The weekend just gone, 4 of us decided to have our own Baron Z event at my place and we played all the objectives and deployments from the latest article.

The last one we played was Defended Pass.

These two cards are so broken.

Firstly, when you try to measure out the deployment, let me know how you get on because when you're done, those two areas are so much closer than the diagram shows, meaning that the card is scaled completely wrong to what the play area will be.

Secondly, that objective...

Escorter and Interceptor have no reason to engage eachother when they can can just their unit either with the token (as Escorter) or on the token (as Interceptor) and then surround their army around it and just sit there... gaining 75 points a turn. Meaning whoever has the highest army points is going to get a 6-5 victory, if you can even get a unit to the token on your first turn as Interceptor.

So if you're in the position where your army has a lower points total than your opponent, you're gonna have to rush them. Which involves you either leaving a unit behind to guard the token to keep generating you points, meaning one less unit in the fight, abandoning the token in order to try and smash through the opponent force (as Interceptor) or risking your unit with the token (as Escorter).

This leads to many rounds of one side gaining 75 points a turn and the other force not getting anything, meaning the only way one side can win is if they totally table the other.

It would make more sense if the escorter had to actually escort the unit to the second point to get the 75 points, as its such a massive points swing.

Regardless, two games we had going on simultaneously ended up with both winners winning by over 600 or something ridiculous.

Perhaps we are missing something, but just thought we would share our experiences and thoughts.

Thanks for the report. When you mentioned that the measurements were off, I had to see what was up. My initial thought was that perhaps the 5's were all supposed to be 3's, but were copied down wrong. Here is a quick mock-up I did on Vassal treating all the range 5 measurements as range 3:

Looks a lot more like the card, doesn't it? So question for the community: when you get to this encounter in your challenge kits, will you use these measurements to look more like the card, or will you use the printed numbers? I would suggest using these new measurements, but it sounds like it won't make much difference for the balance of this mission.

As an aside, I just noticed that the Season 2 kit comes with Defended Pass deployment card, but no objective card. Looks like FFG OP is really struggling with their Runewars kits.

EDIT: Heck, if the 5's were supposed to be 3's, what do you think the chances are that the 75 points for the objective was actually supposed to be 25?

EDIT 2: I figured I should post a picture of the field if you set it up using the numbers proscribed around the border of the image:

This kit is so bad.

I don't understand how they can make such a mistake when it comes to deployment.

I'll probably run by your suggestion with players when I go to an official store event for the kit.

But the objective card is just nonsense, it talks about interceptors and escorts, but yet you don't actually have to do anything. The skill move the objective gives you just seems to turn it into a scenario where red deployment is just a mean bully playing keep away with the blue deployments inhaler or something.

Zero sense lol, I like how they try to be creative with the deployments and stuff, its really cool! Treacherous ground is also a really cool objective and can make some interesting battles, but Defended Pass ruined it! I hope they were just previews and will be fixed...but the kits are probably already in circulation by now?

I agree. When you look at the deployment, you totally expect the objective to require the Escorter to deliver the objective token to the other side of the field to gain 75 points, and it's up to the Interceptor to stop them. I think it would be worth trying this mission with that rule. The unit holding the objective would have to collide with the edge of the field opposite the Escorter deployment area. Or better yet, just run the Defended Pass deployment with the Escort objective from the Core Set.

But playing this way just seems so much like Place the Explosives special deployment/objective from an earlier kit. I like the idea of getting points for holding an item or defending a point on the field (like the one terrain that is placed) so hopefully the try to revisit that idea in a future special deployment/objective pair.

3 hours ago, Zaaik said:

So if you're in the position where your army has a lower points total than your opponent, you're gonna have to rush them. Which involves you either leaving a unit behind to guard the token to keep generating you points, meaning one less unit in the fight, abandoning the token in order to try and smash through the opponent force (as Interceptor) or risking your unit with the token (as Escorter).

