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 Rihgu wrote:
I must be completely misinterpreting what you're talking about because how can the win conditions be so diverse as to combat skew but also still allow for TAC where as long as you do not skew you have decent odds (based on game skill) of winning?

That would imply to me that the win conditions are not so diverse, and the real way to play is to skew units which can perform multiple of them? Or that the conditions are easy enough that you don't even need to build towards them in which case I don't see how that punishes skew at all.

You make a good point. Presumably there's a sweet spot where the missions and unit versatility enable TAC lists to be made. I'd assume that sweet spot will be different for different size games. Making the missions scale with game size might be able to address that (I think GW might have done that some with tempest of war, but I haven't had the chance to play it yet).

 Rihgu wrote:
I must be completely misinterpreting what you're talking about because how can the win conditions be so diverse as to combat skew but also still allow for TAC where as long as you do not skew you have decent odds (based on game skill) of winning?

That would imply to me that the win conditions are not so diverse, and the real way to play is to skew units which can perform multiple of them? Or that the conditions are easy enough that you don't even need to build towards them in which case I don't see how that punishes skew at all.

The idea is don't have skew units that can perform multiple functions in the game.

Of course, that means actually having multiple functions that are valuable in the game, unlike modern 40k. But that can be designed in (see my chain of command example).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
I must be completely misinterpreting what you're talking about because how can the win conditions be so diverse as to combat skew but also still allow for TAC where as long as you do not skew you have decent odds (based on game skill) of winning?

That would imply to me that the win conditions are not so diverse, and the real way to play is to skew units which can perform multiple of them? Or that the conditions are easy enough that you don't even need to build towards them in which case I don't see how that punishes skew at all.

The idea is don't have skew units that can perform multiple functions in the game.

Of course, that means actually having multiple functions that are valuable in the game, unlike modern 40k. But that can be designed in (see my chain of command example).

Right, that's sort of what I gathered. But if you have Objectives 1-6, and each unit performs 1 of 6 of those Objectives and/or does something else generally useful but not specifically towards specific objectives (like, be cheap chaff or something), and you need to dedicate equal amounts of points to each of those objectives...
So I guess if the minimum limit of a list's ability to accomplish an objective is 1/6th of the lists total points it just seems like you'd have to make tough decisions about which objectives you'd want to be able to accomplish and which objectives you want to give up on. Which I don't see as being too far off from "Well, Astra Militarum has no chance into Custodes".

edit/note/clarification: if the minimum limit of a lists ability to accomplish an objective *is* 1/6th of the lists total points, then you're effectively writing lists for the players. Here's 3 units that perform Objective 1. Pick 1 of them. here's 4 units that perform Objective 2. Pick 1 of them. These 3 units are geared towards Objective 3 but are cheap, so you can pick 2 of them. etc.

Bringing back the equivalent of 2nd ed's mission cards for the Priamry element of a game could be interesting - both players have a "sekrit" draw (or roll, if you'd prefer a table) before deployment which determines their Primary objective for the game.

You could then keep Secondary (and the painting Tertiary) objectives roughly as they are (bar a couple of tweaks, like moving Abhor into the "Kill" section), but have instantly made games more interesting, as you both have to adapt to what your Primary is, as well as try to figure out your opponent's Primary and how to deny it.

That would certainly seem to be a way to increase the skill shown at the table...

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

nou wrote:
There is one more consequence of the current tournament mission pack - the predictability of the mission and secondaries you can tailor for/agains, actively amplify any imbalance. In the diverse mission format, an imbalance of a unit that only excels in one out of six cases is less impactful than the imbalance of a unit that excels in all cases.

Basically, the problem of 9th is that 40k is currently so shallow, it became solvable.

This basically

I agree 100%. I would reword just one thing... "the problem of 9th is that mission design is currently so shallow, it became solvable.

I have seen a lot of comments about list building as a completive skill and find it entirely laughable. I believe that army construction (i.e. list building) is a skill that is only developed when a player has to consider unpredictable variables. I also believe this skill is honed when a player has to make hard choices of what units to include in their army within the confines of smaller points limitations (i.e. 1500 or less).

Identifying over performing unit(s) in a framework of predictability and then spamming them is NOT skill. Not even close.

