most hated book scenario?

[Deadsun]

What rule book scenario do people hate the most?

A simple question but there are a lot of nuances to the six core scenarios, some which tend to favour particular armies, army lists and play styles over each other. While I'm certain in my play ability, never give up and have a very good chance of making good on any scenario, sometimes that very first D6 you roll does give a bit of an indication what kind of game I'm going to get, not always in a good way.

For me the one I like the least is the Battle of the Pass. Not really having any flanks to exploit is a real pain, and the predictable sit as far back as you can play from any gunline army can be given full reign. My contingency when faced by this is simply to be fast and try to draw the enemy out of position for centre table blood bath. Unfortunately this cant do much about the other major draw back of this scenario which is that usually my deployment zone is the short table edge pushed up against the wall.

So what do other people really dislike.?

[Haagrum]

Any scenario which allows one player to see the opponent's entire deployment before committing a single model to the table.

Conversely, I love Blood & Glory and Watchtower, because both discourage full-evasion lists and gunlines, and make infantry units very valuable.

[Phierlihy]

Why do you ask? I mean, let's say everyone says "Battle for the Pass". Then what?

[Deadsun]

A very good question Phierlihy. I guess I intended a general discussion about something that plays a big part in our games. I'm relatively new here so thought that could be good in terms of getting to know others on the forum without starting something which had been repeated recently.

Of course this is something contributors can go into in more detail if they want and if themes start emerging, then it is probably worth going deeper with analysis to see if there are things that can be done differently to make these scenarios more enjoyable. How should you be prepared for different scenarios in an all comers list for example.

While others may find this level of discussion useful, ill still just be happy to know if others share my dislike of a particular scenario or see it differently.

[Eldarwonderland]

That's a very polite answer Deadsun.

If Phierlihy had answered one of my posts like that I would have wondered why they were being so snotty. It was a general question that didn't need a reply like that.

[Red...]

It's a good question, and I agree with your rationale for it - there's only so many "I'm fielding a 2,500 point army versus dwarves, can someone please provide comments" threads that regulars can answer before wishing for a bit more variation.

I don't think Phierlihy necessarily meant his comment in a harsh way, though, just that he wondered whether there might be additional value that respondents could provide when replying to the question (e.g. if you were trying to ascertain whether particular armies or army setups struggled with particular scenarios and whether there were any armies or army setups that were good all rounders, then it might be possible for respondents to reply in ways that helped identify ways to build lists that were not immediately hamstrung by one scenario or another).

I'm not as active a player as I was, at the moment, due to a change in job and country of residence, along with a few other bits and pieces, but back when I played reasonably regularly we often just went for the traditional battle and did not roll for scenarios at all. In all honesty, none of them ever struck me as particular fun. Watch tower can lead to overpowered units (particularly if they have shooting abilities) causing an imbalance in gameplay; meeting engagement can be ruined if one player has a few bad rolls and their opponent has mostly good rolls; blood and glory penalizes armies with low banner counts and encourages distorted lists that field units and banners for the sake of it; battle for the pass egregiously punishes some types of army and army list, while rewarding others, leading to silly and/or hopeless match ups in some cases; and dawn attack is similar to meeting engagement but worse - one player's army cohesion and battle plan can be destroyed entirely while their opponent gets a perfect setup, all but determining the outcome in advance.

Shortest game of warhammer I ever played involved a Meeting Engagement scenario. My opponent deployed first with a mixed melee and shooting army of high elves, going up against my dwarf gun line. Not knowing where I was going to go, he had to spread his army across the entire diagonal line that comprised his deployment zone. I then deployed entirely on one side of the board, which effectively placed half of his army into irrelevance (no way to reach my gunline for many, many turns). Worse still, I rolled a six and seized the initiative. Near the start of my second turn, as I scored yet another direct hit with my S5 grudgethrower on top of my opponent's only remotely threatening melee unit that was near me - his block of 25 lothern seaguard - he conceded (and he was right to, his position was hopeless). We looked back at the game afterwards and concluded that the moment we rolled meeting engagement and he ended up with deploying first, he was screwed. If he deployed in strength on one side of the board, I would drop my gunline down on the other and punish him for nearly the entire game with artillery and missile fire, far beyond what he could send back my way (as this was still the 7th ed dwarf book, his magic phase was as good as dead by my dwarf runelords). If he deployed across the board, as he did, then I would pick his weakest side and deploy in strength there - which I did. He would thus face a battle in which my entire army was able to eat his army for breakfast (well, lunch I suppose, as breakfast would be for a dawn attack scenario instead) one half at a time.

The shame about Warhammer scenarios is that they could have been so much more. It's true that Warmachine, Malifaux, and Infinity are more tactical skirmish-esque games than Warhammer Fantasy, but they offer intriguing insights into how scenarios can be made central to a game in positive rather than negative ways. Most of the Warhammer scenarios amount to screwing with your deployment, then letting your armies clash as normal, with just a couple requiring changes in the actual attack meta itself - and not in particularly positive ways. I'd like to be optimistic that the scenarios may be improved in 9th edition, but as the emphasis appears to be more on "big things smashing into each other - what fun what fun!", I think we are likely to see a trend the other way, even more towards "just throw everything down and then let it run at one another". We will see...

[Phierlihy]

Wasn't trying to be snotty. But the question was like asking "who likes the shooting phase?". It seemed a bit out there and I assumed I was missing something.

[Red...]

I dislike the shooting phase - my armies (dwarf list mentioned above excluded) tend to have little of it and much prefer a good old fashioned melee bash. I also dislike my poor troops getting shot to ribbons by irksome (and cowardly) enemy archers, warmachines, and other nefarious shooting contraptions. That said, I prefer it to the magic phase, which always seems too feeble on my turn and too potentially game changing on my opponent's turn.