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Thanks for the post. How do objectives work? Is it the player with the most stuff/infantry nearby, or is it enemy models contest?

I like the fact that they cater for more than 2 players in their scenarios. I often play 3 way games.

spaceelf wrote:Thanks for the post. How do objectives work? Is it the player with the most stuff/infantry nearby, or is it enemy models contest?

Objectives are entirely neutral until picked up by a unit, at that point they give 1VP to the force of whichever unit holds them at the end of the game and 2 if you extract them off the board

There is no "contesting", there is only "Having the objective" and "Not having the objective" (and "Having the objective off the board")

You can "Contest" focal points, in that you get 1VP for having units near one and 2 for having the greatest points value of units near one (near being 6")


Oooh, knew I'd missed one!

Pacific wrote:Great, thanks a lot for doing this Charax!

No problem. Surprised I was first, but I thought people would appreciate it

Pacific wrote:Wow I'm surprised about the level of detail in the rules. But, perhaps it makes sense as it looks like the model count isn't particularly massive compared to some other games, and especially at 10mm scale. Is that a correct assumption, what kind of army/point size do you think the game is recommended to be played at?

well, you certainly won't be fielding 60+ units! the only other small-scale games I play are Mechwarrior and Epic, and it's a lot smaller than Epic in model numbers. I can't see myself wanting more than about 1750 points or so, I've never really been one of those "I love this game! MUST COLLECT LARGEST FORCE POSSIBLE!" guys, and there are some units I just don't want, which would be hard to avoid in larger points (Shame I cant have 3000 points of Prowlers/Minders )

Terrain related question for the lazy -

Has anyone sent the terrain sheets off to Kinkos or such a place yet? Curious if they will accept the job, and if so, what kinds of papers you used.

Charax, I am confused by the battlegroup chart. What's in a battle group? How big? Is there another chart for that?

Can a slayer (heavy), reaper (AA), and invader APC all be on a medium drop ship? Are they the same battlegroup, and in what category?

RiTides wrote:Charax, I am confused by the battlegroup chart. What's in a battle group? How big? Is there another chart for that?

Can a slayer (heavy), reaper (AA), and invader APC all be on a medium drop ship? Are they the same battlegroup, and in what category?

Yup, there's an extra step in the force org which is army specific:








that should cover everything:

Size of game determines number & type of battlegroups

Army determines what squads can be in those battlegroups

Squad entry determines number of models in each squad

Also no battlegroup can be more than 1/3 of the army's points


Automatically Appended Next Post:
would help if I answered the question wouldnt it?

Slayers can share with Slayers and Tormentors

Reapers can share with Reapers and Hunters

Invaders can share with another (single) Invader

so it looks like sharing is based on chassis

Charax wrote:In case anyone wanted a worked example of shooting:
Sabre MBT shooting Scourge Hunter MGT:
Scourge Hunter has Active Countermeasures, so the Sabre's railgun must use its Countered range of 24" (as opposed to its full range of Infinite)
Sabre railgun has an accuracy of 2+, hits. Hunter has no Passive countermeasures, so cant roll to negate the hit
Sabre railgun is Energy 10, Vs the Hunter's armour of 8 means it needs 3+ to damage, if a 5+ is rolled, 2 damage points would be inflicted
Hunter has one DP, so dies horribly.

Hello,
In this example, what determines the roll needed to do damage?

Mattman154 wrote:

Charax wrote:In case anyone wanted a worked example of shooting:
Sabre MBT shooting Scourge Hunter MGT:
Scourge Hunter has Active Countermeasures, so the Sabre's railgun must use its Countered range of 24" (as opposed to its full range of Infinite)
Sabre railgun has an accuracy of 2+, hits. Hunter has no Passive countermeasures, so cant roll to negate the hit
Sabre railgun is Energy 10, Vs the Hunter's armour of 8 means it needs 3+ to damage, if a 5+ is rolled, 2 damage points would be inflicted
Hunter has one DP, so dies horribly.

Hello,
In this example, what determines the roll needed to do damage?

A great big table, Weapon Energy (1-13) Vs Defender's Armour (1-10)

If Energy = Armour, you need a 5+, and from there it's fairly standard (so Energy 10 V Armour 9 is 4+, Armour 8 is 3+.. down to a min/max of 2+ and not being able to damage if you need more than a 6

If you get 2 points over your needed score, you cause 2 damage points.

So if you need a 5+ to damage, you simply cannot do double damage.

Thanks for the info!

Also, so an Energy 9 weapon shooting at DA 10 needs a 6+ to damage, and Energy 8 at DA 10 cannot damage?

