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So this week, there's a matched play mission deck up for preorder.

Sight unseen, I obviously can't testify to the quality of the product.

But regarding some of the conversations we've been having over the past month, this feels like a good move- an attempt to get some of that separation from ITC style to the casual night FLGS Matched Play games night.

For those who find GT Mission Pack mission pack missions samey and dull, do you think this might help you? Do others think it has the potential to be the Casual-Matched go-to? I've never really seen anyone who regularly uses the Open War deck say a bad thing about it, so maybe there's hope.

For all my numerous complaints I've greatly enjoyed their build your own mission decks for both games.

A bit more of a laid back vibe to Matched Play would be a good thing at many of the places I've played.

I really enjoyed maelstrom and open war cards in the past, if these are a something like them I'm 100% on board and will buy them. at the end of the day I like my games to be fun more than anything.

Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.

Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.

Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.

What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.

Hecaton wrote:
What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.

Go look at pre-Tournament Edition Chapter Approved books. Hell, just look at the last one that came out before 9th hit.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.

Go look at pre-Tournament Edition Chapter Approved books. Hell, just look at the last one that came out before 9th hit.

Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.

Awww shucks

Problem is that unless the competitive community makes an effort to adopt the Tempest of War missions, the majority of us will never have an opportunity to use them because our regular opponents will continue to treat every game as a practice round for their next competitive game.

Karol wrote:
Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.

And that's different to now, how?

I welcome anything that helps get us away from "Basically the same damned mission, ALL OF THE TIME". Really hope this turns out good.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Karol wrote:
Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.

And that's different to now, how?

It isn't.

Karol wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.

Go look at pre-Tournament Edition Chapter Approved books. Hell, just look at the last one that came out before 9th hit.

Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.

Honestly, that was never a real problem for me with the CA missions or the 8th edition Open War deck. Because you're (presumably) a friendly game rather than a tournament match, you can either request a redo on the mission selection or just enjoy seeing how well you do in a semi-unwinnable scenario. Heck, there were Challenge Missions where the whole point was just to see how well you could do without any realistic hope of "winning."

I really enjoyed the Open War missions. I ought to try to talk some of the local crowd into playing them instead of the mission pack stuff. They tend to tell a better story and lead to more interesting decisions mid-game. I'd go so far as to say the missions themselves tend to be even more enjoyable than Crusade missions.

Karol plays in an unholy trinity of donkey-caves, waac/Yolo, and superlists in normal pickup games with no holds barred the soup du jour. So there's that.

I love the Open War deck and like 90% of my games from 8th till now have been fun open war deck games.
I strongly encourage everyone to give em a try, you might be surprised...and that's a good thing.

Karol wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
What could you do that's interesting within the game system of 40k, though? This isn't Infinity.

Go look at pre-Tournament Edition Chapter Approved books. Hell, just look at the last one that came out before 9th hit.

Those were horribly unbalanced. Some armies would win or lose games, before even deploying, when playing against specific builds or factions.

Just like every 40k game. Current one is just one where after first turn is determined resuit is known 99.99999% times.

I like Open War - it's so much easier to play because you're not faffing around with three secondaries on top. That also frees up your mind from juggling objective-overload and lets you enjoy the game.

They're not the most perfectly balanced thing in the world, but that's not an issue for the type of game I play. Whenever we've drawn something crazy imbalanced, we've both agreed to just draw another card till we get something within shouting distance of fair.

I like to use a draw method stolen from Star Wars Legion, rather than just draw one of each and see what happens.
It gives both players some control over the draws.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Because you're (presumably) a friendly game rather than a tournament match,

Karol doesn't believe friendly matches exist and that life is a constant competition against literally everyone else.

PenitentJake wrote:
I've never really seen anyone who regularly uses the Open War deck say a bad thing about it, so maybe there's hope.

Nobody is ever going to be forced to play a niche variant of 40k, nobody is forced to play 6th edition or Open War, so anybody that regularly plays Open War or 6th edition are those that don't see the flaws in the systems. There is no perfect mission set for everybody.

I hate surprises, kindly keep them to yourself, I have considered joining a cult where gifts and surprise birthdays is against the rules several times. Joking aside, with Maelstrom at least most missions did not decide the game before deployment, I have just about zero interest in that type of gameplay. I don't trust my pick-up game opponents to be able to see what missions are unfair in a fun surprising way and what missions are over before deployment because they are so unfair.

I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.

The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.

I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.

current missions suck ass, its basically just a different layout and thats it.
And when they do try and make them more interesting it becomes overcomplicated for no reason.

Had a game this weekend and we got mission 12(?) of the nachmund pack. We just said feth the primary, we both read the paragraph of text explaining the plant/defuse actions and it was sooo fething complicated to parse for no reason.

And why not take more inspiration from missions like Infinity's? Have a few actions be required to achieve your 45pts from primaries, have these actions tied to different Force org slots/unit types to force diversity.

Having missions structured in a "Do x, then y, then z" way is much more interesting than "trade control of circles" all game long. (with a dash of engage/retrieve).


