Hey everyone, we’ve been getting some great feedback on the new ITC Champion’s Missions and here are a few changes we’re considering making but we’d love your feedback on them!
For reference, the mission pack can be found here.
So, the general consensus has been extremely positive on them, which is great! We’ve gotten some neutral to negative feedback too of course (can’t please everyone) but generally speaking they’ve been very well received.
Here’s some of the main points of friction:
- Quite a bit of bookkeeping.
- But everyone also stated that after a few games this got to be a lot easier.
- A suggestion was made to streamline the score sheet a bit to make it easier to track secondaries by splitting that section in to two parts, 1 for each player. We think this is a great idea. Any other feedback to streamline the scoring process?
- Community Member Winterman has developed an even easier to use score sheet, check it out, here!
- It is hard to finish games.
- This was a big point of feedback but after looking at the data from SoCal Open and seeing that most games in fact were going to turn 5+ and hearing some very persuasive arguments to the contrary, have swayed back to staying at 6 turns. However, what do you all think? 5 turns or 6?
- We really like to incentivize players to speed up though, and it definitely worked! Players were notably playing faster.
- The mission 5 bonus point is too easy to score for some armies.
- This mission grants the bonus point for holding the center objective. Is this too easy to achieve? If so, what potential change should be made? Hold the center objective and your opponent’s objective was our first thought. What do you all think?
- Some of the overlapping secondaries make some units unattractive in these missions.
- The example thrown around was a Tank Commander giving up potentially 7 points. And, this is a good point. We want to encourage diversity, not discourage it. So, our thought was to apply the following modification: a unit chosen for Titanslayer or Kingslayer may not give up any other secondary mission points.
- Some very large units such as Kastellan Robots don’t give up any secondary points, but are very tough and do lots of damage.
- Again, good point. These big units should indeed trigger a bonus as they are not easy to take down. Our proposed solution was to create a new secondary mission: Gang Buster: choose an enemy unit comprised of multi-wound models. For every model with 4 or more wounds destroyed, or for every two models with 3 wounds destroyed, you earn 1 point.
- This gives you an option for taking on the killer Robots and other such tough units and earning secondary points for damaging them. Thoughts?
- Behind Enemy Lines is too hard to get.
- We found folks consistently underscored on this one or simply didn’t choose it. We were considering changing it to earn a point for Every turn you have more units within 12″ of your opponent’s deployment edge than they do. Thoughts?
Any other ideas or feedback? Thanks so much for being a part of the process.
Like all this my only comment is that I think behind enemy lines it great I used it on almost every game. I think a lot of people didn’t take it based on a lot of armies being fairly static right now. It’s a good one for people going for end game/ second and people that have fast armies
Hmm, nice, good feedback, thanks! I thought it was a good mission too (but, lol, I wrote it) however, folks just weren’t using it.
What do you think about this change?
-Behind Enemy Lines
How about instead of having more units than your opponent just have 3 or more units.
I think this is a good idea!
Yeah, that works, too, although it may be hard to get this in turns 3+ when you start running low on units.
Same can be said with the early turns though. Chances of you having more units than your opponent in turns 1-3 is very unlikely.
Almost always better to take Recon. I do not really know how to make this one more appealing…
Maybe just make it a bonus point in the primary and take it out of secondary? Ala old school line breaker.
1 extra point for primary for every unit you have more in your opponents line than your opponent has in your line at the end of the game (Max 4 points?)
You can always take Recon and Behind Enemy Lines. If you have an army built for it is fairly easy to do both.
I like the idea of Gang Buster but just picking a unit of multi wound models and getting a point for each model with 4+ wounds you kill is too easy in most cases. Like a squad of 4 plague drones for 136 points will give up as many VPs as a unit of 6 Kastellans worth 600+ points. I think it should be reworded to “pick a unit with multiple models and a power level of 11+” or something similar. Some way to keep a few Tyranid warriors from being worth as much as a Kastellan death star.
