243. How to use Chapter Approved 2026-27, full review

Covering everything from force dispositions, deployments, twists, and the primary and secondary missions. I do a deep dive and full review of Chapter Approved 2026-27.  

Watch along over on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sp6n_Bl6MJ0

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Hello everyone, it is episode two hundred and forty-three of the greatest ever podcast. Then all of a sudden I have stuck my flag into the claim. It belongs to me. Uh yes, this is looking at some podcast. I am Philip. This is a solo episode because I sort of worked out the for every two episodes I do with Tim and Richie, I tend to do a solo episode. So I thought now's a perfect time for a salo episode. Uh this episode, I am talking all about chapter approved, doing a deep dive into the rules, the contents, the concepts, the design and layout of the cards, and whether it is any good. Uh and do you know one thing I didn't talk about is the very concept that is a deck of cards in general. And Richie, who has been bugging me quite a bit uh about that concept, will be a bit disappointed. So I'm sorry, Richard, I didn't talk about it. But yes, Games Workshop seemed to be moving a lot of things into decks of cards as opposed to just books nowadays. Dominatus deck, the latest campaign system, is a deck of cards. It's not a book. Um Age of Sigma has cards, but slightly different, larger cards uh for the General's Handbook. Uh, yeah, that's an interesting concept. But yeah, there's a whole deep dive into chapter proof. Um I hope you enjoyed the episode. I'm not sure how long it will be once it's all edited together, but it feels like it was a long episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did recording it. Let's get on with the show. Transitional noise.

Chapter Approved

SPEAKER_02 2:06

So, in the main portion of this episode, we are going to be going through the chapter-approved deck, giving it a review, reading through some of it, trying to understand the mechanics of how 11th edition works. Now, it is very similar to previous editions. What do I have here? It's the last one. If you play 10th edition, this is what you would have used in the last year of the game. 2025 to 2026, similar setup, similar sizes.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Similar sizes, ever so slightly, different thickness, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, very slight, but noticeable, and I think that is because these contain thick objectives.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

This one doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So I've got a second camera set up so we can have a look at the actual contents. So the first thing we've got is the little booklet that comes with it, and the first thing you'll see is the introduction. We're not gonna read through that. We know what this game is all about, or at least I would hope so. But if not, you roughly know how 40k plays. And if you don't, this is literally the only way to play 40k. There is no core primary mission in the core rules. You can have the core rules available for free at Warhammer, um, as in the War Warhammer community website. You can download the core rules for free. You can have the core rules in said Armageddon box as well, in the printed physical copy. But in there, there's no ways about mustering your army, no ways about how to actually uh you know play an actual mission. It gives you the core rules for playing the game, but not actually setting up the game whatsoever. So for that, you do need this chapter-approved book. So in the contents, we've got the deployment deck, we've got the force distribution cards, the primary mission deck, the secondary mission cards, and the twist cards. Let's have a quick look through some of those things. And you also notice this pack contains six operation markers for each player, which are used to track their progress in a number of primary missions. Now these look exactly like the objective markers of old, slightly different in terms of size. And while they look a bit similar, they're actually doing a very different thing in the game. So let's look at these first of all. So they're not the standard 40 millimeter objective markers that you got in the previous deck. They're made of a much thinner material as well, and you get six of them. Now, these are not your objective markers. However, as we go through this booklet, you will still need objective markers unless you're playing the tournament layouts. Now, the tournament layouts aren't in here, you get some different layouts, and actually, how you play the game here is actually technically different from how you play it if you were playing the Warhammer 40k app, which allows you to set up and create your mission and also contains all the scoring stuff, very useful stuff. And in there, they give you the visual tournament layouts, which gives you the area terrain pieces that you put your terrain on. Uh, and that operates slightly differently from how you create your table via this chapter approved booklet. So, somewhat annoyingly, if you are trying to play 40k without an app, just using this, uh, you still actually also need some objective markers in addition to these as well. So, a bit frustrating that Games Workshop haven't given you a technically complete game. Uh, but that's only if you're using your own terrain pieces and you're not using the area terrain sort of templates that Games Workshop have been pushing very heavily uh this edition. So if you want to do it a bit more casual, you will need some objective markers. You could use Dart Counters, your old objective uh markers, because probably if you play 10th edition, you have this, and there are objective markers in this old chapter-approved uh book. Plus, everyone has objective markers normally. But if you're new to the game and you want to play it slightly more casually, you'll have to use something to represent them. I think on average, there's only three to four objective markers via this chapter approved. Uh, so you don't need a full set of six like you did in previous editions. Yeah. And then we'll get on to how the operation markers actually work and function when we get through reading some of the primary missions, because they basically correspond to those, and how they function is different in each primary mission, and some don't have it at all. So, yeah, they're kind of a nice little feature. It would be great if we also had objective markers in addition to this, because that's kind of how you need you need it, basically. Starting off in the reverse order of the operation markers, let's actually go through the rest in the contents order. So let's talk about the deployment deck. So the deployment cards are similar to how you got them in the previous editions. They've actually done a nice thing where the title is at the top and the bottom inverse. So your opponent can look at this um regardless of which way round you are placing it on the table, which is quite handy. But they're kind of universally uh neither the right way up or they are upside down. They are both at the same time. Um, although, actually, technically, when you look at it, the numbering for the measurements is all one way up. Now, if they had been maybe clever, maybe the lower half would have been the right way up and the top half would be upside down because that relates to the person closest to them. So, you know, in this example here, uh, this is a crucible of battle, so it's sort of diagonal deployment zone. And if I'm looking at the lower half of the map, that's the bit that's closest to me. So therefore, I need those measurements facing me. I don't care about my opponent's measurements because chances are they're setting up their objectives and their deployment zone. So that's on them. So ideally, one extra thing I would maybe change about this is the direction of some of those measurements. Otherwise, it mostly makes sense. At the very back of the book, there is a of the booklet, should I say, is a key talking about these deployment cards. So obviously, red is the attacker deployment zone, blue colour represents the defender's deployment zone, and then that kind of grey colour is no man's land. Then we have the areas donated uh denoted by the attacker territory and the defender territory. This is normally the halfway point of the map split in the direction of the deployment zones. Now, this might vary from game to game. So for example, sweeping engagement, which has this kind of weird offset step deployment zone, then actually the positioning of the attackers and defenders' territory is terrible. Like I would have personally just split this down the middle. Uh, instead it's slightly offset by 19 inches uh across the board, uh, which makes things a bit awkward when it comes to if you actually do need to determine the attackers and defenders' territory at some point due to maybe a secondary objective. That maybe makes things a bit more complicated. Anyway, regardless of that, let's move on. Uh we've also got the attacker's battlefield edge and defenders' battlefield edge. These go along basically your board edge that you'd be closest to, predominantly when you're playing a game, and that's just denoted on the edges of the map. And then lastly, we have the objective points. So we've got the home objective, which tends to be the objective in your deployment zone. There tends to be a central objective, which is always in the middle, hence why it's in the center, and then you have expansion objectives which tend to be slightly offset. So, in general, there is one, two, three, four, five objectives, and actually on a dice roll, that central objective can split into two. So there are six in total. So, actually, maybe I was incorrect when I said earlier there tends to be four because I was forgetting about your home objectives. I was just thinking about these expansion objectives. The expansion objectives are basically ones in no man's land, and they tend to be drawn a line between the two corners of the map going through the center.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And you can sort of see how this replicates in the other cards.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

