So one of the discussions that we see a lot is about 100/6 vs Missions, and almost always this is framed that the two are mutually exclusive.

What if there were ways to bring missions into 100/6 in the form of upgrades that bring new win conditions than just "destroy the opponent". The first time a card in Magic: The Gathering was printed that said "You win the game" in the text a lot of people lost their minds, but ultimately it was proven to be an interesting addition to the game.

So how about this as an example of what that might look like?

Rescue Pod
Large Ship only.
Modification.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The first time a card in Magic: The Gathering was printed that said "You win the game" in the text a lot of people lost their minds

Which one, out of curiousity? Poison Counters was the first one I remember coming across (If he or she has 10 poison counters, that player loses)

I think it'd be nice. I'm a big advocate of adding non-kill-everything missions, but I also firmly believe that you will get people who want nothing to do with them - and the best way to allow for that is to ensure that if you add it to the game, they're optional, and if they give you an edge in the game, you are therefore paying points for the privilege just as you would with any other thing added to your squad, so that a squad with a 'mission card' and a squad without one are at equal footing with a 100 point game.

For the specific card you're talking about.......erm.

Is it a modification or a crew slot.

Because if it's a crew slot, then:

Han Solo, Lone Wolf, Rescue Pod, C-3PO, Burnout SLAM, Countermeasures

Zip, Yoink, Bamff, Bye-Bye!

I think the idea could be interesting - but it could very easily be abused if not worded correctly.

The "Let's get out of here" condition could be worded "If this ship flees the battlefield from your deployment edge, you win the game" to clean up the wording.

Taking some concepts from Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, how about requiring you to overlap the token to pick it up? Also, is there a way of killing this thing? That would change the dynamic massively.

1 minute ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Which one, out of curiousity? Poison Counters was the first one I remember coming across (If he or she has 10 poison counters, that player loses)

I think it'd be nice. I'm a big advocate of adding non-kill-everything missions, but I also firmly believe that you will get people who want nothing to do with them - and the best way to allow for that is to ensure that if you add it to the game, they're optional, and if they give you an edge in the game, you are therefore paying points for the privilege just as you would with any other thing added to your squad, so that a squad with a 'mission card' and a squad without one are at equal footing with a 100 point game.

For the specific card you're talking about.......erm.

Is it a modification or a crew slot.

Because if it's a crew slot, then:

Han Solo, Lone Wolf, Rescue Pod, C-3PO, Burnout SLAM, Countermeasures

Zip, Yoink, Bamff, Bye-Bye!

Or even Ketsu/Asajj with Burnout SLAM & C.measures, they've got the 5 straight.

10 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Is it a modification or a crew slot.

Because if it's a crew slot, then:

Han Solo, Lone Wolf, Rescue Pod, C-3PO, Burnout SLAM, Countermeasures

It's both. We've not seen if before but there's no reason why it can't be both. It would have the crew upgrade symbol to indicate it uses a Crew slot, but have the word modification in the text.

And I had in mind Battle of Wits. Poison was very much like just a different pool of damage.

44 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

I think the idea could be interesting - but it could very easily be abused if not worded correctly.

The "Let's get out of here" condition could be worded "If this ship flees the battlefield from your deployment edge, you win the game" to clean up the wording.

Taking some concepts from Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, how about requiring you to overlap the token to pick it up? Also, is there a way of killing this thing? That would change the dynamic massively.

42 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

Or even Ketsu/Asajj with Burnout SLAM & C.measures, they've got the 5 straight.

The counter, if you will, if that the opponent knows which ship needs to make the pick up and can shoot it down and block its movement.

If you lose the pick-up ship is that an auto loss? Is there a time frame in clock time or rounds?

That makes it more of a gambit of auto-win vs. auto-loss.

In general, I really like these kinds of ideas and I really think they need to become part of the game's meta-strategy.

5 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

The counter, if you will, if that the opponent knows which ship needs to make the pick up and can shoot it down and block its movement.

If you lose the pick-up ship is that an auto loss? Is there a time frame in clock time or rounds?

Not a bad idea. It would be something you could introduce as a control if it was found players were equipping the Rescue Pod then just playing deathmatch and using it to control enemy positions - they're trying to defend something you're not actually trying to achieve.

The opponent knows who is trying to do it, and they know where the pod is prior to deployment so can line up to protect it.

Just now, Stay On The Leader said:

Not a bad idea. It would be something you could introduce as a control if it was found players were equipping the Rescue Pod then just playing deathmatch and using it to control enemy positions - they're trying to defend something you're not actually trying to achieve.

The opponent knows who is trying to do it, and they know where the pod is prior to deployment so can line up to protect it.

