Maelstrom Missions: Nope, thats not narrative gaming.

[daboarder]

One of the mechanics in many of the missions is how many cards you can have in a turn, however; you can't claim that has no effect on which cards you get. More cards gives you a better chance of a non-useless draw, no...?

What Darklink means is that all the missions are determined by the draw of the cards, be it 6 down, 2 up, 3 hidden etc. At the end of the day the victory conditions are the same for all maelstrom missions in that they are dependent on the cards you draw. Therefore the conclusions we are drawing about behaviour are applicable to all missions as the only changing significant variable is the way you draw the cards. Compared to the Eternal war missions where you need to have played them all as their own experiment, because the scouring and the relic have drastically different win conditions you cannot use one to draw conclusions about the other.

[Brad Richards]

personally i liked the idea of the maelstrom missions but the execution is beyond terrible. one of the things im going to try is removing all the control objective x cards from the deck, and using the cards in the standard rulebook missions. Each player after both players have deployed would draw 5 cards with an option for 1 mulligan. those cards would be played as secondary objectives to whatever the primary objectives are. Going to playtest that this weekend

[DarkLink]

Right. With these missions, don't even bother actually playing the game unless you expect to table your opponent. There are two ways to win: 1) draw a better hand than your opponent, or 2) table your opponent. Since games don't generally end in tabling, you're really wasting your time putting models on the table. Save some time and just draw cards to find out who wins. Absolutely none of the mission variants do nothing to change any of this.

[Melon-neko]

We have played 1 game with the maelstrom rules (and 7th for that matter) and the cards were the only thing that made it a decent game. I played mono-nurgle daemons, my opponent played grey knights. I was pretty much impossible for me to use psychics (despite 11 levels). Anyway, I got better cards so managed to get some points despite getting almost tabled by turn 5.

Obviously, if my opponent hard the better hand I would have been beaten much worse, but I would rather have the chance for a close game than no chance at all.

Although, just one game. My opinion may change, just thought I'd throw out a different perspective. I never thought of them as "narrative gaming" and I generally ignore that phrase as marketing nonsense. I do like getting VP during the game and not just doing a power grab turn 5 & 6

[frantheman666]

I do disagree with this. I'm an Eldar Player and my main opponent is a marine player. What we have found is the best way to play the game is to try and think a turn ahead and to discard one card a turn, especially ones that would prove useless (eldar arnt going to sit within 12 inch of there own d-zone). You just need to adjust tactics on these types of missions, just like anything else. Also u need a balanced army to play them correctly. So unbound armies are pretty much useless in this mission type.

[Ghostofman]

personally i liked the idea of the maelstrom missions but the execution is beyond terrible. one of the things im going to try is removing all the control objective x cards from the deck, and using the cards in the standard rulebook missions. Each player after both players have deployed would draw 5 cards with an option for 1 mulligan. those cards would be played as secondary objectives to whatever the primary objectives are. Going to playtest that this weekend

I'm looking at things like "If an Objective is 100% unaccomplishable (kill the psyker vs. an opponent with no psykers ect.) discard and redraw, repeat until all objectives are accomplishable."

and

"Identical Capture and Control, Take and Hold, and Storm and Defend objectives cannot be accomplished in the same turn."


Seriously all the loose ends in this edition makes me wonder if it was actually playtested...

[Caitsidhe]

Seriously all the loose ends in this edition makes me wonder if it was actually playtested...

You are actually wondering about that? This edition of the game wasn't even on the calendar. It was kit-bashed together at the last minute after their last sales report because some people are desperate to hold on to their jobs. New editions always produce a sales bump (or have in the past) and this is intended to try and prevent a series of drops in profit. A bad report is one thing. Several in a row means someone is fired. They were not play tested, at least not by any standards the rest of us would accept.

This "edition" is nothing more than one page of Faqs and Errata they had been intending to post combined with a rewrite of the Psychic rules. Realizing that wasn't enough they threw these cards together so they could pretend they were giving us more missions. Lastly, they altered army configuration to try and get people to play double (or triple or whatever) force organization w/lots of allies. The community didn't embrace it in the previous attempt, so they tried to make it mandatory in practical reality.

[Ghostofman]

You are actually wondering about that? This edition of the game wasn't even on the calendar. It was kit-bashed together at the last minute after their last sales report because some people are desperate to hold on to their jobs. New editions always produce a sales bump (or have in the past) and this is intended to try and prevent a series of drops in profit. A bad report is one thing. Several in a row means someone is fired. They were not play tested, at least not by any standards the rest of us would accept.

