Hi all,
My club is gearing up for our first apoc game of 10th ed, and I thought I would shake things up a bit. Landing missions are always tough to do, but the new Battleline Keyword does make things easier. While the deployment map looks a little wonky, I think this will be a good game. Our club also adjusts how turn order works and I will cover that in greater detail later.
Deployment:
I haven’t fully nailed down the deployment zones yet but the attackers will start pretty close to the main objectives on the middle tables. Smart players will plan a lot of outflanking or deepstriking units to harass the back board/force the defenders to commit resources. I am a little worried about a few players just blobbing up on the objective, which is why I have tried to give the attackers an advantage by allowing them to go first.
Special rules:
Rear Areas:The fifth board, furthest back is not considered to be connected to the other board. Units may not draw line of sight to it, but may target it with indirect fire, and vice versa.
Overrun: Starting on the second turn, the attackers may bring reserves onto from the Second Assault board edge. If they control a board objective they may bring any reserves on from the Flank Assault edges of any other board touching the original one. For the sake of this rule, the fifth board is considered to be adjacent to Boards #3 and #4
Endless Waves: After an attacking unit with the “Battleline” keyword has been destroyed, including any transport used. It can automatically be brought back (as from strategic reserves) from any applicable assault edge. After any round, the attackers may elect to destroy any Battleline line units (or their transports). Units returned in this manner must be identical to those they are replacing, with the exception that characters are never returned.
Infiltration: Any attacker may pay 1 CP to bring in 1-3 units from reserves in a flank position regardless of prior conditions. However, one of these units must have a leader and all units must end their first move wholly within 18” of each other.
Desperate Defense: At the end of any turn, the defenders may pay a number of command points equal to the number of players on their team. If they do so they may pick one objective marker that was taken by the attackers this turn. Ignore the presence of attacking units when determining control of this objective for this turn. This ability may only be used once per battle.
Finest Moment: Monsters and units with the Vehicle keyword (and a minimum Toughness of “8”) are not removed from the table until the end of the round in which they were slain. You also do not roll for Deadly Demise, or apply degrading rules until the end of the round.
Club Special Rules:
Our club has a few special rules that we use to try and make the game more engaging.
- Alternating Turns: How this works is that one side will move and make a charge move, then the other will do the same. Then two players from one side will shoot, and vice versa, with each team alternating until all have gone. The same goes for the fight phases, however a player may elect to fall back from combat with their unit if they don’t wish to fight (in lieu of that unit’s activation). All teams share the Command Phase. It will be interesting to see how this will work in 10th ed. The change to the charge phase was made because fragile assault armies like Eldar, DE, Chaos Daemons, etc. were getting wrecked by shooting, or were being kept from assault too easily.
- Monsters and Vehicles: We typically use the “Finest Hour” rule above, on just the first turn but I wanted to expand it this game.
Victory Conditions:
Assault – Each table will have an objective marker placed on it that the defenders will have to hold. Once the objective is captured by the attackers it is considered to be lost. At the end of the game each side gets 5 Narrative points for each objective that is held.
Withdraw in Good Order: The defenders get 2 Narrative Points for each turn that none of their units end the round on a board with an objective that has been taken. If this has not been met the attackers get the points instead.
Make them Bleed: The Defenders get 2 narrative points for each enemy Titanic unit and enemy Warlord slain The attackers get 1 point for the same.
Commentary:
Now I admit there are a ways this mission can go sideways, but hey…welcome to apoc games. The uneven nature of victory points may allow me to divide up teams such that the team with fewer titanic units gives up fewer victory points for them. As I haven’t ran the mission before I am a little worried that one side has a much easier job, which is compounded by the fact that these games usually only go 3 turns making recycling units less decisive. I am calling the victory points narrative points because I want to use the totals to see how the winning side gets its victory.
A Note on Legends Units: My club is going to build a provisional set of points values for Legends units for our apoc games and narrative campaigns. Keeps your eyes peeled as I plan on sharing it when I can.
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