Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Better Mission Design - A More Proactive Direction for Tournament Fairness

Let's go through a mental exercise, talking out something I've been chatting with TOs and players from a wide variety of sources. To be clear, this isn't "Mike's idea." This is the formative beginning and articulation of something that could be a pretty valuable direction to travel. It's been discussed and bantered about by an already-large-ish group of TOs and gamers.

To hammer home a point a little bit - right now one of the more important things for the community is TO interaction. There's a lot of it going on behind the scenes, and there also needs to be a broad band of support I think for those who are in the toughest spot; Feast with early qualifiers and LVO with its event right around the corner, Onslaught at TempleCon, etc.; these guys aren't going to have the freedom to innovate and collaborate as much as others like AdeptiCon, NOVA, etc., might given the timing of the recent buzz of COMP PLEASE going on internet/attendee-wide. So cut 'em some slack and show 'em some love, they're working hard to put on fun events regardless.

I'm going to mock up a bit of back and forth here ... so stay with me. Please note the following represents a CONCEPTUAL example and discussion, not a mathematically and playtest vetted final status. Please read through and think about, therefore, the concept and not what the final nuanced and detailed example will be.

So you're at an 1850 point GT, and you've brought ... let's say ... a Dark Angels army with a ton of Tactical Marines, backed by various and sundry fire support and take-all-comers enhancing options. It's Round 1, and as you're walking up to the table you note the particular rules for the event and see the mission is 6 Objectives, each worth 3 points if held at the end of the game.

You saunter up to the table (oh yes, saunter) and shake your opponent's hand, and as you do you notice he's fielding the dreaded JET STAR. He's got a big old squad of warlocks on jetbikes w/ farseers and baron and 2+ re-rollable saves and the works. You're fairly certain he'll hit the overwhelming odds and roll Fortune and a few Protects and Conceals up, and it's gonna be a nasty unit. His scoring is pretty stock-standard as one of the two ways this list is typically run, and consists of 6 squads of 3 guardian jetbikes.

If you're ANY reasonable player in the 40k universe right now, you're thinking "well crap." Not only is this a tough match, it's arguably impossible. All he has to do is beat you down over the course of the game, contest anything you hold with surviving marines late, and grab at least one objective of his own, and bam ... he gets the win (on primary at that, netting him a higher level of points even in most BP formats).

This is where most of the game centralizes ... the missions from the rulebook and thus dictated into tournament play are primarily objectives (With a KP exception). Even in KP, the same armies do well that are frustrating many players on the tournament scene right now - jetstar, screamerstar, ovestar, serpentspam, tau firepower spam w/ hidey sneaky kroot troops, FMC armies that spend the entire game off the board.

They all have a couple of things combined -
1) They are able to keep their models "Safe" ... either by having extreme ranged firepower advantages (serpentspam, tau firepower builds), extremely durable saves (2+ re-rolls), a combination of both (Ovesa Star), or perhaps they just use wonky game mechanics to avoid any kind of damage (FMC on/off play, and guardian jetbikes hiding in corners due to 48" moves, staying in reserves, being kept their by Scrier's Gaze, etc.).

2) They have keynote units that are able to ensure KP advantages or "split" and help ensure contesting all but the minimum their hidey-hole troops need to procure at game end.

Right now the common person playing these Dark Angels may be feeling very similarly to a LOT of the 40k community right now; you'd be feeling this way if he were playing serpent spam, or tau firepower spam, or whatever. You're wondering what the game designers were thinking, you're wishing someone would just say this army can't be taken, you want comp or a ban or ... or SOMETHING. Maybe you don't want to even play in tournaments anymore. If you're most of the internet right now (unfortunately), you also don't care if that means the guy you just shook hands with isn't allowed to use the army he paid for anymore (to be fair, you can't use the one presently that YOU paid for ... so how do we cross the impasse?).

So here is where things get interesting ...
You look down at your scoresheet after you roll for deployment sides, and you notice two check boxes - one for "Standard Primary" and one for "Alternate Primary." You've read ahead and I'm still keeping the punchline for the readers, so you check "Alternate Primary" privately while your opponent notes something down as well. Before deployment, you swap scoresheets. Looking at what you've received, you notice your opponent the Jetstar has selected "Standard Primary," and understandably so; he'll earn 3 points for each objective he holds at the end of the game ... most points scored for objectives wins Primary. You the Dark Angel player have - on the other hand - selected "Alternate Primary." You score nothing at the end of the game; instead, you score 1 point for each objective you hold at the end of ANY game turn.

