Hi All,
I am continuing through the results from the Greta Crusade survey that wrapped up last Friday. In these next three articles I will be focusing on the results from the Imperium, Chaos and Xenos players. It is important to note that the responses in these sections were based on a question that asked players about their main crusade army. It is possible these players have other armies that they use as well, thus the results may not capture the totality of their experiences. Furthermore as we start subdividing the data we will be more vulnerable to the law of small numbers. Given the smaller sample sizes I will try to use actual results rather then percentages where appropriate.
Army Breakdown:
As you can see there is quite a wider variety of armies here. Space Marines are the largest group, which is understandable given their prevalence amongst players. Custodes, Ad Mech and Sisters are the largest non-marine factions, while Deathwatch and Grey Knights are the smallest overall factions. I was a little surprised at how few Deathwatch and GK players there were, it might be their limited range that makes them less palatable for narrative games?
Army Crusade Rules
For this next section I have included all results save those for the Astra Militarum respondents.
| On average, I believe my army’s crusade rules are… | Space Marines (Codex Compliant) | Dark Angels | Adeptus Mechanicus | Adeptus Custodes | Black Templars | Space Wolves | Sisters of Battle |
| More powerful than my opponent’s crusade rules | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| About equal with my opponent’s crusade rules | 16 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| Less powerful than my opponent’s crusade rules | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
As we saw with the aggregate results most players believe their army’s rules are fairly balanced compared to their peers. Codex-Compliant Space marines have the greatest number of players who believe their army is under-powered, which is also my impression. While this might also be due to their poor performance on the table, I think the codex’s crusade rules have also been caught in the power creep effect.
| My army’s special rules are easy to understand. | Space Marines (Codex Compliant) | Dark Angels | Adeptus Mechanicus | Adeptus Custodes | Black Templars | Space Wolves | Sisters of Battle |
| Strongly Agree | 8 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
| Agree | 14 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 8 |
| Disagree | 4 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Strongly Disagree | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
As above most players don’t struggle to understand their faction’s special rules. I am not particularly surprised that Ad Mech have the largest contingent who believe their rules can be difficult to understand. This army has a special way of customizing weapons and many upgrade tables that can be as arcane and esoteric as the tech the Ad Mech search for.
| Please indicate how satisfied you are with your army’s specific crusade rules | Space Marines (Codex Compliant) | Dark Angels | Adeptus Mechanicus | Adeptus Custodes | Black Templars | Space Wolves | Sisters of Battle |
| Very Satisfied | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Somewhat Satisfied | 15 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
| Somewhat Dissatisfied | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Very Dissatisfied | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
The good news of this section is that, overall, players are satisfied with their army-specific crusade rules. In fact even if you look at just those responses which indicated they felt their army was under-powered 65% (11/17) of them were still satisfied. That being said GM’s should still think about how to manage the Space Marine (and possible the Dark Angels) players. As the two most discontented groups, these are also the two largest groups of responses in the survey. While this may not be indicative of the size of their actual player base, GM’s may need to assess some ways to entice them to play in a crusade or address any issues they may have.
Conclusion
| Please indicate how satisfied you were with the last crusade campaign you participated in: | Space Marines (Codex Compliant) | Dark Angels | Adeptus Mechanicus | Adeptus Custodes | Black Templars | Space Wolves | Sisters of Battle | Astra Militarum |
| Very Satisfied | 11 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| Somewhat Satisfied | 11 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
| Somewhat Dissatisfied | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Very Dissatisfied | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
However GMs decide to approach balancing the factions it would appear that player satisfaction with their crusade rules doesn’t appear to be a deciding factor in their enjoyment of a crusade campaign. Converted to a numeric value, those who were dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied with their crusade rules still had an average satisfaction with their last crusade of 2.7/4. While this is less then ideal it would suggest that players who dislike their army rules can still enjoy these campaigns (Emperor knows those poor Astra Millitarum players seem to be finding a way to have fun). That being said when the two values are compared there is a weak correlation (0.35) between satisfaction with army rules and crusade campaign satisfaction.
My advice for GM’s building a crusade campaign with a significant number of Imperium factions would be to keep an eye on the players and how they are performing. While the rule set is unlikely to suppress player skill the imbalanced (or perceived imbalance) between the army rules could have a deleterious effect.
So what do you think? Does this analysis line up with your experiences? Did I leave anything out that you have questions or thoughts about? Let me know in the comments!
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