So let's have a quick look at some of them. So, yeah, crucible of battle is uh diagonals going from one of your corners up to the halfway point of your table in a sort of long ways, fighting down the table. Uh sweeping engagement is technically the old hammer and anvil. So you're fighting uh your deployment zone is at the long edge, you're fighting across the short edge of the table, and it's a stepped deployment zone, so one half is out further than the other. Dawn of War is the classic one where you're deployment zones along the long edge and you're fighting sort of across the short edge, if that's the best way to describe it. And this probably has the most standard in terms of the uh layout. And again, likewise, maybe they should pivot the numbers sideways this time. Because you would put it down on the table like this, uh, not like this, and when it comes to measuring. So I think having the numbers face the direction that you would be looking in would make a bit more sense. Uh, tipping point is very similar to sweeping engagement. Uh, so again, it's got a stepped deployment zone, but this time you are fighting your deployment zone is along the short edge and you're fighting up the long edge of the table. Cameron Anvil, the other classic standard, which is fighting down the length of the table where you've got a short edge for your deployment zone, and then search and destroy is the other kind of classic where it's table quarters. Uh, so you have one quarter that your opponent has the opposite, and then there's a nine-inch sort of denial area, so you have a circular cutout of your deployment zone. So that's all quite straightforward. And here you can see where the home objectives are placed, your expansion objectives are going through that diagonal middle corner to corner, cutting through that central objective. And they don't all follow that. So, for example, the hammer and anvil deployment zone, your central objectives are positioned uh in a way so they're still in no man's land. And basically, because if they were going through those corners, so top right, bottom left, as shown here on the picture. Sorry if you're listening along on the podcast, it's slightly harder to describe. Uh, but they would basically end up in your territory, your deployment zone. Uh, we don't want that, so that's why they've been shifted upwards slightly. So I think that is the sort of general rule in terms of how they've done things for those. Now there's these new stepped deployment zones, that's different from 10th edition. I think it makes a bit easier in terms of measuring for setup rather than having these convoluted, measuring up both sides, drawing your tape measure across. So I think from a practical point of view, that makes a lot more sense. Uh, somewhat annoying that they haven't just replicated that step in the territory, I think would make things a bit easier because that measurement line is a bit funny. Um, but overall, these seem uh pretty good, I would say. So, next up in the contents is the false disposition card. You get two sets of five cards, and this relates to the actual mustering of the army and the mission sequence. Uh, obviously the deployment deck does as well, but towards the end. So let's go through the first two steps. Uh, step one, muster an army as describing in the app. 2,000 points, 1,000 points. Create your army list. That's all that means. Step two, determine your mission. So each player secretly chooses one force disposition card, which is one of these you can see here on the right hand side if you're watching along on YouTube. Um, as determined when mustering your army. So when you muster your army, you are selecting detachments. Each detachment has a force disposition related to it. Uh, I think so far all of them only have one. I would personally like to see some of the two and three DP detachments give you uh multiple uh force detachments. Um, sorry, force dispositions, so you have a bit of flexibility in playstyles for those uh lists. The only way you can have an army with multiple force dispositions is to have a three DP game, so 2,000 points, and you select ultimately a uh a two DP detachment and a one DP detachment that have different force dispositions, or potentially, if you're a mad person, three one DP detachments, which I don't think is really viable. I'm sure you could do it, it just would be dreadful because and and I don't even know if there are enough uh 1DP detachments for all the armies. I mean, maybe one or two has one that where you could have all three of them, and potentially you might have that way three different force dispositions to choose from. Although I suspect even if you were to take three different detachments, some of those might still have the same force disposition. So you've got options of force dispositions, you select one of those force dispositions, which ultimately affects the playstyle of how you play the mission. Uh, then together you reveal with your opponents your force disposition cards, which we'll go through in a second. Uh, you then find your opponent's force disposition symbol on your force disposition card. The primary mission that is listed below, that symbol is your primary mission, which describes how you score victory points. So if we flip over to the other side, because this isn't very clearly labelled in most other places, you have the actual force disposition types. So it says, designers know if you both have the same force disposition card, you will have the same primary mission. So you're playing the same game. There are two copies of each of these cards so that you can have one each. Um, so that's quite handy in terms of the mission, so you can have one copy of it each. Um, so there are five different types. That is take and hold, which as far as I'm aware, is going out, score and objectives. Disruption is basically stopping your opponent from doing things, um, which we're getting to when we talk about primary missions. Uh, purge of a foe, which is kill stuff. Uh priority assets, um, I think that is doing actions. Do you know what I'm not entirely sure? And then there's reconnaissance, which I think is more about uh positioning on the tabletop in terms of like you're going out and doing things or you're going around to two different parts of the table, for example. Um, but not entirely sure because I haven't really looked through those. And Classic Games Workshop haven't ever explained it anywhere for anyone, really, or at least not in this book. There's no brief overview going, what do these represent? I've got to find that out for myself. And that was something I mentioned when we went through the core rules. This whole section is key to playing the game. The core rules have changed a little bit, but this is fundamentally the big change for 11th edition. It's how you play the game. That's the wildly different thing that will stand out between 10th and 11th edition, in my opinion, anyway. Uh, and the fact that I haven't really done a great job explaining that to people. There's been some Walcom articles, but no official resource, which just gives you a brief overview of what all those things are. So, yeah. Uh obviously we're going with the rest of the battle sequence as we go through the different cards. Um, but as a brief overview, you determine your deployment. So we've already talked about deployment zones. Uh there's an optional twist card set of decks, which we can look through. You then create your battlefield, which is the actual tabletop terrain objectives. For example, uh determine attacker, defender, select secondary objectives. Uh, you can have fixed for losers, uh, or tactical secondary missions, which is the fun way of playing, uh, and then how you actually achieve those secondary missions, declare battle formations, deploy your armies, redeploy units, determine first turn, and resolve battle, sorry, pre-battle rules. Then you begin the battle, then you end the battle, then you determine the victor. Uh so towards the end, we're going through all of this in a bit more detail, but predominantly for now I just want to talk about the different cards are in the deck and how that goes around creating the mission and how you go about playing the game. So, as I mentioned, you get a set of five cards, and you actually you get two of them, uh, one for each player. So you've got taken hold, purge the foe, uh disruption, reconnaissance, and priority assets, and then you just have another duplicate set for your opponent to have. And ultimately, this is a set of ten cards. So ten cards, quite a bit of space in that deck, and it is replaced very easily, and put those other ones out of the way, replaced very easily with a simple tap on the app. So if you're creating the missions in the app, you select uh your you select your army list, you get one to three potentially, but normally two. Um forced dispositions, you select which one you're gonna do. Your opponent does the same, uh, and then it basically gives you this. It's doing all the legwork for you. There's no like secret reveal or anything like that. Um so this feels much more complicated than it really is, and does take a bit of getting used to, I think, as well. But the app sort of streamlines it completely and makes us way more seamless than having to use a bunch of cards. Um but you can see here, so take and hold, that's the main one. If you and your opponent are both of the same force disposition, which has taken hold, you are doing battlefield dominance, which you can see below. If, however, your opponent is doing purge of foe, they are doing a movable object. And likewise, on the purge of a foe card, if your opponent was the purge of a foe player and you are the take and hold player, they are playing in unstoppable force. Now, one thing that was never very clear in the Games Workshop Warcom articles or the videos, the FAQs, I assume these are two completely separate missions. But actually they are intrinsically linked. It's basically two halves of the same coin. So it is effectively the same mission, but you have different ways of scoring in that mission. And that was sort of a slightly obfuscated, I think. But it is interesting that they do tie together, and that is quite important when it comes to some of the primary uh missions, but also got to remember the name of it, the operation markers. So the operation markers relate to some of the primary stuff, and actually you won't ever get a situation from what I gather where you both need different sets of operation markers because you only get a set of six. Uh they are, and in fact, I didn't show you, they are in fact double-sided. So one side is red, one side is blue for attacker and defender. That is because normally, depending on the mission type, the attacker or the defender, one of the players, will be setting them up or using them, and then the other person might be interacting with them in a different way. So in the one test game that I've had so far, I believe I was playing I think I was playing maybe delaying action. No. I'll have to look it up. I was playing one of these. I was playing um I think it might be in Smoke and Mirrors, for example. Um, and then Richard would have been playing. If I can have a look at these cards. Um surveil the foe. Now I'm not entirely sure if that was uh the actual one, but in this example, let's just uh pretend um it was. And basically I got some operation markers and got to put them down on the table on different train pieces. Uh he, Richard, got to scan those operation markers to score VP, whereas I got to do an action to uh scan a marker to remove it so he couldn't scan it. So I was doing disruption, I was denying him from doing something, and I had a different scoring mechanic. Um, so that was when I realized for the first time, oh yeah, these two uh are actually related. These missions aren't completely separate things. I always assumed Purge the Foe was you would just have one of five random, I'm attacking you sort of missions. Um but actually that's not quite the case. Um, it will tie in with what your opponent is also doing, which makes sense, I think, but I don't think Games Workshop did a particularly great job of explaining that, I think. So maybe let's take a look at some of these cards, have a read through them and try and understand how these primary missions take place. Now, as I said, working out what your primary missions are is a little bit of a faff. It feels quite complicated, and having to search through the cards, because if I explain here, so let's say I'm doing disruption. So let me get the disruption cards out because that's the ones I was playing with last. There is, I think it's five, one, two, three, four, five, six cards uh for the missions, but obviously two are duplicated, the outmaneuver ones here in this example, because you might be playing the same one. You've got to find this set. Now, weirdly, nowhere on these cards does it actually say I'm disruption, which is a bit annoying because it's like this is the disruption deck, but I actually have to know the symbol or the colour to make that really obvious. So, personally, I would like this design to say disruption on it. Um personally. Uh so yeah, you have your card. This is obviously symbol focused lead. So, bottom