Today we are looking at the new Astra Militarum crusade rules. How will they stack up to some other new armies?
Army Specific Rules:
The AM rules are focused around “Tours of Duty” which are somewhat similar to the Custodes mechanic. You start by randomly determining the number of battles to fight and the number of victories you need to achieve. After each battle fought, and each victory you reduce the proper column by one until you hit zero. As you go through your campaign you will need to manage your Logistics points and once a tour of duty is complete you get to hand out awards to your troops.
Logistics are a tricky mechanic. You start a tour with four points to assign in the four categories. If you get 2 points in any category you gain a bonus if you hit zero in any you get a penalty (it’s very similar to the Chaos Warband mechanics). It’s interesting to note that you cannot get more logistics points thus if you get a bonus somewhere you are taking a penalty somewhere else (props to the designers for not giving players an easy way out). The four categories are:
- Military Intelligence
- Bonus:+ 1 CP, +1 AM agenda
- Penalty: Orders fail on a D6 roll of a “1”, Requisition point awarded after battles only for victories (ouch)
- Material
- Bonus: Units re-roll one wound per shooting attack, Re-Arm and Resupply or Relic strat can be used after each battle for free
- Penalty: -2” move on all vehicles (to a minimum of 0”) Rearm and resupply costs 2 RP
- Tithe Pool
- Bonus: revive one destroyed model on all CORE infantry units on your command phase Fresh Recruits or Recuperate strat can be used after each battle for free
- Penalty: No CP if Warlord is not on battlefield, increase supply limit costs 2 RPs
- Morale
- Bonus: +1 LD, units get +2 exp after battles not +1
- Penalty: -1 LD, Units not marked for greatness
Commendation points are used to give awards to your units. These can be earned through battles (+1 for each battle fought) and you get an extra D3 at the end of each campaign. Any unit can have a max of 3 campaign medals which also increase its crusade points. There are twelve different ones to choose from. Most are broadly useful with one of the best giving your unit a battle trait of your choice! Merit of the Strategium is also really good as it allows you to pick who goes first in a mission on a 4+!
Agendas and Relics:
The AM get four agendas to use. Advance! Gives units 1 exp if they end the game in your opponent’s deployment zone (Max 6) and get a commendation point if your warlord makes it there too. Inspired Command is a tally agenda. Officers get 1 exp for each enemy unit killed by a unit that they ordered (max:3 exp). If your tally is 5+ your army gets a commendation point. Arming the Assault is high risk high reward option. Basically, you increase the tally by completing an action near an objective. You can repeat the action but only one unit can target an objective at a time. Also note that each objective has its own tally. However, the tally decreases for every objective held by your opponent at the start of your turn. At the end of the game you gain experience points for units near objectives with tallies from 1-3 and your army gets commendation points based on the combined tally scores. That one is a mess of book keeping but can be very powerful on the right mission. Lastly, Propogandist Coup requires your opponent to select 3 vehicles or monsters (non-dedicated transports). If 2/3 are killed during the battle you gain 1 Commendation point, if you kill all three you get D3 Commendation Points.
The AM get no less than 8 relics to choose from. In the artificer relics we finally have a relic pistol worth taking, as it does 1 MW if it hits (which isn’t bad for a three-shot 18” range gun.) Koledin’s Triumph is also decent for Infantry characters giving -1 damage and the ability to ignore the first failed saving throw each turn. For the Antiquity Relics you get an option to cast two orders at once another spicy pistol that is a S8 AP -3 D2 beam weapon ignoring invulns, lastly you can give nay officer a 4++ (hello Mr. Tank Commander) an extra WL trait and a free Epic-Deed strat once per game. The Heroic Relic makes a tank commander even more scary boosting them to T9 and limiting them to losing max 6 wounds a phase!
Army Traits and Requisitions:
Surprisingly, the AM only get three trait tables. A mini table for Officers, a mini table for Vehicles and a full table for Infantry and Cavalry.
- Officers: The clear winner here allows you to mark an additional unit for greatness (this should be capped by GMs as it an get out of hand really fast
- Vehicles: The meme pick here is +1 WS but getting a 6+++ is also cool
- Infantry and Cavalry: Lots of cool options including the ability to fall back and shoot (with a -1), exploding 6’s on heavy weapons is also great for weapon teams.
The AM get 7 requisitions, one of the highest number of custom requisitions recorded. Uplifting Primers is great for getting bons exp (+1 for every Platoon unit that doesn’t fail an out-of-action test). But…you have to use it before a battle. There is an option to give your Officer an Attache or Bodyguard model, You can make any officer you add to your army start with 6 exp for 1 RP each. Commit Everything allows you to ignore one deficiency cause by Logistics for one battle, once per campaign for 1 RP. Last Minute Transfer is so dumb, basically when a AM vehicle fails an out of action test you can swap it out for another with the same medals and battle traits for 1 RP (tell me Battle Scars are meaningless without saying they are meaningless. This should be 2 RP minimum). Tank Ace is your bog-standard way of getting the abilities on a tank. Consolidated Regiments is how you get to pick your Regimental traits (all crusade armies start with Born Soldiers) allowing you to respect your Regimental ability for 0 RP the first time and 2 RP after that with no cap on the number of times to use it.
Conclusion:
The AM are a great example of how the Crusade rules have evolved (or devolved) over time. On the one hand you have really fun mechanics that are unique and flavorful. On the other hand, the rules are vulnerable to spamming and just ignoring inconvenient portions of the rules. This rule set is great but needs to be house-ruled to maintain some form of balance in a crusade.
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