I would say that destroying the pod should not be an option, but it would be funny if it could be tractor beamed

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

I would say that destroying the pod should not be an option, but it would be funny if it could be tractor beamed

That was actually my thought. Either you make it killable the rescuing team needs a buff, or you make it unkillable in which case you need a buff for the attackers.

Can I place a bomb on it with Minfield Mapper? Wait--no, but I can place two cluster mines to kind of corral it, more-or-less.

I like this concept by the way. We need other victory conditions desperately if we're going to freeze the power creep in 100/6.

I imagine if the ship that was to attempt the pick-up was destroyed, (or the pod as well) then the victory condition would revert to "destroy all enemies" as per usual.

I hate to say this but it sounds awful....

Just imagine playing against it? you have no idea its coming (when you designed your list) and on the other side of the board is a biggs list built for speed and defense and gets to ignore building for any offence. And you built a fairly slow none alpha list... i guess you just loose with no chance? that does not sound like fun at all. There are probably a bunch of other defensive speedy lists you could build that just go straight up the board and back. How is that fun?

You people think boosting falcons are bad now, with this thats the a game right there.

5 hours ago, Icelom said:

You people think boosting falcons are bad now, with this thats the a game right there.

I think you didn't actually read my post.

21 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I think you didn't actually read my post.

Yep you are right missed the fact its a mod/crew

Still does not change the fact that it just turns x-wing into running back and forth with your fastest most defensible ship.

I like the idea of Objectives or varying win conditions; I didn't take to Armada when I tried it but that was one of the elements I'd hope would work its way to X-wing.

Random win conditions drawn from a deck at the beginning of a match that can make a T1 Meta-list less-than-desirable and change up the game structure.

I want shuttles and other non combat or stationary models in the game.

so for an escort mission I would introduce an entirely new model ship that was almost useless but you could give it titles that scored points when it exited the enemy board edge. heck a title for the hawk would work.

8 hours ago, Force Majeure said:

I imagine if the ship that was to attempt the pick-up was destroyed, (or the pod as well) then the victory condition would revert to "destroy all enemies" as per usual.

And in that case, the penalty for failure is that you wasted 5 points trying to ply the mission, which seems reasonable.

2 hours ago, Icelom said:

Still does not change the fact that it just turns x-wing into running back and forth with your fastest most defensible ship.

Because "Kill Them All" is so much more cerebral. . .

Less snarkily (is that a word?; maybe snakilily sounds better) it changes the tactics. Because now you have to plan for "kill them all" AND "how do I prevent the milk run of your fastest most defensible ship." And the more missions there are, the more versatile everyone's list will need to be, hopefully ending the monowire edge of one-meta-only play.

12 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

I want shuttles and other non combat or stationary models in the game.

so for an escort mission I would introduce an entirely new model ship that was almost useless but you could give it titles that scored points when it exited the enemy board edge. heck a title for the hawk would work.

This would be another excellent by-product of insta-missions: non-combat ships that are useful if you are the player flopping the mission.

Having played missions a lot, I can say with confidence that they don't "prevent there being a meta", because there's always a 'best' squad for a given mission.

"Oh, political escort and I'm attacking? Have 4 guidance chip, crack shot homing missiles. Boom. Shuttle Dead, Good game."

But; as long as you don't know what mission you're playing when writing your squad, you have to build for any possibility - which could be 'kill everything' but could be 'take and hold this region' or 'grab the objective and run like smoke and oakum' - which is why mission-based game nights where a player has to fact 2-3 different scenarios and doesn't know which side he's on do have much less susceptibilty to 'the meta'.

Partly because, you know, it's (a) seemingly played less by the kind of people who have the skills and time to do exhaustive analysis on the best way to win (because it's not a common format for competetive events), (b) it's harder to analyse statistically (because missions tend to have large maneuvring-heavy elements that are hard to quantify numerically, and the scenario-specific gimmicks are often not garuanteed but potentially game-winning) but also because different squad traits are required.

A squad which is just all-round efficient is always going to be good, but even then, really good squads for a fight have weaknesses that don't matter in scenarios. Fair Ship Rebels are (aside from the TIE fighter) relatively slow, have to fly in formation to be effective and have little to no ability to mitigate non-attack damage. If they get cast as the 'First Order Player' in mission F1, with their opponent given 6 free trigger-on-demand super bomblet tokens, they're in for a rough time of it. Undeniable Assets is brutally painful for any list with a small number of ships, especially if none of them have a stop or at least speed 1 manouvre - Fenn Rau wants to pick up a pair of passengers? okay. He takes 4 damage.