How do you feel now compared to before knowing about this alternate approach? If you sit and think for a minute, you're going to brighten up considerably. Now instead of having to somehow survive the storm for the entire game, and be in position to contest every single objective and somehow control one of your own, all while dealing with the dreaded Jetstar and whatever support elements it selected ... you have a different route to potential victory (or at least making the game pretty darn interesting). If you can create safe havens with the bodies of your marines, let's say, and control the three objectives closest to you for the first 2-3 turns, you'll earn anywhere from 6-9 Points. It's going to cost you to do this - your opponent is savvy, he won't simply let you do it, but he also can't just separate his superstar on Turn 1 and send it helter skelter all over the board trying to deny you points as he would if you were playing the "standard" version of the Primary at game end. He can't afford to. He'll lose his star if he does, b/c it'll lose fortune after a full turn of separation. Further, you've got plenty of bodies early on - you built your army this way! You've got the troops to create un-contest bubbles for a few turns while he uses his lower # of kill units to start whittling away at you. You're playing to the strengths of the army you designed.

Interestingly, so is your opponent. The mission hasn't nerfed his army - he's still excellent at controlling and contesting objectives late, and his ONE time capture is still worth 3 points per. He's not out of this. But .... he's having to work at it. His army has a certain strength when it comes to objective missions, it's a strength that b/c of the "Base" objective mission is a little bit isolated to a certain army type (crap troops are as good as awesome troops, scoring last second is all that counts).

What about a KP example? You face the same game on Kill Points; your opponent the Jetstar selects KP - it's what his army excels at; he can expertly hide his easier KP and apply the beatstick with his super unit(s). You select "Alternate Primary" and activate VP differential. Now, your opponent is trying to kill more units than you, while you are trying to destroy more points than him. Neither is nerfed, both armies are still playing to their strengths. Theorize a CONCEPTUAL (not mathematically finalized or sound) situation where you earn 1 point for every KP differential if you play the "Standard" ... and you earn 1 point for every 100 points of Points Destroyed differential if you play the "Alternate." Now, once again, each army is playing to its strengths to try and compete the variation on the fundamental mission it is best designed for. If in this theory he kills 6 units and loses 1, he earns 5 points; if he destroys 600 points but you destroy 1300, you earn 7 points (again, these #'s aren't mathematically sound, just concept-clarifiers). The game is still readily and easily scored and understood, despite each of you playing a different spin on the basic mission presented.

This is immediately apparent as superior to building alternating missions where you have no choice - where it's either KP or VP, and you "hope" the wrong matchups happen at the wrong time to deter extreme game-breaking builds. This is what you DO NOT WANT TO DO.

As a conceptual summation - this is all predicated on the very visceral reaction many players rightly have to the notions of "changing the game," or of telling a spread of players that what they bring to a tournament within the legal confines of the purchaseable game of Warhammer 40,000 isn't OK. This is all predicated on the notion that it's wrong and unhealthy and frankly just downright negative to rage that the game is broken and we should just start banning things or nerfing things.

What if instead of nerfing things, we as a community got together and built a catalog of missions along these conceptual lines that allowed a WIDER variety of armies to play according to their strengths and compete against these power builds and any future builds as they competed according to THEIR own strengths. While the jetstar uses its durability and speed to play as well as it can toward the late-game grab, the horde of infantry orks or dark angel tactical marines are playing to their strengths trying to hold valuable ground for as long a period of time as they can to offset what they know is coming late. While Draigowing slaughters unit after unit of trash, the sum greater than the whole works all game toward trying to offset the net loss by cutting the head off the beast.

Instead of making a random mission that "has a warp variance and psykers don't work" that therefore tells Daemon or Eldar players "sorry you can't use your preferred army" in the same way comp does, why not rise above and use our collective minds to create missions that expertly resolve the problem - by giving armies and army types that don't want to play "rocksolid star and late grab" the opportunity to see if they can play to their strengths better than their opponents play to their own?

This is the concept boiled down in fact; instead of "Is his army more powerful than yours? Yes? Sorry!" it's:

Can you play to your army's designed strengths BETTER than your opponent plays to his army's designed strengths?

