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Post by chumbalaya on Jul 26, 2010 23:07:36 GMT -5
don't complain about your results when you take constructive criticism so harshly. Pot, kettle, I lol'd. And, just FYI Doug, 'nids in Pods and Ymgarls have to start in reserves (because only SPESS MEHREENZ are awesome enough to have options when it comes to deploying : . Having the only objective show up in your opponent's back corner where you have no chance of getting it is uber harsh. Not totally likely, but the potential is there for some folks getting screwed. Basically, if you aren't playing Elfdar and they get lucky with the objective, you're boned. Same deal with the pinning thing, it's too random and potentially game breaking. It ceases to be a competition and turns into Russian roulette. We can just D6 it, on a 4+ I win otherwise you win and save a couple hours. Fine for a one off scenario or goofing around on the weekend, much more frustrating if there's actually something on the line. I know this because I played lots of 3rd ed, which means that experience is relevant to 5th ed, right? Pro tip: it isn't. Any foot army is going to be in trouble right from the get go, while mech lists have an even bigger advantage on top of the ones they normally enjoy. And, of course, if you have the chance of effectively losing 1 or more units every turn, it only encourages people to field redundant units ("spam," as it's known colloquially), which I've gathered is not your aim (because military forces should never look cohesive). Actively discouraging entire builds and playstyles because of one mission is a real good way to reduce diversity, which I think is bad. Perhaps a competitive setting is not the place to run random lolhammer missions? Keep things simple and familiar for players and games will get done quicker and with less confusion. If there's only 2 and a half hours for a game, I'd want to get going ASAP rather than study a page of special rules for half an hour. How about this? -5 objectives, 1 in each player's DZ and 3 in the middle (not within 12" of board edge or each other). 2 of the 3 are "duds" as discovered when a unit grabs one (on a 4+ or whatever). Less random = more consistent = more balanced = nobody gets screwed. -Units that start the turn within capture range have to take Ld or become pinned. Objectives can be gas vents or particularly corroded objectives. Also, maybe dangerous and difficult terrain. Discourages camping, encourages aggressive play. -Maybe keep the "roll for every unit" thing (can slow things down with bigger armies) but just make it dangerous terrain for infantry and vehicles. I don't see swamp gas blowing up a Land Raider, sorry. Any casualties = pinning check. Pretty much, you want to keep things similar to normal missions to maintain balance and make things easier on the players so they can focus on beating their opponent and not a wacky mission, reasonably balanced so nobody gets unfairly screwed and has a bad time, and unique enough that people can enjoy the extra flavor without it negatively affecting their play. How's that for constructive criticism? I could have just called you a doofus and went to bed half an hour earlier ( Love ya, Doug) but I care too much.
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MajorSoB
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The oldest
THE GRUMPY OLD MAN!
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 26, 2010 23:40:53 GMT -5
Class is now in session, Chumby what are you doing out of class with the rest of your window licking buddies?
Today's lessons will focus on English and History. First let's analyze what I wrote. I said "nearly everything" in regards to what could deploy. This statement takes into account that the vast majority would be able to deploy and some would not. Had I said "everything" without using the word "nearly" to clarify you would be correct, however you are not...
Now on to History. This type of mission has been played in Warhammer 40K since the Rogue Trader days. It has appeared in several tournament and GT that I have been part of. If you talk to some players who have actually played this game for more than a year or two they will echo what I am saying. The mission should have been played with markers being placed at least 12" from the board edge and from each other. ( This will be corrected in the rewrite and was explained a few posts back. ) Again if you move to the objectives and begin searching early on you tip the odds dramatically in your favor that you will discover the objective and control it. By pushing your force up the table it also helps you contest or gain control of an objective across the table. The mission is a minimum of 5 turns with a maximum of 7, any army should be able to make it across the table even without the aid of vehicles, deepstriking and infiltrating. Of course if you choose to play a "sit back and shoot, tribute to the missile launcher style of army" you may not make it to many markers, thus sealing your fate.
Now I do respect Aaron for actually playing this mission. He has some concerns and that is why I attempted to give him advice as to how to score in this mission. Now how about you Chumby, have you played this mission? I did hear you had a brief outing saturday and had to call on Buddha to keep your models from disappearing off the board. In the event you can actually play another game in the next month or so ( providing you don't have any more graduation parties that need chaperoning..) I invite you to play this mission, THEN comment. Here is a hint for you, sitting on your butt and shooting will not work unless you can table your opponent, again that was "table your opponent" not get tabled.
