limit) and the player controlling the most (or specific) control points (or territorial zones) wins. Thematically, this makes sense for missions based on securing and holding key locations for a certain period of time (eg waiting for reinforcements to arrive).

(2) PROGRESSIVE: Players earn points each turn for controlling/activating points. When the game ends (fixed or variable end turn) the player that accrued the most points wins. Point award can be fixed, escalating (eg earn points equal to battle round), accruing (points worth more each turn until cashed out with actions) and various other ways. Thematically, these type of missions make more sense for things like hacking data terminals, re-routing power, destroying supply drops, etc.

(3) THRESHOLD: This is a variation on progressive scoring, but works in that the game has a target point limit (or some other required "feat") and once a player hits that limit (or achieves the feat) the game ends. Sort of an alternative to a variable end game length. This can be implemented using progressive style scoring, or alternatively by accomplishing discrete objectives (eg blow up your opponent's bunker first). Has a lot of thematic possibilities.

==============================

For #2 and #3 above, the timing of VP awards from points can also be structured in a few different ways as well:

(I) END Of TURN: Gain points at the end of your turn - which leads to a bit more tactical play since you can dive onto a location and score without necessarily needing to plan ahead for how you will hold it.

(II) START OF TURN: Gain points at the start of your turn. This requires a bit more look ahead and strategic planning, as you need to not only plan to control the point, but also to be able to hold it for at least a turn. This can create some issues with the final game turns and players being "short" a turn of scoring. This issue needs to be accounted for.

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The next aspect of mission structure is related to how control points (or territorial zones) are actually held. There are generally a few approaches to this as well:

(A) DOMINANCE: In this method, to control a point (or zone), you need to have more scoring models than your opponents within X" of the objective or within the zone. How this works thematically is a bit unclear. Gameplay wise it can create a nice tug war situation and certainly encourages more attrition-focused fights.

(B) SUPREMACY: A player controls a point or zone if they have exclusive control - ie they are the only player with models within x" proximity of the marker (or within the zone). Thematically works well when trying to depict the need to definitively hold the point - but gameplay wise more difficult to achieve (requires more coordination and/or power advantage to hold)

(C) ACTION: Players can use/activate a control point in lieu of a unit taking a shooting and charge action in order to gain VPs. Thematically had lots of possibilities to reflect a unit needing to do some task (hack a terminal, identify supplies, etc). This can be dovetailed with A or B above to reflect needing to control the point or secure the location before the action can be started (and/or maintain control until a subsequent turn). This does create a trade off between being able to use a unit to score points versus using it to attack your enemy - which can add another layer to the decision depth.

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Another interesting aspect to consider is what happens when players tie for end game control or points (or don't have a big enough score difference) or both players fail to achieve the threshold or feat needed to win. This is where,
I think, there are opportunities to have things like secondary missions play a role.

So for example, the earlier points could all relate to different approaches for a primary objective, and a player that accomplished that earns a "major victory." If no player gets a major victory, then it goes to secondaries to determine a minor victory. If that still is a draw, then it goes to kills (or something else) to determine a Pyrrhic victory or something.

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Yet another aspect is what the actual point awards are. Fundamentally, there are a few approaches:

(a) FIXED: In this method, all control points or zones are equal for scoring purposes and the VP awards are consistent across the game.

(b) ESCALATING: In this method, the points vary and grow in value over the course of the game. For example, controlling a point might be worth VPs equal to the current battle round. Another example approach is having the points gradually accumulate points each turn until they are "cashed out" by being activated by a player. These approaches add a bit more depth and strategic choices given the timing of when a point is taken.

(c) LINKED: In this method, points are worth an amount of VPs based how many other control points are held and/or activated at the time the VPs are awarded. Like the above, this method can require more strategy in setting up a coordinated action to gain more points at once instead of eating points in a one off manner.

(d) LOCATION BASED: In this method, certain control points are worth more points. For example, a central point might be worth more, or controlling points in your opponents deployment zone might be worth more. This method can help incentivize more board movement and mobility.

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Missions can also be further diversified by not being symmetrical. This shows up in attacker-defender style missions, which usually incorporates an aspect of asymmetric goals. One player might be trying to accomplish some feat, and they win if they do, while the other player is trying to prevent them from doing so (and they win if they can hold out long enough). But it's also possible to envision scenarios where players each have a different central feat they are trying to accomplish.