Otherwise good work! The missions take a couple games to get used to, but are pretty balanced afterwards.
I would keep Gang Buster simpler, 3+ multi-wound units would give up 1 point for every 9 PL to a minimum of 1 point. A max unit of Kastellan Robots would give up 4 point (36 PL). Syndonian Dragoons would give up 2 points (18PL). Obliterators would give up 1 point per unit. Nurgle Drones would give up 1 point for a minimum squad (7PL).
This seems not to punish the small elite units and is fair for the big mobs, IMO.
I think this is a very good point. Gang Buster is a great idea but you want to balance it a bit since you can have pretty wide discrepancy with multi-wound units.
Good points, guys. We want it to be attainable though, and not rely on the opponent taking a max unit as otherwise they won’t and it will become a less appealing secondary. Perhaps only having it trigger for larger units? Hmm, but I agree, we don’t want to punish less appealing units.
What other units would qualify for gang buster?
The first concern I have would be the light walker units, like Killa Kans, sentinels, Ironstriders and such. They tend to rely on wounds holding out rather then other fancy abilities.
Not sure of how many 3 wound units are out there, but wrathgaurd, tyranid warriors and obliterators all have some fairly obvious draw backs in the competitive tournament scene that keeps them pretty … fair?
Idk maybe make it based on the single biggest or best unit? the risk of limiting it to multi wound and player choice is the possibility of picking out a dud unit and getting easy points. you can’t make the rule ‘select a deathstar and get points for killing it’, but that’s basically what I think the intent of the rule is.
‘kill the most points costed unit’ could work. I cant think of anything that would cost the most points and not be the nastiest thing in the list. Make it so you cant qualify for two different rewards with its one kill or something. do it by % of wounds taken off, like 1 point per 1/3 total.
I’d have to see a bunch of lists to see what the top price unit typically is. But I’d imagine ya’ll frontline folks have quite a few of those laying around.
We don’t want to punish things like Killa Kans, I agree. This is for those mega units that currently give up no secondary points.
MyphetI blight-haulers, sentinels, plenty of units.
You can’t really go for the “Most Expensive Unit” because that couls be a 130 point character for some armies.
I think certain other multi-wound elite units escape secondary mission targeting in ITC. Think Wraithguard style units that are hard to kill multiples of in a turn and have 5-packs of multi-wound models. Could we make it so gangbuster lets you nominate two eligible units instead of just 1? Right now a 5 stack of wraithguard would only ever give up 2 secondary mission points.
That is a fair point, but do we want to punish elite units? Those armies aren’t very prevalent as is in my point of view. By giving them a loophole in the scoring structure, it encourages folks to bring them.
Are the loopholes intentional? I wrote my list with the ITC scoring in mind and it for sure encourages bringing big stacks of multi wound models and <10 wound vehicles where you can get them. Gang-buster where you can only nominate 1 target is pretty much only going to apply to the following units I saw at Socal:
5×1 stacks of kastelons
4-6×1 stacks of dragoons (this is the better target than the kastelons)
6×1 stacks of bullgryns
10×1 grey knight paladin squads
And I am struggling to come up with more examples. I went up against Ynarri wraithguard lists and I found that those wraithguard slip right through the ITC secondaries. I couldn't pick anything that scored on them. From the rankings, I didn't see those wraithguard ynarri lists struggling.
Trying to think of other 3 wound model units that would be hit by the secondary gang-buster nomination:
2×5 squads of grey knight Paladins (rare due to psychic stacking)
2×3 squads of Bullgryns (rare due to psychic stacking)
2×3 squads of space marine centurions
2×3 squads of Kataphrons (these things are terrible, but gangbuster with even 1 nomination make them an easy 3 points)
Some dark eldar tough abomination melee unit
2×3 hive guard
Nx3 Custodes (this one is legit, custodes are proper awful, but again, even 1 nomination gangbuster is guaranteed 3 points on a custodes player)
Just to be clear, I am in favor of Gang-Buster being added (even with only 1 nomination). I think it does address a hole in the ITC secondary missions and I talked a lot with guys over the weekend about the hole in targeting elite units.
