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I managed to snag a pack of open engine war cards after seeing a great video on youtube.
So I've been going through the deck, my initial thoughts are "god I don't like a lot of these" but the good thing about the deck, the genius of it, is how easy it is to take out what you don't like.
I think the best argument for owning the engine war cards is they do make getting a game going quick, they're an easy resource to keep in the middle of the board for either player to refference, just as true for casual games as it is for more organized play or tournaments.
The cards basically break down into 5 categories, being primary objectives, secondary objectives, deployment maps, planetary effects, battlefield effects.
The basic idea is you're to randomize the 5 variables to have a super awesome unique experience that could never be bad. Bad news fren, if you don't perhaps take a look prior and maybe 86 the few feel bad options, you and or your opponent are likely to have a less than stellar game.
I guess what I'm saying is, I feel in an ideal situation both you and your opponent can collectively edit the deck down to variables you both want to encounter. Even with that though, there are some core issues, namely the 5 variables themselves. For starters, even with the cards in front of you, some
things can feel like homework or are just a pain to remember. Some aren't too bad, for example one of the effects was at the start of every round both players placed a 5inch blast template to represent a geyser erupting, not to hard, because you interact with the two templates every round its not hard
to remember to do. But you also have environmental effects that are less visual and move around or grow/shift like a fire growing in size every round, In addition to that, the combination of battlefield effects and planetary effects can in some combination just be a lot to have to remember to do every
turn. I can see times where running perhaps just one of the two could be the compromise, reason being, just one card may encompass a number of effects and things to remember, as always it adds up. Some of the cooler ideas presented for planetary effects sees both parties rewarded with extra stratagem points because the planet is a forge world or otherwise well supplied. Some of the battlefield effects like smog or darkness are also interesting, again the combination of both is what can make or break things.
Deployment maps vary but there is a baseline confusion in some because there are some deployment maps with 4 deployment zones but the rules cards only references maps with 2 deployment zones, it's not clear if 4 are optional but only 2 selected, this affects 3/9 of the deployment cards.
The other issue is almost half of the deployment maps are triangular, it's very hard to delineate the third side because of how it bisects terrain, this has been a problem since gw introduced this stuff in 40k and other games and it's extra annoying now in my opinion, too much parralax at times with
ample terrain. The rest of the deployment maps are rectangular/square so much easier to delineate. But as mentioned earlier, some have 4 options, it's not clear whether both players get two deployment zones or are meant to pick 1 from the 4 options, tied into that is they don't really tell you how deployment works. In matched play in the core book, you roll on a d6 chart for deployment and there are 4 pages dedicated to the very involved deployment maps/methods that often see you alternate placing a single titan or banner. It's not clear whether this is what's required or simply you alternate deploying your entire battlegroup. I don't have a dog in the fight either way but one method may be faster than the other as alternating has more causal links, it's a bit like I don't know why alternating matters in say the damage control phase, we've considered doing away with it for that phase to speed things up so I could see both sides just deploying all at once when its their turn to.
I decided to discuss primary and secondary objectives last, now at least when it comes to secondary I believe both players get a discard in the core method, so take two and discard one basically. I think the one thing to celebrate is for once at least both players are competing for the same primary, this
is a vast improvement over the pretty bad matched play rules that have both players doing their own thing. So one example of one of the better primary objective is seize and hold, basically objectives. You place 4 objectives within 18 of the center and 6 or more of each other and whoever scores each
one end game gets 5vp. Pretty good, not perfect but pretty good. Wrath and ruin is also interesting in that its very simple, both sides place 3 markers in their deployment zones, they can't be targeted but can basically be destroyed by ending movement within 1 inch, basically stomping them. You get
10vp for each enemy marker you destroy, I love the simplicity and flexibility of the mission. I also like that both are end game scoring, chokepoint would be ok but it's a mix of progressive and end game scoring so not a big fan of that one. One mission is just kill points filtered into 25% percentiles for
some reason. One mission called acquisition is basically dual vip or football, thankfully its end game scoring only but it's still a bit silly. Still happy its symmetrical and not asymmetrical. None of the primary objectives are outright terrible but I don't think I'd include all of them in a customized deck. I think
they all work well enough stand alone, but like with planetary and battlefield affects, it's the combination that can often be the problem and not any one card on their own per se, but as you combine the primaries with secondary's you run into issues, namely the secondaries will always be different for both players and new players may forget or misunderstand their secondary.