 Dysartes wrote:
Bringing back the equivalent of 2nd ed's mission cards for the Priamry element of a game could be interesting - both players have a "sekrit" draw (or roll, if you'd prefer a table) before deployment which determines their Primary objective for the game.

You could then keep Secondary (and the painting Tertiary) objectives roughly as they are (bar a couple of tweaks, like moving Abhor into the "Kill" section), but have instantly made games more interesting, as you both have to adapt to what your Primary is, as well as try to figure out your opponent's Primary and how to deny it.

That would certainly seem to be a way to increase the skill shown at the table...

I do think I would love that as well yes.

Wait, so people could for example fake trying to do a different primary or even multiple primaries, so the opponent wouldn't know what they are really going after? That really does sound very interesting.

 Dysartes wrote:
Bringing back the equivalent of 2nd ed's mission cards for the Priamry element of a game could be interesting - both players have a "sekrit" draw (or roll, if you'd prefer a table) before deployment which determines their Primary objective for the game.

You could then keep Secondary (and the painting Tertiary) objectives roughly as they are (bar a couple of tweaks, like moving Abhor into the "Kill" section), but have instantly made games more interesting, as you both have to adapt to what your Primary is, as well as try to figure out your opponent's Primary and how to deny it.

That would certainly seem to be a way to increase the skill shown at the table...

^That was fun stuff!

 Rihgu wrote:
Right, that's sort of what I gathered. But if you have Objectives 1-6, and each unit performs 1 of 6 of those Objectives and/or does something else generally useful but not specifically towards specific objectives (like, be cheap chaff or something), and you need to dedicate equal amounts of points to each of those objectives...
So I guess if the minimum limit of a list's ability to accomplish an objective is 1/6th of the lists total points it just seems like you'd have to make tough decisions about which objectives you'd want to be able to accomplish and which objectives you want to give up on. Which I don't see as being too far off from "Well, Astra Militarum has no chance into Custodes".

I think your analysis is getting too abstract. It's not like if you take Eldar jetbikes they can only participate in a mission that involves rapid take and hold, or if you take an Eversor it can only participate in assassination, or if you take a Basilisk it can only participate in defense. Some units will be better suited to some missions than others, but even if you're doing a static defense mission there's still utility in having, say, a fast-moving melee unit (specifically, interdiction).

What you can't do in this system (at least, not without giving up on one or more missions) is take that SM2.0 Imperial Fists list that was all static Stalker BR spam and artillery, because then you have no capacity to play an objective that requires movement. Or a Drukhari army that is 100% turn-one assault, because you may struggle in a mission that requires you to play defensively. You need some capability for each mission to have a decent chance at success; not a one-trick-pony army that skews hard into a single playstyle.

Edit: And I mean, to this point:

 Rihgu wrote:
edit/note/clarification: if the minimum limit of a lists ability to accomplish an objective *is* 1/6th of the lists total points, then you're effectively writing lists for the players. Here's 3 units that perform Objective 1. Pick 1 of them. here's 4 units that perform Objective 2. Pick 1 of them. These 3 units are geared towards Objective 3 but are cheap, so you can pick 2 of them. etc.

Let's say I, as a Guard player, need to be prepared for a retrieval mission archetype. That means having to grab a 'football' in the middle of the board ASAP, then run it back to my lines. Just a random hypothetical example because it's a very abnormal mission type by 9th Ed standards.

I could plan to address this mission with:
-Deep striking Scions that can come down near the objective and grab it
-Infantry in Chimeras, or Scions in Tauroxen, or Veterans in Valkyries, that can roll up to the objective and re-embark once they grab it
-Hellhounds or Sentinels for fast-moving firepower to get on the objective
-Leman Russes, preferably with Demolishers and Heavy Flamers, to push towards the objective at max speed and hopefully kill whatever grabs it first

None of those options are only useful for this particular mission type. Even Guard, a relatively static gunline army, have a variety of options here. The requirement is just that I need
1. Something faster than squishy infantry, and
2. A game plan for playing aggressively rather than turtling up.

It's a combination of taking units with the necessary (and very broad) capabilities, and having a game plan for addressing that particular mission type- being able to play a single army differently depending on what mission is actually rolled. That variation is what people like Auticus are looking for; getting away from the idea of min-maxing an army around a single known objective and then executing a pre-planned sequence in-game to table the enemy in two turns.

