Does "Malestrom" Save 40K for you? How about Dark Angels?

[Prot]

I was having this conversation with someone that I have inadvertently converted from a 7th Edition "Hater" to a Lover.. (Of 7th edition, not me.)

 

At first I was going to make this a Dark Angels only thread, but I realize it is actually bigger than that. I actually think Malestrom has 'saved' 40K for me.

 

Why do I say this?

 

I've played several games against opponents that had "I win" armies in 6th. They're used to literally playing their own game, rolling dice, nearly inconsequential of what you do. And they win. Just Pew-Pewing away in a corner because you simply can't reach them in time, and their fire power out reaches/maneuvers you.

 

In 6th edition this was fine and dandy. In 7th edition Assault has only improved marginally, but insignificantly. Rhino's are still death traps, and Snap Fire is still massive in the right hands.

 

BUT with Malestrom you can't win unless you wipe me with that list.

 

How has this changed 40K for me?

 

- Flexibility in units is more valuable to me.

- Speed/movement is more valuable in any Malestrom game.

- "Mediocre" units instantly became much more valuable: IE: Super scoring Rhino's, Drop Pods, heck even Tactical Troops, have much more meaning now.

 

As a result the games are much more dynamic now. I've had games against opponent's that typically smoke me, but with 'tactical objective' play, I've had such a lead in the first three turns against some of these 'lazy' opponents that they can't catch up.

 

As a direct result of this, I've seen first hand some opponents are changing their lists from game to game to compensate for this very issue.

 

So far I think some aspects of Dark Angels specifically that were almost completely dead to me have shown real promise (I'm still testing). But in the bigger picture I'm finding Malestrom to be a real game saver.

 

To me this has (locally) changed the theme from 'The sky is falling' to 7th edition is pretty fun. (yes it still has issues... but overall there was a lot of doom saying about a month ago.)

 

I'm wondering if anyone else has found this? Or if it's just status quo for you?

 

 

[Teetengee]

I am looking forward to trying out some Warp talons (yay) and some DE (Foul xenos boo) as I have had similar thoughts.

[[TA]Typher]

I kinda agree, IF the cards end up being balanced. this doesn't seem to be always the case and I find that getting useless cards while you opponent get easily gainable VP cards shows a huge flaw in the design.

 

Basically It's too random. Cards that don't apply, ie: kill a flyer, kill a witch, kill a building when the opponent doesn't have those should be discardable instantly.

[Effreem]

Rhino's arent death traps, IMO. They are metal shields that keep your dudes alive long enough to get into cover near an objective.

 

IMO, 7th made DA competitive again. We are able to use our maneuverability (rhino's, LR's, RW, etc) to get to objectives and our stubborn helps keep us there. 4+ cover in ruins, go to ground from random plasma shootie unless threatened with assault. Focus firepower on units moving towards objectives. Bully the enemy line with Land Raiders that dont pop easily. Deepstrike Land speeders onto objectives or to alpha an enemy. Scouting melta bikes/Land speders to kill important enemy armor first turn, or to redeploy your bikes away from the enemy's meaner units.

 

P.S. I'm 2 for 2 with Azzy, GW/RW lists against SM bikers and IG. Both were won by alpha against things that scared me and then holding objectives vs armies not able to hold as many objectives. (LR Redeemer worked well against the bikers as well.)

[Master Avoghai]

I kinda agree, IF the cards end up being balanced. this doesn't seem to be always the case and I find that getting useless cards while you opponent get easily gainable VP cards shows a huge flaw in the design.

That's something I often read...

 

Funny to note that I read only posts of people getting the bad cards... But WHO are those guys who get always the good cards that everybody seems to face? They never post! :P

 

 

Basically It's too random. Cards that don't apply, ie: kill a flyer, kill a witch, kill a building when the opponent doesn't have those should be discardable instantly.

Yeah I agree the discard thing is so obvious that I don't see why GW didn't even think about it.... But it can be easily fixed by an agreement with your opponent before the game.

 

The really annoying random aspect for me is the "get one VP if you achieve one objective, get 1d3/1d6 if you achieve 3/5 objectives...

I mean come on! You ask me to destroy one enemy unit for ex, and of I manage to destroy 3 during the same turn I get 33% chance to get as much VP??!? :blink: but then why should I take risk? It goes against the spirit of the rule and it's reason to exist.

