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

[Prot]

I'm glad some of you are checking this out with an open mind.

 

I'm not blind to the fact that sometimes the cards can burn you. I agree a house rule of discarding something that is impossible to achieve in a given game is probably my favorite solution.

 

That being said, the core mechanic still makes the game so much more dynamic, forcing flexible lists that have to do so much more than sit in a corner and 'pew-pew'.

 

Maybe my favorite part of Malestrom is watching (not only myself but) my opponent's lists change weekly as they try to adapt the flexibility forced by Malestrom. Using units that  were all but dead, or rarely used in 6th is a win-win to me. Armies that were good at moving, but had trouble with forcing the issue against Castling armies now seem to function so much better.

 

I'm just really enjoying it right now and haven't seen a reason to dislike it. I have had turns that sucked... I've been lucky to get even a psychic power I believe it was that allowed me to discard extras.

 

My favorite so far was against an Ork player I reported on in the Dark Angels forum..... we had the mission that said either player could 'steal' the opponent's 'Secure Objective X for a VP'.

 

Between orks and Dark Angels, man that created such a kill fest at the objectives... one of my funnest games in months really.

[Retaliation]

No it's definitely score d3 instead of 1 victory point. It's kind of indicative of a poor grasp of game design. A 33% chance to receive the same reward for doing 1/3 of the work because narrative is just bonkers.

 

There are some aspects of games where randomness is warranted (generally things that would be too powerful to happen all the time like choosing your own objectives), but the default should be things are deterministic (the objective rewards). Always getting an extra victory point for killing 3 units vs 1 would be a far better way of doing it. Honestly though, even the objectives could be done in a way without needing to be random. It's the ability to accumulate points over the course of a game that's great about maelstrom, not the objectives themselves.

[Black Cohort]

To me the new missions like a lot of the changes in 7th are just poorly made bandaids that failed to address a lot of the more serious issues with the resent editions of 40k. My solution was to start writing a new ruleset that draws on the strengths of various editions of 40k and in some cases we found a different solution to a part of the rules. So no for me Maelstrom of war did not save 40k.

 

The thread discussing my "A better 40k" project is given below.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/291523-creating-a-better-40k-unit-types-finished/

[Master Avoghai]

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.

Yeah but you got fun because this was close due to your decisions and his to counter you, because of your bad luck and his bad times to compensate....

Finally you appreciated the game because you had to fight, redeploy, trying ambitious moves. You appreciated because the result is finally the result of what you decided to do.

The thing is, if finally I tell you "sorry you fought well but finally your opponent win on a 4+"... Your defeat will have a bitter taste and actually the victory won't be that satisfying for your opponent as well.

 

So if the result isn't satisfying for anybody, I hardly see how it can be an improvement.

[SnakeChisler]

Each addition of 40k has differences and is more suited to say Mech as 5th was or gunline as 6th was

 

7th is early days but I for one have moved on, the maelstrom games we've had so far have been really enjoyable and a lot of that has been down to the fact the Park your Bus spam fest lists my mates started fetching towards the end of 6th just don't work any longer and in a lot of cases are no longer available.

 

Also the auto pass psychic powers are gone you've got to work on it to get them off and in general it looks a lot more balanced.

 

Hopefully a few custom Tourneys will spring up with Maelstrom elements in them and I for one will look at giving them a go

 

For a dice game you come across a lot of people who really hate randomness and try at every opportunity to find a way round it?

[Cactus]

Retaliation, you're correct. My memory isn't what I'm told it used to be.

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.

Yeah but you got fun because this was close due to your decisions and his to counter you, because of your bad luck and his bad times to compensate....
Finally you appreciated the game because you had to fight, redeploy, trying ambitious moves. You appreciated because the result is finally the result of what you decided to do.
The thing is, if finally I tell you "sorry you fought well but finally your opponent win on a 4+"... Your defeat will have a bitter taste and actually the victory won't be that satisfying for your opponent as well.

So if the result isn't satisfying for anybody, I hardly see how it can be an improvement.

I just fail to see how the Maelstrom of War missions can be won or lost on a single dice roll if the game isn't already close, so it's something of a non-issue to me. I've seen games that hinge on a single saving throw or morale check and didn't feel cheated when lady luck smiled on my opponent at the critical moment. Set VPs make the risk/reward analysis easier when it comes to deciding if you'll take a risk and attempt to finish off that second unit or whatever, which if I understand correctly is your issue with the current system. You want a guarantee that if you take that risk and pull it off you will gain VPs that you wouldn't otherwise. GW have given a chance that you'll get those extra VPs. I don't agree that one method is objectively better than the other.

For a dice game you come across a lot of people who really hate randomness and try at every opportunity to find a way round it?

This is true, and worthy of its own discussion.

[Master Avoghai]

I just fail to see how the Maelstrom of War missions can be won or lost on a single dice roll if the game isn't already close, so it's something of a non-issue to me.

