From the Wastes/Unstoppable assault feels bad

[Alarantalara]

I got to experience a couple games of the Unstoppable Assault scenario from Storm of Chaos and having done so, I'm not sure I want to play it again.
For the first game, Dwarfs attacked Lizardmen while I watched and the Lizardmen won a massacre.
For the second, my Dark Elves attacked the Dwarfs and the Dwarfs won a major victory.

Turn 2—the cavalry charges.jpeg (550.85 KiB) Viewed 251 times

For those who aren't familiar with the scenario, it's equal points, all attacking units other than special characters respawn on the edge of the attacker's deployment zone as though they ran off the table when they die, and the game goes until all defenders are dead, with victory for the defenders if they last until the end of turn 6.

Having thought about the games, this scenario isn't much fun:

1. It discourages the defending player from even playing the game. Why advance when it just means you'll die faster? And don't get me started on skirmishers just running away and hiding.
2. Given the above, even flyers need at least 2 turns to get back to the fight when recycled by the attack. Infantry need not apply—if they die, they won't get back to the fight until the defenders have already won. The result is a special rule that ensures the final victory condition but doesn't make up for the defender's tactical advantage early enough to be useful.
3. How many times have you seen one side get completely killed in 6 turns in pitched battle? Now do it when one side is trying not to die instead of trying to fight (at least for the first few turns). I like to go into a game thinking I have some chance of achieving victory (and wiping out my opponent eventually doesn't make up for it).
4. There isn't a feeling of an unstoppable force, because it takes a turn or two for any attacking units to be replaced. It feels more like there were some units that happened to arrive late rather than endless hordes.

The thing that makes it really feel bad though is that it's presented as the first game in a couple mini campaigns, where one has an arrow leading from this for a chaos army scoring a massacre as attacker, i.e. complete victory in less than 3 turns. My only response is that's never happening. The defender can set up such that only flyers can charge turn 2 which means that a mortal chaos army either has to hit and destroy every single unit on the opposing side in 1 turn without using any infantry or chariots or the opposing player has to politely advance to give the Chaos player a sporting chance.

[Just Tony]

It's not the only lopsided mission. If you look at "Hold The Line" which was another SOC scenario, any Dwarf army as attacker will auto-lose simply because they won't be able to cross the field in time to get the objectives. MAYBE if you had a Gyrocopter or two, or if you had some DOW Cavalry. That's about the only way they could win the scenario.


The key to this one is that hopefully you won't have an opponent who "games the game" too much. That's about the only solution other than to not play it.

[Alarantalara]

Hold the Line is certainly an uphill battle for Dwarfs, but as you mentioned, gyrocopters help. Other things that can help include pursuing fleeing units to grab an extra turn's movement. Also, dwarfs have that problem with most scenarios that require movement (Sheer Heroism, Rear Guard, and Breakthrough from the main book show similar problems).

It does point out something funny for the two scenarios though. For a, "dreaded, nearly unstoppable, chaos invasion", the scenarios for it really favour the defender. It's almost as though Games Workshop wanted Archaeon to lose.

[Just Tony]

Given what we know about them cooking the books as far as the results go? Yeah, I'd say so...