Templecon Missions

[keithb]

I'll tell you what, lets do one mission at the primer with mysterious objectives,  If that goes over well, we'll add it to one or two of the missions for the GT.

[Sir_Prometheus]

cool!

[Cryptognomicon]

Personally I don't like the random nature of the mysterious objectives.  It potentially makes a game very one sided at no fault to the players at all. 

Example: I was playing in a tournament that had 5 mysterious objectives (2 on each side and one in the middle).  Both he and I had flyers.  Neither of us had any skyfire weapons.  Pretty even match and we were both pretty happy about it because we had both played a couple of very one sided matches before this round.  But when mysterious objectives were rolled up my opponent got 2 that gave his units on the objectives skyfire.   I got one that exploded every round and something else that didn't do much for me.  My opponent was able to blow up my flyers just because he was lucky enough to roll skyfire on the chart. I couldn't do much against his because he killed my flyers with troops that were meant to sit on objectives.   

While that "idea" behind mysterious objectives are not all terrible and I generally like randomness games - in a 40k tournament setting I'd rather have as little "random" stuff happen that can effect the game like this as possible. If 2 players at the same skill level playing a similar army play it comes down to the random lucky role to see who wins. In that case you might as well just roll off before you even set up and whoever rolls higher wins outright and you can skip the game itself.

[keithb]

Personally I don't like the random nature of the mysterious objectives.  It potentially makes a game very one sided at no fault to the players at all. 

Example: I was playing in a tournament that had 5 mysterious objectives (2 on each side and one in the middle).  Both he and I had flyers.  Neither of us had any skyfire weapons.  Pretty even match and we were both pretty happy about it because we had both played a couple of very one sided matches before this round.  But when mysterious objectives were rolled up my opponent got 2 that gave his units on the objectives skyfire.   I got one that exploded every round and something else that didn't do much for me.  My opponent was able to blow up my flyers just because he was lucky enough to roll skyfire on the chart. I couldn't do much against his because he killed my flyers with troops that were meant to sit on objectives.   

While that "idea" behind mysterious objectives are not all terrible and I generally like randomness games - in a 40k tournament setting I'd rather have as little "random" stuff happen that can effect the game like this as possible. If 2 players at the same skill level playing a similar army play it comes down to the random lucky role to see who wins. In that case you might as well just roll off before you even set up and whoever rolls higher wins outright and you can skip the game itself.

This is typically why I don't include them.  But one mission from a local event where almost 100% of locals will be at the GT is not a bad testing ground.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Well, I don't much like randomness either, and 6th edition is just random as hell generally, which I think is part of certain level of unrest already.  But as Ragnar pointed out, the main reason to include them is so there's just a bit more skyfire out there.

Maybe instead of random, just make it so in one mission, each side gets one skyfire nexus? 

[Chase]

Maybe instead of random, just make it so in one mission, each side gets one skyfire nexus?

This is probably better.

[Cryptognomicon]

Taking the randomness out of it actually would help - still give the objectives some sort of effect(skyfire/exploding/etc) but make sure its mirrored so that each player has to deal with the same issues on each side.

Here is a really bad sketch of what I mean. Objectives are the numbers below set up in a grid on the table. 

| 1        2 |
|      3      |
| 2        1 |

#1 would be one effect.....say skyfire
#2 would be something else
#3 i would be explodes.

The above is just an example, but does something like this make sense/is fair/etc? You could even hide what the objectives are - put a marker upside down with at number on it that isn't revealed until a unit takes that position at which point you can roll to see what comes up, but players would know that the grid is set up this way. That would at the least keep it slightly "mysterious".  It could also still change the dynamic of the board mid game which can be fun and interesting, but not totally one sided. 

It's really the potential for onesidedness that gets me. The rules as written from the book hypothetically make it possible for one "lucky" player to always roll the "explodes" objective which can totally screw them over.

[Grimwulfe]

I would say this would work if your sole intent was to nerf flyers.  Which may be fun in some instances but unless your specifically going for an alternate ajenda your better off just not using mysterious objectives and count them as normal.

[robpro]

I like mysterious objectives as they are. I think its silly to give everybody a free SKyfire Nexus, if you want to shoot up then bring flyers or units with skyfire or allies with either. Everybody has options, its your choice not to bring them. Also keep in mind there's only a 1/6 chance of getting that particular ability on an objective. I'd rather get the +1 to cover or reroll 1's when shooting objective, can I choose that instead of skyfire?

[Cryptognomicon]

Just to clarify - I wasn't at all suggesting giving everyone free skyfire or trying to nerf anything.  I was talking more about finding ways to keep the objectives more balanced for each player. 

[robpro]

I think if you have fixed objective placement for each mission, its as balanced as it can be. Both players have an equal chance of rolling each mysterious choice.

[keithb]

I agree about keeping them more balanced.  The negative with mysterious objectives is that they can help one player and do nothing for the other.

as long as they are equal I don't think it matter much.

[keithb]

I think if you have fixed objective placement for each mission, its as balanced as it can be. Both players have an equal chance of rolling each mysterious choice.

so you like heads or tails to determine advantage?  Sounds legit.

[robpro]

I think if you have fixed objective placement for each mission, its as balanced as it can be. Both players have an equal chance of rolling each mysterious choice.

so you like heads or tails to determine advantage?  Sounds legit.

Pretty sure you have less than a 50% chance to get Skyfire, and that 2/3 of the objectives options are helpful. It's almost like we're playing a game of chance here.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I think if you have fixed objective placement for each mission, its as balanced as it can be. Both players have an equal chance of rolling each mysterious choice.

so you like heads or tails to determine advantage?  Sounds legit.

Pretty sure you have less than a 50% chance to get Skyfire, and that 2/3 of the objectives options are helpful. It's almost like we're playing a game of chance here.

What his statement meant, specifically, is that generally one side will get better objectives than the other, and your chances of winning out on that are 50%.

I would say this would work if your sole intent was to nerf flyers.  Which may be fun in some instances but unless your specifically going for an alternate ajenda your better off just not using mysterious objectives and count them as normal.

Yeah, but keep in mind that theoretically, flyers were introduced with the idea 1/6 of objectives would be a skyfire nexus.  That's all assuming GW knew what they were doing, which is not a statement I am prepared to make, but you can't say it's "nerfing flyers" as if it wasn't a factor that was supposed to be in there in the first place.

THis all, frankly, mattered more a year ago, when there much less new codexes with skyfire available.