Crusade games and you

[nusphigor]

Hey all!
I was wondering if you guys play Crusade often.
If so, can you share with us your experiences in your games? what neat things have happened in your games or your campaigns? how far have you gone with your army?

Cheers!

[Bouargh]

I would say.... never. But I am really not a good reference  as I may eventually have 1 game per quarter currently, or less (and most of time KT). So, understandably, I would favor a casual 40k game and/or an Apoc sized one rather than a campaign based system that requires more than a battle to develop itself in a satisfactory way . Of course...

 

Generally speaking I feel like Crusade game makes thing too complicated to follow. Too much extra rules and so on for my taste. I feel like it is part of what ruins the games, this and the painfull combination of stratagems and objectives tahta are very IMO ill balanced  from one book to another.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Bouargh

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

I will chime in from the opposite direction. My main gaming buddy and I get in about one game a month, and have since before the start of 9th. We started doing Crusade as soon as it drops (we’re old time WHFB and Mordheim players, so Crusade really scratched the right itch). 
 

Hands down, the best part of Crusade games is that your “secondaries” are only for XP generation. This, IMHO, fixes almost entirely the main issue with 9th. No one has overpowered secondary objectives that take away from the main game. There are a good run of fairly symmetrical Crusade missions in the mission packs, and of course you can really use any mission you want in a narrative game. But the best part is that you have a reason to keep playing even when defeat is inevitable. After all, why wouldn’t you hang in one more turn to make sure your awesome unit or character can complete its XP objective and level up?? This makes the game so much more enjoyable no matter who is winning. 
 

We’ve reset our Crusade since most of the 9th books are out, but earlier in 9th we were closing in on 75 PL rosters for each our armies (we both play 2-3 armies because we have large collections and the rotation makes the games fresh and helps us build a narrative that is greater than just two forces). We had some units reach Heroic rank, but only a few. 
 

Neatest thing that ever happened in a game? My buddy’s Aggressor Sergeant punched *three* of my Thousand Sons characters to death in two fight phases, all while he was the only model left in his unit. That chap earned himself a massive level-up and terminator honors that day. 
 

If you don’t like book keeping, Crusade maybe isn’t the game for you. But, luckily, it’s optional. So, for GW employees who might see this—and anyone else who feels that Crusade steps on their enjoyment of matched play or some other game mode—know that there are groups of us out there who are really only playing *because* of Crusade, and I at least think making the optional, narrative, growth-based game mode is the best thing GW has ever done with 40K. 
 

Edit: Bouargh, so you don’t think I’m directing that at you—because I am not! Crusade definitely isn’t for everyone and that’s OK—my defense of Crusade is due to that stupid BoLS article that came out recently saying GW needs to ditch Crusade for matched-play only in 10th. Please, GW, do not do that, or I will just keep playing 9th instead.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Brother Captain Vakarian

[gaurdian31]

I have to agree with Brother Captain Vakarian, Crusade is really fun. Been playing with 3 friends, started with Tau and swapped over to CSM once their codex came out. First game with the Tau was against my friend's Eldar and we wiped each other out until just our commanders were left and they had a slap fight until my commander finally knocked his out in the last turn of the battle. It was great! I never one a single match with them, that game was a tie due to objectives. The fun thing with them is I almost always completed my agendas so got to build a fun little Tau star system. My Chaos boys have been doing better, only lost one game with them so far and the best was when my Chaos Lord was running amok through some Admech for one of my agendas and then had his last kill stolen by my own Terminator squad as they wanted to be recognized by the gods themselves Great narrative fun!

[Bouargh]

17 minutes ago, Brother Captain Vakarian said:

 

Edit: Bouargh, so you don’t think I’m directing that at you—because I am not! Crusade definitely isn’t for everyone and that’s OK—my defense of Crusade is due to that stupid BoLS article that came out recently saying GW needs to ditch Crusade for matched-play only in 10th. Please, GW, do not do that, or I will just keep playing 9th instead.

No worries. I do not play often and almost never with a fixed sparing partner, so I by design do not feel attraction for Crusade... 

 

As for BoLS billet, well, it is BoLS. Tomorrow they will publish the exact opposite. Click bait baby!

