Battle Missions Review - Part 2 - Mission Specific Thoughts

 

Some interesting bits (to me) from specific missions:

• CSM: Pillage - Earn cumulative points for possessing objectives, not just hold at the end.  
• CSM: Scorched Earth - Smoking and Burning terrain (either helps cover saves or makes it Dangerous, block LOS)
• Daemons: Night Fight - Very random but looks like fun.
• Daemons: Incursion - Would also be very appropriate as an Eldar/Dark Eldar webway portal, though of course could be used with any army.
• Space Marines: Vanguard - Yes, as reported there is a mission where you can bring a Thunderhawk (though you need Apocalypse, etc. for the stats).  Given the point cost and restrictions though I doubt this will happen often.

Since many of the missions have unusual deployment zones, you should probably work out ahead of time with your opponent how Outflanking will work (assuming you can put the unit into Reserves in the first place).  Infiltration should work just fine except for in a few of the scenarios with random placement.

Reserves

This is a big thing IMO - we've all gotten used to unlimited Reserves, and indeed some armies and tactics are built around that.  With the missions here, it's not a sure thing.  Sometimes you can only put some units in, sometimes none at all.  So be forewarned - that double Autarch army or Al-Rahem platoon may not work like you expect it to.

That said, there are some units that can still go into Reserve, even if the mission disallows it.  So crack open your books and check through your army lists to see if your units can do this or if you may end up stuck.

Some example units that can still pull the trick, even if the mission says otherwise:

• Eldar - Warp Spiders - Deep Strike regardless of mission.
• IG - Marbo - Always in Reserve.
• Orks - Boss Zagstruck - Must enter via Deep Strike.  Snikrot looks to be out of luck though.
• SM - Drop Pods - Always enter play using Deep Strike.
• SM - Legion of the Damned - Always in Reserve/Deep Strike.
• SM - units with Terminator Armor - May always be in Reserve/Deep Strike even if mission doesn't allow.
• CSM - units with Terminator Armor - as above for SM (though Obliterators are out of luck)
• CSM - Lesser and Greater Daemons - always summoned
• DH - various Grey Knight choices can always teleport
• DH - Daemonhosts
• DH/WH - Orbital Strikes

 There may well be other units that can bypass the mission restrictions - check your books!

Older missions (like 3rd/4th ed) seemed to focus more on building an army for a specific mission.  Those in Battle Missions seem to focus more on taking one army and putting it in a variety of situations.  And given that since most have clear attacker/defender roles, you'll have close to 60 new different situations to put them in.