Battle Missions Review Part 3 - Special Missions

 

Besides the thirty 'normal' missions, Battle Missions includes three 'special' missions - Linebreaker, Clash of Heroes, and Kill Team.  I'm going to talk mostly about Kill Team, but will touch on the other two.

Linebreaker - take three Baneblades or other Apocalypse formation against a regular army of equivalent points.  With some modification to the Victory Conditions could also be fun to use something like a horde of zombies or a Green Tide vs. a regular force.

Clash of Heroes - Kill the other guy's named character with yours.  Nothing else can finish them off, and you track how much of the rest of the enemy your character kills.  Some mods to the FOC, and not a good mission for 'support' HQs like Creed, you'll want a tough mofo for this one.  From first glance it looks like there would be two basic strategies - one, try to pound the enemy HQ and finish him off with yours, or two, avoid hero combat and try to tarpit his hero while yours goes on an unstoppable rampage.  

KILL TEAM

Not the same as the 4th ed version.  200pts, limited FOC, every model becomes its own unit (which makes a number of things much less useful, some things more powerful I would imagine).  Cram as much terrain on the field as possible in a small (3x3 or 4x4) board and go to town in a semi-Necromunda type battle.  No turn limit, but they claim it goes pretty quickly.

Out of the three, this is the one I look forward to the most.  For even more fun I think you could incorporate some of the deployments and rules from other missions (and even later make a chart...) sometimes.  Like using an Ambush type deployment or some kind of random zone deployment like in Night Fight.  Or fight over a burning city like in Scorched Earth.  

Something to note in the Victory Conditions - when an army hits its break point, it has to start taking Leadership tests with cumulative penalties - not Morale tests.  So things like Stubborn or Fearless won't apply, and you won't have to hunt down every model of a Fearless force.

At such a low points level I think there has to be some more balancing factors.  The FOC restrictions are one step, but I think there should be a few others.  

Firstly, the more I think about it, the more in favor I am of just banning vehicles.  Otherwise if you come expecting a shootout you could instead find yourself facing the War of the Worlds, as the other guy with the Valkyrie/Marbo army just flits around invincibly after taking out your couple of guys who might shoot it down.  Sometimes it could work out, but I think at the very least you should inform your opponent of the vehicles you plan on taking so they can adjust their AT requirements.

Secondly, I think you should restrict models that can regain wounds or generate new models.  After the third Chaos Spawn, etc. pops up you may start cursing those abilities.  On the other hand the extra cost these units/abilities have may make it OK on the whole - but something to think about and pay attention to in your games.

OK, that wraps up my initial review!  If you haven't yet, go back for parts one and two!  Hopefully before long I'll be able to post up some battle reports using some of the missions, or even a Kill Team report!

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. 

Battle Missions Review - Part 1 General Impressions

 

Picked up the Battle Missions book yesterday, gave it a good once-over.

Overall, looks pretty good.  Decent variety, even though most missions are basically variations of Seize Ground or Annihilation with tweaked deployments.  Out of the 30 basic missions presented, 17 are objective based, 9 use Kill Points or modified Kill Points, one uses a version of Victory Points, and three use something different (wipeout, slave points or loot points).

There's been some complaining that the Inquisition armies and Space Marine variants don't have specific missions.  For those folks, there is a tidbit that they do plan to publish more missions for other armies in White Dwarf and/or online, so hopefully we'll see some Witch Hunter, Black Templar, etc. missions down the road.

But even if you don't have a mission specific to your army, you should be able to find one pretty close, or just use any mission.  With a little imagination pretty much all of them could work with any combination of armies.  And unlike missions in some other supplements like Planetstrike, the 30 basic ones here all use the basic Force Organization Chart, so you don't have to make new army lists, making them easier to use for pick up games.  In fact, they advise choosing your army and setting up the table prior to determining the mission.  In a lot of the missions they are very specific about where objectives should be placed, so you may want to adjust the terrain into more dramatically appropriate placement sometimes however.  Also some missions have special rules for area terrain, so if you get those missions you may want to be sure that you have some on the board (shouldn't be a problem, most folks use area terrain anyways, right?). 

The example chart for totally random selection includes a section for going back to 'themed' (random choice from one of the army types being played) selection, but those rolls (11-16) could also be replaced with the standard book missions from the rule book or even other published or custom scenarios if you want even more variety.

Some general things about the mission writeups themselves:

• Almost all (only one does not, one of the Chaos Daemon ones) of the missions use the standard random game length.  While I guess it's nice to see everything spelled out on the mission pages, part of me thinks that's a waste of space putting the same paragraph in 29 times.  One line saying "Random Game Length" and referring people to the rule book or a paragraph one place in the Battle Missions book would have been enough for me, and use the space for extra stuff, options, or more pretty pictures.  Still, it's only a minor gripe and overall the layout is very good.

• Some missions have one side going first automatically, others on a 2-6, some are 50/50.  Many missions have a very clear attacker/defender which can provide for a different dynamic than the standard book mission meeting engagement style of play.

• Some very close potential deployments in some missions, shooty armies be careful.

• Very clear deployment zones and table edges designated.  (Unless you're red/green colorblind - I would think they might have problems since one table edge is in red and the neutral areas are in green)

• Some add in army-wide special rules like Stubborn, Preferred Enemy, Hit&Run, etc. which can change the dynamic of some units/armies a good deal.  

• Many missions mess with Reserves, some prohibiting all, some requiring some, etc.  (More on this in Part 2)

I think this is a good supplement for adding some variety to friendly pick-up type games and some good pre-fabs for folks to build narratives and campaigns around.  For extra wackiness you could also combine these missions with other supplements like Cities of Death or Planetary Empires and get even stranger/more varied games.

