MajorSoB
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 15, 2010 1:02:47 GMT -5
Here is a rewrite on mission 6. There is a modification on how Toxic Wasteland will affect both troops and vehicles. I hope this offers better balance to between elite and horde style infantry. There also is a modification to the vehicle affects since it makes sence that vehicles should have a chance to avoid the affect due to their construction. Again please take the time to play these missions then let me know your thoughts. Attachments:
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Post by chumbalaya on Jul 15, 2010 7:35:39 GMT -5
Not as harsh, but a Land Raider suffering a random penetrating hit from swamp gas does seem a bit too much. Auto-pinning is pretty nasty too.
How about just a straight dangerous terrain test? It can still cause problems, but there's less of a chance for it to be completely game changing.
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Post by Horst on Jul 15, 2010 8:20:34 GMT -5
Nah, the idea with pinning is good.
the dangerous terrain test is far less d**ning than loosing d3 models. I'd rather have a unit of terminators pinned for a turn instead of half gone. Also, because terminators / nobs are usually in vehicles, this won't really pin them but instead just normally slow down their transports (or if their transport explodes, make them get out)
also, this effects hordes just as much, because having a unit of 30 boyz pinned is harsh.
land raiders are effected less than other vehicles too, because you really have to roll a 6 to have it effected, then another 6 to get penetrated, then ANOTHER 4,5, or 6 to have a damaging result... and because normally there is only 1-2 raiders on the field, its not likely to happen. its a what, 1 in 72 chance of being seriously damaged? With average 6 rounds in a tournament, if you take 1 land raider, you have about a 50% chance your raider will be undamaged for every game you play. this hurts vehicle spam armies like mech guard far worse, because more vehicles = more fails.
i'll reserve final judgements/suggestions until after this weekend... i'm going to see if I can't get a game in to test this.
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Post by Horst on Jul 16, 2010 6:43:59 GMT -5
question:
can the imperial guard officers use the "get back in the fight" order to break out of pinning?
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Post by chumbalaya on Jul 16, 2010 7:52:23 GMT -5
Guardsmen: "Hurk we're dying *choke gasp splutter*"
Officer: "Walk it off you pansies, or do I have to call the commissar?"
Guardsmen: "For the Empero *hack wheeze*"
I don't see a problem with it.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 16, 2010 8:05:36 GMT -5
Well you justified it to me against monstrous creatures which are immune to pinning as "getting stuck in toxis goo" or something similar.
So if a fearless, unpinnable MC can be pinned, how can a special rule from a different codex be exempt?
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Post by Brinan The Barbarian on Jul 16, 2010 19:52:04 GMT -5
maybe we can reword it, the unit can not move, shoot or assault. Maybe the fluff behind it can be that they are knocked unconscious. Poison doesn't care who you are, how big you are, and what you are scared of. lol
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 21, 2010 9:21:07 GMT -5
Steve and I are going to playtest "Toxic Wasteland" tonight and I think I just need one clarification.
The Toxic Wasteland special rule says "for each non-mech...dangerous terrain on 6 of d6. Vehicles take glancing on 4-5, pen on 6."
Does this mean the vehicle units have to test for toxic wasteland first, and if they roll a 6, they then roll again receiving a glance on 4-5 pen on 6 instead of suffering normal dangerous terrain? Or, does it mean every turn each vehicle receives a glance on 4-5 pen on 6?
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MajorSoB
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 21, 2010 22:40:56 GMT -5
Infantry- On a 6 the unit suffers dangerous terrain test for all the models. Roll results per the 40K Rule book, remove casualties, the unit cannot move or shoot for the remainder of that turn.
Mech- On a 6 that particular vehicle is affected. Roll a D6, with the following results: 1-3 no affect, 4-5 one glancing hit, 6 one penetrating hit. Roll the results of the glancing or penetrating hit on the vehicle damage chart in the 40K Rule book.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 24, 2010 10:01:22 GMT -5
Had a chance to playtest #6 last night. Here are my impressions and suggestions.
1 - This mission has the potential to be very difficult!
A. There are no rules about placing objectives in the mission so worst case scenario, you end up in a 1 objective game with the only objective on your opponent's table edge.
B. The further into a game you go, the more casualties rack up and decrease the amount of scoring units you potentially have. In our game, the objective wasn't discovered until t4 and it was in my deployment zone. Game over.
