Maelstrom Missions: Nope, thats not narrative gaming.

[Charon]

All the games i've played (4 so far) have meant I have to pop out of cover and grab an objective quickly, at least once.

Other times I've had to move forward and grab an objective to prevent an opponent grabbing it. If you have enough units to grab all 6 objectives and sit on them with Troops so they can't be contested, then the games you're playing are probably too big.

So you havent played any Maelstrom games yet but you "discuss" the topic. Mhm...
Flashnews. What you describe is no Maelstrom game.

[Erik Setzer]

I've played with them where I could (some people are scared of them, because they like to run their army a certain way and the idea of having to do anything else bothers them), and I don't think they're that bad.

Yes, they force you to move around the table. Goodness, what an awful thought! When you play enough IG armies or even Space Wolf armies that hunker down behind an Aegis line and just shoot at you all game, you get rather bored. Such players will, of course, loathe the idea of a system that requires them to leave the safety of their shelter.

Sure, it's a lot of luck. So is pretty much everything else in the game. Heck, missions are luck. If I'd gotten Big Guns Never Tire against my last opponent, I'd have been able to get more VP than him just because his army had more Heavy Support units. Clearly that mission is unfair and should be thrown out, right?

I had one game where I had some bad card draws. But I kept doing my best to achieve the objectives and prevent my opponent from achieving his. It was an exciting game, went back-and-forth, and I had to make an extreme push at the end to achieve a few objectives on my last turn to pull out a minor victory. That was a blast.

If you're wondering how this is "narrative" gaming, it's simple. The battlefield is simply a representation of what our armies are doing in the battle. Those objectives they need to take might represent some extra equipment or some anomaly they need you to check out. Some enemy unit might be identified as a particular threat, or they might find a weakness that needs exploited (i.e. by destroying the unit in close quarters). Yes, objectives change in the middle of a swirling, chaotic mess. It happens.

If you don't want to use them, fine. There's plenty of other ways to play the game, and you should use the ones you feel most comfortable with. But don't just chuck out the Maelstrom missions entirely.

As for the cards you can't possibly achieve because they're literally impossible, I'd recommend agreeing with your opponent to discard those cards or reroll such results for the battle.

[Lord Asterion]

So you havent played any Maelstrom games yet but you "discuss" the topic. Mhm...
Flashnews. What you describe is no Maelstrom game.

Which part of "I've played 4 Maelstrom of War Missions" did you misconstrue into thinking I've not played any?

The Maelstrom of War games are exactly that, i surge to grab the objective I have the cards for, maybe moving forward some troops to try and deny my opponent his, he has to kill my Warlord too, do I risk moving him forward when I know he's going to go all out to kill him this turn? do i move my Warlord to try and draw my opponent forward?

They've all been exciting and fun and fluid so far. Maybe I just have better opponents though.

[daboarder]

The best way to use the maelstrom missions is in conjunction with the eternal war missions. Simply draw 3 cards each side at the beginning of the game then thats it.

Starting positive.

Yeah I agree, this is how I was thinking of suggesting we play next time. 3 player (or game if you want) specific secondary objectives that can be completed throughout the game.

And yeah we pretty much agreed from the get go that unplayable cards (but they had to be unplayable, fliers in reserve didnt count as unplayable if you got the destroy a flier card etc) get re-drawn.

I'd even take this one step further and keep the tac objectives secret and they get revealed during the game as they are completed.

That could be really really fun.

If you're getting the same objective multiple times, you're not reading the rules properly.

And they can be narrative, your force is getting through orders as the battle rages. You just have to use your imagination.

As I said, you have to use your imagination, your force is receiving orders, things change in the heat of battle and you have to accomplish different things.

And once your opponent figures out how to get more objectives and avoid getting tabled, then you'll lose.

I'm sorry that you don't like adapting the game to the new missions, stick to the old ones, but I enjoy them and they change the game up.

you have to use your imagination for ANY narrative gaming, because at the end of the day these are little plastic soldiers.

Heres the thing.

Narrative games are games where the participants (players) naturally behave as they would if the situation were real life. Asymmetry is the core of narrative gaming, but it must be defined asymmetry. Missions that either establish the narrative through their objectives or missions that grant bonuses to each army for different styles of play are narrative gaming.

