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I saw these cards on the Community site: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/09/22/open-war-comes-to-warhammer-world-and-throne-of-skulls-sep22gw-homepage-post-3/

From what I can tell, they add new deployment zones, new objectives and extra mechanics to the game. Doesn't look bad. It's only £10 but I'm really stingy with my money, does the pack add much to the game? Would you say the twist and trick cards improve the game or do they just make it more complicated and add to book keeping?

Thanks.

They're amazing. Really nice, quick random mission generation. Been playing this since I picked the deck up. Really good fun.

I've just gone and bought one, I'll be playing a game using them this weekend, but as it is, the sheer variety is pretty awesome, and I can imagine many people creating their own twists or tricks to the pile to further increase the variety.

For a tenner, I'd say it's pretty good.

For my gaming group it has made a big difference. We used to agree on a game or d6 it but now everyone has a uses them. One guy bought them right away and we tried them and now we all have them.

Open War cards are the best value-for-money product GW makes. I love them, we use them all the time.

My son and I use them for my games. We've found them very helpful for keeping things interesting beyond "kill, kill, kill".

I'd dare to say with the free rules, these cards and the indexes, that's everything you need to play the game (well, and some models and dice).

They're much, much better than Eternal War games. I prefer Maelstrom if I'm going for something with really tight balance, but they're a lot of fun and give plenty of variety to keep games interesting.

Now, Ruses are a little wonky RAW. If you plan on list-building using points, I suggest house-ruling them. (I also suggest house-ruling Ruses to only work if there's a 10% or 25% difference in list strength. Some of the Ruses are really, really powerful, and getting access to them when you're 1PL lower than your opponent, in a 100PL game, is kind of brokenly unfair.)

I played my last game with some, as my opponent brought them. I gottta say they're pretty cool.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I played my last game with some, as my opponent brought them. I gottta say they're pretty cool.

Same for me. I don't have them but my first game, my friend had them so we used them and the only time I will not complain about randomness (besides dice rolling) in 40K.

I will have to get a set for myself as well.

I've found this cards are perfect when you don't feel like carrying the BRB around for missions.

A quick shuffle and draw and you've got a mission in less than 30 seconds, awesome for quick pickup games.

Used this deck last week with a buddy at work for Lunchhammer and we had a mission drawn, deployed and rolling for turn 1 within 5 minutes, awesome stuff

Are there cards for Maelstrom missions in this as well?

I like them for the variety, and the fact that its easy to take something out of rotation if you don't like it. Many of the objectives are quite simple, but they do drive the game - my last game we played the "objective per table quarter" mission and it came down to a pitched battle on either flank, with the bulk of my list sacrificing itself to slow down his Typhus-led death guard while my guard infantry formation worked to grind down the mass of Plaguebearers and Poxwalkers on the other flank.

It all came down to the bottom of the final turn, I had just enough firepower to clean the last of the poxwalkers off the objective they were standing on, while my Master of Ordinance and an out of ammo Manticore outnumbered Typhus 2-1 to hold my contested objective, so I won by one point.

Just played a pick up game with them this weekend; very enjoyable. Because both my opponent and I are both tournament-leaning players (so, 2000 points and Match Play rules), we appreciated the reduced pressure/incentive to crush each other. I recommend the deck.

In my mind this is the BEST way to play Warhammer 40,000 at this time. I love this deck and nearly all games we play use it.

In addition it can be used to pre-create missions for events you may be playing/running or whatnot. So you need not deal out the card live - you could create a mission in advance using the cards directly or for inspiration.

It's one of the best releases of 8th edition so far imho.

I agree with Carl, best release so far.

As someone else mentioned, some may want to house rule the underdog card, some are really powerful and when you're only 1 or 2 power level under the other person, there is no drawback army comp wise but the player get's a huge buff. It's great for narrative stuff though which I think this deck is more targeted for.

I like them. We use them a lot. Quick and easy.

Definitely worth it, with some caveats....

Works best with Power Level and players who are reasonable people. If your opponents are usually random pickups and veer towards the WAAC, you may not get the most fun out of them.

E.g. one of the Ruses (you get a ruse for having a lower PL army than your opponent) is "When a unit dies, play this card to bring it back on the board at full health".

So if your army is 99 PL and your opponent's is 100 PL... you get that ruse... then decide it's legit to respawn your Imperial Knight...

Well, you're a douche. But the cards totally allow it.

My advice is to make sure both people understand the Ruse/Sudden Death system exists and bring a PL army to almost 'bid' for them. I might choose to bring 95 PL to a 100 PL fight to try and get the Ruse... but my opponent only brought 90 PL. NooOOOoooOOO!!! But now that Ruse feels more fair.

I also feel like you need to be smart enough to discuss the combo you've drawn and see if it makes sense in the context of the armies you've bought.

So yeah. Requires common sense and works best with trusted opponents but gives a great variety of games, nice surprises and is quick to get going.

Can't agree more with Silentz.

You DO NOT want to use these cards with someone who cares about winning enough to ruin their night. I've used the cards in 4 games now, and with the exception of 1, the cards have swung favor to one opponent or another.

This is probably mostly because my games haven't been with 100% well rounded lists. In fact, the one time it seemed really balanced and was super enjoyable for both of us, we both had armies with ok shooting, assault and movement range. The others were all against castle armies. Which either gave me, with a more close/mid range army a large advantage, or disadvantage.

The advantages are fun, the disadvantages can be a challenge. (Like one objective in the enemies deployment and only half your army starts on the table with the rest in waves) My last game we had deployment with no null zone. My opponent had a castle of sisters, I had death guard. He couldn't deploy far enough away from me and I got all my big nasty auras into his castle.

100% recommend if you want something different for a good casual game.