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'The Broken' Rules - Part 1: What Else is Coming? - Part 2 now added!  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in au
[MOD]
Making Stuff






Under the couch

From http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/the-broken-rules-part-1




If you haven't checked out the rules for our new Broken units yet, you can find them here. There's both unit cards and also a summary PDF that contains all the necessary info regarding the Broken's weapons, abilities and equipment.




The Broken represent a departure from how our previous two factions, the Epirian Foundation and the Karist Enclave, were developed. In the case of those two, upfront we had a solid road map of all of the units that were going to be included in the starter set, so we knew there was enough unit variety right out of the gate for a player to comfortably field an entire force. However, for the Broken, it become apparent that the basic Rabble infantry kit was going to be finished before any other models in the range, so the question then became: Do we sit on this infantry kit for several months in order to build up enough different types of Broken units to have more of a 'full faction' release, or do we instead release the kit as soon as we can, and just fill in the rest of the range as other models are finished being designed/sculpted? Once we saw how amazing the Broken Rabble kit turned out in its final form, the choice was easy. We knew both Maelstrom Edge players and general miniature game hobbyists everywhere were going to love it, so it just didn't make sense to hold its release back. Because of that, the Broken faction will continually evolve bit by bit, as we're able to add more models to the range. The good thing is that we're finally at a point where you'll be seeing much more regular model releases from us (the current target is once per month), which means that if you're a budding Broken player, you won't be waiting forever to get new reinforcements.




The next question we had to answer was: should we release rules for all the Broken units we plan on making in the future (even if there won't be models finished for those units for a while), or should we instead just put out rules piecemeal as we release new models? There are positive and negative aspects with either path, but ultimately the decision came down to the fact that the rules/options for a unit often need to be tweaked based upon how the sculptor turns out the final model(s), including how many optional bits they are able to fit onto the sprue. For example, if we were to put out rules for every Broken unit we plan to make in the future, invariably talented hobbyists would convert some of their existing models to create these 'future' units. But when the final production versions of those models are eventually finished, it might turn out that we needed to change the unit's rules and/or eliminate some equipment choices, thereby leaving those who took the time to make their own versions suddenly out in the cold. We ultimately decided to just release rules for the units that we currently have available, and we're exploring new ways to make publishing these rules both easy and convenient. We've just gotten an online unit card system up and running on our website, and we're pushing to get to a full force creation system integrated into this as well. Once we have a solid collection of Broken units available, we will be looking at avenues to create/publish a full faction book for the Broken, but for the time being, any rules we publish online are considered 'playtest' rules, and we absolutely welcome any feedback you guys might have. You can leave this feedback either in the Maelstrom's Edge forum on Dakka, or you can email us directly at rules-AT-spiralarmstudios-DOT-com.




One of the great things about the Broken is that the faction centres around a core of 'common man' infantry rabble units, that all pull from the same model kit. It's one of the big reasons that we made sure to include so many different options in the Rabble kit, because we knew that every Broken force will have quite a few Rabble units, and we wanted to make sure they all could be made to look quite different from each other. This one kit alone can be used to make 3 different types of Broken Rabble unit:


  • The basic Broken Rabble unit - used to fill out the Core unit selections of your force.
  • Rabble Assault - the close range specialist units, featuring more deadly short-ranged weaponry.
  • Rabble Fire Support - able to take lots of the longer ranged specialized weaponry.


Between just those 3 unit types, there's plenty of room for you to field a force designed to your particular tastes. What's even better, is that the Broken make use of a lot of aliens within their ranks. Yes, the Broken Rabble kit is filled with all kinds of xeno models, but these are all so close to human physiology that they don't have any special abilities associated with them. But coming soon, the Broken will start to get reinforcements in the form of really crazy 'Exotic Xenos', that, in some cases, can be added right into your existing Rabble units to totally change the way the unit is able to fight! Other Exotic Xenos are giant brutes (you might have spotted some of them in some of our artwork) that form a unit all to themselves, adding different tactical options for the way the entire Broken force fights.




For those of you chomping at the bit to give the Broken a test drive right now might be wondering about Command units for the Broken (because you need at least one Command unit to field a legal force). To fill that void, we've released temporary rules for the Forsaken Chieftain, which you can build using any model in the Broken Rabble kit. We have plans to release actual Forsaken Chieftain models in the future that will be equipped with new and different gear/weapon options, but if you take the time to convert a Chieftain out of your Rabble kit right now, you can rest assured that any weapon options you pick will remain part of its final rules.




Thanks for reading, and in the next instalment we'll be looking at how the Broken actually fare on the table!




We'd also like to take a moment to point out the next video in our Video Rulebook series is now up on youtube and we'll be continuing to add these videos until the entire rulebook is covered, making it much easier to learn to play Maelstrom's Edge.