left-hand corner, there's a big symbol full disruption, but then on the right hand side, it gives you what your opponent has. So you can say, Okay, I am doing the delaying action because I'm disruption, and my opponent is purged a foe. This is the card that I need. Uh, also worth noting that some cards will have a little triple arrow, triple chevron, uh, on the bottom right-hand corner. That's to tell you to flip it over because there's more stuff on the other side, and on the other side is always the action that you need to do, uh, or potentially uh you or and your opponent might be doing. But normally um it's a similar action. If one person can do it, I think the other person can also do it as well, but you might just score slightly differently. Uh, and then on the front is all your win conditions and along with a bit of flavor text. So, one thing when you're looking at all the different force disposition cards, if you flip it over, you can instantly see in this set I have uh, well, because the first two are duplicated, so I have two missions that require no actions and three missions that do require actions. Which, you know, does my army that wants to kill things, or my personal play star want to just kill things to keep things simple? Do I want to be doing actions, especially with custodies? The answer is no. So probably, even though I have a detachment which is encouraging me to do disruption, I might not personally want to do disruption, um, which is a problem all and in and of itself. Um, so yeah, that's roughly how the cards look. Um, let's take these disruption uh force disposition cards away, shall I say? Let's take those ones away. Let's have a quick look at the other cards. So there was disruption, there is all the purge the foe cards. There is all the I've already got the oh no, these are all correct. Yeah, yeah. The green ones, which I've already forgotten what they are. Um they can hold. Then the yellow ones are priority assets, and the reconnaissance ones, uh, which I had hidden up here. Uh, yeah, the reconnaissance ones. Okay, so that's quite a lot of cards uh to deal with. But obviously, only you need one deck, your opponent needs probably one of the other decks, and out of these, you only need one of the cards. So, again, using the app does all of this for you. Um, whereas doing it manually via the cards is a little bit of a faff because you've got to sort them out, you've got to find your card, um, you've got to find your opponent's card. And in a way, you need to not only understand how you're playing the game, you need to understand how your opponent is playing the game. So you need to read and understand how you're scoring, and you also need to read and understand how they're scoring as well, which is sort of a big ask, if I'm honest. That's a lot of mental load as you're playing the game to try and understand. Now, you could go like, I don't care how my opponent's gonna play it, I'm just gonna play my half of the game, but then you're not necessarily gonna understand how to deny your opponent from scoring, which is obviously a fundamental uh you know, skill in terms of playing. And then there's not just these decks either, there's also the secondary mission deck as well, which you're drawing every turn, and that gives you a guidance on additional ways of scoring. So it's not just this. This is complicated. These primary missions are complicated enough in and of themselves to be an endurable game and to you know focus on playing the battle, killing things predominantly. Uh, but then secondary missions have you going off doing other actions, going off to different table quarters, bits of terrain, uh, killing specific things. Um, and I just feel like that is personally too much. That is uh maybe a summary I'll try and uh go into a bit more detail towards the end. But for now, let's look at some of these uh missions, understand how we score it, and how the two sides of the same coin uh interact with each other. So, yeah, let's say I am playing disruption, because that's the one I talked about, um, and I am gonna play against Persia Foe. So I need to do delaying action. Uh, so out of these cards, we are going to find the delaying action card. So I can put those other ones away. Uh, let's also take these other cards off for now, and then the other force disposition I'm doing is um I'm purged a foe playing disruption, so therefore I need the punishment card, which is this one, and then if you look at the symbols, they're gonna match up. So the blue one is me in this example, and then it's saying my opponent is the red one, and then likewise it's red and blue in those corners. So there's a nice handy way of working out what people are doing. I would still love it if just maybe underneath these icons, the big ones, it just said, you know, purg the foe, disruption, etc. Um, the left-hand side gives you just a tagline that says it is the primary mission, and then also the title of that mission itself. So for delaying action, because I'm disruption, this is their mission. Your enemies are on the march. Commit your warriors to battle and make the foe pay a bloody price for every foot of ground. Uh, so you score several different things. So when it's any battle round at the end of your turn, for each enemy unit destroyed this turn, I score two VP. So a general just kill things. Second battle round onwards, uh, it's the end of your command phase or the end of your turn, if it's the fifth battle round, which is a general stipulation that we see now, regardless of whether you were first or second. So that is, I think, a nice quality of life change from older editions. If you control one or more objectives, excluding your home objective, which is the one in your territory, you will score four victory points. And then at the end of your turn, uh, if you control one or more central objectives and one or more expansion objectives, you also get free VP. Um, so quite straightforward. And of this one, there is no extra action. Um, and then your opponent is doing punishment, those who resist must be punished. Make a bloody example of them and leave none in doubt as to your mastery. So this one says the start of your turn, select one to three enemy units that are on the battlefield and within range of objectives and/or that destroyed one or more friendly units in the previous turn. If you cannot select one enemy unit that is on the battlefield until the start of your next turn, those units are condemned. Uh so this is a bit tricky. So you do it at the start of every turn. Finding a unit that is within range of an objective, easy. It's and or, so it doesn't really matter if you've done one or the other, it really just means all. Um or a unit that destroyed one or more friendly units in the previous turn. So that is something you need to kind of remember that they did. So I guess potentially having little token on them just to remind you. Uh, because actually, you know, a whole turn ago could have been 30 minutes ago, depending on, or maybe longer, depending on how slow you play or what turn it is. Uh, for example. Um, so yeah, that's something you've got to remember. Those units are condemned. So at the end of any battle round, uh, it's the end of the turn. One or more condemned enemy units left the battlefield this turn, you score five BP, left the battlefield. Uh, doesn't just mean destroyed, although that is one way you can leave the battlefield. But I guess if they also were doing what people called happy-downy before, um, if they're leaving the uh battlefield to basically do an ingress move in the following turn um by like a redeploy, uh that would also be how they would leave. So you could score that way as well. Uh, then second battle round onwards, it's the end of your command phase or the end of your turn if it's the fifth battle round. So again, that same qualifier. Uh, you control one or more objectives excluding your home objective, four VP. You control more objectives than your opponent's five VP. So again, that is slightly different. So you're you're both scoring four VP for controlling one or more objectives, excluding your home objective. That's the same, but your sort of extra VP is a different thing. And then also at the end of a battlefield, you control your opponent's home objective, you get eight VP. So that is a really huge, uh big swing. So yeah, even though yeah, that's a it's sort of interesting. So if you're doing disruption, you're scoring uh two VP for each enemy unit you destroyed. Your opponent is scoring five VP for each condemned unit they destroy, or just happens to leave the battlefield. Uh, then as someone that's doing the disruption, I'm scoring four VP. We're both scoring four VP for controlling one or more objectives. Uh and then lastly, if you're doing disruption and you control one or more central objectives and one or more expansion objectives, it's three VP, so you've holding two objectives basically. Uh but uh the person doing purge a foe gets five VP for controlling more objectives than your opponents, which is much bigger. Uh, but you still need to score at least two objectives to be able well, no, technically not. If they didn't have any objectives, you could just be on one. Um, so that's an interesting qualifier because I think your potential to score more points is greater here, but depending on how well or badly you're doing, this might be easier or harder than your opponents, also depending on how many objectives there are on the battlefield. Um, but then lastly, at the end of your turn, uh the end of the battle you can score up to eight VP, which is a big swing, uh, but you've got to be on your opponent's home objective. Um, yeah, but your other opponent is scoring two VP for literally each enemy unit destroyed. So if you if the Persia Foe player is nice, this is perfect for you because you've probably only got four units, five units maybe. Um so the number of VP that they can score is kind of hamstrung, whereas if you're a player with an awful lot of units, their potential for killing stuff is much greater. Whereas you score five VP, uh, select one to three enemy units on the battlefield. So you can still also score more. You have to kill less though, so in a way that's better. Personally, out but two, it's a bit neck and neck, and it's hard to say. Obviously, this is meant to be balanced, right? Um potentially I personally prefer Perch of foe, I want to say, just because you have some bigger swings, you get to select um the enemy units that you want to kill, but you are kind of limited. So they have to be within range of an objective or killed something that killed one of your units in the previous turn. Um, whereas the person doing the delaying action, the disruption, just gets two VP. It's sort of a bit more of a switch your brain off. I'm just doing this, I don't really need to worry who I'm killing, I just need to kill stuff. So that one gives you a bit more flexibility, I think. Yeah, they're both good. I'd sort of happily play both of those, both sides of those missions. Um, let's find one more uh disruption one, and one more Persia Foe one, and uh let's find an action one so we can talk about that. So I guess the other thing I'm just gonna interject with is if your opponent always likes to play Persia Foe and you can only like to play Disruption, you're always playing this mission. There's no variety in your mission whatsoever. You're always gonna have the same primary regardless. So if you're playing the same opponent multiple times, or they or you and your friends all have the similar play style and you don't like to mix things up, you're gonna always ultimately end up playing quite similar missions over and over. And again, I guess that's where the variety of the secondary deck comes in to kind of keep things fresh and mixed up. And obviously, you can always do different deployment zones, table layouts, things like that. So that's the only one interesting thing. And obviously, Purge Dafoe doesn't have any actions in the deck, so we'll have to look at something else instead. Okay, so I found the cards that I played against Richie. This was the mission. Uh, so again, using this uh matrix of force disposition, um I am playing against priority assets. Uh, again, this does not give me the names of anything, it's just icons. Um, so I'm disruption. Richie was priority assets. Yep, that's the name of it, got to remember. Um, so I am playing locate and destroy, and then he is playing extract the relic. Now, in theory, you could just look at the cards in your deck and go, okay, cool, I'm disruption, your priority assets. So these are the cards we need. In a way, you could have under uh your opponent's icon the name of the mission there as well. Um, and then that would maybe make it a bit easier because you could say to your friend, oh cool, I found my card, uh, yours is this one. Uh, but you could just search for the icon. Uh, in a way, if you used just these two icons at the bottom of the cards, uh, you could kind of do away with this whole matrix because you could find them this way. Although it's a bit of a shuffling around to try and find them. So this one has actions uh involved in it. Uh it would be interesting, and I'll have a quick look and I'll you know, I'll do