I find that most units can sit in multiple roles and do well enough in multiple missions.

If my mission is kill points - then obviously the units that kill really good are going to shine. That doesn't mean that those units are not good in defense, take and hold, or objective games.

If my mission is take and hold and the scenario dictates infantry gains a bonus to taking the objective, then my infantry will shine. My killy units still kill, and my bike and artillery units still do their thing, its just if you skewed all bikes and artillery you are going to have a bad day. They are still doing their thing.

If my mission is multiple take objectives, then my fast units are going to excel, but my killy stuff is still killing, my artillery is still artillerying, and my infantry is still performing its duties. Its just that my fast units are excelleing.

If my mission is an assassination mission then my character killers are going to shine, but my other units again are still working and performing their roles.

If my mission is defend the point then my tanky units are going to shine. My other units are still performing their roles.

If my mission is score points for getting off the other table edge, again ... all of my units are performing their roles, but if I've skewed too far into one thing then I may be at a disadvantage.

If I've built a list that excels at character killing and haven't taken a lot of fast units or units that can hold objectives then I'm hurting myself.

Etc.

So I have to build a list that can accomplish taking a primary objective and holding it, or killing, or assassinating, or holding multiple objectives, or maybe getting off the table.

Instead of the current scene which tends to be either kill points, or take objectives. Or in warmachine's case, ignore the scenarios and just kill the caster so min max toward that.

I do love the primary objectives being asymmetrical idea.

Karol wrote:
Wait, so people could for example fake trying to do a different primary or even multiple primaries, so the opponent wouldn't know what they are really going after? That really does sound very interesting.

In theory, yes, that would be possible - I'm not saying I could tell you how different Primaries would work in such a case, though I might see if I can remember where the box with my 2nd ed cards in is, and see if I can find the old versions as an example. But, yes, it could be possible to try to fake out your opponent in such a set-up.

I wonder if maybe w40k would be a better, not saying good, game if the objectives were more like those in large scale games , like historicals for example. We are playing a game with large numbers of models, on a skirmish table with objectives for skirmish games. We have mechanics, regarding LoS and units engaging each other, which are okey for skirmish systems with 20-30 models, but horrible when light vehicles and monsters get spamed andsides run with 40+ models, even if theya re elite. I don't know how the objective should be for w40k. This is for smarter people with moree xpiriance to decide and know. But, assuming GW will never want players use fewer models in their games, maybe stuff like objectives or scenarios should no longer be those from ancient times when w40k was much smaller.

Thread now exalted. Good stuff!

To respond to a few posts which touch upon the same point... in this hypothetical mission set where there are extremely diverse missions and also units that are good at accomplishing more than mission objective... how does one then stop the skew towards those units?

Okay, there's a take and hold mission. I have a unit option that is particularly good for that, with good defenses.
I also have a unit that has good defense and good killing power.

Hey, Unit 2 is good for 2 mission types, where Unit 1 is only good for 1... If Unit 2 costs appropriately for handling 2 mission types, why would I take Unit 1? If Unit 2 is expensive because it gets to do 2 mission types even though it can only be playing 1 mission type at a time, why would I take Unit 2?

Unit1126PL made sense when they suggested that multi-tasker units shouldn't/wouldn't exist in this system. It's not quite coming together in the hypothetical case where you have units that perform well for multiple objectives because then you'd just skew those units.

The other weird part, to me, and this may just be the random examples being used but at least in Auticus' case it seems like these are the literal examples he has used for 20+ campaign seasons...

Those mission parameters do not seem diverse enough to do what you propose they do? Almost all of them seem like they're "take a unit that moves fast, and killy units to support them". Bonus points if you bring a fast and killy unit!

I can't really get into any more detail than I already have on the subject. You can't really skew in those mission sets at all.

The moment you skew, you are likely at a disadvantage.

If you take killy and fast units and end up in a take and hold mission without the required infantry to hold the objective, which are not super fast, you are going to have a bad time.

Also requires that the rules not let you take basically whatever you want, which is what 40k and sigmar allow.

There were some forgeworld campaign books that did this. And while I got to play in a lot of them, there was a lot of drama generated by the competitive crowd because some of the mission parameters were not what the competitive missions were, so their collections weren't as suited for those missions and that made them angry.

