Crusade Games Crusade in 10th

[ZeroWolf]

We may get more information when they publish their crusade conversion article 

[ThePenitentOne]

Yeah, and that should be coming soon with Faction Foci almost at an end. Here's hoping.

[ZeroWolf]

Sprues and Brews have posted (well a couple of days ago) a dive into the crusade rules for 10th and the narrative aspect of the Tyrannic War.

 

https://spruesandbrews.com/2023/06/06/10th-edition-40k-crusade-review-tyrannic-war-supplement-warhammer-40000-leviathan/

[Blindhamster]

honestly sounds like crusade will be pretty good still

[ZeroWolf]

6 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

honestly sounds like crusade will be pretty good still

That's what I was thinking, I'm looking forward to trying it out and will be fun to do while I grow my nid army beyond the leviathan box

[Xenith]

That sprues and brews review is pretty decent - you can pause the vid and pretty much just read all the content, so I'm surprised they're allowed to do that 

 

I'm glad to see Crusade still exists, it was a fun way to engage my local player base - though some hated the roleplaying/levelling aspect, and it added another layer of complexity to an already complex game. Hopefully with less stuff to think about in 10th, Crusade might make a comeback! 

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

Thanks for sharing @ZeroWolf! Glad to see that Crusade is more or less intact and that the changes are largely balance passes rather than new paradigms. 

 

I’m very excited for Crusade in 10th now, my buddy and I are planning a campaign to map out a whole Nid invasion of a system starting with a space hulk full of stealers and ending with the hive fleet arriving. 

[ZeroWolf]

38 minutes ago, Brother Captain Vakarian said:

Thanks for sharing @ZeroWolf! Glad to see that Crusade is more or less intact and that the changes are largely balance passes rather than new paradigms. 

 

I’m very excited for Crusade in 10th now, my buddy and I are planning a campaign to map out a whole Nid invasion of a system starting with a space hulk full of stealers and ending with the hive fleet arriving. 

That sounds like fun!

[Frogian]

2 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

honestly sounds like crusade will be pretty good still

I feel it's hampered quite a bit (as is everything to an extent) by the 1k/2k/3k pts jumps - especially if you are using crusade to build a new army as people often have. Being able to start at combat patrol and slowly build up in increments over a campaign was great (and of course you can just abandon GW's restrictions here)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Frogian

[ThePenitentOne]

Alright- this is real information... 100x more informative than the one Warcom article on Crusade to date.

 

So let's start with the good:

 

I love all the RP changes. I love higher RP Costs; I love the bigger RP window, I love paying for limit break to raise non-characters beyond Battle-Hardened. All excellent decisions that will make long campaigning more fun and meaningful. I'm not sure that increased costs for more advanced characters to heal makes fluff sense- It would make more fluff sense to increase the cost of healing based on how many scars you had previously healed... So first Scar cost 1RP to remove, second Scar cost 2RP, etc... But that would add another layer of tracking. And while it may be a little on the shakey side fluff-wise, I like its impact on the game; once a unit becomes a Legendary death machine, using it as a blunt instrument to achieve everything that needs to be done was always the easy, clear strategy. Now, people will consider the risk to such a valuable unit, and attempt to use lesser units to achieve many of the lesser objectives. 

 

I like Crusade Blessing as the Crusade Point Balancing mechanism better than extra CP.

 

I like the mention of all the things that were kept, and I am glad that these things are still there.

 

Now onto the middling:

 

This article did not tell me the most important thing I needed to know: do Agendas still exist, and do they work the way they did before- confering XP rather than VP, and do they continue to interact with mid and long term goals faction based goals (Territorial Acquisition, Biomass Consumption, Sainthood, Penitence and Redemption, etc). If the answer to this question is yes, Crusade still has a soul, and it's the single biggest determinant on whether or not I buy into 10th. Now, I understand that as a Campaign supplement and not dex-based content, the interactions with faction-based goals may be hard to evaluate... But Agendas SHOULD have been a part of the supplement, and even just telling me they exist would go a long way to reassuring me.

