Saturday, November 26, 2011

Blog Wars 2 Rules Query - Response Needed

So I've been spending some time over the last couple of days checking out everyone's army lists for Blog Wars 2 (since they've got to be in by tonight). For the most part everything is fine, and I've emailled people about a couple of minor corrections, but it seems the third and final mission is causing a few problems. 

For those of you not familiar with it the last mission is an attack & defend scenario with some deployment restrictions. At the time of writing these missions I thought it would make sense for the defenders to be able to deep strike some of their units as if they'd called for assistance when they found themselves under attack. I didn't want people to reserve their entire army though as that felt a bit daft when the "attacker" was meant to be attacking someone! Similarly I prevented the attackers from having any deep striking at all and instead allowed them to Outflank some units (which the defender can't do). My only concern was that if there were any Chaos Daemons players that wanted to come then they'd find themselves with a problem because they HAVE to deep strike.

Luckily, (but also a shame too) there aren't any Daemons players coming to Blog Wars 2. However, since Imperial Armour (forge world) armies are allowed there is an Elysians (posh Imperial Guard) army coming along with a tyranid army with some mycetic spores. Both of these armies rely on their ability to deep strike as part of their strategy. This will work fine in the earlier missions but with the restrictions it will cause problems in the last one. So what to do?

The IA player suggested he mimic the aforementioned Daemons by splitting his forces into two "waves" and rolling to see which he gets on turn 1. Seems reasonable because most of his force is deep striking but for the 'nids player not all of his force is in spore pods. At the end of the day it'd be up to their opponents in that final game as to what they allow but as tournament organiser I really ought to come up with something to prevent any delays, disagreements or worse, full blown arguments!

Therefore I thought of just removing the restrictions completely but that brings me back to the problem of what if the defender decides to just reserve everything? Kind of defeats the point of having the attacker attacking! I suppose you could argue that they might be trying to capture a crucial point which they happen to find undefended (at first) and then all hell breaks loose. The other problem with just removing the restrictions is that perhaps people have designed their armies with them in mind? Mind you, since I know some people hadn't even looked at the missions until recently I doubt this would actually be a problem.

Right so what do you lot think? Here are the options:

1. Keep things as they are and let people decide on the day if they come up against an army that has problems in the last mission.

2. Make everyone follow the rules to the letter and therefore penalise people with Deep Strike "themed" armies

3. Only allow units in reserve (for both players) if they can EITHER Outflank OR Deep Strike

4. Scrap the deployment restrictions completely and see how it goes

Personally I think option 3 is the best since it stops the vast majority of armies reserving everything and still allows armies with special deployments to make the most of them. I'll go with the general consensus though!

Seriously, I'm wondering if the custom scenarios were worth the hassle!! I think next time (if there is one) I'll go with rulebook missions but keep the new scoring system.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Alex & everybody!

    First off, I'd better admit that I am the Tyranid player bringing the Mycetic Spore deepstriking army (boo! hiss!). It's a fun, if somewhat random army to play, due to the vaguaries of the reserves rolls (mitigated somewhat by using the Hive Commander upgrade on my flying Hive Tyrant).

    For the final mission, I'll be happy to play whatever the group collectively decides. I'm very unlikely to be troubling the top tables - my tournament record is 12/12, 16/16 and 76/80 - so please don't think I'm a power-gamer or looking for an unfair advantage! The drop-spore army is definitely a fun build and not w.a.a.c..

    I would be more than happy to accept option 3 that Alex suggested, or as an alternative how about all (or most of) the Mycetic Spores and deepstriking units MUST be placed via Deepstrike 'Scatter' during the Tyranid player's normal deployment?

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  2. I'd say go with #3 in general.

    "Any unit placed in Reserve must deploy via alternative deployment - ie deep strike, outflank, summoning. No units may be in regular reserve and just roll in from the table edge."

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  3. Option 3 does seem the best bet.

    Granted I am packing Njal.... :p

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  4. Option 3 is definitely the most balanced.

    Especially since attackers could easily keep some forces in reserve to respond to increased enemy resistance, it's a particularly Nid and (irrelevantly in this instance) Marine thing to do...

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  5. Option 3 it is! I'll alter the missions and send out the edited version to everyone.

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