Building on the above, and speaking of feats, feats as objectives can take a bunch of different forms. In no particular order:

- Destroying objective markers
- Destroying bunkers
- Getting units into enemy deployment zones
- Getting units across the board and off an opponent's table edge
- Performing X-number of objective actions
- Killing / protecting certain units (eg warlords)
- Finding the right marker

There are plenty more that can likely be drummed up.

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At the end of the day, I'm trying to sift through these and find about a dozen combinations that can be stitched into missions, with roughly equal representation of the major types.

I'm really interested in having the set of missions have equal opportunities for fast, aggressive action as there are missions that encourage slower more methodical moves (with a few in-between). I think that's a useful continuum to keep in mind (ie fast versus slow missions) - as needing to account for both possibilities in your army list is going to help encourage more balanced armies that have a range of roles rather than being designed to perform optimally in just one type of mission parameter.

Phew. I think that's all for now. More to come as I sift through this and try to come up with an interesting mission set.

Impressive set of options! I have one more variant of point awards for you, Climactic. With 4 opportunities to score primary points, you weight the ones in the middle of the game more with turn 3 and 4 awarding more points than on turn 2 and 5. The reason for this is to create an aggro versus control dynamic. Godtear does this, and it's a very satisfying way to play.

As to my personal feelings, I enjoy a more cohesive and less varied scenario pack that armies can be designed around more easily. My favorite scenarios in a Wargame came from Warmachine in MK2, which supported a multitude of strategies with 3 different win conditions: assassination, scenario, and attrition. I think a more diverse scenario packet like you are proposing would require a more robust army selection stage of the game like Malifaux or at least the 2 list setup of Infinity or Warmachine.

I think the current scenario packet is pretty strong. I don't think the balance of tempo vs. attrition is too far off, which seems to be the goal. In particular, taking and holding ground is very intuitive for the game. You also see armies designed around accomplishing their preference of secondary objectives with action bots and general modification of unit composition and strategy. I do think the secondary missions could use a little more thought. They seem built to provide a little variance in play patterns, but they seem to fail to do that in some cases.

My personal opinion is, tourneys should be set up so that you have some tables on fairly open terrain with a few LOS blocking terrain, then there should be tables that are heavily crowded and claustrophobic with ample LOS blocking terrain where units (some in particular) have difficulty moving (1 road just wide enough to fit a knight/super heavy down, alley ways that can just about fit a dreadnought but not a tank, make it so long range firepower has few angles to work with and emphasise movement and hiding), mainly so a one build army designed to do one thing will actually struggle a lot due to the diversity of the gaming boards.

There's nothing more depressing than looking at a board that has the typical 2x L shaped terrain pieces and mirroring of other terrain in each deployment zone. Yes terrain should be balanced and mirrored to a certain extent so each deployment zone is fair on a player, but it should not be the same board over and over again each round. How about a dense jungle, how about a mission based around a stronghold with a perimeter that one needs to defend and another needs to attack etc,

THEN, the missions should also be cultured and catered for each round of the tournament, so knowing that round 1 will be 4 pillars on dense tables and round two will be vital intelligence on more sparse boards etc, and absolutely not announced before the tourney, or whatever, mission choices will have an impact per table, but the organises can choose those, again with making the idea of games being quite diverse.

Finally, deployment is on a 10 minute clock along with choosing secondaries.

Lastly, 2000pt armies, your core force can be 2000pts, or you can choose up to 1500pts that must remain for the whole tournament, you then get to choose in a 2minute window before the deployment stage a choice of up to 3x 500pt pre-announced detachments (in the list submission stage) that you can swap out for to tailor to missions/opponent. Once you have chosen, no changing mind. You do not have to utilise the 500pt detachments, you can take a 2000pt list and use it for the whole tournament if you like. The detachments you choose do cost command points though as usual.

EDIT: My justification for all of the above is simple, the best players are flexible and can adapt, it neutralises the list building element of an army in part, minimising the impact of that being the reason some armies inevitably win certain match ups before the game starts bar really poor tactical play by the person with the better list or inevitable at times but impactful awful dice rolls. Make it as hard as possible for a list to be able to do everything in every game, make the player have to consider secondaries very carefully depending on the opponent, mission and table etc.

I also totally get that the terrain and different boards would be an issue for some tournament organisers, however, firstly, players can be split into groups where group 1 does the dense tables, group 2 on the sparse tables etc, and then once the games are played, switch onto the different terrains, and winners in the group go into the final stages of the tourney. Secondly, and IMPORTANTLY, the bigger tournaments could ABSOLUTELY do this, I have a business that runs events in halls the size of most big tournaments, I know how much it costs to rent that. I also have to include equipment (that I rent for events) that would probably cost the initial outlay of all the terrain needed, and I still make a profit so it can be done. Also, you have the added bonus of once the terrain is bought, that outlay isn't needed for your next tournament.