I like these changes. ?
Glad to hear it!
Gang busters as proposed seems like it will hurt swarms and less durable units like Tyranids warriors. Also Titanslayer is based on 8 wounds and Reaper is based on 10 wounds then seems like this needs to be based on 8 or 9 wounds. Not all wounds are equal among multi wound models so seems like armor or toughness needs to be accounted for here more so than for say big game or titan slayer where most have more comparable stats. Dunno if solution lies in basing it on power level or something? Not sure, just worried about unintended consequences.
I was thinking it might be good to add an ‘Old School’ secondary which brings back slay, first blood and linebreaker at one point each (2 for slay the warlord).
Dude, I love the “Old School” secondary! The only issue is that First Blood is so, so difficult to actually get in this edition. I say that because it is so easy to kill stuff and if you go second it is almost assuredly not going to happen. Perhaps modify it to First Strike, and then get a bonus 4th point if you have all three by end game? I dig it!
Yeah, getting lots of that feedback on Gang Buster, and good points. We will have to take another look at modifying it.
Yeah easily swap em out for ITC staples like First Strike, maybe add a 4th one from those missions instead of 2pt for warlord.
Yeah, good suggestion.
I really like the idea of this one. First strike, warlord, and linebreaker. Fourth point if you get all three is a cool idea.
One proposed change for big game hunter is to change it for every unit killed that’s naturally t7 and up, that way dreadnoughts and other similliar monsters don’t sneak by
We intentionally did it that way as we want to encourage things like Dreads and Deffdreads, etc. Currently they are underrepresented. Your army obviously is taking it to the extreme, but, I am OK with that, lol.
Good ideas. I think “Gang Buster” probably needs Power Level as a factor.
Good feedback, thanks.
My group found that playing against certain lists is very hard with this format. For example, if you’re playing against Magnus, a knight, and Mortarion it will be almost impossible to ever kill more enemy units a turn than your opponent. Maybe go back to 1 lord of war per army?
We debated this at length, Shas’O, and we came to the conclusion that you should pretty much always score more objectives and a lot of the secondaries are geared towards getting a ton of points on those types of units. Plus, those armies tend to not be overpowering in the meta at present, so we were OK with that as a bit of an outlier.
So I think the tweak to gang buster might need to be toughness based. Any t6+ unit with models that have multiple wounds. That then assures it’s something tough like robots or wraithguard. But not say 3 wound t3 infantry or a unit of 3 eldar vypers etc
Ah, nice one! Adding in a toughness requirement I think is the modification we were looking for.
Also, please define “deployment edge as that’s not a thing this edition (unless I missed it somewhere). This came up in one of my games with the table quarters deployment.
Good point, will do.
How about this for Gang Buster:
Earn 1 point for every 200 pts (could be based on power level too) worth of unit you destroy (must include 3 or more models in a unit).
So a 4 man shooty robots will reward 2 pts. Having the 3 or more models requirement will avoid overlaps with Primarchs and tanks.
Also maybe add:
If the unit cost 500 or more points you get an extra 2 points.
My reasoning to get the full points is if 25% of your army is one unit and it is destroyed you should get full points (that unit won’t be easy to take down anyways).
Nice feedback, thanks!
I would suggest giving each player half the sheet for both primaries and secondaries. However just changing the secondaries would be a big improvement.
How would Gang Busters work for Mek Gunz or other units of artillery that are deployed together but then “act as a separate unit”? Also how do these type of units work in terms of the “Kill a unit” primaries and secondaries?
Those are all individual units so they wouldn’t count.
I worry a little bit about having too many secondaries to pick from and making them too specific. I think you are okay now, but I think continually adding new secondaries without removing some would be a mistake.
We plan on capping at 10 max.