 

A good campaign system is always nice but it is too specific for the type of gaming I practice. And I found Crusade too complex for the use I can have of it. 

 

But as marked, I do not think my opinion is the most representative of the world...

 

Cheers

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

I should know better than to let BoLS get my blood up, agreed! 
 

Definitely, I would not recommend Crusade for someone who games infrequently and doesn’t have something of a decent gaming group to build a campaign in. But, if you do have that and don’t mind a little extra book-keeping, it’s a blast. 

[Focslain]

This took a while, but will state that I agree with @Brother Captain Vakarian as crusade is keeping me playing if anything the crusade systems are what make me want to play the army (ie Votann).

 

So I tend to play mostly Crusade games. I have seven rosters of various sizes, mostly Imperium faction. I ran a Tau roster for the better part of five month in a map campaign that has been going on since February. 

 

Built some monsters, two best so far are:

 

Shas'O FireBlood
Bork'an Tau commander in Enforcer Suit - MC CIB, prototype flamer, MPx2, Conversion Field, Artisan bionics, Blackstone Amulet, Heroic Constition, Null Disruptor, Onagar Guantlet, Precision of the Hunter, 2x Shield Drones

 

So she has a 2+/4++/5+++, T5 8W with 4 ablative wounds, DR 1, and immune to psychic powers. All her attacks are D2 or better and she puts out a decent amount of them. All re-rolling to hit and wound.

 

In a single game versus GSC she killed 10 purestrains, 2 rock crushers, 17 cultists, and 6 bikes. This was before she got the Null disruptor and most was done in melee. Her current kill count is 15 units ranged, 11 melee.

 

Questor Mechanius Crusader Knight - Knight of Mars, Forgemaster, Mark of the Omnimessiah, Avenger gatling cannon, Rapid Fire Battle Cannon, Heavy Stubber x2, Ironstorm missile pod, heavy flamer, Elite Crew, Santified Armour, Stoic Sentinel, Repair System, Honour's Aegis, master of the Code

 

So master the Code counts her as Virutious, so KoM is every round and she can't take more then 6W per phase, healing D3+2 per turn. With a 6+++ against normal and 4+++ against MW and DR 1 while in my deployment zone, so she tanky.

 

The crusader also still has 1 battle honour and 2 quest slots open, so still room to improve.

 

Right now I'm more focused on an Imperium roster that includes Knights, Guard and Votann. The Knight section is 2 questorius and 6 armigars, all will be characters and use as much of the WL traits and Relics I can. Not sure about the guard just yet other then filler for the roster. The Votann is my planned army for them plus using the Kin assets to bolster the resources of the main Imperium part of the roster. Also wanted to be able to use all the Votann requisitions and one is to allow you to add them to a Imperial force and the Votann combat patrol detachment gains Agents of the Imperium. 

 

Some interesting combos I got there is the 34" Hylasr Beam on the Sagitaur (24 base+4 for Ymyr+6 Accelerated Weapon Enhancement) and a Einyhir Champion with MC/Guild Favored Darkstar Ax and Aktol Fortess to hold down Abaddon or a Ctan and beat them death in a single phase. The ax is a D3 weapon that ignores wound capping and FNP.

 

As far as how far I've gone in my rosters, well they are at the following:

Darkwind (Tau) 265 PL
Orbis Expedition Search (Admech) 65 PL
Orbis Expedition Destroy (Knights) 190 PL
Orbis Expedition Defend (Admech) 55 PL
Mars Pilgrimage (Imperium) 205 PL
UM 5th Company 70 PL
Sotoria Crusade (Marines) 55 PL

 

As stated above, Tau was my main force for a while in a local campaign and their System Takeover crusade system can net you a LARGE amount of RP if done right.

 

The Orbis Expedition is my current ground holding force. It has 3 roster group, Skartarii Vanguard (Search), Knights (Destroy), and Defense Cohort (Defend). This is due to Armies of Renown needing to be in their own roster. With permission of the campaign GM all 3 share the same pool of Relics, WL Traits, Crusade relics and Archeotech parts, which is the main reason for them being the ground force. In the campaign those that hold the Archeotech digsites get a crusade bonus based on their crusade rules. Admech get free archeotech. I hold 2 of the 4 in the system. The other two are owned by filthy eldar that I haven't been able to kick out of the area due to poor territory rolls. Also they took the sites as their homebases (it's two different players) and you need to fight a 125 PL minimum game to get a roll chance. But that is what the Knights are for. 