It's not easy but it is doable, and especially with the costs I've seen charged for big tournaments... It's 4x what I charge for my tickets in some cases.

I really feel like the change to last turn scoring has taken a huge chunk out of the first turn advantage, up to the point that some of my regular opponents straight up hope for going second now.

Both my orks and new DG now have had games which I turned from losses to wins in the last turn, which would have been impossible without that rule.

In one ork game I could just advance and charge a bikerboss into a unit of troops standing on an objective, and of course he slaughtered them all, resulting in him holding the objective all by himself. This flipped the objectives from 2-3 to 3-2 gaining me 15VP, and there was absolutely nothing my opponent could have done about it.

In another game my DG just raised banners all over the place, advanced into table quarters and charged onto every objective possible. Two actually managed to stick and wipe out who was on the objective, once again resulting into a huge VP swing.

You literally don't need to worry about anything but wiping out stuff on objectives and putting your foot down on them and performing actions to gain VP. That's quite a huge advantage, even if you only have a few units left. Obviously, this doesn't help when you get tabled, but tablings have almost gone down to 5th edition levels once we figured out how to build proper tables.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
There's nothing more depressing than looking at a board that has the typical 2x L shaped terrain pieces and mirroring of other terrain in each deployment zone. Yes terrain should be balanced and mirrored to a certain extent so each deployment zone is fair on a player, but it should not be the same board over and over again each round. How about a dense jungle, how about a mission based around a stronghold with a perimeter that one needs to defend and another needs to attack etc,

THEN, the missions should also be cultured and catered for each round of the tournament, so knowing that round 1 will be 4 pillars on dense tables and round two will be vital intelligence on more sparse boards etc, and absolutely not announced before the tourney, or whatever, mission choices will have an impact per table, but the organises can choose those, again with making the idea of games being quite diverse.

Actually, I don't think this is necessary. We mix our table with lots of different terrain and try to have different types of terrain protecting an objective or movement pathes from different angles, and then mirror those to the other side.

For example an objective near the top table edge would be surrounded by a barricade to the left and bottom, with a ruin blocking LOS to the right. The objective mirroring this on the bottom edge would have barricades to the top and right, with a ruin blocking LoS to the left.

That way both players have an objective which can easily be shot and has good defenses against charges, and another which is difficult to shoot but easy to charge.

Deployment zones can be protected by both industrial terrain and container stacks to allow the choice between completely hiding out of sight and being unable able to shoot and losing some movement when ruhsing forward, or being in a defensive position with good oversight, but reduced shooting.

You can also have fair asymmetrical boards, where one side is all ruins with little to no line of sight, and the other is just craters, barricades and ruined walls where there is no way to hide completely, but all shooting is reduced.

That way you put into player's hands what kind of terrain matters during the game.

It shouldn't be too hard draw a terrain map or two like this for every mission. The main issue is probably that depending on tournament size, getting such varied terrain is a huge investment for the organizers.

For me, I think the impetus for making a more varied set of missions is because (a) I'm frankly getting bored of the focus on control points with progressive scoring (essentially all missions are variations of the same basic formula) and that (b) more diverse missions means needing to make more flexible take on all type lists. The later will hurt skew lists, but I personally think the game is better and more tactically interesti g when skew lists are less powerful.

 Mezmorki wrote:
For me, I think the impetus for making a more varied set of missions is because (a) I'm frankly getting bored of the focus on control points with progressive scoring (essentially all missions are variations of the same basic formula) and that (b) more diverse missions means needing to make more flexible take on all type lists. The later will hurt skew lists, but I personally think the game is better and more tactically interesti g when skew lists are less powerful.

I agree, more varied primary missions would be great, the late missions of 8th were much better in that regard. That's said, I'd rather have them focus on fixing secondaries first, as right now most games not only have the same primary missions, but also the same secondary objectives over and over again.

So more thinking on missions. I think I have a mission set broken down into 6 archetypes. I'm thinking that each of these archetypes has its own mini-mission generator that defines some variable parameters (ie twists) within the mission being played. So while there are just 6 big types, there are likely dozens of different ways each type could play out.

I'm also envisioning that all missions are structured around their unique primary objective - but if the mission results in a tie for primary objective then, and only then, the secondaries are used (these described further below).

