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Hello everyone iNcontroL here to talk about my experience at the Know No Mercy GT in Sacramento California this past weekend. Be sure to check the Tactics Corner for more great tournament reports!


Let me first say this was a balls to the wall tourney. A lot of people know/think the power level in WH40k is creeping up and up and they are probably right. Well, if that is true this tournament represented that factor in spades. The big nasties that ITC has mitigated to some level like invisibility, Lords of War (or taking multiple LoW like 5 wraith knights!) and some of the other things such as re-rollable 2+ saves or half a dozen factions coming together to form a super buddies list were all in attendance! That said nobody brought a Reaver.. damn! It was insane. Of course the fairly normal yet still equally scary lists marched the field as well like Battle Companies, War Convocation, Demon Flying Circus, CentStar, Skyhammer and more! This was most certainly a blood bath.

Beyond the tournament comp we experienced a fun mix of ITC, NOVA and straight book missions which had some interesting results. I am of course a huge fan and veteran of the ITC missions but I enjoyed the NOVA missions as well. They were a lot more reasonable than I had expected. That said I did in fact once again reestablish my disdain for straight book missions. Julio Rodriguez one of the stronger west coast players had his ass handed to him round 1 of the GT by our very own PhatJSleeze or Rawdogger or Jason as his birth parents call him due to straight kill points book mission. Oh but, Julio should have like used tactics! He should have, you know, played to the mission! Uh huh.. Jason brought ol Belligerence (Stormlord with 30 or so assorted guardsmen inside shooting out) and 2 wyvverns backed up by a voidshield vs Julio’s Battle Company. HAHA! Now I know a lot of you would say “well Julio is taking a brutal list he got what he deserved!” Certainly this is true.. but I just can’t say I am a fan of such binary results in a WH40k tourney. I prefer the ITC missions where every army for the most part has more of a chance.. not to derail this too much but FOR THE MOST PART I think we can generally agree that book missions can sometimes just straight shank you in the side.

Another example was Tasty Taste’s experience with said missions. The other book mission was straight maelstrom.. uhhg. Nick (TT) was doing great.. he was in day 2 rocking a 3-0 and was facing Tim Hosker of the Left Coast Corsairs to start day 2. Nick was playing Dark Angels on bikes and Tim was playing Space Wolves with Skyhammer (some thunder cav, lone wolf etc) pretty cool matchup! Problem was they weren’t playing that matchup at all.. they were playing slots! WEEEEEEEEE!!!! Tim took the Tactical WL trait that allows you to reroll D3 maelstrom cards and Nick didn’t think along those lines.. the maelstrom did the rest. Now, Tim is a fantastic player so not to take anything away from him but at the end of the game Nick had lost a handful of bikes and Tim had remaining 2 squads of space marines down to their last men, 2 pods and a single SW HQ on a dog.. it looked comical. Tim however had drawn the better cards and was able to secure a massive advantage by turn 2-3 or so. So, book Maelstrom is not for me.. not for Nick, either but maybe some of you are fine with this! I get that.. but maybe just not for hyper competitive tourneys? Moving on!

So I took my War Convocation. I am, as some of you might know.. fairly obsessed with WH40k. Since the BAO where I went 5-0 and took 2nd I have played 2 other tourneys with that list (won them both) and countless practice games at my very own home thanks to the terrain from FLG and also at Endgame in downtown Oakland where I practice with some of the best in California. I love Adeptus Mechanicus. I’ve been reading all their books from the Black Library, ordered and perused the Forge World books and was even blessed by the Omnissiah with my very own Warlord to look after my forces. Anyways.. lets talk about the list and the games!

