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Doc
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Joined: 24 Aug 2006
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Location: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
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 Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| andyman1090 wrote: | | 1 point for troops, 2 for elite/FA/HS, 3 of HQ. This may help even things out for the KP issue, but im sure there are exceptions. |
Wouldn't that hurt an army like guard more?
Their elites (vets) and HQ are not exactly that tough!
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Last edited by Doc on Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Doc
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| Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Senekal wrote: | | Why are Deathwing screwed in Take and Hold? They have troop choices with which to hold objectives - tough ones too. |
They'll typically only have 2 (or 3) troops choice filled - at typically 5 man squads... I've had my storm troopers take down termies in the past...
| Quote: | | This isn't a matter of a 'pet army' issue, Jay. I'd be just as concerned if it were, for example, the Tau who got hosed and the KP thing is also a problem for Tyranids. For myself, I could care less about friendly games. Win, lose, makes no difference. I don't give a rodent's behind as long as the game is enjoyable. |
WH get dinged in KP (transports), drop pod armies get dinged in KP... few armies, that can compete over the course of an event, can have less than 12 KPs. I guess we are still learning new tactics!
| Quote: | | However, if you add Tyranids and Guard together and you get a very significant percentage of attendees at Astros. Since our scenarios are custom and not 'out of the box' we have decisions to make as to how to handle Kill Points. Whether or not to include them, if we do include them how many scenarios should have them etc. There's a similar (although less critical) issue with objective holding. Is it only 'scoring' units? For which scenarios? Keep in mind that for many of Astro's objective missions you didn't need to be scoring - say to hold onto a crate or something. For terrain control it generally was scoring missions but even then not always depending on scenario theme. |
This is not a challenge I envy you guys... maintaining the uniqueness of Astro, without becoming the "odd man out" of tourneys is going to be the key. You do need to keep the flavour of Astro, but you need to bring in 5e.
| Quote: | | I'll be entirely honest in that I don't like KP. I am by no means alone in that fact. It makes games with armies like guard or bugs very difficult and makes 'crons awfully good (I have a Necron army too - too good is just as bad as too poor in my book). |
I don't "like" them either! I just feel that the "sky is falling" approach some people take to their "birth" in not entirely valid - when you take them in the context of a larger event.
| Quote: | | The question is how many, which ones and is it a good idea? Also, will it cause people to bring screwy army designs to Astro if we do have KP or too many KP missions? Those are the prime concerns and the reason for this entire topic. |
The main problem I see you having, is not putting them into Astro, but it is making sure players don't play more than 2 of them over the course of one of your weekends. This may require a reworking of your spreadsheet (though this may already be factored in with the older "types" of scenarios you ran.)
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Senekal
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Doc wrote: | | They'll typically only have 2 (or 3) troops choice filled - at typically 5 man squads... I've had my storm troopers take down termies in the past... |
Strange - the Deathwing armies I've faced locally have usually had 2-3 ten terminator squads as troops backed up by a couple of dreads and some characters. Clearly there are different approaches depending on army design.
I don't mind an edition forcing changes in army design. Honestly it's to be expected. The DW aren't 'screwed' because they aren't forced to take those minimal choices. They CAN do it - but they aren't required to. And if they don't they have a much much harder v5 army than if they did.
Not the same at all as with guard (who don't have a lot of choice in the matter) or bugs (whose primary tactic is to have most of their troops act as a tampon for the rest of the army). Bugs have it easier, however, as they have other tactical options although that might require a rather large amount of cash and time to rebuild all their troop broods.
| Quote: | | WH get dinged in KP (transports), drop pod armies get dinged in KP... few armies, that can compete over the course of an event, can have less than 12 KPs. I guess we are still learning new tactics! |
WH? Don't get the reference.
As to drop pod armies - well those are a niche force anyway and probably could use some curbing as they're pretty darn nasty now. Not good analogies really.
Other armies that get hit kind of hard are mech tau and mech eldar - neither of which is that bad a thing save that in both cases some of those extra KP are very hard to get and, again, those are armies which are an option for players to take. Steel Legion and Speed Freeks also take a pasting and aren't optional if you're playing them, but are niche forces so not as critical.
And yes - any new edition requires learning new tactics. However many of the 'tactics' encouraged by KP aren't ones I want to see in play. Things like having your last two guys go hide behind a wreck for the rest of the game etc. Way too many out of character things for the 41st millennium. It's just too 'gamey'.
| Quote: | | This is not a challenge I envy you guys... maintaining the uniqueness of Astro, without becoming the "odd man out" of tourneys is going to be the key. You do need to keep the flavour of Astro, but you need to bring in 5e. |
We are fortunate in that many ways v5 is very 'Astro like' as regards objective based gaming etc. But when it comes to their mission parameters yeah - it's not going to be easy. Hence this entire discussion. I don't want a tournament victory, particularly at Astro where they are frequently so VERY close, to hinge on whether someone drew a game with what they will perceive as a 'broken' v5 mechanic and got screwed because of that. That kind of thing isn't fun for the attendees. But we still want to make the event reconizably 40k5. As you say - it's not an easy fence to walk along.
| Quote: | | I don't "like" them either! I just feel that the "sky is falling" approach some people take to their "birth" in not entirely valid - when you take them in the context of a larger event.<snip> The main problem I see you having, is not putting them into Astro, but it is making sure players don't play more than 2 of them over the course of one of your weekends. This may require a reworking of your spreadsheet (though this may already be factored in with the older "types" of scenarios you ran.) |
The problem, of course, is that Astro scenario draws are random. WHO you fight isn't and which table (as in not one either of you have played on) isn't but the actual mission outside that is random.
