Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Hey folks. Thought I'd start a "Celebration of Life" thread for Crusade. I knew the writing was on the wall as soon as they announced the edition with talk of bringing narrative to regular play, so I'm not surprised. And this isn't necessarily intended to be an angry post.
I'm not sure what to do now. I've played since '89 with a break for 6th and 7th. Along the way, I found a way to enjoy every edition... Using whatever narrative tid-bits they gave us. Half baked non-committal skills I could add to a character or whatever. Proto versions of Kill Team and Combat Patrol, and the concept of escalation. Campaign systems for Plant Strike and Cityfight. It was all fun.., but I almost always had to supplement it with house rules, because it never had the depth to go as far as I needed it to.
But the six years I had Crusade?
Those were the only years that I didn't have to fill in the blanks myself. That was apex gaming for me. I wish I had played more often and made more of it. I wish GW had given me a Drukhari refresh in an addition that supported Drukharimunda. The grotesques will be beautiful when we get them, but they'll never have a territory in Commorragh just for them, because everything has to be simple now. People don't like rules anymore- that's too complicated. Just say the have a territory, right? It doesn't have to actually mean anything, right? They're still your dudes.
I don't know what comes next. Crucible and the new Tank Rules are okay. The campaign stuff in this box looks okay. I might try to enjoy the baseline mediocrity of another non-committal progression system if the models are good enough. I'm not sure it'll satisfy, but I might try, It might also be the end. Even if I try it and squeeze some narrative fun out of it, I don't think I'll forget what I've lost... And even if I don't stop supporting GW by making occasional purchases, I don't think I'll forgive.
Anyway, pour one out for Crusade! If you have fond memories, this is the place for them. If you want to join me in shaking my fist at the sky in a futile gesture, you can do that too, And if the thread dies without ever being more than my own personal pity party, that's fine too.
As someone who never played 10th and only saw the usual L-shaped boards, did Crusade actually use varied/interesting missions? Because everything I ever saw of normal "balanced" matches was city boards covered in ruins and circle objectives. Not the most narratively stimulating or varied things.
RustyNumber wrote: As someone who never played 10th and only saw the usual L-shaped boards, did Crusade actually use varied/interesting missions? Because everything I ever saw of normal "balanced" matches was city boards covered in ruins and circle objectives. Not the most narratively stimulating or varied things.
Varied & interesting missions?
Sort of. There's a fair variety in the various Crusade books.
The objectives were largely the circles.
Terrain? Regular 40k or Crusade, youre not required to use L shaped city ruins. Thats just what alot if people have.
But we've played Crusade missions using all kinds of terrain.
I really liked that Crusade was an integrated part of every Codex in 9th/10th, it made up a bit for the loss of narrative, wonky rules of earlier editions and showed that narrative is not just some stuff you have to make up for yourself, but a fully supported game mode. We moved to OPR during 9th, but all of the games I had in 9th aside from a learning game were crusade.
I wonder if there's some replacement, like a small campaign like the Armageddon one released alongside every Codex as a 20€ card Pack you're supposed to buy?
PenitentJake wrote: Hey folks. Thought I'd start a "Celebration of Life" thread for Crusade. I knew the writing was on the wall as soon as they announced the edition with talk of bringing narrative to regular play, so I'm not surprised. And this isn't necessarily intended to be an angry post.
I'm not sure what to do now. I've played since '89 with a break for 6th and 7th. Along the way, I found a way to enjoy every edition... Using whatever narrative tid-bits they gave us. Half baked non-committal skills I could add to a character or whatever. Proto versions of Kill Team and Combat Patrol, and the concept of escalation. Campaign systems for Plant Strike and Cityfight. It was all fun.., but I almost always had to supplement it with house rules, because it never had the depth to go as far as I needed it to.
But the six years I had Crusade?
Those were the only years that I didn't have to fill in the blanks myself. That was apex gaming for me. I wish I had played more often and made more of it. I wish GW had given me a Drukhari refresh in an addition that supported Drukharimunda. The grotesques will be beautiful when we get them, but they'll never have a territory in Commorragh just for them, because everything has to be simple now. People don't like rules anymore- that's too complicated. Just say the have a territory, right? It doesn't have to actually mean anything, right? They're still your dudes.
