New ITC Beta Missions

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2020/02/17/breaking-down-the-new-itc/

The new ITC rules look like they may mitigate the 'select an army that does one thing really well, and select secondary mission objectives that play to that one thing, and win every round doing that one thing' meta that the ITC appear to have become.

recon is a given with most DE lists, especially when you can score all 4 points in just 2 turns.

Its a step in the right direction for sure. I've been following it and it is good so far IMO.

Skulnbonz wrote:

recon is a given with most DE lists, especially when you can score all 4 points in just 2 turns.

Engineers is quite doable too. I drew out the various deployment maps and came up with the "ideal" Engineers objective placement. 25" (on the long side) by 13" (on the short side).

This spot is guaranteed to be out of anyone's deployment zone in 4 of 6 maps (all but quarters and diagonals), yet is within 3" of the deployment zone on 3 out of 6 maps.

Overall, I'm quite pleased. The fact that given a 6 turn game, the max score you can get is 42 and that at most you can get 20 points from just killing things.

The days of allowing your opponent to hold more and focusing solely on kills are over. It's a losing strategy.

I tried out the beta missions at a local tournament this past weekend, it's definetly an improvement. Secondaries almost feel too easy to score, I took recon and behind enemy lines in 2/3 games and it was pretty easy to max those out by turn 3. Behind enemy lines in particular is a huge improvement over it's old version and another easy one to score for us, long as you're not facing an army that's too punchy in melee.

I will say though it definetly felt equally difficult to deny my opponent their secondaries. The change to big game hunters now means you can get pts from killing venoms, that one is just a given now though it meant butcher's bill was taken less against me. The only time I was really able to stop my opponent from getting 3/4 points out of a secondary is when one opponent took postman, I had a solitaire who naturally blitzed that character to oblivion.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I tried out the beta missions at a local tournament this past weekend, it's definetly an improvement. Secondaries almost feel too easy to score, I took recon and behind enemy lines in 2/3 games and it was pretty easy to max those out by turn 3. Behind enemy lines in particular is a huge improvement over it's old version and another easy one to score for us, long as you're not facing an army that's too punchy in melee.

I will say though it definetly felt equally difficult to deny my opponent their secondaries. The change to big game hunters now means you can get pts from killing venoms, that one is just a given now though it meant butcher's bill was taken less against me. The only time I was really able to stop my opponent from getting 3/4 points out of a secondary is when one opponent took postman, I had a solitaire who naturally blitzed that character to oblivion.

Yeah, I agree. Preventing opponents from scoring secondaries is harder, but I'm okay with that overall. It allows us to build lists unencumbered by restricting ourselves to limit secondary scoring.

Ravagers, for instance, fell off because they are too easy to score Big Game Hunter off of. If you assume your opponent is going to max their secondaries no matter what list you take, you can just put in efficient units without worry.

Yeah my old lists, I tried as best I could to stick to giving up only 2 kill secondaries, but now that opponents are forced into 1 hold secondary, no need to worry about giving up 3 kill secondaries. I see almost no way with the new rules that you can avoid giving up 2 kill secondaries, if you take less than 40 wounds of vehicles/monsters, rather difficult to do for Drukhari you're probably still giving up gutbusters or butcher's bill. It's a nice change because not just with ravagers, but also raiders don't feel like a huge loss, I always use to stick to venoms when they didn't give big game hunter but now I may switch that up.

I will say my initial experience from 3 games, secondaries almost feel too easy now. Long as you make sure to get your kill targets in, recon is free points even faster, chances are another one of the board control secondaries is a good choice for DE. And in terms of stopping your opponent, unless they take something like postmaster/sappers/engineers where there's one specific unit you can kill to stop their secondary, also feels pretty tough. Puts way more emphasis on hold/kill more, and the bonus now that they are easier.

They did update the Beta rules a bit, you cannot score 2 points for the same non kill secondary on the first turn, and Flyers cannot score behind enemy lines and recon. So turn 3 is the earliest you can finish those secondaries.

Both fair changes, and not really something that will have much of a negative impact on us.

Dalamar wrote:

They did update the Beta rules a bit, you cannot score 2 points for the same non kill secondary on the first turn, and Flyers cannot score behind enemy lines and recon. So turn 3 is the earliest you can finish those secondaries.

Oops, Flyers can score Recon, just not behind enemy lines.

Also the finalized rules are up Talos/Cronos don't score Gangbusters anymore.  

"Gang Busters:  For every 6 wounds inflicted on a non Troop battlefield role multi-model unit composed entirely of models with 3 or more wounds that does not have the Vehicle, Swarms or Monster keywords, score 1 point."

The Reaper now counts Swarms and Bikers.

The Reaper: For every 20 wounds of Infantry, Swarms, Bikers or Drone models destroyed, earn 1 point.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Yeah my old lists, I tried as best I could to stick to giving up only 2 kill secondaries, but now that opponents are forced into 1 hold secondary, no need to worry about giving up 3 kill secondaries. I see almost no way with the new rules that you can avoid giving up 2 kill secondaries, if you take less than 40 wounds of vehicles/monsters, rather difficult to do for Drukhari you're probably still giving up gutbusters or butcher's bill.

I wouldn't worry too much about Butcher's Bill. It's, IMO, probably the worst secondary in the game. It's the only Seek and destroy secondary that cannot be scored more than once a turn. So if someone takes BB and ends up going first on a dense board, they'll often need a 5 turn game just to have a chance at maxing it.