And what you describe would realistically only be possible if we had someone write some selection software for us. Trying to keep track of mission victory parameters like that would add an entire additional level of collisions and make resolving them difficult and error prone. That's another challenge - if we add in some KP missions there's nothing to say that someone won't pull a whole whack of them - or even just one when his opponent pulled none. Trying to engineer what you describe with the other things going on in the selection process is just this side of impossible.
Thankfully, VP are still in the v5 rules, so you'll certainly see a lot of missions staying with those.
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Senekal
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Doc wrote: | | andyman1090 wrote: | | 1 point for troops, 2 for elite/FA/HS, 3 of HQ. This may help even things out for the KP issue, but im sure there are exceptions. |
Wouldn't that hurt an army like guard more?
Their elites (vets) and HQ are not exactly that tough! |
No, they're not but some of their HS are. In truth this would help a guard player although he'd be encouraged to have his command units cower. It would, however, bring most other armies upwards.
I find it amusing in GW's own events they're already starting to modify Kill Points. Pretty much an admission that the mechanic as written in the rules is busted.
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Mongo44
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 2:09 am Post subject: |
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WH is Whitch Hunters I think.
I don't think Kill Point missions are really all that important that they need to be included at all. The Astro missions generally offer interesting enough victory conditions that KP aren't really needed. I can see how a KP mission might make a pickup game more interesting but with the complexity of many Astro missions this isn't really needed. I think that forcing it into the tourney because it is 5th ed would be a critical mistake.
Just my 2 cents. Jay you may attack me now...lol 
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Doc
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: |
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No attack mate!
My point is, has been, and will always be, "don't fear the Kill Point".
*If* you include them in an event it is no big deal as other scenarios balance them out. They are a large (1/3rd!) part of 5e scenarios, so one would "expect" them at a tourney... *If* Astro choses to go no-KP it will just validate the uniqueness of the show!
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Jason "Doc" Dyer
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Lee
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Well, lets see - Deathwing are screwed in the "Take and Hold" objectives. Should we re-write that particular scenario due to the "inadequencies" of that particular army?
No.
Why look at ONE scenarios type for "your pet army" and complain about how you are getting screwed? 40K events don't work like that Mike - you of all experts should understand that! |
In following this discussion I'll like to add that in a perfect world every army would have a chance to win.
I would really like to bring my Tau to an Astro but feel too many scenario's work against them. I noticed only four Tau players played in all the Asto's this year when there much more years ago. Soon we're all be cookie cutter armies....
I'm bad as I would like a chance to win any scenario but with the knowledge that at least two of my six games will be in a dust storm, jungle, or at night, I'll rather bring another army and I'm assuming other's feel the same way. Even for a non-tournment game I wouldn't enjoy some of the scenario's with Tau which my Orks would just love 
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Senekal
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Lee wrote: | | I would really like to bring my Tau to an Astro but feel too many scenario's work against them. I noticed only four Tau players played in all the Asto's this year when there much more years ago. Soon we're all be cookie cutter armies.... |
There have never been 'whackloads' of Tau at Astro. They pulse up and down frequently depending on what armies are new etc. While they have never been a hyper common force, as far as victories in the face of adversity are concerned there have been several "Best Overall" winners at various Astros that have played Tau (John Beck and Rod Murray I'm looking at you) and if memory serves, Rod did it twice.
That despite all the sandstorms, jungles etc. which have been there since the very first Astro.
So it can be done - but the Tau are not the easiest of armies to play. It takes a very skilled player who really knows the army to get the most out of them, particularly in adversity, but it most certainly can be done.
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Lee
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:53 am Post subject: |
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Hey Mike
I picked Tau as my first army because they were hard to master, then Orks years ago because nobody was playing them in Vancouver either (now that Ork's are much more common it's time to move back to Tau or something else)
If we look at the scoring for all the Tau players last year (all five of them) we get:
6 wins
8 ties
16 loses
I wouldn't figure that the Tau players were bad as compared to some scenario's just had them on the ropes too early. Rod Murray had 2 wins, 1 tie and three loses is Winnipeg, not exactly a winning record but he sounds like a very determined player as his soft scores raised his score to 6th place.
I can see now that balancing scenario's is very hard to do with all the differnt style armies out there. Shooty armies want a flat desert to play on while CC armies want Jungles. It's hard to balance....
