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pelicaniforce wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
10th Ed missions are boring because GW's target audience doesn't want variety, it wants predictable missions it can optimize listbuilding for. It's the same reason the game has bland, symmetrical recommended terrain layouts, a consistent five-turn game length, and game sizes at fixed points increments. It's all in the name of competitive balance.

I don't think GW is getting away from either competitive play or listbuilding-in-a-vacuum anytime soon, so the best we can hope for is supplemental mission packs. Or just roll your own with like-minded friends.

In this environment, it's still possible to have mission variants like you list by putting them right in units' databases. People get the predictability they want, because when they take a bike unit they know it comes with an assassinate-style objective against enemy fire support. Armour units IRL have been line breakers they take a battle tank, it comes with a line breaker objective. If they take Guilliman, the opponent gets a huge VP award for killing him. Basilisk automatically come with Deploy Jammers style objectives because they're firing off field. It's all automated: your list and your opponents' lists give you your missions.

That's a lot more accessible than the various game modes and campaign books that GW sometimes writes but don't get bought or used that often.

That's a bad idea. It'll become obvious very quickly which units have better scoring options and then the game will veer harder into list building as the meta. The scariest part is the idea of, it's all automated < This is what's been going wrong with GW games for quite a while now.

 Gibblets wrote:
It'll become obvious very quickly which units have better scoring options and then the game will veer harder into list building as the meta.

As opposed to the current state of the game, where it becomes obvious very quickly which units are more points efficient, and listbuilding is the meta regardless? Not sure I understand the concern.

At least there might be something interesting to work with if you could choose between powerful units with difficult or low-value objectives, or weaker ones but with much more attainable objectives. Might even be a fun way to differentiate troops, giving them more basic objective types as compared to specialists.

I dunno, sounds very finicky and like a lot of junk to keep track of, but I could see it working.

Edit: In any case, I am a fan of giving players some control over the mission if the game format precludes force selection after the mission is known. It's just coming at the problem from the other direction, allowing you to make the mission fit your army rather than your army fit the mission (either being better than your army having no relation to the mission).

Dust Warfare has a great system for this, where each player gets a number of points to spend to alter the mission, the deployment zones, and the battlefield conditions. So you might be able to push for a mission that suits your gunline, but your opponent with an assault army pushes for close deployment zones and night fighting. It's a system that supports variety without making players feel subject to the whims of RNG, but doesn't give them perfect control either.

Yes, with GW we do not have a choice that isn't meta-chasing, and listbuilding-in-a-vacuum. That's what they sell. You can use it for something different, and a lot of us do. However GW has to write rules around people tuning the best TAC list. That's the business and it's inalterable as long as they sell minis.

I personally want every game, even pickup and tournament games, to be scenarios. Long range light recon unit spies on heavy armour column. VIP player-character and their scooby gang have to keep from being stepped on by a lance of knight engines. Dust Warfare has that really cool system for this.

I just want it to be the normal expectation for the game, instead of being a forgotten curiosity like cityfight, apocalyse, or the old old kill team that had one side as henchmen.

I'd prefer to see more varied objectives in all types of play, but mainly in Matched (since narrative is really easy to come up with different objective types for already). At the moment all the missions are basically the same, which leads to a very obvious semi-solved meta very quickly where certain types of unit are always more valuable than others and it's a little too easy to design not just an army that does well in all missions, but even having a deployment and gameplay plan for the first couple of turns that doesn't change that much.

I think the game would benefit from a mix of different objective types and scenarios that alter how deployment works to disrupt how the game is played in more fundamental ways. We used to have incremental deployment where armies would appear over the course of 1-2 turns, or games where deployment wasn't entirely under a player's control. changing some objectives to end of game and keeping others progressive would also help vary things a little.

The current Matched Play setup offers the appearance of variety, even if it doesn't actually have much in reality. There are lots of combinations of deployment zones, primary missions and special rule but they ultimately don't really alter all that much about the fundamentals of how the game plays. The only exceptions are badly balanced things like servo skulls, which I think are the right kind of idea but executed terribly.

 catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Totally agree. It took me way too long to realize, "Huh. All these missions are basically just about standing on objectives all game, aren't they?"

