Current feedback for reinforcements as a whole is there are a significant number of missions that need reworking with reinforcements in mind as they cause gameplay issues. Generally speaking a major culprit are what are functionally zone control missions, basically a mission that requires a body on X point, either an objective marker or area of the table. End of game scoring missions are a bigger issue than continuous scoring zones however in both cases the issue stems from the uninteractive way reinforcements can be used to score points. Whether or not it's balanced is irrelevant here as the main complaint is it produces boring and anti climatic resolutions to the mission. On the opposite side of the spectrum missions that ask players to dive deep at the opponent such as Supplies, Mindwipe, etc feel like they play the best or even enhance the experience by having the reinforcements mechanic. Acquisition: This mission has some issues even though reinforcements require at least 1 order to move onto the objectives, it's too easy for the reinforcements to deploy to threaten 2 objectives at once as it stands right now. The way the mission works in a standard game is that player 1's strategy revolves around pushing past the central objective to establish a defensive perimeter ahead of the objectives they are attempting to cover. Reinforcements makes establishing that defensive perimeter close to impossible as they can drop straight onto it. Even the hardiest defender can't do much to hold the tech coffin when reinforcements can literally deploy next to them then walk into it them and hit for a B3-4 CC25 EXPCCW. An obvious solution is an exclusion zone, however I don't think the standard tablewide EZ is a good idea. It sabotages skirmisher based armies too much, and part of the opening game in Acquisition is skirmishers jockeying for control of the 2 outlying Antenna objectives. What I think would be a good idea to try is a 10" bubble around the Tech Coffin specifically. It would help player 1 have a chance to establish some kind of defensive perimeter around the tech coffin while still allowing skirmishing specialists to begin the game around their objective of choice. Annihilation: This mission is and always has been a waste of oxygen in the ITS packet. The rules are so basic they have no need to be in there, they can exist in the core rules document or now, if necessary, the ITS Direct Action subgroup. Any TO that actually wants to include this in a mission packet can simply add it via the custom mission option anyway. If I wanted to play 40k I’d play 40k, but personally I’d rather play something that isn’t brain dead boring. Personally I’d fire this mission into the sun and bring in some fresh community mission, give us something new and interesting instead. Biotechvore: This is another mission that has had its day and needs to be retired. Besides the fact that it has major factional imbalance issues it doesn’t need to exist in an ITS mission document that has Panic Room which is a much improved version of the mission. Again, bring fresh missions into rotation instead, I’d rather try new things like Mindwipe than have this waste oxygen in the mission packet for the next decade. Capture and Protect: I don’t think this mission needs any major changes with reinforcements in mind. Countermeasures: This mission is fun in a casual setting, but it’s poorly balanced and not suited to tournament play largely in part to its random nature of objectives. Reinforcements causes even greater issues with the swinging nature of the objectives, a player who flips a bunch of easy to achieve objectives for his reinforcements group the turn they arrive has a massive advantage over an opponent who does not flip objectives that favour his reinforcement group the turn they arrive. Unfortunately there’s no simple fix for this mission because it’s broken at a core level. You can’t fix it for reinforcements when it was broken to begin with. This is another mission that should be retired and replaced with a new mission. If TOs are actually hellbent on including it in a tournament packet again, the custom mission exists for this purpose. Cryogenics: This mission has the zone control issue I mentioned at the start of the thread. The end of game scoring in Cryogenics is the main problem, the Master Breacher quadrant domination is less of an issue as both players have the agency available to attempt to pick off the Master Breacher to prevent scoring. The end of game scoring could be pretty easily fixed by forcing reinforcements to deploy by Turn 2 instead of the last turn specifically for this mission. Decapitation: Mission has some slight issues with reinforcements chicken. First person to drop their reinforcements creates a target essentially for the opponent’s reinforcements to attack and score off hitting. This leads to both players being extremely cagey and defensive, this isn’t necessarily unbalanced but always being forced into this style of play doesn’t feel as good. This isn’t as bad if they were able to in drop earlier in the game when it’s more likely you can use them to achieve simple objectives like picking off Designated