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The intent is for the defender to choose the direction of growth, which I thought I'd made clear.  Perhaps I removed it by mistake.  The two halves of the Nightmare Zone should always grow in the same direction - towards the attacker, towards the defender, or towards each other (so yes, they can close slowly)

A very valid concern.  With more playtesting, balance could be achieved.  I was mostly figuring that an attacker would naturally go for movement-based pieces and/or long-range killing.  I had not considered a lack of LOS being a block to charging, honestly.  It's not a way I've ever seen things played - charges around blocking terrain aren't uncommon.  The intent was for the Nightmare Zone to be melee-only, a way for the less-powerful defender to flank the opponent without giving them free ranged attacks.  The attacker could then make the strategic choice regarding concentrating units in the gap or sacrificing points to the enemy to spread out.

If I were to edit this going forward, I would likely make the field 5 feet long instead of 6.

I get that the sample lacked a diagram, but they also indicated we should look at published adventures (which almost always do).  Some missions have easy-to-explain deployments that don't really need a diagram...but this one would be improved by one.

I can't fault how you read the rules though, I just disagree.  Best of luck, it looks fun.

Honestly, I don't feel like this really adheres to the Growth theme.  Continual reinforcements don't really feel like growth to me.  The rules do an excellent job of modeling the situation.  The intro blurb should pick one or the other system and describe the situation instead of giving options for both.  Missions live and die on theming.  Lastly, by the rules as written, it's possible to end the game with only 1 Victory Point, if no units are fully destroyed and one player holds the objective the whole game.  That feels unsatisfying to me (big numbers go brrrrr).  Perhaps give the army in control of the objective 1 VP/round, instead of only gaining a VP when siezed.

Sticks close to the theme, has a fun risk/reward with the spawning units, but needs some formating work.  For instance, I think a full stat line for a "Spawned Defender" would be prefereable to leaving their rules crammed into a table cell.  For instance, the immobile unit doesn't have a range for its attack, yet it has a proactive attack phase called out.  How should it use this phase?  It can't charge and has no ranged weaponry.  It's also unclear where to place a spawned unit when one already exists.  It is possible with a lucky set of roles that one objective could get 3 spawns in a single turn, and a 'line' of spawned forces could conceivably be placed end-to-end such that the last spawn might be entirely outside of the control zone for the spawning objective!

Simple, clear, and concise mission.  It fits the theme well, offers some interesting choices, and otherwise looks fun.  It's not perfect, but it's very good.

The terrain setup rules are murky.  The LOS-blocking terrain doesn't have a listed size, nor a minimum distance from the objective.  Does this mean the entire center should be LOS blocking?  Is the LOS-blocking terrain one-way, or can units within it not see outside of it?  Between oddly confusing setup rules and a lack of significant growth theme, I'm not liking this mission much for this competition.

I don't really see how this fits the theme of growth.  Further, it isn't clear until halfway through the rules that this mission requires 3 players.  It's difficult to see how the game would play out such that the defenders would turn on each other, unless this was part of a longer campaign.

I'm not a huge fan of this mission, honestly.  I understand the concept, but limiting the defender to piecemeal deployments and restricting them in unit type seems really, really bad for the defender.  I don't see any reason for the defender to place anything but craters, and the three pieces placed by the attacker will almost certainly be single-story buildings that are easy to destroy.

This is a great concept, but it needs to be playtested and rebalanced.  It would be great if the defender could choose to concentrate their units (at risk of letting attackers freely move into undefended areas!) for example.

The limitation on attacking unit deployment is one of those things that sounds nice in theory but could be awful in play.

Suppose the initial four units (none of which have Heroes and none of which have 'big guys', as they all have Tough) fail to secure any objectives on turn one and the defenders play a fast, melee-based army.  They could easily send out a unit or two to each objective outside the center of the board, close to within 9" of attacking units (on turn 1 or later) and spend a couple turns shredding them before the automatic 'Alarm' triggering.

The defender has no real reason to trigger the ALARM, and further has every reason not to.  Perhaps if you restrict ranged attacks targeting attacking units to a 6+ to hit (ignoring reliable) and automatically triggering ALARM on the first charge (either side) might make this better?

Also, a nitpick - there's a couple places where the term 'Attacker' or 'Defender' is replaced simply with 'you'.  For consistency, I'd clean those up.

Simple concept, a fun interpretation of 'Growth', and it seems fairly well implemented.  The only two things I would consider are renaming the 'Deadly Ground' table, as it is easily confused with 'Dangerous Terrain' and giving some better incentive to attacking enemy units.  Perhaps armies need to exit the opposite sides of the board from their start?  Or perhaps a unit suffering any wounds gets a movement penalty the next turn?