[SvenONE]

I will say it's a step in the right direction but it's hardly a crowning achievement on GW's part.

 

A lot of these tactical objectives are either tactically stupid, impractical, or unattainable.  Really? Controlling ALL of the objectives? If that's happening a player has already won the game.  Not to mention the D3 points on some of these is stupid also.  If I manage to destroy 3-5 enemy units during my term, I should damn well get 3 points and not the same as if I had gotten one (TO53).  [1-3,1-6] Tactical Objectives are a good idea for changing how a battle unfolds.

 

The missions themselves are different flavors of the same thing, you either start with a lot of objectives or start with a few objectives, or somewhere in between, it really makes no difference which one you are playing (I've played all at least once so far) and I find it funny they bothered putting pre-set deployments.  Don't see the point in that at all other than taking space up on the page.

 

I think it's a fresher way of playing 40K and I've had more fun with my DA so far, so I wouldn't call myself a hater -- but again, I wouldn't say these new missions are a resounding success.

[[TA]Typher]

I kinda agree, IF the cards end up being balanced. this doesn't seem to be always the case and I find that getting useless cards while you opponent get easily gainable VP cards shows a huge flaw in the design.

That's something I often read...

Funny to note that I read only posts of people getting the bad cards... But WHO are those guys who get always the good cards that everybody seems to face? They never post!

Basically It's too random. Cards that don't apply, ie: kill a flyer, kill a witch, kill a building when the opponent doesn't have those should be discardable instantly.

Yeah I agree the discard thing is so obvious that I don't see why GW didn't even think about it.... But it can be easily fixed by an agreement with your opponent before the game.

The really annoying random aspect for me is the "get one VP if you achieve one objective, get 1d3/1d6 if you achieve 3/5 objectives...

I mean come on! You ask me to destroy one enemy unit for ex, and of I manage to destroy 3 during the same turn I get 33% chance to get as much VP??!? but then why should I take risk? It goes against the spirit of the rule and it's reason to exist.

That's funny because that's exactly why I say that. The last game I played I have 5 points on turn one and my opponent had nothing because of bad cards. On turn two I got two more and he got 1, the game continued that was until it was just unfun. Winning is great, but crushing someone is so bad that there is no chance is just sad. It would be ok if I out played him, but it was all cards.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Yes,Maelstrom  was a game changer. About the randomness of the cards I can only say: tough luck.

Imagine the scenario were my out of the mill, average DA army had no change facing a TauDar or other abhorrences. Well, now they have to work for it, for real? The cards don't favour them? tough luck.. same can happen to me.

Maelstrom makes my DA army play how it's meant to be.. like a scalpel. Achieving precise objectives and reacting to changing objectives with speed and tenacity. Where before you could only win by bringing a snowplow, now you can take a nimble BMX bike and stand aneven chamce.

[Master Avoghai]

Also, half of the cards are about holding a said objective until the end of the turn.

 

Though still random, the system introduce the VP for holding objective during the game. How many times have we all rant about armies that rush on objectives during the last turn whereas we hold them the entire game?

 

Imagine the scenario were my out of the mill, average DA army had no change facing a TauDar or other abhorrences. Well, now they have to work for it, for real? The cards don't favour them? tough luck.. same can happen to me.

 

I see what you mean Luc' but the only limit I see is that it's not army specific. A weak chaos army composed of cultists, eviscerators and warp talons will suffer the exact same as Taudar.

 

To me it encourages Taudar rather than limitating them because when comes the army list creation, the player will start to think : ok now I really need to make a tough list if ever I to my luck in card picking... <_<

 

We could imagine cards like "distrustful allies" : if you destroy an enemy unit from the allies detachment you get 1VP.

 

That way, this card may disadvantage armies with allies like Tau/Dar or WS/DA but keep a pure fluffy army safe. As a consequence it will make the player think twice before starting to make powerful alliances or taking the cheap inquisitor with servo skull to prevent any scout/infiltration move.

[Brother Bahram]

Played the first Maelstrom game yesterday - a really fun way to play

The idea with the cards is great, but when you end up with some "useless" cards - it isn't funny.