Grumpy, wiser than you, old man outta here....
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Post by chumbalaya on Jul 27, 2010 6:38:52 GMT -5
Brief? You call 8 hours brief? That tourney was endless, lol. Buddha saves. What's been done in previous editions is irrelevant; those were different games. Using rules from 3rd edition in 5th is just begging for trouble, just look at the Dark Eldar! Truth be told, I don't have to playtest this mission to see where its problems are. If they're that readily apparent, even to a cursory glance, we've got problems. I know enough about the game and how various army builds work to see that it's all luck of the draw and heavily favors armies like Eldar. My army has a tough time getting past midfield, but I go for sustained mobility over bursts of speed and things seem to work out fine. I can reasonably get to objectives at midfield or in my DZ, but if it ends up in my opponent's DZ I'm playing for a draw pretty much automatically. Not my definition of fun. There's no skill in that, just luck and it detracts from the game. Like I said before, you can save 2 hours and just D6 the winner, it's the same principle. Good work responding without acting like a total knob, I'm proud of you. Maybe this whole adult discussion thing can work for you too. Pro tip: avoid including ad hominem attacks when trying to get your point across. Me losing a doubles game (everybody loses some time, if you aren't then you need to find better competition, it's the best learning experience you can get, and also I blame Tim ) isn't germane to the discussion at hand and, well, makes you look like a bit of a knob.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 27, 2010 7:03:34 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. 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! I don't think you're actually reading my posts. I won the game. Despite all your points on my tactical mistakes, in the end I won so they didn't matter. You also apparently didn't read the part where I had every one of my 6 reserved units arrive on t2. Deploying everything that I possibly could on t1 would not have allowed me to search any more objectives. My opponent actually searched more than me at the cost of letting me play more aggressively and do more damage. Then, when he had half his forces left and I finally rolled a 6 for the objective in my own DZ which I searched 4 consecutive turns, there was no way for him to get past my tyrant, tervigon, and 3 waves of termagants I had spawned around it. The point of this post, all the GT missions being available early, and us spending our time playing them is to provide a better GT experience in the end. My playtest analasys was intended to help you improve the mission mechanics. Instead of realizing that, you pointed out flaws in the winning player's play style? Good luck do the same when a field of 80 players have comments and concerns about a potentially un-winnable mission at the GT. Since all I've accomplished by playtesting and posting suggestions is increased blood pressure and stress, I'm done. AFAIK, Steve and I are playing the mission again tonight. Maybe you'll accept his feedback better than mine if he takes the time to report in afterwords.
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Timbo
Sergeant
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Post by Timbo on Jul 27, 2010 12:37:28 GMT -5
Me losing a doubles game (everybody loses some time, if you aren't then you need to find better competition, it's the best learning experience you can get, and also I blame Tim ) isn't germane to the discussion at hand and, well, makes you look like a bit of a knob. You better watch out man, Dark Eldar are evil. And I heard they can even beat Necrons. ;D
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Garou24
Chapter Master
Posts: 1,530
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Post by Garou24 on Jul 27, 2010 14:39:32 GMT -5
Me losing a doubles game (everybody loses some time, if you aren't then you need to find better competition, it's the best learning experience you can get, and also I blame Tim ) isn't germane to the discussion at hand and, well, makes you look like a bit of a knob. You better watch out man, Dark Eldar are evil. And I heard they can even beat Necrons. ;D I have an army case full of Necrons in the trunk of my car that beg to differ!
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Post by Horst on Jul 27, 2010 14:45:23 GMT -5
There were 2 10 year olds on a team together at the teams tournament on saturday. We overheard them talking to each other... saying things like...
"oh man, I hope I don't have to play against the necrons, I don't want to get slaughtered again!"
"oh wow, look, dark eldar! I've heard they're so good they can even beat necrons!"
It was quite hilarious.
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Post by chumbalaya on Jul 27, 2010 14:49:54 GMT -5
Ha ha, that was fantastic. ;D
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Garou24
Chapter Master
Posts: 1,530
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Post by Garou24 on Jul 27, 2010 19:49:42 GMT -5
Wow! nice. necrons in 5th are a sad affair. Still playable but gimped. I hope for a new codex, cause they were my first army.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 28, 2010 9:26:13 GMT -5
Played it again last night with steve. Dunno if he is going to batrep it, but the mission itself was playable. Only major mission snafu was my bubble wrap unit pinning and my rearguard unit pinning turn 1 so my entire army was trapped so I couldn't do a single thing first turn not even search my close objective.
