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Is Chapter Approved any good? Do you stick to good 'ol Dawn of War in the BRB? Occasional Maelstrom of War?

(Casual Player)

My son and I use just the Indexes, at 1000 pt. games - with no named characters, Strategy cards and Open War cards. I have the BRB available, but we usually just wing our battle; we've found we prefer battles with missions instead of "kill everything in sight" games.

NOVA missions here unless I need to practice something else for a specific event.

Mostly we use the Open War card deck.

I like the Maelstrom of War missions (Chapter Approved and book) pretty well. Just make sure to do the +1 to go first thing, auto first turn is obnoxious imo.

I use Open War despite the incredibly swingy nature of the cards. I love the random distribution of objectives, twists, etc. I really wish they would expand on it (and remove the night fighting card)

Which missions do you think are more suitable for competitive play for communities that couldn't be bothered to learn ITC?

Matched Play Rules, Random Maelstrom Missions (all but the Recon one from Chapter Approved), Random Deployment, Night Fight Battlezone. BRB terrain rules, but make sure there is plenty of area terrain.

Most fun I've had in 40k in 20 years.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Matched Play Rules, Random Maelstrom Missions (all but the Recon one from Chapter Approved), Random Deployment, Night Fight Battlezone. BRB terrain rules, but make sure there is plenty of area terrain.

Most fun I've had in 40k in 20 years.

Pretty much this, but i use all the CA missions (eternal war and maelstrom) and none of the BRB.

My group randomly chooses missions from both the BRB and CA 2017. We use all the terrain rules, plus a couple custom rules (rivers slow movement and charges by 1 inch, moving completely on a road increases movement by 1 ).

Everything. My favorite though are the 3 open play scenarios and open war cards. Some of the narrative missions are amazing as well. Though the ones where they add a bunch of stratagems can give you stratagem option overload. Definitely need to make reference sheets for those.

Mostly Open War cards, butbeen meaning to pick up CA, as I’ve heard some good things about the missions in there.

Mostly Matched, BRB/CA missions with full terrain rules. sometimes battlezones applied.

Other times Narrative games with full stratagem sets if we feel like doing some different stuff.

Matched play and randomly rolled missions from either the BRB or CA.

7th edition

Chapter Approved missions mostly. Skip Recon/Roving Patrol, the rest are good.

We have LGT coming up which uses mixed Maelstrom/Eternal War and that's a really fun approach.

Chapter Approved missions.

Matched Play, 1000-1500 Points, Open War Cards.
Never had so much fun with 40k before. It's by far my favorite edition.

Mostly Open War cards (points or PL, as people prefer).

The best thing in 40K since dice with 6 sides.

Play both BRB and CA missions. If Maelstrom, we houserule that impossible-to-complete cards (like killing a psyker when the enemy army has none) can be ditched and another one is taken on its place.
2000p, Matched Play

BRB, CA and open war card missions, maelstrom or narrative, we did eternal war missions for the first test games, but usually they seem boring (never did eternal war in 7th as the game was too unbalanced for that).

BRB and CA. Matched play, Open War cards.

We play 40k here. :p

Not a competitive player. I prefer 2000 points. Rulebook and CA eternal war and maelstrom missions with or without battlezones ( I love battlezones ).

Variety is the spice of 40K.

Mostly ETC or related tournament packs. That usually means one Eternal War and one Maelstrom mission played simultaneously with secondaries on top (sometimes kill point difference as well).

BRB, CA Missions, 2k

With my less competitive opponents, the Open War deck has been great.

<Wonders out loud if the Star Wars Legions method of mission building could be ported over to these>

That's where I think you draw 3 of each card, then take turns to eliminate cards you think are bad for you or too good for the opponent.. so you end up with just 3. I'm doing that next time!


Anyway against more competitive-focused opponents we play from the Element Games (FLGS) tournament pack, which is a very close relation to the ETC mission pack.

You roll or choose on this table, which gives you an Eternal War, a Maelstrom of War and a Deployment map. You play both missions simultaneously so you have the maelstrom cards as well as end-game scoring or kill points or whatever

1) Dominate & Destroy (CA), Targets of Opportunity (CA), Spearhead Assault (MRB)
2) Scouring(MRB), Deadlock (MRB), Vanguard Strike (MRB)
3) Relic(MRB), Contact Lost(MRB), Search & Destroy(MRB)
4) Retrieval(MRB), Tactical Escalation (MRB), Hammer & Anvil(MRB)
5) Resupply Drop (CA), Kill Confirmed (CA), Dawn of War(MRB)
6) Big Guns Never Tire (MRB), Tactical Gambit (CA), Front-Line Assault (MRB)

Oh and maelstrom points are flat so 2 rather than D3.

It's got a good mix of complexity, reliance on movement and durability, plus there's way less book keeping and the randomness is mitigated.

Nothing worse than completing a hard objective and rolling 1 point, then your opponent getting "stand where you are already standing for 3"!

Core rules and codex with battle-forged armies and the most recent points values.

I'm playing with a group that consist of people who are all great at making mean lists that are not tournament level, but hard enough that they make for great and enjoyable games.
Most of the time we play the Chapter Approved missions, as everybody think they are some of the best missions GW has released for 40k so far.

And since we have several tournament players in our group we play those specific made missions as well, but not with the most competitive lists in mind.

Also battlezones, really love those games.

We tend to play matched played rules and chapter approved or brb maelstrom missions
Sometimes open war too. We do tend to play with a slight houserule that infantry can get cover if the models are 50% obscured from the POV of the firer.

Overall I think its great. Im actually of the opinion that ITC/ETC and such missions tend to skew the gameplay and lead to less fun form of 40k (which also affects the balance)