Hello, 40k enthusiasts! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio coming at you with another article about what’s going on in the ITC.
Over the weekend Games Workshop held the final invitationals for their US Open events for both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k, on the 40k side we got a preview of two new Missions that are coming out in the new GT Missions book! Before jumping into my take on those let’s take a quick look at the top 10 in the ITC in terms of players and teams!
Unsurprisingly the top team in the world right now is also the team with the most players in the top 10. Art of War continues their domination of the ITC this year both in terms of their Club score and the sheer volume of good players on the team winning events, and Siegler isn’t even in the top 10 yet! Nanavati, Harpster, Lennon, and Chester all in the top 10 means Art of War has 40% of the top spots going into LVO. With very few large events left it is looking like they are poised to make a big run at winning the overall ITC this season. This weekend is the Frontline Gaming Major in New Orleans and the winner of that event is looking to pack in some of the last of the big points available this season before the Las Vegas Open.
Now, let’s talk about these two previewed missions and the previewed secondaries. First, it was really fun seeing people trying to understand that the Mission Secondaries were gone and that while the Primary might cap at 12 per turn for one objective, you could still score 15 a turn with the second part of the Primary, or if you just get 12 primary points 4 or 5 times you are in fact still scoring the 45 max points…
The two missions previewed are both very interesting and great changes to the Missions as they stand now. Overall it is important to note that the changes are moving the game, and many armies, from a passive and non-interactive state into a state where the players’ armies, and subsequently the players themselves, are forced to interact with one another.
When you take into account the change brought about in Secure Missing Artefact, and changes to a few Secondaries, this idea becomes clear. The mission itself forces the players to interact by choosing each others’ precious artifact and then rewarding them for holding it, while their opponent does the same with theirs and, I assume, both players try to knock the other off said objectives. Changes to what was ROD and is now R&D (RND), and the changes to Engage on all Fronts, making it harder to score with tiny throw-away units also makes the boring and non-interactive armies like Deathwing/Ravenwing, which could sit around and score 90 points by existing, less likely to be able to do that.
In Recover the Relics the additional part of the Primary Objective gives you points for killing enemy units. This is a marked difference from all the other iterations of the GT Missions Games Workshop has published thus far; prior to this the only time a player earned Victory Points for destroying units/models was through Secondaries they chose themselves. Again we see a move by GW toward forcing players’ armies to interact more on the tabletop, rather than just stand and score points or drop into somewhere and score points before your throw-away unit is vaporized.
Overall the changes are a big bonus to the game and shaking up the meta consistently via the Balance Dataslates, new Missions, and Points Adjustments will prove very healthy for the game overall. Will some armies continue to be good despite changes? Probably, but curtailing overly dominant lists and factions should be the goal. Also, consistently looking at and adjusting other factions upward in terms of power is very good for the game, it can’t all be nerfing, a rising tide lifts all boats in this case as well.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
