Hi all, we are continuing on in our analysis of the recent Crusade survey. Today’s item is the feedback from the Xenos players. Consisting of 105 responses this makes the Xenos players the second largest pool of respondents after the Imperium. As with my last review I am only going to show army data that has a large enough pool of respondents, in this case it is 5+.
One of the things that jumps out to me is that there are a lot more Necron players than I imagined. I think I underestimated the impact of their range refresh and how the bevy of awesome sculpts lured a lot of buyers. To put it into perspective I got more results from Necron players then from any other faction including generic Space Marines.
Army Crusade Rules
In this section we will analyze the results using similar tables to the last article.
| On average, I believe my army’s crusade rules are… | Dark Eldar | Orks | Craftworld Eldar | Tyranids | Necrons | Genestealer Cult | Tau |
| More powerful than my opponent’s crusade rules | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| About equal with my opponent’s crusade rules | 9 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 17 | 6 | 11 |
| Less powerful than my opponent’s crusade rules | 0 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 16 | 0 | 3 |
Right off the bat there are several things that stand out to me. I understand the number of Tyranid players who are displeased with their Crusade rules as they came out in a White Dwarf and are somewhat incomplete. The number of Ork and Necron players who are dissatisfied are also troubling. For Ork players my guess is that the discontent has something to do with the relative uselessness of the Scrap mechanic and the fact that the Ork rules are mainly focused on building characters, rather then on the army. For the Necrons I am guessing that their rules are “long in the tooth” and, like the space marines, are just too bland compared to what other armies got. I am not quite so sure what the Tau players are mad about though. They have a decent mechanic, and though they only get points through agendas, their bonuses are better then most other armies when they achieve their goals.
| My army’s special rules are easy to understand. | Dark Eldar | Orks | Craftworld Eldar | Tyranids | Necrons | Genestealer Cult | Tau |
| Strongly Agree | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 2 | 5 |
| Agree | 6 | 10 | 3 | 5 | 21 | 2 | 10 |
| Disagree | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Strongly Disagree | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Not a whole lot to say here. The group of Xenos players did better then the Imperium in this regard as there are fewer players struggling to understanding their rules. As a Craftworld Eldar player myself I will concur that the Path system is quite confusing even after you read through it seven times.
| Please indicate how satisfied you are with your army’s specific crusade rules | Dark Eldar | Orks | Craftworld Eldar | Tyranids | Necrons | Genestealer Cult | Tau |
| Very Satisfied | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 7 |
| Somewhat Satisfied | 3 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 17 | 2 | 6 |
| Somewhat Dissatisfied | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
| Very Dissatisfied | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
As with the first table I understand the results from the Necron players. Like the Space Marines their rules are quite dull compared to most other armies. You can do some interesting things with their battle scars but they need a “Tomb-Awakening” mechanic or something along those lines to go with their rules. For Orks I really think GW needs to add more utility for Scarp points and that would help. It is interesting to see that while 10 Imperium player voiced their extreme dissatisfaction with their army rules, almost twice as many Xenos players were dissatisfied.
Conclusion
| Please indicate how satisfied you were with the last crusade campaign you participated in: | Dark Eldar | Orks | Craftworld Eldar | Tyranids | Necrons | Genestealer Cult | Tau |
| Very Satisfied | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 16 | 2 | 6 |
| Somewhat Satisfied | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 4 | 9 |
| Somewhat Dissatisfied | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Very Dissatisfied | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Keeping on in our theme of comparisons, while Xenos players are, on average, less happy with their army rules, they are happier then Imperium players with the last crusade campaign they participated in. For players who are dissatisfied with their own crusade rules they still rated their average happiness with their last campaign as a 3.2/4 compared to a 2.7/4 for similar Imperium players. In fact there is an even weaker correlation between satisfaction with army rules and satisfaction with the last crusade participated in for these players then for Imperium players (0.25 for Xenos, 0.35 for Imperium).
My advice for GMs with a lot of Xenos players is to be aware that they may be less happy with their army special rules then other groups. However since many of them already have rules you might be able to tweak them to satisfy the players. As ever talk to your player base and see if you can determine if any are dissatisfied and what the nature of their dissatisfaction is.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