 

Finally the bad:

 

The loss of 25PL equivalent missions and default starting place is a barrier to entry and a crippling blow to escalation, and campaign alliance playstyles. One of the reasons 25PL was such a favourite size for my crew is that Crusades could ally- So a 25PL CSM force might ally with 25PL of Daemons one week, play a small solo battle the next and ally with 25PL of Cultists the following week. The old detachment structure, where detachments weren't the source of flavour rules and armies of multiple detachments were common enough phenomena also helped to facilitate this playstyle, but the core rules of 10th have gutted that, and it's going to compound with the lack of 25PL support. This should at least be easy enough to houserule away.

 

The limit to one enhancement: this might be okay, because we still have Battle Honours... But to me, the requisition strats that let extra characters take WL Traits and Relics provided modelling opportunities that helped deal with streamlined equipment options in the core rules... Something that has become even a bigger deal in 10th. So I need more information before I can truly complain.  

 

Finally... And I know I'm going to get pushback on this, but here me out:

 

The loss of PL is a big deal. The absolute BEST thing about Crusade was that GW pretty much exempted it from what seemed sometimes like bi-weekly updates to Matched play. Every single time a 60 page thread of whining and hostility over points changes happened on Dakka, I thanked the Emperor for PL and Crusade. I don't want to have to recalculate the value of my roster everytime people who play in tournaments cry, whether that's once a year or twice, or quarterly or monthly. And it's far worse to have frequent changes in unit value in a roster based escalation game than it is a fixed point stand alone:

 

"Ooops, the new munitorum field manual pushes me over my roster cap and I don't have the RP to raise my supply limit to accommodate the changes. What the heck do I do now?"

 

Worse, it opens the gate to all the other sacrifices made to the game in the named of the sacred Chao of balance: Limits to Aircraft, limits to combined subfaction armies, etc. Ideally, 10th will require fewer of these anyway, but these changes were even worse than points changes when they happened. And once again, the fact that Crusade was exempted was one of my favourite things about Crusade.

 

The first dex will answer far more questions about the future of Crusade than a supplement can. The difficulty is that I need to know whether or not I want to buy in by pre-order, because those who don't get the Leviathan BRB are waiting awhile for the Crusade supplement.

[BluejayJunior]

What's to stop you from playing 500 point missions anyway? Just pick the Incursion rules and use 500 pts. I don't see what the big deal is. 

I didn't have a problem with PL, but it definitely hurt lots of units unless you went all out in giving them wargear. "I'm so happy Crusade rarely had balance changes" is such a weird take to me. But you had to have that completely unnecessary swiped at tournament players in there. If your roster is suddenly over your limit, you just use your next RP to increase the limit. Seems easy enough. 

Yeah, some of the faction specific Crusade stuff was flavorful, but they were not equal in power. Sisters lets you create an awesome Living Saint character, Guard had cool campaign badges. Meanwhile, Blood Angels is, well better hope you don't lose your character to Black Rage, with no upsides whatsoever. While the rules are nice to have, I'm perfectly fine creating my own story for my crusade force. Do you really need GW to hold your hand in order to make your own narrative? 

Edited June 7, 2023 by BluejayJunior

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

@ThePenitentOne the video review of the book shows that Agendas still exist in almost 100% the same format. They’ve just revised the amount of XP a unit gains for completing specific Agendas, and you always take 2 and only 2 agendas now, no matter the size of the battle. 
 

No word on faction-specific agendas, because this was just a review of the 10th equivalent of 9th’s BRB Crusade rules. But GW has stated specifically (I believe it was in the Crusade warcom article a week or two ago) that codexes will contain faction-specific Crusade content. 

[Oxydo]

@ThePenitentOne

 

Enhancement arent limited whatsoever in the Order of Battle from my understanding, just limited to 3 per battle. They also increase in cost based on how many you already have  up to 3 RP.