Historicals also make use of this technique and I've found it to work to great effect. BattleTech, which is a quasi historical, also has missions like this where if you are playing a campaign with a set list you will get hammered if you skew to one thing at the expense of another.

This is just a discussion to discuss a type of way to get diverse builds. For details you need to follow up with the rules and missions in depth - which is not being positioned forth in this thread as it requires changes to the 40k system overall.

Also requires that the rules not let you take basically whatever you want, which is what 40k and sigmar allow.

But... why? If the mission set punishes skews and rewards TAC, it shouldn't matter if you can bring whatever you want or not because the mission would punish you for bringing the wrong stuff.


edit: If we want to talk about diverse builds, a mission set with a single, or relatively few known win conditions can easily provide that. Just make it so there are multiple viable builds to accomplish that/those win conditions. Make it so shelling the enemy and then walking up with chaff is viable. Make it so you can charge onto an objective and expect to win the fight and end up holding it. Summon hordes of weak minions at key locations during the game to overwhelm via attrition. Use tanky units to block enemy movement and when they're in a rough position because of your tactical genius, you spring a super killy unit, buff it up, and kill 1 vital priority target of theirs leaving them in a worse position.

All of this could be done, theoretically, in the Chaos Marine, Space Marine, or Astra Militarum codexes as example. Leave it up to player personality/playstyle for how they execute a win with the tools they are granted.

here are a few mission examples :

1) Annihilation : kill more than your opponent kills
2) Recover the relics : units can pickup 3 relics in the midfield, winner is the one that holds most at the end of the game
3) Excavate STC : Vehicles can do an action on objectives to dig out STC's winner is the one with the most STC at the end of game
4) Destroy the rogue AI : Infantry performs an action on scanners in the midfield to identify which objective contains a rogue AI, Elite Infantry can do an action on these objectives to purge the AI
5) Warp Storm : each turn a growing warp storm makes the board smaller (if youre caught in the warp storm, you take X mortal wounds) winner is the one that controls most objectives

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
here are a few mission examples :

1) Annihilation : kill more than your opponent kills

Okay my list is built to kill

2) Recover the relics : units can pickup 3 relics in the midfield, winner is the one that holds most at the end of the game

Okay, my list that kills stops them from getting any relics, because they're dead. 0-0 draw.

3) Excavate STC : Vehicles can do an action on objectives to dig out STC's winner is the one with the most STC at the end of game

Hm, tough, vehicles weren't killy enough for my list. Ah, as long as I can kill all their vehicles before they dig out STCs, I still tie. 0-0 baby.

4) Destroy the rogue AI : Infantry performs an action on scanners in the midfield to identify which objective contains a rogue AI, Elite Infantry can do an action on these objectives to purge the AI

Okay, so if I kill their Elite infantry or their non-elite infantry, I stop them from scoring? Another draw for me.

5) Warp Storm : each turn a growing warp storm makes the board smaller (if youre caught in the warp storm, you take X mortal wounds) winner is the one that controls most objectives

Hey, in this one the mission itself helps me kill my enemy! Hooray!

edit: "but Rihgu, in this theoretical world, units wouldn't be that efficient at killing!"
So if I can't kill an enemy unit to stop them from accomplishing objectives, every unit is a tanky unit. Is there any point to bringing specifically extra tanky units? At that point it also probably wouldn't make much sense to take specifically killy units as they aren't killy enough to matter for the majority of scenarios.

Tbf IMHO the big thing we are missing is board interaction. We are talking about matching list to mission, but the motivation should be list-to-opponent. This also fits my "units shouldn't do more than one thing" comment.

Chain of Command is a perfect example - mission objectives and whatnot don't really care what specific troops are doing it or whatever. Rather, units have different roles when interacting with the opponent, rather than the mission.
Let's take a look at a roughly genericised options list for a COC force, shall we?
The options vary widely, from anti-aircraft guns to barbed wire to tanks to field guns to regular cars and trucks and both on and off table mortars. Medics, anti-tank guns, anti-tank teams, smoke grenades, platoon adjutants, weapon options (smgs, different types of rifle), flamethrowers, bunkers...

