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I know people have probably complained about this for a while now, but it came full force to me last night. Lost the game because of the random secondary objective favored my opponent and screwed me.

There is enough randomness in the game already, that I feel these just add another out of players control win/loss situation.

So out of curiosity, how many of you have suffered a defeat because 5th round secondary objectives screwed you, or even the reverse where they gave you a win because luck of the draw?

They have definitely gone both ways for me more then once, but if you dislike he randomness there are fixed secondaries you can play that can take that away.

I've never had a problem with secondaries because I only play Crusade/ Boarding Actions.

There are so many ways to play that if you don't like one, there are other options.

Mechanically, secondaries are fine. They give players a reason to field some cheap action monkeys instead of just putting 100% of their points into optimally lethal/durable picks. They also make it easier for armies to compete/score points even when they aren't really designed to stand in magic circles and face tank enemy attacks.

Thematically/narratively, I'm not a huge fan of how they're currently implemented because they're basically the "drunk commander" phenomenon at its worst if you're playing tactical secondaries. Fixed secondaries are better thematically, but you're probably scoring significantly fewer points unless your army can be built to reliably lean into them.

I like the agendas from Crusade quite a bit, but then the tricky part is getting people to sign on for the paperwork that comes with Crusade.

Wyldhunt wrote:

I like the agendas from Crusade quite a bit, but then the tricky part is getting people to sign on for the paperwork that comes with Crusade.

In the 40th century there is only war.... and book keeping.

I also think secondaries are fine mechanically. They promote a certain type of deckbuilding where you have to have certain type of units in order to accomplish them , but that's just the state of the game we're at the moment. I don't lose my mind when I'm losing by 4-5 points (last night I won by 2) - it could've easily have gone the other way.
What I don't thinks is fine is the new twist and challenger decks - these screw the game much more than secondaries. The challenger I can play around to an extent (though it sucks having an artificial boost to keep you both equel), but the twists? having 3d6 charges or 18" lone operative armies while facing melee armies - no thanks. We're playing without twists.

 Jayden63 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

I like the agendas from Crusade quite a bit, but then the tricky part is getting people to sign on for the paperwork that comes with Crusade.

In the 40th century there is only war.... and book keeping.

Given all the lore about room-sized stacks of unfiled reports in the Administratum, this actually tracks.

As for the secondaries themselves: Tactical Objectives can actually make a game worth playing out even if it looks like you've got no shot. Watched a BatRep the other day where one player had all of three models left on the board, but was able to eke out a narrow win.

I have not played enough for them to decide anything yet, most of my games have been rather one-sided in 10th. I like them for casual games.

Not a big fan of Necron Crusade Awakening Agendas, they feel just as gamey as every other victory objective with some extra book keeping on top. I would rather have 9th edition Necron Command Protocols back if we are adding unecessary extra book keeping and rules to the game, at least I felt like I had programmed my way to victory when things went well. Did I fail my 2 first Awakening Agendas and am I still yet to use the extra rule I got from my third game? Yes, I may be inexperienxed and biased here.

 Wyldhunt wrote:


I like the agendas from Crusade quite a bit, but then the tricky part is getting people to sign on for the paperwork that comes with Crusade.

Absolutely true and valid point.Easier to do in a 5 unit Boarding Action battle than a 15 unit 2k army, but still not easy.

Sometimes I play an Agenda that requires interaction with objectives (which means the Agenda can score VP in addition to XP), and I play my Crusade force without it's upgrades and don't even tell my opponent I'm Crusading. I know that sounds weird- if you're suppressing battle honours, why even Crusade... But I predicate A LOT of my army's growth on Crusade's progression system- I don't like adding units until the narrative preconditions for their inclusion have been met; that doesn't ALWAYS involve agendas, but often it does.

This seems like mainly a perception issue. Sure, every now and then a last-turn draw screws one player or the other, but that's no different to a player building a moderate lead turn after turn resulting int he same margin of victory. In many cases the specific timing of the card doesn't matter.