This is something that's incredibly hard to get away from in minis games. Even Malifaux, which has a pretty wildly varied scenario designs, its very hard to avoid losing the description of what you're doing to the mechanical process of doing it. The more actions you have to take to accomplish things the more you feel like the scenario is removing engagement with your opponent and its often just difficult to create things that both sides in the conflict would be wanting to accomplish at the same time.

The unfortunate truth of it is what's most likely to break this is just a lot of hobby work. Decorative objectives or objective zones that you change up for a variety of well designed maps tends to go much farther than having everyone not shoot to deploy teleport homers. It just takes good terrain design, which is just a part of the hobby that often doesn't get enough attention in general.

There are a ton of variants on missions you can do without requiring extensive hobby work. Just a few I've encountered in various games over the years:
-Hold (progressive scoring by turn)
-Seize (all-or-nothing scoring at the end of the game- either specific objectives or table quarters)
-Retrieval (grab objective and escape through your table edge)
-Breakthrough/Breakout (escape with as many units as possible through enemy's deployment zone, or to the edges of the board when starting in the middle)
-Escort (escape with a single VIP through enemy's deployment zone)
-Assassination (kill enemy commander or VIP)
-Attrition (kill the enemy)
-Holdout (survive with as many units as possible)
-Escape (fall back from a forward deployment position to your board edge)

And I mean, if players are willing to accept bland abstract tokens as objective markers, clearly the modeling expectations are pretty low.

40K used to have an awful lot more missions than the 9th-10th bland minor variants on Hold. It's just that they've been gradually whittled down to this point by the specific combination of:
1. A gameplay paradigm where you have to build your list with no idea what mission it'll need to perform, what terrain it'll be operating on, or what force it will be facing,
2. A stronger-than-ever focus on competitive design, where the idea of randomly receiving a mission that your list is bad at is seen as a failure of game design rather than a failure of listbuilding, and
3. An emphasis on competitive balance, where having basically just one mission with minor variants makes it easier to determine the value of a unit, since its utility is consistent rather than contingent upon the mission.

It's not that 40K can't support more varied missions or that the hobby requirements are onerous; 10th Ed missions are boring because GW's target audience doesn't want variety, it wants predictable missions it can optimize listbuilding for. It's the same reason the game has bland, symmetrical recommended terrain layouts, a consistent five-turn game length, and game sizes at fixed points increments. It's all in the name of competitive balance.

I don't think GW is getting away from either competitive play or listbuilding-in-a-vacuum anytime soon, so the best we can hope for is supplemental mission packs. Or just roll your own with like-minded friends.

I agree with this, but I also kind of... agree with the why if that makes sense. 40k's size makes transport a hassle and increasing army size for sideboarding or something similar only makes that worse. It's also just incredibly difficult to make a lot of those mission types work in a way that isn't terribly gamey without putting some hard limits on unit variety.

As much as people claim to want narrative missions, its been my experience that for the most part people like the idea of them far more than the actual experience. They sound good on paper, but all too often become a distraction from interacting with your opponent. Units really have to be designed to have a means of interacting with how other models interact with objectives to be engaging.

That's not to say I wouldn't like to see more varied missions in 40k. I play a lot of other games and one of the big draws is the objective play. I just think for them to work the edition needs to be built around them. More often than not, I find bolting scenarios onto a game later feels more like a complication than an actual improvement.

As much as people claim to want narrative missions, its been my experience that for the most part people like the idea of them far more than the actual experience. They sound good on paper, but all too often become a distraction from interacting with your opponent. Units really have to be designed to have a means of interacting with how other models interact with objectives to be engaging.

A dab will do ya. The mistake I've seen seen made with narrative scenarios is when people try to make the mission mechanics too complex. Generally, all I'm really looking for is something small to frame a story around.

There was that Crusade mission in 8th where the attacker was just trying to perform an action on some objectives in the defender's deployment zone to destroy said objectives. Pretty simple. (I'm sure it exists somewhere in 9th and 10th too, but I'm not sure off-hand.) Easy to interpret as blowing up a shield generator or stealing some mcguffins or any number of things. Good stuff.