The desire is to have as many TOs as would like to participate work together to create an independent catalog of vetted and tested GT missions leveraging the above concept, from which any event large or small can draw to present players a fair expectation of what they're going to face, and to redress game balance issues in a way that is proactive, tactically stimulating and positive in nature ... rather than a comp-and-ban-heavy presentation with a decidedly more negative and "god help us" tone. This is the direction we'd love to see the community as a whole go in. If I can only convince a smaller set of TOs to get on board and what-not, so be it, but this isn't about creating "The NOVA Mission Pack!" I have no problem it being an US creating "The Independent GT Mission Catalog" with the contribution and collaboration of all.

These things can be done, IMO they should be done. It's positive, it's proactive, as my fellow TO Neil Gilstrap (11th Co is a nearly-hundred person GT in SC if you didn't know it) is often known to say. Instead of screaming "the sky is falling, nerf and comp it all" we should instead say "We can do a better job presenting a fun and fair environment in which the sky can't fall."

So far, the more people we've been sharing this with, the more positive the feedback has been. What are your thoughts?

46 comments:

  1. Absolutely love the concept. Hoping to get our local TOs and players on board with the idea- at the very least, playtest out some missions to see how they go.

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  2. I think it's a nice concept, and they've done at least one per turn scoring mission at onslaught/templecon for several years, and it's worked well.

    So no problem there. But I don't think it really solves the seer council or jetseer problem, or 2 + rerollable, generally. These units are still highly mobile, and have enormous foot prints. They still are basically impossible to kill and do tremendous damage. SO they can contest a lot of stuff DURING the game, too, and kill your scoring units, and to a certain extent there's little you can do about it as long as THEIR rolls go right (which has the side effect of making you feel like you're not participating -- part of why these games are so unfun).

    Yeah, you're forcing them to be more canny, more out in your face, so potentially you can get better fire lanes for wound allocation, tie them up etc. It definitely HELPS. But I feel like you and Neil are kinda latching onto this as a hope that "See! We don't have to rewrite the rules after all!"

    Well, no, I think you do. You still have to make 2+ rerollable not a thing. This doesn't help against O'Vesa star either. I think it's a good design concept, and it totally should be used, but I don't think it solves the problem of these uber-broken units.

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    1. TBD on playtest whether it does, but in the above example, with the above mission, I'd not fear the Jetstar at all. You wouldn't care that you couldn't kill it, b/c you'd only care about keeping scoring models near objectives and wrapping contests away from them long enough to get enough of a points lead, while focusing fire on opposing scoring models anyway you could / as they arrive. Getting beat up by the end of the game would be irrelevant if you played it right, and that's the subtle difference.

      In your templecon examples, both sides accrued points the entire game, and the jetstar type player could deploy to this point, but expose his hyper-fragile troops in the process; the jetstar itself cannot effectively contest numerous objectives for the entirety of the game, and not against a larger-model-count troop presence opponent.

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    2. Said another way and with a little redundancy, by designing mission opportunities that can be assymetrical, you have far broader access to list builds that can outplay things like Jetstar instead of being faced with "how well you play" not being an option.

      In ref: Ovestar, same situation honestly; Kroot and single Crisis units are awful troops, without any ability to survive board presence while taking fire; they often use outflanking and reserves to stay safe until later game contest. This would put a much larger pressure on them to both arrive, survive and capture enough objectives to overcome a points deficit accrued while the Ovestar was blasting away opposing troops. Yada yada.

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    3. I often infiltrate a large 20 man sniper kroot squad, and I find them super durable against most armies. I also very often run a scoring man crisis team with a tanking commander. I've also never run more than 1 riptide, so....well, I guess they're different lists. Scoring is usually considered one of the Tau weaknesses overall.

      What I am saying is I think the jetseer/screamers can kill enough, fast enough, that it doesn't much matter that you got to score points turn 1 and 2. Double that for the O'Vesa star..... you have 10 tac marines sitting on an objective, one ignore cover blast can make them go away.

      Like I said, it helps, I just don't think it "solves" the problem, and I worry that the idea it might will sap the impetus for change. One of the bright sides about "GW's Advent Calendar from Hell" Is I thought it finally made the general community realize that rules actually DID need to be rewritten, GW has no special genius in making things balanced, may not even care, and that it's time to stop bowing down at the alter of RAW. Just because the rules are written a certain way does not necessarily mean we should play it that way if the results are stupid.

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    4. And yes, of course playtesting should be the ultimate barometer.