WAR CONVOCATION

SKITARII (619)

+6 Vanguard – 64 pts
-Omnispex (Alpha)
-Plasma Caliver x2
-Conversion Field (Alpha)
-Digital Weapons (Alpha)
-Phase Taser (Alpha)

+5 Rangers – 65 pts
-Transuranic aquebus x2
-Omnispex (Alpha)
-Conversion Field (Alpha)
-Digital Weapons (Alpha)
-Arkhan’s Divinator (Alpha)

+5 Ruststalkers – 160 pts
-Conversion Field (Princeps)
-Digital Weapons (Princeps)
-prehensile Data spike (Princeps)
-The Omniscient Mask (Princeps)

+5 Infiltratrors – 185 pts
-Infoslave skull
-Conversion Field (Princeps)
-Digital Weapons (Princeps)
-Elder Skull of Nikolae (Princeps)

+1 Ballistarii – 55 pts
-Twin linked Cognis Lascannon

+1 Dunecrawler – 90 pts
-Icarus Array
-Cognis Manipulator
-Mindscanner Probe
-Cognis Heavy stubber

Cult Mechanicus (435)

+1 Tech-Priest Dominus – 105 pts
-Eradication Ray
-Phosphur Serpenta
-Stasis Field
-Digital Weapons
-Infoslave skull
-The Scryerskull Perspicatus

+3 Kataphron Destroyers – 165 pts
-Cognis Flamers x3
-grav-cannon x3

+3 Kataphron Destroyers – 165 pts
-Cognis Flamers x3
-grav-cannon x3

Imperial Knight (425)

+1 Knight Crusader – 425 pts
-Storm Spear rocket Pod
-Carapace Melta gun
Imperial Assassin (140)

+1 Culexus Assassin
Flesh Tearers detachment (225)

+3 Drop Pods 105
+5 Scouts – 55 pts
+1 Sanguinary Priest – 70 pts
-Auspex
TOTAL: 1849

Peter Kelly (TO of the tourney) was kind enough to review my list… REECE? And found that I had actually made some math mistakes but was still under 1850 (oh god) so that was good… I constantly think about my list and tinker around a bit but I definitely didn’t pay enough attention in math class(es) to be left alone with my numbers.. so thank you Peter!

The War Convocation is controversially powerful due to the free upgrades and the ability to sing songs to the Omnissiah that buff up the entire formation. Coupled with their best pals the Blood Angels Flesh Tearers this list becomes top tier for sure! Grav dropping down on you and then being very resilient to your return fire due to Stealth-Shrouding or going for maximum pain by twin linking the entire army means I can be deadly on the drop and defensive to the reply. Culexus has the tough job of making sure Psychic powers don’t get out of hand and Bobo the Knight is the anchor.. he represents a killing platform like no other with the last ditch ability to jump in and clobber folks, stomp them and if that doesn’t work explode for the D! The real gems of the army though are the ones you wouldn’t expect.. the Sicarians have time and time again won me games with their mobility and their laundry list of abilities that make them tactically very versatile and strong. My Warlord is not to be ignored either.. the space pope looks cool but not scary in combat terms.. so countless opponents have launched into an attack on him expecting the Tech Priest to crumble but that 2+ save, FNP or in a pinch the 2+ invul save (when he goes to ground) makes him REALLY hard to kill.. more on that later! I have yet to play a game where I didn’t feel like I had a chance or options and I really really enjoy that feeling. Having been a Nid player for the other 18 years of my WH40k life I definitely have walked up to a few tables and just kind of sighed.. no ruins, no cover and you brought what? Oh, ok.. thanks Tony Kopach and 6 wave serpents +2 wraith knights in a no FW environment.. I guess my poor lil Venomthrope will just head to the showers now :(

THE GAMES!

KNMGT was a 6 round 2 day GT with a 64 player cap. It was 2 ITC missions (Emperors Will and Crusade) 2 NOVA missions (Scouring and Relic) and 2 book missions (Kill points and Maelstrom). The event staff were awesome, helpful and present. Tourney ran smoothly as far as I could tell and was a blast!