a break and we're we'll see if I could find one. It will be interesting to see if there is a mission that only one side has an action to it and the other one doesn't do it at all. Uh which would be interesting. It'd be interesting. So you are disruption, you are doing locate and destroy. The enemy is searching for an asset of value by cunning or by force of arms, prevent its retrieval. So at the start of the battlefield, you select five terrain areas not within your deployment zone. For each one, place one of your operation markers within it. So again, this is where the operation markers come in. If you cannot do so for each terrain area that is not within your deployment zone. So if you cannot do so for each area terrain that is not within your deployment zone, so you start off trying to do five that aren't in your deployment zone, and then if not, you just do it to all of them. So it's basically up to five, depending on how many bits of terrain there are in total. Uh, and it's specifically within your deployment zone, so it can go into your opponent's deployment zone as well. So you score any battle round, end of the turn, one or more units that started the turn within range of one or more objectives are destroyed, four victory points. So kill a unit, uh that's within range of an objective marker, four victory points. Quite straightforward. Uh one or more of your operation markers is on the battlefield, see reverse. If one or more of the of your units are within the same terrain area as that marker, and no enemy units are within that terrain area, four victory points. And you know what? I think I completely forgot about this one when I was uh playing the game. Uh so maybe I should have um thought about it a bit harder. Because that basically turns your operation markers also into objective markers, um, so long as none of the enemy is within it. And then from the second battle round onwards, at the end of the command phase or end of the your Turn if it's the fifth battle round. If you control one or more objectives, excluding your home objective, four victory points, that is also the same for your opponent. And then lastly, at the end of the battle, this one's almost similar to your opponents. Only one of your operation markers is on the battlefield. If one or more of your units are within the same terrain area as that marker, and no enemy units are within that terrain area, five victory points. So that only happens if there's one operation marker left. And how, PrayTail, do you only end up with one operation marker when you have put down up to five? Well, that is done via the action. So if you flip it over onto the other side, you have an action called sensor sweep. It's the start of your shooting phase. One friendly unit has to be within range of one of one central objective. Depending on the mission, there could be two. So you only need to be in um contention for one of them. The use limit is once per turn. It's the end of your turn if your unit controls that objective. So basically, you start in your shooting phase, it's complete at the end of your turn. So your opponent can't really stop you in any way. And it doesn't really matter if uh your opponent is within range of you, for example, you just need to control the objective. Um, and then the restriction, uh, sorry, the effect is your unit performs a center sweep, remove one operation marker from the battlefield, and then the restriction is a unit cannot start this action if there's only one operation marker on the battlefield. So you basically remove objectives, operation markers, sorry, because they're not objectives, operation markers from the battlefield, going from your five down to one to a minimum of one, and then when you get to that one, you are then in contention for the end of the battle around for an extra five victory points. Um so relatively straightforward-ish uh mission. And then your opponent is doing extract the relic, a priceless relic saturated with Eldritch power lies somewhere on the field of battle. Secure the sensor ray at the heart of the battlefield and direct its energies to locate the prize. So the theming's really good here. The middle objective is some kind of sensor sweep uh device, and it allows you to scour all these potential locations which have been marked by the operation markers, and uh each time it sort of reduces one down, and then that last one left is the Eldritch relic that you're fighting over, basically. Um, I don't think we ever quite got there. We we got down to two operation markers in our game. Uh, we didn't quite get down to the final one. So good theming, you could set up your terrain so that middle mark is some kind of device rather than a ruin, which is just what we had it as. Um, and how do you score if you are doing priority assets? Um, so any battle round, end of your turn, a friendly unit performs the sensor sweep this turn, see reverse, you just get four VP. So you get four VP for just doing the action. Uh but the other person, me in this example, got four VP for just sitting on uh one of those um operation markers, which yeah, I I forgot about when I was playing. Um then also one or more enemy units that started this turn is within range of one or more objectives are destroyed uh for three VP. So one of your enemy units uh that's within range of the objective markers destroyed to get three VP. I get four VP for being on it. So there's a plus one trade-off in theory if I'm sat on one of those objectives. Sorry, operation markers, uh, we get there in the end. Um and then lastly, uh only one of your opponent's operation markers on the battlefield. If one or more of your units are within range of the terrain area and that operation marker and no enemy units are within that terrain area, uh you get four VP. So, yeah, that is the same as the last point for the any battle round for your um opponent or for me in this example. Uh so that's the same. So there's only one operation marker left, you score four VP. Uh, but at the end of the battle round, you score five VP for it. Um and similarly, when it's for second battle round onwards, you control one or more objectives, including your home objective, you score four VP. So there are across both cards one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine different ways of scoring in addition to your second remissions. This is a lot of mental load. Now, some of these are quite similar, some of these end a battle round. Um, but there are still three things to four things for you and your opponent. Uh, some are the same, but some are different. Um, and that's just quite a lot to get hold of. And your first game, very confusing. I'm sure if you play this several times over, you'll get hang of it. Um, potentially. Um, yeah. It's um, yeah, it was a fun mission. So let's flip over just to show you the action. Um, and I believe it is exactly the same uh doing the sensor suite. Yeah, the wording is exactly the same across uh both of them. So you're both doing the same action. It was quite interesting because at one point me and Richie were looking at it, and Richie wasn't sure that I could do it because uh he definitely scores victory points uh when he does it. And I was like, oh no, I get to do it, I just sort of deny you an objective. Um, because I deny him four victory points if I can get rid of them. But at the same time, I'm denying myself four victory points for being sat on them. So do I even want to do this action? I'm not sure. And as I said, I'm Custody's Thunder Warriors player. I just want to be killing stuff. That's sort of the fun aspect of it. And I have such a low model count, I can't really afford to be doing a lot of actions, especially when I'm playing knights. Um, so in theory, yes, this is a mission that for disruption has an action in it, but it's worth bearing in mind that you don't actually need to be doing the action to score in, I think, in this mission. So that's another thing to bear in mind when you're looking at these cards. And again, there's a whole aspect around mustering your army, writing your army list, the order in which you need to write your um army list. I would say you would have to find a force disposition that you want to play. That is your play style. You then need to find out of that force disposition what detachments your faction has that correlate to that force disposition. So you are then locked in to that detachment, or potentially you go, well, I've got to take that, but it's not very good. Um, but if it's only a one or two um DP detachment, maybe it's not a big deal. I'll take the one I really want to play, um, but I'm just taking this bonus force disposition um just to unlock the detachment. So uh sorry, the force disposition. So for example, if I want to play force, if I want to play purge of a foe as a custodies, I have to take a there's literally only one detachment that has purge the foe, and that's is specifically a one DP detachment around Walker units, around the custodies dreadnoughts, basically. I don't have any dreadnoughts in my army, but if I'm playing a three DP 2000-point game, I could take my current favourite um lions detachment, um, Emperor's Lions, I think it's called, um, which is two DP, and then I could just bolt on this walkie unit for one DP, even though I don't get any of the buffs whatsoever. Uh, but it basically unlocks the force disposition that I actually want to play, which is madness, right? That I have to build my army in such a weird, meticulous way to play the game, and to work out what kind of force disposition I actually want to play, I need to read through five different cards to see all the possible missions that I am playing. And if you are someone that plays like that, if you are someone that has a particular playstyle or an army that leans into one of these playstyles more than the others, you're effectively going to be playing one to five missions. Um, well, you're gonna be playing the same five missions again and again if you play the same uh disposition over and over again, which maybe gets a bit samey. I feel like in the previous decks, you had a bunch of random missions that you were playing that were maybe slightly more than five. So at least there'd be perhaps greater variety. I mean, this in theory unlocks way more variety. You could be playing, I think, what, 25, 30 different missions if you were playing across the gamut of all the false dispositions, and your opponents were as well, which yeah, feels a bit unlikely. So, yeah, I'm gonna pause here for a second. I'm gonna have a bit of a deep dive, try and find a mission that maybe just maybe has only one player doing an action. Um, and if not, I'll let you know right away. So, but via the power of editing, I am back immediately. You've not had to wait around, there's been no transitional noise whatsoever. So I've sorted out the missions into three different piles. Technically there was a fourth, but I've coalesced them into here. So I've basically paired up each mission uh basically based on the force disposition. So, for example, the first one, meat grinder, is also primed up with meat grinder, because you are doing the same mission, and I've done that throughout all of them. Uh, so I've now got the missions formed in their pairs, they're two halves of the same coin as I've been calling it. What it turns out is you have only 15 missions within this whole deck. Um, in terms of the mission where you're playing exactly the same mission as your opponent, there's only five because there's basically only one pair for each disposition. So that is these uh not these cards, because they're the ones I've then intermingled into these piles. So there are five of those, which, like I said, is meat grinder, and uh then there's another one here, which is for take and hold. Uh, interestingly, on this one, and I presume this is a printing design error, uh, on the take and hold primary mission, um, it doesn't say anything on one of the cards, but on the other one, it does say primary mission take and hold. Uh, and that's the only card I've noticed that has it on. Maybe there's some others. Um, but on the duplicates, uh, for example, Meat Grinder, it doesn't say that, it just um says Meat Grinder. Uh so yeah, very odd that this one specifically says take and hold here. You know, when I've been saying I wish somewhere they would say what the force disposition is on these actual mission cards, that they did originally have it here, and then they forgot to take it off of this one card. Um potentially that's the case. Uh yeah, personally, I would have put it down by the icon. Um, sorry, you can't say on the camera, put it down by the icon on the bottom left-hand corner. Um, sort of makes sense to have it up there, but maybe they should have kept that in, but they thought it was too wordy for some reason. Um yeah, so those are those cards. Then I've now sorted them into my three piles. So the first pile is the cards that have no actions in them whatsoever. There's a total of six of these. Then there are the piles that have uh two actions each. Um, so basically both player is doing the action, that is four uh missions, and then the last pile is where only one player is doing an action and the opponent isn't doing that, that is five missions. Uh, and also I've done a little count, and there are seven missions in total that use the operation markers, so half. So, yeah, quite an interesting breakdown. Feels relatively balanced. Um, I think in terms of the force dispositions that use the operation markers, it tends to be one of the players is uh using disruption or reconnaissance. So I think those are the two force dispositions that are themed around using these operation markers. I'm not 100% accurate on that, but from having a look through that seemed to be uh the case. Let's have a couple of read-throughs for some of these missions. Uh, we're gonna do one where it's the same, one where they're all same slash no um uh actions. We're gonna look through one mission, which is one action only, uh, which is this one on the right hand side, and then in the middle, one that's both doing action. So we'll have a little read through of all of them, and then we can cast our final judgment on how this game gets played once we've uh read through the rest of the booklet uh so we don't forget about this bad boy. Okay, so let's pick a mission for us to read. You know, being slightly biased, let's just do meat grinder because that'll be nice and easy, uh, because we only need to read one of them. So, meat grinder is if you're both doing purge the foe, vicious and without relent. This battle has descended into base savagery. Only one path to victory remains. Kill more of the enemy than they kill of you.