Only a few operational questions arose:
1. Can multiple friendly units in b2b with the same marker all search?
2. Can transports, dreadnaughts, spore mines, mycetic spores search if they manage to get in b2b?
3. Do units locked in CC roll for "toxic wasteland" and if so does it effect them the same?
4. Are units arriving via deep strike and outflank exempt from the roll the turn they arrive?
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Post by Horst on Jul 28, 2010 18:01:54 GMT -5
mission was definitely playable. Vehicles getting hit on 6's is a bit tough, but your change to allow for 1-3 to do nothing to vehicles mitigated that a lot. I rolled an ungodly number of 6's for my vehicles, but only suffered an immobilized on one razorback.
I spread my army out to 2 of 3 objectives yesterday, so I could search more. Because I searched more, I (predictably) found the objective. Aaron plays a fairly brutal deathstar army pretty much, as zack coined it, so it all sticks together pretty much. This was what killed me.. I split up to search, so he dealt with half my army, then the other half. He was at a disadvantage by not being able to search as much, but I was at a disadvantage because I was spread out to search.
I planned on doing a full battle-report... but this gets the point across just as well I think.
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Post by hyv3mynd on Jul 28, 2010 19:10:53 GMT -5
Hey now you asked me to bring a nasty list because you're practicing for a non-comp tourney.
I play my lists as they are designed for and hope they can accomplish the various missions. I don't design lists to conquer certain missions.
Despite what Doug said about "playing missions the right way", there's usually more than one way to be successful. Searching more objectives faster doesn't win the game, only gives you the advantage of a home-field objective. You still need to hold it at the end.
The assertion that my army stayed together is 100% wrong too lol. I deployed 5 units out of 12 in my list in a blob. The other 7 were DS'ing or flanking. You made my job easier by finding the scoring objective midfield at the top of t2 and I went 2nd. So yeah, I DS'd my fex's in your midst and ran in my outflankers which came in from opposite sides.
TBH, I don't think either of us thought I would win with 75% of your army within 12" of the objective, but as soon as you discovered it, your dice abandoned you and mine got on their A game.
Allthough it was a fun night, it was ruled by the dice and not the generals as evident in the t-fex 1-shotting your LR, my Tyrant self destructing on a perils, and 7 Ymgarls taking out 400+pts of predator, dreadnaught, and terminators.
Aside from pinning my entire army on t1 and immobilizing your razorback, the toxic wasteland didn't swing the match between a full-mech and no-mech armies.
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Post by Horst on Jul 28, 2010 21:32:56 GMT -5
heh, if my raiders hadn't been so spread out, I could have concentrated both squads of terminators into your tyrant unit... that would have stopped it good but you popped one, and put that plan to rest. your army DID stay together though... the only unit that was more than 18" away from combat at any time was a squad of stealers in the back. I had squads spread out over twice that area... which was kinda bad. Ah well, all in all the mission isn't bad, and I wouldn't mind playing it at a GT. The toxic wasteland rule didn't do all THAT much that was unexpected, while the objective is pretty balanced by the fact that if you stay together, your army is stronger, but if you spread out, you have a higher chance of finding it. I'm just glad the d3 models and the auto-glance rules from toxic wasteland are gone... those would have kinda screwed me over more than I care to imagine.
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MajorSoB
Moderator
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THE GRUMPY OLD MAN!
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Post by MajorSoB on Jul 29, 2010 0:44:44 GMT -5
Thank you again for playing this. What I am trying to do is provide a mission that is out of the ordinary and presents a challenge that is not normally present. I believe this mission does just that and again I thank you for trying it out again. Only a few operational questions arose: 1. Can multiple friendly units in b2b with the same marker all search? 2. Can transports, dreadnaughts, spore mines, mycetic spores search if they manage to get in b2b? 3. Do units locked in CC roll for "toxic wasteland" and if so does it effect them the same? 4. Are units arriving via deep strike and outflank exempt from the roll the turn they arrive? 1) I dont see why not. 2) Also, why not, as long as they sacrifice shooting to do so. Remember only troops may capture and control the objective but I wrote the mission so that anyone can help out. 3) Units in CC may not search and are immune to toxic wasteland. The converse would create way to many special circumstances. 4) Toxic wasteland happens first before anything including deep strike results. Only units on the table at the beginning of the turn must roll. Arriving units roll subsequent turns but not when they arrive.
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