 

My mate and I made a house roule - discard one card you don't  can't achieve for one (1) victory point.

 

That was our solution.

[SnakeChisler]

I will say it's a step in the right direction but it's hardly a crowning achievement on GW's part.

 

A lot of these tactical objectives are either tactically stupid, impractical, or unattainable.  Really? Controlling ALL of the objectives? If that's happening a player has already won the game.  Not to mention the D3 points on some of these is stupid also.  If I manage to destroy 3-5 enemy units during my term, I should damn well get 3 points and not the same as if I had gotten one (TO53).  [1-3,1-6] Tactical Objectives are a good idea for changing how a battle unfolds.

 

I disagree, they may not be practical for the army you bring but hey you know your going to be playing Maelstrom so fetch a force that is tactically more flexible.

 

Controlling all objectives? well how about doing it with Drop pods which all have objective secured?

Wiping out units well if your able to destroy multiple units then I'd say that's reward in itself and having a chance at some bonus points well yes please.

 

A lot of the bitching is about the randomness of it all but that's the main aim its supposed to be random and just coz your previous kick butt list is no longer viable well neither is your opponents.

 

I'm personally well and truly sick of playing against the latest greatest death star mega allies list, 6th was a complete wash with them and its not coz I lost its coz they blunted the game completely and made it so you had to sponge every rule in the book like it was almost mandatory for your bike squads to abuse the focus fire rule and every Sgt took full advantage of his 4 shot precision strike rule.

 

You know for the 1st time ever my regular TAU opponent didn't fetch an Aegis defense line he actually fetched some DevilFish transports with troops in them after getting spanked in last weeks Maelstrom mission where coz he did his usual castle up in a corner he was totally unable to capture anything without the squad getting wiped. He's also unable to fetch his pile of Spam Farsight bomb as there's not enough other units to contest or capture objectives coz he's well aware I'll Nuke everything I can before his Deathstar comes in and if he ends up going 2nd he could be 7/8 points down before they arrive.

 

On the competition side there has just got to be some form of secondary missions otherwise they'll die a complete death, our local all comers events have seen entries dive through the floor with 2 actually cancelled due to regular one codex guys like me not bothering coz we know we'll be faced with all sorts of stupid spam infested combo's that basically took the mickey out of the game.

 

Maelstrom does not stop you taking deathstar lists or the latest OP unit what it does do is reward those that take a more pragmatic balanced view and who are prepared to play to the mission, we've even house ruled it that the game continues even if your wiped out so that if you achieve a really high points total your opponent can't just fetch a Nuke em all list they still need more points than you to win.

[Master Avoghai]

@SnakeChisler :

 

Actually the point you're defending is the way GW thought... But you see the thing with the eye of faith.

 

Concerning the deathstar thing : like I've said, it won't make them less played but more. If you know that you're likely to lose victory points because of bad luck so you'll NEED a deathstar to counterattack and compensate.

 

About the random thing : randomness is not fun.

40k is fun because you roll LOTS OF dice that turn around an average result. Some deviation from the average may occur and that's what bring salt.

On the other hand, rolling a single dice and say "on 4+ you lose" is not fun.

 

The cards are there to force people making heroic actions. Let's say I pick the card "destroy one enemy unit and get 1VP, if you destroy 3 gain 1d3"

Then I manage to destroy one enemy unit. Why would I take the risk to redeploy my army to kill more units?

If I only manage to kill a 2nd one, I get nothing more, if I manage to kill 3 I have 33% chance to get as much VP as if I had killed one!

 

You mistake on the goal of the cards and their design. You have 2 types of players : risky and pragmatic.

The risky doesn't needs card to take risk. He will do anyway without necessarily being rewarded for that.

The pragmatic will rarely do and need to be encouraged.

 

The current system do not reward correctly the risky player and do not encourage the pragmatic to take risks. Just because of the randomness.

 

If you want to encourage heroic moves and "forge the narrative" decisions then reward them correctly in term of VP.

 

(Oh and your Tau Friend has moved from aegis to devilish not because of maelstrom missions, he moved because :

- more and more units get "ignore cover"

- AA weapon nerf

- devilfish become "objective secured"

- new vehicle damage table

It has strictly nothing to do with maelstrom cards but with the v7 metagame changes...)

