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I just wrapped up my 40k Grand Crusade rules 2nd ed and put it forth for my group to look at. THis is not a 40k forum I know, but Azyr Empires will be doing something similar as both sets use Open Play cards.

The thing that I started hearing most is that imbalanced games are bad and we should feel bad for trying to play them and that the ruse and sudden death conditions in the open play cards (for both system) might as well not even exist.

I'm posting this on several sources, but do any of you use this deck and do you use the ruse or sudden death cards at all for imbalanced games? Or does every game you play have to use matched points and be equal?

I've used the ruse cards! they're a mixed bag, but they can add an interesting element to a game. But i'm not a believer in the notion that unbalanced games are inherently bad. they can be bad, but they do not have to be.

We've used Open War for current 40k and AoS. Had a good time with both game systems. Saved us time looking up this and that in the scenario since it was there on a card and we got in to the business of playing much quicker----or at least it seemed like it.

I've used the cards and really enjoyed them, but we only used deployment, objective and twist cards.

People generally want games where all sides have roughly even odds on winning, or at least a non-insignificant chance of doing so. In matched play this generally makes ruses, twists, and the like a bad thing since it can skew those odds heavily (if not completely) to one side. So really the question isn't if such cards are bad, but how to create games where such cards aren't bad. Take, for example, a card that heavily nerfs shooting. In a one off game a gun line player would be justifiably miffed that he shows up and has no chance to win because his army sucks. But maybe the use of such cards was revealed at the start of a campaign, and the gun line player built his army knowing there was a risk of such a situation occuring. Now it becomes an opportunity for other players to beat what otherwise might be a very strong shooting list they couldn't handle. Note that while the individual game here may be unbalanced, it is one instance within the greater whole of the campaign and it's giving each player a decent shot at winning the campaign overall that counts rather than every single match.

Not sure how clear that explanation is, but I hope it helps.


And failing everything else you can always do free for all, since that way players gravitate towards ganging up on strong enemies anyways.

In an AOS perspective the cards will be used to create the scenarios. Ruses will be used if your opponent has more points than you do and sudden death will be used if your opponent has double your points or more.

The stance I'm seeing from asking this question in several areas is that the cards are great until you get to ruses and sudden death, and those should be burned and never used since there should never be games where an imbalance exists in the first place (that everything uses points and that those points are always even)

People want games where both sides have decent odds of winning, but many forget that points are just a means to that end. If the cards are being used as a means to create a game where both sides have decent odds of winning, that is a good thing. So if the game is army A of strength, say, 10 vs army B of strength 10 then a ruse which gives +5 strength to army A is a bad thing. But if the game is army A of strength 5 vs army B of strength 10, then the same ruse is a very good thing.

The challenge exists in ensuring your use of the cards is more in line with the latter situation. Unfortunately you personally also have to deal with another challenge, which is getting your community to recognize that is what's going on. I suspect they will simply see uneven points = uneven game because they do not fully understand that points are a means of obtaining balance (which can be supplemented by other means, such as the cards) rather than the balance itself.

To put in different words, the ruse & sudden death cards are not inherently good or bad for game balance; it is the application which determines that. Many can only imagine an application where they upset balance rather than improving it because they are only viewing things from the even-points perspective.

I know you would hate it (I would too) but assigning a point value to ruses/sudden deaths may be the only way to get people onboard.

NinthMusketere makes excellent points. However, maybe getting people onboard that wouldn't like Open War as-is isn't really a worthwhile goal. It mucks up one of the cooler aspects of the Open War cards for those that like them now.

While adding points to AoS, for example, did expand the pool of players we found many of those who came in specifically because points were a thing again were players we really didn't miss during the Age of Rage-Quit.

I was referring to his community specifically, they are unfortunately hostile to any sort of narrative/non-pointed play.

Ah gotcha.

Bought but haven't used the AoS cards yet.

But I have played several 40k games using the open war cards though and I think they are great. I haven't used the sudden death cards simply as we haven't had the 2:1 ratio that they required but we have always used the Ruse cards.

Yeah. Much... I'd daresay most ... of the community is very hostile against narrative gaming and anything that is not matched play.

You know, by the instructions in the Open War cards, the side that has the fewest wounds, not points, gets a Ruse card. What's more, if one side has only one fewer wound it still gets a Ruse. I like the concept, but the way it's implemented is too crude. It should be points, not wounds, that matter and there should ne a percentage difference threshold before it applies at all.

I'm using points in our campaign since thats what pretty much everyone expects and accepts and the one with fewer points gets a ruse.

Wounds is *horrible*.

 auticus wrote:
I just wrapped up my 40k Grand Crusade rules 2nd ed and put it forth for my group to look at. THis is not a 40k forum I know, but Azyr Empires will be doing something similar as both sets use Open Play cards.

The thing that I started hearing most is that imbalanced games are bad and we should feel bad for trying to play them and that the ruse and sudden death conditions in the open play cards (for both system) might as well not even exist.

I'm posting this on several sources, but do any of you use this deck and do you use the ruse or sudden death cards at all for imbalanced games? Or does every game you play have to use matched points and be equal?

Thanks to the ruse cards, me and my friends finished 6 2000ish point games in 55 minutes. And sudden death cards.