This "edition" is nothing more than one page of Faqs and Errata they had been intending to post combined with a rewrite of the Psychic rules. Realizing that wasn't enough they threw these cards together so they could pretend they were giving us more missions. Lastly, they altered army configuration to try and get people to play double (or triple or whatever) force organization w/lots of allies. The community didn't embrace it in the previous attempt, so they tried to make it mandatory in practical reality.

I don't not believe you... But as a writer myself I think it's really strange that holes big enough to fly a thunderhawk through made it. The normal editing process and a lunch break should have brought up stuff like "So how's shadow in the warp work now?" Or "I play Tau, what am I supposed to do with the 'Harness the Warp' Objective?" That's the sort of thing that doesn't even need a real playtest, just an afternoon of spitballing during a copy editing session in the conference room.

I suppose it's possible that the editing staff doesn't actually play the game... perhaps they farm it out to India like UK Doctor's have been doing with medical transcription? (FYI, if you are Hypo or Hyper anything, make sure you're records got that one the right way round)

Also you forgot to mention that terrain is now either just plain open, difficult, impassible, or ruins unless it's a terrain kit GW sells... Even buildings aren't buildings unless it's got a corresponding datasheet that says so. That was the thing that screamed desperation to me.

[Lord Asterion]

You are actually wondering about that? This edition of the game wasn't even on the calendar. It was kit-bashed together at the last minute after their last sales report because some people are desperate to hold on to their jobs. New editions always produce a sales bump (or have in the past) and this is intended to try and prevent a series of drops in profit. A bad report is one thing. Several in a row means someone is fired. They were not play tested, at least not by any standards the rest of us would accept.

This "edition" is nothing more than one page of Faqs and Errata they had been intending to post combined with a rewrite of the Psychic rules. Realizing that wasn't enough they threw these cards together so they could pretend they were giving us more missions. Lastly, they altered army configuration to try and get people to play double (or triple or whatever) force organization w/lots of allies. The community didn't embrace it in the previous attempt, so they tried to make it mandatory in practical reality.

This is not at all true, their were codexes written with this in mind, the Eldar and AM one for example and they lead times are huge for these, this has been part of the plan for a long time and for good reason.

Stop being bitter and entitled. You've obviously never played this edition, same with DarkLink, or he wouldn't say such nonsense about it.

[Caitsidhe]

This is not at all true, their were codexes written with this in mind, the Eldar and AM one for example and they lead times are huge for these, this has been part of the plan for a long time and for good reason.

Then why was there now word of it? I disagree that the Eldar and AM appear written for this Codex. Please support this assertion with supporting evidence.

Stop being bitter and entitled. You've obviously never played this edition, same with DarkLink, or he wouldn't say such nonsense about it.

I feel neither bitter nor entitled. Games Workshop doesn't get my money. It hasn't for a long time. My toys have been built up through prize support, barter, ebay, and interesting new companies which seem to have wonderful sales. To be bitter, I would have to be a losing out. I merely comment on what I observe. I have, indeed, played fourteen games now in this "edition." As a general rule I won't comment much on something I haven't tried or tested. If you would like me to show some support for what I stated above I can:

1. Demonstrate that the various Faq & Errata which simply modify 6th Edition do all fit on a single page. *MOST of the game is exactly the same as 6th.
2. I can point you to the exact dates when rumors of this "edition" first appeared and how they seem to correlate with a bad financial report.
3. I can indicate the dates and thus count the months they had to throw this together.

I can also go back to 6th Edition and point out Double Foci and Allies which they set at kicking in at 2K+ games. The intent was clearly to encourage larger size games and get people to invest in additional armies. To their shock and surprise, the community simply (on the whole) adopted playing lower point games. Lo' and behold, this time around they removed the 2K+ requirement. Again, this is an attempt to improve sales. I do not blame for that but I don't think they are taking several things into consideration:

1. The community rejected their last attempt.
2. Nobody has to buy ANYTHING first hand from Games Workshop anymore (and why would they)?
3. Many people already own what they need or can barter or CONVERT it.

There is the real world of business and there is the fairy tale world of fanboys. If you want to know how or why someone (or something like a company) does something you need merely to look at the profit motive. I am not passing judgement here, merely pointing out how the real world works. Sales declined. A new edition appeared without warning. It was done at rapid speed and clearly without any play testing at all (there really wasn't time).