 

My main goal for the Orbis group is to build every combination of the archeotech there is and there are 108 combinations. It's a long term project.

 

The UM 5th and Sotoria Crusade are Space marine rosters. One for my company of UM that I'm building the other for my separate SM collection. Only addition I'm planning for them is using the Banner of Renown system, once I get more games in. There are my light touch army for new players outside of our campaign group.

 

The Mars Pilgrimage was originally a full knight list that was only going to have 8 knights, all characters, but when the Votann dropped I used it to make a much larger planned roster combining knights, guard and the votann. Attaching the Votann to the knight list was to give me some working room while I buffered out the roster with guard units to maintain the 25% max for the votann. In the end I'm looking at a 600 PL roster, 100 Knights, 350 Guard and 150 Votann. With a little help from the Votann Kin Asset system it shouldn't be too hard and I have the guard to fill the hole when needed.

[tychobi]

While the small games are fun I find Crusade really punishing on newer players. Power level is too easy to abuse. Buff stacking on experienced units can get a bit out of hand as well.  The tiny maps really boost early chargers and melee in general.  Crusade is fun but requires care and policing to function well for diverse groups and pick up games. One person's fun is someone else's cheese. 

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

I am not sure I would recommend it as a format for pickup games, at all. I do agree it works much better with a group to police the rough edges; but this is generally true of narrative play. 
 

Also, it’s trivially easy to convert to points if PL is the turn-off. I’ve actually found most of the concerns about PL to be overblown since moving to using it, and it’s primarily allowed my buddy and myself more modeling freedom rather than becoming a cheese-fest, but we also self-police our lists pretty strongly. In other words, don’t take all the upgrades on every unit—but you do have the freedom to grab things you may never have spent 5-10 points on before. Again, this doesn’t work without a likeminded group, so using points may be a better solution if you’re playing crusade in a more open setting. 
 

For upgrades, some people might insist on rolling, others might be fine with selecting. My buddy and I select. Again, we’re really like-minded so we’re not really out-pacing each other. So, for broader groups, a GM enforcing rolling upgrades might be a good solution.
 

That said, one thing that does often get missed often is the balancing mechanic: the player with less upgrades gets extra CPs. We’ve found that this is often more powerful than the upgrades themselves, anyway. I can still see how tychobi might feel this is not as beneficial for a new player as it is for an experienced one, however. 

[Emperor Ming]

My group played a few games of crusade, but since it was even less balanced than matched, it was just too crazy for us

 

Plus, learning even more rules in 40k, is deffo not for me

[bushman101]

Crusade is okay.

The system feels kinda clunky for what it's trying to do (various tallys/kills/req points/etc), but still functions.

The biggest thing is the large gap in power between upgrades/relics. Some are minor while others are overly powerful, and some of these are accessible from the start. 

[Sugarlessllama]

I have been wanting to do Crusade so bad since it dropped. But the scene near me is nothing but competitive players. Lame. But one day I will get to be in a campaign. :D

[Ahrimanjjb]

I'm another one for the "most of my games are Crusade games" group.

 

Best experience was holding a campaign weekend in the summer, 8 of us each doing a Crusade with a different army, with no extra rules layered on top outside of a mission generator.

 

Scoring for the weekend was done purely through how much XP you gained from a chosen Agenda, which encouraged everyone to play in character to earn the most points. Thousand Sons sought relics, Sororitas martyred themselves, my Creations of Bile hunted characters to capture. Was amazing.

 

 

I keep wanting to experience Crusade with different armies, so about 6 games is the most I've managed with any of them, but its enough to get a level or two on your favourite units.

[N1SB]

My local Warhammer Store is in full Crusade Campaign fever.  Used to be I come in on a Sunday and there's only a few walk-ins; the regular players spend Sundays with their families.  Now it's fully packed.  I used to talk to our meta on WhatsApp, but now it's easier to drop by and talk to them in person.

