¥ Terminus Est Search Engine ¥

Blood Vow

Happiness is success... (Buddha)

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Interview with Reecius * New ITC Mission Pack (SoCal Open)


I held this interview with Reecius of Frontline Games yesterday at his shop here in San Diego while helping him and crew build terrain for the SoCal Open to be held next week. The questions all pertain to the new ITC mission pack which was specifically designed with 8th edition in mind and borrows from other great mission packs like the NOVA Open.

1. Does the mission pack favor certain types of army builds ?

It does favor armies with strong board control that also kill well, but then, all missions do I suppose.

2. How does the new mission pack help the player going 2nd ?

Hey brother, yeah, going second gives you the better position for scoring objectives since you can’t be countered.

3. What’s your advice in general on designing an army list that will excel using the new mission pack ?

This was actually already answered above in reply to the first question.

4. Does the new mission pack take into account of not yet released codices ?

I can't comment on what is yet to come. :’ (

Here’s some additional comments from Reecius over the FB group for SoCal Open. Note that some players here in California have already been playtesting them ...

On tabling an opponent or when an opponent concedes:

Tabling gives you the same points as when your opponent concedes, so that must have gotten lost in translation somehow. It's not max points but close to it for remaining rounds.

On slow play:

Slow play is, was and probably always will be an issue in competitive 40k. It's just tough to police that effectively, especially as events scale up in size. The responsibility for managing time must be the players at the table responsibility. You've got to keep an eye on the clock. For what it's worth, I've had a single tournament game in 8th not go the distance and I play a high model count army. However, I do understand that many players play slowly and our hope is that this forces people to choose to speed up if they want their full score. We don't want to go back to a system that simply allows slow playing to be acceptable from a scoreboard perspective as folks won't have to ever adapt. The game is absolutely capable of being finished on time, it just comes down to the players at the table making it a priority.

On the new secondary mission objectives:

Some of the secondary missions are indeed designed to be punishing. They're meant to be tough to get and we don't intend most players to max out. That is absolutely intentional. This gives a wide range of scores which helps to stratify the field for clear outcomes and reductions in tie games but leaving ties possible.

On scoring:

So it seems like there was some misunderstandings on the new ITC missions. You still get 1,000 tournament points for a win, 500 for a tie, and 0 for a loss + Battle Points, per usual. So, winning games is still primary, but your Battle Points ranks you within your W/L/D bracket thereafter.

Here is an update for everyone coming to the SoCal Open, there will be food, candy, soda, beer and snacks available at the event for sale. No outside food and beverages will be available.

Draft Mission Pack:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1867215326878941/permalink/1937848966482243/

Signals from the Frontline Podcast:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/10/13/signals-from-the-frontline-565-new-itc-missions-available-for-testing/

No comments: