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Now that we've had a bit to look at Crusade, I wonder whether anyone has an opinion on this.

The balancing mechanism between Crusade and Non-Crusade is, for every 2 Crusade Points in the Crusade army's list, the opposing force gets 1 additional command point for the mission.

From my experience so far, Crusade points are basically like random bonuses that are generally slightly less potent than warlord traits or relics that get assigned to random units in your army, and generally, 1CP = 1 chosen relic or warlord trait in the opposing player's army if they want.

Additionally, when playing against a crusade army, they'll be trying to perform Agendas that don't actually contribute to their winning the mission in order to get themselves bonus exp on units - their units may be performing Actions, moving to specific areas, or he may be trying to give kills to particular units to give them exp.

So far, I have a Chimera that moves an additional +2", an imperial guard infantry squad that rerolls 1s to hit, and an Inquisitor with a 3+ base armor save instead of 4+. It seems like that would be generally reasonable to balance against +2 Command Points, but I wonder whether others have a different opinion.

I would say absolutely not in terms of abilities (remember the characters can take endless crusade relics, plus additional warlord traits and codex relics give them to your opponent at 1/2 the rate they would normally cost you), especially as we get more codexes coming out: in my Necron crusade force I have Tesla Immortals who can use Malevolent Arcing for free every time they shoot and Warriors who auto pass a single RP roll every turn.

But then... Crusade lists are restricted in that you have a single pool of models to pull from no matter what size your game is? Crusade lists can't change options easily and likely end up tailored to a mini meta for whoever is in your campaign (or what you find fun to play).

 unitled wrote:
I would say absolutely not in terms of abilities (remember the characters can take endless crusade relics, plus additional warlord traits and codex relics give them to your opponent at 1/2 the rate they would normally cost you), especially as we get more codexes coming out: in my Necron crusade force I have Tesla Immortals who can use Malevolent Arcing for free every time they shoot and Warriors who auto pass a single RP roll every turn.

But then... Crusade lists are restricted in that you have a single pool of models to pull from no matter what size your game is? Crusade lists can't change options easily and likely end up tailored to a mini meta for whoever is in your campaign (or what you find fun to play).

Only when your characters rank up, and it costs you the 1RP that you get from each battle.

I think people discount the fact that each battle, just about 1/6 of your units are going to be losing XP or taking battle scars, just to get you usually one (1) RP with which to buy one (1) of these upgrades.

Sure, you might have a game against someone where they've fought 15,000 battles with their crusade force, have every Crusade relic, every unit has 3 traits, every character has a relic and a warlord trait, and you have 45CP that you have to spend in the 2k game....but it ain't anywhere near likely.

It's much more likely that if you're playing a 2k game against a crusade army that they've spent a whole lot of their RP just to get to the point where they're playing games that size...and you'll be getting your CP mostly for randomly-assigned Battle Honors interspersed among your opponent's units.

The real question is:

How does a 50CP starting crusade army fare against a highpower tournament 2k pts list?

At least you get your rp for playing, lol.

Well, not necessarily, for example: your battle order starts at 50PL with 5 requisition, which means if I have, say, 3 characters I can have 3 Relics and 2 Warlord traits in my army. This bumps my Crusade level up to 5, which means you get (I think?) 2 extra CP, where a regular army would have to spend 4 CP to manage that.

You're also able to select the more powerful honours and relics for your units (you don't have to randomise them).

I dunno, maybe it all comes out in the wash with the increased restrictions on picking a list and the battle scars weighing you down. I'm not even sure how internally balanced crusade mode is (don't get me wrong! I love it, and it certainly lets you play armies that are 'about the same' against each other with some more narratively interesting battles).

If a new player joined a crusade, though, I think I'd give them a handful of extra Requisition depending on how long we'd been playing?

 unitled wrote:
Well, not necessarily, for example: your battle order starts at 50PL with 5 requisition, which means if I have, say, 3 characters I can have 3 Relics and 2 Warlord traits in my army. This bumps my Crusade level up to 5, which means you get (I think?) 2 extra CP, where a regular army would have to spend 4 CP to manage that.

Right, but you're only 50 PL against 2k points, and you just gave that 2k points 2 extra CP. I hope those warlord traits and relics were REALLY GOOD.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 unitled wrote:
Well, not necessarily, for example: your battle order starts at 50PL with 5 requisition, which means if I have, say, 3 characters I can have 3 Relics and 2 Warlord traits in my army. This bumps my Crusade level up to 5, which means you get (I think?) 2 extra CP, where a regular army would have to spend 4 CP to manage that.

Right, but you're only 50 PL against 2k points, and you just gave that 2k points 2 extra CP. I hope those warlord traits and relics were REALLY GOOD.

I think it's safe to assume the_scotsman is intending a game of a 50PL Crusade army vs 50PL non-Crusade army (or 100PL of both), not just crushing an army half the size...

 unitled wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 unitled wrote:
Well, not necessarily, for example: your battle order starts at 50PL with 5 requisition, which means if I have, say, 3 characters I can have 3 Relics and 2 Warlord traits in my army. This bumps my Crusade level up to 5, which means you get (I think?) 2 extra CP, where a regular army would have to spend 4 CP to manage that.