Round 1: 5 Imperial Knights — Mission: Kill Points
Oh boy.. I had often been asked, “How do you plan on dealing with 5 knights?” I always kind of shrugged off said question because they weren’t THAT common and I felt like Bobo (my knight Crusader) would stand tall and deliver the hand of Space Emperor justice. My opponent was a young lad from the Mercy Killer team who had said he was just getting into competitive WH40k but was a long time player.. cool! We deployed, he castled in the middle (I had first turn) and prepared for what was coming. Knowing that mobility was going to be a factor for him I dropped in both my Grav kataphrons roughly 30 inches away from him but also apart so he didn’t have an easy area to charge into. I deployed in my corner as well where the ruins gave me decent coverage from his guns. First round of shooting proved to be pretty darn effective if I might say so myself.. the grav combined to drop one of his Knights and the explosion dealt 3 hull points to another with the D blast. I also peeled back some side armor on a Knight dealing 2 hull points to him with Aquiro-bus (or whatever) sniper shots (armor bane). Bobo lobbed some in there as well dealing I think 1-2 hull points to another.. all in all the Knight player was a bit shocked at how much damage he took. The rest of the game kind of went like that with him not making the saves he needed to and me being so spread out that I was firing at full force for 3 or so turns until he was completely tabled.

Win! Max points

Round 2: Sisters and a Warhound.. classic pairing — Mission: NOVA Scouring
Game two I felt confidence as I was facing my friend Garrett from the Left Coast Corsairs and his fairly scary list of Sisters with their assorted ignores cover melta some troops, Coteaz and Celestine oh, and a Warhound Titan.. what? Yeah 4 pie plates of D coming off of a 2 voidshield 9 hull point armor 14 model.. gulp.

Garrett won the roll to go first and that further complicated things for me.. I decided to reserve my Knight but deploy everything else. For the most part I was completely hidden due to the LoS blocking piece in the middle (of every table mind you!) and my own ruins where I could line up the walls with the backs of my rangers and WL. I didn’t however find a suitable hiding place for the scouts.. (sorry boys) so they got 4 plated with D. After going to ground only 3 died though.. and they sat on an objective until the bullets stopped raining down. Garrett was bold and infiltrated some Sisters in a transport in my backfield but didn’t do much there so despite not getting first turn like I wanted he really didn’t do that much.. my turn! I dropped in 36 shots of grav roughly 10 inches away from his beast of a machine the Warhound, scryed up the Warhound and then said ok boys.. 1 TL Las cannon shot, 2 Armor bane shots from the snipers and IF I NEED IT the Dune Crawler should be fine to drop 2 void shields so I can grav away, right? Right.. RIGHT? Wrong. All of the previously mentioned weapons managed to deal 1 down Voidshield.. so I was sweating profusely at that point. I instead shot and flamed some sisters and a servitor I think? hehe.. even failed to immobilize a transport. My Ruststalkers did however tackle the backfield threat and would continue to run down the occupants / backfield servitor that Garrett infiltrated.

Turn two I prepared for the worst but in cover, with no real 6’s being rolled the D is scary but manageable. I didn’t lose much with his reply and was starting to retain a bit of my body water and not just sweat it all out. Turn two Bobo strode on and promptly peeled off the shields and softened up some other targets. I then poured the sweet sweet honey scented love of grav all over that Warhound body and dealt 3 HP’s.. not what I was hoping for but it was a start. Garrett brought on his Fire Raptor and blew away several targets but with key saves my grav Kataphrons remained mostly intact. Now in the later stages of the game with both of us bloodied I had two extremely impressive weapon platforms to pick between.. do I scry the Raptor or the Hound? Deciding the ap3+ or 4 and mobility of the Raptor to be the more important target I went with him.. by the way it is worth mentioning I am down a Dunecrawler at the moment because he got D’d. Snap firing 1 grav unit into it I dealt a 2 immobilize results and Garrett failed 1 jink save which meant that baby was crashing on a dice roll of 1-2.. Omnissiah be a tap dancing leprechaun tonight! Garrett rolled precisely that 1 and half my worries crashed into the earth. The rest of the game was me hunkering down on objectives and cleaning up the sisters.. I dealt 2 more HP’s to the Warhound and it came down to the final dice rolls of Garrett in a moment of need charging with the beast into that very same grav unit that landed in front of him turn 1.. with Twin linked firing from the Canticles they ended up dealing the final 2 HP’s to the Hound in over watch.. it was glorious.

