Pointless scenarios?

[Majere]

I've seen a few topics about this sort of thing, but I wanted to set out my thoughts. I'm speaking exclusively about the campaign side of things here.

It seems to me that, especially as you get to higher ranks, the majority of the scenarios become 'avoid' or 'avoid at all costs'. Let's go through them (I may get some names mixed up):

Haunter in Darkness: Both warbands 'randomly' deployed. If you need the reason to avoid this one explained, you've had a very lucky Mordheim experience so far.

Any scenario where one side is randomly scattered: As bad as HiD, if not worse. If you're the scattered player, potentially a death sentence. As the united player, still potentially deadly if a high-initiative warband (e.g. Skaven) gets dumped right on top of you.

Pillagers: One warband in building(s), other by wagon. Fine, though deploying in the buildings can be a pain.

The Cache, etc: One warband in building/ by wagon, the other in 3 patrol groups. Here's where things get dumb. This scenario is presented as if the warband in three groups has some sort of advantage. 90% of the time how it actually works is the 'surrounded' warband runs en masse at the enemy wagon, forcing at best 4 warriors to try to hold off 10. If you're lucky, and are playing a fast warband vs a slow one, this is controllable, but the last time I played it (and I do mean the LAST time) I had an entire Possessed warband mug three Parry Sisters and a Dodge Novice on Turn 1 when they were less than 1 full move from my wagon. Only a couple of lucky stuns and enemy misses prevented my losses from exceeding the luckless Novice (who fortunately came out of it with a deep wound)

A Walk in the Fog: Usually fine, so long as the map doesn't throw a fit and dump a couple of your warriors somewhere that prevents regrouping without taking a massive detour. Can also lead to the AI just deciding not to bother to move anything if there's no contact after a couple of turns.

Whatever the hell the both teams in 3 patrols one is: Borderline and best avoided. It's possible through the vagaries of map layout to be cut off from other groups and end up fighting two enemy groups with one through no fault of your own, which can be disastrous.

So, what it boils down to is that unless you're feeling lucky, only two scenarios (Rivals in the Ruins and Walk in the Fog) are really viable. It's not too bad in the early game where you're able to cheaply replace lost warriors, but losing a rank 10, fully skilled up veteran because the game randomly spawned a Rat Ogre and two Skaven heroes less than a move away and then gave them all absurd initiative values to boot is intolerable.

None of these scenarios is actually intrinsically unfair- I still have a 100% record over my two Rank 10 Warbands so I can hardly claim they're unwinnable- but in a campaign with persistent warriors that can and will become useless if they go OoA even once, you need your head examined if you attempt half of them. I'll play the two 'safe' ones on Brutal or Deadly quite happily rather than touch the others on Normal, which is ridiculous.

TL/DR version: Most of the scenarios are inappropriate for the campaign and only suitable for friendly skirmishes. IMHO they need to be reworked to be less random, or removed from the campaign rotation.

[ZERO]

i dunno scavengers rivals and walk in the fog are my 3 goto missions if im runing a warband of 7 people the 3 place deployment for both teams is good as you can offten suround 1 target i did that for a long time with my undead warband and i have 2 ranged heros which makes that slightly more risky imo

[ZERO]

will admit tho as a new player my skaven gang got so injured from doing scattered deployment missions i might aswell fire everyone now i know what im doing.

[Paranoia]

I have no problem with Scenarios where one side is randomly scattered.
The team is oftenmost similarly as in if pillaging houses, the distance is great enough to regroup before the enemy gets to one's Characters.

[Papa Yash]

The cache can be tense but I like it. What I really dislike are random deployments.

[Boris always Boris]

Double scattered are my least favourite but as I only play deadly missions these days I accept whatever deadlies present themselves as I usually don't have the gold (or spare days) to wait for a better deadly

[Castor]

You can definitely build for handling any scenario with high Initiative or lots of heavy armor or a mix of both. Bringing fewer units can also be effective. I agree that new players should stick to Rivals or Fog or maybe Pillagers.

