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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
A real narrative ruleset would not require "rationalization" of the rules to make narrative sense.

Promoting units to officers would actually be a narrative consequence (e.g. a Legendary sergeant using Lieutenant rules or becoming a Lieutenant outright) but that doesn't work within the rules. Remember limit 3!

Ro3 is now a part of the GT mission pack if I'm not mistaken. I don't think it applies to Crusade.

As for not requiring "rationalization," I've been playing pen and paper role playing games since I was 8 years old, and I've had to rationalize rules in almost all of them. Understanding how a rule's game mechanics are supposed to represent story events is at the core of narrative gaming. Every time I level in D&D, I think about all the things my character did since last leveling in order to have some insight into how the character should grow- using my self generated "fluff" to justify the crunch I purchase with my XP.

As for promotions: yeah, they could have gone further, though some pathways for promotions do exist. Captain to Chapter Master is one; the Requisition that allows squad leaders to be equipped with Relics... Not exactly a promotion, but certainly a form of recognition. DW Marines can develop specialisms in game (again, no requirement to base the specialism on the battlefield actions which supply the experience to purchase the upgrade, but the people who have RPG experience usually do). In fact, DW captains can become Masters of Specialisms as well.

The Drukhari Crusade content has been the best so far- the rules for Ascendant Lord/ territory acquisition and use, I would argue, come closest to moving beyond a progression system- these rules basically create a Necromunda style mini-game set in Commorragh.

The Crusade content isn't out for sisters yet, but we'll have it soon; a pathway to living sainthood has been teased in the previews, though Warcom is notorious for mistakes like this, so I will hold at "Cautious optimism" until we get more info. I suspect that sisters will be able to take and complete the oath of Sisters Repentia, etc.

Ro3 is a core rule this edition.

And again, what you are describing as "rationalization" is really just understanding the abstraction. I have no problem with understanding wargame abstractions.

I do have a problem when the rules don't abstract what is happening any longer, but rather directly contradict it. Then you start having to come up with contorted rationalizations to work your way around the rules.

I cannot find any reference to Rule of Three or a limit to 3 copies of a datasheet otherwise in the Core or Advanced Rules. The only reference I can find is in the GT2020 Rules pack and Eternal War Matched Play rules.

Rihgu wrote:
I cannot find any reference to Rule of Three or a limit to 3 copies of a datasheet otherwise in the Core or Advanced Rules. The only reference I can find is in the GT2020 Rules pack and Eternal War Matched Play rules.

You are right, narrative allows more than 3 datasheets. I think I am confused because no one locally would let me violate it for my Crusade games even with other Crusade armies or in our Crusade campaign.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


And again, what you are describing as "rationalization" is really just understanding the abstraction. I have no problem with understanding wargame abstractions.

I do have a problem when the rules don't abstract what is happening any longer, but rather directly contradict it. Then you start having to come up with contorted rationalizations to work your way around the rules.

So maybe you could tell us which rules are requiring which kind of rationalizations? I'm particularly interested in the the rules that you feel directly contradict "what is happening."

PenitentJake wrote:
...So maybe you could tell us which rules are requiring which kind of rationalizations? I'm particularly interested in the the rules that you feel directly contradict "what is happening."

Flamers as AA. Forcing units to fire at the closest target, and then placing the closest target somewhere they can't see. Antenna-to-antenna line of sight. Killing tanks by stacking buffs on guys with knives. Moving and firing doesn't give you any penalty so long as you're also shooting at night. Blasts doing the same damage to a single target as they do to a squad. Too many bizarre army list decisions to count (i.e. why do the loyalist SM get to keep their Cataphractii armour but Chaos doesn't?).

I think PenitentJake and Unit are talking about the Crusade rules, in a "narrative vs progression system" context? That's how I read it.

Unless I misread and Unit is saying the core rules are non-narrative so that Crusade by extension can not be narrative? But I thought that's why they acknowledged the difference between abstraction and rationalization...

To me the core rules to 9e 40k are so abstract and nonsensical I get kicked out of any kind of narrative immersion so fast I don't have time to tell the difference between "narrative play" and "matched play".

To me 40k battles are us playing out the key point within a larger context. Off the sides of our little board there are thousands of grunt troops fighting it out, there's a larger facility about to get blown up, there's a gathering of leaders about to be assassinated, and so on. That's the only context in which the battles make sense to begin with anyways.

Similarly there are probably a ton of other battles which a crusade force gets into which aren't played out because they amount to 50 PL of SoB clearing out 10 PL of cultists. Battles in a crusade campaign could easily be years apart, certainly there has been time for the units involved to recover at least.

I've always thought of it the same way. Both that "cinematic" battles are between huge power disparities, and that realistic generalship and warfighting is about leveraging force disparities. As an aside, that's an aspect I always felt was lacking in wargames: battles are not symmetrical, and generalship is about the larger picture of the theatre of war.

Anyway, I've also always thought of games as the centre of a maelstrom: either there are troops literally just off the table edge, or the battle is one of several in the area. An army isn't 30 guys and a few tanks. Your list and Order of Battle is more like the personal guard of the commander, or the elite company used in the key battles. Even in the case of combat patrol, it's two forward parties skirmishing ahead of the armies. That's why I liked the old Dawn of War deployment in 5th; you start with only your HQ and 2 Troops each, night fighting is in effect, then the rest of your army arrives from reserves over 2 or 3 turns (the game could potentially go to turn 7 then).

I'm talking about the core rules and their intersection with crusade.

You know what influences the way your units get buffs in Crusade? The order in which your units open fire. Of course, narratively, shooting happens at roughly the same time - my fire prism Luminous Purifier doesn't wait until the other two Fire Prisms have shot to take its blast at the enemy Baneblade - narratively, all 3 combined their fire to knock the tank out. But only one gets the XP for titanslayer! The order in which things happen affects battle experience in a way that's totally not narrative - if all 3 tanks cooperated to kill that tank, how come only one "learns" from it?

Or units with Blast. 3 units of 10 guardsmen inhibit my ability to get the "Cull the Horde" agenda in a way that one unit of 30 Conscripts wouldn't - why is the administrative division of the enemy force affecting how much battle experience my units get?

There's just two examples off the top of my head.

As for the "center of the maelstrom" problem, I've always disliked that argument, only because things are so damn lethal. If you think a trio of Basilisks can ace an intercessor squad at 36" real nice, imagine if you were actually a small part of a larger battle! Those poor intercessors would get aced by an artillery unit that doesn't even have to be in the same store...

That taps into another issue entirely, some people might say the inclusion of things such as artillery in games the scale of 40k is pretty silly...

On the subject of duration and the rate your guys level up:

I actually think they're pretty close to on the mark with regards to how fast guys level. Consider the following:

The system is designed to provide the tools for running an RPG-like narrative campaign. Like how many league periodically set up Dawn of War-style maps and conquests [which is something the crusade rules happen to slot perfectly into doing. All you need in a map]. The "level 1-20 progression" of the system theoretically covers the course of one of these campaigns, so given that most of these campaigns last about 3 to 6 months, having an average of about 12 games to get a guy to "max level" is fairly on the mark from a design perspective. It doesn't really matter what the perspective comparison with the rest of the random game lore is, it's about your dudes and their adventure. Like you your own D&D character can go from level 1 to 20 in their own story in an established setting like FR or Eberron or Greyhawk or whatever without the various canned NPC's from the background having any relevance to them.

As a side note, consider that even at the end of the day, your guy fought in and survived around a dozen presumably important-ish battles. This is actually quite a lot.

Unit1126PLL wrote:A real narrative ruleset would not require "rationalization" of the rules to make narrative sense.

Promoting units to officers would actually be a narrative consequence (e.g. a Legendary sergeant using Lieutenant rules or becoming a Lieutenant outright) but that doesn't work within the rules. Remember limit 3!

I'm not sure this needs to be something with a special crusade stratagem or something; just add a lieutenant to your force.

NinthMusketeer wrote:That taps into another issue entirely, some people might say the inclusion of things such as artillery in games the scale of 40k is pretty silly...

This depends on what you consider the scale of 40k. At the tactical scale of a reinforced/mixed company [which is what I think 40k is], artillery elements are definitely an appropriate inclusion.

I'm not sure this needs to be something with a special crusade stratagem or something; just add a lieutenant to your force.

I can see the issue here, narratively.

If your squad levels up and gains a battle honor to say, always fire overwatch, and you requisition special issue wargear for your sergeant (master crafted power sword, or something), and then you promote him by adding a Lt to your force...

That Lt can't always fire overwatch, and doesn't have his special sword any more! So did he bequeath his weapon onto the new sergeant? Does his new role as Lt take away so much focus from the battle that he can more easily be caught by surprise from charging enemies?

Sure, why not? He also gains a bunch of abilities he didn't have before. I mean, that's your role as the narrator: make a story. The rules can't exhaustively prescribe mechanics for narration without being detrimental to the game by becoming too cumbersome to play.

There's plenty of other ways a narrative system could be built while being fun to play. Look at Kill Team: they progress up a specialization tree rather than taking disparate traits and equipment. But there's pros and cons to every system. I think some of the progression issues will be smoothed out with more 9th ed codexes and supplemental material.

There is the thing for interring marines in dreadnoughts. You could do something similar for promoting out of squads. Remove old unit from your roster, add new one with the same XP.