[SvenONE]

SnakeChisler, my lists have always been troop heavy, even prior to Maelstrom.  Securing objectives was never really a problem.  It was surviving the 5 turns of shooting and hoping something was left to capture an objective that was the problem.  That's why in theory and practice I like the 11-36 objective cards.  The other ones I think are there to justify GW's selling of tactical objective cards and lack any actual tactical decisions.  I mean casting a Psyker power? There may as well be a card that says "move a unit"

 

Also, I get your drop pod example, but saying a drop pod is a sure fire way to secure an objective is a bit whimsical, we're talking about something that's going to be scattering MOST of the time, hardly a reliable strategy.  Not to mention that dropping pods all over the map is a great way to divide your forces and be cut to pieces.

 

I think that the later objectives are simply unimaginative and the silver bullet of Maelstrom Missions is simply: Play with Tactical Objectives, and we got "6 new missions" which are really the same 1 mission with very slight variation.  I don't like to compare games but Infinity has some pretty exciting missions with their ITS Scenarios (for their supported and global tournament system).  Granted it works with their game set, but there's nothing stopping GW from brewing up similarly creative missions.

 

Now I know it's easy to say "just home brew your rules" or "if you don't like them don't play them" (note that I never said I didn't like them, just that GW didn't take it far enough).  But it's not easy to go into a shop and say "hey, I don't know you let's play! But we have to use this ruleset I made up that you have never played nor do you know if your list or even codex will benefit from it, trust me!."

 

It's one thing to have a game where a number of dice rolls don't go your way.  It's another when the most crucial ones (the few TO rolls you may have) are unlucky.  It can lead to a very feast or famine situation.

[SnakeChisler]

I totally disagree the Deathstar was beatable in 6th its reason for existence in 7th wanes and they weren't unstoppable due to their lip service to troop objective securing units, anyways the main issue I had with them was the very poor quality of the games which often revolved round who got 1st turn and who got 1st blood coupled with mission type, was it multiple objectives did they get the Right psychic powers to make their one dimensional strategy work.

 

Its not just the cards there are 6 objectives in Maelstrom all are mysterious with the random traits that brings if you couple this with the random fun of the cards you end up with a dynamic game.

 

If on the other hand you fetch a narrow list with the big points sink exterminating your opponent units with no transport you'll spend a lot of time not having fun and bellyaching about how unfair all the randomness is while your opponent zips around racking up points.

 

The Tau player in question is responding to the fact that there are always going to be 6 objectives on the table if it was down to the normal war missions he'd more than likely take his chances and hope we didn't get stuff like the scouring yes in 7th he can no longer buddy up with Ultra Marines but the 6th Allies thing was a complete joke.

[SnakeChisler]

SevenONE

 

We've been picking up missions from the net over the last year and a bit from competition mission packs to coming up with variations and cobbling them to fit either smaller or larger points games but I don't go down the local shop so I can't comment as I would count myself lucky in the fact we have a board at home and have regular games at the club

 

I agree getting a point for casting a Psychic power is a bit naff as is bringing down a flyer when neither side has one

 

But I think its a real move forward and a framework people can take on and work with

[Master Avoghai]

You should use punctuation, it would make your post easier to read.

 

I totally disagree the Deathstar was beatable in 6th its reason for existence in 7th wanes and they weren't unstoppable due to their lip service to troop objective securing units, anyways the main issue I had with them was the very poor quality of the games which often revolved round who got 1st turn and who got 1st blood coupled with mission type,

The principle of the deathstar is : if you don't have any unit on the table at the end of any turn you lose...

So wether you have other objectives or not, if the guy in front of you manage to kill all you units, you've lost.

 

That said I agree that the card system goes in the good way but :

- the VP shouldn't be random

- you should be allowed to discard them if they can't apply

- some cards objective should be redone : gaining one VP for casting a spell or if the secret objectives has been unveiled even if it's due to your opponent's actions, are things that break game balance. As I always say : don't fix an injustice by another injustice.

- some cards should be oriented to prevent abuses examples :

"Distrustful allies : gain 1VP per allies unit destroyed that turn"

"Cut the head" : gain 1VP per 100pts value of HQ units you've killed this turn.

 

That way, it would make them more risky to play them...

