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The 20x20 Mission System gets its 4th edition

Discussion in 'Battle Reports' started by prophet of doom, Feb 20, 2018.

  1. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    The new version of the 20x20 Mission system is ready for download! I am happy to have found a new host with The Pride of Rodina.

    You can get to the file here:

    http://www.prideofrodina.com/p/20x20infinity-mission-system-version-4.html

    and also read all the interesting articles of this blog.

    What is new in version 4 of 20x20?

    Well, the system is more attached to the contemporary way of playing Infinity. All missions are limited to 3 game rounds. I believe there is a better flow with easier scoring systems, simpler instructions and less deviations from the general rules.

    There are six new primary and five new secondary missions. Apart from that, almost all missions have been tweaked to make them easier and more fun to play.

    Feedback is very welcome as usual. I thank everybody who helped me write that tome.
     
  2. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
    Warcor

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    I want the Commando Ops!

    :)
     
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  3. Wolf

    Wolf https://youtube.com/@StudioWatchwolf

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  4. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    i read through the options, made a list and then head to the store to play a random one. it was really good.

    the new version is streamlined, most of the time everyone can do the objectives.

    Primary objective was Border Clash/Border Wars. Auto-miss over 24" range was hard, debuffing HMG/Sniper a lot. It also made it hard to cover both flanks from being breached as a rooftop sniper could only see so far. 16" deployment zone was a blessing (easier to reach fighting range) and a curse (preventing enemy in DZ). Very well balanced, i liked it. Scoring was straight forward. I still prefer the new 24" range limit to the old low vis -3BS on everyone or the -1B saturation found in current ITS which I hate (have to do with me using link team, TR, and sin-eater).

    As for secondary we had Demolition/Sabotage, nominating a whole building as open info and protecting it from all angle was fun (a good improvement over the previous version) now that almost anyone can score it. I guess by close combat weapon (which is the abbreviation CCW spelled out) of any kind you meant AP CCW, DA CCW, CCW, etc. so in my case (for my list) only the moira (shock ccw) and my engineer (d-charge) could achieve the objective. Still much better than only nominating 1 model to receive a dcharge and then protect against (or hunt) that one model only. Also STR1 is such a burden relief compared to almost impossible destructible antenna in some ITS mission (STR3 and must reach STR-1 to score points!).
     
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  5. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    thanks for your feedback, very happy to hear you enjoyed it. Border Wars and Sabotage are a great combination, sounds very story-driven to me!

    I realised that my previous idea of night fighting was not very balanced. The MSVs were just too powerful in this scenario. The 24" limit is taken from CB, I am not sure whether that is in any current mission. The idea of the mission is to encourage troopers going forward and have short distance brawls.

    I don't like huge areas of saturation zone either because they weaken fire teams too much.

    As for Sabotage, you got it right, all such weapons do count. One of the difficulties of writing such a set of scenarios is to write all this terminology in exact way while still maintaining space limitations and forming readable sentences. And, of course not forgetting about some of the infinite possibilities of this game... Arggs. I guess I should have given the structures Shock resistance. Well, I guess it is still playable without it.

    The idea is that d-charges are still the best way to deal with the structure. Of course, McMurrough can also bring down the walls, but eg. a Bandit or an SAS are likely to get frustrated. They may attempt in a desperate situation.

    Btw. in the old version, you could destroy the structure with any d-charge, not only the one extra granted. Which points to the next problem with writing. Writing in such a way that misunderstandings are absolutely impossible.

    I am really happy to read such short reviews of my missions. They feel like I am earning the fruits of my work. They also help to improve the system and clear up misunderstandings. It is a good sign hat everything was clear to you in this case.
     
  6. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    I started working on it! I am planning to do 6 or 7 missions, including updates of the Ammo Depot and the Hostage Siege. Razor wires will be included. The secondary missions will mostly be taken from 20x20 with the twist that attacker and defender get different missions. As you can see, balance is not strictly enforced.
     
  7. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    Well, Shock CCW is just an improved version of straight up CCW. If CCW can damage it, Shock CCW should work at least just as well. Note that as it has STR, the building already have (kind of) Shock Immunity, so just like N CCW you need multiple blow to break it down completely.

    I only remember seeing range restriction in wotan version of ITS missions.
     
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  8. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    See, I was not aware that STR models alsways have Shock Immunity. (That is the right term, I accidentally wrote resistance.) Of course you can use a Shock CCW against the structure. Question is just how likely is it that you will knock it out?
     
  9. ik3rian

    ik3rian Anti-Ariadnian Specialist

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    As i cannot access the file right now, yet i have a burning rules-related question about Sabotage, i want to ask here: you can point whole building as your target, right? If that's so, then by destroying the scenery piece (building with four walls and a roof, and one access point i guess) it means damaging/destroying just one construction element like wall, or at least half of the building (2 or 3 walls)? Sorry for weird questions, just wanna get it right before the game.
     
  10. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, I didnt see this until now, hope it is not too late. (next time you got a 20x20 rules question, please quote me or something to attract my attention.)

    Let's say you take a whole building as the target. You can now attack that building from the inside, outside, any wall. It does not matter. If your first attempt causes a loss of 1 STR, you can attack again with another trooper on the opposite wall of the same building. Don't remove the building once it you destroyed it. You just collect the 3 OP for it. Do you understand it now? It is pretty simple. One d-charge should suffice anyway to bring you the points.
     
  11. ik3rian

    ik3rian Anti-Ariadnian Specialist

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    Nah, it's fine :) I can attack from one side, causing loss of 1str, then do the same on the another wall and destroy it, because building is treated as a whole piece. Is that what you say?
     
