Crusade of Fire

[Kol Saresk]

For a minute there, I thought I read the pink one as "Fulgrim Pork".

That. Sounds. Horrifying.

 

Slaaneshi Sausage.

That sounds even worse.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

I know, I dread to even think what it would taste like after all the various chemicals and substances those Slaaneshi love are added.

I'm sure I remember a reference to space wolves eating sausages somewhere, can't remember where...

[Trevak Dal]

Unless they're adding Drop Pods dedicated transports for Chaos, an Extra Land Raider mark that can carry 16 guys (or more...), or making the Hellbrute a Monstrous Creature OR markable...I'm not really interested.

[Urauloth]

I don't get the logic behind a limited edition expansion, honestly. It sems like an admission that it doesn't contain anything you expect players to really need and that kinda seems like a dubious marketing strategy.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

dubious marketing strategy.

 

In the past, when deciding the future of their company and their marketing strategy, 'dubious' was the word GW plucked out of the Hat of Adjectives. This tradition continues to guide their marketing path today.

[Kol Saresk]

Although it does add to the rumor running around that GW might be trying to get back to the fluffier side of things since so much of the expansion is special rules for certain types of battlegrounds and the Arenas of Death are two ICs from opposing armies duking it out.

[Sinners Red]

Hey guys,

Don't know about anyone else, but my Crusade Of Fire book came in the mail today. I plan on reading through it tonight, let me know if you guys have any thing that you want to look out for.

At a glance, it doesn't seem to be very weighted down with battle reports and all that trash, and the new Dog Fighting rules are interesting. Every Codex has Special Manuevers and Fighter Aces. There are also at least two new Warlord Charts to roll on.

 

Cheers,

SR

[Kol Saresk]

I have to wait until it comes out. The advanced orders were sold out before I realized it was on advanced order. :)

[Noctus Cornix]

So the Crusade of Fire came out very recently and its been sitting there all nice and shiny on the shelf. I couldn't help myself so I just grabbed the book and started reading.

 

I gotta say I am REALLY happy with this book. From what I managed to read through, this is a really nice in depth book about how to run sector campaigns. Unlike what some people have said, this is NOT an expansion book or anything of the sort. It has nothing to do with that. Instead this book lays down detailed guide lines as to how to create your own campaigns and conquests with you and your friends and then shows for you a very interesting and cool example campaign complete with its own Grand Warlord Traits. (these are traits specifically for campaigns and are detailed as to how they effect the game.) If you have a group of friends you play with often and you guys really like making cool fluffy matches between each other, Pick up this book!

[spafe]

If anyone has read blood in badlands for fantasy, can you say how it compares? is it very similar format or have they cleaned this one up a lot more to make it work smoother?

[Oojamaflip]

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with Slaaneshi grey as a top highlight for the black hard armor and muted purple soft armor on my Black Legion models, but that pale purple peeking up past the pink might yet find a place in my paint scheme, provided I can purchase pots of just that paint in particular.

 

Hmmm, I never thought of using that to highlight it...I'm planning on doing a slaanesh Black Legion force, but didn't want to lose the black legion look by going all out slaaneshi. Mind if I steal this idea?

[Lord_Caerolion]

If anyone has read blood in badlands for fantasy, can you say how it compares? is it very similar format or have they cleaned this one up a lot more to make it work smoother?

 

Far better, in my opinion. It has the same stuff as BitBL did, but also includes rules for fighting on daemon worlds, in vacuum/low-gravity, rules for dog-fighting, and rules for pit-fighting in the Commorrite Arenas. All in all, pretty damned awesome.

[Sception]

Not at all. I'm using Daemonette Hide, Slaaneshi Grey, & purple wash for the soft armor and tubing on my black legion models. Adds a hint of color without distracting from the main scheme or ruining its effect. It's neutral enough to work for undivided, but I could see it also working particularly well for slaanesh. Using the same Slaaneshi Grey for the final edge highlight on the black armor (I recommend edging with a midtone grey first, the Slaaneshi Grey's a bit bright to be the only color you use) helps tie it all together.

