Building a Tournament Mission Pack - PART 1 - Points and Secondary Objectives

[Maserdom]

CORRECTIONS AND AMENDMENTS ADDED TO THE POST AS CROSSED TEXT

Hi everyone!

So, long story short: I have successfully started a BFG sub group within my favorite gaming club and, having devoured the regular manual's missions, my friends and I turned to the (much juicier) Adepticon mission, deeply enjoying their complexity (we were all competitive 40K and Blood Bowl players) but resenting the gap in quality, clarity or scope of said missions that logically emerged after more than a decade of events and updates.
A few months ago I hand-picked 18 Adepticon missions from 2009 onwards, re-created a standard scoring system (victory points + battle points and a handy anti-sweatlord VP malus for disengaging too soon, shamelessly copied from an American store's which ran BFG competitions) and a d3 and d6 table for rolling the mission (3 blocks of 6 scenarios). We started testing and things were fine but... well, on one side I didn't feel satisfied with the booklet I had created -spoiler, it worked but generally sucked-, on the other my friends kept asking me if I had somehow missed parts of the missions or the Adepticon manuals or whatever, because there were in some cases gaps, in other just a lack of uniformity that I suppose was tied to FAQs, changes or, well, dunno throughout the years.

What does this all mean?
It means that, after a brainstorming session which included one of the club's veterans, another friend hooked by BFG and me plus a dinner out with other guys during which I was bored and kept pestering those two friends to help me, I began to put together ideas to remake from scratch an updated (and polished) BFG Tournament Mission Pack worthy of its name. A companion to the Manual, so to speak, for the advanced player looking for a challenge.

NOTE: for all the missions I had picked out of the available Adepticon pdf booklets, I manually re-created in Illustrator and Photoshop every possible kind of token, terrain or whatever I suppose was handed out to the players. We tested the mission, I believe, with all the materials made available to the players and never resorted to "I'll write this down on a black page, help me remember this does that": the Mission Pack I want to create will consequently be released alongside printable sheets with every item needed to enjoy the missions to their fullest.

This leads us to...


PART 1a - standardizing Points

First thing first, we have to set up a Victory Points and Battle Points system.
For this, as I said, I just copy-pasted the existing table which converts the Victory Points delta into Battle Points:

• 0-149 VP delta = 9/9 BP to both players
• 150-749 VP delta = 11/7 BP
• 750-1349 VP delta = 14/3 BP
• 1350-X VP delta = 17/0 BP

The Victory Points also follow the aforementioned anti-jerk table to prevent legal (yet obnoxious and unfun) turn 2 disengage waves that was in this way implemented:

• +1000 VP to the opponent if, at the end of turn 2, you have no ships on the field
• +750 VP to the opponent if, at the end of turn 3, you have no ships on the field
• +500 VP to the opponent if, at the end of turn 4, you have no ships on the field
• +250 VP to the opponent if, at the end of turn 5, you have no ships on the field

After a debate, we felt that, yes, these bonuses DO apply to destroyed ship too, if you don't actually disengage but are instead wiped off the table. True. However, in that case, no harm is done to the validity of the results, since being vaporized still gives the winner such an insurmountable VP delta advantage anyway that the extra points don't tilt the scales. A super victory, we can say, in BP is still a super victory no matter the VPs that led to a >1350 delta anyway.


PART 1b - updating and standardizing Secondary Objectives

Throughout the years, Adepticon missions went from rolling together on a Secondary Objectives table with 3 choices and noting down your extra mission worth X points (full/partial completion), to the modern "The following 3 Secondary Objectives can be completed by both players for X or Y Battle Points".

Please understand that the manual I'm trying to create has nothing to do with current Scenario customs for the tournament scene, being instead intended as a self-contained Mission Pack. Despite being filled with Adepticon Scenarios (I have no pretense of being remotely good enough to come up with a fair and balanced one altogether), the booklet should NOT be taken as a critique, a set of suggestions or whatever else to the current competitive scene.
For these reasons, I've chosen to focus myself on delivering an improved version of the old Adepticon missions and their Secondary Objectives, in order to create an as homogenous and as standard as possible manual, melding together the scenarios in ways they were (obviously) not intended to, coming from different years and FAQs.