Right, but you're only 50 PL against 2k points, and you just gave that 2k points 2 extra CP. I hope those warlord traits and relics were REALLY GOOD.

I think it's safe to assume the_scotsman is intending a game of a 50PL Crusade army vs 50PL non-Crusade army (or 100PL of both), not just crushing an army half the size...

A pity. GW told me I could fight my ruthless tournament friends with my crusade army, and all they'd have to do is add up their PL and play a crusade mission...

I mean... you still can do that? Just build a 'tournament' list to 100 PL rather than 2k points.

On reflection, I think you can probably play a decently fun game with some tweaks to the mission (both players should use proper secondaries, for instance), but the balance is inevitably going to suffer more than a straight matched play game (and depending on your view of existing balance, that might be a deal breaker).

Well ,you can't, your crusade roster is limited to 50 PL unless you spend 10 Requisition on power level upgrades (50 more PL), which will cripple your ability to bring all those fancy WLTs and relics you're talking about.

Assuming equal power levels and roughly equal list building, I'd expect an optimized Crusade force to be stronger through its battle honors than you'd be with the CP bonus.

That's a lot of assumptions, though. If a Crusade force is randomly rolling, I'd expect the CP bonus to be a bit more comparable (barring fairly lucky strings of rolls for the Crusade player, or, y'know, cheating - "randomly" rolled at home or the like).

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Assuming equal power levels and roughly equal list building, I'd expect an optimized Crusade force to be stronger through its battle honors than you'd be with the CP bonus.

That's a lot of assumptions, though. If a Crusade force is randomly rolling, I'd expect the CP bonus to be a bit more comparable (barring fairly lucky strings of rolls for the Crusade player, or, y'know, cheating - "randomly" rolled at home or the like).

If I want to play with a Crusade force, I'll probably roll randomly for honors and forgo crusade relics, that seems to be the space where the wackiest stuff resides.

I will say some of the crusade relics seem absolutely incredible, even within the context of Crusade.

Like Laurels of Command? eh, 2 CP that are deducted when the character dies? Whatever.

But Artificer Bionics? Disgustingly Resilient and +1 strength on a character of your choosing? SIGN ME UP.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Assuming equal power levels and roughly equal list building, I'd expect an optimized Crusade force to be stronger through its battle honors than you'd be with the CP bonus.

That's a lot of assumptions, though. If a Crusade force is randomly rolling, I'd expect the CP bonus to be a bit more comparable (barring fairly lucky strings of rolls for the Crusade player, or, y'know, cheating - "randomly" rolled at home or the like).

If I want to play with a Crusade force, I'll probably roll randomly for honors and forgo crusade relics, that seems to be the space where the wackiest stuff resides.

I'll probably try to find a middle route between matching the actions I take in game and optimizations appropriate for a T'au Cadre dedicated to bleeding edge research for the Greater Good of peace-making superior war technologies. For that purpose, I'd prefer to choose.

I don't see why there's an assumption that the fresh Crusade force wouldn't also be competitive. What if it's a tourney player putting it together?
As far as balance goes... it's already been mentioned, the Crusade bonuses seem purposely minor for exactly that reason. Not just for playing against non-Crusade players, but to compensate for brand-new Crusade players with maybe one or two games under its belt, against players with twenty or so games that have a few bonuses and extra units available to choose from.
At that speed, they're not going to create any crazy levels of imbalance that doesn't already exist between Codexes.

Theoretically I suppose you could get to a point where you have so many bonuses, you give your opponent more CP than they even know what to do with - but realistically who is going to play with the same Crusade force that often without getting new units, and/or levelling up their fellow local Crusade players in the process?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
A pity. GW told me I could fight my ruthless tournament friends with my crusade army, and all they'd have to do is add up their PL and play a crusade mission...

Well, you actually can if you put some though into it. And by thought I don't mean "write lengthy home rules".

We actually have one player who doesn't value fluffy games, campaigns or alternate game modes at all. He prefers cut and dry WH40k with no bells and whistles.
We are about to start our crusade campaign and he has expressed the wish to just keep playing regular armies. He will just bring a regular army to each game and get the CP compensation for the difference in crusade points and ignore agendas.

Disclaimer: We have agreed to use points even in crusade, as multiple people have expressed a dislike for building armies with PL. 1 PL = 20 points for all crusade-related rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Super Ready wrote:
Theoretically I suppose you could get to a point where you have so many bonuses, you give your opponent more CP than they even know what to do with - but realistically who is going to play with the same Crusade force that often without getting new units, and/or levelling up their fellow local Crusade players in the process?

