Goatboy’s Old Hammer 40K: Good Riddance to Moving Objectives!
Goatboy here to peel back the layer of the old stinky onion that is old school Warhammer 40K stories. This time around I want to look at how back in the day the idea of “fun” moving mission objectives got out of hand.
These moving objective ideas took a hold of the game for a while and were always frustrating when somehow this fun mission objective loses the game for you. Let’s pull up a stool and listen to an old Warhammer player complain about the nonsense we had to deal with back in the day.
I Blame Ard Boyz: 4th Edition – 2006
I remember some of the old Ard Boyz tournaments back about 2006 (something will talk about later) back in 4th Edition had some really funky GW-designed missions. This was the start of “objectives” showing up in the game and usually represented some kind of ancient tech you had to go rescue. The one that really sticks out for me is the missions where you would try to rescue this tech but there were issues with it. These issues would range causing you to not hit as well if you held it, make you move slower, or even just blow up on you. I remember a time having to grab one of my blast markers (another thing will talk about) and watching as this dumb thing scatters off of the hot potato I am carrying and lands on a nicely packed unit of jerks. There is nothing like an exploding objective blowing up big every turn to make you wonder if this is really the best edition!
6th Edition’s “The Relic” – 2012
If you an older player I want you to remember how much of a pain in the butt the Relic was. This was a mission from 2012’s short-lived 6th Edition, where you had an objective in the center of the field called “The Relic”. It was something both armies wanted and the mission for the game was to control the relic at the end of the game. Sure you could fight it out and let the survivors control it at the end but the game becomes what fast unit could pick it up and then continue to move it towards your deployment zone. You can see how this is pretty dang frustrating when you have armies that could move very fast and “run” away with the game. I remember even trying to be tricksy with it when playing the great Ben Mohile and didn’t move my bikers an extra inch they could have. That meanie Ben then pounced on me with his Necrons and took my relic from my poor little Deathstar’s hands. Just having a game where someone could grab the relic and run away is such a frustrating experience.e
The Football Objectives Returned in 10th Edition
GW never quite gave up on moving objectives. The next mission that always frustrated me was the time frame to utilize football like objectives. The initial missions from 10th edition had the ability to be “kicked” towards your opponents deployment zone. These objectives would then grant you points not from holding it but rather from being closer to the enemies friend zone. I even remember some chatter initially that you could even kick the objective off of the table if you got lucky enough with a fast unit. It is already a pain to move everything correctly and now to add in objectives moving it becomes a nightmare of game state and just mission control. Thankfully those missions went away and we are left with some of the simpler ones we have now.
Heck the old days had your objectives just be a Poker Chip or “challenge” coin like you see at events. I couldn’t even imagine trying to move a neoprene objective around the table top as your dreadnought runs away from the enemy like a spiteful toddler that stole your cell phone.
Do you remember old missions with weird objectives? What about the ones that caused you to have less leadership as it was a spooky objective? Tell us your crazy objective stories!