[Warlord]

Randomly scattered is fine unless you bring a impressive. It's the only one I rarely ever pick if I use an impressive.

Sure you can cheese your way through mordheim, but where is the fun in that?

[toranaga1985]

imho the only 2 that are staight up bad are both scattered, and both in patrols. all other are fine. and the 1st one that i mentioned can be dealt on particular build set "for some particular build set can also be an easy winning" and the second one that i mentioned.. yeah that's one to avoid^^

[Drathnar1]

Well everyone has different views on how much risk is acceptable. I do agree that in a campaign with persistent warriors that can and will become useless if they go OoA even once, it's probably more prudent to err on the safe side. That being said, sometimes scenarios that feature riskier deployments offer better items and wyrdstone, a more easily accomplished secondary objective and lower difficulty, so while deployment is a strong factor I don't think it needs to be the only consideration.


My 2 cents on the deployments:

Haunter in Darkness
Both warbands are scattered randomly around the area, scared by something.
Yep I generally avoid this too. Unless you're playing Skaven, going into this is like rolling the dice and voluntarily accepting a very real risk of getting units downed in round 1.

Horrors of Mordheim
One warband divides into 3 strike teams while the other is scattered randomly around the area, scared by something.
A little less risky compared to Haunter. Definitely not what I would pick, all other things being equal.

Vision of Dread
One warband deploys tightly around its wagon while the other is scattered randomly around the area, scared by something.
Did a couple of Deadly scenarios with no OoAs so I'm leaning towards this one being not too bad. I like to have a fairly tanky high initiative unit up front to scout so that I reduce the risk of having lower levelled and less geared units running slapbang into the enemy. Often prefer to not explore as much if it means I will have exposed units or units ending the turn with no defensive stance.

The Cache
One warband deploys tightly around its wagon, while the other divides into 3 strike teams.
IMHO for scenarios involving 3 strikes teams, the first order of the day is to get units grouped up or within 1 turn distance so that they can reinforce each other. I try to have at least 1 tanky unit in each team and divide the more vulnerable units as evenly as I can. The AI tends to swarm you once they know the position of 1 group, so I try my best to avoid engagements early on.

Hunters and Prey
Both warbands divide into 3 strike teams and disperse in the area.
As with Cache, I believe it's prudent to get units grouped up as fast as I can and avoid confrontation. A little less risk of getting swarmed en masse as compared to Cache, but quite often there is less room to maneuver as enemy units are all over the place. In cases where only 6-7 units are fielded and can be conveniently grouped into 2 teams instead of 3, it's a fairly straightforward matchup not too different from the rest.

Pillagers
One warband is caught exploring buildings while the other divides into 3 strike teams surrounding the buildings.
No real issues with this one. If one strike team is smashed early, there should be ample space to maneuver and the rest should be fairly easy pickings.

Scavengers
One warband is caught exploring buildings while the other deploys tightly around its wagon.
I like this one for collecting items and quite often the AI tends to be poorly concentrated or focussed.

A Walk in the Fog, Rival in the Ruins:
Never had issues with these and they are my favorite deployments especially when trying to level a few low level units in a high level team.

Originally posted by Majere:

None of these scenarios is actually intrinsically unfair- I still have a 100% record over my two Rank 10 Warbands so I can hardly claim they're unwinnable- but in a campaign with persistent warriors that can and will become useless if they go OoA even once, you need your head examined if you attempt half of them. I'll play the two 'safe' ones on Brutal or Deadly quite happily rather than touch the others on Normal, which is ridiculous.

Well again I think it boils down to how much risk is deemed acceptable. Some people buy insurance, others don't. Some people engage in risky physical and financial ventures. Most don't. Personally if the returns are Exceptional Wyrdstone and Exceptional Items, I don't mind taking on stiffer odds if I feel the team is in good shape.