The more you have to "imagine" a reason for out of character behaviour, the less narrative and more jarring the game.
And Maelstrom games are disgustingly jarring.

edit: And Asterion, take your veiled attacks and jog off, either discuss or go away, but stop trying to make sly passes at people

But that 'is' exactly what the guard are expected to do without question in 40k. And come to that even Eldar listen to their farseer w/out question, even when said objective seems absurd, Tau well just Tau, the 'Greater Good' and all that nonsense, Nids don't care, Chaos is chaos, definition of Chaos means random. Dark Eldar probly wouldn't give a flying 2 fingered salute for objectives in reality anyhow, and Orks... Well just point' em at the fight and forget it. And I'm sorry but WWI especially was just that, and more often than not in war generals do send troops to certain death for meaningless objectives. Like I said, war is a series of screw ups until one side makes one less screw up.

Wanna re-try that.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory[/url]

future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved

chaos does not equal random, it never has.

As to the topic on hand, the fluidity SHOULD be coming from reacting to your opponent not running around like a loony because the shiney is over there this turn

[silashand]

As to the topic on hand, the fluidity SHOULD be coming from reacting to your opponent not running around like a loony because the shiney is over there this turn

This +1.

[sfshilo]

Split the cards up.

Get rid of the d3 ones.

Get rid of the objective ones.

Get rid of secondary objectives.

Use the remaining cards as secondary objectives.

Enjoy.

[deinol]

I notice nobody is saying which maelstrom missions they've tried. There are six of them. I found it interesting the different ways the objective cards could be used to give different missions different feels. On the Independent Characters podcast they talked about perhaps letting players build their own deck, which would allow you to tailor your objectives. I haven't had a chance to get them to a table yet, but it seems like they could be a useful tool. Even if not all the book Maelstrom missions work out, there are a lot of possibilities to use them for more dynamic play.

[Lord Asterion]

I notice nobody is saying which maelstrom missions they've tried. There are six of them. I found it interesting the different ways the objective cards could be used to give different missions different feels. On the Independent Characters podcast they talked about perhaps letting players build their own deck, which would allow you to tailor your objectives. I haven't had a chance to get them to a table yet, but it seems like they could be a useful tool. Even if not all the book Maelstrom missions work out, there are a lot of possibilities to use them for more dynamic play.

I think my favourite was the one where you keep them secret, that was really fun!

Thats an interesting concept, maybe you could do it by the type on the cards/table?

[Domine Nox]

I feel the maelstrom objectives are much more representative of narrative play than the standard missions. Your command says "Go retrieve X." You retrieve it, tell command it is secured, they then inform you they got word that there is a powerful psyker in the area for you to take out, etc. It represents a more ongoing form of battle rather than "Go to that crash site and hold it until backup arrives."

As to the claims of people winning in the first turn or 2 because of lucky cards. Is that really any different than your opponent getting lucky and taking all your troops out so you couldn't score objectives in 6th? Or to a degree in the current edition since troops can't be contested except by other troops. Luck will always play in a degree at some point in some games. In the few games of Maelstrom I've played I have really liked the twist that the objectives provide because it makes the game about much more than who can most effectively sit on something, or steal it on the last turn.

[NockerGeek]

Watched a game with them today. Good idea, horrible execution. Between drawing the same card multiple times (that the player who had them could not achieve) to awarding duplicate results for something accomplished in prior turns (d3 VPs for killing the enemy warlord - one player got that twice and ended up with 5VPs because of it). Ultimately the player who started the game with the best hand won, even though the same player had no infantry left and only a couple active vehicles. We will not be using them as written going forward.

One proposal we came up with was to draw 3 and have them apply to both players. First one to accomplish the objective got the requisite VPs. Also, no duplicates. If they come up, just draw a different card. No idea if any of these ideas would help, but almost anything is better than the rules in the book .

And in case anyone was in any doubt, Invisibility is just stupid. Way overpowered as written.

Just curious, but how did a single player get the same objective multiple times in one game (such as getting the d3 for killing the enemy warlord twice; I get that the hold-objective cards are triplicated, but those should always be theoretically achievable)? You're only ever supposed to get an objective generated once, whether by cards or by dice (p.136).