The fact that it is close is the center point : each players tried to give their best to give a hard opposition, counter the opponent and finally get the draw or win a short victory.

If after this effort, your opponent is saying "ah sorry but your objective value is 1 and mine is 3 so all the efforts you did have finally no point" I don't call it a fair game.

 

Imagine yesterday, Holland losing 2-1 and rush in the last 20minutes and finally winning 3-2... Would you call it fair to say them :" sorry guys, we rolled the dice for the value of your goals and finally you lose 5-4..." <_<

 

I've seen games that hinge on a single saving throw or morale check and didn't feel cheated when lady luck smiled on my opponent at the critical moment.

You can see that way... Or see it like : if you had succeeded more rolls before, you wouldn't be in this critical situation. So you final dice roll just bring back the balance on all the bad luck you had during the game.

 

You seem to say that 40k is a game of luck. But it ain't. It's based on statistics and big volumes of dice. Of course there's a part of luck of bad luck. One of my best friend recently managed to fail 8 4++ saves in a row on his LRs withPFG... Well that happens. Just like it happened in football when Brazil meets a Mexican goal keeper in a good day.

But you learn to play with that and finally, when you see who win and who loose, you see it's always the same people. So, even if you're playing with dice, randomness is not that important in the game.

On the opposite, LOtR meta games are based on luck... You see how well is the game nowadays? I don't want it for 40k.

 

Introducing random VP is a very bad idea to me because it makes playing useless... If the result is decided on a random value of VP, why bothering playing? Roll the dice now and see who wins.

[SnakeChisler]

Introducing random VP is a very bad idea to me because it makes playing useless... If the result is decided on a random value of VP, why bothering playing? Roll the dice now and see who wins.

 

 

And that's exactly what my mate said when they introduced random Psychic Powers he still bellyaches on about it 2 years down the line

 

Its there on purpose so that the game can still be won / lost / drawn in epic style

 

Going into the 5th turn only myself chief librarian and the apothecary have survived but the fate of the Universe is all in my hands shall I accept defeat meekly cowering like a worm or shall my star burn brightly in one final blaze of glory as my power axe cleaves the alien scum in half in one final desperate charge. Praying to the emperor I send the apothecary off to the right to cut down the remnants of the fire warriors while I engage the Massive lumbering Battlesuit 

[ValourousHeart]

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.

-

 

 

If finally I tell you "sorry you fought well but finally your opponent win on a 4+"... Your defeat will have a bitter taste and actually the victory won't be that satisfying for your opponent as well.

So if the result isn't satisfying for anybody, I hardly see how it can be an improvement.

 

Hmm... I am not sure I would agree with that. I remember 2 games that came down to a single die roll in which victory was achieved or lost. The first game was vs. IG (this was back before their rebranding), we were playing an objective mission in 4th ed and my opponent had killed off every scoring model in my army by turn 3. He should have one and I should have lost right. But in stead of conceding I pressed on. Last turn I have 2 speeders left, and he still controls 1 objective... shooting phase... morale check... he falls back off the objective... game ends in a tie. We both still remember that game fondly.

 

Second game was RW vs TWC.... the fight was brutal... I thought I had been truly violated. But when the game ended I was only 1VP down and lost... however the best part was the Mexican stand off image that the final position of the models that made the game so much more memorable. Cannis and Co. were preparing to charge out of the woods into the waiting sights of my Speeders. Funny enough was that there was 1TWC per speeder, and each one was armed with an AC. But that is where the game ended and the store closed.

 

Neither I nor my opponents were mad about either of those ending on a single die roll.

 

And the games that ended in a landslide victory were not decided on a single die. We might be able to recall the tipping point where the key to our defense was lost. But there were a series of decisions and dice rolls before and a after that happened that sealed the conclusion of that game.

 

I can see why you want to remove the randomness out of the risk reward system, you want the risk to be IF you accomplish the task, not IF you score the reward. And I can appreciate that, even if I disagree with it. But that second IF is how most things work... only in elementary school do you receive high marks for participation. The rest of the time you have the situation where the reward is never quite as big as you had hoped. Rarely is there a situation that if you succeed you're a millionaire and if you fail you're bankrupt. More often than not, if you succeed you have simply created a steady income but one you will have to work for to keep it going.

 

I think that 7th has created a system that bridges the differences between mission and KP armies. And rewards players for building armies that are flexible. And I believe your change favors players with KP armies. After all your solution doesn't reward me for controlling objectives that I don't have cards for. Should I get 1KP for controlling objective #3 plus 1KP for each additional objective that I currently hold?

[Master Avoghai]

After all your solution doesn't reward me for controlling objectives that I don't have cards for. Should I get 1KP for controlling objective #3 plus 1KP for each additional objective that I currently hold?