Win!

Round 3: Demon Flying Circus — Mission: ITC Emperors Will
To finish off the day I’d be facing my friend and often time opponent, Mason Vazquez, a Wolf Brother from the Redding, CA area who is super nice and awesome to play but brings absolute monster lists! This was no different. Bel’Akor, Fatey, D thirster with fighter ace, Demon prince with grimmoire, 2 units of pink horrors, a bunker to hide the cultists and a Heldrake.

Mason and I have played a few times with me eking it out each time with my Nids but the games are always close, bloody and fun. This time around he would play Demons and I my War Convocation. I castled up on my Emperors Will in one corner and on the other end of the table in his corner he placed the bunker, cultists and his objective as well. He then took first turn and went with the Demon alpha strike of having his 4 big nasties in position to launch in and deal some hurting. In a rather odd choice he also placed a unit of pinks near my stuff but in his deployment zone on a piece of area terrain.. this would end up being great for him. He ran forward and accomplished next to nothing.. shrieks went off but he would fail to hit or roll poorly on 3d6 for the LD.

I dropped the Culexus down, shut off his powers and proceeded to shoot 12 shots into a prince dealing…. ZERO wounds! Woohoo! Was a bit of a mistake by me given I could have put those 12 Preferred enemy shots into the tough 3 pinks and probably killed about half of them unless they go to ground but then I take them out of movement for a turn.. just would have been better overall. No matter.. I have a dude that will be really hard to deal with and will shut down their powers while protecting my forces and the Emperors Will! So Mason takes the fighter Ace upgrade which is 40k legal.. for demons on a 3+ this upgrade is AMAZING. The D Thirster got +1 wound, rolled a lesser gift of the Khorne Axe and then got a 4+ FNP from some Demon BS or another but was also grimmoired.. so I just kind of sighed.. had no idea how I was supposed to kill that thing as it barreled down the field at me (with invisibility on it half the time btw). My shooting was mediocre, despite having 3 sky fire nexus’ objectives and a Dune Crawler I didn’t do much but I DID get the Prince with the Grimmoire! I dealt a swift kill shot so there was that..

on Mason’s second turn he charged the culexus with his pinks (LOL RIGHT?) and dealt some more psychic shenanigans that didn’t end up doing anything due to bad dice rolls.. what he DID do was fly off the table leaving me with an invisible blood thirster now cornering me. My culexus struck a pose.. probably opting for the Scorpion martial arts fighting style.. then he backflipped into the combat with the pinks and wiffed 2-3 times but no matter he also failed to wound.. despite Str4 vs tough 3 and PE. Pinks gnawed on his ankles for a paltry 2 wounds.. ok ok.. culexus surely you will rally back and win 2nd round of combat. I mean, he needs to deal 1-2 wounds, suffer none and then watch as that -3 LD helps the daemonic instability do the rest! What could go wrong? Anyways, that D Thirster in super sayan mode charged into my knight and punked him into oblivion.. the explosion DID in fact deal 3 wounds to the Thirster though so Bobo left with a gift I suppose.. Great, now I have a thirster back here and only shooting to deal with him. Turn 3 things weren’t looking good. Mason’s heldrake cleaned up my creeping Ruststalkers that killed his other pink unit and was going to challenge the bunker for his Emperors Will, his Daemon Princes flew back on casting their respective powers and I have this beast in my backfield staring at a choice of delectable meats. Thirster charges something.. something dies.. can’t remember what. On my turn I walk on 3 kataphrons, outflank my infiltrators into my corner to try and help with their shots and AP3 swords and I surround the thirster.. everything shoots into him, my Dune Crawler sinks the Heldrake and I prepare to hopefully shoot myself the final 4 wounds of this monstrosity! 18 grav shots, 20 str4 stub carbine shots, 12 rad gun shots, 6 plasma, 1 las cannon, 3 sniper shots, 2 aquibuses and the eradication ray + luminagen shot deal maybe 1-2 wounds.. uh oh. Oh and in the background.. if you listen really carefully you can just make out the sound of a Culexus dealing 0 wounds again and getting silently stomped into the ground by a roiling pack of pinks… what the hell… literally. I did however fail to mention I on bended knee asked the space Emperor for his loving hands.. one of the Canticles is (when at 8+ units, which I was) 3 str4 initiative 10 auto hit attacks for each model in combat. Almost my entire army jumped in on the action and went after that thirster.. at initiative 10 something like 36 strength 4 wounds went in and no Blood Thirster came out.. oh thank you Space Emperor!