[RayJ]

Some of you may know that at the end of 5th Edition i was jumping around between Blood Angels and Space Wolves along with my DA stuff. In 6th I jumped to Grey Knights and then to Eldar when the new book came out. In 7th, I've been playing with Grey Knights, Salamanders, and now I've jumped back into the Deathwing and Ravenwing that I have been known for. Maelstrom of War is the reason why.

At my FLGS we have run two tournaments now with the 7th Edition rules. One at 1500, one at 1850, both using Maelstrom of War. Even with the bad card draws and the one bad mission (Decreasing number of objectives per turn can make the first 2 turns too important and emphasizes the poor draw situations), Maelstrom of War is the most engaging, most fun version of 40K I have ever played.

 

This last week I have pulled out the Black & Bone and begun testing some lists and ideas. Deathwing and Ravenwing lists now play much like their late 4th and early 5th edition incarnations, with greenwing filling a much more useful role. The local superiority you can achieve with Deathwing Assault and fast Ravenwing Bikes is still there, and very much a great thing when your opponent has to spread around for Maelstrom.

 

I'm gonna be starting up a new series as I come back into 7th with the intent of running solely Dark Angels, possibly with Inquisition/GK allies from time to time as fits my Successor Chapter. Right now I have the belief that if you are not playing Maelstrom of War, you are selling yourself short. Mobility, a variety of units, and the ability to operate in all phases can overcome just about every card you might draw.

 

Also, 7th Edition is all about using the rules as a guideline and modifying to what you see is best. House rules to quickly get rid of actual impossible objectives should be fine, and we've had great success using that in our local events.

[Prot]

I'm surprised the way some of you are finding the Malestrom games.

I could have sworn I read that at the end of your turn you can discard one Tactical Objective. There are also better warlord traits from the main rulebook which are re-rollable if you have a Battle Forged army. One of those categories includes the ability to discard 2 tactical objectives a turn.

Regardless, I have had several games using 3 different armies and find the core mechanics of the game have changed significantly enough that I thoroughly enjoy Malestrom even with the admittedly rough edges.

+edit+

Well said RayJ. I agree 100%.

[RayJ]

You can discard 1 at the end of each turn. If you get 3 "bad" objectives the early cards can define the whole game. One mission starts you with 6 objectives and reduces that by 1 each turn, down to 1, so if you get enough objectives you can complete, and only discard 1 per turn, you could be stuck the whole game with the same objectives that you can't do.

 

After playing enough games, I can say that list build and playskill are way more important than the cards in all but the most extreme cases (like 1 game in 20 maybe). You need to be mobile, have the ability to focus fire, and deal with each threat. All comers with mobility is the key to winning maelstrom much more than getting the right cards. The faster you are, the more you are able to isolate a target, the faster you can get through the individual objectives and score more points.

[ValourousHeart]

Let's say I pick the card "destroy one enemy unit and get 1VP, if you destroy 3 gain 1d3"

Then I manage to destroy one enemy unit. Why would I take the risk to redeploy my army to kill more units?

If I only manage to kill a 2nd one, I get nothing more, if I manage to kill 3 I have 33% chance to get as much VP as if I had killed one!

Captain Obvious here. That also means that you have a 67% chance of gaining more VP. Just saying.

 

By your logic, people shouldn't play any of the power armor armies, because they fail their armor saves 33% of the time. But here we have the entire B&C community that is dedicated to that very idea... that the Loyalist Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are the best armies out there. Maybe not for their rules, but for everything else about them.

 

As for discarding useless cards, if your opponent asked to redraw a card they couldn't use, would you allow them? If you asked your opponent if you could redraw, do you think that they would answer the same way as you? I know what I would say, and as it turns out I play with lots of like minded people, not all, but most of them. I would hope that you would have a similar gaming group. But I also understand that you might be a devout tournament player and that you have to contend with a lot of... well with people that adhere to the phrase "winning isn't everything, it is the only thing."

 

I am sorry if your group has a disproportionate number of those players. But that isn't really anything that GW can control or fix. Those players will always want to play that way, and will either train harder, perfect a strategy, or find some other way to provide themselves with an advantage over the competition, no matter how careful the game designers are. And this isn't to say that those people are doing anything wrong, it is simply how they are programed.