I don't know what comes next. Crucible and the new Tank Rules are okay. The campaign stuff in this box looks okay. I might try to enjoy the baseline medioc
rity of another non-committal progression system if the models are good enough. I'm not sure it'll satisfy, but I might try, It might also be the end. Even if I try it and squeeze some narrative fun out of it, I don't think I'll forget what I've lost... And even if I don't stop supporting GW by making occasional purchases, I don't think I'll forgive.
Anyway, pour one out for Crusade! If you have fond memories, this is the place for them. If you want to join me in shaking my fist at the sky in a futile gesture, you can do that too, And if the thread dies without ever being more than my own personal pity party, that's fine too.
I refuse to join you in mourning something that is only as dead as you & yours choose to let it be.
(Puts on Commisar hat)
Why are you having a pity party?
1) You've got all the 10e (and I presume 9e) Crusade content.
Or you can have it with a few Google searches...
2) Theres nothing in Crusade that you couldnt apply to virtually any 40k game of any edition.
3) If your playing Crusade your almost certainly playing with people who arent opposed to non-tourney content.
So, assuming youre still enjoying playing 40k overall, what's stopping you from simply running more Crusades in 11e?
Why would lack of new Crusade content stop someone who's already willing & able to create entire campaign systems for editions that never had it and is now armed with all of the existing Crusade content?
And as for you "not knowing what to do now"?
BS.
You know exactly what to do.
The answer is the same as its always been. You write up & run the next campaign.
So take the next 9 weeks or so, collect yourself, study the new rules when they arrive & then get back to work.
Thanks for all of the responses... And Commissar ccs, thank you for the pep talk. It is a path... Certainly it will be easy enough to navigate 11th with existing Crusade material, and if the Drukhari really ARE getting fair treatment this edition, it's probably my only way forward. GK rumours too!
But I will miss the validation of playing without needing house rules and tweaks. I think that GW will provide enough workable and interesting 11th ed narrative content that it will get harder to find games. Some of the folks I play with would definitely stick it out... But if the new stuff is even half as good, some might choose the path of least resistance.
PenitentJake wrote: Hey folks. Thought I'd start a "Celebration of Life" thread for Crusade. I knew the writing was on the wall as soon as they announced the edition with talk of bringing narrative to regular play, so I'm not surprised. And this isn't necessarily intended to be an angry post.
I'm not sure what to do now. I've played since '89 with a break for 6th and 7th. Along the way, I found a way to enjoy every edition... Using whatever narrative tid-bits they gave us. Half baked non-committal skills I could add to a character or whatever. Proto versions of Kill Team and Combat Patrol, and the concept of escalation. Campaign systems for Plant Strike and Cityfight. It was all fun.., but I almost always had to supplement it with house rules, because it never had the depth to go as far as I needed it to.
But the six years I had Crusade?
Those were the only years that I didn't have to fill in the blanks myself. That was apex gaming for me. I wish I had played more often and made more of it. I wish GW had given me a Drukhari refresh in an addition that supported Drukharimunda. The grotesques will be beautiful when we get them, but they'll never have a territory in Commorragh just for them, because everything has to be simple now. People don't like rules anymore- that's too complicated. Just say the have a territory, right? It doesn't have to actually mean anything, right? They're still your dudes.
I don't know what comes next. Crucible and the new Tank Rules are okay. The campaign stuff in this box looks okay. I might try to enjoy the baseline mediocrity of another non-committal progression system if the models are good enough. I'm not sure it'll satisfy, but I might try, It might also be the end. Even if I try it and squeeze some narrative fun out of it, I don't think I'll forget what I've lost... And even if I don't stop supporting GW by making occasional purchases, I don't think I'll forgive.
Anyway, pour one out for Crusade! If you have fond memories, this is the place for them. If you want to join me in shaking my fist at the sky in a futile gesture, you can do that too, And if the thread dies without ever being more than my own personal pity party, that's fine too.
If something you like goes away, wait a couple editions. GW recycles more than an astronaut on Mars.
I don't think I've ever seen someone be as big of a fan of a game mode as you are of Crusade PentientJake, so I'm sorry on your behalf that it's going away. Hopefully you can still get some of your opponents to keep going with it, but I get not having anything new to be excited about.
