Battle Missions is here finally, and overall im very happy with it.
I played this weekend and we Random'd on the table, pulling up the Tau Mission Vertical Envelopment. It was my IG vs. Vanilla marines and we rolled to see who was the enemy, which ended up being the marines. Essentially the mission was Annihilation but with slightly larger deployment halves, no reserves for the enemy, and "Tau" skimmer reserves were forced to come in on the enemy table edge. It would have been fun i guess to bring in my Vendettas as such, but in the end i need them on the table from turn 1 to put down armored threats so really the mission didn't really feel all that special for us. Im not saying it wasn't a neat idea or that the mission was bad, it just didn't end up shaking it up for our two forces.
I love the IG missions though... I wont copy em over but ill give a general overview.
1.Prep'd Assault
Essentially its table halves, with one objective middle and the rest in the enemy zone so the guard player is assaulting instead of defending. No reserves, which i take to mean no normal reserves but you deepstrike/outflank if able. The guard player gets 2 pieces of 1/2 inch square paper to represent off table artillery supporting the guard, and the enemy gets one to represent how much our artillery suck at aiming. During any shooting phase the players may declare these shots coming in. They take their paper and hold it about 36 inches up and let it drop.....it flutters to the surface and summons a Battle cannon blast at that location!
I love the paper mechanic, and i cant wait to play this one i already enjoy assaulting with my guard more then acting as a defense line.
2. Attrition
Table Halves again, but Victory points are counted for victory. The twist here is simple, no troop may be put in reserve but any troop fully destroyed on the battle field enters reserve at full strength but with no transport. They then come out on any table edge in your teams half, but they also offer their victory points up for grabs again (so you get their points for killing them, then you could kill them again and get the points a second time).
Simple, but sounds fun.
3. Trench War
Table halves, with objectives. All units in open ground at the beginning of game though are given 4 up cover saves until they move that game, and each player gets to put out some razor wire and/or tank traps.
I actually like this one a lot, and it would be very fun for a large game between two shooty armies.
Monday, March 8, 2010
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"The guard player gets 2 pieces of 1/2 inch square paper to represent off table artillery supporting the guard, and the enemy gets one to represent how much our artillery suck at aiming."
ReplyDeleteBecause Guard don't have enough artillery already? That mission sounds crazy in favor of the IG force--or am I missing something? I don't have the book yet myself...
Try dropping a piece of paper that size 36" up in the air and see how well you aim ;)
ReplyDelete...
Just tried it, it's not all to hard... ^^'
Quick, everyone get to practice!
The Imperial Guard has a new weapon...
@warhammer 39999, so far most of the missions are seemingly a little bit in favor of the appropriate army, but its not that unbalanced. The guard get an extra battlecannon round with some randomness to it but in exchange the enemy has 2 objectives in their deployment zone and the other is dead center so the guard are forced to move in to get them which isn't usually what guard want.
ReplyDeleteConsider the opposite of a guard army, a close combat elite force. How much better would they like it if the guard had to come to them, instead of being blown to bits trying to slog their way to the guard =)
We played the Prep'd assault mission on Saturday night, and although fun was actually pretty tough. First off, we understood no reserves for exactly that, no reserves. So there was no outflanking/deep striking, everything had to be on the table or it didn't get used.
ReplyDeleteThe problem we found though is that I as the IG player only had a 6" deployment zone as my opponent lined his forces up accross the middle of the board. It only took one turn and he was in assault range and ripped my poor guardsman to pieces...
As for the fluttery pieces of paper, none of the landed anywhere close to a unit, nice idea and all but it didn't help at all. That said, I would definitely play this mission again but with a different force. And as an IG player I wouldn't under any circumstances move the first turn.
Yeah Marshal the book seems to like to say "no reserves" which your right does technically mean no deep strike/outflank so only units with the "even if the mission doesn't allow it" deepstrike will be allowed.
ReplyDeleteits also quite odd that the writer decided to just go another direction with seizing the initiative, its kinda strange really that they would flip it to a 1 rolled by the 1st turn player. Maybe he forgot how it worked in the BRB while he was writing this up.
Gotcha. I missed the part where IGuard had to advance (though, you know with my terror of large blasts... I still don't think it's enough!)
ReplyDeleteYup... I think Killteams is the only mission in the book that I want to buy it for. I started gaming on the smaller skirmish scales, so it would be a bit of nostalgia for me.
ReplyDelete@08ak1, It's not really seizing the initiative as much as it's "Loosing" the initiative. The IG player is the one who roles the dice, and if it's a 1, than he looses and goes 2nd. Think of it as the IG General, suddenly 2nd guessing himself wasting precious time.
ReplyDeleteyeah my question though is why change it when it does the exact same thing? Its not just IG its all of them that use this method, not that i want GW to Simplify the game any more but it seems random to change it for battle missions alone.
ReplyDeletejust nitpicking =)
I think I'm going to have to get me a copy of this book, I'm hearing very good things about it.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder what else GW has up their sleeves.