C. The "toxic wasteland" effect furthers the difficulty to capture or contest the only objective late game by pinning models not in transports. Also, there are rarely mobile transports remaining late in games to aid in capturing or contesting. Potentially even less after 4-d turns of "toxic wasteland" rolling.
Conclusions:
1. The mission was indeed fun to play.
2. The combined mechanics of searching the objectives and "toxic wasteland" will end up favoring deepstrike, outflank, and mechanized lists. Footdar, logan wing, green horde, and infantry blob armies potentially face an un-winnable mission if the true objective isn't discovered until t4+ and their units get pinned by "toxic wasteland".
Suggestions:
1. Add objective placement rules like no closer than 12" to a table edge or each other.
2. Clarify that units can search the same objective consecutive turns.
3. Take out the pinning effect on "toxic wasteland". The damage potential is enough to add flavor and still make winning possible for non-mech armies.
4. Maybe change the dice rolls for searching objectives to 6 on t1, 5+ on t2, 4+ on t3. You're already requiring units to forgo shooting/running to search. With bad dice rolls, this can cripple shooty armies as they give up several shooting phases by searching.
I really like the mission, but I think the above changes will help avoid people claiming the mission was bias agaisnt their army type or "I got screwed by the mission".
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MajorSoB
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 24, 2010 18:55:05 GMT -5
Thank you for the feedback.
1) I will clarify that the objectives have to be place at least 12" from the table edge and 12" from each other.
2) You can search objectives in consecutive turns as long as your remain in base contact with them.
3) Again I realize you play a non-mech army and pinning is something you don't like. I also realize it can be hard due to its randomness but I think it adds dimension to this mission. Please tell me how often pinning was a factor in your game? Did it work equally for both armies?
4) If pinning can nerf the assault style armies, I think the "search" as it stand works well to balance out shooty style armies. Again this mission was written so that the players would have to make a choice between normal game decisions and "searching". It was written very similarly to previous archeology type missions that many veterans will tell you they have played.
Thank you again for your feedback. Could you post a BR?
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 25, 2010 6:50:15 GMT -5
I didn't take proper pictures and notes but I will with Steve Tuesday and BR it. Basically, we rolled 4 objectives and placed 1 in each DZ and 2 more in the middle. Both of us searched the DZ objectives t1 and nothing. T2 66% of my list was DS'ing or outflanking and I rolled in everything, chaos marines got lesser daemons and termicide. I searched my DZ again and chaos searched 2 and no 6's. T3 I'm tearing him up and he's still failing reserves for GD and chosen. 3 more search rolls and no 6's. T4 I discover the objective in my DZ, chaos gets GD but has no champions left and chosen outflank on the worst possible table edge. At this point we call it as there is no possible way he can capture or contest.
In the end, pinning didn't change much. Considering we searched a total of 9 times over 4 turns before my opponent was forced to rush my DZ for the only chance to win, the mission was hard enough without the pinning. Granted, he failed a lot more reserve rolls than me, but I had HC +1. Other than that, the battle was balanced. Had he rolled a 6 for the objective in his DZ at the bottom of t4 instead of me, it would have been an auto-win for him also. Unless you've nearly tabled your opponent that late in the game, attrition losses are going to be heavy enough to prevent most players from being able to move scoring units 24-36" to capture objectives discovered in t4. Many armies (like nids, eldar, etc) rely on cohesion and synergy so spreading out to cover 3-5 objectives while waiting for them to be searched is a very bad idea as you lose synapse, area buffs, fortune, guide, etc.
That was the basis of the other suggestions I made. The randomness of the search objecive mechanic favors armies that can move really fast late game and don't need things like synapse range or summoning icons. Add in the possibility that the only objective is discovered in your opponent's DZ and your closest unit just got pinned by toxic wasteland and you potentially have some angry GT players.
Like I said, it was a fun game but the potential to be beat by the mission and not your opponent is high. I'll be playing Steve's mech marines Tuesday so we'll see if that plays out any differently.
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MajorSoB
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 25, 2010 19:18:53 GMT -5
Thanks for the BR.
Here is where you went wrong from my perspective. In a search style mission you need to get to the objectives fast and search as much as you can in the early part of the game. Keeping units in reserve and off the table defeats that purpose unless you think you have a good chance of reacting to the objective when it turns up, overpowering what you have guarding it, then taking control.