While I liked the idea of Crusade, I never got to play a single game of it.
With the relatively low frequency of gaming my group does, I think the new campaign card deck system will be a better fit for us.
And like already mentioned, if you love Crusade, dont give up on it! I still play KT21 and am not opposed to running Spec-Ops campaigns in the future if an opportunity presents itself. As long as you got all the books for any given edition/system, its only dying as long as you yourself stop using it.
For what it's worth, 11th edition seems to be largely compatible to 10th edition rules, so nothing stops you from using the crusade content we already have.
That said, I'm also sad for seeing it go away, I hope they will keep making narrative content. Leviathan, Pariah Nexus and Nachtmund Gauntlet were all great fun to play, Armageddon was just a bit... too much.
A small part in me is happy that we can now play narrative games without someone needing to act as a campaign master. CM is a terrible job, it's like being the DM for 20 TTRPG players with maincharacter syndrom.
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks actually do not think that purple makes them harder to see. The joke was made canon by Alex Stewart's Caphias Cain books. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
I overall like the design. Feels well suited to get people really playing it and taking the time to define the location cards with your table setups will go a long way towards giving it a sense of story. Locals seem pretty excited for the new direction.
It seems to be going for a more focussed campaign system than Crusade was. Crusade always had the problem that the people involved in a Crusade, by default, felt pretty detached from each other, which made it less of a campaign system and more of a personal progression system for each army. Yes, you can of course link your Crusade games with everyone else taking part though your own narrative ideas, but that's true of any series of games and isn't intrinsic to the Crusade rules. In some cases the rigidity of the Crusade rules made that more difficult.
This is yet another attempt to take the work out of designing and running a campaign, which I think looks like it might be quite good. The problem with campaigns, IME, is always how to deal with the varying degrees of engagement and availability of the participants. That problem is exacerbated when 40k games take a long time to play, meaning you get through a small number per player in a given time. Waiting for everyone to complete their round of campaign games is the number one reason people get bored in our area. Not sure this solves that, but the basic concepts look OK at first glance.
I never got on with Crusade and every campaign a group ever attempted died after like round 2.
The whole thing was completely detached to the point that you and your opponent weren't even really playing the same mission.
It's like "you're trying to kill my leader, and I don't care if you do or don't because it doesn't matter to me. I'm trying to capture objective #3 and you don't care if I do or don't because it doesn't matter to me".
And then just the balance issues. "You get reroll 1s on deathstar unit, and my deathstar is wounded so it has -1, but it's okay because to rebalance it I get 1CP [reroll 1 dice once]".
This is ultimately why everything fell apart. After two games you were starting to see obvious "losers" and they could enjoy their army more outside of the crusade, so they left.
I get that the whole point of Crusade was to allow players to essentially run their own personal army's narrative without needing to plug in to a consistent group.
But the consistent group and narrative progression is like half the point, surely? These new cards seem to capture that better, so that's cool.
The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer
kirotheavenger wrote: I never got on with Crusade and every campaign a group ever attempted died after like round 2.
The whole thing was completely detached to the point that you and your opponent weren't even really playing the same mission.
It's like "you're trying to kill my leader, and I don't care if you do or don't because it doesn't matter to me. I'm trying to capture objective #3 and you don't care if I do or don't because it doesn't matter to me".
And then just the balance issues. "You get reroll 1s on deathstar unit, and my deathstar is wounded so it has -1, but it's okay because to rebalance it I get 1CP [reroll 1 dice once]".
This is ultimately why everything fell apart. After two games you were starting to see obvious "losers" and they could enjoy their army more outside of the crusade, so they left.
Absolutely this. I never saw the point of Crusade, it doesn't commit enough. It's too scared of making mechanics interlink, so your GSC are fighting to take over a world while the enemy Tau are fighting to conquer a system in your respective codex crusade mechanics, but neither interacts with the other in any way. Too much of Crusade's effort goes into just laying out a gorillion ways to stack buff upgrades on your units until they are walking gods of war.
If I am playing narrative Warhammer, I want meat. Give me something like the HH1.0 black books and I'd be interested. Give 40k the Victory is Vengeance campaign. As is, no Crusade books have been worth the space they ask on my shelf.
kirotheavenger wrote: I never got on with Crusade and every campaign a group ever attempted died after like round 2.
