Why playtesting is necessary... (Black Reach Scenario-building part 2)

So, yesterday night I tried my new scenario with a friend and after only about 10 minutes of game we were already starting to make adjustments...

The first thing we had to deal with was a problem I hadn't thought about: in which direction should the Orks fall back? For, if they fall back towards their table edge, as is normally the case, that makes them go towards the objective!
It was easily solved however, within 30 seconds of the question being raised, by deciding that they would fall back towards the nearest side-edge instead. It seems logical anyway, since the Orks own edge is supposed to be the Hive-city wall, that they call fall back that way...
Yet, this clearly shows that playtesting is necessary because there will always be potential problems that you won't think about until you're faced with them.

The game went quite well. It was a bit harsh on the Marines, as I meant it to be, yet the Marines won by contesting the breach and killing Zanzag. But my opponent and I were in agreement that the scenario wasn't really balanced yet, that a beginner SM player would have had much more trouble getting a victory than I did, with my almost 20 years of experience...

Thus, we decided to play another game changing a few things:
- First, we've forbidden the entry of Ork reinforcements via the 12" of side-edge nearest to the objective, making it harder for the Orks to simply rush in the last game turn to contest the objective.
- Then, we made the Marines start only 30" from the objective.
This time, I won the control of the objective a bit too easily and was able to use my captain and the dreadnought specifically on killing Zanzag... But, in the end, we were not sure of the real reason for this "easy victory", because my opponent had rolled a lot of 1s and 2s when rolling for his reinforcements and having all his units enter 48" away from the objective in the last 2 turns means they've been mostly useless.

And thus, we reset the game once more, adding another change: the Ork reinforcements only enter via the Marines' edge on a result of 1 on the d6. But this quickly proved not to be the solution. Even with this change, once the Marines have succeeded in taking control of the objective (and thus don't need to move anymore, allowing them to use their heavy weapon at its full potential), it is much too hard for the Orks to come back and get a chance to contest it.

That's why we played a fourth game, re-setting the initial distance at which the Marines were to start at 36". And this time we were happier with the balance of the game. It is indeed challenging for the Marine player on the first 3 turns, because he has to decide whether to make his unit(s) Sprint to reach the objective early or to move normally and thus get to thin down the Ork ranks, but the "tables turn" as soon as the Marines have reached striking distance of the objective and the Orks start to feel the full wrath of the Emperor...

In conclusion, the final scenario limits the entry of the Ork reinforcement to part of the side-edges and makes it less probable that they enter via the Marines' edge.
I'll make a cleaned up pdf version of the scenario as soon as possible. I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did! And I hope that these 2 posts on the "mechanics" of scenario-building will inspire you into building your own. It is IMO a very interesting part of the Warhammer 40000 Hobby...

Before calling this post complete, I can't help but share a funny moment we had several times during the 4 games: Have you ever seen a Marine player crossing his fingers not to kill too many Orks? Well, you'll sure see that while playing this scenario because in the last turns you'll really wish to kill just enough to cause them to fall back but not enough for the Ork player to get reinforcements, believe me...