Mission Feedback

[jay]

I am looking for any additional feedback on the following missions:

Devastation – Primer Mission
Lost Artifact – Primer Mission
Heroes Glory- Primer Mission
Mission Impossible – Primer Mission
Spear Head – Primer Mission

[hyv3mynd]

Devastation - I like it as a more flavorful annihilation variant. No suggestions.

Lost artefact - same deal. Slight advantage point wise to go first. Dunno if its a deal breaker. I like more scatter on objectives personally, maybe 4d6" or 6d6", just my preference.

Heroes glory - potential abuse here. You may want to note that HQs that kill themselves via Shock Attack Gun, perils, dangerous terrain, or die in a sweeping advance or flee off the board do not become an objective. No glory in that. Also may note that Necron Lords don't count until they fail a WBB roll.

Mission impossible - the order of decisions matter and should be noted. 1 - roll for first turn, 2 - players place objectives, player taking the first turn places first, 3 - nominate strike force units and deployment types, player taking first turn does so first, 4 - normal deployment procedure. May want to make a note that objectives cannot be captured in first turn. Not everyone could pull this off, especially if you deploy properly and defensively, but people may tend to blame the mission for losing instead of their own deployment choices. Yes, drop pod troops, ymgarls, lictors, marbo, and many other choices can walk up and grab the objective turn 2, but only if enemies aren't within 1". You get to see your opponent's list so deploy enough wrap and protection so that your opponent can't just take the objective.

Spear Head - Dunno what to say about this one but I feel strongly it's not a balanced mission. It will favor army builds and choices and often the game will be decided before turn 1 is over. People who write a foot-based list will be at a huge disadvantage against a mech/MSU army. Armies with more units will be at a huge advantage over armies with less units. Pairings could be very unbalanced also. I drew Zack for this mission two months ago. IG vs Nids and he had to get into my DZ... yeah IG don't like moving directly towards assault armies. Also the current wording leaves open abuse with IC's. If each non-transport unit counts as scoring, you could drive up a rhino with 5 grey hunters and 4 rune priests, disembark and break them up last turn for 5 scoring units. At least make it so IC's don't count as scoring.

[carlosthecraven]

Hi Jay

A note on all missions that define the line of retreat as
"units that fallback will do so towards the owning player's nearest deployment zone" - it is unclear to me how my units fall back in missions where the deployment edge is on an angle (lost artifact, devastation) or standard spearhead (hero's glory). Do I fall back in a line that is perpendicular to the deployment edge? Do I fall back as quickly as possible to the nearest board edge that falls within my deployment zone (and thus on changing angles)?

Note: 5th ed standard scenarios have your long edge as the standard fall back point, even in standard spearhead deployment.

Can you clarify in the general rules what this means? A diagram would be helpful.

Devastation – Primer Mission
Including a page reference to the victory points rules OR adding them to the package would be useful.

I have an issue with this mission being worth less victory points for winning it all than the other missions. In every other mission, I max out at 45 points. In this one, the limit it 40. If I happen to have an army that excels in this mission, I would be a little disappointed that I can't earn as many points here as in other missions. I think that increasing the points earned for each of the primaries to 22 or 23 points would level out this mission with the others with either 44 or 46 points available, or add a tertiary that is worth 5 points for winning and leave the others at 20 each.

Lost Artifact – Primer Mission -
Objective placement - what happens when an objective scatters off the table?
Claiming the primary - the base contact requirement will make it brutal to contest it in the late game - or to even control it if an assault on the bottom of the last turn pulls you away from it - remember that every model must as far as possible to get into the fight on the countercharge. A 3" control zone makes this much more viable. Tankshocking on the bottom of the last turn it a no brainer way to win due to the base contact stipulation.

Heroes Glory- Primer Mission
None that haven't been mentioned elsewhere.

Mission Impossible – Primer Mission
The Deployment Term "Pitched Battle" (a deployment zone at least 12" from the centre for both players) does not match the diagram in the mission bookklet, which is a 6" pushback from the middle. Please clarify which is intended.

Spear Head – Primer Mission
The tertiary is brutal both for gunlines and balanced forces. I understand the desire to build drivers around mobile armies that are fun, and the desire to remove backlining on the long edges, but this is too much for many armies. However, it is nearly an auto-win for Daemons, Kult of Speed Orks, and Tyranids, unless they are wiped out or fighting each other. Furthermore, the exception of immobilized vehicles means that backlining for the probably the first 4 turns for long range guns on armour is a non-risk.

At the very least, what happens to the tertiary if I achieve a wipeout in this mission? Do I lose the tertiary because technically I have the unit closest to my table edge?

Also, the second tactical bonus (make a unit flee off the table edge) is something that cannot be achieved if facing a Daemon army, and other builds in other Dexes that are all fearless. Things that cannot be achieved are poor bonuses.

Cheers,
Nate

[stillfrosty]

In mission impossible...

What happens when you do not have an infantry based troop squad? For bike armies such as orks eldar marines, they don't need to take basic infantry to fulfil troop choices.

So can a bike squad be a demo squad/strike squad? Do you not place a unit on the home objective? does the opponent get the bonus points automatically? It doesn't really matter?

The way we played it is that the opponent got the bonus points automatically, but the bike player did not have a unit pinned first turn.

Also, for the strike force, if they are in a transport, do they still get to deep stike if they so choose?

[hyv3mynd]

Bikes should be added to the "strike force" and "demo force" requirements as long as they are troop choices Jay.

We talked over the transport issue at the last primer. Transports that can normally deep strike such as a pod or BA land raider still can. Transports dedicated to the "strike force" that cannot normally deep strike may choose the outflank option or deploy normally. A "strike force" that has a non-deep striking transport may also choose to deep strike without their transport. At least that was my intent when I wrote it.

Great feedback guys.