The whole thing was completely detached to the point that you and your opponent weren't even really playing the same mission.
It's like "you're trying to kill my leader, and I don't care if you do or don't because it doesn't matter to me. I'm trying to capture objective #3 and you don't care if I do or don't because it doesn't matter to me".
And then just the balance issues. "You get reroll 1s on deathstar unit, and my deathstar is wounded so it has -1, but it's okay because to rebalance it I get 1CP [reroll 1 dice once]".
This is ultimately why everything fell apart. After two games you were starting to see obvious "losers" and they could enjoy their army more outside of the crusade, so they left.
Absolutely this. I never saw the point of Crusade, it doesn't commit enough. It's too scared of making mechanics interlink, so your GSC are fighting to take over a world while the enemy Tau are fighting to conquer a system in your respective codex crusade mechanics, but neither interacts with the other in any way. Too much of Crusade's effort goes into just laying out a gorillion ways to stack buff upgrades on your units until they are walking gods of war.
If I am playing narrative Warhammer, I want meat. Give me something like the HH1.0 black books and I'd be interested. Give 40k the Victory is Vengeance campaign. As is, no Crusade books have been worth the space they ask on my shelf.
Neither of you are wrong- Crusade WAS primarily a progression system that a player could use to create an ongoing narrative for their own army, regardless of how those games were played... Which is why it worked. "My campaign fell apart" didn't stop your narrative from continuing BECAUSE YOUR NARRATIVE DIDN'T DEPEND ON A CAMPAIGN FOR ITS EXISTANCE. That's a feature, not a bug.
Having said that, if you DID combine campaign rules and Crusade, you can make magic. And it's why killing Crusade is stupid. This campaign deck? You know what would make it more interesting? Playing it with Crusade rules- they wouldn't have prevented these campaign rules from working: they would have made them work better.
The Raider alliance this deck "creates?" STOOPID ON ITS FACE. Drukhari, Tyranids and Tau are NOT friends... But they're an "alliance" to make this half baked "You MUST be part of a team to participate" campaign work.
But if the Tau were trying to bring a planet under the protection of the Greater Good, the Drukhari showed up to take slaves and hungry Tyranids came looking for a Biomass snack THAT would actually make sense. But NOPE! Welcome to 11th. If the alliance of the Tau, Tyranids and win more fights and achieve more objectives, they beat the Imperial team and the Chaos team.
Woo Hoo! Narrative depth!
Here's a previous response I posted to Ashiraya in another thread where they were expressing their opinions about Crusade- opinions which I concede are valid, despite the fact that I personally disagree with them:
Spoiler:
So, yes... By DEFAULT, it does go the way you say: I can capture planets as a GSC player and not tell you, my Tau opponent which planet I'm attacking, and you can do the same for me. This is GW's DEFAULT because it's the least invasive way for each player to forge their own narrative without imposing anything on their opponent. In fact, if you're willing to suppress your Battle Honours and scars in order to play matched with someone, it's possible to complete objective based agendas during a matched play game and continue earning RP and XP without your opponent even knowing that you've done it.
GW made that the default for ease of use with a broad player base. But just because that's the default, it doesn't mean that this is the only way to play it.
The best book for generating a system is the Tau book, because it has you generate ALL the planets in a system at the same time. When I did this, I randomly determined there would be 7 territories. I generated them one at a time so that I could go closest to the sun to farthest. This what I got in order: Mining World, Agriworld, Fleet Installation, Military Base, Political Center, Civilian World and Trader's hub. At this point, I know how close each is to the sun, how many Military Points it has and how many Diplomacy Points it has, and I know the bonus it provides to a Tau player who brings it into pursuit of The Greater Good.
But here's the thing: Mining Worlds can ALSO be found in the GSC book. So now my Mining World (Maryllion's Hammer) has: Diplomacy Power 3, Military Power 4, it provides the Harvest Resources and Starve the War Machine assimilation abilities and the Spoils of War supply line effect, all from the Tau book. BUT I also know that its 4 Institutions are Community, Industry, Resources x2 from the GSC book. Now, there is no "Mining World" in the Tyranid book... But I know this planet is closest to the sun and has only one Community institution... This, I reason, is because miners have to conduct their activity under solar shields or die, so I figure the best match from the Nid book is Rural World. So now I also know how much Resistance it has and how much Biomass it provides for each of the three stages of Tyrannid consumption.