[Master Avoghai]

Captain Obvious here. That also means that you have a 67% chance of gaining more VP. Just saying.

Nope you've forgotten the second condition : you have to kill 3 units in order to be allowed to roll is d6. So you gain nothing more by killing 2 and have a risk to not gain more.

 

I do have a cool gaming group and we'll play like I've said : in case of multi unit killing we'll grant the attacker one VP/unit.

 

 

I just regret that GW want to put randomness in everything. This is the WC nowadays... Imagine that we say to the players : "ok, now each goal will grant you 1d6 points." Do you think that it will force players to play attack? No : you'll see boring games of teams defending to prevent any risky goals.

Giving the option of gaining more VP is a very good idea but introducing randomness here goes totally against the intended goal of this feature.

 

I want to win my games by good choices and risky moves... Not because I made a better roll than my opponent to determine VP.

[ValourousHeart]

The more I look at my deck of tactical objectives, I find it really hard to believe that a player would consistently draw useless cards all game long or even in multiple games. Honestly it seems more like a fluke, like failing every 2+ saves you have to make this game.

 

Now I define "useless" as I am not able to even attempt the task during the course of the game. Not that I try and am unsuccessful.

 

I feel that these objectives are score-able by either side regardless of the forces chosen.

Objectives 11 to 53 and 55 - If you are not able to at least attempt to score them, that was a tactical blunder on your part and has nothing to do with a bad draw. Objectives 42 to 53 and 55 - may require additional work to achieve and may take a turn to set up, but you should be able to at the very least attempt them.

 

Objective 61 - Every army must have a warlord.

 

I feel that these objectives could be useless, depending upon the situation.

Objective 56 requires you to take a psyker in your army and for them to be alive at the time you draw the card.

 

Objective 62 requires your opponent to take a psyker in their army and for that psyker to be in play at the time you draw this card.

 

Objective 63 requires your opponent to take a flyer or FMC in their army and for that unit to be in play at the time you draw this card.

 

Objective 65 requires your opponent to take a gun emplacement, building or mighty bulwark and for that unit to be in play at the time you draw this card.

 

Objective 66 requires your opponent to take a vehicle, MC, super heavy, or GC and for that unit to be in play at the time you draw this card.

 

These cards I am on the fence about, I don't think they are ever useless, but I can think of a situation where they couldn't be used.

Objectives 54 and 64 - I can't think of a single army that doesn't have any characters... But there might be a point where there are no characters left when you draw one of these cards. But what are the chances of you drawing either of these cards after all characters for both sides have been removed from play?

 

That means that based on your army, your opponents army and the casualties you both have suffered thus far in the game could mean that you could not attempt to score some of these 7 cards. But it is highly unlikely that you would not only draw only these cards but also not be able to score any of them.

 

In context, Mission 1 will have you draw between 7 and 21 cards.

Mission 2 will have you draw between 1 and 36 cards.

Mission 3 will have you draw between 9 and 28 cards.

Mission 4 will have you draw between 7 and 21 cards, plus you can score on up to 18 of the cards that your opponent could draw.

Mission 5 will have you draw between 7 and 21 cards.

Mission 6 will have you draw between 6 and 22 cards.

 

That tells me that there is only 1 mission that has the potential to have that unlucky draw of all 6 potentially useless cards (mission 6) and your army will not have a psyker or any characters, and the army you are facing doesn't have any psykers, characters, MC, FMC, GC, vehicles, flyers, super heavies, gun emplacements, buildings or mighty bulwarks. This is because you can't discard cards fast enough in that mission without scoring to draw additional cards.

 

Can some give an example of what that list would be (IE none of any of these units: psykers, characters, MC, FMC, GC, vehicles, flyers super heavies, gun emplacements, buildings or mighty bulwarks), and is that list really that scary to face? My guess is that it would have to be an unbound list, but the reason that 10 riptides is a pain in the butt isn't because I could have a bad draw on my tactical objectives, and it is more likely that I will have a good draw and stomp them with VP.

[ValourousHeart]

if I manage to kill 3 I have 33% chance to get as much VP as if I had killed one!

 

 

 

 

Captain Obvious here. That also means that you have a 67% chance of gaining more VP. Just saying.