Thinking I was in the clear due to my lead on Maelstrom and at least a tie on primary with me holding LB and him holding BGH due to Bobo.. I was looking at a solid 5 to 1 win unless he got LB then 5 to 2, nice! Mason being the great player he was went in hard on spawning demons and started dropped screamers and plague drones just needing to challenge my primary.. if he won primary he would win with BGH and LB vs my Maelstrom and only LB. Gulp! The game ended with a heated discussion around initiative steps and 1 final round of Space Emperor electric bugaloo hands wrecking or almost wrecking a contesting plague drone unit but in the end it didn’t matter. Fate Weaver died to the Dune Crawler combined with some sky firing vanguard! Whew. We tied on regular mission points so it goes to tie breaker which the first one at this GT was Warlord, giving me the win. Helluva game but no matter how you slice it.. Convocation marches on!

Win!

That would do it for day 1.. lots of really close games and tough opponents but a solid day and the dream of winning another GT for me still alive! We would end the Night with laughs and food at a local restaurant.. a good ol ma and pa place I believe they call “Chili’s.” It’s a unique spot, really great place if you are ever in Sacramento hit it up

Good read so far, I'd never want to go up against your list. (Points exist in 40k for a reason, right?)

I will say, this will probably get moved over to the Battle Report section.

 Iechine wrote:
Good read so far, I'd never want to go up against your list. (Points exist in 40k for a reason, right?)

I will say, this will probably get moved over to the Battle Report section.

Why? Darklink's didn't and it too was a bat rep for a tourney here in the tourney section o_O

I posted here since the main thrust of my post was discussing my impression of the format's effects on the meta and tournament environment. Since inControl does the same here, I'd say it's fine. It's kind of arbitrary on where the line is drawn using battle reports as examples in a tournament for,at discussion.

So Geoff it sounds like you are okay with this format. Glad to know you had a great time and kicked ass.

Incidentally, I played Mason as well, that was an awesome game. His Daemon list is rough. It's got so many different threats it can present, depending on the situation.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
So Geoff it sounds like you are okay with this format. Glad to know you had a great time and kicked ass.

As a one off I'm ok with it.. wading through invisibility and LoW spam isn't my thing though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkLink wrote:
Incidentally, I played Mason as well, that was an awesome game. His Daemon list is rough. It's got so many different threats it can present, depending on the situation.

Good ol Daemon flying circus is so solid because it too has tools for everything.

Great job Geoff!

Wished I could have gone.

iNcontroL wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
So Geoff it sounds like you are okay with this format. Glad to know you had a great time and kicked ass.

As a one off I'm ok with it.. wading through invisibility and LoW spam isn't my thing though.

Well you showed it can be done without maxing out on Instagizz or a host of LoW so good on you.

 jy2 wrote:
Great job Geoff!

Wished I could have gone.

Thank you! Yeah this was your kind of tourney.. could have busted out the 5 wraith knights again!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dozer Blades wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
So Geoff it sounds like you are okay with this format. Glad to know you had a great time and kicked ass.