Now all three factions CAN choose to race each other to see whether the Tau can assimilate it before Ascension Day, and if the Cult gets big enough to attract Nids before either faction succeeds, they can begin devouring it. Narratively, because the Nids come last, the Tau and GSC escalate as they fight each other- bringing additional resources to bear due to sunk cost as the war heats up. After fighting for so long, some of the Diplomacy or Military Points represent gains made by Tau, and some of the Institutions are under the control of the GSC. So IF the Nids arrive, there force is small- it hasn't had a chance to escalate, while both the GSC and TAU have. But when the Nids devour, some of what they devour represents Tau infrastructure and some represents GSC infrastructure... So GSC and Tau STOP escalation and begin to face attrition instead. But the Nids are Devouring, so THEY escalate.
Now think of this: what if I also generate D3+1 continents on my mining world. And then 3d3 Territories per continent. And now the initial 500 pt Tau army is deployed on one territory of one continent. The Institutions and Diplomacy/ Military points are randomly distributed among the continents (but NOT specific Territories for ease of use). Factions can't travel to a different continent unless they have Aircraft on their Order of Battle. For armies without Aircraft, they can purchase passage on civilian transport for RP.
Oh yeah... And did I mention that there are six other planets... Which can now be given the exact same treatment?
Then maybe I randomly distribute Webway gates in random territories on random continents of random planets to facilitate both Realspace Raids and Fate-Based interventions which cause all flavours of Eldar to interact in battles with the other factions... Interactions which are territory neutral, with Escalation happening in Commorragh when Drukhari return with Raid Spoils or Craftworlds when Aeldari Guide Fate.
And of course there are Guard Garrisons in certain territories, Convents in others.
Is this starting to sound like a level 1-20 D&D campaign that takes six guys five years to play at a game every two weeks at someone's house, in the garage, dining room or basement to you? Because that's what it sounds like to me.
NOTES:
1) The examples provided were based on 9th ed Crusade, not 10th... Because 9th was where we started.
2) I gave you detail on how GSC, Tau and Nids interact and kinda sped through other factions to keep the post short... But TRUST me, it ain't hard to weave it together. I find letting people fight "NPC" battles against Player Orders of Battle open up great for opportunities for players who are friends and want to play, but can't commit to a full campaign or don't want to do Crusade book keeping... Which helps mitigate cut throat, goal vs goal narrative interaction when players need to dial back.
3) GAMES are competitive. Campaign NARRATIVES are cooperative- in the same way a D&D player will often support the GM's world building efforts by providing background... Like a map of their home town, the history of their barbarian tribe or the Royal Lineage of their City State, players can find ways to collaborate, compete or give each other space depending upon the needs of the narrative.
Think of a star system from the Tau book NOT as a campaign with winners or losers, but a shared ecosystem in which games occur. Use the goals within your faction's bespoke Crusade content to decide what you want to do within that ecosystem.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2026/05/14 23:32:47
My problem with Crusade lay in the missions. They followed the same boring patterns of the non-crusade missions with everything being very abstracted and mostly symmetrical every time.
Crusade progression with a toolkit for narrative missions like we had in 8th would have been my favourite and is basically what we are doing in OPR now.
The new Deck goes even further: Play the same restricted Eternal War game as always, but now your primary objective is called an agenda and rewards victory points a little bit differently. Wowza, how immersive, I'm playing the same thing with preset terrain Layouts and what not but on paper (not on the actual table) I'm doing different stuff. Every wonky narrative mission released in a WD prior to 2020 is more immersive than this whole Deck.
GW wants to streamline narrative gaming, which needs the opposite of streamlining.
The deck addresses some of the issues that crusade had for my gaming group, especially the reduction in bookkeeping and shorter, less complex campaigns will work well with my group.
But it feels a bit like an overcorrection. Army-specific narrative rules were one of the best things of crusade, killing that off will have a noticeable impact on their codex sales. Multiple people have already state that these rules were one of the few good reasons to get a codex.