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  3. I love Neil. But I also fell victim I his O'vesa Star on Saturday. Truth be told I couldn't have beat him with anyone else's army but - this, this and what I have heard Neil preach is the way of the future.

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    1. Neil was running O'Vesa star? Was this in a tournament, or just to try things out?

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  4. Unique missions have always been the best cure for what ails 40k at any given moment. The trick is finding the right ones for this time in the game. You know you will increase record keeping during the game and this could be a problem for some players.

    How about a KP mission where the KP of units increases as the game goes on. Makes late game units more expensive to keep around unless they were survivable.

    An old one I liked was if two units are contesting an objective, then the one worth more points scored it while the cheaper one did nothing.

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  5. Or another old one was if two units contest an objective, the unit with more total wounds scores and the other does not contest. Scoring units with an armor value would count their front armor value as their total wounds. I think I'm just taking these from Adepticon 2-3 now.

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  6. Excellent article, Mike. I firmly believe this kind of thinking is the future of the game. If we can avoid banning lists or banning items, let's do so.

    I for one am looking forward to seeing what comes out of the think-tank in January.

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  7. Mike,
    Greg and I implemented progressive objectives (what you describe as your alternative) for the AdeptiCon Gladiator for the last three years. We did them in conjunction with a traditional objective, so players had to be able to accomplish both in order to gain max points.

    They work really well for what we wanted them for (rapid separation of players in a battle-points format, primarily, and encouraging early engagement, secondarily). Never thought of them as a counter to the meta-dominance of late-game objective grabbing, but I can definitely see that working as well.

    Drop me a line if you want to chat about how it worked for us.

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    1. Would you be willing to join in on the mission development process?

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    2. Sure. Sounds like fun, and with the AdeptiCon Gladiator on hiatus this year, the only GT-level event I'm doing stuff for is the Michigan GT (at least in terms of mission design - I'm still doing marketing for AdeptiCon).

      I'd be very interested in helping come up with a workable structure. Off the top of my head, I can see at least two ways this could develop to suit both BP tournaments and W/L tournaments.

      Msg me on FB or send me an e-mail if you've still got it.

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  8. Wonderful ideas. This is the type of response that is needed instead of knee jerk reactions.

    A problem could be that this may turn into two players playing solitaire. However with the current meta it is one player playing solitaire.

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  9. This is a great idea that is worth exploring. When you get some testable rules ready, I'd be happy to give them a whirl with my group, as we have players with screamerstar, jetstar, and ovesa-star ready to roll.

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  10. Hey guys, I like the train of thought a lot! So long as we can avoid creating missions that unintentionally benefit the already super powerful armies or don't complicate missions while not resolving the problem, we're down to collaborate and help out! FLG can test ideas in a competitive environment to help and get player feedback. It would be great if we could at least come up with a commonly accepted format, or optional format. It would be a start.

    Nice proactive stance, fellas!

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  11. This doesn’t really seem like anything new at all. What you’re saying is basically that tournaments should have multiple, equally weighted, win conditions. I think a significant amount of tournaments are already run this way. What is interesting is that you’re considering non end of game win conditions. I have always liked these and found they make the game more strategic if done properly. The issue that you might run into is explaining a new mission mechanic to all the players that attend an event the size of NOVA. If you want to see some examples of missions that work in the way your describing check out the ones that I used at the December AWC that I ran. They were really well received by all the players. Also one thing to note, we had both screamer star and a riptide spam at this event and neither of them won all three games. The two players who went undefeated had balanced lists that had multiple ways to be successful in a game.

    -Tim

    http://www.adeptuswindycity.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8501

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    1. This is sort of inherently different from some of the extant multiple, equally weighted win condition formats that are at least broadly popularized, b/c it orients around creating opposed options of the same win conditions. In the current enviro, you'll see formats around the place (including at NOVA) where you have things like "grab more objectives at end game" and "grab more quarters at end game" and "kill points" and "who holds the relic at end game?"

      As long as win conditions are exclusively tied to the basic timing point of the core game, you'll have armies ill-balanced toward taht core game proving dominant to an extreme that's a little unprecedented.

      Rather than telling people who invested in those armies that we're taking their cookies away, and causing other players to wonder if their list is next, creative mission design is certainly a way to address it.

      That said, if you're already implementing win condition combinations that help dampen the dominance of some of the more complained-about armies without rendering them BAD and un-takeable (an important point ... if your missions simply make those armies unable to compete, you're accomplishing the same negative "cons" involved w/ Comp / Banlists), that's pretty awesome!