As a one off I'm ok with it.. wading through invisibility and LoW spam isn't my thing though.

Well you showed it can be done without maxing out on Instagizz or a host of LoW so good on you.

Thank you! I took it as a good sign that my list can compete in this environment!

 Iechine wrote:
Good read so far, I'd never want to go up against your list. (Points exist in 40k for a reason, right?)

I will say, this will probably get moved over to the Battle Report section.

Maybe not the right place for this but..

Its possible that with good design, giving out 'free points' in formations can rebalance over-costed units / combos that would never perform well otherwise.

Eg, no-one is ever going to field a plain old TAC/Assault/Devestator marine force on foot, because they cost too must for their in-game impact. Introduce a formation! That gives X special rules / free points if you take those 60 marines on foot. Make a fluffy list competitive without introducing unintended consequences for other army builds. It sounds brilliant to me.

On the flip side, the implementation leaves a bit to be desired. 200pts of free upgrades for underpowered units, sure. 600pts of free upgrades for models that are already pretty efficient... not so good.

The one thing I've got to ask is;

The ITC-crowd always looks down on maelstrom and go on how it will not work with how random it is and everything.

How is the maesltrom system you use in the ITC any different? I mean isn't there just as much luck involved when you roll 2d6 and keep getting objectives that you cannot accomplihs as there is when you draw a card that you cannot do.

wighti wrote:
The one thing I've got to ask is;

The ITC-crowd always looks down on maelstrom and go on how it will not work with how random it is and everything.

How is the maesltrom system you use in the ITC any different? I mean isn't there just as much luck involved when you roll 2d6 and keep getting objectives that you cannot accomplihs as there is when you draw a card that you cannot do.

Hi Wighti!

As one of "those" ITC people I can definitely say we don't look down upon Maelstrom unequivocally. We do modify it to make it a little less random and lopsided. At the Know No Mercy tournament during the Maelstrom book mission I was down 15-0 after turn 2 based on the cards that my opponent pulled and what I had pulled. The difference between our modified Maelstrom missions and un-modified Maelstrom missions is that after a round of poor 2D6 rolling I might be down 1-0 but against straight Maelstrom missions with the D3 and D6 (more randomness) points for securing your cards I might be down 10-0. The next turn my opponent draws new cards while I am stuck with the cards I cannot score, etc. Randomness is ok to a certain extent but not in a competitive setting. Just my two cents.

Plus, the ITC maelstorm objectives themselves are much more straightforward and balanced. You're not at risk of drawing "kill a building" when there aren't any buildings. ITC maelstorm pretty much consists of "kill an enemy unit", "hold X objective", "have scoring units in your opponent's deployment zone", or "keep enemy units out of your deployment zone".

For my ITC Maelstrom experience (several GTs and 20+ RTTs using their maelstroms), your objective rolls can put you behind the eight-ball, but less so than a card-deck mission.

Kimchi Gamer reports a smaller points difference than I. But that's because he's a better player than me. And I play eldar, the Kings of Objective grabbing.

 Brothererekose wrote:
For my ITC Maelstrom experience (several GTs and 20+ RTTs using their maelstroms), your objective rolls can put you behind the eight-ball, but less so than a card-deck mission.

Kimchi Gamer reports a smaller points difference than I. But that's because he's a better player than me. And I play eldar, the Kings of Objective grabbing.

Well his point was the worst that can happen is 2 point difference (they score both and you score 0 that turn). Further though the point that really resonates with me is you can design an army to score objectives.. you will have a harder time with an army that needs to score "kill enemy MC" if they don't have one and "kill enemy building" if they don't have one. You could make the argument "yeah but having 3 units of my own and none of theirs is just as hard!" I'd disagree but for arguments sake lets pretend that is true? That would be the 1 of MAYBE 2 maelstrom objectives in ITC that is "as hard." All the others are get on a objective, kill something, be in enemy deployment zone, have 3 of yours and none of theirs in your zone and have more outside your deployment zone. All about as basic as they can get. Random? Sure.. but a lot less so.