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks actually do not think that purple makes them harder to see. The joke was made canon by Alex Stewart's Caphias Cain books. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
Neither of you are wrong- Crusade WAS primarily a progression system that a player could use to create an ongoing narrative for their own army, regardless of how those games were played... Which is why it worked. "My campaign fell apart" didn't stop your narrative from continuing BECAUSE YOUR NARRATIVE DIDN'T DEPEND ON A CAMPAIGN FOR ITS EXISTANCE. That's a feature, not a bug.
Having said that, if you DID combine campaign rules and Crusade, you can make magic. And it's why killing Crusade is stupid. This campaign deck? You know what would make it more interesting? Playing it with Crusade rules- they wouldn't have prevented these campaign rules from working: they would have made them work better.
The Raider alliance this deck "creates?" STOOPID ON ITS FACE. Drukhari, Tyranids and Tau are NOT friends... But they're an "alliance" to make this half baked "You MUST be part of a team to participate" campaign work.
But if the Tau were trying to bring a planet under the protection of the Greater Good, the Drukhari showed up to take slaves and hungry Tyranids came looking for a Biomass snack THAT would actually make sense. But NOPE! Welcome to 11th. If the alliance of the Tau, Tyranids and win more fights and achieve more objectives, they beat the Imperial team and the Chaos team.
Woo Hoo! Narrative depth!
This seems hugely disingenuous. You've got a whole post about adapting and house-ruling the GSC and Tau rules together to make Crusade work in a more integrated way but apparently you can't do that for the 11th edition campaign system? I don't see the difference, except for not having all the info about 11th edition yet. Neither are perfect out of the box, but only one gets criticised for it. We don't even know how the Raiders alliance works and whether there's something different in how they interact with the two "main" factions.
It's always been a problem with any 40k campaign, that the factions just don't break down into easy, practical groupings. I don't think there's any reason why Drukhari can't be the Oppressors or Liberators if it fits the narrative. The three groups they outline all seem generic and flexible enough to fit a variety of narratives without pigeon-holing anyone.
The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer
PenitentJake wrote: Neither of you are wrong- Crusade WAS primarily a progression system that a player could use to create an ongoing narrative for their own army, regardless of how those games were played... Which is why it worked. "My campaign fell apart" didn't stop your narrative from continuing BECAUSE YOUR NARRATIVE DIDN'T DEPEND ON A CAMPAIGN FOR ITS EXISTANCE. That's a feature, not a bug.
We've debated precisely this before so I won't go into it in depth, but like, this paragraph here I think we would read in very different ways.
To me, this just reads as "yes, nothing matters and nothing is interacted with, and that's good because that means not much is lost if your group collapses".
That's... not really a strong sales pitch to me. Maybe I am just not the target audience here.
Depends on your perspective really. I've made the argument before that Crusade is a progression system, not a campaign system, but for some people just having progression for Their Dudes is all they're after. It's certainly conducive to a drop-in, drop-out local shop hobby environment.
When I play a campaign with my buddies, we want the narrative to be an interactive thing with stakes for each battle beyond progression. Crusade never did that, so I'm open to seeing what the new system does.
I don't think any preference is right or wrong here. And as always, if you're playing with a group of like-minded friends, you can homebrew the experience you want.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2026/05/15 15:54:05
Per the FAQ video they just did moving forward crusade rules will not be in codexes. They mentioned narrative rules like the character creation stuff from the recent supplement would still be in books like that. So narrative play is not quite dead, but crusade just took a deathblow.
This seems hugely disingenuous. You've got a whole post about adapting and house-ruling the GSC and Tau rules together to make Crusade work in a more integrated way but apparently you can't do that for the 11th edition campaign system? I don't see the difference, except for not having all the info about 11th edition yet. Neither are perfect out of the box, but only one gets criticised for it. We don't even know how the Raiders alliance works and whether there's something different in how they interact with the two "main" factions.
It's always been a problem with any 40k campaign, that the factions just don't break down into easy, practical groupings. I don't think there's any reason why Drukhari can't be the Oppressors or Liberators if it fits the narrative. The three groups they outline all seem generic and flexible enough to fit a variety of narratives without pigeon-holing anyone.