 

As for Crusade of Fire, I've heard mixed reviews. Noctis covers most of the favorable stuff, although the dogfighting rules are supposedly also interesting. However, there are some negatives:

 

- many grammar and spelling issues, despite the book's price

- FMCs left out of the dogfighting rules, meaning daemons and nids don't get to play with them

- Sisters of Battle not mentioned in the book at all

- like BitB, a lot of ad-libbing required to actually use the product

- Requires either the planetary empires set or a home made map like it to function.

[Nehekhare]

not to mention phil kelly trolling everybody with his sleazy dark eldar master race while chaos looses out time and time again (

to the point that the forces of destruction dedicate their campaign points to phil for the final apocalypse battle, denying the loyalists their victory

).

all in all funny scenarios though. not too sure about the implicit planetary empires rules update, seems dumbed down a bit.

[Kol Saresk]

No offense, but wouldn't every campaign that is suppose to take place over any kind of territory that is divided into sectors require a map of sorts? Lists only work so well for keeping track of who is where for so long.

 

 

Also, how would a FMC participate in a dogfight? Dogfights are between aircraft aren't they?

[Sception]

Flying monstrous creatures are in the air, and in a setting as ridiculous as 40k (Tyranids have biological space ships capable of engaging in space combat; and daemon FMCs are made out of magic), it's not so ridiculous to imagine flying monsters moving at the speeds needed to engage with jet planes.

[Noctus Cornix]

As my good friend Malisteen brought up, there is a great deal of personal work that needs to be added to it to make it work for each person but I quite personally dont mind that at all. What I like about the work it seems to have a great deal of flexibility that allows you to tune the campaigns to work however you want and it even explains that alot of what makes a good campaign is making it fit for your group and not just taking a standard run of the mill campaign from a book.

 

This of course is just my personal opinion. I didn't even get a chance to read the dogfight rules but like everything else, if you want to let FMCs participate in dogfights, let them. You won't be seeing any of these rules in tournaments anyway.

[Sception]

For the record, I'm not saying "It's bad" or "don't buy it", just trying to point out that it's far from perfect (the copy editing errors and the squatting of the sisters are particularly disappointing in my mind, and Chaos doing so unrelentingly poorly in the campaign reports while Kelly lords it up with his Dark Eldar is just salt in the wound), and it takes a lot more work and improvisation to play the campaign than some are likely to expect from a published product if they hadn't already picked up Blood in the Badlands.

[spafe]

Okay, Thanks to all who gave reviews. Think it will be similar to BitBL book then, so might pick it up if I find myself with a bit of cash next time I'm near a shop, but wont make specific trip I think.

[Noctus Cornix]

For the record, I'm not saying "It's bad" or "don't buy it", just trying to point out that it's far from perfect (the copy editing errors and the squatting of the sisters are particularly disappointing in my mind, and Chaos doing so unrelentingly poorly in the campaign reports while Kelly lords it up with his Dark Eldar is just salt in the wound), and it takes a lot more work and improvisation to play the campaign than some are likely to expect from a published product if they hadn't already picked up Blood in the Badlands.

 

Mal, you really need to stop explaining yourself bro. We understand what you meant. :D

[Sception]

But I like to hear myself talk. I thought everybody liked to hear me talk. Are you saying not everybody likes to hear me talk? That... that's not true! That's impossible!

 

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/images/160x/5995015.jpg

[Noctus Cornix]

And my day has now been officially made.... :D

[spafe]

I know I'm an outsider to all this but you two are seriously funny (and not at all like a married couple *runs for the warp!*) :-p

[Sception]

I know I'm an outsider to all this but you two are seriously funny (and not at all like a married couple *runs for the warp!*) :-p

 

Don't look now, Noct, but I think we've been shipped!

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/spafeNowKiss.jpg

[Kol Saresk]

Okay, for someone who has no experience of any campaigns, EoT, BitBL, or anything else, here is what I think of it as I was able to look at it today. Notice, this is not a detailed review. This is simply someone who did a loose reading of everything in here.

 

First thing I noticed, the book does use Planetary Empires, but not as a game mechanic. They used it as a way to keep track of the planets and the different zones on those planets. A map can be used but so can a piece of paper, provided you can keep track of everything.