Compare that to any version of "stand on as many patches of dirt as you can as much as you can." Not a terrible mission, but right off the bat I'm left wondering what these patches of dirt are, especially where they end up in the middle of nowhere with no terrain touching them. Plus, lots of factions are specifically noted as *not* framing their plans around holding patches of dirt unless absolutely necessary. Why can't I just kill all the enemies to make sure the patches of dirt are safe in a few minutes after the battle? Why can't I defend the patches of dirt without standing on top of them?

And then, if you do find a good narrative to answer those questions, do you reuse that same narrative in every single game you play because basically every mission also revolves around standing on patches of dirt? So the lack of variety kind of exasperates the issue. In past editions, sometimes I had to stand on patches of dirt, and I could hand waive it with a somewhat contrived narrative. But then the next game I'd be focusing on whittling down the enemy army or taking out key units or rescuing a VIP (the relic).

I once played a narrative mission where the enemy was on a moving train (the train held still. Everything not on the train moved 6" towards one board edge to represent movement) and I had to board or destroy the train (which had individual statlines for different train sections). It was cool, but I'm not looking for that level of special mechanics in all my missions. I'm just looking for something that's easier to forge a narrative around than standing on dirt patches with my mobile armies. Or failing that, at least some variety in missions so that not *every* mission is about standing on dirt patches.

I remember from my home group's games in 5th and 6th that, at some point, I just came up with an idea to nominate terrain pieces as objectives instead of placing abstract objective markers.

It immediately improved the narrative aspect of the games at practically zero change to scoring and scenario rules.

But it was the time when 40k terrain consisted of bunkers, monuments, artillery emplacements, factories or chapels not of two cardboard boxes cut diagonally in half and placed symmetrically around the middle of the table.

Just looking at 3e missions.
Cleanse and Night Fight are both table quarters, so stand on the right ground.
Patrol is kill and avoid being killed.
Recon is get into the enemy deployment zone and stop them getting into yours, so again stand on the ground.
Rescue has counters which have hidden numbers on them, and only one is the objective. Once it is discovered, it is carried by a particular model until they are killed or rout, when they drop it. This one is I think sufficiently different and doesn't count as just standing on the ground or killing people.

Battle missions have attackers and defenders.
Take and Hold, the defender gets to set up on a terrain piece and the attacker needs to clear them off it and hold it. Stand on the ground, but much more narrative as Cyel says because it's actually a terrain piece.

Meat Grinder has an attacker with recycling troops, and the defender has to hold out for a variable number of turns. Technically a kill and not die mission, but I think with an entertaining twist. The attacker has to kill ALL of the defenders troops, and if the defender has any left they win.

Bunker assault allows the defender to set up bunkers, trenches, barricades and razorwire. The attacker gets points for killing defenders but also bonus points for each bunker destroyed or captured, and the defender gets points for killing the attacker and bonus points for each bunker preserved. Again, I think destructable terrain automatically makes this a bit more interesting than kill or stand, and it has a strong narrative. You have to make a set of bunkers for it though!

Raid missions are even more asymmetrical and I think designed for smaller games - both sides have significantly reduced FOC. Sabotage is about sneaking past sentries which if mishandled will alert the enemy and blowing up a target in the middle of the board. Much stronger narrative, and I think the sentries really add something. Requires modelling sentries or at least having proxies.

Ambush has the defender deployed in a column and the attacker deploying all around them, and the defender has to move troops off the far board edge. An interesting and narrative deployment, and a victory condition that is not standing somewhere or killing something, for the defender at least.

Strongpoint attack has a similar set up with the defender surrounded on 3 sides, a square deployment zone, and bunkers, trenches and barricades again. This also utilizes sentries, and has a significant chunk of both forces in reserve. Essentially models the end of any Guant's Ghosts novel. Again, bonus points for blowing up bunkers. I think this is significantly different to the "stand or kill" model.

