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I just got a set, and some of the things in there are pretty wild (the varied deployment zones sure look interesting, especially for my 'Nids ).

We're thinking of giving them a go the next time we meet up, but figured I'd ask if anyone has used them and if there were any pitfalls to avoid?

[EDIT]: Expanding the question to Urban Conquest. Anyone given it a go?

Have used them quite a bit, great fun and a good way to quickly put together a game.

Only pittfall that I've come across on occasion is that sometimes the mission may feel a bit "wrong" in terms of balance, especially if you draw up a deployment map and objective that heavily favours one side more so than the other.

Best advice I can give is that the open war cards are perfect if you're after a casual game - if you want something more balanced then I'd stick to CA.

Enjoy!

They’re a good laugh. Great for a pickup game. We allow each player one ‘veto’ in case the map or mission is their worst nightmare, but as three cards are drawn it means they have to live with two. We found it an easy tweak that avoided everyone getting salty about drawing ‘Acid Rain’ all the time! Also subbing in Points for Power where relevant to avoid extra calculations. Have fun with them! They’re not about min-max WAAC ultra balanced. They’re just for a quick, fun matchup.

Can recommend.

As others have said, some can favour certain armies (Why yes, your 30 Genestealer blobs may have +1 attacks per model...) but that's something players can agree to limit to some extent too. Keep it light

Used them a couple of times, good laugh. The winning move is to go in expecting everything going horribly wrong for your army and being positively surprised.

Latest CA had some variants for their use, like drafting cards or both players having a bit of say in how the different cards are chosen (one perhaps picking one of three deployments, while the other picks from three objectives etc.)

Easily recommend. Always allow for a veto (say, if you keep drawing the same card for something, and want some variety, or you end up with a super biased card), but they're really fun, keep the game feeling very fresh, and even have provisions for very different army sizes!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just got a set, and some of the things in there are pretty wild (the varied deployment zones sure look interesting, especially for my 'Nids ).

We're thinking of giving them a go the next time we meet up, but figured I'd ask if anyone has used them and if there were any pitfalls to avoid?

Yeah, if you throw out about half the cards you get missions that are just a little bit less fun than the most recent CA eternal war missions.

I used the AOS ones, no experience with the 40k ones. I thought the AOS ones were great. I went so far as to also give each player a Ruse card (technically it's only the "weaker" force) just for an extra bonus to have during the game.

its my preferred method of play. always good for a fun time imo.

Heartily recommend. Just remember they are not hard and fast rules but can be adapted/removed as you see fit. Definitely for more fun games.

I use them for my home games, feel they were one of my better buys.

We usually draw 3 cards of each category, and each player gets to veto one card per category.

I thought the idea was okay. The missions are blase, the twists are pretty decent. The deployment maps could have been cooler. I was inspired to make my own larger deck of custom deployment options though, something we used a lot when I was playing.

Open War cards are great for fun 40K. They are bad for competitive 40K. Things are not balanced, but rarely totally one sided.

Used two of the three new ways to Open War from CA19 the last two times. Both were fun.

My group runs Open War cards by drawing three of each required card, then each player discards one of the cards. Works out fine, get rid of the ones truly awful for your army, the other player gets rid of theirs. We also play Open War using points instead of power, but on average my 40k gaming group could be described as "Moderately competitive." We use Open War for a break, but still aim for some semblance of balance.

 Thadin wrote:
My group runs Open War cards by drawing three of each required card, then each player discards one of the cards. Works out fine, get rid of the ones truly awful for your army, the other player gets rid of theirs. We also play Open War using points instead of power, but on average my 40k gaming group could be described as "Moderately competitive." We use Open War for a break, but still aim for some semblance of balance.

Yeah when we use the deployment deck, we decide who (in the scenario) has the strategic advantage (or players roll off). We then draw deployment cards one at a time, and the player with strategic initiative gets to say yes or no. If he refuses the first one, we draw a second...and the first is now out of play. The controlling player can do this up to three cards, but on the third card he must accept the deployment.

This is done after we set up the table/terrain, etc. so the player is basically gambling with trying to get the best/most suitable deployment for the scenario/terrain on hand. Adds a fun element.

Expanding the question to Urban Conquest rather than starting a whole new thread.

Anyone ever given it a go?

I've played somewhere north of a hundred open war games & had a ton of fun each time.

Even in games where we have drawn the exact same cards it's fun. Or throwing a new twist card to a pre-existing deployment map/scenario has ended up at worst being interesting or best making an already insane game bonkers or taking something meh and polishing it like the chrome on a squat trike.

Urban Conquest is fun too. Can definitely recommend.

Not all the missions are balanced, but that's part of the point. Choose the ones that are if you're not playing a campaign

Well we did try out the Open War cards.

Whilst the second game was a wash as the Castellan just removed 2 units a turn and most of my army never made it to turn 2, the objectives we got were pretty interesting.

The first game (Sisters v Chaos) turned out to be exciting despite the Chaos player deploying horribly because it involved splitting your force into three groups, and looking for objectives that may never appear. Gave him a fighting chance in the later half of the game as no one had found the objective yet and his terrible deployment was less of an issue when everything was mingled all over the table.

We tried the urban conquest campaign and honestly I wasn't that impressed. it's a pretty basic map campaign and it suffers from what every map campaign suffers from: Player retention, the map artificially restricting your pool of available components, and one team snowballing off the campaign benefits to become unstoppable after a few wins.

I wrote my own campaign and it turned out a lot better.

Urban conquest was fun to play but not fun enough to justify the price.
The terrain pieces are small and few.
Single product me feel most ripped off ever.
NOT WORTH THE COST.

The Open War cards are nice for a change of pace from book missions, my group does usually allow a veto for something that doesn’t sound fun for 1 or both armies. We also sometimes pull out deployments we both don’t want to do.

Are they perfect? No
Are they fun for a quick pick up game? Yes

At least we have a lot of options for missions or game types now.

Can 100% recommend Open War cards, especially with the extra rules from CA2019.

Have no experience or opinions on Urban Conquest, so I'll be interested in seeing some of the replies here.

Open war cards are great for fun games, but never balanced. Sudden death doesn't work too well, because we often had the game randomly end when both players were still having fun.
CA2019 is definitely an improvement, but sometime the cards just bone one player or make the game utterly ridiculous. World Eaters vs Orks with +2" to movement, +1" to charges and advance rolls and +1 attack for everyone, with no no-mans land inbetween was completely insane.

What worked really well is applying open war on top of eternal war missions, so you play the regular mission, but with deployment, twist and feints from the cards. Just using the deployment cards for regular missions also works well if you want a light shake-up.

As for urban conquest - there are lot of cool ideas in there you can use for your own campaigns, but sadly the book is not available without the box full of junk. You can get better campaign systems by just searching the web though.

I've played games with them, usually after playing a normal sized game, if theres still a little time left over.

My bud and I will make a quick list out of Power Level, and randomly generate a scenario.

There was at least one campaign from miniwargaming where they used Urban Conquest. You might want to check it out, gave a good Impression imo.