Nope you've forgotten the second condition : you have to kill 3 units in order to be allowed to roll is d6.

Not sure what you are disagreeing with. But let's try this another way, to make sure we both know what we are saying.

 

If you have the tactical objective card numbers 51 or 52 and you kill 1 unit you have 100% chance of scoring 1 VP.

If you kill 3 units you have a 33% chance of scoring 1 VP and a 67% chance of scoring more than 1 VP.

 

I am not really sure why we are arguing about this. Why would you not want to kill of as many enemy units as possible during any given turn? The fewer units they have the less able they are to claim objective markers, score tactical objectives and destroy your units. Even if you roll poorly and only get 1 VP for killing 3 units you have still significantly impacted your opponent's ability to respond next turn.

 

Just seems silly to not try and kill more units. Well unless you have another card you can score. The reason that it isn't equally import for each unit killed is because you could have achieved multiple tactical objectives instead of focusing on the over kill objective. For example, in mission 2 "contact lost", killing those extra 2 units could net you 3 VP whereas killing 1 unit and securing objective #3 would score you 2 VP and the chance to draw 3 new cards next turn. That second options is much better tactically.

[Master Avoghai]

I agree, reformulation is the way to understanding :P

 

The current way it's working and that you're defending :

 

- if I kill 1 enemy unit I gain 1VP

- if I kill 2 enemy units I gain 1VP

- if I kill 3 enemy units I gain 1d3VP

The way I'm defending

 

- if I kill 1 enemy unit I gain 1VP

- if I kill 2 enemy units I gain 2VP

- if I kill 3 enemy units I gain 3 VP

Then I would like you to tell me why the way I'm defending is unfair and why the solution you're defending is better.

 

Just seems silly to not try and kill more units. Well unless you have another card you can score. The reason that it isn't equally import for each unit killed is because you could have achieved multiple tactical objectives instead of focusing on the over kill objective.

But then if you're in position to gain multiple objectives and managed to do so, you should be rewarded for that!

 

I see multiple reason not to kill a unit :

- you have another objective card that would grant you a VP for another move that would prevent you to kill a unit.

- you are occupying an objective marker and trying to be in range would force you to abandon this objective for a turn.

 

And last thing : imagine that both you and your opponent manage to get that card and both kill 3 units.

Your opponent rolls and make 1

You roll and make 3

 

You win the game not because you make better tactical choices but because you make a better roll... You call it fun? I don't.

 

 

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[Cactus]

I agree, reformulation is the way to understanding

The current way it's working and that you're defending :

- if I kill 1 enemy unit I gain 1VP

- if I kill 2 enemy units I gain 1VP

- if I kill 3 enemy units I gain 1d3VP

The way I'm defending

- if I kill 1 enemy unit I gain 1VP

- if I kill 2 enemy units I gain 2VP

- if I kill 3 enemy units I gain 3 VP

I can't check my rules right now but I thought you scored an additional D3 VPs for doing X three times. So killing one or two units earns you 1 VP but killing three or more earns you 1+D3 VPs. Whether or not you feel that's worth the risk is a tactical choice and not necessarily a flaw with the system.

And last thing : imagine that both you and your opponent manage to get that card and both kill 3 units.

Your opponent rolls and make 1

You roll and make 3

You win the game not because you make better tactical choices but because you make a better roll... You call it fun? I don't.

That does sound like fun to me. If D3 VPs can turn victory into defeat it was likely a close fought game and those are the games my friends and I enjoy most. Exactly that happened in my 6th edition game against Cypher described here.

I think there's a subjective element to how much randomness we're each willing to accept in our game. Your suggestion of a fixed sliding scale has merit and I might propose trying it as a house rule.

One other house rule we have already adopted is that if you draw/roll an objective that is impossible because your or your opponent's force does not include the required unit (eg. no flyers, no psykers, no buildings etc.) you can discard the objective and immediately generate another to replace it. We assume that whoever is issuing these orders is sufficiently informed and competent to not give such a pointless one!

Overall I like the tactical objectives. For us Dark Angels they provide a way to really flex the many options we have for troops. Deathwing Assualt is a powerful tool for scoring a bundle of points early on. You can see the objectives before choosing the location for your deep strike and at the same time avoid the random and dispersed nature of normal reserves rolls.