Our brainstorming session, fueled by italian wine and a rich dinner, led us to this conclusion: we need a way of making every mission interesting by itself AND a way of making Secondary Objectives a medium challenge that isn't tied to the scenario itself. If you're thinking "Wait, that's WH40K", well, yes, that was our inspiration, but if it works why not follow the example?

Together, we came up with 3 possibilities:

• A- every mission has 3 Secondary Objectives for both players and they are as varied as possible
• B- a table of Secondary Objectives can be found at the beginning of the Mission Pack and they are chosen/rolled for the mission at hand for both players or for each individual player
• C- each mission has a specific Secondary Objective and there are generic Secondary Objectives to choose from at the beginning of the Mission Pack

After careful consideration, i.e. mostly me telling the other guys "there's no way I'm creating 18x3 Secondary Objectives", we decided that A was out of the question.
Point B kept us busy for some days because, after all, it made sense. Inventing 11 Secondary Objectives (2d6 rolled thrice to generate a player's missions) suddenly wasn't a too daunting task, but three problems arose: - how to decide which objectives were worth 2 Battle Points insted of 1; - how to limit each player to one "major" secondary objective; - how to circumvent the fact that many missions were generic enough that, without serious reworking, the player would have to hope to roll for some interesting "quests" if he was to enjoy the match.

As you may by now imagine, we focused on the third idea, which became the basis of the system I'm now going to explain.


PART 1c - the new Secondary Objectives Table (amended)

SO, what we had to create was a short table of interesting and varied Secondary Objectives to complement a major one available, to both players, in the scenario. Doable, at last!
With a lot of tinkering and lots of messages to my friends (now willing playtesters) asking for feedback, I'm currently retooling and here and there "touching up" the roster of 18 6 Adepticon missions I've selected for the first Tournament booklet I want to prepare making sure that each one of them has an engaging, acceptable and generally up-to-date-with-modern-standards shared Secondary Objective worth 2 Battle Points. (this part was scrapped after unanimously low reviews from the playtesters) Said list will be shared at a later date once I've playtested a number of changes over the next weeks with my fellow club-goers, but for the moment we can leave it aside since it doesn't impact the current topic.

The new Secondary Objectives work, in my current excel spreadsheets, in the following way:

• there are 6 Secondary Objectives
• each one of them focuses on a different aspect of the game mechanics
• ideally, each fleet has a "God please let me roll it" objective, some "ok, doable" ones and a "this will be tough" one
• each player, before deployment, rolls a d6 twice, notes down the Secondary Objective he or she got and shows the resulting pair to the opponent
• rolling the same number twice nets the player the corresponding Objective plus a second one of his or her choice, as a reward for the stroke of luck
• these six Secondary Objectives are always worth 1 Battle Point, no Full/Partial sub-table

Having this table of Objectives available at the beginning of the Manual should reduce the clutter in the Scenarios, leaving more space for description, mission lore or, in general, for the scenario itself. So, at least, I believe: comments are welcome, as much as criticism is!


PART 1d - the six Secondary Objectives

Ok, now to the Objectives.
Following what I already stated, i.e. "six objectives focused on different aspects of Battlefleet Gothic's ruleset", here you'll find the ones I developed. Please remember that the names of the objectives are still a work in progress, while the rules err on the verbose because I want to be as clear as possible before the text is shrunk and embellished.

• BIG-GAME HUNTING – Reduce to 0 HP or inflict a Bridge Smashed critical hit on the enemy Flagship, i.e. the ship, upgrades included, worth the highest amount of points in the opponent's roster. At the end of the match, the enemy Flagship has been destroyed or has been inflicted a Bridge Smashed critical hit or has disengaged. See Notes-1.
• AFFIX BAYONETS - Reduce to 0 HP a non-escort, player-controlled ship with a Boarding Action (single or multiple).
• FIRST BLOOD - Be the first player to destroy a ship If the ship was part of a squadron, the entire squadron has to be destroyed in order to complete this objective. and its squadron, if it was part of one.
• EVENT HORIZON – Enter Navigate a Warp Rift with an escort squadron or a non-escort ship.
• BEHIND ENEMY LINES - At the end of the match, at least half of your remaining ships and squadrons are inside the enemy deployment zone.
• SILENT RUNNING - Complete a full turn without issuing Special Orders, Brace for Impact excluded. See Notes-6 PAWNS GO FIRST – At the end of the match, your Flagship is still on the battlefield and has not suffered a Bridge Smashed critical hit. See Notes.

