New Missions, New Objectives
Games Workshop have revealed their latest 7th Edition Rules teaser video today and it details some of the new missions we can expect. As we have known already from the earlier White Dwarf leaks there are a number of different objectives that change as the battle progress (through the card system). On completing an objective, you gain the victory points immediately.
In addition to this the screenshots of the video show objective points that in current Eternal War missions would only provide VPs at the end of the final turn. However, like the other objectives, these dish out their VP's at the end of a turn providing 1 point each.
Unbound & Changing the Way You List Build
Now for quite some months now my games of 40k have been using this system already. Victory points scored at the end of a game encourage people to build lists that just table your opponent. This was an obvious imbalance that we corrected with a 1 point per objective per turn capped system. Sound familiar? So I can offer some first hand experience on how this works out.
First there is a lot more focus on troops. Working out how to get them places and keep them alive. I moved from playing Riptide and Battlesuit heavy lists to having to put fire warrior teams in Devilfish. Now, the new force organisation charts allow more than troops to cap in Battle-Forged armies but they are still can't contest against troops. Unbound armies can't contest at all. This is important because a lot of the outcry is that people will make horrible spammy lists designed to simply table an opponent. This would be a genuinely scary set of rules if it was just using Eternal War missions. In the context of Maelstrom missions where VP's will be ticking away nicely for sensibly balanced forces, spammy forces will be less competitive.
Will Balance Be Ruined in 7th?
I am sure there are going to be army combinations and deathstars that are just way too OP. I am not sure 40k can easily get away from that without a complete rewrite of a very bloated set of rules. However I'd like to say it's not yet clear whether 7th is going to be a lot worse or a lot better in this regard. As I said in my first 7th dooom post, having unbound lists revealed without the context of the rest of the rules was unfortunate and has led to a severe over-reaction. It's going to be hard now for people to view the entire set of rules without an unbiased view from such a negative starting point. The new missions, a new allies matrix and who knows what else yet could lead to something far less horrific than has so far been imagined.
What do you think about this all? Still worried that list building will be out of control?
Still worried. As I've said elsewhere, this applies to games with random strangers, not games between friends or even tournament games. Just random pick up games at local games stores and the like.
ReplyDeleteMy concern is that this enables a whole lot of lists that are going to be decidedly un-fun for your opponent. Maybe they will be balanced by mission objectives, but (and admittedly this is just my opinion) games where its just a race to earn VP before your opponent utterly tables you aren't a lot of fun, barring premade scenarios.
Pick up games definitely sound like they could be a bit hit or miss.
DeleteArn't they like that at the moment though? I only ever play against people I know so I can't comment with much insight on this.
Yes, but its a matter of scale. Sure, there can be the odd "death star" list, or some such, but Unbound lists make it much worse.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, you at least know your opponent is going to have a few troops, then limited amounts of other things. Now it'll be totally random.
Now, most won't pack ridiculously spammy lists (20 Tzeentch heralds?) But I suspect many people who'd otherwise have taken "all comers" lists will be doing all sorts of weird stuff.
Basically, just because there were problems before doesn't make it OK to make those problems much worse.
Force organization rules help keep those "middle grounds" games at least moderately fair. And while sure, you can elect to just not play against ridiculous Unbound lists, that's quite rude in an open setting with strangers - they have a legal list, after all, and you want to show sportsmanship.
One thing, though. This is really going to highlight balance issues, when one can just take whatever one wants. Say, for arguments sake, that a given elite unit is really somewhat better than its points cost indicates. Currently, a players ability to exploit that is limited because he MUST put a chunk of points into Troops and an HQ, then he's got to weigh those Elite Slots against other support Elites too.
It takes a lot of hard decisions out of list building.
These are all fair points.
DeleteIt's going to be a lot harder to bring an all comers list to cover 'everything' when 'everything' has suddenly become a whole lot bigger.
It's an interesting point you make about certain Elites (or whatever unit) being more cost effect and therefore people can now exploit them easier. That is certainly true. However my first thought was in the other direction. Currently in the Tau codex, stealth suits are ok units but they have to compete for slots with Riptides and Crisis Suits so they are rarely seen. Now that there is not that restriction these units are far more likely to be seen. If people want to spam either of those units you can find ways to do that in the current system. Now at least people can make a competitive list and still include these less seen models.
Some of the hard decisions have been taken out of list building, especially if you want to just table your opponent. However new ones have been opened up with the new objective cards. We'll have to have a few games with the new rules before we see whether list building is more or less interesting in 7th.
We are also still looking at 7th without the entire picture. We don't know how USR's are going to change how armies work, or even how the various types of units (walkers, jet bikes, etc) are going to change.
ReplyDeleteWhat works now, is not going to work in 7th. Once people let go of that, I think they'll calm down a bit. Right now it seems like every tiny tidbit of info that comes out, everyone freaks out...then gets relieved a few days later.
I just keep getting more and more excited over the prospect of the whole thing. It seems well thought-out, and is addressing a lot of the issues people were having with 6th. This will be an entirely new game.
My favorite part of the whole new "bound/unbound thing" is the little line GW put in there, right at the beginning...that both players must agree to play bound/unbound. Pretty sure unbound is just going to be for fun/fluff campaign games. No one is going to accept a game from a guy who shows up at an LGS with 12 flying hive tyrants.
Yup, I am very excited too. Early rumours of this being a '6.5' rather full fat new release seem wrong now. We may be building on 6th but the meta and the way we play could be changing quite a large amount.
DeleteI am not sure if it was confirmed or not but there was a rumour of flyers being easier to hit even without skyfire so you are right about waiting to see the rest of the changes to make clear judgements.
Aye I think I saw that rumor as well. Something about buffing jink/dive saves to 4+ as well (also applying to skimmers/bikes). That and the grounding checks becoming harder to force lead me to believe there is going to be a definite change to skyfire/interceptor. I'm guessing that all units will be able to get a bonus to BS if they don't move during the movement phase (vs firing at flying things).
DeleteMaybe it won't be skyfire, but a simple +1 BS instead of snapshoting would balance out the new flying advantages.
I should note, I'm worried, but not freaking out. I'm dubious it'll work out for the best of the game overall, but the unbound changes won't really impact me personally. After all, in a group of friends playing that's always an option anyways, and for tourney play they tend to have all sorts of other guidelines anyways.
ReplyDeleteAnd, it does make all sorts of awesome possibilities valid for those random pick up games.
I *am* very excited about vehicles being tougher, FOC stuff aside. 6th was pretty hard on vehicles, walkers in particular.