Thats exactly what I'm saying : you already have the randomness of picking the card + the variation around the average.. Too much randomness kills randomness..

 

I'm repeating again : LOTR is dying of too much randomness.

To keep players in the game you have to leave the feeling that even if :cuss happens sometimes, it's the best player who wins.

[FerociousBeast]

If you want the best player/list to win, that's what you've got the normal missions for. Maelstrom is there for those who want a good time playing in a new way with lots of twists and turns in a game. Tournaments will likely use standard missions or tightly controlled maelstrom variants.

[ValourousHeart]

@FB,

That is halarious, I about fell out of my chair when I read that.
I never though I would hear you say that the best player and list were the ones that can't or won't adapt to changing circumstances.

I honestly don't get why you guys think that these cards are a bad change to the game and not good for a tournament.

Let's look at how they break down.

Cards 11 to 36 require you to get to and control a specific objective. In order to accomplish this (or prevent it) you have to be able to move quickly and clear any defenders (or repel any attackers). They count for 18 victory points.

Cards 41 to 46 require you to control different regons of the table or multiple regons at once. In order to accomplish this you can't castle, you have to move your units around the board. Again you have to be able to move and either clear any defenders or repel any attackers in order to claim or deny these points. They count for 9 to 17 22 victory points. 

Cards 51 to 56 require you to bring the pain. You just have to remove units form the board, sometime specific units. You were going to do it anyway, so why not collect some extra VP for it. There are 2 possible cards in the group that could be considered useless... one requires you to issue a challenge and the other to cast a psychic power. They won't always be useless, just in very rare situations. These cards count for 6 to 21 victory points.

Cards 61 to 66 require you to destroy a specific target. These seem to be the most likely cards that are being called useless... But are they really? Let's take a closer look.
61 - Warlord... everyone has to take one, no exceptions. Don't forget that one of your secondary objectives is to kill this guy too.
62 - Psyker, Psychic Pilot, Brotherhood of Psyker/Sorcerers... ok so a few armies don't have them, but every army has access to them via allies. But the person may not take one.
63 - Flyer or FMC... each new codex is getting one or the other, it is just a matter of time before everyone has one. But the person may not take one.
64 - Character... is there a codex that doesn't have any characters? Aside from an unbound list, is it possible to field an army without a single character?
65 - Gun Emplacement, Building, or Mighty Bulwark... everyone has access to these, but they may not chose to take one.
66 - Vehicle, MC, Super Heavy or GC... every army has one or more units that fit into one of these categories, but they may not chose to take one.

The one big caviot to this last group is that if your opponent opts not to take these units as a means to denying you the victory points, most likely they have made your job easier. These cards account for 6 to 14 victory points.

 

** EDIT ** Noticed I miscounted the points on cards 41 to 46.

[Teetengee]

@Valorous Heart, I agree mostly with your sentiment, although some footslogging armies can easily ignore 62-3 and 65-6. That being said, I think Maelstrom rules modified with "immediately discard objectives you will not ever be potentially capable of completing" will create interesting and fresh tournament environments.

[Master Avoghai]

Btw I'm wondering : do you replace a fulfilled objective card in the pack or do you put it on the side?

Because if we have an opponent rolling on the table, he may get the exact same result several times in the game.

On the other side, if you discard the card you lose this eventuality..

[Prot]

Don't have the rulebook at my side but as far as I know you cannot get the same one twice.

 

All are available to both players though, so multiple decks of the Tactical Objective cards are a must imo.

 

Discard as you complete them. Discard one per turn on top of that (if you wish). Replace in the beginning of your turn.

[thepowerofwar]

Ok so what i am seeing is that some people are not liking the random VP from some of the cards.  In General all the cards are worth 1 VP and the ones that are have the random added are for  a bonus chance at more VP if you push a bit more.  This bonus for doing something that you were wanting to do/were doing anyway.  Or Would you stop attacking after 1 unit was killed because any other units would not get you any more VP.  As for the Random its just a bonus chance at VP just like trying to get a charge off or will you scatter with that deep strike/blast.  Heck what about reserves they are random too, they might not show up when you need them.  Does that mean that reserves are bad because they are random.  No but that was made to account for things could happen story wise that made you guys late just as a risk in the battle could be better than you thought or it could be worse.  

[IanSturrock]

The problems with "d3 Victory Points" are manifold, I think.

 

I don't think it's unreasonably to take as a starting point that victory points should NEVER have a random factor. You have enough random factors, that you need to consider at all times, that affect all of your attempts to achieve a given objective. To find, on achieving it, that it's not worth very much to you, is a bit of a slap in the face; unlike all the other random factors, it's not really something you can plan for, or work around.