 

Here's a write up on what changed.

https://www.goonhammer.com/10th-edition-crusade-for-veterans-the-quick-list-of-whats-changed/

Edited June 7, 2023 by Oxydo
Added source

[Focslain]

Only issue i see so far is the enhancement limit. I have a decent amount of characters with relic/WLT in my rosters so will have to figure that out in the rebuilds. 

 

This is especially going to impact my knight force as in one roster I have 8 that are all have the character upgrade and either a relic/wlt, sometimes both.

 

Otherwise this is looking really nice and can't wait to see the admech and knight crusade rules

Edited June 7, 2023 by Focslain

[ThePenitentOne]

@Brother Captain Vakarian This is excellent news. I can houserule anything that doesn't match with things that are already motion. If Agendas exist, then even if a particular Agenda is absent from 10th, I can just import it from 9th.

 

@Oxydo and @Focslain Thanks for the clarification. It's still going to require a bit of wiggling, but it's doable.

 

@BluejayJunior If you reread my post, I myself mention that I can Houserule. Not a problem. Do I think it's a bad choice for the official rules to insist that some other player (who may not have the freedom to houserule) has to collect, build and paint twice as many models to start a Crusade? Yes, I do.

 

Also... I was wondering about hostility/ perceptions of my hostility, and you know what? You're right- my line in the OP about "everytime a tournament player cries" was heavy handed. So apologies for that if you felt personally attacked- not my intention.

 

The line about balance being the sacred Chao, however, remains. Prioritizing balance over all IS a legitimate point of view... But it's not the ONLY point of view. The 9th ed system of allowing Crusade to be more separate from the frequent balance updates that are beneficial to to tournament, or even casual competitive players of pick up games DID provide a way for people with different (but equally legitimate) gaming priorities to co-exist better than making Crusade more like Matched.

 

That's debatable, of course- this is my opinion, and mine alone- yours may vary.

[jaxom]

Quote

The Crusade game mode has been revamped, and you’ll even be able to update your existing campaigns for the new edition with free rules coming next week. This 184-page Crusade: Tyrannic War book provides the full new Crusade rules, then expands the experience with rules and missions that evoke the nightmarish Tyranid invasion at the heart of the Fourth Tyrannic War. 

Bespoke Battle Traits, Crusade Relics, Crusade Blessings and Agendas feature alongside traits for Monster Hunters and Striding Behemoths – usable by any faction, not just the hungry Hive Mind and its Imperial prey – as well as 15 Tyrannic War Crusade Missions that tell the story of the Galactic West under attack by numerous Hive Fleets. There’s also plenty of background information detailing this invasion and the consequences for the Bastior Sub-sector. 

Note that the printed contents of this book are the same as the Crusade section in the Warhammer 40,000: Leviathan Core Book – if you already bought Leviathan, you already have these rules and lore.

From today's preview article, emphasis added by me.

[painting.for.my.sanity]

19 hours ago, jaxom said:

From today's preview article, emphasis added by me.

 

Said rules are now up - https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/19/continue-your-crusade-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

[ThePenitentOne]

As expected, there isn't much to this document. Everything it contains was pretty much a no-brainer.

 

I wish GW would just come out and tell us the important pieces... I mean don't get me wrong, I already know the answer- you can't become an Honoured Matron of the Order and hand out Blessings of the faithful if Blessings don't exist. I suspect that all of the really good bespoke content- conquering territory, becoming a Saint, devouring a planet etc- will all be gone. The new edition doesn't have enough complexity to act as anchors for these concepts.

 

"If you're a Saint, use strat x for free" doesn't really feel very special, and the core rules are so lean, I'm not sure how they can make it work.

 

And even if they do, waiting for your dex to start your Crusade is brutal. The first big book of Crusade should have contain all the bespoke faction content rather than being a campaign supplement. GW needs to develop the mindset that an edition isn't complete until all dexes are out, and therefore campaign books wait until that point before they start to appear.

 

GW never will do this, of course. If they did, an edition would have to last more than 3 years in order to complete as much campaign stuff as they did in the last two editions.