One more in terms of overlapping secondaries, would it make sense to just apply that to all the the pick a unit secondaries? Something like: “Units chosen for any secondaries may not give up any other secondary mission points.” So it would apply to Game Buster as well. Or even just say, “No unit can give up secondary mission points for more than one secondary mission” Just to ensure that there is no “doubling up” ever.
We are actually OK with doubling up so long as it is never more than a 1 pt overlap. For example, Big Game Hunter and Head Hunter kicking in on a single 10 wound + characters, etc. Worst case scenario, you get 3 pts for the kill. With Kingslayer for example, you would get 5 on it’s own + the kill. So, it’s no big deal as it stands now. But, you can’t have it overlap with multi-point secondaries as then it goes to crazy town.
I dislike the removal of “warlord” in any form. It was such an interesting tactical choice (and such a boost to Alpha Legion). I’m not saying it needs to be a 5 point secondary or in every single mission as primary, but maybe have it as a +X bonus to the character killing in secondary, or a primary objective in 1 or 2?
But aside from that, I like these missions, and your proposed tweaks. Yes, the bookkeeping is a bit overwhelming.
I would also consider next year (after seeing this year play out) considering limiting secondary objectives to a smaller subset mission by mission. But without all the codexes dropped and without playing a ton, I like having all the secondaries available now.
Thanks for the feedback, Jural. Winterman made a great suggestion, to have a secondary mission set that allows for the old school bonus points. However, obviously, if playing Alpha Legion no one is going to take it, lol, so it doesn’t solve that dilemma, but it is a start.
Yep! I like winterman’s suggestion.
Then we have new secondary and secondary classic 😉
One other thing to note: you mentioned that Titanslayer and Kingslayer probably shouldn’t stack, which I think is good. Big Game Hunter would probably also fall into that category, I would think. Otherwise, the problem of tank commanders giving up a lot of points is still an issue. Although Big Game Hunter is only scored if you kill the thing, so it may not be an issue at all. I don’t know. Thoughts?
As discussed above, it is no big deal, IMO. As if you want to get a lot of points off of one tank commander, you will go for Kingslayer, anyway.
Yeah, I just saw that. I realized that Big Game Hunter is only scored for killing the thing as I was typing my previous comment. That doesn’t seem to be a big deal to have stack with Kingslayer or Titanslayer.
It wouldn’t stack with them in this instance but could stack with say, Head Hunter. But yes, the point stands.
Winterman has come up with a new score sheet and I think it is great! What do you all think? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1lsx73mmxXcWmtfM2NLMnBhUTA/view?usp=sharing
Thanks Reece! There’s also a google sheets based on thats injet printer friendly and you can take it and edit it how you want.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XKs16I62XdrlVE8mLh8W7YJTzlSOnMnIT3xpFWIH3UU
I dig the friendly version. Only thing that feels a little unnecessary is the “total score” section at the bottom, but I guess that’s more preference than anything- I can see how some people would like having it.
Yeah that part has gotten mixed reviews. People can skip it, I put it their just as a helper so you can see where things are at at a given moment. At SoCal I had folks I played wanting to add what they scored for secondaries up above in the per turn stuff so they knew what that had scored for a battle round in total – this was my fix for that.
I like the total score tracker, personally.
Hello.. We ran into this GEM the other day… 10 man guard unit that takes a heavy weapons team now becomes 9 models and does not give up reaper.
Yeah, lol, someone just brought this up to me. That is pretty dang funny, but, hey, it is now a 9 man squad.
Publish your score sheet in a way that is electronically fillable. Such as fillable pdf, browser, or app based. Integrate a score sheet into bcp?
I may just go create a fillable pdf so I can score games on my iPad.
Dude, lmk if you do, that would be awesome! I actually do not know how to do that.
I think it’s great that you are moving forward with tweaks to the missions! If you dont read all of this please read my comments on GANGBUSTERS at the end.
After playtesting them ans playing them at Socal Open, here are my thoughts:
– Scoresheet should have 2 sides to let each player track their turn by turn as well as secondaries. Allow them to write the names of secondaries on their own in a box.