      I'll take a look at the thread, and appreciate the feedback.

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  12. I like the concept a lot. I think it will need a lot of testing etc....to really get the missions down...but if you come up with some I'd love to check them out and perhaps steal some or all of them. (I'm working on similar stuff myself). Just a few things to keep in mind as you are working.

    1.) You need to make it so that an army is not good at both missions. Take your KP vs VP argument. This really helps against some KP denial Stuff (like FMC spam, where each KP is a lot of VPs) but against Jetseer with 6 Guardian Jetbikes....maybe not as much because a lot of their VPs are tied up in a unit you may not actually be able to kill...same with Screamerstar. Like I said needs some testing. For the objective mission you need to test the same thing. Lets say I play Jetstar with 6 Jet bike troops. Is it possible I choose alternative (because while it is not as sure a win...I think trying to beat you on it will be easier than avoiding that confrontation...that way I don't need my troops tor survive.) Can I contest some of your objectives early with my Star and not troop stuff, while grabbing a couple of points a turn with my own and build a lead. To the point where contesting later (even if all my troops die) nets me the win? For this mission also consider when objectives are scored...Doing it by Game turn allows the player going second a sizable advantage, if they are fast. See the Jetstar example above...if I go second with my Jetbikes I can grab the objectives that are uncontested and you have no way to stop me...and I can move to contest some (if not all of your stuff).

    2.) Consider removing Tabling as a path to victory (obviously not for VPS generally, but KPS maybe). None of this pretty mission design really matters if a player gets blown off the table. If you are going to use scoring during the mission and I earn say 9 points form sitting on objectives by turn 3...and kill all your troops...but you table me on turn 5...you are still technically unable to score your points....Just a thought I like the idea of completing the mission at the cost of your life thing. I'm not saying this is a definite, but I think it adds to the mission choice, because if I always have mission choice...I blow you off the table....then it does not really matter.

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    1. Regarding going second in a mission were you score VP each turn when you hold an uncontested objective, the problem can be avoided by simply saying you score the VP at the beginning of your player turn if you hold the objective uncontested. That gives the opponent one player turn to contest the objective (or blow you off of it).

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    2. If you do that you will need to state to start the count at the top of turn 2....otherwise you end up giving the advantage to player 1 if he can deploy on objectives.

      Otherwise yes that helps some.

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    3. I spoke with Birdux last night about this and I agree with Breng. Tabling is my least favorite way to win or lose and now it is the trump card to any mission. If you can table an army in turn 2 or 1 with XYZ army than what do you care about if he holds a objective for a round when you selected the 3 points at the end of the game ( which now is on turn 2). I do like the idea of getting points each round and 2 scoring tracks during the same game. I just see even this leading to a further escalation of " you need to run a tabling army " to play in a a GT.

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    4. I'm not sure why anyone thinks Tabling would be a route to victory? It's literally NEVER been a win condition at NOVA, ever.

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    5. Yet if you table your opponent you win, correct?

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    6. I'm going to use a Malifaux example again ...

      In Malifaux's "Reckoning" Strategy, you get 1 point at the end of a turn after the first in which you killed 2 "units" or more. You also get 1 point at the end of a turn on which your opponent finishes the turn with 0 models on the board. So if you get beat the hell up trying to wink away your opponent for a tabling win regardless of points differential, you could still readily and easily lose. Additionally, points are capped for the Primary / schemes ... you can't get more than X points for any one objective, so overloading for it (i.e., killing things) will only gain but so much advantage.

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    7. no hate here, just trying to understand it fully is all.

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    8. No hate felt; both trying to help you understand it, and getting free opportunities to improve articulation.

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    9. To be fair it has more or less always been a win at NOVA. Maybe not spelled out but in general (could you win the KP mission after being tabled in the unlikely event that it occured?) since the missions were all end of the game dependent..if I table you I win because you cannot stop me from achieving victory. Now maybe I have no troops...but I still win on tie breaker because I have full VPs from you.

      So while not stated it is extremely unlikely that a tabling will not result in your victory...Now with cumualtive mssions (adding up points during the game) it is very possible to do this.

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  13. I love the idea of both multiple victory paths and having one of those paths be non end-of-game. I particularly like introducing the cumulative win condition. The fact that the current mission structure essentially encourages you to keep your troops off the table as long as you can, hide them once they do come on, and then make a last second dash for the objective is just aesthetically unappealing. I feel like at the most basic level the game should reward you more for having your models on the table doing things than hoping they stay out of play for as long as possible.

