Having picked up the battle missions sourcebook yesterday, I eagerly read through it the same evening. Today, I wanted to share some brief thoughts about the specific daemons missions included in the book (I'll gather some thoughts about Chaos Marines at a later date).
Thematically, the book hits the mark for me with the daemons missions. They revolve around the concepts that the daemon army is all about. The first mission (Night Fight) represents the daemons first erupting from the Warp and causing general mayhem. The second mission (Invasion) is more about the middle stages of a daemonic incursion: the warp is wide open and the enemy is keen to shut down the rifts that allow the daemons to keep on coming through. The third daemon specific mission (Fight to the Death) is about the closing stages of a daemonic incursion: the daemons have no rifts left and no more reinforcements are coming - the enemy attempts to purge them from a world once and for all.
In Night Fight, the mission is nothing special to be fair. One distinction is that the enemy will be scattered over the board and will not have (or rather: not be able to field) and reserves: they all have to be on the board from the start. Given this fact, I feel the daemons should have a distinct advantage with a little bit of deep-strike luck and intelligent placement of units and counter-threats.
Personally, I think the Invasion mission is my favourite. This is how I imagined a daemon army entering a hapless world through a warp rift and marching forth; the defenders making desperate moves to close down the warp rift. Much like the apocalypse: reload formation of the same name, this mission is going to require a Warp Rift marker to be placed on the board. Since this rift is deadly to all non-daemon army models, I also think that Slaanesh is going to be very useful in this mission. If they pull and push enemy combatant toward to warp rift, they can readily dispose of some enemy units without trying too hard. It could be very deadly if played right!
Fight to the Death meanwhile, is a mission with nominative determinism. Destroy everything: a plain and simple mission that all armies can partake in!
Overall, I feel that the battle missions book will become an essential purchase for Warhammer 40,000 games. But I know that there are many other scenarios out there that are of equal quality, but get less publicity.
Thematically, the book hits the mark for me with the daemons missions. They revolve around the concepts that the daemon army is all about. The first mission (Night Fight) represents the daemons first erupting from the Warp and causing general mayhem. The second mission (Invasion) is more about the middle stages of a daemonic incursion: the warp is wide open and the enemy is keen to shut down the rifts that allow the daemons to keep on coming through. The third daemon specific mission (Fight to the Death) is about the closing stages of a daemonic incursion: the daemons have no rifts left and no more reinforcements are coming - the enemy attempts to purge them from a world once and for all.
In Night Fight, the mission is nothing special to be fair. One distinction is that the enemy will be scattered over the board and will not have (or rather: not be able to field) and reserves: they all have to be on the board from the start. Given this fact, I feel the daemons should have a distinct advantage with a little bit of deep-strike luck and intelligent placement of units and counter-threats.Personally, I think the Invasion mission is my favourite. This is how I imagined a daemon army entering a hapless world through a warp rift and marching forth; the defenders making desperate moves to close down the warp rift. Much like the apocalypse: reload formation of the same name, this mission is going to require a Warp Rift marker to be placed on the board. Since this rift is deadly to all non-daemon army models, I also think that Slaanesh is going to be very useful in this mission. If they pull and push enemy combatant toward to warp rift, they can readily dispose of some enemy units without trying too hard. It could be very deadly if played right!
Fight to the Death meanwhile, is a mission with nominative determinism. Destroy everything: a plain and simple mission that all armies can partake in!
Overall, I feel that the battle missions book will become an essential purchase for Warhammer 40,000 games. But I know that there are many other scenarios out there that are of equal quality, but get less publicity.
2 comments:
I think the battle mission book is interesting, but I'm more likely to roll up the random d66 mission.
Honestly, some of the Tau stuff was just laughable. Oh, all your guys get Hit 'n' Run? Really? My Tau stuff generally doesn't SURVIVE in melee; either it's Kroot geting poofed, or it's suits desperately assaulting something.
Plus, it requires an initiative test. Fire Warriors and suits have I2; Kroot have I3. It's just not gonna happen reliably, assuming I live long enough to make use of it.
Now, past that, most of the missions are interesting, but I think you best either roll random (so no one can build to the advantage) or agree on a mission ahead of time so you can tailor your forces for it; something like the Chaos Marine 'Scorched Earth' mission is neat unless you wanted to, y'know, SHOOT something (as all area terrain blocks LOS, and is either 3+ cover OR dangerous terrain).
Totally agree with you about the d66 option - I think that is going to be the way forward for most casual games. As you said, if you know what mission will be played ahead of time, then its easy to plan for that eventuality.
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