Targets then falling back to act as bait, luring opponent’s units forwards so you can hit them next turn. While this mission would be helped by the 40% casualty threshold being lowered in general, this is a mission that I would personally experiment with allowing Reinforcements to drop without needing casualties at all. Firefight: Very similar to Decapitation in issues. I would like to see how it plays with Reinforcements being able to drop at any time allowing for more variation in strategy. It feels like it would be viable to drop Reinforcements in to score off classifieds or pick at mid fielders before setting themselves up as bait in a defensible area. Frostbyte: This mission has the end of game zone scoring issues. As mentioned before I think a simple fix is adding an extra rule forcing reinforcements to arrive on turn 2 at the latest for this mission. Frontline: Same again, an extra rule forcing reinforcements to arrive on turn 2 so both players have a chance to interact with them. Highly Classified: I don’t think there’s any major conflicts between the reinforcements mechanic and this mission. Unlike Countermeasures both players are aware of the classifieds and the reinforcements in advance and can actually plan their game around it rather than allowing dumb luck to steer the game. Looting and Sabotaging: This is a mission I feel actually plays to the strengths of reinforcements. Mindwipe: The mission actually plays better with reinforcements than without it. The deployment mechanics of reinforcements actually synergises with the random spawning mechanic of the rogue AI server and stops an unlucky roll causing major impact while allowing the hidden nature of the objective to remain random. Panic Room: The better Biotechvore. I personally think that this mission possibly needs some kind of restriction on the reinforcements ability to deploy. As it stands I think there’s too much swing potential for certain units to deploy next to the objective room then spend 4-6 orders literally setting the entire damn room on fire with B2-3 Heavy Flamethrowers. That’s basically the reactive player’s turn. This is less of a problem I think if the objective room isn’t an empty room and has a large central blocking piece of terrain or a bunch of scatter units can take prone positions behind. Perhaps if this was made standard for objective rooms this wouldn’t be a problem but the standard empty objective room is even more of a death trap than usual when reinforcements are present. Power Pack: This mission has both good and bad aspects with reinforcements. On the good side it makes pushing units forwards to control the enemy console early in the game feel more impactful because you score, and if your opponent deals with the model in questions it advances your reinforcement casualty count. The problem is the overload prevention system. Player 2 only ever has to flip at least 1 antenna with their reinforcements if it comes in turn 3 which is a pretty easy ask to manage. If they flip 1 antenna player 1 controlled they automatically cause a 2 point swing. If the overload prevention system rule is removed there is an actual chance player 1 can attempt to set up a lead in board control. Quadrant Control: This mission just does not play nice with reinforcements as a mechanic and I don’t know if it’s fixable. First problem is as mentioned before, uninteractive scoring with player 2 just able to deploy into a scoring position. On top of that it is very very hard for player 1 to dominate the far quadrants from them for the bonus points because of how reinforcements are able to just drop in on them. Player 1 is very likely to just lose units and not score if they try this, player 2 on the other hand will at least be guaranteed to trade their model for points. It might be possible to try scoring at the end of each player’s active turn. Maybe that would work, I don’t know. Supremacy: More or less the same issues. I’ve had a game where I walked through a convoluted plan to score and then my opponent just pointed out if I put the drop pod on the center line and just deployed my models and ended the turn I won the game. Supplies: This mission works well with reinforcements. No complaints. Rescue: The Exclusion Zone initially feels bad, but I think people are overlooking the value in being able to shore up a weak flank with reinforcements and push back models that are encroaching on the Civilians, or to do the opposite and take advantage of an opening on a weak line and suddenly deploy a reinforcement to snatch a Civilian. Personally I don’t think the mission needs to change and reinforcements actually works well with it. The Armory: Again, people complain about the Exclusion Zone but I’m ok with it. It allows the mission to play differently to others with elements being able to exist further forward in the midfield and not have to consider the existential dread of a reinforcements fireteam literally deploying on top of them. Unmasking: Third time in a row, I think the Exclusion Zone is fine and reinforcements actually improves the mission in a similar fashion to mindwipe. It helps smooth out the random nature of the designated target.