This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/16 11:38:49


 
   
Made in au
[MOD]
Making Stuff






Under the couch

http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/the-broken-rules-part-2





For those who love our new Broken Rabble models but are curious as to how the faction performs on the tabletop, have no fear, we've got some answers for you today. The first thing you have to know is that the Broken individually aren't very good at all. They're the 'common man' of the spiral arm, and therefore they have terrible skill, terrible armor and a terrible willpower characteristic. But have heart! The Broken's true power lies in their sheer strength of numbers. There's a whole lot more Broken with nothing left to lose stranded near the Maelstrom's Edge then the troops from all the other factions put together! The Broken draw tremendous strength from the fact that they greatly outnumber their foes, and as a Broken player, you will definitely outnumber your opponent. Not only do basic Broken units cost the fewest points in the game by a pretty wide margin, but they also tend to have a maximum size of 6 models (while most other factions are limited to squads of 5 or less models). You'll probably want to go with the maximum number of models in each of your units, because the Broken's poor Skill characteristic means they miss with a lot of their shooting, so the more models you have firing, the more chance you'll be able to score some quality hits on the enemy. The other reason you'll want to max out your squad size is because of a little force-wide ability the Broken have called 'Mob Mentality':



MOB MENTALITY: This model’s WP characteristic is equal to the
total number of models in the unit that share this ability, unless that
number is lower than the model’s actual WP characteristic value.
Models with the Mob Mentality ability have an asterisk listed with their
WP characteristic value as a reminder of this ability.


This ability makes full-sized Broken units into some of the most reliable units in the entire game, especially when you join a character to them, making a 7-man strong unit...it takes 21 suppression tokens on such a unit to shell shock it and guarantee that it will have to retreat! Of course as an opponent of the Broken, don't fret about this too much, because the Broken are some of the easiest models to kill in the game, meaning it doesn't take too much work to whittle down that 7-man unit to a much more manageable size.



The Broken know that their technology and weaponry can't normally match that of the other factions they fight against, so they are willing to modify their weapons to dangerous levels to put themselves on more of an even playing field. When looking across the characteristics of Broken weapons, at first glance it might seem like they are as good, if not better, than those fielded by other factions, and in many cases they are! But this potency comes with a price, and that's the 'Unstable' ability:



UNSTABLE: When a ‘1’ is rolled to hit with this attack, place a number
of STs onto the firing unit equal to the current DAM value of the attack.


Pretty much all of the really good weapons the Broken have are Unstable. While this ability doesn't actually kill Broken models, it can quickly start tacking tons of suppression onto Broken firing units. All this extra suppression is all well and fine while your units are at their maximum size, but as soon as the enemy starts killing a few of your models, the suppression generated by your own weapons will start to haunt you. So deciding whether or not to equip your Broken units with Unstable weapons plays a huge part in how your force will behave on the table. If you're a gambler, then pack in the Unstable weapons and hope to obliterate your foes before you drown in your own suppression!



The Broken know they cannot win in a straight-up fight against the other factions in the spiral arm, and so they have developed a method of fighting that relies on darting into and out of the shadows, confounding and frustrating their foes. This is represented by a faction-wide ability known as 'Shadow Strike':




SHADOW STRIKE
In the end phase of each turn, before calculating VPs, a Broken player may select a single friendly infantry unit that is at least 12”
away from the enemy and has every single one of its models in cover (from every enemy unit). The selected unit takes a shadow
strike discipline check. If the check is successful, the unit is removed from the table and is put into reserve, keeping any STs it has.



In any future turn, a unit that was put into reserve via the Shadow Strike ability can either elect to arrive normally, or may instead
deploy via the Shadow Strike main action. The Shadow Strike action allows the unit to be placed anywhere on the table that is both
entirely in cover and at least 12” away from the enemy, and then, after being placed this way, the unit may fire a single round of
wild shooting. A unit that is placed on the table via the Shadow Strike action counts as having moved.



When putting a Broken infantry unit into reserve before the game, its owning player may declare that the unit will arrive during the
game via the Shadow Strike main action described above. Only a single Broken unit per side (including a joined character) may
start the game this way.


As you can see, this ability really gives the Broken a huge advantage of being able to put a unit pretty much anywhere on the table each turn (as long as the unit is put into cover). Of course, a unit that is placed onto the table via Shadow Strike is only able to fire wildly that turn (meaning they only hit on rolls of '6'), so you do sacrifice most of the unit's firepower to get this benefit, but its generally worth it to be able to control the table and capture objective markers when and where you need to. On top of that, the abilities of a Forsaken Chieftain make Shadow Strike even better, but we'll talk more about that in the next installment, where we'll be looking a bit closer at the different sub-factions of the Broken, including the Forsaken Chieftain.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/16 11:38:20


 
   
 
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