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Senekal
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| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 9:28 am Post subject: |
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| Lee wrote: | I picked Tau as my first army because they were hard to master, then Orks years ago because nobody was playing them in Vancouver either (now that Ork's are much more common it's time to move back to Tau or something else)
If we look at the scoring for all the Tau players last year (all five of them) we get:
6 wins
8 ties
16 loses
I wouldn't figure that the Tau players were bad as compared to some scenario's just had them on the ropes too early. Rod Murray had 2 wins, 1 tie and three loses is Winnipeg, not exactly a winning record but he sounds like a very determined player as his soft scores raised his score to 6th place.
I can see now that balancing scenario's is very hard to do with all the differnt style armies out there. Shooty armies want a flat desert to play on while CC armies want Jungles. It's hard to balance....
Lee |
Right you are Lee.
Xian and I spend a LOT of time wrangling over things like "Do we have enough close scenarios? Enough long range ones?" In fairness there is a tendency for the 'SAFH Wet Dream' scenarios (open flat desert type things) to be more rare than they should be. Indeed it usually falls to me to leap up and down and insist on a few. The reasons that they're perhaps underrepresented are many, but the key ones basically come down to 'visual' and 'fun'.
The first is that the terrain for these kinds of games is often very uninteresting visually. Basically, it makes for a really boring looking table and that's something to be avoided where possible. I mean - who wants to travel a long way and pay a stack of cash to play on a billiard table?
The other one is fun - SAFH victory games aren't really much fun. Not for either player, unless the SAFH guy is one of those who has fun just by winning. There's no challenge, no tactics and not much game in rolling dice until your opponent's army is churned into bloody chum with gunfire. I mean sure, it's something that the Tau and Guard are good at and it's very fluffy from a universe standpoint, but it makes for a crappy game. The shooting player is standing there going *Yawn* "Take off another unit mate." The other player is going. "Well I'll move. Shoot a bit. Your turn, I'll take those three units off." Lather, rinse, repeat.
Can't say as I'm too surprised by those Tau numbers (good job on winkling them out). The Tau are not an easy army to play. However have a look at John Beck's Toronto winning Tau from a couple of years ago. Beautiful army - he did an absolutely stunning job painting them - and he just smoked people. In fact he didn't take the army the second year simply because it wasn't fun. It was TOO good. John is, however, a truly superb player and hobbiest. He really has deserved his wins at Astro as Best Overall because he is one of the best hobbiests I know. Fantastic general, amazing at army design, superb player and a good guy too. But those are the kinds of folks it takes to win with Tau.
I've got to admit, I'd LOVE to do a Tau army myself. I'm sure I'd really enjoy all aspects of that army - but I have to be realistic in that I just don't have the time for another army. I could afford to purchase it, but I paint much too slowly for that to be a realistic proposition at this point. Perhaps someday...
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Xian
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:41 am Post subject: |
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A big factor for any player's success comes down to luck.
Luck of the draw so to speak. Who you play, what table you play on. How the dice roll. All totally out of each player's control. Certainly the decisions you make on the tabletop impact this - but you can have the best game plan, do everything right - and if the dice don't follow suit there's really nothing more you can do.
The amount of random chance that happens over the weekend that is Astronomi-con certainly leaves a lot of room for almost anyone to win their fair share of games.
I've always found that it is best to focus on the factors you can control at a tournament. Your army's appearance, your personal conduct, and things like your army list, etc. Basically doing the hobby and having fun.
At the end of the weekend, only one player will be presented with the Best Overall trophy at Astronomi-con - and it usually isn't the guy that won all of their games - because it is very rare for someone to win every game over the course of the weekend.
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ghazzy118
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| Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 2:54 am Post subject: |
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| Senekal wrote: | | Strange - the Deathwing armies I've faced locally have usually had 2-3 ten terminator squads as troops backed up by a couple of dreads and some characters. Clearly there are different approaches depending on army design. |
That is actually incorrect. A Deathwing army choice is strictly 5-man. They cannot go above that number. Whoever was using this list, was either using the new Space Marine book with minimal troops, or he was using the army incorrectly, and I am inclined towards the latter.
As for the KP issue, this might be a bit improperly balanced, but why not have everyone simply be given a total of KP equaling to the amount of choices they have.
Example:
1 HQ
1 Elite
4 Troops
1 Heavy Support
That therefore would equal to 7 KP that army has. Rather than have each different unit, the troops themselves, and the transports each being a kill point, have the entire slot they take up be the one KP.
However, I'm am not sure how this would work out in terms of Guards, considering that one troop choice consists of its command section, and then the squads that compose the platoon, so I am not sure how that would work out at all.
Just my 2 cents on the matter. Your thoughts?
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experiment 626
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| Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Xian wrote: | A big factor for any player's success comes down to luck.
Luck of the draw so to speak. Who you play, what table you play on. How the dice roll. All totally out of each player's control. Certainly the decisions you make on the tabletop impact this - but you can have the best game plan, do everything right - and if the dice don't follow suit there's really nothing more you can do. |
I think I just spotted my biggest problem in your statement Xian... What's this thing you call "luck"?! 
Cheers!
Stephie - who's still killing more of her own army with plasma weapons and exploding dreadnoughts in assaults.
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