Fair point. It would be easy to assign factions to teams arbitrarily- I think my objection is the notion that the campaign system is predicated on teams at all. But again, easily mitigated, and likely doable in a way that doesn't stray too far into house ruling. Because that's the thing about what I did with Crusade by allowing the planet that the GSC was trying to overthrow be one of the planets in the system the Tau were trying to conquer: it wasn't so much "house ruling" as using existing rules in unusual combinations; that's why I had a small group of people who would play it. But it's a fair point that the same approach could be used to improve this system.
It is also true that it will likely be possible to keep using Crusade rules from 10th in the 11th edition... But it's not necessarily going to be as simple as some people here think. If an Agenda requires an interaction with an objective that is not possible because of changes to objective rules, that Agenda may cease to function. There will be no Battle Honours that modify characteristics that we're told are important to new rules- I'm thinking of things like spotting distance. Changes to existing rules can also invalidate battle- honours/ crusade relics- thinking here of weather or not old stealth mechanics still function the same way given the hidden rules. I'm not saying it's going to be impossible; I'm not even saying it's going to be hard: I'm saying there's no guarantee it's going to be as easy some people think.
Crusade rules, as we have pointed out, are campaign agnostic. They are PROGRESSION rules. The card based 11th ed thing IS a set of CAMPAIGN rules, which is progression agnostic. Comparing the two systems IS a bit of apples and oranges. To the extent that Crusade rules are transferable (despite their "officially declared" death). it will be possible to use them with this 11th ed campaign system... And that probably would be pretty cool- especially if you've got a group who is willing to interpret the Alliance rules through the filter of common sense.
catbarf wrote: Depends on your perspective really. I've made the argument before that Crusade is a progression system, not a campaign system, but for some people just having progression for Their Dudes is all they're after. It's certainly conducive to a drop-in, drop-out local shop hobby environment.
When I play a campaign with my buddies, we want the narrative to be an interactive thing with stakes for each battle beyond progression. Crusade never did that, so I'm open to seeing what the new system does.
I don't think any preference is right or wrong here. And as always, if you're playing with a group of like-minded friends, you can homebrew the experience you want.
As mentioned in my response above, yeah- absolutely Crusade is a campaign agnostic progression system. If you look at every hardbacked Crusade supplement in 9th or 10th, I'm pretty sure they all included a loose, optional campaign framework. The 8th Urban Conquest rules were a progression agnostic campaign system which combined fairly will with Crusade.
As for "we want the narrative to be an interactive thing with stakes for each battle beyond progression. Crusade never did that" - your perception of your own experience is yours alone, and I'm not here to tell you that your feelings or perceptions are wrong, but I think the nature of Agendas- the way they award XP instead of VP is a fundamental change that affects every battle. The addition of another in-game reward currency that neither affects nor is affected by win/ loss is DEEPLY subversive- especially when Crusade is combined with a campaign system.
I like map based campaign systems because of the way Crusade orders of Battle vs. Game size works.
When you increase your supply limit, you don't increase your ARMY size... Only the size of your order of battle. So if you have a large army and want to get access to all the models in your collection quickly, you're likely to burn all of your RP on supply limit until all the models you want are on that order of battle. But if one of your opponents is slow painter who is starting a new army and only wants to increase his supply limit when he finishes painting a unit, he's likely to burn his RP on other things... So even if you've burned the RP to grow your order of battle to 3k, every time you play that dude, you're capped at his army's point value.
But if you're playing a map based campaign where you have to have a unit in a territory to hold it, suddenly your order of battle matters even when you have to limit your army size when you fight.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: My problem with Crusade lay in the missions. They followed the same boring patterns of the non-crusade missions with everything being very abstracted and mostly symmetrical every time.
This is likely true in 10th at least to some extent. The only 10th ed Crusade book I bought was Tyrannic War, because I had to- it have the Crusade rules, which weren't available free online like the core rules. But when I saw how little rules the book contained compared to a 9th ed hardback, I determined they weren't worth my money.
However, if we're talking about 9th ed Crusade... I think there were a total of 8 coil bound mission books with 12-18 missions each (and in some it was 18-24 missions). And those combined with campaign systems in both the coil-bound and the hardback books. For me, asymmetry in Crusade is always created by Agendas, so it usually didn't matter to me whether the missions were symmetrical, or even interesting, though obviously, a game is going be more fun with an interesting mission than a bland one even when I can layer agendas and campaign goals to mitigate blandness.
Crusade progression with a toolkit for narrative missions like we had in 8th would have been my favourite and is basically what we are doing in OPR now.
Yeah, when done well, I like mission generating toolboxes better than lists of fixed missions... And card systems can facilitate this if they're well done.
Nevelon wrote: Per the FAQ video they just did moving forward crusade rules will not be in codexes. They mentioned narrative rules like the character creation stuff from the recent supplement would still be in books like that. So narrative play is not quite dead, but crusade just took a deathblow.
They're not going to do it, but a Crusade Compendium of - at a minimum - all the Faction Crusade material from Codexes and White Dwarf would be nice to have.
Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.
Kanluwen wrote: This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.
Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he wants Kan's New Model Army...
tneva82 wrote: You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something...
Nevelon wrote: Per the FAQ video they just did moving forward crusade rules will not be in codexes. They mentioned narrative rules like the character creation stuff from the recent supplement would still be in books like that. So narrative play is not quite dead, but crusade just took a deathblow.
They're not going to do it, but a Crusade Compendium of - at a minimum - all the Faction Crusade material from Codexes and White Dwarf would be nice to have.
They did just announce a book for Combat Patrol with all the factions and lore and such in one book. They have done compendium style release before. So what you are suggesting is not unprecedented. But I agree it’s also highly unlikely.
GW had enough faith in crusade to put out a number of books for it over the years. The fact that they did it for more then one edition implies it was not a complete failure. They know there is a market for narrative growth systems. Will the new campaign deck be the replacement? GW knows there is money to be made out there. They have the sales figures.
One advantage of having it all in one book is they could tailor all the faction stuff together better. Make it a little less of the parallel play it is now, and more interactive. Assuming they are even going to put out new stuff. Now that it’s out of the codexes, if they choose to expand on it, they can mix it up a lot more.
They way GW mines old nostalgia, we could even see a full return of the system in a few editions, even if they kill it now.
I had a lot of fun playing crusade. It was most of my games of 9th. Sad to see it go.
I'm in a weird place. Because I *liked* Crusade and enjoyed it whenever I played it, but also it felt like it was getting in the way of something better.
The bookkeeping and the way it tended to work better if you had people all agreeing to do a Crusade starting around the same point, etc. just made it really rare for me to actually see people Crusading. It was basically impossible to do a casual pickup game with a Crusade army.
But because Crusade existed, it felt like GW was reluctant to do other forms of more narratively-inclined game modes. So instead of getting a bunch of different cool narrative mission rules throughout the years with different strengths and weaknesses and levels of accessibility, we got the hard-to-arrange Crusade rules.
I'm also still amazed that GW never just, like, did a big book of Crusade variant rules. Rules for an attrition campaign where your forces are slowly rendered incapable of continuing. Rules for leaning into the faction-specific crusade rules, but making them engaging for both parties. Etc.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
But because Crusade existed, it felt like GW was reluctant to do other forms of more narratively-inclined game modes. So instead of getting a bunch of different cool narrative mission rules throughout the years with different strengths and weaknesses and levels of accessibility, we got the hard-to-arrange Crusade rules.
I'm also still amazed that GW never just, like, did a big book of Crusade variant rules. Rules for an attrition campaign where your forces are slowly rendered incapable of continuing. Rules for leaning into the faction-specific crusade rules, but making them engaging for both parties. Etc.
The cynical part of me says it's because that kind of thing is rather high effort. It's no coincidence that after Mr. Bligh tragically passed, Horus Heresy has seen no sourcebooks even remotely approaching the level of depth and detail of the original black books, even in the two whole editions following.
If you can write a low-effort Crusade book instead and still have it sell, why not?
Perhaps less cynically, it could be about target audience. GW either thinks its audience wants simple rapid-fire one-off stuff, or deliberately wants to attract such an audience. The latter would match with the general move towards casualisation and lowering entry floors GW has focused on in recent years, something which I think has some value, but also to some degree is futile (even with so much tasty meat carved off the bone for the sake of simplicity, 40k 10th remains an awkwardly written juggernaut of a game with page after page after page of erratas and FAQ to make everything work...)
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 
4k 
4k Points
Competition Index