 

Second, no actual lists were given so I cannot say if Army A lost just because it was badly organized or Army B was just that much more WAAC-efficient. So I will not go to that route as it seems the pictures shown of the armies, are only a taste of what is there and is not the entirety of the army.

 

From what I think I have read(there was no clear "Who belongs to what faction"), the campaign was divided into three factions:

Crusade of Fire(Imperial)

1.)Howling Griffons

2.)Flesh Tearers

3.)Space Wolves

 

Servants of Ruin(Pure Chaos)

1.)Word Bearers

2.)Red Corsairs

3.)Alpha Legion

 

Prophets of War

1.)Dark Eldar

2.)World Eaters

 

Each side suffered its losses and won its victories, although if I read it right, the Prophets of War ended up winning the overall campaign through the holding of more objectives. Going by the army profile for Phil Kelly's army, I do believe he went for the WAAC route while everyone else went for the casual gameplay. Again, lists for the entire armies and what lists were used for each battle were not given.

 

Spelling and Grammar: I actually have not found that much. There's a place where there is some sort of name confusion or something as it has a character in the same called Captain Xerxes in one place and what could be a different character named Chaplain Xerues in another. I don't know if it is the same character or if it is two different characters with really close names. There were a couple of times I thought I saw something was wrong, but closer inspection revealed otherwise. As I was not being a grammar Nazi, it is more than possible that I missing some mistakes. Or it could be the Florida Public Education System did a bigger number on me than I thought. Overall, I think it is decent. I cannot comment on the rules too much for obvious reasons.

 

Dogfights and Aces: This section was done with what I believe was a common sense measure. Chaos Daemons, 'Nids and SoB are the only armies who have neither dogfight nor fighter aces rules. This makes sense because none of these armies really have army-specific flyers. Tyranids and Daemons in particular only have units that are at most, long-distance "jump" infantry. SoB use the same flyers as the Imperial Guard so that becomes redundant. When it comes to the Fighter Aces, the Chaos Space Marines are also excluded as their flyer is not "piloted." It follows the argument that since the Heldrake is a flyer with guns, it gets dogfight rules but the fact that it relies on bestial instincts rather than a pilot's intuition, it does not get "Fighter Ace" rules. So while the rules may not be "fluffy", they are "common sense" rules in what each army has available as well as the background fluff for that army.

 

Daemon Worlds: These look like "6th Edition" updates to the "Fighting on a Daemon World" rules that came out as a White Dwarf supplement however long ago it was that they came out. So those who know those rules, have an idea of what to expect on whether or not that is bad. There is also a scenario for any army that wants to try to leave a Daemon World.

 

Arena of Death: Looks interesting. Suggested to be done on a smaller surface for rather obvious reasons. Instant Death(and I assume anything that could be equivalent, such as the Black Mace's special ability) are removed. A couple bonus rules are thrown in and there is a rather unique way of doing combat.

 

As for armies being left out, it's a yes and no. For example, every army that did not get "special rules" was still used in the campaign(Howling Griffons mentioned SoB and GK allies, Daemon packs were sicked on everyone etc), either as a GM trap or as allies to another army. And as seen above, only five "Codex Armies" were used and four of those were Space Marines. So that view is rather dependent on your definition of "left out." The only armies that really didn't make an appearance in the campaign were Tyranids, Tau and Eldar. But since they got special rules, I wouldn't say they got left out.

 

That's my view on it. As I said, I cannot compare on the rules so I cannot say one way or the other if they are good or bad. It looks organized, although the "battle reports'(if they can be called that) do look a bit intimidating to read at first so I believe those could have used some more work done, but considering how much they had to cram in, I can see why they did what they did.

 

This is a book written with a casual tone for those interested in casual campaigns. If that is not what you are into, I would suggest ignoring this book. If this is your gig, I'm happy I bought it but those with experience will probably be better at pointing out what may or may not be bad with this book. So, I say go for it.

 

EDIT: Mali, I just saw your post. I think you just made Slaanesh a happy man/woman/it.