This leads to many rounds of one side gaining 75 points a turn and the other force not getting anything, meaning the only way one side can win is if they totally table the other.

If you start the match with lower points then actually, you are at an advantage because you will simply choose to be the Escortee and deploy in the red deployment zone. If the Interceptor does nothing to come get you, then you win.

However, I do feel this is going to be one of those matches that requires a dive comp ala Uthuk. A well placed Raider's Tent and a four tray Flesh Ripper Unit would be able to go from one side of the board to the other and potentially get into range 2 of the Objective Token, the moment that happens, they win, assuming the Uthuk player isn't then massacred.

Slower armies like Waiqar are going to suffer because they won't really be intercepting anything but Latari with their high mobility as well as Oathsworn Cav, it has potential.

This match up will always, ALWAYS be a bloodbath if the interceptor goes for it and I think that is what the intention is.

16 minutes ago, Zaaik said:

This kit is so bad.

I don't understand how they can make such a mistake when it comes to deployment.

You must be new here.

FFG are great at making mistakes. Remember when they printed objective cards with no points costs? Or they forgot to color in the red deployment zone forcing an automatic victory for who ever choose blue? Or that time they undercosted Spined Threshers?

Good times.

6 minutes ago, Viktus106 said:

You must be new here.

FFG are great at making mistakes. Remember when they printed objective cards with no points costs? Or they forgot to color in the red deployment zone forcing an automatic victory for who ever choose blue? Or that time they undercosted Spined Threshers?

Good times.

I do remember these.

Also still living with the mistake that is Spined Threshers.

The deployment zone looks consistent with the distance that some of the other deployments produce. For example, the distance 4 on either side of Stand-off produces a situation in which you have just slightly beyond the ruler between the two armies. The ruler is 12 inches, which means at those distances one ought to have just slightly (barely) more space between the front of the intercepting armies and the escorting army. This may not look like the diagram, but it leads me to think that the numbers themselves are, in fact, right. The space between the two deployments may be way off, but the distance that they allot on the card to the two "fives" on either side are the same.

Also, the results of two wins at 600 points bears out more what I think is broken about the objective: almost all of the results will be 10-1. The objective also doesn't allow for much difference in skill between two players before bigger win totals become possible. I think I'd very strongly dislike having the objective in the first round of a tournament since it opens the door for some rather skewed pairings in round-2 when a bunch of 10-1s get paired up.

4 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

Also, the results of two wins at 600 points bears out more what I think is broken about the objective: almost all of the results will be 10-1. The objective also doesn't allow for much difference in skill between two players before bigger win totals become possible. I think I'd very strongly dislike having the objective in the first round of a tournament since it opens the door for some rather skewed pairings in round-2 when a bunch of 10-1s get paired up.

Well, fortunately it's not tournament legal, so we're safe there. This is only meant for the final game of the final encounter of the Season 3 challenge kit. After that, the only time you'll see it is if you and your buddies want to play it sometime in the future. I think that's why they can get away with a slightly less balanced objective.

48 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Well, fortunately it's not tournament legal...

Yet . . it's not tournament legal yet. . .

Do not underestimate the POWAH of the Dark Side. . errr I mean Organised Play.

On a more serious note, I agree. I think the Tournaments will use more balanced engagements but the OP Kit ones will certainly use all the fun ones. Really breaks up the season if you ask me.

I wish X wing did that . . . .

1 minute ago, Viktus106 said:

Yet . . it's not tournament legal yet. . .

Do not underestimate the POWAH of the Dark Side. . errr I mean Organised Play.

On a more serious note, I agree. I think the Tournaments will use more balanced engagements but the OP Kit ones will certainly use all the fun ones. Really breaks up the season if you ask me.

I wish X wing did that . . . .

Yeah, it's mostly the way objectives and deployments are chosen randomly. Since these two must match, they are ineligible for the tournament scene...so the prophecy says.

Let's hope.