At what point would you have more CP than you know what to do with though? All armies I'm familiar with could easily make use of 20-30 CP by using all the stratagems, all the time. Whether the resulting game remains sane is another question though

Assuming equally balanced lists, I'd say "No".
A Crusade-list will most likely obliterate a regular list, even if the regular list begins with +15 CP, because there's only so much you can do with CP and so fast you can spend them.

My Salamanders Crusade-list (10 games in) contains a bunch of units that:
- All more or less reroll 1's to hit.
- Most hit on 2+
- Most have a 6+++
And some other various bonuses.

It's also lead by a Captain with T5 (could be T7 if I wanted to really cheese) W7, 2+/4++/5+++, -1 to wound against him, who hits at S9, AP4 D3, ignores IV-saves, and lastly comes back to life with D3 wounds on 2+ when he dies the first time, and then again on 4+ if I have CP to spare.

honestly if you put together a crusade force specificly to be compeitive (don't get me wrong I'm sure some people do) you're kinda being "that guy" the point of crusade is basicly a narrative approuch, it's telling a story about your guys.

 MinscS2 wrote:
Assuming equally balanced lists, I'd say "No".
A Crusade-list will most likely obliterate a regular list, even if the regular list begins with +15 CP, because there's only so much you can do with CP and so fast you can spend them.

My Salamanders Crusade-list (10 games in) contains a bunch of units that:
- All more or less reroll 1's to hit.
- Most hit on 2+
- Most have a 6+++
And some other various bonuses.

It's also lead by a Captain with T5 (could be T7 if I wanted to really cheese) W7, 2+/4++/5+++, -1 to wound against him, who hits at S9, AP4 D3, ignores IV-saves, and lastly comes back to life with D3 wounds on 2+ when he dies the first time, and then again on 4+ if I have CP to spare.

Sounds like a regular space marines force to me

But in all seriousness, most of those things are still going to die if getting shot/charged by an army that can turn those CP into damage - like CSM, orks, DG or admech. Armies without good stratagems are boned though.

 Jidmah wrote:
At what point would you have more CP than you know what to do with though? All armies I'm familiar with could easily make use of 20-30 CP by using all the stratagems, all the time. Whether the resulting game remains sane is another question though

Well, yeah. It's possible, but not practical - especially considering most players aren't going to be familiar with all those stratagems and will be flipping back and forth using them just because they can, not because they make any real difference.

 Jidmah wrote:


At what point would you have more CP than you know what to do with though? All armies I'm familiar with could easily make use of 20-30 CP by using all the stratagems, all the time. Whether the resulting game remains sane is another question though

Yeah technicaly, but I don't think I am going to use 2CP to give my vehicles a save vs mortal wounds from psychic powers, after it loses wounds from an enemy psychic power or boost types of squads weapons the squads do not have.

Spending 12 CP pre-game and another 18 CP during T1 without wasting anything is absolutely no problem for orks. Keep in mind that lootas dropped off the radar because orks don't have enough CP to support them now.

DG would probably take till T2 to go through 30 CP.

Sure.

It seems unlikely there would be balancing issues worse than stuff you see in a regular matched play vs. matched play game (e.g. all Knights vs. Salamander Eradicator spam, etc..).


Is it perfectly balanced? Probably not. But neither is matched play vs. matched play, especially if you cherry-pick examples to find the most obvious "imbalances".

Just like the endless PL vs. points discussions, there's no proof that balance crusade vs. matched play is objectively worse on average than basic matched play 40K.

No, the Crusade powerups are hideously overpowered when applied to the right units...

For instance: giving a Leman Russ Exterminator +1 strength to its main gun makes it an 8 shot S8 AP-1 D2 monstrosity. Or what if we give a Leman Russ Punisher the equivalent of Dakka, Dakka, Dakka - bonus hits on 6's with the Auto Loader upgrade?

How about an Eversor Assassin with +1 AP on its Neuro Gauntlet, as well as the Archaeotech Med relic which lets it revive after dying - so it charges into a bunch of units, kills a couple, gets bonus attacks, kills more, then uses the stratagem to kill a couple more, then use its bonus to kill some more, and then when the survivors hit back, it dies, explodes killing some more, THEN revives, so they can kill it again and lose some more units!

I gave my Vindicare Auto Loader in a recent crusade - then combined that with the double shot stratagem... My god... Rolling a 6 to hit against Abaddon allowed me to leave him on 1 wound, and absolutely nuke the HQ accompanying him...

So no, the crusade rules are most definitely not comparable to a non-crusade army.

Yeah, my style is to funnel all my RP into the pregame strats, which then become permanent, spamming up on WL traits for anyone who can take them, etc.

So it will take me FOREVER to get to 2k. But once I do, the army will be so dead hard that I'd just tell my opponent that the only limit to the CP they can have is how many they can spend. They can still only use each strat once per turn, and it only makes sense to outflank with so many units, and detachments are limited to 3 at 2k.

If someone insists on playing a matched play battle, I'll just use my army's baseline stats, but I will track all my Agendas and still accrue XP and RP- this won't affect my opponent in the slightest.