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Perfectly simple. I like the sound of this. So what happens? It's at the end of any battle round, the end of the turn, one or more enemy units were destroyed this turn, you score three VP. And then from the second battle round onwards, I'm gonna stop repeating myself, but it's the end of the command phase normally, or the end of the turn. If it's the fifth battle round, you control one or more objectives excluding your home objective for four victory points. And I think in general, the stipulation is now also you control an objective excluding your home objective. So your home objective for you personally is pointless, it only tends to count for your opponent. So you could push off of your objective all the time if you feel confident that your opponent can't get to it, and that is a pretty big caveat in where it's encouraging you to go forwards. You don't need to worry so much about sticking a unit on there to just be redundant. You don't maybe need to worry so much about sticky objectives because your home objective doesn't score you any points, but you do need to factor in that your opponent is gonna want to be on it. So if they've got deep striking or a way of doing a rapid ingress move, that is something you're gonna have to be aware of when you play uh missions regarding your home objective. Then from the second battle round onwards, end of your turn, more enemy units were destroyed this turn than friendly units were destroyed in the previous turn, uh, which is an interesting one if you're going first and well, this is why it's second battle round onwards, actually. So forget I said that. Um, but yeah, you've got uh uh keep track of what your opponent killed in the previous turn. So that's something that worth bearing in mind. You need a little counter or some dice uh just to keep track of that. Uh that scores you five VP if you have done killed more, basically. And then if you control your opponent's home objective, that's worth five victory points. So your home objective isn't worth anything to you, but it is worth five victory points to your opponent. And like I've said before, that is the same mission for both you and your opponent. So really straightforward. It's basically kill more, hold more, the classic. Um so yeah, I like a mission like that, nice and straightforward. Then, because this is so simple, I feel like having a secondary deck where you're scoring other stuff in the turn, not a problem to add on. Uh, but also likewise, just playing this without a secondary deck would also be fun. Like basically I'm coming around to the idea of maybe some of these missions a bit too complicated for a secondary deck uh as well. Um, and then we've got a couple more duplicates uh missions, often going into the uh no action deck. And then here are, if I can squeeze under my microphone, um the missions that uh have no actions in them whatsoever. So there's one, and then there's two, and then there's three that aren't basically duplicate force distribution, um force distributions. Okay, right, got to get that in the end. Yeah, force dispositions. So yeah, there's three individual missions uh that require no actions that each have a unique force disposition. Um okay, cool. Let's move on to the next one, which is where, in fact, let's swap these around slightly. Um now we're gonna look at a mission that requires only one action for one of the players. Uh let's pick something we haven't looked at before. So, priority assets is one opponent, and then reconnaissance is the other one. So, for priority assets, you are playing vanguard operation, striking deep beyond the front lines. Your forces must employ speed and cunning to secure their objective before the enemy responds. So, in any battle round at the end of your turn, a friendly unit performed a vanguard operation. C reverse, you score four victory points. Um, also, one or more enemy units were destroyed this turn, two victory points. And then, second battle round onwards, you control one or more objectives, excluding your home objective, four victory points. Good. And then at the end of the battle, you score for controlling your opponent's home objective a whopping ten victory points. That is impressive. But also, you're scoring four for doing your vanguard operation ability, which is on reverse. So let's flip that over and have a look. Um, it's an action you do in your shooting phase. One friendly unit is within one terrain area, that is within your opponent's territory. So you've got to be in your opponent's half of the board. You can do it once, but um at the end of your turn, if no enemy units are within that terrain area, you complete the vanguard operation. And then, yeah, that just scores you your full VP in your opponent's department zone in a terrain piece. Yeah. Interesting. Quite straightforward. Um, then your opponent who is doing reconnaissance has search and scour. Ford elements report enemy movement in this sector, move out, locate the foes, and halt their operation before it gathers momentum. Uh so you score in any battle round at the end of your turn when you control one or more central objectives, noting that on the cards it shows one objective, but on a dice roll, you could have two objectives. Um, so regardless, you will score three VP for controlling one of them. Also, one or more enemy units that started this turn within a terrain area is destroyed, two VP. Uh, obviously, your secure assets uh person is wanting to be in an area terrain in your deployment zone to score points. Um, and there may be the person that you want to be killing to score victory points, but they're going to be in area terrain anyway, because that's how the game is based. Uh, second battle round onwards, um, for each objective you control, excluding your home objective for VP. So that's the same as your opponent. And then at the end of the battle, there are no enemy units wholly within your territory. You score five victory points. So that's quite interesting. No enemy units wholly within your territory. So search and scour is quite like a defensive uh mission, keeping your opponent out of your deployment zone to deny them doing their vanguard operation. Whereas the priority assets person is all about being in your opponent's deployment zone, which I kind of would have thought would be more suited for reconnaissance. I'd assume reconnaissance is more about going up and being in your opponent's deployment zone, but obviously not. Uh, because obviously priority assets, you're just doing something right, you are going off uh searching, scanning, that sort of thing. Maybe that's what priority assets is all about. Uh so yeah, that's quite an interesting um sort of double. Um, obviously there's No action for the reconnaissance player. So yeah, you are just trying to deny them. I like these um asymmetrical types of missions. Then let's look at the one where there is a double action. So all of them, having a quick look through, all but one, you're doing the same action. So we are going to look at the one where you do a different action. So this is probably the two force dispositions that I think are the most interesting. Uh, disruption and reconnaissance. So if you are disruption, you are playing smoke and mirrors. Um, cunning is a potent weapon as overwhelming force. Outnumbered or outgunned, you must make use of subterfuge and misdirection to pick the enemy apart. So any button around, end of your turn, for each objective that is decoyed, you score two victory points. This is an action, obviously, so we're gonna have to look at that. But also, because there's a plus symbol, for each of those objectives that is within your opponent's territory, you get an additional two victory points. It's cumulative, so it's basically saying you score it in addition to the two victory points that you've already got. Um, and then second battle round onwards, you control one or more objectives, again, excluding your home objectives, so four VP. That seems to be the standard second battle round onwards um scoring gimmick for want of a better word. And then end of the battle, four or more objectives are decoyed. You score ten whole victory points, so quite a lot. Let's look at that um decoying action. I do wonder if it's possible for the opponent to maybe undecoy uh these objectives. Maybe that's how it will work. Um, so decoy starts in your shooting phase, one friendly unit within range of one objective, excluding your home objective. That is not already decoyed. Uh, it's an unlimited use, so you can do it multiple times. Each unit that starts this action, this phase must be within range of a different objective, so you can't have multiple people trying to do it on the same objective. Very rare you would actually want to do it. The uh end of your turn is when it completes if your unit controls that objective. I feel like so far all the actions I've read do get completed in your turn. There's no now longer starting an action. There's no longer starting an action, waiting for your opponent to have a turn to try and stop you, and then you complete it in your command phase, for example. So it feels like doing actions is going to be a lot easier for the most part. But I mean, I've not read all of them, so I could be mistaken. Um, but yeah, that is interesting. The objective is decoyed to place one of your operation markers within range of that objective just to make you realize it's decoyed. That is handy. And then if you are doing the reconnaissance um force disposition, gotta remember that name. Um, you are doing surveil the foe, information is power, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy and feed this crucial information back to your superiors. Okay, this sounds interesting. Each time a friendly unit ends a move within range of one objective that has your opponent's operation markers within range of it, remove those operation markers from the battlefield. Ooh! It's not even an action. You just do it automatically to remove it. Okay, interesting. Also very hard for the disruption player. Um, okay, one or more enemy units were hold on, let me just double check that. Each time a friendly unit ends a move within range of one objective marker. Okay, so there's nothing about like you your opponent, your disruption player, could still be on that objective marker um and have control of it, but you just need to get within range of it. You could tow into that area terrain, because that's where it's getting done, and just switch it off and take take it off from being decoyed harsh. That feels quite harsh, but let's see what they're getting. So they score any battle round, end of a turn, one or more enemy units were surveilled this turn. See reverse. So this is a different action. Unless each of those units within range of one or more objectives that have one or more operation markers within range of them. Okay, let's read that again. One or more enemy units were surveilled unless each of those units, so the surveilled units, is within range of one or more objectives that have an operation mark on it. Okay, so you need to surveil a unit that is not within range of an objective that has been decoyed, basically. Full VP. So let's spin on to the actual action to see what that is. Surveil the foe, starts in your shooting phase, won a friendly unit, it's unlimited, so you can do it as many times as possible, completes immediately. Umes that mean you can then also shoot, or does by doing the action stop you from shooting that turn? Because normally it lasts several turns. So that's interesting. I I assume it means you can do it and then you can still carry on and shoot and do other things, and it doesn't exclude you from shooting? Be interesting. I should assume so.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