What do you do with the old squad though? They just lost their sarge. Is someone from another squad going to be put in charge of theirs? Promote from within? Break up the whole unit; assume some go to the 1st company, maybe one goes to be a sarge in the 10th, etc? Have them loose a lot of XP that they will need to regain? Which is not a drawback if you’ve already maxed them on rewards.

From a mechanics POV, probably easier to just remove the unit entirely. Keeps things simple, prevents you from getting 2 high level units for the price of one. From a narrative POV, assume they are reassigned.

While promotion from the ranks makes sense in some armies, less so in others. Eldar Exarchs are locked into their shrines.

Hey well, Goonhammer put out their article for the new AdMech Crusade rules. Much my relief, the central mechanic has more depth than the Warhammer Community article made it appear. AdMech armies will use their agendas to gain components, which they can spend to upgrade their units' weapons (yes, the whole squad), or create crazy unique relics by combining different categories of effects (108 combinations, apparently).

I think this does a great job of aligning the player's goals with the narrative goals of the faction. You need a lot of parts to consistently do cool stuff, so you're going to focus really heavily on completing those agendas. The mission becomes an excuse to dig for tech or steal it off the enemy's biggest tank. I can definitely imagine situations where I'd be torn between securing parts or securing the win. I think this goal alignment is one of coolest things games can achieve in general. It continues to be a good sign for Crusade rules going forward.

I dig it (pun not intended). Makes me want to start up a Dark Mechanicum force just for Crusade...

It's my thread, so I'll bring it back if I want.

I just got back from the first game of my shop's Crusade league. One thing I did not anticipate was how crazy the missions and custom rules are. Honestly, I hadn't looked at the Beyond the Veil rules. We were playing Combat Patrol, 25PL. We rolled the mission Powerspike: two objectives are near the defender and score 15 points each. Either player can sabotage an objective as an action (completed in your next Command phase), which awards the Attacker 15 points at the end of the game. The defender could use this to consolidate their forces and outscore the opponent if they were confident.

I won the roll and chose to be the defender. Then we rolled the setback Faltering Deployment: divide your army evenly into 3 parts, deploy 1 normally, 1 comes in from reserve on turn 1, and the last comes in on turn 2. The objectives can't be reached by units on the turn they arrive, so suddenly the defender can't reliably hold objectives. Worse, my army relies on a Techpriest buffing the Vanguard (which won't apply the turn they come in from reserve) but the opponent could deploy a Redemptor Dreadnought first to counter them. It was a tough decision from the first deployment, and the game only had twists and turns from there.

What stood out to me was that the game had more difficult tactical decisions than most of my competitive games. My opponent and I had a gentleman's agreement to play hard. Whether the mission was actually balanced wasn't really relevant, it was a unique challenge to find the line toward victory in the midst of chaos. In a competitive game, you know your list, and you know the mission, and you've got a good understanding of your opponent; all you need to do is navigate the dice rolls (which is certainly a challenge, don't mistake me). Whether you win or not, how you solve the puzzle is way more interesting to me, and that mission was a puzzle.

So, did you win?

Yeah man. That sounds awesome, but you didn't finish the story!!!

Tell us the story of the unit you chose to be Marked for Greatness- what was the deed that earned them the distinction?

To me, this almost always cooler than just the story of who won and how.

Glad you enjoyed the game!

Aw, you guys are sweet. I didn't want to indulge unprompted, so here's the story.



I was scared by the prospect of Vanguard vs a Redemptor and deployed the Neutron Laser Dunecrawler first, in the back left corner. That was my first mistake, the Vanguard could have easily weathered the Redemptor if their buffs were active, in cover. My opponent deployed the Redemptor anyway, in the opposite cover behind obscuring terrain. My first turn, the Dunecrawler took the objective and took the firing lane in the middle of the board.

Then I made a two-fold mistake when I deployed my Vanguard. I hadn't read the deployment setback rules carefully because my opponent was reading it off his phone. I deployed my Vanguard and Manipulus wholly with my deployment zone 6", unable to reach the objective, because that's how reserves work. The first mistake is this setback makes you deploy 9" from your table edge, so I could have deployed on to the objective. I had a plan to sabotage the right objective and fall back to hold the left, but I couldn't reach it. My second mistake was trying to do it anyway. Instead I should have deployed them toward the left objective, behind the obscuring terrain as best I could.

Now, another two part mistake on my opponent's turn. He mistakenly brings his first Intercessor squad with the Captain in from reserves 9" away from my Vanguard in the building, outside my deployment zone. What's funny is, I had forgotten about Infoslave Skull to shoot arriving reserves until I was scrambling through my notes trying to find a way to save my Vanguard. I hadn't even written it in my notes because I thought it wouldn't come up in a Combat Patrol game. That's the second part of the mistake. I pop Enriched Rounds and dump dice at the Intercessors, killing 2 and half (would have been the squad with the Manipulus' AP-1 buff). Then the Vanguard eat the shooting phase: 8 die. I grit my teeth, roll the die, against all odds pass morale with a 1.