The three breakout missions all have the same win condition for the defender - get off the board, and the attacker wants to prevent that. Rearguard forces the defender to split his army into two groups and flip a coin to decide which is the rearguard. The defender needs to stop the attacker getting off the board for a variable number of turns. The attacker's army comes in two waves, dependent on reserve rolls.

Breakout has the defender surrounded on both sides by attackers, deploying in a rectangle in the middle of the board. The defender has to get off either side, and must get half or more off or they lose.

Blitz has the attackers trying to "storm the trenches" with a fortified zone of trenches, barricades and bunkers in the middle of the board. They need to break through this and get into the "Second Line" Each attacking unit on the far side of the fortified zone gives extra victory points, the defender gets extra for any that don't make it into the fortified zone.

All three of these are pretty significantly different to "stand on this bit of ground".

3e has probably the best missions 40K has ever had, and I played quite a few of these because I was really into the narrative aspect. It was always a struggle to get people to play anything other than Cleanse or Recon though, and people were often leery of playing the (best) scenarios with asymmetrical FOCs because they had planned and built their lists with the standard FOC in mind. A real shame - some of those attacker defender missions are fantastic, and allow for games that are really exciting. Also a godsend for campaigns because they model real military scenarios.

They kept those missions in 4th, but added the OG Kill Team (also asymmetrical) and Combat Patrol (small games).

There was also the night fight mission.

3rd also had extra faction-themed missions in many codices, like the Planetfall mission in Codex: Space Marines or the Hostage Situation mission in Codex: Tau.

I think the 3rd and 4th ed missions were great.

Yeah, that's true. I prefer the layout in the 3e book, they're a bit spread out in 4e and there are some deployment diagrams missing, but I checked and they are all there, plus one extra in the core mission actually.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, that's true. I prefer the layout in the 3e book, they're a bit spread out in 4e and there are some deployment diagrams missing, but I checked and they are all there, plus one extra in the core mission actually.

Fair, it is more scattered. On the plus side, Infiltrate was simplified.

Cyel wrote:

But it was the time when 40k terrain consisted of bunkers, monuments, artillery emplacements, factories or chapels not of two cardboard boxes cut diagonally in half and placed symmetrically around the middle of the table.

As long as TLOS is a thing, players are going to gravitate towards terrain that doesn't use TLOS.

 Da Boss wrote:

Cleanse and Night Fight are both table quarters, so stand on the right ground.
...
Recon is get into the enemy deployment zone and stop them getting into yours, so again stand on the ground.

I will note that this version of "stand on the right ground" also feels better to me than the objective marker approach. Table quarters broadly conveys the idea of board presence without forcing everyone to gravitate towards the same kill zones. You can "hold" a quadrant by taking up positions in the best cover available, standing on tall buildings, kiting incoming enemies, etc. It feels like you're fighting over a vague area of the battlefield, but you're allowed to do so without having to toss sacrificial units onto an objective marker.

Similarly, trying to get into the enemy deployment zone and keep them out of your own conveys the notion that you're trying to push forward and maintain control of your existing turf. It also generally means that you can sneak squishy, mobile, stealthy units up onto the sides of your opponent's DZ instead of needing to pile a bunch of tough guys onto a specific circle.

Yeah, I agree with you actually and would have worded it similarly, but I was trying to be as hard on 3e by comparison as possible to be fair.

Cleanse was a fun way to play the game, despite being overused. Very easy to end in a draw though!

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
Would all of these missions be balanced for competitive play, probably not, but I actually think that's a good thing.

This here, I think, is the key. Objective-based missions are great for competitive play, but it would be nice to have something for non-competitive Matched Play.

Might want to take a look at the crusade missions then, lots of fun ones there

How many people make their own missions? Just curious. I've done it in literally every edition of the game I've played. I've got a mission I'm working on right now for a 5 part challenge over at B&C (the batrep using the mission is challenge 3; right now I'm on challenge 2).

It's designed for a small game (16 infantry models that can be taken out vs 10 Infantry models who perpetually recycle as 5 model units). I'll be running the same mission as both a KT and a 40k Mission, and I'll write up the game that works best. It might be a bit off topic to post a synopsis of the mission here, so I won't, but it's a cool little small sized campaign starter.