This is the voice from the future. No, my dear listeners, you are not eligible to shoot once you have started or completed an action. You are also not eligible to charge.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:03

Um so completes immediately the effect is select one enemy unit within 18 inches of and visible to your unit that has not been surveilled this turn. Until the end of that turn, the enemy unit is surveilled. And the fact that you can you select one friendly unit, but it has unlimited use, so you can do it on anyone. Select one enemy unit within 18 inches and visible to the unit that has not been surveilled. But you only score if they are within range of one or more objectives. No. One or more enemy units were surveilled this turn. Oh, it caps out four VP. So you're only so you can you can surveil as many as you want, but you only score four VP regardless. Which seems odd. Why would you why would you allow your them to surveil multiple times if you're only scoring at once? Um and likewise the stipulation is for scoring that you can't surveil a unit that is within range of an objective marker with an operations marker. Why not just put that on the action? Because I guess it yeah, I don't know. Part of me feels like just put all of that detail on the action, and then here just say surveill one or more unit for VP. People might be like, oh, what does surveilling mean? But then it's like, oh okay, cool, it's limited. I can only do it once. It can't be uh on a unit on an objective. I would just shove it all of our details into the action personally, um, unless there's some other ways of scoring that affect it. But let's have a look. So second battle round onwards, you control one or more objectives, excluding your home objective, same as your opponent, four VP. But also you control more objectives than your opponent, also four VP. Um, so interesting. In terms of any battle round, you can both score max four VP. Second battle round onwards, one player can then score four, but the other can score eight. And that is something that can keep going on. Uh, and also at the end of your turn, oh sorry, that was end of command phase, but the end of your turn, none of your opponent's operation markers are on the battlefield, you score five VP, but at the end of the battle, four more objectives are decoyed 10 VP. I feel like the max you can score for being reconnaissance is way higher, right? So you're both doing four any battle round, however, you can in theory score nine per turn second battle round onwards, um nine per turn for recon. However, you can only score four per turn second battle round onwards, but then you get a big ten bonus at the end, which is quite difficult to do because you need to have four objectives that are decoyed, and basically your opponent can't have walked on to one of those any of those objectives, like yeah, that feels like a really hard mission for the disruption player to actually achieve. And I think what you need to do again, this is a lot of legwork, to work out the kind of forced disposition that you want to play, you literally need to read all of these cards, all 15 of them. Well, 30 cards to work out kind of forced disposition. Go, let's just say, oh, I want to do Purge the Foe. So you can read through, find all the pairs we've Purged a Foe in, read both your yours and your opponent's mission, and go, does this seem like I've got an advantage? Does it seem balanced? Does it seem like a fun mission? Cool. Make a note. Go through all of those cards. And if you go, actually, the majority of these cards, the majority of these missions, I'm not going to enjoy. Okay, this is not the force disposition for you. Go through another force disposition. And you might annoyingly, it feels quite rare, maybe someone like Knights or maybe someone like custodies is an edge case, but you might find the force disposition you want to do, you don't have the army to actually do it. The army faction probably has that force disposition. But as I was saying earlier, for custodies, there's only one detachment that has the purge of a foe force disposition, and that requires having walkers in your army. I don't have any walkers in my army. I might not have any bikes, I might not have any flyers or sisters of silence, for example. And the force dispositions that I want to play might require those models to play that force disposition. I'm being forced to either buy models, to play the game how I want to play it, or I'm being forced to play with my models that I enjoy playing with, to play in a different playstyle that I don't actually want to be playing in, or is not my preference. So that is something worth bearing in mind with these cards. And there's a fair bit of upfront mental load before you've even played the game to understand how to play the game. It's not just put your models down on the table and kill your opponent anymore. Sadly, the days of 40k being that are gone. Um unless you were to do specifically Purge the Foe missions, and your opponent is also specifically doing Purge the Foe. Um so yeah, I think it's worth doing that. You've then got to look at your army, how it plays, how it could achieve these missions if there are actions, what models in my army that I'm taking could do those actions, for example. Do I need to be in my opponent's home objective to be scoring these things? Okay, cool. So now I need either fast moving units, I need deep striking units, or rapid ingressing units. I need these things. Um yeah, it'll be interesting to read through them all and sort of work out what is my playstyle and what I would potentially be wanting to lean into for a specific faction. But then you have to marry that up with the detachment, the detachment bonuses. Uh so for example, the Emperor's Lion, George, George Lion? Lion and Emperor's Lion, something like that, the um custodias one. That has quite a good detachment ability, plus one to hit, plus one to wound if my unit is outside the six inches of other friendly units. And it's got some interesting stratagems. Um that has the disruption. Um disruption force disposition. So that's currently been my favourite playstyle. Uh the shield toast has been the other one, which is the other of the two quite generic um detachments that don't really lean into needing Sisters of Silence in, for example, um, or dreadnoughts or vehicles, for example. So they're basically my two options. Um, I can't remember what force disposition uh shield toast is, but it's definitely not perge the foe. So it's probably one of these others. So I need to look at that detachment again, work out if it's a playstyle I actually want to do. So yeah, I need to look at all the different detachments, work out what is my playstyle, work out if it's gonna suit and it's gonna work, and I might end up going, oh, the playstyle I want doesn't match the cool army buff that synergizes with my models. So what do I do? Either play inefficiently or buy more models, I guess. Maybe that's games workshop secret source here. Make you buy stuff. Um, so yeah, that's the primary missions. I think we've looked at that and done it to death. Let's move on to the next set of cards. So while the contents that I've been going through has a primary mission deck, that's what we've next done. Next up is the secondary mission deck, and then followed by the twist cards. However, let's finish off the order in which you begin your mission sequence and begin the battle. So you start off with mustering your army, which we've talked about, and determining mission, uh, because that also is all about your primary mission uh in terms of the force disposition. You then determine deployment, which is shuffling the deployment cards face down, drawing one. This describes where to place terrain objectives and where you can deploy them, which is followed on the next page, create battlefield. Before we get to that, let's talk about the optional step, which is the twists. If both players want to play with an additional rule, they can dramatically that can dramatically alter the battle. Choose one twist card, both players must agree on which twist card to use. Um so it just says choose a twist card, so it's no longer randomly drawing one like it would be in previous times. Uh, so you I guess you get to pick. There are one, two, three, four, five, six cards in total. Uh, so let's quickly look through most of them. Uh, so there's night fighting, a classic rule from older editions. A shroud of darkness has fallen across the battlefield, obscuring the vision of your warriors and providing them with cover beneath which to advance. Each unit is not visible to enemy models unless they are within 18 inches of that unit, and each unit cannot be targeted by indirect fire weapons unless that attacking model is within 18 inches of that unit. So, designers know this is a great twist for players who have not yet had a battlefield's worth of terrain. Um, terrible for guard players who want to have a lot of artillery. Uh, Paul out for Toke, uh, who does have a lot of artillery and has been playing with them in this edition and has been telling me how terrible artillery is. Um, yeah, so yeah, this is as they make out good if you don't have a lot of terrain, but it does heavily skew things to short-range fire, which also includes combat as well. So that's worth bearing in mind. Uh, then we've got Ruinscape. Decades of war have reduced the structures of this battlefield to hollow ruins. Your warriors stalk and scramble through the skeletal remnants of half-destroyed buildings as they close in upon their enemies. So when a unit makes a normal or advanced move, models in that unit have the mobile keyword until the move ends. It says designers note. For players who want to play with a lot of terrain andor within many large uh with many large models, this twist can help keep the battle flowing. Uh if I remember rightly, mobile just allows you to move through uh buildings as if your infantry I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure what that means. Um, so yeah, that's quite a cool one, especially if you've got tanks or knights. Big knights get this anyway, but on a roll of a one, you are battle shocked. Um, but yeah, I think that is quite a cool one to play. Um, then there's uh Martial Pride, the rank and file of your armies are determined to demonstrate their value, advancing relentlessly towards their assigned objectives while maintaining a punishing rate of fire. So a battle line unit can start an action in a turn in which made it an advanced move. Also, a battle line unit can shoot in a turn in which it started an action, and says this is a great twist for incursion battles, which I guess is a thousand-point games. Um, so that's kind of cool. Uh great for custodies, and I guess you can do both. It's not an either or an or, although I think the number of units that can also advance and shoot is quite rare. So for the most part, it would be one or the other. But custodies do have assault weapons, so I could potentially both advance, shoot, and do an action. Great. Um, personally, I would maybe limit it to one or the other. Um, but uh is what it is. It says you can do both. Um, obviously you could have all it if you thought I was too strong. Uh, next up we've got scrambled communications. Scrambled communications and intertwined Vox channels have disrupted the chain of command, leaving your orders and objectives unclear. So the players exchange their primary mission cards. So this is a great twist for shaking things up in a regular matchup or for players who love to embrace chaos. This is good fun, especially if, like I said, you are players that tend to play with the same force uh dis force disposition. Oh god. That's gonna take me a while to remember what these things are called. So if you're players that have the same force disposition, not disruption, force disposition, um, then yeah, having the ability to swap with your opponent is really good. Obviously, if you're both playing the same force disposition, um then it's gonna be rubbish. Um, but otherwise it's quite good fun. It will probably limit you in terms of how you built your army, what you can do. Um, but then you're both playing sort of with your main hand behind your back. You're both playing left-handed if you are right-handed, right? Um, so I do like that um ability. Very fun. Uh it's worth noting that these are just meant to be fun, right? You won't you'll very rarely see this in a tournament setting. I'd be surprised. Um, but it's sort of fun, narrative, casual events. I could imagine you seeing this. Uh, Mirrored World is the next one. As destinies converge, rival warlords find themselves on parallel paths, competing with one another to achieve near identical outcomes and objectives. So the players both replace their primary mission card with the same one of the following primary mission cards. If both players agree on one of them, use that primary mission card. Otherwise, roll a D6 and consult the table. So a bit like the last one where you're swapping the primary mission deck over between you. This time you are both playing the same one. Um, I wonder, I suspect because Me Grinder, I'm pretty sure, is the one where you've got um the duplicates. So I suspect what this is is the one where you're both playing the same card anyway, uh, because that's sort of what it's designed for. Um so yeah, I I suspect that's because they're the ones that are designed where both players are playing the same thing. So that would be why. Um when you're swapping over, it won't ever really be that you would do this one instead. Uh so this says designers know this is a great twist for players who want to play a simpler battle of Warhammer 40k as both players are trying to achieve the same mission. It's great that they've said that, but most people will ignore this. But I think this is probably a great way of playing the core game, especially if you're trying to learn the edition or you're new to 40k, um, or you just find, like I've been saying, some of these missions are really complicated, especially when you've got secondaries as well, especially if you've got to learn everyone's uh stuff. I would maybe say for the first few missions that you're playing of Lem Pedition, just do this. Just both play the same thing, keep it nice and simple. Don't focus on the torment stuff. Uh yeah, this is great. I like that. Um last one nowhere to hide. This battlefield only affords the illusion of cover. Nowhere is safe. So terrain features do not have a solid rule. So it says designers note this twist lets models draw line of sight through any gap in a terrain feature, allowing more true line of sight and more lethal shooting. This is how people played it in older editions. Um, this before the basic ITC WTC ruling came in for tournaments, which basically said the lower floor of buildings block line of sight. This basically was made official as part of Games Workshop rules in 11th edition, but was only really sort of part of the tournament rules, I think, in 10th edition. Um even then, I think it wasn't in the core rules. I remember Warhammer World, they had to update their train to sort of block off more of those um sort of tiny gaps and things like that. So this is a good rule if you want to hearken back to those older editions, if you prefer true line of sight. Kind of dependent on how many gaps your buildings have. Some will have none, some will have lots. I suspect the newer Games Workshop stuff that's going to be coming out this year, um, like the pre-painter stuff will have less gaps in it anyway. So this rule might not be as applicable. Or if it is applicable, it's slightly more balanced because there'll be less stuff to see. Um so yeah, twists are all good and interesting. Um yeah, I like them. They're not as I feel like they're just really there to try and simplify the card deck if you don't want a very overly complicated chapter-approved game. Um, it's less about sort of fun and interesting mechanics. Even the night fighting one, for example, is really designed if you don't have much terrain on it. Um, in fact, most of them have a designer's note. In fact, they all have designer's notes on them, right? So one of them is you don't have enough terrain. One of them is designed for uh it says keep the battles flowing um because you can just have big things move through the game. So you this is ones you've got too much terrain and you've got lots of big models that you want to play on the tabletop, like your super heavies or things like that. Um one is uh for smaller battlefields, so one is for thousand-point games, another one is um basically exchanging cards. So you're kind of bored of playing the same mission and you want to try someone else's forced disposition that you normally wouldn't play. It's that one. Uh, one of them's a more simplified game, and then the last one is to basically play more simplified terrain rules, and that's not really to say it's to skew towards shooting, it sort of says that might happen. Um, but it's just going back to a more simpler non-ITC WTC style of playing the game that the older editions used. So, yeah, this is dressed up as narrative, but really it's for customising your game to suit your maybe playstyle or suit what you have on your table, or the models you want to bring, or the size of game that you're playing. So that's interesting, actually, um, that they've done it like that while still using this kind of uh twist uh mechanic. Uh interestingly, that it looks like Marshall Pride has a slightly darker green than everyone else's. Uh interesting. I think that's just, you know, the texture is somewhat randomized. But yeah, okay, cool. Let's now move on to the final bit, which is the secondary mission deck. Before we get on to the secondary mission deck, let's quickly go through the rest of the sort of battlefield step. So step four, create the battlefield. Missions are played on rectangular battlefields 44 by 60, regardless of battlefield size. If you are doing a 1,000-point game of 40k, you are still playing on a 44 by 60 board. Something I didn't realize until a few days ago. Uh, we recommend using the suggested battlefield layouts in the Warhammer 40k app, which is for tournament layouts, but don't listen to Games Workshop. Uh, these layouts were designed for chapter-approved battlefields. If you wish to create your own layouts and have fun, use the following instructions. So roll 1d6, on roll of one to five, use the single central objective point as shown in the center of the deployment cards. Let me grab one of the cards so you can see. So, as you can see in search and destroy it, there's one objective in the middle. So, on a roll of one to five, that's what you use. But on a six, instead, use two central objective points. Locate these six inches either side of the central objective point along the dashed line used to separate the player's territory, which you can also see here. So instead of the middle one, you would have basically two objectives 12 inches apart going along that line. And then it says roll off. Then each player takes turns placing terrain features starting with the winner. For each objective point, uh, which is basically your home objectives, your central objective, and your expanded objective, so on average five. Um, for each objective point, set up one terrain feature so that it covers that point on the battlefield. A terrain feature set up in this way is terrain objective. I don't think terrain objective is area terrain. Maybe it is, but there's no footprint, and that's a slight difference. Um then set up any remaining terrain features. Maybe terrain objectives is area terrain, but terrain features are not area terrain unless you specifically use the area terrain footprints. So if you are just putting terrain down, it will be dense or solid, for example, but it won't necessarily be obscuring unless you're using those area terrain footprints, which are shown in the Warhammer 40k app. So you might want to sort of household it to count it as that so you have more uh obscuring terrain. Um but yeah, this was something that we were sort of muddling through in my game with Richard that we were sort of determining what should what counts as what basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:20