End of 8th Maelstrom of war was the most fun i've had with 40k missions, its a shame it got kinda scrapped with 9th

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Anything that removes the drudgery of Tournament Edition 40k.

Unfortunately I fear that a whole stack of the cards in there will just be various layouts of 4-8 objectives markers, rather than anything interesting.

I really wish I could go to this parallel universe you're from where 40k is good for tournament play. Sounds like a nice place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
current missions suck ass, its basically just a different layout and thats it.
And when they do try and make them more interesting it becomes overcomplicated for no reason.

Had a game this weekend and we got mission 12(?) of the nachmund pack. We just said feth the primary, we both read the paragraph of text explaining the plant/defuse actions and it was sooo fething complicated to parse for no reason.

And why not take more inspiration from missions like Infinity's? Have a few actions be required to achieve your 45pts from primaries, have these actions tied to different Force org slots/unit types to force diversity.

Having missions structured in a "Do x, then y, then z" way is much more interesting than "trade control of circles" all game long. (with a dash of engage/retrieve).


End of 8th Maelstrom of war was the most fun i've had with 40k missions, its a shame it got kinda scrapped with 9th

Ok so, you basically said 'why don't GW do X thing like infinity' while describing a mission that does that EXACT thing you said they should do. And then dismissing it as 'overcomplicated'

Apparently the reason is because anything more complicated than 'stand on 2 objectives' fries Dakka people's brains.

Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oni wrote:
I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.

The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.

I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.

This reads like a 'friendzoned nice guy' copypasta.

ERJAK wrote:
I really wish I could go to this parallel universe you're from where 40k is good for tournament play. Sounds like a nice place.

You live in it.

40k "seasons". Chapter Approved turning into a "Tournament Pack". Their playtesters being big tournament groups. Them courting all the big events.

This is Tournament Edition 40k.

 oni wrote:
I have high hopes for this product. I hope it's good and if it is, I really want it to catch on.

The issue of local community mentality is the greatest hurdle. Afterall, what good is a product if no one is willing to use it? Sadly, in my area, it's tourney-K, GT missions or nothing.

I often ponder how my local community got this way and if there's any hope to save it. New players are clubbed like baby seals and give up in short time. Veteran players are shunned because we talk about lore and narrative. Players do not even discuss the lore any more around here. It no longer matters to them. It's all one dimensional thinking of... How can I win the upcoming tournament? Seriously... How bad do things need to be that such group-think has taken hold to a point where people don't even care about the lore anymore? It's no longer important what a model represents. It's just a game piece and all that matters is... What does it do in the game? It's all so frustrating.

I don't suppose you & the other shunned veteran players have ever thought to just play games amongst yourselves. And snag some of the new players while you're at it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
I really wish I could go to this parallel universe you're from where 40k is good for tournament play. Sounds like a nice place.

You live in it.

40k "seasons". Chapter Approved turning into a "Tournament Pack". Their playtesters being big tournament groups. Them courting all the big events.

This is Tournament Edition 40k.

I wish people would stop arguing about it, GW wants to slob on the tourney knob and the tourney players love it, everyone else...not so much.

ERJAK wrote:

Ok so, you basically said 'why don't GW do X thing like infinity' while describing a mission that does that EXACT thing you said they should do. And then dismissing it as 'overcomplicated'

the idea of the mission is simple, but why the feth do GW feel like they need to write it that poorly, its a fething paragraph of lawyer speach

Prime Explosives (Action): One unit from your army can start to perform this action at the end of your Movement phase if it is wholly within your opponents territory and it is more than 9" away from any Primed Explosives objective markers (see below). If the unit performing this action has the Objective Secured ability or a similar rule, this action is completed at the end of your turn; otherwise, it is completed at the end of your next Command phase. If this action is successfully completed, set up 1 Primed Explosives objective marker on the battlefield that is wholly within your opponents territory and wholly within 3" of the unit that completed this action - this represents a cache of Primed Explosives, but does not count as an objective marker for any rules purposes other than for the Defuse Explosives action and the Detonation primary objective (see below).

Defuse Explosives (Action): One unit from your army can start to perform this action at the end of your Movement phase if it is within range of a Primed Explosives objective marker within your own territory and no enemy units (excluding AIRCRAFT) are within range of the same Primed Explosives objective marker. This action is completed at the end of your turn provided the unit attempting it is still within range of the same Primed Explosives objective marker. If this action is successfully completed, roll one D6 and add 3 to the result if the unit that performed this action has the Objective Secured ability or a similar rule: on a 4+, remove that Primed Explosives objective marker from the battlefield.

And i shouldve added that we were both trying out the Aeldari codex for the first time so we didnt want to make it more complex.

Even the most complicated missions in infinity (Mindwipe, Biotechvore) are way easier to parse than this gak


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'

did you try end of 8th maelstrom, you could remove cards from your deck, you had a hand to chose from, you could draw additional cards. It was random but not true random so you wouldnt get dumb gak like "cast or deny a spell" when playing tau/admech

I'm not really sure why you characterize things that way, but the rules for Mindwipe are...not brief or simple. I feel like you're just familiar with Infinity and unfamiliar with Nachmund and more inclined to be aggravated with GW.