Yeah I've designed my own missions too. Normally for small campaigns or map campaigns.

Though it is fun to have a huge bunch to choose from in the core book.

Reading the replies of old missions and how they worked makes me happy remembering a time when this game had a simulation aspect to it. This has been a bit cathartic read. Have a version of escape the board where zombies spawn on you and your friends (based on the MWG mission) each has a collection of 80pts of models to try to make it to the transport at the end of the table. It's guarded by a zombie boss and once someone is halfway to the end the other players can start shooting them and sabotaging them.

 PenitentJake wrote:
How many people make their own missions? .

I've done so in almost* every minis game/edition I've ever played.
Especially if I'm involved in writing a campaign/narrative.

*I say almost because there's a few that we play so infrequently that it's just easier to run one that's already in the book.
There's also a few games that I really only play when at gaming conventions & thus just rely upon the event organizers.

 Wyldhunt wrote:


In past editions, for all the flaws of mission design, my eldar could generally spend the battle flying around in circles, trying to thin out the enemy, and then end-of-game scoring basically measured whether I'd thinned the enemy out enough to plop more bodies on an objective than my opponent. It was flawed, but it did feel like I'd "secured an area" by fighting the battle and then moving my forces into the now-safe(ish) area once the coast was clear. Plus it didn't punish me for using my mobility to skirt the edges of the table and hide out behind terrain.

Question thus is do you want game that is he who stands last wins and objectives are irrelevant as he who tables enemy to win or not.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Cleanse and Night Fight are both table quarters, so stand on the right ground.
...
Recon is get into the enemy deployment zone and stop them getting into yours, so again stand on the ground.

I will note that this version of "stand on the right ground" also feels better to me than the objective marker approach. Table quarters broadly conveys the idea of board presence without forcing everyone to gravitate towards the same kill zones. You can "hold" a quadrant by taking up positions in the best cover available, standing on tall buildings, kiting incoming enemies, etc. It feels like you're fighting over a vague area of the battlefield, but you're allowed to do so without having to toss sacrificial units onto an objective marker.

Similarly, trying to get into the enemy deployment zone and keep them out of your own conveys the notion that you're trying to push forward and maintain control of your existing turf. It also generally means that you can sneak squishy, mobile, stealthy units up onto the sides of your opponent's DZ instead of needing to pile a bunch of tough guys onto a specific circle.

Agreed. These seem much more thematic than the current missions.

We’ve had great times using the mission deck, but only because we do the work, we draw 5e cards and the tweak the terrain and place the objectives in places that look like they would matter and come up with a narrative to fit. We tweak the rules or draw other cards if we don’t like what is drawn as well, it’s always a guide.

The competitive scene is definitely to blame for the state of missions at the moment but you dint have to use them, all these old missions we are talking about still work with a tweak or design your own based on them. Since when did it have to come from GW to ok to play?

Belthanos wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


In past editions, for all the flaws of mission design, my eldar could generally spend the battle flying around in circles, trying to thin out the enemy, and then end-of-game scoring basically measured whether I'd thinned the enemy out enough to plop more bodies on an objective than my opponent. It was flawed, but it did feel like I'd "secured an area" by fighting the battle and then moving my forces into the now-safe(ish) area once the coast was clear. Plus it didn't punish me for using my mobility to skirt the edges of the table and hide out behind terrain.

Question thus is do you want game that is he who stands last wins and objectives are irrelevant as he who tables enemy to win or not.

I'd like objectives to matter for the sake of both gameplay and "forging the narrative." I just think there are flaws that come with progressive stand-on-patch-of-dirt objectives being at the heart of most games. I'm not advocating for every single game devolving into a battle of attrition; I'm illustrating one of the ways in which the modern missions create dissonance between the lore and rules where previous past missions did not. (Or at least did so less/differently.).

Andykp wrote:We’ve had great times using the mission deck, but only because we do the work, we draw 5e cards and the tweak the terrain and place the objectives in places that look like they would matter and come up with a narrative to fit. We tweak the rules or draw other cards if we don’t like what is drawn as well, it’s always a guide.

