Hi all,
Apologies on the delay on this piece as I have had a fair amount of schoolwork and some illness to work through. Today we are continuing through the 2023 Great Crusade Survey Results looking at Imperium players!
This year we got a pretty good spread of armies represented. Space Marines remained the #1 most popular army followed by Astra Millitarum.
Perceived Army Power
Looking at this table we see that the major outlier here is the codex-compliant Space Marines feel the least confident in their army rules. This is consistent with last year’s results, although it is almost a 50/50 split. Last year, 27% of the Space Marine players felt that their army was weaker than their opponent’s. I think this shows the gap is widening between the early-codex and late codex crusade rules. I will be curious to see if this trend holds for the Death Guard and Necron codexes which had similar release dates. The Blood Angels are the first army we have seen where the consensus is that they are under-powered, and I agree. We only had two knight players respond but the split is quite divergent. I think this result will be heavily weighted by your local group and if they can take on these skew lists or not.
Ability to Understand Army Rules
These results are in-line with last year’s results as well. I am not sure what the Space Marine players find confusing given their rules aren’t terribly complex. This might be some vitriol carried over based on their perceptions of their army’s rules. Other than that, the results are pretty good. Only a few people seem to be struggling with their rules.
Campaign Satisfaction
Looking at the last campaign these players participated in, and their satisfaction yields some interesting results. I am not sure how much we can attribute to specifically army rules vs. campaign construction. Some of these player participated in very short events yielding a different environment than a longer campaign. For those that were very dissatisfied, their comments typically revolved around the complexity of the crusade system and players power-gaming their lists. These players also didn’t indicate that any house rules were used. While this is conjecture, I do think that unmodified crusade campaigns can get unbalanced very quickly and may have soured these players.
Takeaways:
These results are quite similar to last year’s results. Issues persist with the Space Marine rule set and GMs should think about how to address them. Imperium players largely understand their rules, but there are a number who struggle and may need support. Overall, these players aren’t too dissatisfied with their last campaign. We have seen average satisfaction rise to 3.4/4 from 2.7/4 from 2022. At the same time, I think there are a few players who feel overwhelmed with the rules and rules interactions. You might be able to help support them adjust, or they may never be satisfied. The crusade rules have grown in orders of complexity so this feeling is understandable. Navigating this path is crucial for a GM as any mid-long term campaign will need support to stay afloat.
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