There is a copy of the table in the downloads section of the hawk wargames site

Woo got my stuff, for once a courier actually left a parcel for me in the place I requested. Although looking at the KR case which came with my premium starter army it does look like the one of the trays is a PHR one which isn't much use for the UCM. I guess I'll have to get in touch with Hawk and see what they can do for me.

i would have got mine today too but the bloody misses went out at the exact time it was supposed to be delivered. Whos in the dog house now!

Charax, thanks. Is there a password to view the album? Can't read the text on my phone and it is asking for a password to view the album on my PC.

I don't like the UCM rank structure, only niggle so far with the entire game.

Squad Leader
Lieutenant
Captain
General
Field Marshal


Colonel (4th rank) followed by General (5th rank) would be better.

RiTides wrote:Charax, thanks. Is there a password to view the album? Can't read the text on my phone and it is asking for a password to view the album on my PC.

Opened it up just for you!

I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Death Gear wrote:I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Does this not count?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/452967.page

Does this not count?
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/452967.page

I was thinking with every one getting there stuff. People would start making blogs.
Not trying to complain or any thing just thought it would be cool to see some awesome ideas.

P.S. Thanks for the link

There is a plog, further back in the thread.

Charax- You're awesome! So do 2 Invader APCs make up "1" troops selection in a warrior cabal battlegroup? So I could have 4 APCs in that battlegroup for a skirmish sized game?

Any chance you could make a sample force using one of all available units? Even if not, knowing 2 APCs = 1 space on the chart is helpful. I think it still takes 3 to fill a drop ship, though, right? Meaning mega deals have lots of empty space in dropships, and even the starter? Or maybe for the APCs and Heavies, 2 fills a medium drop ship, meaning no extra space in the army deal dropships after all?

Not sure what counts as support/exotic/air, hence my thinking a sample force (or even a single battlegroup) would be really helpful!

Thanks once again

A key concept of this game regarding army construction is that you don't buy transports (either dropships or APCs) and then buy stuff to fill them, all transports are bought as add-ons to squads.

So an Invader doesn't take up any space on any chart, because the Warriors it's carrying are the troop choice, and the Invader is really just an upgrade to them.

The invader is the APC, though, not the drop ship?

A squad of Warriors is 2 or 3 stands.
A squad of 2 can take an Invader APC - if they take an Invader APC, they can share a Marauder with another Warrior squad, as long as they, too are in an Invader, that's pretty much the wording

do I have to include one of everything? I really don't wanna have Despoilers

Can you give some examples of squad sizes max/min for some units like tanks, infantry, fighter?

And do the commanders have some special skills since they are pointed differently and can you give some examples?

I noticed you can have one air unit in a skirmish air battlegroup, yet cannot have air battlegroups in skirmish games.

Charax- Skipping the despoiler is fine. It's an exotic or HQ, I am guessing? Thought that was the only HQ option.

Thanks for clarifying the infantry stuff

Alright, let's work through a battlegroup or two.

Well, I love Prowlers, and it's only a small force so I want a Skirmish-level battlegroup that can take Scouts - the Scourge Oppressors or the Scourge Occupation Patrol

well, as it's a smallish game I dont want a Desolator, so the Oppressor battlegroup is out (as the Desolator is our sole Command unit, and the battlegroup requires one) so it's an occupation patrol for me

Occupation patrols have Scouts, Exotic Units and Support. Well, scourge have neither Exotic Units nor Support (which SUCKS, I understand forwards compatibility but I wish they'd given us at least a token unit) EDIT: The errata sheet changes the Reaper to Support, so there's that. still no exotic though)

So my Occupation Patrol has one mandatory scout squad. Scourge Scouts are Minders and Prowlers, so I'll take some Prowlers.

Prowler squad size is 4 or 8 models (not 4 TO 8), so I take 8 for 72 points. transport options are 1-2 Intruder dropships, so I take two for 48 points, so my first battlegroup is a pretty handy 120pt one consisting of 8 Prowlers and 2 Intruder Betas. Nice, versatile little scout unit which ups my activations

That's my 0-1 specials taken up, so I cant have another Occupation Patrol, which sucks...

let's go for some Infantry:
2 Warrior Cabals will do, fill up my Infantry formations and give me lots of stuff to capture objectives with - and scourge have a few nice cards to play for CQC too

Well, Infantry is basically Warriors, because we cant take Razorworms alone - they're an upgrade for the heavy tanks. Understandable, or you could sit a bunch of them in objective buildings and wait for people to come & die

The next Battlegroup will be my massed Infantry formation - warriors come in squad sizes of either 2 or 3, so I'll get 2 squads of 3 (96) in two Invader APCs (130) in a Marauder (171) - not massively more than the prowler swarm, but still pretty nasty, especially given what massed Warrior shooting can do...