– Turn 5 is a much better solution, it is almost impossible for the majority of players to get to turn 6 even with playing fast. Slow players will still get punished under this system.
– Mission 5’s bonus objective is a bit easy, yes. Holding center and your opponent’s sounds like a good idea.
– Overlapping secondaries definitely needs to go. A unt should only count for one secondary.
– Behind enemy lines being more than your opponent seems really hard as well, even per turn. Just make it as having 2 or more units behind enemy lines per turn. Otherwise it wont get picked again (well, except by Tau drops).
– Thousand cuts is almost impossible to score. Allow people to score it multiple times in the same turn, so killing 6 units gives you 2 points, etc. There isnt any way to kill 3+ units every single turn for 4 turns.
Lastly, but most importantly, Gangbusters. While I understand the intent to reward bringing down Kastellan robots, I think this one is a bit too reactive and myopic in its scope. Yeah you will resolve the Robot issue, but most other factions dont have a hardy unit like them to absorb that punishment.
This unfairly punished Nurgle Daemons who have Plague drones, Pox Riders,
Plague Toads, etc all that are meant to be throwaway units but will now give easy max secondaries.
Heck even Nurglings will give up 3 easy points right off the gate…
Please reconsider.
I think the ideal solution would be to change big game hunter to give you points for doingng 10 wounds to a single unit. This will balance this more fairly and can be used on robots. Will make it a more flexible secondary. If secondaries dont stack then it wont punish knights etc by counting for multiple stacks of 10 wounds. Its the most elegant solution in my opinion.
With the daemon codex coming in January, this issue will come into even sharper focus if not addressed right now and Gangbusters goes live.
Thanks for reading.
Great feedback, thanks! And yeah, we play-tested Gang Busters and it does need another limitation placed on it.
We found 1,000 cuts to be quite easy to get, actually. You may not max it out but it gives you an avenue to points against MSU armies.
The issue with behind enemy lines being only two is if you do Recon also, you automatically pretty much get both.
I played the current, unreformed missions for the first time in a small GT yesterday. Here are my thoughts:
1) I played a Magnus, Knight, Mortarion + infantry list that easily gave out points like candy. I like that opponents can score points for killing big things and I think it’s fair, but given the crazy math and efficiency behind a lot of offensive anti-tank stuff in the game (particularly ranged firepower), I strongly agree that overlapping secondaries on big units is pretty terrible. Maxing out secondaries should be challenging, but it becomes pretty easy when you can get 8-12 points just by shooting down 1-2 big targets that can’t be hidden.
2) Currently it’s way too easy for some armies to give up almost no secondaries, particularly armies made up entirely of 3-5 model units and a few aura characters with less than 6 wounds each. Reaper makes a lot of sense, but some factions really have to take 10+ model units whereas others can easily spam 3-5 model multiwound units that are just as tough and good on a per-points basis but are invisible to the new ITC secondary scoring.
It should be just as possible to score some secondaries from killing a bunch of 5-man plasma primaris or interceptor units as from killing a bunch of 10-man tactical marine or plague bearer squads. Not sure what the solution is but I don’t think 2-wound durable units like primaris or terminators or etc. should give up 0 points. For 3-5 wound units, Gangbusters sounds great though I agree that a medium needs to be found between the current situation (Nurglings and Plague Drones and Robots give up 0 points) vs overdoing it without regards to unit power (I don’t think each Nurgling or Plague Drone squad should give up 3 points per unit, either).
3) No objectives inside enclosed buildings was the best change in the new missions. It felt dumb that I could have Changeling and some Brimstones holding an objective or the relic inside an ITC terrain building and be totally immune to most shooting in the game and most of the scary assault units in the game. And of course I also hated it when I was on the losing side of that situation. Buildings and walls are still great – they slow a lot of things down, and you’ll still sometimes have a building NEXT to an objective to capture it from, or a building you can hide in until it’s safe to run over the objective, so I think that’s a fair balance.
4) I was super confused by the scoring rubric so I am glad it is being changed. Per-player scoring sheets seems way easier.