Mind Wipe is also basically just objectives that only score at the end and it's otherwise a similar method of scoring ( do x, do x more than opponent, don't let opponent do y )

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
I really wish I could go to this parallel universe you're from where 40k is good for tournament play. Sounds like a nice place.

You live in it.

40k "seasons". Chapter Approved turning into a "Tournament Pack". Their playtesters being big tournament groups. Them courting all the big events.

This is Tournament Edition 40k.

He said GOOD for it. Maybe read what others write once in for a change? You might actually like it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

Sidebar: I also liked Maelstrom, but it was completely useless for anything other than pickup games. 80% of the time you could decide the game by just drawing the top 15 cards of the deck. 'Well, based on my 15 cards I score 11-13 victory points. Ooh, looks like you can only score 8 though. Guess I win!'.

Compared to now where after seeing lists and who goes first you can predit pretty much infallibly. I'm yet to fail predict one At least in AOS I failed once as one player did silly rookie mistake in heat of a moment giving needlessly redeploy which costs battle tactic 100% sure(opponent needed to roll 1+ on d6)

I disliked the current card deck missions due to the 18'' no mans land and the twist which i find to penalizing or rewarding depending on army.
I would love a way to play that does not take me 15mins to figure out secondaries

I really liked my first few games of Maelstrom, but the "drunken commander" thing really made it hard for me to visualize a story tied to the game. One turn, the hill the enemy is standing on is so important that my endangered species space elves are willing to sacrifice precious lives to take it. The next, that hill is totally worthless, but it's super important that I stand in the bushes that I've been standing on this whole time or that I was standing on until I had to send dudes forward to take that hill. And the turn after that, it's super important that my farseer cast a psychic power even though that's exactly what he's been doing this whole time.

Compared to that, Open War and even Eternal War and Tournament Pack missions are a lot more "fluffy." At least in the sense that you can sort of get the general idea of what it is the army's are fighting over and trying to accomplish. I think that's where the tournament pack missions (and EW in general) kind of fall short for me. There are so many secondary objectives floating around that change from game to game that it's a little tough to Forge the Narrative. Does my army care about controlling the battlefield by standing on objectives, or is it preoccupied with keeping its most expensive units alive? Or is the priority killing the enemy faster than kill you? Or is it countering whatever the enemy's three secondaries are? You functionally have 7 different goals (that sometimes break down into multiple sub-goals) to keep track of during a single game. That's a little much.

Hmm. I wonder how hard it would be to give each codex-level faction a handful of secondaries to choose from and then have the game's goals be:
* The mission primary objective.
* Player A's single secondary objective.
* Player B's single secondary objective.

You could even give each faction goals their opponents can choose from representing the fluff of that faction.

For instance:
* Mission: Progressive scoring; hold more objectives than your opponent at the start of your turn.
* Disrupt the Horde: Player A scores 15/30/45 VP for killing some/half/all of the ork player's character units.
* Loot Da Gubbinz!: Player B scores X VP each time a unit completes the Looting action while within 3" of an objective marker. (Each objective marker can only be looted once per turn.)

tneva82 wrote:
He said GOOD for it. Maybe read what others write once in for a change? You might actually like it.

Then why the feth did he quote me, given I didn't say 40k was good for tournaments either?

I stick by what I wrote. He was trying to argue that the idea that the current edition of 40k isn't tournament-focused. This is not true. It is laser focused on tournament play. Just because it's gak doesn't change that fact.

If that's not what he was saying, then he can defend himself rather than having you come along to snark your way to another ugly reply.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I really liked my first few games of Maelstrom, but the "drunken commander" thing really made it hard for me to visualize a story tied to the game. One turn, the hill the enemy is standing on is so important that my endangered species space elves are willing to sacrifice precious lives to take it. The next, that hill is totally worthless, but it's super important that I stand in the bushes that I've been standing on this whole time or that I was standing on until I had to send dudes forward to take that hill. And the turn after that, it's super important that my farseer cast a psychic power even though that's exactly what he's been doing this whole time.

I find another issue with Maelstrom/Open War and also the general calls for more random terrain, missions, etc is:

It works fine for Space Marines or Eldar, etc who can produce a combined arms list of infantry, troop transports, heavy infantry elements, scouting elements, main battle tanks, artillery, fast attack elements, etc. You can play randomised missions/terrain that you need a TAC list for.

Then you try it for Death Guard or Slaanesh Daemons. "Oh wait" says the Death Guard player "I don't seem to have any scouting or fast attack elements, that maelstrom card says I need to hold an objective four turns of movement away..." Or, the Slaanesh Daemons player wonders where their heavy infantry, main battle tanks and artillery are hiding in the codex..

Then the Slaanesh Daemon player sees the mission rules "oh my invulnerables are turned off in the centre of the board, it is a shame my entire codex is built around those. What about you Mr Combined Arms Space Marine, are there any missions that screw you over? No!? I am surprised!" It is funny, I've yet to see the Eternal War mission where in the centre of the board everyone gets a +1 to their invulnerable saving throws, odd that.