 

In some games, those d3 rolls will make a significant difference. Let's assume that you play a game where you achieve two of the d3 VP cards, and your opponent also wins two. If you get 2 VP, and she gets 6 VP, you are understandably going to be disappointed! All right, that doesn't happen *that* often (1/81 chance), but why should it happen at all? Does it really enhance your game when it does happen? Because a 4 VP swing is huge; that's not just a decider for close games.

 

Finally, and I hate to bring in 'realism' to this one, but, what does random VP represent? Is whoever is giving your force orders so fickle? "You must do your best to destroy three tanks this turn" *you do so* "Ah, we changed our minds, one would have done just fine."

Easiest and best to just house-rule it as d3=2 VP, I think.

[thepowerofwar]

I find the D3 VP stuff to be a good bonus point for more work type thing but the only card I have found that I dislike is the one that gives a VP for every mysterious objective that has revealed.  But a random chance for 2 extra that you actually have to work for  I feel is balanced.

[ValourousHeart]

The problems with "d3 Victory Points" are manifold, I think.

...

Finally, and I hate to bring in 'realism' to this one, but, what does random VP represent? Is whoever is giving your force orders so fickle? "You must do your best to destroy three tanks this turn" *you do so* "Ah, we changed our minds, one would have done just fine."

Easiest and best to just house-rule it as d3=2 VP, I think.

The only real problem with random victory points is for tournament players, who for some reason dispise all things random. I understand wanting to have more or less reliablity, but perdictability in a game is when the fun has left. You might as well being watching a movie you have seen 100 times.

 

Oh would you like some realism in your toy soldier battles? No so real as someone smashing the models in your casualty pile with a hammer to show which ones succumed to their wounds, but maybe a hint of realism. (don't freak out, it was just a bad joke). So a real world example of an army acheving what it set out to do but not having it be well received after the fact.

 

1. Thermopile - from the Persian perspective. IE the cost of achieving that goal was too great.

2. The Iraq WMD - from the American People's perspective. The prize turned out to be nothing of value or substance.

 

It could also be that the item you were trying to reclaim was distroyed during the fighting. Or those pesky droids escaped with the Death Star plans. Either way the brass is displeased because that asset was lost. Or maybe they wanted prisoners to interogate and your men just decided to kill them all.

 

There are lots of reasons that the objective would be less valuable than you initally thought. The odds are a lot less than 1:81... you also claimed that both players drew and scored the same 2 objectives, and apparently either didn't score any other objectives or they all washed out evenly.

[IanSturrock]

I didn't suggest that the two players in my hypothetical example scored nothing elsewhere, or scored evenly -- I pointed out that a 4VP swing *purely due to chance* is huge, and will affect all kinds of situations, not just situations in which everything else is close.

 

There's just no good reason to have random VP from a game design or fluff perspective... and plenty of reasons not to.

 

Unless you'd be happy with each player getting a random d6 extra VP at the end of the game. Because forging a narrative, innit.

[Master Avoghai]

@ValorousHeart :

 

There are lots of reasons that the objective would be less valuable than you initally thought. The odds are a lot less than 1:81... you also claimed that both players drew and scored the same 2 objectives, and apparently either didn't score any other objectives or they all washed out evenly.

The odds are 1:81 using the random value... They are 0 if you use non random value...

 

I've raised the question several times but neither you nor other managed to answer : "what kind of unfair situation that could lead to unsatisfaction of both players the non random situation will create"

 

I'll make a metaphor

 

Let's suppose 40k is a patient suffering a "non fun syndrome" that could kill him.

Doctor GW decides to apply the maelstrom drug to heal this dying patient.

The patient is safe and is happy though it may occur that in 1:81 of the cases, the patient could die of nun fun due to random side effects.

Some people propose a solution that still could heal but without any side effect...

 

Do you find it logical to say : no need to administrate this new drug, the current one works well and if 1:81 patients dies it's not that important...?

 

I'm totally open minded and if you show me that the non random solution introduce more complications with a ratio superior to 1:81, then I would say "thank you sir to show me something I haven't noticed, I stand corrected".

But here I still fail to see what's the problem is using a non random VP...

[Chaplain Lucifer]

I feel this discussion is going in circles at this point. Agree to disagree and move on.

[thepowerofwar]

So Back to the topic.  With the 2 games of 7th I have played using these missions have been the most enjoyable I have played in years.  5-10 loss and a 10-8 win.  But with both of these game the flow of play was tense and the game plan for both players had to constantly change and evolve.  There was non of the hole bs of a gun line you might make it to or death star sitting on/kicking you off of an objective because the battle was constantly changing. 

[Master Avoghai]

Btw, do you think those missions are playable below 1500pts?

 

I tend to feel that with 1000pts you won't have enough unit to fulfill the objectives wether it's you inflicting enough damage or the opponent having enough targets to oppose,

[thepowerofwar]

1k I would say yes for the most part but anything below that I would be hard pressed to. But for me playing below 1k is brutal hard to do anyway .