5) Reaper, Reacon, and Assassin seem very fair and balanced to me.
6) Unless I am misunderstanding someone, you often get a lot less points from tabling someone than having someone concede to you? It seems odd and a bit toxic that you’re less well off from fighting out a game and working for the win than someone just quitting and handing it to you. It also encourages people to artificially keep one unit in the enemy army alive and play a bunch of fast turns to max out points and/or pressure the opponent into just conceding rather than losing after a couple pointless 5-minute turns. I would make tabling work the exact same way as the opponent conceding (maybe that’s the intent, but it’s not really written that way right now).
That’s all I got.
Great feedback, Nick.
1.) Agree, overlapping secondaries is not good.
2.) MSU armies with lots of little units and characters have Head hunter and Death by 1,000 Cuts to counter them. They work quite well in our test games.
3.) Yeah, Gang Busters needed some fine tuning for sure.
4.) The new Scoring Sheet is much better.
6.) Scoring for a tabling or a concession is the same for the winner. How does it not read that way? It says it is scored the same way….are you reading something I missed? The only difference is for the loser of the game.
I think killing 3 or more terminator, primaris, death company, etc. models in a turn is very difficult, which is the only way to get any secondary points off those units. Taking lots of durable (good save, high toughness, FNP, etc.) 1-2 wound/model units in the same turn is a tall order, certainly higher than achieving a lot of the other secondaries in one turn. And even if you kill 3 five-man terminator or primaris units in a single turn, it’s only one point!
I see what you’re saying about tabling and concessions – I misread it as “the tabling player” rather than “the tabled player” and so I thought the “opponent” was the guy who got tabled. I think probably because when I got to that paragraph, I just assumed it would first tell you what you get if you table your opponent and then secondarily what happens to the guy who got tabled.
*sorry – I meant “I think killing 3 or more terminator, primaris, death company, etc. UNITS in a turn…”. In order words, if someone’s army is largely comprised of such units.
First, I think some of the missions should have an end of game component instead of only end of turn or end of battle round. I also think one additional scenario should be player placed objectives, one with 4 or more objectives. Next, the bonus points for each scenario are related to holding an objective, I think you should vary this more. Regarding secondaries, I think you have more end of game scoring type. I also notice that some secondaries are cumulative and thus easier to achieve in many ways than those that you need to accomplish all in a single turn. Lastly, I think behind enemy lines should be 1 point for 1 unit, 2 points for 2 units, and 4 points for 3 units… at the end of the game. Other than the above, after a period of acclamation I am starting to appreciate and really enjoy the missions.
All of the mission bonus points are related to board control because there are more missions that relate to destroying enemy models than not, and this gives a balance to that.
We’ve had a few requests for player placed objectives, and may be able to accommodate that a bit more. Honestly though, with more than 4 objectives, mathematically there isn’t that many options for where they go and if often ends up just eating a lot of the clock for not much actual difference.
Good feedback, though, thanks!
In reply:
The bonus points can be board control and not holding an objective. Obviously none of the suggestions exist in a vacuum so you might be “achieving” this through secondaries like, recon and behind enemy lines.
Again I would like to reiterate that the cumulative secondaries, those that you can score over multiple turns are much easier to obtain than those that are only possible per turn (Death by a Thousand Cuts) or at the end of the game (behind enemy lines). I think the reaper should be changed to 10+ wounds dealt to a unit and 20+ wounds dealt to a unit.
Player placed objectives are another game within a game, that adds a very subtle yet very important layer. I think 3 fixed placement and 3 player placed is fair and balanced.
New feedback:
I love the idea to have LB, Warlord, and FS as part of the secondaries.
I think psychic powers should be picked before the tourney and stay fixed for the entire event, not before each game. With psychic trees growing to the normal six powers, the customization makes psychers too strong (I am an Eldar player right now).
Finally, I think the new version of the scoring sheet posted above is far superior to the current version.