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  14. I like it! It will obviously need testing/tweaking to get it working smoothly, but I think it has a LOT of potential to resolve the various issues while still allowing players to use the armies they want. Nicely done!

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  15. That's definitely an interesting concept, Heavy Gear does something similar where they use the threat value of your army to determine how difficult your objectives are. If you run the big bad ass mechs, then you've got to take on a big bad ass objective, while your opponent with their recon force may have a significantly less difficult set of objectives to pick from. I'm not sure how well this would translate into 40k, but it really is a blast in Heavy Gear.

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  16. I am not a big tourney-goer, but I think this sounds like a great idea to me. It would open up so many more options and make a lot of units/armies/lists relevant again. I've always felt if it is good for tourneys it is great for casual games.

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  17. So I will say that one advantage of something like this is it reduces the impact of slow-playing a bit.

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  18. Really interesting idea. I like the idea of opening up a wider selection of possible win conditions, which as you say hopefully opens up more army builds as a result. Also, giving players something to aim for and encouraging actually engaging with the models on the board (like crazy things like moving, shooting and assaulting rather than hiding off the board) it's a really positive thing. I also like your effort to avoid comp! I guess the two biggest things are balancing the missions and getting community buy in.

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  19. Was there any discussion of using the system already included in the game for resolving imbalance, ie points costs? You don't need to outright ban things... why not bump up their points cost in relation to how powerful their rules, stats, and wargear is? The core problem isn't bad missions, it's extreme design imbalance among units. That's not to say I dislike the alternate scenario idea, I think it has potential and improves the state of the game right now which is great. But I don't see it addressing the underlying issue, which will still persist as others have already noted concern about above (Screamerstar, Jetstar, Waveserpent spam, Riptide deathstar are still crazy durable/shooty/killy/fast/broken). Adjusting points values doesn't ban people from using the toys and abilities they want, it just makes them pay a more appropriate cost for units with really good rules. I get that it exchanges a gameplay problem for a logistical/administrative problem on your end as a TO, which is not inconsiderable... but I think it's the best solution, and I can't think of a community better equipped to handle it well than the group of TO's and players that you're already talking with.

    -Brian

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    1. The issue with re-costing every problem unit is that so many of them work of synergy or combos...take screamer star. Screamers by themselves are not worth more than they cost. Nor are heralds of Tzeentch, nor is the Grimoir (which you cannot cost directly without effecting other things). So greatly chaning the cost of one of these things does not fit because people may want to use them outside of said combo. The same is true with Seer Council...ridtide deathstar etc. Then their are units that cost too much should we fix those?

      I would also argue that some of these things are not undercosted...screamer star will run you 600-900 points...hardly cheap so points are not really the issue unless you make them so prohibitive as to ban the unit from play (heralds of Tz are 200 points base), at which point you hurt other possible builds.

      So it would work if all problems were like say the Waveserpent where it is a single unit that is seen as too good, but even then how good? is 150 base enough? 200?

      Appropriately point costing in this system is hard...GW puts no real effort into doing it in a balanced way...so I'm not sure it is really a realistic fix.

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  20. I like the idea of in kill point games where the Kps are based on the percentage of the units cost. It's kind of based on the concept of a unit getting it's points back. If you could tar pit someone's death star and kill the rest, or if it took you 600 points to kill a 500 point death star then it would in theory balance out and not punish armies that might need transports for added mobility (ala rhinos, venoms and others)

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  21. Nice idea. I didn't trawl through all the comment but several other games have a similar concepts in terms of differing objectives in the game for each player. Malifaux is one that springs to mind straight away and might be a good place to look for some further insights.

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  22. Awesome idea. How about a "bring it down" mission? You automatically win if you destroy an opposing Lord of War. :)

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  23. Great concept! Love the idea of it and I think you're spot on with how to bring the tournaments in line with all of the craziness that's out there.

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  24. Didn't Escalation and Stronghold Assault just flip the table on this discussion completely? Nothing-Star will stand up to a D-Weapon.

    "I have Screamer Star!!"
    "I have an Aquila Strongpoint with Vortex Missiles. Suck it.".

    Anything-Star has been the scissors for a while, well now we have a rock.

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  25. I really like this concept I have a meeting this weekend with some local to's and I'm going to bring this up and see if we can start doing some play testing.

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