When choosing how to spend your support, it is very rare there is a "best option" because even among similar unit types they have different roles and functions. This is because there is far, far more to the game than "what kills fastest without being killed for cheapest is the best".
For example, an HMG is a lot killer than an MMG, since it ignores one level of cover and provides slightly more anti-material capability. It's usually more expensive than an MMG accordingly.

In 40k, either the HMG's killiness over the MMG is worth the points you pay, or it isn't.

In chain of command, though, the MMG suppresses just as well as the HMG, and suppressing enemy infantry has real value in the game, allowing other tools to work and other units to maneuver.

Your choice of MG support comes down to your game plan, then. By all means, spring for the HMG vice the MMG if you need to outright kill enemy infantry in soft cover at long range. But if you are comfortable suppressing them to facilitate other actions, maybe the MMG is sufficient.

This type of dichotomy goes to the extreme, where units that don't do any damage at all (light mortars with smoke) are typically MORE valuable than cheaper units that kill fairly well (mortars with HE).

If you bring an HMG, your support points are so cut down that you can probably only afford an anti-tank rifle for AT. Now, between the improved antitank of the HMG and the ATR, your opponent will be very sad if they bring a couple armored cars. But if instead they bring a medium tank... You're going to wish you had an MMG and a heavier anti-tank asset.

Cool. Our experiences differ in this. Thats really all that needs said at this point.

Leave it up to player personality/playstyle for how they execute a win with the tools they are granted.

There is definitely room for that. Its just that spammy skew lists tend to not do so well.

Armies of giant spam or dragon spam (sigmar) are good at certain things and bad at others in that type of mission set - as an example.

There are usually multiple ways to build within those mission parameters however.

I *do* think the "everything can hurt everything" nature of 40k is really bad and encourages skew.

If the HMG in CoC did a passable job against medium tanks, it would be best in class for example. Or if most AT weapons were also good against infantry for their points - they would outclass field howitzers.

It is good for games where you play with 10 models or maybe 20. The everything hurts everything becomes a problem when you overlay rules and interactions, and suddenly a basic gun, which is good, suddenly becomes the death ray vide stuff ad mecha could do.

 oni wrote:
Am I the only one who read this in absolute shock at how clearly it points out the fundamental flaws of the gakky GT mission design with fixed terrain layouts?
...

Summary...
If the tabletop is a constant and the win conditions are a constant then it's easy to determine which units are optimal as well as which units will over perform.

IMO, competitive players want predictability. They refer to predictability as 'balance' because it sounds better and can rally players to their false cause.

No, you're not the only one. Some of us have been saying this about the format for a few editions now.

Until the GT 22 pack, the mission was a joke. Players were effectively playing the same mission every game. The Primaries are pretty much the same. Players choosing 3 more Primaries meant that the only way to play a different game was if they chose different ones between games but if they built their army around the 3 then there was no motivation to. With the GT22 pack they almost caught up to 4th edition. We finally got some variation with a 5th primary being added to the pack to mix it up, but largely irrelevant since they just crammed it into the existing format, making it more of an afterthought to provide a few more points, rather than a solid objective that players have to factor into their list. The 'Tempest of War' mission pack does little to improve the game with the missions still being relatively stagnant.

 oni wrote:
Mike Brandt = The new Matt Ward

While I feel similar, I don't think this is a fair assessment. One of the positive things to come from 9th is the redemption of Matt Ward. He couldn't hope to achieve the level of damage that Brandt has done to the game. Hiring him was huge slap in the face to the 40k community that he's ignored. Which is a shame because he's genuinely a nice guy from the conversations I've had with him. He's done amazing things for his community which he has been recognized for. There hasn't been a single improvement to the game though, and it feels like GW has to double down on committing to him or admit to having found someone to fill Wards shoes which should've remained empty.

 Rihgu wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
here are a few mission examples :

1) Annihilation : kill more than your opponent kills

Okay my list is built to kill

2) Recover the relics : units can pickup 3 relics in the midfield, winner is the one that holds most at the end of the game

Okay, my list that kills stops them from getting any relics, because they're dead. 0-0 draw.

3) Excavate STC : Vehicles can do an action on objectives to dig out STC's winner is the one with the most STC at the end of game

Hm, tough, vehicles weren't killy enough for my list. Ah, as long as I can kill all their vehicles before they dig out STCs, I still tie. 0-0 baby.