The competitive scene is definitely to blame for the state of missions at the moment but you dint have to use them, all these old missions we are talking about still work with a tweak or design your own based on them. Since when did it have to come from GW to ok to play?

Working with your opponent to tweak things definitely helps. It's just also nice to not have to do the extra pre-game negotiating. Especially if you and your opponent aren't very familiar with one another.

Andykp: I definitely agree with you, and finding a likeminded group to play with is probably the special sauce that makes Wargaming consistently fun.

The problem can be that the stuff GW puts out as "official" has a strong hold on people, and they tend to gravitate toward it and be skeptical of doing anything that is not official. For whatever reason people think that something "official" is more likely to be fair, despite all the evidence that the GW guys aren't very good at making a fair game.

One of the things that I, personally, have been experimenting with is taking the idea of objectives being treated as 2 parts:
-Holding the table quarter is the "primary objective"
-Holding that little, itty bitty "objective marker" is a way to snake a table out from under someone...but doesn't give you control of the table quarter and thus the actual objective. It just lets you negate their control.


So far it's created a bit more interactivity in games I've played.

 Kanluwen wrote:
One of the things that I, personally, have been experimenting with is taking the idea of objectives being treated as 2 parts:
-Holding the table quarter is the "primary objective"
-Holding that little, itty bitty "objective marker" is a way to snake a table out from under someone...but doesn't give you control of the table quarter and thus the actual objective. It just lets you negate their control.


So far it's created a bit more interactivity in games I've played.

Doesn't that just default to "stand on that objective marker"?

Surprisingly not.

It does, however, make it so that the area around those markers becomes a little bit more active and interesting.

Da Boss wrote:Andykp: I definitely agree with you, and finding a likeminded group to play with is probably the special sauce that makes Wargaming consistently fun.

The problem can be that the stuff GW puts out as "official" has a strong hold on people, and they tend to gravitate toward it and be skeptical of doing anything that is not official. For whatever reason people think that something "official" is more likely to be fair, despite all the evidence that the GW guys aren't very good at making a fair game.

GW is far from perfect, but you don't have to sift through a lot of homebrew rules to see why people can be a little leery of them. But you're both right; finding people willing to have a chat pre-game and work together to make the game more fun goes a long way. Currently, I'm new to my gaming area, so I'm still building towards being comfortable enough to have those conversations during pick up games.

Kanluwen wrote:One of the things that I, personally, have been experimenting with is taking the idea of objectives being treated as 2 parts:
-Holding the table quarter is the "primary objective"
-Holding that little, itty bitty "objective marker" is a way to snake a table out from under someone...but doesn't give you control of the table quarter and thus the actual objective. It just lets you negate their control.


So far it's created a bit more interactivity in games I've played.

I like that a lot! It frees you up to defend/control an area without standing on The Very Important Circle, but it also allows for counterplay and rewards you for having units durable and mobile enough to get onto The Very Important Circle. Doing that every game would still run into the same narrative-forging weirdness, but the gameplay behind it sounds more interesting.

 Kanluwen wrote:
One of the things that I, personally, have been experimenting with is taking the idea of objectives being treated as 2 parts:
-Holding the table quarter is the "primary objective"
-Holding that little, itty bitty "objective marker" is a way to snake a table out from under someone...but doesn't give you control of the table quarter and thus the actual objective. It just lets you negate their control.


So far it's created a bit more interactivity in games I've played.

I really like this too.

Thanks for the tip!

Wyldhunt: I mean, I'm including in my post previous rules from GW's 9 odd editions.

Like trying to get people to play missions from 3e now would be difficult because people would feel leery of it. Even at the time, a large portion of people only wanted to play the 5 standard missions, and usually it was just Cleanse.

Which is not GW's fault at all, tbf.

But yeah, I was a bit too grumpy in my previous post. A better way to express what I mean is, those guys writing rules at GW are just gamers like us. They don't have specialist knowledge that we don't have and their approach is just as valid as ours.