 

Why is it successful here?  Any Campaign in our area drives up activity, but this one is organised by our very popular Warhammer Store Manager.  Then it's Crusade as well, and that added a new dynamic.  Tabletop RPGs are not part of the culture here, those that play it grew up overseas mostly.  Crusade blows their mind, because it has some RPG elements, not just from "leveling up" units but its focus on forging-a-narrative.

 

Guess what?  I'm not even participating, because the Daemons Codex nerfed my Nurgling army so hard I couldn't get something made to join, but even I know the new heroes/sagas/epic characters appearing in it.  In no particular order, using their faction-specific Crusade rules:

 

• a Space Wolf Runepriest now nicknamed Gandalf, who's been holding back Greater Daemons, "you shall not pass!"
• a Blood Angel Librarian who's slowly descending into madness, like Death Company, has been a MVP
• a Daemon army, focusing on Greater Daemons, has been doing some crazy rituals to buff them

 

Even as a spectator, it's been kind of fun to follow along.  Lots of activity, you get these local stories, makes you see 40k in a new light.

 

I actually helped the Warhammer Store Manager testdrive the Crusade rules when they 1st came out and, then and now, the single-most obvious no-brainer upgrade is, if you have a Psyker (or multiple ones), that they can cast an additional Psychic Power.  Huge boost if just for a chance to threaten more Mortal Wounds.

[Toxichobbit]

My group has played Crusade exclusively this edition. It's been a breath of fresh air and has kept the game more interesting. However, there's been a pretty major issue with the haves and have nots when it comes to Crusade rules. Even now, when every army has Crusade rules, some of them are clearly indicative of a very different design paradigm. Marines and Necrons notably have really dull Crusade rules compared to later factions, especially masterpieces like T'au or Genestealer Cults.

 

That said, it's still been a really fun experience and harkens back to the old WD campaigns of 5th edition like Thorskinson's Island (I'll take any excuse to mention Thorskinson :D). Growing the army and leveling things up has been great, especially if you approach it by randomising everything rather than choosing. As someone else mentioned, some of the upgrades are obviously better than others, but that doesn't matter if the dice decide and ultimately it's been a much more interesting experience randomising than it was at first when we all just choose our upgrades (and everything ended up as dull carbon copies). 

 

On 12/1/2022 at 7:15 PM, Brother Captain Vakarian said:

I should know better than to let BoLS get my blood up, agreed! 
 

Definitely, I would not recommend Crusade for someone who games infrequently and doesn’t have something of a decent gaming group to build a campaign in. But, if you do have that and don’t mind a little extra book-keeping, it’s a blast. 

 

BoLS are a bunch of talentless hacks who are a blight on the hobby. Please GW, copyright strike BoLS into non-existence and make the world a better place.

 

But, they are endemic of a wider problem. "Influencers" have been making digs at Crusade since it came out. Some are respectful about it, like SS82, who just says Crusade isn't for me. Others, like WintersSEO,  think they need to keep commenting on how Crusade is bad and what narrative play should be. And like it or not, these people do have influence. The community does listen to them and is influenced by them. While I have no problem with people like SS82 saying they simply aren't interested (nobody has to like everything), I do have huge issues with people like Winters pushing their agendas onto the community and using their influence to attempt to change 40k (even if it's not their intention). 

 

Given that there's a much greater emphasis on competitive talk than Crusade within the general 40k community and very few influencers actually championing Crusade, alongside the poor reception of the campaign books, I'm worried that GW will see Crusade as a failure and drop it in 10th. Which will probably be the final straw for me to just skip the edition completely.

[Axineton]

Talking about crusade, Goonhammer put up an article yesterday or the day before about making their own balance Dataslate as GW haven’t done one for it. Here’s the article: https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-approved-the-crusade-balance-dataslate/

[jarms48]

2 hours ago, Axineton said:

Talking about crusade, Goonhammer put up an article yesterday or the day before about making their own balance Dataslate as GW haven’t done one for it. Here’s the article: https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-approved-the-crusade-balance-dataslate/

 

I don't see the point of this:

 

Crusade Relics, Artisan Bionics, page 323
Change the first sentence to read: “INFANTRY, CAVALRY, BIKER, or
MONSTER with a Battle Scar only.” Note that the unit retains this relic
even if it loses the Battle Scar later.