4) Destroy the rogue AI : Infantry performs an action on scanners in the midfield to identify which objective contains a rogue AI, Elite Infantry can do an action on these objectives to purge the AI

Okay, so if I kill their Elite infantry or their non-elite infantry, I stop them from scoring? Another draw for me.

5) Warp Storm : each turn a growing warp storm makes the board smaller (if youre caught in the warp storm, you take X mortal wounds) winner is the one that controls most objectives

Hey, in this one the mission itself helps me kill my enemy! Hooray!

edit: "but Rihgu, in this theoretical world, units wouldn't be that efficient at killing!"
So if I can't kill an enemy unit to stop them from accomplishing objectives, every unit is a tanky unit. Is there any point to bringing specifically extra tanky units? At that point it also probably wouldn't make much sense to take specifically killy units as they aren't killy enough to matter for the majority of scenarios.

Do you remember the start of 9th? I remember people using their 8th Ed kill-as-fast-as-possible assault armies and gunlines, complaining that progressive scoring was making them lose. The assault armies had no staying power to hold objectives (or units that could hang back), and the gunlines had no mobile elements to move forward and take objectives.

Killing the enemy to prevent them from taking objectives is not a universally successful strategy, nor is the sole alternative a game state where everything is tanky and there is no reason to take units with more staying power. Most wargames really do not boil down to these two extremes you describe.

My ideal, again, is Infinity when it comes to most things. I don't think most of the missions in that would work for 40k, but this is just an example.

Infinity is very deadly. I can move out Heavy Infantry with 2 wounds in a group of 5 forward across the board, and if I'm not playing smart, they can end up dead at the end of turn 1, just by walking forwards, because they'll be shot at by the entire enemy team.

Also, in Infinity, I've gone against kill lists and won by completing one objective of a total 3. I passed 3 rolls the entire game, but they were so focused on killing me, that they ended up not completing the objective, while my ninja just ran away. Why did my ninja, who is best at cc, and isn't very killy in comparison to other things at range, win the battle for me? Well, it got Hidden Deployment, so my enemy didn't even know I had it, it had Infiltration, so it could start anywhere on my side of the board, it had Stealth, so I could avoid AROs if I got too close to enemies, and it was a Hacker, which let me complete the mission objectives.

For another comparison where Killy and Objectives were somewhat equal, I played my friend in a game of Infinity when we were still learning. The rules we were using for a map had all the walls destructible with Anti-Material weapons. I was going around, opening doors with a hacker, using a Repeater to distract his TAG, and coming from behind. He was destroying walls and doors in order to shoot me, but avoiding walls and doors which would allow my army to respond to his next attack, or attack on my turn.

That was a kill points mission, by the way.

Reading all this does make me want to try some new war games. Anyone have any recommendations for a fantasy skirmish game that's not GW?

There aren't many unfortunately.

Theres Saga Age of Magic.

Middle Earth can be considered skirmish but its GW.

Warlords of Erehwon (Rick Priestley)

Frostgrave.

Regarding mission design: my group uses a custom mission format (inside of an entirely custom game, that is not 40k anymore at this point, but that is another story, but this format can be adapted for 40k). It has 8 primaries and 8 secondaries. Primaries are worth max 6 points, secondaries 1 each. You draw a random primary (they are reasonably on par with each other regarding the difficulty), all are progressive, all require interaction with some objectives or board sections. Exactly none of them is kill points. None. The need for killing stuff comes solely from the need to prevent VPs to the opponent. And yes, this is an asymmetric design.

Now come secondaries - those can be generated during the game, by acting on a controlled objective. They are again, varied, and only a single one of them rewards you directly for killing stuff, but it is your opponent, that selects what you have to kill to achieve it. And what is important here - you only generate such side mission, you do not score it by doing this first action. Only then you have to/can perform some relatively simple stuff to score a point. And there is a twist to secondaries - if you fail to achieve them before end of the game, instead of gaining a VP, it costs you a VP.

In this format, if you over invest in defence in favour of mobility, you lose. If you over invest in offence, you lose. If you over invest in mobility, you lose. You have to be diverse. And the "side mission" mechanic let you decide if you can delegate some of your resources to a side task or not. Or if you are loosing on the primary, you can try to make up for it with enough secondaries.