  12. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    exactly. As simple as it gets.
     
  13. ik3rian

    ik3rian Anti-Ariadnian Specialist

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    Thank you then. Welp, i get those DA CCW Yuans will get some sabotage action, while Kaplans and Sekbans gets the Jailbreak done.
    Cheers
     
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  14. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    Enjoy! Hint: You may want to use the ADHL of the Kaplans against the fugitives. It is quite annoying to fail that 50% chance of synchronising with the civilians.
     
  15. ik3rian

    ik3rian Anti-Ariadnian Specialist

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    Oh, no worries. I am going to deploy two KTS's with ADHL's. Just two, cause that is all i have rn. Sekbans with stun pistols and Mobile with Multi Rifle should do as well.
     
  16. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    Last time I played that mission a prisoner dodged off the board because both of us kept on failing the sync tests. The stun pistols might only look like a waste of orders.
     
  17. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    Gladly! :-P

    So, I have a question.

    Night Fighting rule says:
    "The line of fire is limited to a maximum of 24 inches. Any BS attack where the range to the target is beyond that distance is considered to be a failure."

    In N3 rules, there are cases when pairs of sentences like this one have to be read and applied separately (see Climbing Plus), and then there are other cases when one cannot be taken without another. Due to how it can affect resolution, I wanted to clarify something.

    Does this mean that LoF literally cannot be drawn between 2 pieces more than 24 inches apart (1st sentence), or is only for the purpose of BS Attack declaration (an example given by 2nd sentence).

    For example, do I get a legal ARO if my opponent moves across the board without having Total Cover at all? If yes, I could, say, place a mine in ARO without the risk of getting shot on a normal roll (provided I estimate range correctly)?

    Or is it that ARO declaration will be considered illegal after measuring because "no LoF, no ZoC, nothing to grant ARO"?


    Edit: Oh, and another one.
    On "System decay" and "Hardware Reset" rules.

    - Is -6 modifier for the third turn cumulative with -3 from 2nd turn? "Additional" in that sentence probably refers to modifiers for specialist / non specialist interaction, but the wording may be taken as ambiguous.

    - Does System Reset cancels System Decay for that antenna entirely, or does it just remove modifiers already in place without preventing new modifiers to appear on the next turn?


    Edit2:
    On "Kill the Specialists". If enemy has 1 or less specialists and his Lt is the most expensive unit in the list (Lt TAGs, for example), should I score 2 OPs for that model? Right now the wording suggests that this model will be considered a specialist, and I'm not sure you can be "twice specialist".

    Another such conflict is there if the most expensive model is a specialist, or if the Lt is one (happens a lot with hacker Lts.). Same thing basically.

    All in all, I feel like score stacking issues should be resolved in this mission's rules.

    And a minor one - am I correct that CoC doesn't count as specialist in 20x20, or at least in that mission?
     
    #17 Barrogh, Apr 5, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2018
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  18. GingerGiant

    GingerGiant Well-Known Member

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    Woohoo! Thanks for updating 20x20. This is probably the least daunting, and definitely one of the more interesting, random mission systems. I especially appreciate the different complexity ratings.
     
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  19. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the praise. 20x20 was exactly written to be less daunting. However, I never saw it as a random mission system. Playing it as such is only a suggestion in case people can't decide on the mission when they meet. Another reason for rolling up missions is to avoid having one player show up with an army list geared towards the scenario while the other has a rather generic force.

    I have recently started to play 20x20 as random, and was not too impressed with the results. It is fun, but ultimately I believe that the idea of the Infinity game system is that you gear your army list towards the scenario. That works very well with 20x20, it is just not so punishing as in ITS if your army list is not perfect or if you lose key troopers early in the game.
     
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  20. prophet of doom

    prophet of doom Well-Known Member

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    thank you very much for your feedback. I will work through your very valid questions. It is questions like this that allow me to improve the system.

    Night Fighting: The rules were copied and pasted from Wotan missions. My rationale with doing that is that players are familiar with those terms and will thus grasp it immediately. I also hope that CB has done their homework and the wording is watertight. It is hard to think of all the things that could happen with the scenario rules.

    To answer your question: LOF cannot be established beyond 24". Thus, you cannot place a mine in ARO to an enemy trooper more than 24" away. I think that means the sentences have to be seen separately.

    Maybe it would be better to say something like: Any model more than 24" away is considered to be in total cover." I guess that wording would bring other problems. It is not that easy to have an idea in your mind and phrase it exactly to fit all situations. Looks like CB are having similar problems to me.

    Calibrate Antennas: I just looked at the text, I guess I could have been a bit more careful with the wording. It should work as phrased, however. In the second round, there is a -3 modifier, the third round a -6 modifier. These are additional to the modifier for specialists. So a Forward Observer would roll unmodified in the second Round, a non-specialist would have to cop a -9 modifier to calibrate an antenna in the third Round.

    Hardware Reset causes the cancellation of all negative modifiers caused by System Decay. If your engineer does it in Round 2, calibrating that antenna will have the same modifiers in Round 3 as it had in Round 1.


    Kill the Specialists: Wow, you just uncovered a bug that I have failed to pick in several years and no one has ever pointed it out to me! You are right, there is a problem here. Everybody is supposed to be able to score 3 OP with the secondary mission and the specifics you mentioned could really occur. No, you are not supposed to count a trooper as a double specialist. I have to think of a solution to this that is not too convoluted. Treating the LT as double sounds like a possible solution.

    CoC is not mentioned, so you don't score OP for killing one. Every scenario mentions exactly the skills that give bonuses or that score OP.

    Sorry it took a while for replying. I was offline due to a long camping trip.
     
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