 

Players who want it will just purposely get their units killed to get it. 

[Xenith]

I really like it, but as a large part of my local gaming group were relatively new players, starting with 8th, the additional book keeping on top of other stuff was too much for them. Though the one that said that really wanted to do another Crusade campaign after the first one concluded. 

 

Balance is driven by the players, as with matched. It's no more unbalanced than matched, but maybe open to more abuse, so yea, if you have abusive players that absolutely must win at storytelling, then yes, maybe they'll ruin it for everyone. But they'll probably do that in matched play anyway. 

 

I have a Nid Crusade that I was running in 9th, that hasn't had a game since the new codex as I've focussed on Eldar, but I think I'll start up a new crusade campaign in the new year. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

I like the personal attacks on youtubers and websites. Very cool.

 

Crusade is not for me, makes a not very well balanced game even less balanced.

[Toxichobbit]

3 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

I like the personal attacks on youtubers and websites. Very cool.

 

Crusade is not for me, makes a not very well balanced game even less balanced.

 

They're not personal attacks on YouTubers (BoLS is definitely an attack, think of that what you will). It's a comment on their content, which is perfectly acceptable given their content is public and influences people. And when that content has a very real chance of influencing the future of 40k either by direct feedback to GW, or by turning members of the community against a game format they might otherwise play and enjoy, people need to speak out about it. BoLS are calling for Crusade to be removed from the core rules and added back later as a supplement. Winters has been quite vocal about not liking Crusade since the very start of 9th and gone into detail why in multiple videos and streams (I've watched quite a few of them because I'm a fan and both a member of his channel and Deployment Zone, hence why I used him as an example). Some of what influencers are saying I have issues with, some I don't. That's why I mentioned SS82 as another example, because he deals with it in a different way. He isn't interested in Crusade, he says that he isn't and moves on, which is far less damaging to the future of the game type. I think (and I'm not the only one) that it's very easy for influencers to be irresponsible with the effect they have on the community and multiple influencers (websites, YouTubers or whatever) bringing Crusade up over and over again and going into detail about why you don't like it, why it's a bad system and why it should be gotten rid of, is, IMO, straying into that irresponsibility.

 

Crusade isn't for everyone, we all know that. That's not an issue, we all like different things. Someone saying Crusade isn't for them (like you did) isn't an issue. People using a wide-reaching platform to say they don't like Crusade and why, again isn't an issue. People using a wide-reaching platform to continue being negatively vocal about Crusade or call for it's removal from the game is an issue, because they have influence and they have power. So I'm sure as hell not going to sit back and let that influence and power threaten a part of the game that I and (as evidenced in this thread) others enjoy without giving some pushback. 

 

I'm growing to hate the word influence(r). I think I need to look up a wide selection of synonyms.

[Noserenda]

Crusade is frankly the only thing that motivates me to play 9th, at least its some fun bloated mess unlike most of the codex content.

[MARK0SIAN]

I played a couple of Crusade campaigns in early 9th but none recently. I thought it was enjoyable to begin with but it felt like a lot of units quickly snowballed into monsters (and that was with rolling for the various honours etc). It was also a lot of extra bookkeeping. I don't think Crusade is bad or anything but it's not for me.

[Sherrypie]

Crusading with likeminded people is fun enough, a relatively light add-on layer when you don't necessarily have the time or will to create a full on narrative campaign. Better than pick-ups, but somewhat clunky without digital aids (which people have made aplenty, luckily). I do love that it keeps GW creating narrative content and ideas for different mechanics in codicies and White Dwarves, though, as every now and then there are enticing creative sparks in them (like the Torchbearer fleets or the Necron tomb maps).

[Xenith]

Yea, I think GW dragging it's feet on a digital crusade roster has probably contributed to some bad feeling towards it. We all know how much people hate pen and paper these days! A lot of people have preconceived notions about it, balance, etc, but these arguments don't really hold up to scrutiny as they're all based on personality which will affect the game no matter what style you play.

 

There's always someone that tries to win a co op game. 

[Cheex]

I love Crusade, so much so that I've been keeping a blog of it for the past six months:

 

 

Speaking of which, I've got another battle to post and a certain model to finish painting and photograph...