Most armies rely on cohesion, not just synaptic creatures. You need to get to as many objectives as you can and search them early on. Tyranids have the advantage of wings and fleet as well as drop podding spores and infiltrating units like genestealers and lictors, as well as your trygons and mawlocs.
This mission is forcing you to think and use your army in a way other than what you are not accustomed to using it for. Control and capturing the objective is as important as killing things.
Please try this again with the amendment to objective placement.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 26, 2010 9:09:24 GMT -5
Yes I'm aware of the diverse codex choices for tyranids. I've been playing them exclusively since march and my mg/boldos/ardboyz combined tourney record is 12-2-1.
The list I am playtesting with is potentially my gt list and consists of: Tyrant 2 guards 7 ymgarl genestealers 10 genestealers 4 rippers 20 termagants Tervigon 3 raveners 4 spore mines Tyrannofex Carnifex in pod
Deployed the tyrant, tfex, and gaunts on my dz objective. Terv, stealers outflanking. Rippers, raveners, and carnifex dsing and ymgarls doing their thing by my opponents dz objective. That gave me safe strikes on all objectives when reserves arrive.
I mentioned two objectives were searched t1, that was my dz and his. Then 3 searched t2 and t3. That's all that could have been done without sacrificing units needlessly to get a single extra search roll.
Your assertion that we made poor decisions about not searching objectives early is ludicrous as we were searching 3 of 4 objectives as of t2. We just never rolled a 6 until turn 4 and by then the combination of remaining units, pinned units, and objective location made it impossible for chaos to win.
A majority of the gt players will only see and play this mission once if it is chosen. Telling them they played it wrong is going to defeat your goal of running a fun event if the reason they lost is inability to roll one 6 out of 8 attempts.
We're trying to help by playtesting and reporting in. We're not tailoring lists to beat our opponent or the mission. Telling your playtesters they chose the wrong units or made bad decisions doesn't help you i£prove the mission mechanics at all, especially under assumptions you make without even being present for the game.
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MajorSoB
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 26, 2010 21:54:09 GMT -5
With all do respect Aaron, you need to calm down and understand what I wrote. Please stop looking at everything through your own eyes and how it affects you. This mission was not written to adversely affect your army but to affect every army the same way. Yes it put you at a disadvantage but it also put other players at a similar disadvantage.
Like it or not, I have played this game just a bit longer than you have. I was not trying to fault you or personally attack you so dry the tears and read what I wrote. Let's play Math Hammer, statistically speaking you have a 17% chance of finding the hidden objective each time you search a marker. Notice that I did not remove the markers after a search meaning you may search the same marker multiple turns. If you search two markers that is a 33.333% (repeating, of course!) chance per turn of discovery, three would yield a 50% chance per turn. Oh yeah that is only if one army is searching. Statistically speaking that means that if you search two objective per turn you should discover the objective turn 3, leaving you at least 2+ turns to get to it and try to control it, or eliminate your opponents ability to control it and play for a draw. Statisically speaking you should have unearthed the objective sooner from what you searched but sometimes things dont go as planned. Ask a Death Wing player about this when his reserves fail or ask an old Black Legion player what happened when his 4th edition Deamon bomb never went off. This is a dynamic game and not all aspects of it are ( or should be ) tightly controlled and predictable.
The advice I gave was sound. This mission is based on several other missions that many of the older and grumpier players have played at past GT's. What I was stating is that this mission does not favor holding things in reserve since if you do you are losing the ability to contact and search the markers, thus revealing the objective. You can of course play it like that banking on the idea that the objective may be found and that you can use your reserves to rest away control from your opponent into your hand.
Thank you for confirming my suspicions about your list. You could have deployed nearly everything rather than holding it in reserve. You made a choice. You also could have chosen to wipe out your opponent while having a solitary unit search markers, thus beating his by either revealing the objective ( and controlling it) or just searching more markers to receive half points. ( Fact- no one has ever scored a perfect battle score at our GT! ) There are many ways of playing this and I thought I was helping by pointing out the perceived errors that I felt you made. In the future play it like you wish but don't complain about your results when you take constructive criticism so harshly.
Again sorry if my advice was taken as an insult. If I wanted to insult you I would not have been so subtle, its not my style!
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