This is the voice of the future. So people, any terrain place down, whether it is on a mat or otherwise, still counts as being a terrain area.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:38

Then next up, you determine the attacker-defender. Players look at the deployment card drawn and agree which edges on your battlefield correspond with the attacker's defender's battlefield edge roll off, and the winner decides who will be the attacker and who will be the defender. You then select your secondary missions. Secondary mission cards details additional ways to score victory points. There are a deck for attacker, as shown here, and defender. The cards in each deck are identical. Designers note if you and your opponent are new to Warhammer 40k, you can play without secondary missions for a simpler experience while uh you're starting out, or if you're just a bit bored of them, or you want a streamlined game of 40k. Um, for other ways of using this pack, including using it in tournaments, see the Warhammer 40k app. Players now secretly note down whether they'll be using tactical or fixed secondary missions. You know, we just tell your opponent. If using fixed missions, they will also note down which two fixed missions they'll be using. See below, players then reveal their decisions. So fixed secondary missions have a specific icon, which looks like an A4 piece of paper. Fixed missions are those marked with the symbol shown on the left. If you are using fixed missions, display your selected fixed mission cards face up. Fixed missions cannot be discarded and are active throughout the battle. Um so this one, for example, is not a fixed mission. But if we look through, we have one fixed card here. Um, there should be a bunch. Let me find them all. So it says if you are using fixed missions, display your selected fixed mission face up. So there are in total four fixed missions. There's a grievous blow, which is basically kill an enemy unit with a starting strength of 13 or more destroyed this turn. There's assassinate, which is kill characters. There's engage on all front, which is be in table quarters, and there's bring it down, which is kill enemy units with a woo wound of 10 or more this turn. So what's the difference between a grievous blow? Is oh starting strength of 13 or more. So grievous blow is kill hordes, kill tanks, kill characters, and move around the table. Um, I think one of them specifically scores. Yeah, so they do score different depending on whether you're doing fixed or tactical. So for example, when you bring it down, you score four victory points if it's fixed or five victory points up to five victory points if it's tactical. Um, and that tends to be relatively the same. Engage on all fronts is slightly different. Um, but yeah, it seems like you're capped at a slightly lower rate when you're doing fixed, basically, which is sort of makes sense. Um there's also tactical secondary missions. So if you're using tactical missions, shuffle your secondary mission deck face down. At the start of your command phase, draw two secondary missions face up from your secondary mission deck. These secondary missions are active for you. Uh, once per battle, you can at the end of your command phase, you can spend one CP to discard one of the active secondary mission cards and draw one new secondary uh mission card. You can only do it once per battle. It used to be once per turn. It used to be, I think, an actual kind of command point ability in the corals. It's now just something put here. Um, achieving your secondary missions. At the end of each player's turn, each player does the following, starting with the player whose turn it is. First, if you met the conditions on one or more secondary missions, you can gain the VP specified on that card. If you do so, if you are using tactical missions, um, discard that secondary mission. It is achieved. Then, if it is your turn and you are using tactical secondary missions, you can discard one or more to uh of your active secondary missions. If you do, you gain one CP, noting you only gain one CP regardless of how many you discard. Um, that is a rule I didn't think was in the game anymore. So when I was playing Get Richard, it was a shock to discover uh that you could still do it and still gain A CP. But the main thing to note is here is basically if you're doing secondary missions, you always draw two cards. I don't think there's a maximum in terms of like the hand that you can have. Um, I thought there was some kind of cap in terms of maybe the maximum you can score, uh, but there didn't seem to be so far. So, yeah. It is draw two secondary missions face up. You keep them, and then you achieve it at the end of each of your players' turns. So there's no weird thing like before where some things score at the end of your turn, some things score in your next command phase, some things score in your opponent's turn. It's now much more streamlined. So, in terms of when you score, much better than previous editions. And then let's quickly rattle through the rest of the declare battle formations. So you secretly note down, which no one ever does, uh, what things are embarked on transports, which units will start for battle in strategic reserve, and then you reveal them. You then deploy armies, players take it in turn, so uh setting up their units, excluding those in strategic reserve one at a time, holding within their deployment zone, starting with the defender. If you set up a Titanic unit, if you set up a Titanic unit, when it is your turn um to set up, skip your next turn, once you have finished setting up your units. If your opponent has any units that has not been set up, set those up. So basically what happens is you put down a knight or uh some form of Titanic units. Your opponent basically sets up two, um, although technically it's one, then you skip your go, then they do another one, then it is your go again. Uh, then step nine, you redeploy units. So some rules that you allow allow you to redeploy certain units after both armies are deployed, unless otherwise stated, you resolve those units in this step. Players alternate resolving any such rules, starting with the attacker unit placed in strategic reserve. Um, in this step, do not count towards the combined points of any of strategic reserve units. So a lot of uh hero characters will have an option for you to move three units around the tabletop and also place those in strategic reserve regardless of how many are in strategic reserve already. That's just clarifying those things. You then roll off to determine the first turn. Um, you then resolve pre-battle rules, things like scout, for example, would happen here. Players alternate resolving any pre-battle rule units from their army that they have, starting with the player who will take the first turn. Then step 12, you play the battle. Step 13, you end the battle after five battle rounds, even if no models are remaining in your army at the start of your turn. Players continue to play out their turns until the battle ends. So even if you've been tabled, you still play on, so your other opponent still gets a chance to score. I don't think there's ever going to be a case where you are tabled, but you can still score more points because you don't have anything to be able to do that. Feels very unlikely. Um, but you still might win the game uh if you had such a lead before you did get tabled. Um then lastly, 14 determine the victor. Each player scores 10 VP if their army is painted to a battle-ready standard. Now I think I lost my game with Richard, but I was battle-ready and he wasn't. So technically, uh I would have beat him. Uh it's one of those rules that most people forego, especially if you're just playing with your mates around your house and you ignore the 10 VP battle ready. It's more just a thing for tournaments, but most tournaments don't let you enter unless you are battle-ready. So um I can see it's basically the one Games Workshop rule that everyone ignores because it feels like it's not in the spirit to play with it, but it is designed to encourage everyone to play with painted models, which is good, which is a good thing. Um, but yeah, I don't know anyone who ever plays actually going, well, mine's not painted, yours is, so yeah, take those 10 VPs. Um, it feels a bit too punishing. Um at the end of the battle, the player with the most victory points is the winner. If the players are tired, the battle is drawn. The maximum VP that can be scored from each source of VP is listed below. Oh, so this is where the cap is. Uh, any VP you score in excess of these maximums are ignored. Um, so your primary mission is maximum VP, 45 victory points, up to 15 victory points per battle round. Secondary missions is 45 victory points up to a maximum of 15 per battle round. And it says in Asterox, in addition, you may gain a maximum of 20 VP per fixed secondary mission card. Hold on. You can score up to 15 victory points per battle round. Oh, so per card you can score. How does this work? So you can score up to 15 victory points per battle round. Oh, but it's fixed secondary. Okay. But if you were playing a fixed secondary mission card, you can gain a maximum of 20 victory points per fixed secondary. Okay. Um, instead of 15. And then if your army's battle ready, 10 victory points. Now I feel like this maximum VP per battle round should be back when it talks about achieving secondary missions. It's odd because achieving secondary missions is specifically talking about the end of your term and scoring. This is determining Victor, which is scoring at the end of the game, um, but then is also somehow saying you need to keep track of how many VP you're scoring per turn. Um personally, I would rather that the 15 VP per battle round max secondaries is somewhere on the card or is designed in a way that it could just never be over that. Um, but maybe they need to do that just in case. Um, yeah, so that's scoring. The appendix leaves the battlefield, which we did come across. So I wasn't, I'm not going to talk about cumulative and all conditions. Leave the battlefield because we did come across a mission that talked about it. Let's see what it says. Some units refer to a unit or units leaving the battlefield. A unit leaves the battlefield if it is destroyed, if it embarks on a transport, if a rule removes it from that unit from the battlefield, i.e., placing strategic reserve, which is what I thought it would be. Uh, but interesting that you also going into transport leaves the battlefield. So that is interesting. Um, and then yeah, the others I don't think we need to do. So that is this portion of the chapter approved done. Uh let's put that away. Now let's have a quick look through some of the actual cards themselves. So let's look at assassinate and one of the other secondaries, which isn't a fixed one. So assassination, the enemy looks to their champions for courage, identify and eliminate them with extreme prejudice. So any battle round, end of a turn, for each enemy character model destroyed, you get three VP for fixed VP. But you also get for each of those models with a wounds characteristic of four or more, you get one victory point, which is fixed cumulative. Uh so that's in addition. Uh, but also one or more enemy character models were destroyed this turn, or all enemy character models were destroyed this turn, 5 VP tactical. Now I do think uh so the first two relates to fixed, the last one tactical. They need to do a better job of segregating these out because I only need to look at one of those items, fixed or tactical. I don't need to look at both. I suspect is because there might be times where you'll score multiple different ways in a battle round, not just end of turn. So that's why they're sort of they're sorting it via the end of turn battle round. Um yeah, I just don't think it's great. But in terms of what you do, 5 VP or 3 uh with an additional one, depending on their wounds characteristic, I think that's good. Um okay, maybe let's look at one of the other fixed ones. Yeah, okay. I think they should have separated them out. I don't think they've done a good job. Okay, yeah. Okay, aggrievous below. Target and eliminate the most numerous and potent of enemy infantry to shatter their battle line. When drawn, if there are no enemy units with a starting strength of 13 plus on the battlefield, you can discard this card and draw one new secondary card mission. So that's only if it's tactical. Um you score any battle round, end of a turn, for each enemy unit with a starting strength of 13 plus is destroyed. You get 4 VP for fixed, 5 VP for tactical, up to 5 VP. Odd. Why does it say up to 5 VP on the tactical one? When this book says up to 15. So it says for each enemy unit with a starting strength of 13 plus, if I destroy four, why is it not capping out at 15 per battle round? But instead it's saying that I only kill one thing. I guess it's trying to, you know, stop you killing multiples, right? Because most of these things you would just pick one thing and destroy it. Um yeah, interesting that that's capped and it's different to the cap that's in the book. Confusing. Put it put it in one place. Uh okay, cool. Let's have a look at a couple of the others. So defense stronghold. You are charged with the defense of the critical objective. It must not be permitted to fall into enemy hands. So when drawn, if it's the first battle round, draw one new secondary mission card and shuffle this card back into the secondary mission deck. So quite a few cards are like that, where if you can't score in the first battle round because it's uh going to be too difficult to be able to achieve, you can draw something new and mulligan it, basically, and hopefully have a better chance of drawing a card. Um, which is slightly odd because now there's also the mechanical. Of if you can't achieve a card uh that turn, you get to keep it and achieve it in a later um later turns. So maybe this drawing mechanic is uh not as necessary, but I think that it goes to show you that actually some cards are just impossible to draw turn one. So let's let them have something else to do rather than have nothing to do that turn and try and bank it. Uh but then there's still ways of other turns not being able to do something, but still being able to achieve it in a later turn. Uh yeah, so you score second battle round onwards, end of your opponent's turn, or the end of the fifth battle round, whichever comes first. Uh you control your home objective, you get three VP. And no enemy units are within your deployment zone, two VP. I guess this is now I said earlier, most things happen at the end of the turn. Um, and at least for primaries, that seems to be true. Uh whereas this is happening in your opponent's turn, which I don't necessarily like because you're scoring things at different times. I'd rather it all be the end of your turn. But something like Defense Stronghold only works when your opponent has a chance to react to you to try and stop you from doing something. So it does make sense here, but I still don't necessarily like it. Maybe the secondaries just need to be focused around end-of-turn stuff and there'd be less interaction with you and your opponent. Um yeah, I'm not sure about that one. So interestingly, there's only two secondary cards with actions, which is good because if you're not an action person, you're not gonna end up getting many unless you get bad draws. Uh, there's cleanse, which is when drawn if the plunder secretary mission is active for you, you can draw one new secondary card and shuffle it back into the deck. Oh, and guess what? Plunder is the only other card which has a secondary action. So it basically means you don't get stuck with two cards that require you to do actions, which is good because if you're also doing actions on top of a primary mission, which has actions, you're going to be a bit too action-heavy. Um, so yeah, in this one, if you basically draw the other one, you can draw, redraw one of them for both. Uh, with cleanse, uh, your forces have identified a series of tainted objectives in this air if I purify these locations. The cleanse action is in your shooting phase, one friendly unit is within range of one objective, excluding your home objective. You can do it unlimited times. Each unit that starts this action, this phase must be within range of a different objective. It completes at the end of your turn if that unit is controlling the objective. And then the objective is cleansed by your army, and at the end of your turn, you score two VP or five VP if you cleanse two or more objectives. So pretty straightforward, but I do like it. And then plunder, let's look at this other one. Uh, it is unguarded prizes lie strewn across the field of battle, secure them and deny them to the enemy. Again, nice and thematic. Um, when you plunder, you start it of a shooting phase. One unit has to be within terrain area that is not within your territory in its once per turn, completes immediately. So potentially still, I need to clarify, you could still then go off and shoot and stuff, unless doing an action stops you from shooting. Uh, but I'm not actually sure. So that is an important thing I need to look up. Um that terrain area is plundered. Uh, and then if an area terrain was plundered, you score five VP. So nice and straightforward. I like those. Um, then some looked quite interesting. So this burden of trust. The strategic prize in this region must be guarded at all costs. A duty that falls upon a chosen few. So when drawn or the start of your turn, or when drawn, I guess at the start of your turn, for each objective, you can select one friendly unit on the battlefield to guard that objective. And so the start of your next turn, while that unit is within range of that objective, and while you control that objective, that objective is guarded by your army. So you score any battle round, end of your opponent's turn, or the end of the fifth battle round, whichever comes first, you score two VP for each objective guarded by your army up to five VP. Interesting. Now it's making me think because that is capped at five VP per turn, your secondary missions are capped to 15 VP per battle round. I assume that is, sorry, so you can say here 15 VP for both cards or for multiple cards. So actually that kind of makes sense that most cards are capped at five, which really means if you could score a maximum of, say, five over three cards, that is your cap. So if you had a stack of ten cards that you could technically have, you can't score them all in your very final turn. You can really score three on average in a turn and maximize your point efficiencies out of them. Okay, so that does make sense. Um yeah, I still think this details about max scoring should be elsewhere in the booklet, though. Um, so yeah. Burden of trust, uh two VP up to five for each objective yours guarded. And then the last one, let's look at attempting target. An opportunity to seize a valuable asset has been identified, but the enemy are likely to use it as bait in a trap. Move to secure the site, but be wary of enemy ambushes. So when drawn, your opponent selects one objective excluding home objectives, which is both yours and theirs, within no man's land to be attempting target, uh, which is interesting because it says excluding home objectives, but home objectives are never in no man's land, they're always in your deployment zone. So interesting that you have said they they've given you a qualifier for both, which feels odd. Um, maybe there's the odd card for some reason where you have your home objective outside of your deployment zone, but that feels very unlikely. Um but maybe someone would make a mistake. So at the end of your turn, any battle round, you control your tempting target, you score five BP. Um, so I like times when your opponent has to select things for you to do. Um, they have to select one objective, which could be quite hard, but it's not in deployment zones, which is good. Um, I also like it when they've got to select, say, three enemy units and you get points for killing one or more of them. I think that is sometimes good. Like in the previous uh deck, you had like the alpha objective and the beta or gamma objectives. Um I quite like those sorts of things because it always, at least with that one, it was. Am I thinking of Age of Sigma 40k now? I can't remember. I think it would have 40k. They select three units for you to destroy. You get to select a bonus one, which you get some points with, because normally when they select three things, they're gonna select the three biggest things, and you're probably not gonna kill them, but you can always select a bonus one, which you think is more achievable, but you score less points for it. I like stuff like that, I think that is good. So, yeah, that is the secondary cards. I obviously didn't want to go through them all because we'd be here all day, and this is probably a long enough video as it is. Um, so yeah, let's have a quick chat um about my overall thoughts and feelings about this. You've probably got some general gifts of it already, but yeah, let's have a quick discussion about my final thoughts.