I feel like a full foot between objectives, especially with the increased deployment area, means that objectives will be very difficult to place.

I'm also uncertain why any player would choose to pick a unit for Corrupted Planets - the rules say, "may" instead of 'must' and the only potential outcomes are unchanged or bad.  This is doubly true if the unit has the Undead or Robot rule.  Additionally, if a unit is already Shaken there is no reason not to choose it - there is no possible negative effect.

There's a few minor changes that could be made for clarity (I second the recommendation to change "gains caster(1)" to "gains caster(+1)") but it is overall a clean and simply concept that works well.

I concur with the existing comments - the rules could stand to be fleshed out significantly more, headings should be changed to be consistent with the norms of missions, and the entire mechanic of an objective becoming a model should be expanded (perhaps the objective-turned-unit should have a ranged attack that automatically targets the closest however many units, and removes spell tokens for each use?)  As it stands, I think that a marker-turned-model remains a model the entire game (unless destroyed, but there's no reason to destroy them) and lose all spell tokens, but an argument could also be made for such a unit to remain controlled by the relevant player and completely able to have spell tokens used as normal.  This would lead to it being in the best interest of a player to let the objectives grow in power after acquiring them, as they couldn't be stolen or contested that way.

I like the concept of this mission, though it would be HUGELY improved with a deployment diagram that indicates locations of objectives, ravage markers, etc.  By my reading, each deployment zone will start with at least one ravage marker within it?

Unless I'm completely wrong, placing the objective marker 30" from the left side of the board and 6" from the center means it starts inside of the defender's deployment zone.  I feel like this mission is strongly imbalanced, and the lack of clarity as to withholding units based on unit count or point value, coupled with the ability for units that naturally have Ambush to deploy unrestricted by the mission rules (meaning that units such as the Burrower can simply pop up right on the left side of the board) makes me think that the defenders are facing a significantly losing proposition.

The mission lore doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either.  This base is set up on a hostile planet...is it naturally hostile to both armies?  Then there should be some sort of natural hazard.  Is it located in hostile territory?  If so, it's only hostile to one side.  The defenders start with vital supplies inside their base, but there's no indication why 'vital supplies' would be stored in such a distant base in hostile territory.

Overall this is a fun idea that just doesn't quite feel correctly implemented.

I don't know, this feels like a mission just open to being cheesed.  Strategically staying behind for the first two turns to dump 4 pieces of terrain unrestricted is crazy.  Changing Force Org to 20% without increasing the unit cap or changing the duplicate count feels open to abuse.  I do like the Heads/Tails disparity and the ability to change those strategically.  Though it could lead to a situation where a Fast unit gains Fast again and starts zooming around the battlefield, or a Slow unit becomes double-slowed.  Perhaps if those removed existing speed-changing rules first?

I enjoy the concept, but I have several problems with the mission as laid out.  Simplest, the mission has inconsistent formatting within it and at least one major typo.  Further, you don't provide a default deployment setup and instead direct people to the Advanced Rulebook, which not everyone will have.  I also have issue with the way you describe seizing objectives - requiring base contact isn't awful, but the rules as written do not require enemy units to be far enough away from the objective.  What happens when two models, one from each army, are touching the objective on opposite sides?

I enjoy your interpretation of the theme, but think this might have been better as a Firefight or Skirmish mission.  Having, say, a unit of 20 chaff all grab a single fruit (per the lore) and "acquire the power".  I also feel like there are several points where you deviated from the 'normal' nomenclature to your own detriment.  For instance, when describing how a unit captures objectives, you say they must be 3" away, rather than within 3 inches.  That's fine for people who fully understand the game - they will know you mean 'within 3"'.  Newer players, however, may be hesitant to move too close to the objective for fear of not having a model exactly 3" away.

Obviously I disagree with you on whether it fits the theme, but thank you for your response!  Taking the time to explain what did and didn't work is a great help, and I do appreciate it.

P.S.: the Nightmare Zone also *grows* more dangerous over time.

Honestly this mission, while a fun concept, doesn't really fit the theme.  If anything, it revolves around *stopping* growth.

I actually meant the turn number was higher than the roll, but yeah.  

Pretty good story.  One thing jarred me out of it though - all the liquid 'sloshed'.  Repetition of the term in such a short piece sticks out.

Pretty good story.  One thing jarred me out of it though - all the liquid 'sloshed'.  Repetition of the term in such a short piece sticks out.