Battle Missions

Alright, short review after having played a game with Randy this afternoon and spent an hour reading it:

It's alright =/

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, the book is divided up into races, with each race getting 3 special mission types, with a few extra pages at the back for the three special missions that are the highlight of the book. Most of the missions are pretty major variations on deployment types from the standard 40k, with some varied objectives beyond "Kill everyone or hold these points."

The easiest way to explain the mission types are "Like standard missions but:" About two thirds are objective based, with wonky deployment or bonus abilities to one side or the other. About one of six is just totally off the wall, things like "You gain 1 point per round of combat you win/unit you shoot to death within 18" "

The last bit fall into the above catagories, but just plain aren't balanced. One of the dark eldar missions is as such "Quarters deployment, night fighting in effect, dark eldar go first, 4 objectives, center, and center of every quarter that isn't the DE's." That mission type is essentially the dark eldar's wet dream. Others, like the nid mission I played with Randy are terrible for the race playing them.

The book itself is very poorly written IMHO. While a lot of missions are "Race X goes first on 2-6, Enemy goes first on 1" it begs the question as to why they decided to flip things around from seize the initiative. The writer repeatedly speaks in the first person which, while it won't bug most people, absolutely grates on me: "When I was writing this book...." Etc.

The biggest redeeming feature of the book is the three special missions: Kill Teams, Clash of Heroes, and Linebreakers.

Linebreakers is the worst of the three in that its situational. 1500 points, one side plays 3 Baneblades, the other side plays whatever from 1 codex. The three baneblades enter from one short table edge, and try to reach the other one. Dependant on how many weapons they reach it with, you roll a d6 + weapons to destroy the offboard objective.

Clash of heroes is any points, Each side takes one named character (Not necessisarily HQ) and kills everything they can with it. This character can only be killed by the opposing hero. If one hero dies to the other, thats game, if not, its by points killed by the hero only.

Kill team is the best. 200 points, troops, elites and fast attack only. Cram the board with terrain, and each model is moved as its own unit, with three models getting to pick one ability from the USR section of the book. Teams start rolling to retreat when you've lost half your army. Dunno how it'll play in the end, but to me it seems nifty as heck.

Anyways, buy or don't buy? If you've got $30 to spend, I'd buy. While there is a lot I don't like, I think it'll really quickly get whittled down into the mission types that are fun and work, and the few that are just "UGH". Some nifty fluff, some fun mission types, buy it if you can, and play it with others who have if ya can't.

First person should not exist within a rulebook. It should be third person detached. That wound grind my gears too, lol.

Anyway... the book sounds extremely disappointing as a whole, mostly because the standard missions are pretty much crap (all but one of them) so the book already has a very weak foundation. I'll have to thumb through it a bit.

And that three baneblade one... rofl, that's !@#$ing priceless. Trying to sell models much? Epic fail.

bought the book on monday =I=censor=I= love it. The 3 Baneblade one meh, but that mission could just as easily be 15 Killa Kans, 4 deff dreads, a mega dread and a stompa making it supremely bad ass. Have to say the games I had yesterday were lackluster however the extra rules were hella fun, the fact that depending on which army you play makes the missions different and the different deployments, awesome... just =I=censor=I= awesome.

Edit: bought the book on thursday? not sure.... kinda drunk.

Little bit of an update since reading a bit more through the book.

The book is two page format for everything. Fluff, two pages, each mission, two pages and so forth. For the fluff, this hurts, as one page is generally "Hey, a nifty campaign run by space marines, while the other half is basically a rehashing of the opening page of the space marine codex. IE. Not very interesting to anyone who has played the game.

Despite all my reservations about it, I'd still have to recommend it as a buy, and just tell people to be careful in which you play (That 1/6th that ain't balanced makes my braind hurt.) Today's newest example is one of the Guard missions. Three objectives in opponent's deployment zone. Middle, their board edge, one selected by guard. The opponent deploys first, then the guard deploys, then the guard goes first. I plan to make tyson sob a bit by showing him that one this afternoon.

Last note, just cuz it annoys me whenever it is brought up. HC, in regards to the three baneblades, I don't think that mission was made to sell models so much as it was a fun mission the writer wanted to add to the book. More to the point however, even if it was, what exactly is wrong with them spending one page of a 60 page book trying to do their job.

40k is a business, they are in the business of selling models and books. If they fail to sell models or books, you no longer have a hobby. While I am sure they enjoy what they do, the fact is that our game is their business. That said, the only complaint I'd ever have with GW trying to sell me models, even within a codex, is in an instance like the vendetta when the model is statistically fantastic, easy to buy in numbers, but quite expensive.

now bought the book yesterday and my first game against adam was a meh on the scale of a decent mission (really have to plan better for wave assault) but played a game later where it was a deamon mission and i had to be the deamons now there was a bit of an issue with how the deamon substitute deploys (eventually we decided to leave it to chance) but overall it was a very fun game as i was playing against wolves so we got to what we love right away. So my take on the book is just enjoy it, its worth the buy and what ever the mission you play it should be amusing

I vote this book as excellent. I like the fluff, I like the missions, and I like the story.

-Missions for fluff, cool ideas, and not doing the same thing over and over again for "tactics"= buy

-Play to win, no imagination= don't buy.

Ok, so I played two of the Special Missions today: Clash of Heroes and Kill Team.

Clash of Heroes came first. I played 1750 of my Eldar w/ Eldrad against 1750 of my friends CSM with Ahriman at the head. I felt kinda bad, since I planned on my friend Marshal bringing Abbadon. He didn't, and instead brought a character that can really suffer from Runes of Warding.

For those who haven't bought Battle Missions, here is a quick synopsis of the scenario. You bring an army with a Special Character at the head. This special character can only be permanently killed by your opponents special character (and if it killed by anything else, it stands back up w/ 1 wound). If both SC's are standing at game end, the game is decided by comparing the point values of the models killed by the special characters ONLY. Who-ever is highest, wins.

Anyway, we found that the game is intensely directed and more than a little nerve-wracking. Since the objective of the mission is pretty much to kill your opponents special character, most of the play centers around trying to maneuver yourself in an ideal position to do just that. Ahriman 'killed himself' with Perils 3 times, before finally getting spitted on Eldrad's witchblade. We both found it an intensely enjoyable gaming experience.

Now, for the Kill Team:

This game format is awesome. You bring 200 points of models bought for a limited FOC. Each model then acts as an independent unit. Hi-jinks ensues. 3 of your models can be specialists. This is achieved by giving them a USR for free. Marshal brought 3 tricked out Chaos Bikers and a Dreadnought. I used some of my shiny new CSM (5 CSM and some possessed). The game is quick, violent, and prone to hilarity. We played through ours in about 30 min, and that included set-up time and figuring out rule specifics.

I can see both of these formats as being fairly useful in a tournament setting. Clash of Heroes could likely work because the game ends after either 5 turns, or if the Hero dies. If you play Clash as fluff says you should, the game will likely be over by around turn 3 when one of the players guts his opponents Hero. Kill team can be equally enjoyable. Just bring a handful of models and go. The tables are small, the fighting is quick, and the games won't drag on.

Over-all, the missions were very fun. I recommend that people try them.

Reagan, you hit it on the nose for me.

I like most of the stuff in the book because it's decent, but the only part of the book that shined for me was the special missions, because unlike all of the other types, they're not just rehashes of "Get an objective, or kill most of the stuff."

That said, I am seriously considering starting up a kill point tourny or league right away. I just love the format, and I'm amused at how well it plays even if you jump up the points.

both sound awesome cant wait to play those missions.