Secondary objectives, I feel I should preface this again that the better way ultimately to use a deck might be primary objective, deployment and either battlefield or planetary effect but not both. If you'll be using secondary objectives, right off the bat they're much more secretive and of course you and your opponent will have a different one every time. This again is a bit too much like the matched play and suffers the same problems. Secrecy is cool but makes it hard to help newer or first time players because you can't remind them of something you're explicitly to be made unaware of. The problem is if this is something not optional its impossible to remind an opponent if they've forgotten to designate or reveal the thing in question. Suffice it to say, when you add that there will be essentially 3 objectives, the primary and both players secondary's on the go, in addition to all the nonsense some of the stratagems can bring on it just a bit much (hurr durr i got vp for doing that thing you had no way of stopping/knowing the ramifications of). The other problem is you go from playing something like objectives primary, where both parties OBJECTIVELY know which banners or titans control what objectives end game, so the score isn't secret, to adding stuff like "oh, btw, i got an extra 5vp for killing your princeps seniores. It leads to disappointing outcomes and secret scoring. It's just not something I think a game this balanced due to alternating activations really needs. One is even so specific it sees you getting vp's for titans killed with targeted attacks, "Hey remember that engine kill on turn 5?" "yeah" "that actually got me 5vp, you never had a chance of coming back after that after all" "oh... good".
Some of the secondary's are also weird, for example, seize the quadrants would have been an ok primary objective (both parties fighting for quadrants of the board) but as secondary, again it just seems like an annoying spoiler. It can all feel like there's too much going on at once, at least for me. Complexity isn't depth and there's already a lot going on in this game. But again, my bias is towards simple objective scoring that even an observer can understand, I don't think hockey would be made better if players were secretly assigned multipliers and the score was only revealed at the final bell, nothing about that is interesting to me. That's an issue at he core of the game because a whole section of stratagems basically exist to mess with any concept of consistent scoring and also when compared the victory points relative to the tasks are always sorta suspect, why does this give so many vp and this other so few?
I find even if I were to remove all the cards I don't care for, I still find the method presented to just be a little too dense. Deployment map is a must, but I don't think secondary objectives are always needed, and if so how they pair with the primary isn't something to be left to chance or in this case
asymmetrical choice. But the fact they'll always be asymmetrical doesn't sit well with me. It's the same way I feel about battlefield and planetary effects, on their own there's some really cool stuff, combined it can get either silly or just cumbersome, something else to have to remember to do before and after or during every round in addition to all the other stuff. But the modular nature of the cards is still great, for small tournaments its super feasible to scan or just take a picture of each scenario's rules by just lining up the relevant cards, and I think that's super useful or simply listing the cards for each round and asking players to bring their deck if they have one. I'd still probably 86 the secondary's and maybe pick the easier to remember effects or at least pair them in a way that makes more sense fluff wise
My final point though is, I think the better games don't need to stack endless variables so that "no two missions ever be the same". That's the opposite of what I want, I'd rather have the missions, like with sports, remain pretty standard and have the forces be what brings flavor to the game. Like I
think people watch a sport for the competition and athletics, I don't think improving it would be altering the rules of the game every time a team plays to keep things "fresh", I think stuff like that stinks of desperation and marketing crap. I'd rather play 3-5 objectives with end game scoring till the cows
come home and introduce variance by setting up a brand new board every game as well as varying the points level and opponent to keep things interesting. There's certainly a lot of inspiration and ideas to be had in the cards but I do think there's a bit too much letting the designers off the hook with
that much variation and chance of getting just really bizarre or complicated or counter intuitive card combos. The strength of titanicus is its tight balance so its seems weird to introduce so much wonkiness in the mission side of things, but to each their own. For narrative players these cards are a
goldmine, could also be useful for campaigns. There's some truly cool ideas on some cards, like one battlefield in which the whole board is covered in shallow water, so venting plasma actually creates steam giving the titan a -1bs in combat phase when targeted if it vented plasma in the prior damage
control phase, stuff like that is truly genius and wish we could see more of in the core rules for terrain (imagine an upside to being in difficult or dangerous terrain). But anyway, As always the modular nature of the deck allows you to implement as many or as few cards into a custom game as you want and that alone makes them a keeper for me.