I would also like to thank you guys for reaching out and listening to the community in developing the missions (not to mention everything else you all facilitate). I imagine it has been a herculean task, and I for one applaud the effort.
Please fix abuse around the 1 point for 10 models. Some sneak by it, like 10 model Imperial Guardsmen..when they take a heavy weapon they go down 9 models even though it’s stronger and same amount of wounds..
It should be based on powerlevel , just like powerlevl needs to be a requirement for the multiwound models.
Eh, I honestly don’t think it is that big of a deal. Same with taking 19 man units, etc.
If we based it off of PL, then it would encompass every unit out there over that PL, not just masses of Infantry which is what it is meant to counter.
If you said any unit comprised of infantry over PL X, then it would also encompass things like terminators, etc. which are the opposite of what we’re trying to target. If someone wants to game the system a bit and take HWTs to drop down below the threshold, that’s fine. You can simply not choose the Reaper if it doesn’t make sense to, perhaps go for Death by 1,000 Cuts instead, etc.
As for Gang Busters though, yeah, that one needs another condition to prevent it form applying to units it isn’t intended to.
How is it fair that 10 termagants costs 1 cp and a guardsmen doesn’t . 19 models still gives 1 point and that is infinitely better than killing seven squads of guardsmen and getting 0 for it.
Guardsmen squads, you still have to kill to get to their tanks because your are now forced to do so because they dont give up no other points. This makes melee armies struggle even more against AM than they already do.
If you don’t want to change it to powerlevel, then just make it 9 models then the only really big abuse is gone. Easy.
Maybe change reaper to something like 1 point per 15 models killed? Right now it’s too easy to tailor and just bring 9 man units. Even IG players have just swapped to guardsman squads with a single mortar. This would still allow points to score vs horde armies as well as allowing you to score against infantry heavy MSU.
I also think death by a thousand cuts is almost too hard. Even against MSU where it’s intended, killing at least 3 units for 4 turns is harder then most others. Maybe make it worth 2 points so you only have to achieve this one twice?
We originally tried tracking model’s killed, it was just too cumbersome and required too much bookkeeping in missions that already have a lot of bookkeeping. And again, 9 man Guard squads really isn’t a big deal in my mind. AM armies tend to shed points in our missions like crazy, so you have tons of other options for choosing your path to victory.
My BIG issue with the ITC scoring is that winning a tournament has a lot to do with overall points and you don’t get any points for unfinished turns.
So a 6 turn loss is likely to give you more points than a 3 turn tie or win.
In this edition, closely matched armies often won’t get through 5 turns. So drawing an opponent running a horde can easily screw you out of contention, even if you are dominant throughout the game.
This became pretty real to me a couple weekends ago at dragon forge. My first game I ran into Morty + poxwalker and cultists. I killed through over 400 poxwalkers and even playing through out lunch allotment only got us through turn 3. Plus I was rolling pre counted dice in dice cups and every other time saving tactic you could imagine.
That was the end of my tournament. I dominated the game popping morty first turn, then killed hundreds of cultitsts which turned into hundreds of poxwalkers.
But that was basically the end of my tournament, because I left quite a few points on the board. It had nothing to do with slow playing, it’s just a reality of this edition. At least at 2K tournies.
A solution would be to just give something like 3 points to both sides for each turn they didn’t finish. This is additionally exasperated by the way point for win via conceding are calculated. Some consistency towards tallying unplayed game turns would go a long way towards making ITC tournaments more competitive.
This is the big untalked about issue of score as you go compared to tournies based on end game win conditions.
Someone might want to bump this back to the front page (New with updates!) as the discussion seems to still be ongoing.
I have played a couple of games with the new missions and I like some parts if them and some other parts could be reworked imo.
I think the fundamental problem I have with them is that the secondary missions punish certain unit types.
A good list would try to make it as difficult as possible for the enemy to score points, thus avoiding certain units that fit the criteria for secondaries.
I don’t think that should be the purpose of mission design in general because it’s acting indirectly as a kind of comp system.