Strangleweb

Of all the changes that came into 5th edition, the one of the most sweeping ones was the new mission structure. With the Battle Missions book on the horizon, my biggest hope is that there aren't many kill-point missions in it!!

This has been debated from the outset, but here's the simple reason why it still continues to bug me; it just doesn't make sense! I just don't get how finishing off an immobilised drop pod is worth as much as a popping a land raider or killing off the Swarmlord!

Other reasons I hate it:

• It favours new armies: Imperial Guard, Tyranids, and Orks (and Telion for SM too) can all take upgrade or special characters as upgrades to squads. This means they are only worth 1 kill point for the whole squad and the character. Case in point, Broodlord in genestealers is worth 1KP,
  where as Inquistors and retinues are worth 2KPs.
• It encourages particular styles of army: Why should a force made of lots of small units be at an immediate disadvantage when facing an army made of fewer, larger units? One of the beauties of 40K is the freedom of army selection, Annihilation missions restrict this freedom if you want to remain competative
• It is harsh on Mechanised forces: Mech forces jave lots of 'easy' KPs to give away. I remember winning a tournament game I should have lost just by killing off my opponent's drop pods. Ok, so Mech have got to have some disadvantages, but you shouldn't be able to win a mission just by popping off some APCs and not the people inside them!
• It is counter-intuative to standard reasoning: It encourages easy kills instead of sensible kills. Imagine you have a choice between shooting at 10 assault marines bearing down on you, or the drop pod they just got out of. Why would any "real-life" general attack the drop pod over the marines? Kill points - that's why!?!?

Just as an example: I've been running my Daemonhunters list for a few weeks now, but it has a rather large number of kill points, 14 to be exact (dropped the razorback for the last game). In two games now (one singles, one doubles), I have virtually wiped out my opponents. However, because their forces are small and compact, I have drawn one game, and lost the other. In one game against Daemons, all he had left was an immobilised Soul Grinder and a unit of Horrors. I had fully half of my army left. But getting 7/9 KPs from him, is the same as him getting 7/14 from me. I just don't want to be forced down the route of having to get rid of some of the character of the army, just to save on kill points.

Possible fixes

• Go back to Victory Points: Simple!
• Go to percentages: Ok, so you'll have to get your mathematical head on, but how about determining victory as a percentage of the orignal army. For instance, you kill 8/12 of your opponent's units, so you score 67%. Your opponent kills 9/15 of your units, he scores 60% and hence loses, despite having more KPs.
• Lose them altogether Just have objective type missions (maybe not!).