So my friend made a good point that I didn't touch on much, there's a whole category of stratagems that can also really throw a monkey wrench into things. In addition to a few stratagems that already may alter things like game length or add environmental effects, these already existed prior to the engine war cards.
So assuming you follow directions as best you can both you and your opponent will be playing the same primary objective, you'll both have a secondary objective, there will be a deployment map, a battlefield effect and a planetary effect. Got all that?
Now imagine one or both players took tertiary objective stratagems, yeah. You're basically left with a really wonky scoring that feels pretty scatter shot. There's quite a few of them as well. Easy fix is to just keep them out if you're using the engine war cards.
There's also another few stratagems that can muck things up, for example "dawn attack" could be silly if you've already got the battlefield effect which is similar but functions differently, it just throws a wrench in there. Also, stuff like "unhallowed ground" could prove redundant or just extra punitive given
Really glad to see they seem to have some of the same issues with the current matched play scenario and they put together a scenario they hope will address some of the issue with the one out of the book. As always they did a great write up of their battle using the new scenario, really worth a look.
The biggest thing is asymmetry and how much it may penalize certain battlegroups. Much like some of the issues that can come up with the engine war cards.
"What we wanted from a new matched play scenario
Adeptus Titanicus Matched Play involves the secret selection of your objective before the game based on a dice roll, which does add a bit of flavour before you get into the game. However, after a handful of games, it often feels like it comes down to whoever rolled Engage and Destroy or Hold the Line as these are significantly easier for most battlegroups to achieve.
As we’ve had countless games with the basic matched play rules, we decided to try cooking up our own scenario. We had a few key considerations when we were coming up with potential ideas:
Avoid the feel bad moments from having asymmetric goals. Whilst asymmetry can make for some interesting plays, it’s quite depressing one player rolls up double Vital Cargo with a slow heavy maniple.
Reward movement, the most important phase of the game. We wanted to encourage players to move around the field and avoid fixed gunline play.
Be objective based with progressive scoring. Objectives don’t see enough use in Adeptus Titanicus. It also gives some Legios like Lysanda the opportunity to use their objective related traits and stratagems.
Utilise half and half deployment, which provides a bit more balance between battlegroups with differing numbers of drops but keeps time spent in deployment fairly low.
Experiment with some mission based stratagems, giving some more tactical options to the Princeps that might complement different battlegroups.
Different paths to victory – we wanted to ensure that as a player you had different ways to win. You can play the objective game or you can instead opt to destroy objectives earlier on if you feel the negative victory points are in your favour. We also wanted to ensure a balance between the different sizes of engines, as if a slower, larger engine made it to an objective it should be rewarded for it. Likewise, Knights with their unique rules need to have a fair yet balanced approach to influence the game.
Lastly, the victory points awarded should be in the right scale to ensure that the tertiary objective stratagems are relevant and worth taking.
After loads of tweaking and many games trying this within our group, we feel this is in a position to put out there and we would love to hear your feedback."
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/12/24 00:37:58