Notes (revamped):

The Flagship is the ship, upgrades included, worth the highest amount of points in a player's roster.
For Tyranids, every Hive Ship counts as a Flagship. For Necrons, the ship carrying a Sepulchre counts as a Flagship; if there are none, inflicting a total -4 LD through critical hits counts instead as having severed the Necron command structure.

Another Secondary Objective we were mulling over was RAMMING SPEED, HORTATOR (Successfully ram, with one or more of your vessels, an enemy ship of size equal to or smaller than the smallest ships which declared ramming against it during the same Movement Phase), but we felt it was too un-interactive. Also, the downside, i.e. having a ship misplaced somewhere on All Ahead Full, wasn't easy to balance since I purposefully left out smaller ship vs bigger one impacts to avoid easy d6 ramming with an expendable, nimble and easily positioned escort against a random cruiser. I'm open to suggestions on this one.

To asnwer your questions, here is the reasoning behind the six Objectives:

• CUT OFF THEIR HEAD -> generic Adepticon objective, I'd call it an evergreen. Having it active imposes a different playstyle on your opponent, who won't let the flagship be ambushed, while subtly changing your own strategy to get the Battle Point.
• AFFIX BAYONETS -> I chose to raise the stakes and modify the standard "Win a Boarding Action" because, this way, the Objective forces a greater degree of commitment. Please note that it doesn't state you have to destroy the ship right away, but that you have to reduce it to 0 hp through a Boarding Action. Consequently, it can be accomplished even in a losing match, once you've softened a vessel and just want to gain a BP with a desperate, multiple Boarding Action. The player-controlled part is there because in some missions you have pirates or similar NPC ships with set behavior which could be exploited, while the non-escort part is to prevent a Boarding Action on a lone escort doing mission things nearby.
• FIRST BLOOD -> fairly straightforward, I specified that you have to vaporize a squadron altogether because a friend of mine kept arguing that his kill of a single Firestorm Frigate in a six-ship squadron won him First Blood. Eyes were rolled and heated words exchanged.
• EVENT HORIZON -> rephrased to prevent lone, expendable, squadron-less escorts from being sacrificed on turn 1 to get the BP (see Tyranids). At the same time, since the risk is now greater, touching the rift and blowing up is valid. The relative simplicity of this objective (throw a few ships at it and you should mathematically get the BP) is balanced, I believe, by the rarity and placement of the Warp Rift, which could be far and maybe even in enemy territory (remember that you unveil the Secondary Objectives before deploying and choosing your side of the table). Also, nothing prevents you from waiting till, for example, your 6-ship squadron of Nova Frigates is down to the last one, now rushed to the Rift and thrown into it: if I wrote the objective correctly, it should be clear that it counts as (what remains of) the squadron moving into the Rift I was told that if a player has lone escorts in his or her fleet and they are sacrificed to the Warp Rift gods, well, it’s his or her damn business (and luck), not mine. The objective was reverted to the Adepticon standard.
• BEHIND ENEMY LINES -> I wanted an objective focused on movement per se and this fell right in place. Having to rotate towards the enemy deployment zone forces you to adapt your playstyle to the situation, and this in turn will change your opponent's overall strategy. Since it works when the battle's end is called, be it premature or at turn 8, you can, if needed, disengage enough ships still out of the enemy deployment zone to reduce the number of vessels on the field and satisfy the objective's condition: obviously, this trick comes at a price, because you could always fail a Disengage roll, but that's the point. I try to include a backdoor into every Secondary Objective, if possible, albeit risky and with a potentially high price.
• SILENT RUNNING -> clarifying that failing the first Order didn't count toward completion was paramount. I also keep wondering if maybe the objective should also say "This Objective can't be completed on the first turn", since some fleets don't really lose much by turtling on T1! Scrapped in favor of PAWNS GO FIRST, the opposite of Objective 1, thanks to the convincing arguments of a couple of playtesters with a conservative playstyle who wanted a dedicated Objective.

CONCLUSION

This is the first part of a huge passion project that I'd love you veterans' input on. Feel free to spit, compliment, express worry, clap, slap me or whatever else you may want to do after reading my thread.

Any comment, insight or suggestion will be highly appreciated and discussed in depth with!


p.s.: I'm Italian, so please ignore and excuse grammar blunders here and there.

[Maserdom]

03/01/2023 Corrections added to the post