Casualties and Reinforcements in Campaigns

[Master Sheol]

It's possibile that your models die during a campaign

 

I know that i can buy new members for my fireteams but i don't find in campaign rules of it's possibile to buy new Leaders/specialists

 

Is It possibile?

[Kinstryfe]

The rules are completely quiet on the subject. I've always assumed the answer if yes, you can recruit new specialists, only because if you can't your Leader and in face any leaders on your roster could all die. Since you need exactly one Leader, that would mean that if you can't recruit another you can't legally play at all. If that were the case, I assume that there would have been mention of it in the campaign section. Instead, it's only about going guerilla, which makes me think the intent is that you can recruit new Leaders and, by extension, other specialists.

It's possible I'm wrong, but we'd need clarification of that as a loss condition for a campaign.

[Rogue]

In the battle-forced kill team section, there’s the restriction that teams can’t include more than one leader and three specialists. Later, there’s a note that more specialists (including leaders) can exist on the roster, but can’t all take the field at the same time.

 

In a campaign, when you select a kill team to put down on the table, you can choose to field new recruits. If you only have two specialists on the field, then there seems to be nothing stopping you from giving specialisms to those recruits (within the battle-forged limits).

 

Obviously ‘there seems to be’ is hardly binding, but I think that’s how I’d play it.

[Master Sheol]

In the battle-forced kill team section, there’s the restriction that teams can’t include more than one leader and three specialists. Later, there’s a note that more specialists (including leaders) can exist on the roster, but can’t all take the field at the same time.

 

In a campaign, when you select a kill team to put down on the table, you can choose to field new recruits. If you only have two specialists on the field, then there seems to be nothing stopping you from giving specialisms to those recruits (within the battle-forged limits).

 

Obviously ‘there seems to be’ is hardly binding, but I think that’s how I’d play it.

Yes

I was thinking that if you lose the leader or a specialist you can promote a Fire team member to fill that position

[Rogue]

Interesting. Something else that's not covered at all in the rules, and now you bring it up, something I'm not so sure how I'd play. 

 

In my head, once a model enters the campaign roster, that's it - his weapons and skills are fixed. Yegor the neophyte gunner will always carry a siesmic cannon and be a heavy. He can't choose to not be a heavy one day because you now want someone else to use that skill; you just have to leave him on the bench for that skirmish. Likewise, I can't move him up the experience ladder, and then decide that his skills now suit a mining laser better, and change his gun. Because Yegor carries a seismic cannon, that's what he does.

 

In part, this might be because I'm really seeing the members of my kill team as individuals (way more than 40k characters, for example) - this is the Yegor model, and it has a seismic cannon; I can't put down this model with a mining laser, because that's not Yegor (it's Dimitri).  

 

On the other hand, it makes sense that, within the reality of the game, Yegor can pick up any gun he chooses, and if he is developing into a sharpshooter, then maybe Dimitri would give him the mining laser to fight with. Similarly, if Yegor dies, maybe Dimitri's experience is enough to justify him developing the heavy specialism mid-campaign.

 

On the other other hand (because genestealers), tha's going to make for a messy campaign, and pretty much defeats the point of a campaign roster if i can switch around weapons and specialisms. Overall, for game balance, I think I'd stick to the idea that a model on the roster is fixed for both weapons and specialisms, and you need to recruit new team members to get new (or replacement) load-outs and skills.

 

None of that is rules-based, really. Just my thoughts. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My take on it is the same as yours, Rogue, that players are able to hire new replacements for losses during a campaign.  As you noted, in every other matter except experience, models are fixed for a campaign and can't even swap one weapon option for another (for example, my leader has a plasma pistol & power sword for the entire campaign, even if now I want a power fist instead - for that I would need a new leader).

 

For what its worth, that's how it is done in the local GW's campaign (here in Edmonton, Canada).

 

Furthermore, if fireteam members were promoted, that causes 2 problems:

 

  1.  How do you deal with fire team experience?  It seems unfair if it ports directly over to a specialism - if it were that way, you might well be able to recruit a "new" specialist who is just as experiences as the old specialist, which doesn't seem right.

 

  2.  What do you do if you don't have a fireteam member to promote?  For example, you want a genestealer combat specialist, and you don't have any genestealers, do you have to create a fireteam before you can recruit the specialist?  If so, can you immediately promote the new fireteam member to be a specialist?

 

Now, both questions can be answered, but being able to hire new specialists freely (rather than "promoting" existing models) flows more naturally from the rules.  After all, the only reason fireteams needed their own rules is that they, unlike other models, share XP as a group and therefore needed rules to account for inexperienced members joining an experienced fireteam.  The reason specialists don't have any rules for recruiting is that they don't have to worry about that problem - so GW may have felt there was no need to say more.

[MasterDeath]

It has been clarified in the FAQ. You can add 0-XP Specialists to any Kill Team you create at the beginning of a mission.

 

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/kill_team_designers_commentary_en-1.pdf

 

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[Rogue]

Thanks. I’d completely missed that whole document. And it answers my heavy rock cutter question too.