My other Infantry will be the Special Ops detachment - 2 squads of 2 (108) upgraded to aged ones (For +X points a model. First mistake!) in Intruder Alphas (188)

This will be quite a good battlegroup - the intruders can fly in at low altitude, dump the aged ones directly into a building and extract them. Aged ones are great, and in larger games I'd probably upgrade the 6-stand formation to them, but a small, elite unit like this could tip the tide in smaller battles

Alright, so we have a 120-point Prowler battlegroup, a 171-point Warrior battlegroup and a 188-plus-whatever-4-Aged-one-upgrades-cost detachment, giving me 179. Time for tanks!

1 Armoured battlegroup is available to me, so I take a Vangard - 1-2 squads of Standard units, and the only Standard units are Hunter MGTs (Reapers, Slayers and Tormentors are Standard in the book, but got shifted around by the 0day errata sheet)

My hunter squads come in sizes of 3/6/9, and can have Despoilers or Marauders as transport. As I dont want despoilers, I'll take 2 units of 3 (210) in 2 Marauders (292)
As my Skirmish-level force can't take Aircraft, and my Scout slot is filled with prowlers - for now - I'd better grab my AA from the support slot. 3 Reapers (117) in a marauder(158)

So this battlegroup is 6 hunters, 3 reapers, 3 marauders (jesus I need a lot of Marauders) and 450 points - in a single battlegroup, youch. As a skirmish-level army, no single detachment can be more than 333 points, so I ditch one set of hunters+marauder for a saving of 146 points - I'm now at 304, scraping under the limit

so I'll only have 3 MBTs, but I'll have some AA, and the reapers can attack ground units, now for the elephant in the room:

I want prowlers, but I have only two battlegroups that can take them, and one's used up, and the other requires a Desolator, our only Command unit.

Oh what the hell.
Scourge Oppressors battlegroup:
1 Desolator - 140
1 8-person Prowler pack with 2 Intruder Betas - 120 (basically a carbon copy of the first battlegroup)
Scourge Champion - 55 pts
=315

So, my army consists of:
1 Scourge Oppressors Battlegroup - 315pts
1 Scourge Vangard battlegroup - 304
1 Aged One Warrior Cabal - 188-ish
1 Warrior Cabal - 171
1 Scourge Occupation Patrol - 120

that comes to 1098 - damn, bit big. for a skirmish, where can I trim some points? Desolator? nah, now I have him I'm quite attached to the idea. Maybe the reapers? it'll leave me AA-less, but in a skirmish there's not a ton of aircraft around...OK, ditching the Reapers & their transport marauders leaves an obvious hole in my defenses, but frees up 158 points, leaving me at 940 - juuust enough to afford another Scourge Champion commander who, freed from the constraints of having to sit in the command vehicle, I can put wherever I like. With the prowler battlegroup is tempting, but as I said, a lot of scourge cards benefit CQC and infantry, and my force is quite Infantry-heavy, I'll stick him with the massed warriors.

At least until the Aged One upgrade gets an actual points value, and I have to choose between a second commander and my kickass specops guys

So, looking at the force it's fairly commander-heavy - the despoiler's basically the biggest thing that will be deployed at that scale, and my two commanders mean that I am going to be playing cards pretty often, and when the desolator dies (IF it dies) I'm not discarding any cards.

I get my swarm of prowlers, but only because I took a big hit, that desolator's my greatest strength and biggest weakness, as my AA is pretty nonexistant

RiTides wrote:Charax- Skipping the despoiler is fine. It's an exotic or HQ, I am guessing? Thought that was the only HQ option.

Despoiler's the 9-tank dropship that looks like a vending machine, Desolator's the Mass Effect Reaper

Death Gear wrote:I'm surprised no one has started a painting blog yet....oh well.

Ask and you shall recieve, I've just started one for my UCM no paint yet but I've built a couple of models.

Can you drop one Intruder Alpha and half your Aged Ones. that will bring you under a thousand points, you still have plenty of infantry, and you still get a taste of Intruder Alpha use. If the Aged Ones are that good, see what only ten will do.

Everything counts in large amounts, and goddammit, if I'm going to take a unit whose purpose is to Die Hard the hell out of whatever building they land in, I'm taking them all!

(also, if I only take 2 it means that battlegroup only has a single dropship, so if someone takes it out my infantry have to footslog - it's the same situation with the hunters, but I'd rather not have it repeated)

ooh, fun idea - Call for Extraction is a scourge card that allows you to replace a destroyed intruder with a new one, in my command heavy force they'll probably come up quite a bit...

still, both valid options

Some of the review blogs mentioned models Dave showed that were (apparently) in the rulebook but not yet on sale.

Are there unreleased units in the rulebook to share with us please.

I am wondering if the UCM get a flamethrower tank or an artillery system.