I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Some people harp to much against random when the game revolves around random match-ups and dice rolling.

It was an interesting right up, for me it illustrates how powerful free stuff is. If everything in the tournament is normally blacklisted as OP aside from things like the war convocation, yet the WC can still blast those things off the table I think it says something.

I still agree I'd never want to play that style more then once, god no.

Thanks.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Some people harp to much against random when the game revolves around random match-ups and dice rolling.

It was an interesting right up, for me it illustrates how powerful free stuff is. If everything in the tournament is normally blacklisted as OP aside from things like the war convocation, yet the WC can still blast those things off the table I think it says something.

I still agree I'd never want to play that style more then once, god no.

Thanks.

Well.. it can kill 5 knights in a KP mission and it can take out a warhound in overwatch on turn 5 I guess? But it still can't put a dent in a invincible deathstar with 2+ rerollable saves and it didn't face any other army utilizing the meta there... so not so sure we can run wild just yet with the WC "blasts everything off the table" yet. It is most certainly top tier as I run it and with a good general

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Here in Finland maelstrom was almost immediately embraced by the majority of the competitive scene, including the ETC team, when 7th ed came out. Here it's mostly used in combination with other missions (usually end of game objectices and/or kill points), so that bad luck in drawing cards can make for a really hard game, but not an auto-loss.

The standard modifications that are almost always used with maelstrom are: "You can always immediately discard a card that's impossible to score" and "D3 VP = 2 VP". Additional modifications that are sometimes used include "no scoring more than one of the same "secure objective X" card in a single turn" and "you can only score two cards per turn".

I personally really like what maelstrom has done to 40k, the game is much more dynamic than it used to be.

iNcontroL wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Some people harp to much against random when the game revolves around random match-ups and dice rolling.

It was an interesting right up, for me it illustrates how powerful free stuff is. If everything in the tournament is normally blacklisted as OP aside from things like the war convocation, yet the WC can still blast those things off the table I think it says something.

I still agree I'd never want to play that style more then once, god no.

Thanks.

Well.. it can kill 5 knights in a KP mission and it can take out a warhound in overwatch on turn 5 I guess? But it still can't put a dent in a invincible deathstar with 2+ rerollable saves and it didn't face any other army utilizing the meta there... so not so sure we can run wild just yet with the WC "blasts everything off the table" yet. It is most certainly top tier as I run it and with a good general

\

5 IK in kp's actually isn't as bad as your making it sound because they each give up 2 additional VP's for being SHW's, so the list ends up being more like 15 KP's... By no means a bad KP list, but not the best by a stretch either. You missed 5th edition Draigo wing back when Kill points was literally one of three missions and the list had single digit kp's so I'll assume I have a harsher barometer for that sort of thing though. God I hated GK's in 5th lol.

WC is definitely strong do to its ability to field 2000 points at an 1850 tournament, same foes for demi company. Ask any Sisters player if they would mind getting extra acts of faith turned up to 11 along side 500 extra points sometime.

Not implying anything about you as a player btw, anyone wanting to play at the "big kid table" pretty much has their hand forced into fielding certain things. That specific tournament makes that list even smaller unfortunately.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MLKTH wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Here in Finland maelstrom was almost immediately embraced by the majority of the competitive scene, including the ETC team, when 7th ed came out. Here it's mostly used in combination with other missions (usually end of game objectices and/or kill points), so that bad luck in drawing cards can make for a really hard game, but not an auto-loss.

The standard modifications that are almost always used with maelstrom are: "You can always immediately discard a card that's impossible to score" and "D3 VP = 2 VP". Additional modifications that are sometimes used include "no scoring more than one of the same "secure objective X" card in a single turn" and "you can only score two cards per turn".

