Kill Team leaders, prepare for contact! This year's
NOVA Open wargaming convention (Sep 1--4; Washington
DC, USA) includes a new event track:
40k Narrative Recon Squads. Participants will fight fun, casual, thematic
Warhammer 40,000 skirmish battles driven by and feeding back into the ongoing, multi-year
NOVA 40k Narrative.
Skirmish
The event uses the free, fan-made but well tested,
Recon Squad 40k skirmish rules. These are very similar to Games Workshop's classic Kill Team variant but updated for 7th edition rules and balance. Recon Squad games are small, fast, intense firefights between individual grunts. Players field armies of at most 200 points, with several restrictions on armour, wounds, and other aspects to keep the focus on everyday warriors and squad leaders. Each model then acts independently in the games, moving and fighting on its own. Reflecting each squad's status as veterans dispatched on critical special missions, several models are also given specialist traits representing advanced skills and abilities. It's a whole different way to play
40k, very fast-playing and tactical, but using the same core mechanics you already know and the models you love.
The format also gives an opportunity to play units that are thematic and fun but don't necessarily make sense in standard
40k. For a prominent, very appropriate, example, many of you have no doubt picked up a copy of Games Workshop's
Deathwatch: Overkill board game released just last weekend. As a free supplement to that release, Games Workshop has made available
40k datasheets and formations for Deathwatch Kill Team Cassius and the Ghosar Quintus Genestealer Cult. Kill Team Cassius in particular doesn't seem to be an obviously strong unit for standard
40k, but both side's units are extremely well suited to Recon Squad so this is a great chance to get those amazing models on the table at
NOVA! Whether fielding those or your own creation, with so few models in play this event is also a great opportunity to focus on hobby aspects and lovingly paint a masterwork squad or field a highly customized, unique leader.
Narrative
Central to the event are eight thematic missions, some of them asymmetric, such as Assassination, Excavation, and Installation. In their alliance strategy meetings on Friday and Saturday, Warlords in the main
NOVA 40k Narrative track will select several of these missions they want achieved to gain specific advantages for their team in the campaign. Players in each Recon Squad event will then choose from that list for their alliance and lead their squad in that mission. Their success or failure will then impact how the larger narrative campaign unfolds.
Notably, the new
40k skirmish track has been organized as four separate events. Players are able and encouraged to sign up for one, multiple, or all events as they please, with no disadvantage to themselves or their alliance for hopping in and out. This is therefore a great opportunity for players that want to participate in the highly popular
NOVA 40k Narrative but cannot commit to attending the convention for the entire weekend or are focused on other
NOVA events such as the
40k GT or other game systems. The schedule also permits those already participating in the
40k Narrative to throw in a few skirmish games and deepen even further their engagement with the storyline, while also potentially attending seminars, shopping the vendor hall, or just catching a break from all the action.
Rules and Sign-Up
Registration is open now, and details for this track are available in the
2016 40k Narrative Recon Squad primer. That guidebook has just been updated with the full rules for all eight thematic missions, so give it another look even if you already have. Suit up and kit out, sergeants, a new mission just came in!
(cross-posted to
Tournament Discussions)