I'd be very careful about using these for competitive environments like tournaments though - some missions can be weighted towards one side or another, and some army builds could really excel or suffer due to special rules.  If you do use them for a tournament they should be looked at closely and perhaps modified.

Army Makeover - Rhino/Dread

Another in an ongoing series on sprucing up my old Sons of Horus CSM, started HERE.

Here's what the dread and rhino used to look like:

 

And here they are after some highlights and some washes:

I've never enjoyed highlighting, I'm always sloppy.  Still, at a bit of distance it looks better and does help the black to pop a bit more.

White Dwarf Delays?

 

(image from www.games-workshop.com)

What's up with White Dwarf these days?

For at least the past few months - maybe longer, but I've only really been paying attention the last few months - I've been getting my WD subscription three weeks AFTER the copies come into the local store, not "Early - subscription copies are sent out to arrive before the magazine hits the stores" as GW claims on their subscription page.  

At first I just thought I was unlucky, but lately I've heard from other subscribers both locally and elsewhere that they're having delays as well.

How about you?  If you're a White Dwarf subscriber, post a comment as to how long the delays have been, when they started if you can remember, and where you're at (state or country).

Victory is Mine!

 

(image from webdesign via Family Guy)

Thanks to the generosity of Dverning and some blind luck, I am soon to be the proud owner of another traitor marine by virtue of being one of the winners of his banner contest over at Maunderings of a 40K gamer.  

Not only is he generous with his models and his plugs, he's got some good articles over there too, so go poke around!

I've been on a bit of a winning streak in my local games lately too - Chaos over Nids, Guard & Dark Angels, Tau over World Eaters, Orks over Black Templars.  Shouldn't be too long before a string of crushing defeats kicks in, just in time for a new Planetary Empires league!

Kill Team 2010

 

So the new Battle Missions book is going to have among its offerings a new "Kill Team" mission.  I haven't seen the new book yet myself, but this is one of the things I'm looking forward to.

Back in 4th ed there was a Kill Team mission too, but at least around here it never really caught on.  While it looked really cool, I think there were a couple of reasons.  One, it seemed much cooler to be the Kill Team than the Brutes.  After all, the movie the above pic is from wasn't titled "A Bunch of Off-duty Germans".  Two, which ties into part one, you really needed two forces to play - a Kill Team and a Brute force (and would hopefully swap back and forth so each player got a chance to be the cool Kill Team).  Three, it required a bit more narrative and pre-work than a typical pick-up game.

From the sound of it the new version will avoid those issues.  From what I've gathered, it's a 200pt game, with 0-1 Elites, 0-2 Troops, and 0-1 Fast Attack.  There's also an option to give up to 3 models a Universal Special Rule, which all have to be different.  Each model acts independently - so no issues with coherency, etc.  

So instead of having to make and convert a special force (though some certainly still will), you can just pull 200pts from an existing army, making it a lot easier to get into.  No disparity between elite and schlubs, except by choice (like one guy picks terminators, the other one a whole bunch of grots).  With less worry about mutable rules, etc. it should be easier to get games going.

There's already chatter online about putting some restrictions in like no vehicles, and I think that might be a good thing, but would need to see a few games before being sure.  My instinct is the less there is that some guys can't affect, the better.  I look forward to these matches being something like a simpler Necromunda, a firefight between a couple of squads rather than a bunch of guys with lasguns against some Sentinels.  Combat Patrol had restrictions, and I think it'd be wise to institute some into the even smaller point level of KT.

Given how each unit operates independently, I'm curious as to how long these games will generally take.  In some ways it will go faster - roll a couple of dice, move on.  In others it might take longer, given you might have 30 different guys to make decisions for, move, check LOS, pick targets, etc. compared to a 40K game that will have many more models, but fewer units.

Another thing is that I think it's a great 'entry drug' type of scenario.  I can foresee making some forces just for KT - though in time some may well morph into full armies.  It's a small (relative to a full army) investment, so I may get a couple of boxes of Aspect Warriors or some Nids or some Dark Eldar or...

What are your thoughts about the new Kill Team, or the Battle Missions book in general?

Sodor Imperial Guard

My son, like many young kids, likes the Thomas the Tank Engine series.

For those of you not familiar with it:

Thomas

As a wargamer, whenever I see an episode one of my first thoughts is, "Wow, they have some great terrain!"  So sometimes when watching I'll idly imagine a battle across the sets.  Sodor invaded by Chaos Marines, Tyranids, Orks, etc.

But who would defend Sodor?  The Imperial Guard of course!  Thus was born the Sodor First and Useful.

With such advanced machine spirits in their vehicles, Sodor certainly uses the same technology in their tanks.  After all, Thomas *is* a tank engine!  So here's a preliminary shot of the Sodor First and Useful:

(image defiled with permission from Freddie Yu's Galen Rockhounds)

Building the Army:

Of course tanks are going to be key.  Get as many Russes, Chimeras etc. in as you can and put the faces on them.  Different paint schemes to represent the different engines from the series is a plus.  The drivers in the series wear blue uniforms, so this would probably carry over to the IG as well.  Since he's already a bit big it should be possible to turn a Creed figure into Sir Topham Hat/The Fat Controller.  

++To die for the Emperor is to be Really Useful++

(you can see more of Freddie Yu's excellent Galen Rockhounds on Dakka Dakka)

Gallery Shot 

Search Results including Batreps

(update - more Thomas related 40K madness over at The Back 40K)