About Me

Hey there, as you can see this is blog is all about gaming. And that's what I've been doing for pretty much all of my life. Currently I'm completely enveloped in Warhammer 40,000 and I'm breaking into the new Warhammer Fantasy system with the release of the new 8th edition.

Follow me as I build new armies, find newer and better ways to destroy my enemy, learn more about the rules, and just complain about the things that don't go my way :)
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Monday, February 14, 2011

Missions Creep

Have you started to notice how tournaments are shoving in more and more objectives in a game? It's only been a couple weeks since my last tournament but it seems to me that every one I go to has at least 3 different objectives in each game. That's 3 times more objectives then what the 40k rule book has in it's games. It gets even worse when you start to see your Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Missions backed up by 2-3 bonus point objectives.

This wouldn't be to bad, if all of the objectives could be balanced out in a game. What I've started to notice happening is that very competitive players are no longer building their army lists to try to accomplish missions, but rather to table the opponent. Here's why. If you build your army for the in book objetives you have to have a balance of mobility, survivability, and fire power. These 3 items will accomplish the different objective types in the main game. Mobility to capture multiple objectives, Survivability to capture your opponent's objective, and fire power to gain more Kill Points then your opponent.

But Competitive gamers have learned the Skeletal Key of tournament games. If you build your list for fire power only, then all you have to do it table your opponent to win the game. They know that this tactic is the dynamite to your Rock, Paper, Scissors.

What can we do to curve these dynamite players and try to bring tournament armies back to the all-comer lists we used to see. For starters I believe if we began shrinking the number of objectives and stop rewarding those dynamite players for blowing a person up more then the other player who can only accomplish 1 out of 3 we'll start to see army lists at the top tables that are more well rounded.

We can also start creating missions that actually require the objective to be obtained, and on a table result only minimal points are scored. I can hear competitive players screaming now, "But I wiped them out, that's way harder then the mission!" But what if the mission was capture the flag? You don't gain anything by base camping unless you actually are able to get the flag back to your base. If we start to build missions with this mentality then maybe we could see something other then the normal net list across the table.

As I gain more time, I'm going to try to start creating missions like this. And maybe, just maybe the overall tournament environment can be changed a little (hopefully for the better).

3 comments:

  1. First of all, THIS is an excellent quote;
    "balance of mobility, survivability, and fire power."

    From another perspective however, I would have to say is that with all the new armies out there, it's getting more challenging to make competitive "all comers" lists with an older codex (ok, maybe I am not that great of a player either).

    I think some mission diversity is a good thing, or occasionally secondary objectives are a way a losing player can at least get a few more points out of a rough game.

    Perhaps as you suggest; NOT giving automax for a wipe...

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  2. I notice that tournaments are going toward the latter part-->you only get what you get. So if you leafblower your opponent on turn 2 (I've seen it happen) and you never left your deployment zone). Besides, an Imp. Guard player with more firepower than most or all others cannot simply imply that its harder to wipe your opponent.
    Now I'm not bitching toward IG players, I think TOs should set up tables with more than a desert terrain with a few oasis scattered about. Place ample terrain in the middle for LOS blocking and more impassable in the deployment zones making the "standard" deployment harder. Make some of those heavy mech lists (not just IG) start off the board and roll for reserves because there is not enough room for the parking lot

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  3. Thanks Dave :)

    As a tourney guy I do enjoy the different missions. I'm trying to come up with a new system that would allow people to get points for secondaries and the like.

    Kenny

    That's good to know, I've not been in those events yet, they all just hand out points for table. I do agree with the extra terrain instead of the ice scapes we see so often. Maybe things will change soon.

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