(1) CLEAR & SECURE
These are missions based on controlling objective points - focused on controlling points at the end of the game. Variable deployment zone setups can be used, along with variable control point layouts. Eg, a 3-0-3 layout would have each players deployment zone containing 3 objectives, a 1-3-1 would have three in a middle and one in each players DMZ, etc. Twists could relate to whether points need exclusive control near the point or simple majority.

(2) RECON
These missions are similar to the above but based around table zones instead of control points, and can use threshold instead of end game. This is typically table quarters but could also be other arrangements. Could even be about needing to recon into opponents DMZ. Twists similarly relate to when and how you need to recon - eg spending action, needing to have it clear from enemies when reconing, etc.

(3) DESTROY/RECOVER OBJECTIVE
These objectives are focused on needing to blow up certain objectives. Threshold style objective. The variations could allow for the objective and arrangement to vary (bunkers, pipelines, supply drops power centers, comm systems) and also whether it's a symmetrical setup versus structured as an attacker/defender scenario (where one player earns VPs for destroying the target and the other for securing or keeping it intact at the end of the game). Twists relate to the process for destruction - ie need to perform an action and hold versus automatically blow it up at the end of your turn. Could also include twists for "searching" for the right objective and/or objectives dropping in over the course of play.

(4) INTEL / POWER INTERCEPT
Objective points represent control nodes for intel or power or warp energy or whatever. Scoring is progressive using escalating or accruing methods. Twists can relate to how control works for the points and/or getting bonuses for linking points. Victory can also be threshold based (ie need to recover X-amount of power or intel to win).

(5) CRITICAL FOCUS
These missions are based primarily around having one single objective in the center of the table. Can be structured as attacker or defender missions. Can also include variants like Relic missions where players race to try and secure a relic in the middle of the table and get it off
their table edge.

(6) BREAKTHROUGHS
These missions primarily require one (or both) players to get units off of opposing
table edges. Can be structured as attacker-defender missions (like ambushes) or also as cross-infiltrator missions representing instances where players are both trying to slip forces past one another.

I feel like the 6 archetypes above could, once built out with their variations, cover nearly any range of mission types pretty well.

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SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

Secondaries would only be used if neither player accomplishes the primary objective (or ties). I tried to boil down secondaries to a few types that are applicable to all armies:

* Assassinate - VP for killing enemy warlord
* Forward Push - VP for getting units into enemy DZ
* Secure the Line - VP for keeping enemy out of your own DZ
* Destroy Forces - VP for reducing enemy army to 25%, 50%, or below 75% strength.
* Force Preservation - VP for maintaining your own forces.

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That's where I am at the moment.

Karol wrote:
Some armies get a pre game GG, just by virtue of not going first.

Which by the way, at least in my opinion, is indicative of something being seriously wrong with the system right now. No idea if it is just the going first thing, or going first and the type of scoring w40k has in 9th, but armies shouldn't have a 20%+ spread in win rates between going first and second.

I feel like inherently it's just vastly too easy to have a unit in 40k dealing its tippity-top maximum potential damage right off the get-go.

Compare to another game I play with a similar modelcount, and the same standard board size as 40k used to be (except that game is 1/2 the scale)

To deal the absolute MAXIMUM possible damage, any unit must be

-Not pinned
-Not moving
-10" away from the target
-Target is completely out in the open

Any deviation from that ideal situation results in penalties to the unit's maximum potential damage.

If you're pinned, you can't do anything. You can un-pin critical units by using an order on a commander

If you needed to move and shoot to get into position, you get only your unit's ROF rather than ROF X2 (because move-move, shoot-move, move-shoot, and shoot-shoot are the 4 basic actions you take in that game, obviously max damage is shoot-shoot.)

If your opponent is concealed by cover, you get a penalty on your spot roll and they get a save roll after you roll to hit

If you are over 10" away, for each additional 10" you get -1 to your hit roll

40k has exactly none of this. The things that reduce a unit from dealing max damage in 40k are:

-A particular type of terrain is between you and the target (exactly -1 to your hit roll, capped, in a game where rerolling all hits is not uncommon)

-Your target is entirely within most terrain (exactly +1 to their save roll, which may or may not matter at all depending on your AP)

-Your target has a save that either your AP blows right past and you lose some efficiency, or your target has an invuln that prevents your full AP from taking effect.

And that's...it, really. Shooting at max range is same as shooting from 2" away. Shooting a target you can see 1% of is the same as shooting a target you can see 100% of. Most weaponry have ranges greater than the gap that the two armies start with between them. Moving and shooting only matters specifically with INFANTRY moving with specifically HEAVY weapons. Morale just adds casualties, it doesn't prevent or impede offense.