Turn 2, and finally we score 15 points. I advance the Vanguard and Manipulus into the ruin. I move the Neutron Dunecrawler down to fire at the Intercessors, and bring the other Dunecrawler on just in range to run on to the objective to potentially contest it. I figure I can just ignore the Redemptor, so I fire the Icarus into the Marines and deal 1 wound (oof). The Captain has a 4++, so I decide to fire the Neutron Laser at the 2 Intercessors and hope to overwhelm the Captain with Enriched Rounds. The Neutron kills both, and the Captain only takes a wound.

On my opponent's turn 2, he brings his Intercessors on 9" from my Neutron Dunecrawler (spoilers from the photo, he makes it). Neither the Redemptor nor the Captain can make it within 3" of the other objective, so they move forward. The Redemptor puts 12 wounds on the Icarus, and I've got to CP re-roll the 5++; I hit it and keep the Dunecrawler alive with 2 wounds. I also manage to fail a couple 2+ saves and lose two more Vanguard. The Intercessors make their charge and contest the objective (and deal a wound to my tank).

As usual, the game speeds up from here. The Intercessors stop me from scoring turn 3, but I kill them in melee. He moves on to the right objective, and Redemptor kills the Vanguard and puts 7 wounds on the Neutron Laser. I score on turn 4, repair the Neutron Dunecrawler to top bracket, and it puts 8 wounds back on the Redemptor. He scores on turn 4, putting us to 30-15. He pays 2 CP to put the Redemptor on top bracket and barely gets the kill on the Neutron Dunecrawler. Going into turn 5, he was thinking he could complete the Sabotage action with his Captain at the end of the turn to score 15 more for a tie. So my plan was to use 3"M doctrina, repair the Icarus array to top bracket, shoot the Redemptor to its bottom bracket (or kill it), then charge and survive the combat to prevent the action by proximity. The Icarus wiffs its damage, charges in anyway, eats 9 damage and auto-explodes out of spite to no effect. Then we check the rules to find the action completes next turn, so we agree the commanders both performed the league house-rule action to gain 1 xenotech point for our teams. The game ends 45-30, and the Manipulus completes his agenda by being the lone survivor.

I haven't decided who I'm going to mark for greatness yet. It's between the Manipulus and the Neutron Dunecrawler, both scoring a kill. I think if I had played the Vanguard properly, they could have hosed down the Intercessors and earned the distinction. Then again, they did make a miracle morale pass, and their Rad-saturation is what really made the Manipulus shine in melee. If the Neutron had survived turn 4, it would have iced the Redemptor and been a shoo-in. Tough to say. I'll have to pick before the game next week. What are your thoughts?

Oh man- whichever tech priest wired that infoslave skull is going to answer to the Omnissiah for his negligence!

I'd almost Mark your Vanguard for that legendary stand and their utter fearlessness! It may not have translated to much in game terms, but those "Against All Odds" moments really stick out.

Now I really want to build my AdMech army...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Now I really want to build my AdMech army...

I've been getting my store guy to keep stacks of stuff at the store because I don't like making a lot of trips. So the day the sisters dex arrives in store, I get to pick up my admech dex, my sisters dex, 3 issues of Marneus Calgar and two White Dwarfs plus the models I need to pick up two collector coins and the case.

It's going to be EPIC.

It definitely seemed like you guys were having a lot of fun in that battle, but I didn't realize how epic it really was.

Uhh... I just want to play Crusade.

But I want my Tyranid Crusade rules first.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It definitely seemed like you guys were having a lot of fun in that battle, but I didn't realize how epic it really was.

Oh absolutely, and I realize I glossed over some more drama. After rolling that 5++ for my first Dunecrawler to avoid death, I had to immediately make a 50/50 to save against his 2 damage rocket launcher. And again, when the Neutron Laser died it was another 50/50 from that rocket for the Dunecrawler's last wound.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Uhh... I just want to play Crusade.

But I want my Tyranid Crusade rules first.

Oh just get in there. I don't actually have a copy of the AdMech book for its Crusade rules yet (the shop ran out immediately). So far I'm playing with the base book and it's great.

Having tried it, I would say the opposite. Tyranids are really unrewarding in crusade. The mechanics do not reward the play styles Tyranids generally go for, but mostly it is the theme. Having a unit with the 'veterans' reward or a 'digital weapons' relic doesn't work with the narrative of the army. Yeah you can re-fluff it as something else but that makes things a bit hollow. Couple that with a codex that does a piss poor job of representing the narrative of Tyranids as an army already and it is just a recipe for an unsatisfying experience. Because in crusade that narrative feel is a huge part of the picture.