Sometimes it does, but I would argue last turn should be the least impactful because you should have a much better idea of which cards are available for you and your opponent. I find early turns are much more likely to cause imbalances as there are a lot of cards that can be basically impossible turn one (Marked for Death, Overwhelming Force) and some that are free points (Area Denial, Extend Battle Lines).

 Jayden63 wrote:
I know people have probably complained about this for a while now, but it came full force to me last night. Lost the game because of the random secondary objective favored my opponent and screwed me.

There is enough randomness in the game already, that I feel these just add another out of players control win/loss situation.

Eh. For competitive play, you have choices - the pool of secondaries is finite and known, which means you should have plans for how to handle them; when you encounter them is randomized, but it shouldn't be a surprise when you do encounter them. Alternatively, Fixed objectives are a thing - you pay a little (lower point values) to avoid the uncertainty, and can build your army & strategy around achieving them in the same way you do around scoring primary objectives. Point-wise, these aren't minor things - secondaries can kick off 40 points in a game, and primaries are only worth a max of 50; you need to plan for them.

I used to hate Maelstrom but I think its been pruned enough that its okay now. Yes you can still be screwed over by the order they come out but anything with RNG will have better or worse results.

I felt in older editions the variance was so great (when you were scoring "D3" points etc) you might as well have just flipped a coin at the start.

As people say you can go fixed if you really hate it. At a certain level of competition I think fixed can be a trap/mistake, as your opponent can just deny scoring - but that only really applies to a small percentage of players.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


I like the agendas from Crusade quite a bit, but then the tricky part is getting people to sign on for the paperwork that comes with Crusade.

Absolutely true and valid point.Easier to do in a 5 unit Boarding Action battle than a 15 unit 2k army, but still not easy.

Sometimes I play an Agenda that requires interaction with objectives (which means the Agenda can score VP in addition to XP), and I play my Crusade force without it's upgrades and don't even tell my opponent I'm Crusading. I know that sounds weird- if you're suppressing battle honours, why even Crusade... But I predicate A LOT of my army's growth on Crusade's progression system- I don't like adding units until the narrative preconditions for their inclusion have been met; that doesn't ALWAYS involve agendas, but often it does.

That makes perfect sense to me! I've been kicking around ways to do something similar myself. Because the crusade campaign-level mechanics (not necessarily the power ups) seem really cool for my armies, but I don't want to do all the extra bookkeeping or have to talk every potential pickup game opponent into having a crusade roster ready. I just want to have little story-related mini-objectives in my games that I can use as writing prompts for my army's fanfiction later. But the eldar crusade rules include things like, "Your opponent can pick up one of the no man's land objectives and remove it from the board if he controls it." Which you can't really do by just... playing out secret objectives in your head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CoreCommander wrote:
I also think secondaries are fine mechanically. They promote a certain type of deckbuilding where you have to have certain type of units in order to accomplish them , but that's just the state of the game we're at the moment. I don't lose my mind when I'm losing by 4-5 points (last night I won by 2) - it could've easily have gone the other way.
What I don't thinks is fine is the new twist and challenger decks - these screw the game much more than secondaries. The challenger I can play around to an extent (though it sucks having an artificial boost to keep you both equel), but the twists? having 3d6 charges or 18" lone operative armies while facing melee armies - no thanks. We're playing without twists.

The twists definitely seem like they ought to be avoided unless you and your opponent are doing something *very* casual and want to *really* shake up the game with something screwy. You could maybe get more mileage out of playing with one or two twists chosen in advance and building some armies with those twists in mind, but that still seems like a scenario where you have to be okay with sacrificing some game balance.

For me, the jury is still out on the challenger cards. I like the concept of a rubber band mechanic because it's usually kind of unsatisfying when one player concedes on turn 3 because they already know they're going to lose. A bit of a rubber band can help maintain hope in those situations and change a blowout into a close game. Which is what I want if I'm not trying to maximize my score at a tournament. But where I'm afraid the Challenger cards might actually be a drawback is when a game is actually pretty close and the challenger cards just give a bunch of free points to the player who was only slightly behind. But that could probably be solved by playing with how many VP you need to be behind your opponent to draw a challenger card and with the VP earned by completing challenger cards.