And if you are only killing stuff, you can at most get a draw.

This creates way, way deeper game than current ITC style disaster.

 Rihgu wrote:
To respond to a few posts which touch upon the same point... in this hypothetical mission set where there are extremely diverse missions and also units that are good at accomplishing more than mission objective... how does one then stop the skew towards those units?

Okay, there's a take and hold mission. I have a unit option that is particularly good for that, with good defenses.
I also have a unit that has good defense and good killing power.

Hey, Unit 2 is good for 2 mission types, where Unit 1 is only good for 1... If Unit 2 costs appropriately for handling 2 mission types, why would I take Unit 1? If Unit 2 is expensive because it gets to do 2 mission types even though it can only be playing 1 mission type at a time, why would I take Unit 2?

In my mind, unit 2 would be more expensive than unit 1 to reflect the greater flexibility. Let's expand the example a bit. We have two missions in the example (for simplicity).

Unit 1 is good at mission 1.
Unit 2 is good at mission 1 & 2, but costs twice as much as unit 1.
Unit 3 is good at mission 2 and costs the same as unit 1 (thus unit 1 + unit 3 = unit 2 for cost and overall mission capabilities)
Unit 4 is able to do mission 1 and 2 half as well as the other units, but has half the cost of unit 1.

I think this set up would provide several options to the player for list building:
Option 1 - skew list: list made entirely from unit 1. The player would do very well on mission 1 but fail at mission 2 (I'll skip the unit 3 skew list)
Option 2 - Elite unit TAC list made entirely of unit 2. This list would have the fewest models, but would be good at both mission 1 and 2.
Option 3 - TAC horde list #1 is made up of 50% unit 1 and 50% unit 3. It will be just as capable of completing the missions as option 2, but have twice as many units. Half the units will do nothing during each mission (because I've simplified it to the point where there's nothing to do except "do the mission"; see atticus' earlier comment regarding this)
Option 4 - TAC horde list #2 is made up entirely of unit 4. There are the same number of units as option 3, but there's never a situation where units are not able to contribute to completing the mission.
Option 5 - variety TAC list. This list is made up of a mix of units 1, 2, 3, and 4. It might be able to do both missions equally as well or it might be a little better at one mission than the other. Generally speaking though, it is capable of accomplishing both missions. The player might choose the units based on list building opinions, fluff reasons, what they think is cool, what hasn't been mauled by the family pet... you get the idea.

I should note that in this simplified example, I'm only considering a skew list one that aims to be the best at a single mission and nothing else. In this example, I don't label taking all one unit as a skew list because I've simplified the list options to the extreme, although I suppose it could still be called a skew list regardless. It's probably what the a player that is only interested in winning would take (no judgement) as it's the easiest to maximize your success (as opposed to option 5). Over a large number of games, I think that the success rate would balance out between all these lists, but option 1 will be auto losing half the games and auto winning the other half. Options 2-4 would probably be tournament lists, but a 100% optimized option 5 list would be just as successful in a tournament as options 2-4.

So long as the difference in success rates between a 100% optimized option 5 list and a 90% optimized option 5 list (to arbitrarily pick a number) isn't too large, the balance should feel fairly comfortable, I would think.

This has been an interesting thought experiment. As always #notanexpert #preparedtobewrong

Unit selection per the above is on the right track imo…

For missions, what seems missing from Righu’s summary are missions that depend on getting in and out with minimal casualties, or causing least damage to the other side such as when stealth or reinforcements called in with heavy losses become possible, or when deployments are staggered, or random, and objectives are not killing, might be minimising casualties, minimising unit exposure E.g. opponent gains x points every turn your unit is visible, 2x when engaged, 4x in cc, because they are studying your strengths and weaknesses, so engaging gives them informational advantage, yada. Such missions are more challenging when moving, and advancing or running, disallow shooting or force penalties, when time is valuable and cc is done in a way where, again, it is committal in that to charge means not to shoot, yada… echoing Auticus, this speaks back to game design, meaning the core game must change, but these sorts of dynamics are possible.

 Dysartes wrote:
. . . I might see if I can remember where the box with my 2nd ed cards in is, and see if I can find the old versions as an example. . .

I got ya, mate

2nd Ed Mission Cards for reference, or for those who are curious: