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Hello all. I was hoping I could get a bit of advice on Shadow War Armageddon from some people who have played a bunch of it. I am super excited about trying it out as I love the smaller, skirmish based games. However, we don't have much terrain, certainly not enough for a SWA game. So if we did decide to get into SWA I'd want to buy or make a bunch of terrain, plus get the box, plus a new army (Imperial Guard) and so forth. Before I ended up spending a bunch of money I had a few questions. I have looked over the rulebook, and I like a lot of it, but there's a few things that might bother me, and it only takes a few rules you don't like to ruin a game. So before I did, can you help sway me in one direction or the other?

Shooting at the Closest Target: I've always hated this rule in games, and I'm worried about its effects in this one. Does it clog up the game at all? Do I need to measure the distance to several models, then calculate the easiest one to hit every time I want to take a shot? Does my sniper in the corner of the table still have to shoot at the closest model, even if there's no one near him? Seems like the sniper should be picking off high value targets, not the closest targets.

Pinning: I'm afraid of pinning completely shutting down a team almost instantly. If I go first, will I pin my entire enemy team and have control over the board? Is it common for one team to not get to take most of their turn because their whole team is pinned? I suppose more cover would be the answer, but it's easy to draw line of sight most of the time, even with a lot of cover.

Hiding: I guess this contrary to, or even the answer to, my previous question, but what's to stop a melee focused team from just creeping forward and hiding every turn so they never get shot at?

Special Operatives: These are a big draw for us because we all love our variety and special snowflake units. But the cost seems rather steep. If I get one promethium cache for a game, and d3 if I win, why would I spend one on a small advantage for the next game? Especially if the operative leaves after that game? Unless I'm just missing something about those caches being a lot more common. (I've already bought a box of Ogryns so I want to use them dangit!)

Armor: Armor seems, well, useless. Everything has such high armor rending values. I would like carapace armor, for example, for my IG, but it costs points and penalizes initiative, so it hardly seems worthwhile. Am I just overthinking this? Do you typically get to make armor saves?

I'm so on the fence about delving in, or avoiding it, that any info helps. So thanks!

I've only played two test games so take my advice with a grain of salt. Before I say aynthig though, you could get Tabletop Simualtor on Steam, there is a SW:A mod that works well enough to get an impression (if you have the rulebook alaready).

Shooting the closest target isn't so bad, because you can also shoot at an easier to hit target that is further away. It's usually pretty obvious who is the closest too.
But yes, your sniper doesn't really get to choose who to shoot, it's more your opponent's choice. You can try to down closer units in an attempt to choose as you also don't have to shoot at those or in close combat, so in that sense it's a team effort.
So you can tie units up in melee, shoot the chaff and scout to spot hidden units in order to point your biggest guns at the juiciest target.

In both games my melee fighters got pinned but were still able to close and murder the fools who brought a gun to a knife fight. Hiding, running, cover, line of sight blocking all help to get there.
Also some games will have loot that needs picking up so you can lure fighters to you to an extent. You can also still move (slowly) to get out of LoS to prevent further pinning, but yea, terrain is super important.
Verticality too, so you can drop down, or advance in relative safety as it can be hard to see units and you can always try to hide.

As for melee, your opponent can always measure distances and hiding doesn't prevent your opponent from knowing where the model is. It's not easy to assault.
Plus you can just sit there and go on overwatch with multiple units if you suspect somebody to assault you soon. And hiding only works if your opponent doesn't have a clear line of sight.
Once they do, they're entire team sees your fighter and can shoot at it, so scouting and flanking will make this difficult, never mind pinning.

Armour suffers a lot from AP modifiers, but then having no armour is even worse. I found that there is such a wild variety in dice rolls that you really can't make any assumptions.
Not having armour means you're pretty much guaranteed to go down when hit and even if my 3+ armour was generally a 4+ save or worse, it did prevent quite a few wounds.
A terminator on the other hand is basically untouchable. Invulnerable saves are also hugely beneficial.
That said I'd only buy 3+ or maybe 4+ armour given the option and just roll with whatever the character comes equipped with otherwise.

The operatives I agree with. I'm not entirely sure why they exist. Like, some of them are really good, but what's the point of winning a game if it doesn't help you win the campaign.
Only time I would consider taking one is when I happened to win a lot of caches in the game before.
I play CSM, so if I were to win , say 4, I'd spend an extra on loot and one on a terminator. I'd still have gotten 2 caches out of that game and for the next game I'd have the terminator walk up front and soak up all the fire.
Pinning doesn't allow you to shoot the next closest after all and getting through terminator armour is very difficult, doubly so with the mark of nurgle.

I'm considering houseruling the operatives to at least get advances too. That way they still feel like part of the team at least.

Closest Target: There's almost never any calculating to do. You generally aren't even going to have more than 2-3 possible targets to begin with, figuring out which one you shoot at is immediate.

Pinning: Welcome to a reason shooting at the Closest Target is a good thing. You don't get to pin an entire enemy gang on turn 1 for several reasons 1) you aren't going to get to shoot at the entire gang, they won't be in LoS 2) you don't get to pick who you shoot at.

Hiding: Advance on them and shoot at close range. Initiative matters. Alternatively, overwatch.

Special Operatives: They're really only for if you need to win a particular game. They're pretty counter-productive to winning a campaign.

Armor: It's not as good as you're probably used to in 40k, but it's still pretty important. When my Guardians get shot, being Pinned doesn't really matters, since they're Down anyway. When a Soritas gets shot, there's usually a 50% chance she's only Pinned and not hurt.

My general rule of thumb is that there shouldn't be more than 6" of unobstructed Line of Sight.

With that in mind, my 3x3 SW play area has several areas of toxic pools, a dozen conex containers, piles of barrels and boxes, and several wrecked vehicles. No LOS from one deployment zone to the other.
then, rising from this mess of terrain, is approximately 28 sprues worth of Shadow War terrain. There's several separate height 1 structures that aren't connected but could be reached by jumping. Then there's several height 2 structures that connect the height 1 structures. And then a few things that tower to height 3.
This forces the players to go higher, if they want to go across.

I hope the fence your sitting on isn't jaggy.

Anyway, onto the main point.

You raise a very valid question. And the answer is, SWA isn't for everyone. I don't think any game ever can be, can it?

Shooting the closest target, I think is actually quite a good thing and in a small battlefield, probably quite 'realistic'.
The fact you play with so few models, (mostly) you don't ALWAYS have to measure to the closest. We just eyeball it. If it looks the same you can shoot either.

As for snipers, while I agree they should be able to look to target high value targets. They are also there to provide support to their other comrades. Taking out advancing troops from a distant location.
There are rules which help you 'pick a target' such as Tau's Markerlight.
The rule is, closest or easiest target. If the target at the back all of a sudden is hit by a markerlight and is now the only one out of cover. He is the easiest to hit.

There are so many to hit modifiers leaving most ranged models hitting on 5's and 6s. Its LUCK if they pin your entire team.
However, if you leave your models out in the open. Hell mend you.

Hiding, there is nothing stopping them doing this. Except careful positioning of your army to prevent it. (You can shoot into combat also) BAIT THEM!

Spec ops : They are good, mostly for fun. Or if you NEED to win that campaign game and you have excess caches.

Armour : I would agree, armour is over rated. However, if you can get a 3+ or a 4+ they need a LOT of rending to remove it. Armour is much better in combat if im honest. Atleast in my meta where the majority invest in high rending ranged weapons.

Honestly, watch a few battlereports. Miniwargaming etc.

Also, play a few intro games at your local GW. Even sub models to get a feel for it.

Im at 47 games and counting. I have a love hate relationship with it.


Chris

I am loving the game..

But I am also a massive fan of Necromunda and Gorkamorka

Hiding is a big tactic, but hiding means you are not shooting

You can get away with taking the terrain for your regular 40k game and then squeezing it into a 3x3 or 4x4 space and generally have enough to get away with. But it is a game of more the merrier with terrain

I've been playing a small campaign with a couple of mates to try this system out and so far we are enjoying it.
We've been playing on pretty terrain-dense tables so far with 2-3 players and it works great.
We have a fairly close quarter meta without a lot of heavy hitting weapons until this last round, so armour has been pretty viable. None of us have yet taken a special operative so I can't weigh in on their effectiveness but I like the idea of bringing in an elite unit for a key point in a campaign. We play pretty narrative styled games so a spec-ops unit would be quite cinematic a focus for gameplay for us.
Pinning has not been too big an issue so far. Keeping your troops in groups to support early unpinning tests, or running marines with ISKNF) is a good idea if you are paranoid about pinning ruining your day.

My gaming group has also been running a Mordheim campaign at the moment and have played Necromunda before as well. What this ruleset loses out on in narrative flavour, it makes up for with smoother rules and fairly fluid play.

My only real gripe is the huge bias towards shooting in the game. The play area really should be smaller than 4x4 and you need a very terrain-dense board if you want CC armies to stand even a glimmer of a chance.

RooT wrote:
My only real gripe is the huge bias towards shooting in the game. The play area really should be smaller than 4x4 and you need a very terrain-dense board if you want CC armies to stand even a glimmer of a chance.

Definitely. I was surprised when I bought the rulebook and the table size was 4x4. For a skirmish game that needs to be terrain intensive, I'd rather play on a 3x3.

Perhaps, but CC in SW:A is WAY more lethal than shooting. When a fighter looses the roll off, you can all but kiss his ass goodbye.

From the games I've played. The game is rarely decided by shooting.
It is decided by positioning and CC. As above, lose the roll off and you die.
Simple. Clean. Effective.

The 4x4 is enough to allow shooting focused armies a chance at increasing their odds in CC against a CC focused army.

To those who have played both systems: How does SWA compare to Necromunda?

 infinite_array wrote:
I was surprised when I bought the rulebook and the table size was 4x4.

Take another look. Rules advise that 4x4 is a soft maximum, 2x2 is soft minimum. Your (and my) preference of 3x3 is totally sanctioned by rules.

As always, Carthage must be destroyed and please use more terrain in Shadow War.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 feeder wrote:
To those who have played both systems: How does SWA compare to Necromunda?