I personally really like what maelstrom has done to 40k, the game is much more dynamic than it used to be.

Yea exactly, ITC missions are OK but way too bland IMO, it's KP's, sit back, or line breaker every turn. The cards are incredibly easy to fix IMO and add WAY more flavor. The deeper the pool of possible objectives get for the turn, the more strategy it takes as a player to achieve them.

 Red Corsair wrote:

iNcontroL wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Some people harp to much against random when the game revolves around random match-ups and dice rolling.

It was an interesting right up, for me it illustrates how powerful free stuff is. If everything in the tournament is normally blacklisted as OP aside from things like the war convocation, yet the WC can still blast those things off the table I think it says something.

I still agree I'd never want to play that style more then once, god no.

Thanks.

Well.. it can kill 5 knights in a KP mission and it can take out a warhound in overwatch on turn 5 I guess? But it still can't put a dent in a invincible deathstar with 2+ rerollable saves and it didn't face any other army utilizing the meta there... so not so sure we can run wild just yet with the WC "blasts everything off the table" yet. It is most certainly top tier as I run it and with a good general

\

5 IK in kp's actually isn't as bad as your making it sound because they each give up 2 additional VP's for being SHW's, so the list ends up being more like 15 KP's... By no means a bad KP list, but not the best by a stretch either. You missed 5th edition Draigo wing back when Kill points was literally one of three missions and the list had single digit kp's so I'll assume I have a harsher barometer for that sort of thing though. God I hated GK's in 5th lol.

WC is definitely strong do to its ability to field 2000 points at an 1850 tournament, same foes for demi company. Ask any Sisters player if they would mind getting extra acts of faith turned up to 11 along side 500 extra points sometime.

Not implying anything about you as a player btw, anyone wanting to play at the "big kid table" pretty much has their hand forced into fielding certain things. That specific tournament makes that list even smaller unfortunately.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MLKTH wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Here in Finland maelstrom was almost immediately embraced by the majority of the competitive scene, including the ETC team, when 7th ed came out. Here it's mostly used in combination with other missions (usually end of game objectices and/or kill points), so that bad luck in drawing cards can make for a really hard game, but not an auto-loss.

The standard modifications that are almost always used with maelstrom are: "You can always immediately discard a card that's impossible to score" and "D3 VP = 2 VP". Additional modifications that are sometimes used include "no scoring more than one of the same "secure objective X" card in a single turn" and "you can only score two cards per turn".

I personally really like what maelstrom has done to 40k, the game is much more dynamic than it used to be.

Yea exactly, ITC missions are OK but way too bland IMO, it's KP's, sit back, or line breaker every turn. The cards are incredibly easy to fix IMO and add WAY more flavor. The deeper the pool of possible objectives get for the turn, the more strategy it takes as a player to achieve them.

Not sure how you read what I said as "bad" I am in agreement with you lol.. 5 Knights in KP is easier than not.

Great bat rep so far, give us the rest!

 MLKTH wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have played in countless maelstrom RTT's and we house ruled that any objective that's impossible you discard immediately which works fine.

Biggest issue I still have that I haven't been able to change yet is the random point cards. I think D3's should just be 2 point cards and D6 count as 3pts and it's fine.

Here in Finland maelstrom was almost immediately embraced by the majority of the competitive scene, including the ETC team, when 7th ed came out. Here it's mostly used in combination with other missions (usually end of game objectices and/or kill points), so that bad luck in drawing cards can make for a really hard game, but not an auto-loss.

The standard modifications that are almost always used with maelstrom are: "You can always immediately discard a card that's impossible to score" and "D3 VP = 2 VP". Additional modifications that are sometimes used include "no scoring more than one of the same "secure objective X" card in a single turn" and "you can only score two cards per turn".

I personally really like what maelstrom has done to 40k, the game is much more dynamic than it used to be.

The above goes for Sweden too, plus we ban the Tactical Warlord traits chart to avoid skewe the luck of the draw further.