Originally posted by Majere:

TL/DR version: Most of the scenarios are inappropriate for the campaign and only suitable for friendly skirmishes. IMHO they need to be reworked to be less random, or removed from the campaign rotation.

People are requesting for greater variety of maps and scenarios so I doubt removing them from the campaign rotation would be popular. I'm fine with starting a little further from each other and/or having starting locations being a little less random. Or improve rewards slightly for scattered scenarios.
Generally I'm fine with things as they are even if I don't play on Haunter or Horrors very much.

[Kernest]

The scenarios are there for personal challenge, just like the different difficulties and secondary objectives. You don't have to do anything other than what you want, but why not let these be for when you feel like challenging yourself?

Certain mission types simply favour certain types of warbands. My Undead for example run with cloth only and usually have high initiative through choice of weapon and investment in Alertness.

I've crushed several missions where both sides were scattered, because mostly I get to go first and I get to either take out an enemy or two before they even move, or force 1v1 situations, where against the AI it's nearly impossible not to come out on top unless playing Brutal / Deadly.

[Your Mom's Oshi]

Mordheim is about dealing with loss. If you are afraid of 3/4 of the deployments that there are then I suggest finding an easier game.

[Reaver79]

Originally posted by Kernest:

The scenarios are there for personal challenge, just like the different difficulties and secondary objectives. You don't have to do anything other than what you want, but why not let these be for when you feel like challenging yourself?.

+1

[Thomas_Nighthawk]

Finished campaign and basically maxed out mercs and now playing sisters for the first time and using the Season 2 Deadly rules from Gameknight. So, always playing deadly missions, continuing to play injured warriors, using random deployments, etc.

For me, any of the missions where one warband starts by their wagon I consider as safe. Either I start grouped up, or I know where they all are.

The two I consider most dangerous and sometimes consider skipping are Haunter and Horrors. Sometimes they're no problem, sometimes they create a situation where the computer can take out a warrior or two and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.

I also lost a henchman on a Walk in the Fog as every so often that mission seems to glitch when doing random deployments and throw a few units into the middle, and on deadly its tough for many units to survive a 1:3.

Another thing I've started doing is taking almost all my units to 9 Toughness and picking up Resilient. I find that what kills units faster than anything is getting hit with a couple of crits. Also, even when units are knocked OoA, if they haven't been crit they seem to have a pretty good chance to come through with no permanent injuries.

[Greybush]

Originally posted by Kernest:

The scenarios are there for personal challenge, just like the different difficulties and secondary objectives. You don't have to do anything other than what you want, but why not let these be for when you feel like challenging yourself?

Certain mission types simply favour certain types of warbands. My Undead for example run with cloth only and usually have high initiative through choice of weapon and investment in Alertness.

I've crushed several missions where both sides were scattered, because mostly I get to go first and I get to either take out an enemy or two before they even move, or force 1v1 situations, where against the AI it's nearly impossible not to come out on top unless playing Brutal / Deadly.

Says it all, really...
Also, evaluating risks and deciding whether you want to take them is kind of a big part of Mordheim.

[Majere]

From my point of view, it has very little to do with 'challenge'. The reason I've started avoiding those scenarios isn't that they can't be won, I'm generally confident of that especially since the AI is a moron, to put it politely. The problem is that as implemented at the moment most of the scenarios can see you attacked in overwhelming force before you have a chance to move at all, which has got to be objectively poor design however you slice it when combined with the persistent campaign.

I'd like to see these scenarios tweaked, not removed. In the scenarios where one side is surrounded and the other split, the terrain and deployment positions should be such that the surrounded side can't easily all charge in the same direction- since one of the patrol groups is invariably at the wagon, and both sides know where the wagon is, such a strategy is otherwise almost impossible for the surrounding side to counter effectively- and this in a situation in which they're supposed to have the advantage.

The Haunter scenario, though, is just plain bad. If I want the winner decided by little more than plain luck, I'll go play Yahtzee.