Summary

SPEAKER_02 1:58:02

So let's do a quick run through of all the contents and individually what I think about each thing. Obviously, you've got the instruction booklet, not really much to say. Uh, as I pointed out, some of the layout in terms of where it talks about your maximum victory points, not really in the best place. Uh overall, though, pretty straightforward. I do wish there was an overview of the force dispositions in terms of what each thing roughly does. Uh things like Persia of a foe and take and hold feel quite obvious, but priority assets, reconnaissance, less so. Um, you'd obviously have to read through them to properly discover what they were. Uh, the operations markers, uh, these pop out and obviously just pop them back in uh for the sake of it. They're really useful for those specific missions. And if you're playing with the deck of cards and you're not using the tournament layout, in theory, you kind of do need objective markers as well as these. So having two sets of these um would have been great, uh, even if because actually the objective markers don't need to be 40 millimeters, although, actually, in the rulebook, I believe they actually are. So, yeah, would have still been good to have had those and kept in, and then these are additional operation markers, feel very like kill team-esque in the way that they work, but kind of useful just to have tokens to track for things that you're doing on the missions themselves. So they are not too bad. Uh, next up, we've got the deployment zones, these are all relatively interesting. Um, my main criticism and feedback, like I said, is in the layout of the numbering. I sort of feel like certain measurements should face the person that the deployment zone is closest to. Uh, you know, because you've got the titles upside down, do that with everything else as well. So one person's looking at all the right way up, and the other person's looking at all the way out right up for them. Um, the overall sort of style of um objectives, that's very good. I guess it's worth noticing with these that in this deck there is no asymmetrical missions like we got in the last deck, which I have here. So, you know, these are the size of the objective tokens that I clearly have not used. The challenger deck for people losing, uh, that's completely gone, which is a shame because that was, I thought, a really novel feature of the game, and being able to do actions uh like stratagems or gain victory points. I thought it was a really cool concept that I've seen Spearhead. I'd have personally liked to have seen more of this, or this actually replaced the secondary deck, I think would be really interesting as a concept. But it sounded like um no one liked this in the last edition, especially tournament players. It was meant for tournaments and then they got rid of it. Uh so that's a shame. Uh the twist was similar. Um, here we go. Here are the asymmetrical maps. These are fascinating. And when they came out, I was like, this is the kind of 40k I want to play. Did I play a single game using these? No, not one. And I'm a bit gutted about that. Um because yeah, they had some really interesting ones. Did they have multiplayer ones? I don't think they did, but um I could be wrong. Just having a quick look through. Yeah, I mean they had absolutely tons of missions um and deployments. So yeah, the fact that the asymmetrical stuff, I sort of understand why they got rid of it. But if this is geared, in fact, hot take, the current chapter approved should really not be for tournaments. They should have just shifted it over all to the app, and maybe there'll be two modes, maybe in the app. Um, because I think most people, especially when I've gone to tournaments and played games, um, they will use the app or different app previously tabletop battles, I think, and you can draw the cards within the app. You can do everything within the app. You don't actually need a deck of cards anymore to really play the game at all because the force dispositions, um, this stuff all gets done in the app. The deployment zones with the tournament layouts get done in the app. And drawing the cards is done in the app, and scoring all done through the app. So, yes, I appreciate some people want the physical media of drawing cards and having fun like that. But I sort of feel like the person that really wants this box is actually not a tournament player. Some will be, but I feel like this could have been a much more casual-minded match play version of playing 40k, and the tournament players could have had the app. Or maybe there was both in the app, uh, but the physical one was much more casual players uh designed in mind. Maybe it'd be slightly less complicated in terms of scoring, maybe less secondaries. Um, maybe it would have had asymmetrical stuff, and I'm kind of gutted that I never got to do the asymmetrical stuff in the last edition. I just, you know, only played a handful of games with the deck of cards, uh, other than the times I was playing at tournaments, which again wouldn't use the asymmetrical stuff anyway. So, yeah, overall, the maps are pretty good. The um territory lines, especially on this one, isn't really ideal. It's got some really odd, vague measurements. The tournament layouts that only appear on the app have some really terrible measurements like half inches and stuff like that on there, which isn't great. Um, I think overall, though, people will like to use the prescribed tournament layouts and the airy terrain. I kind of understand why. But ultimately, and I'll try and find some screenshots that I can put up. The tournament layout just ultimately has a lot of L-shaped terrain on. It doesn't look thematic because the layouts don't make sense to a city or to a location because everything is symmetrical, everything is evenly spread out. You can have visual things that are of interest, terrain features that are interesting, but the positioning of it isn't interesting. And that is sort of still the fundamental problem of the tournament layouts. The tournament layouts pretend that there are no L-shaped ruins anymore, but instead it's L-shaped made up of two separate bits of terrain just stuck together, two bits of area terrain wedged together. But what does that form? It's an L-shape. And that is uh yeah, a little bugbear of mine I'm gonna have. Okay, so next up we have these cards, which are this is a bit of a faff. It requires a bit of working out and getting your head around. So if you watch this video, hopefully you'll be better prepared than I were going into my first game. You get two sets, which feels a little bit unnecessary because the whole thing is, oh, you're drawing it in secret. And it's like every everyone's pre-decided what they're going to do. Same with what's going on the tabletop. Most people know what's going in deep strike, what's going in reserve at the beginning. Very few people change their mind based on their opponent's stuff or what the other person says. Now, a theory, maybe I'm doing priority assets and I'm saying this is me, and your opponent might suddenly go, Oh, of my two options, I know for sure that this mission is better for me than this mission, so I'm gonna select one of those two. But that feels so unlikely. So you could have maybe gotten rid of this whole deck completely or streamlined it in some fashion via a table. Or, like I said, just including it on these cards. And in fact, knowing you could just search for your deck for this card and that card and be like, cool, this is the one. So this is okay. Oh sorry, for people listening at home, the priority assets sort of table that shows you what your mission is is a chunky waste of uh cards that go in your chapter-approved box. Uh next up, primary missions. Uh the layout is overall quite good. Um, it doesn't ever say what your specific uh thing is, such as assets, uh priority assets, um whatever your force disposition might be. It doesn't say on the card, which I find a bit frustrating. Um, it should be somewhere. Going off of colour and icon is not good enough for most people. Uh the narrative, flavor text, very strong, very good, and it does help you theme the mission that you're playing. I still don't like a lot of the scoring mechanics. I don't like how, for example, uh this one, you score 4 VP, 2 VP, 4 VP, 10 VP. This one's 3 VP, 2 VP, 4 VP, 5 VP. Scoring is a nightmare if you're not using the app. That's why there's an app, that's why there's a shift to the app, because you need it, because the game is so complicated. I kind of miss the days where you could literally score the whole point of Maelstrom, pretty much, was that you could literally just go, cool, this card is worth one VP, and at most it's worth two VP. You could stick this to one side, be like, that's my pile of scored cards. That is literally my victory point counter in a deck of cards. Uh, or maybe I'm just using dice to track it. Some simplistic way of tracking your points makes the game less burdensome on your mind, just makes things so complicated. And like I said before, there are in this card three different ways of scoring. You're scoring in any battle round, you're scoring, and this is end of any turn, you're scoring second battle round onwards, end of any command phase. Oh, but if it's the last turn, it's the end of the turn, and then also at the end of the battle. This is a lot to keep in mind while you're also playing uh the secondary deck as well. So, yeah, I the missions themselves are good. The concept of them being paired is actually quite good, although I think they completely didn't Games Workshop did a very poor job of advertising that that was what you're doing. You're basically playing a an object of the same mission but two sides of the same coin. I think that was very good and very thematic, um, rather than them being just completely arbitrarily individual uh things, but at the same time it wouldn't have made a huge difference if it was, I don't think. But sort of is what it is. I guess the only real downside, for example, is if two people, like I said before, two people are constantly playing the same force disposition, you are gonna end up playing the exact same mission over and over again. And it's only really gonna make more sense and give you more variety if you are in a tournament where you will be playing multiple people that will likely have multiple force dispositions. Uh the other thing is maybe there will be some not necessarily net lists, but the net hive mind will go, well, purge VOs, just the best one. Everyone should lean into that because it's the most efficient use of your models, because they're not having to do actions, for example, or certain factions will lean and skew toward one of these dispositions over another. And then you end up basically, for example, will custodian's players playing the same forced disposition because it's ultimately the best one for potentially the best detachment that they have access to, which basically means while there is potentially a lot of choice, ultimately everyone will be playing the same few things over and over again, potentially. Um, which would be a bit disappointing if that's the case. But this is the sort of thing that happens when people are given these kind of choices and the internet decides, you know, what's the best thing to do. Um yeah, twists I think are really good. Um I sort of like how they've kept them in, but ultimately they're not really twists. These are ways to make your game fun, ways to balance out some of the deficiencies in the hobby that you might have. Oh, you don't have enough terrain, play this twist. Oh, you've got loads of tanks and you've got too much terrain. Well, play this twist instead. I think those things are actually really fantastic. And the designer's commentary, basically explaining it, actually makes this actually really valuable. Because otherwise, people wouldn't really clock that that's what this is really for. And again, I mean. I guess maybe more casual players, but you know, most people are casual players. So I think this is very good. Lastly, the secondary deck. The old sort of Maelstrom missions combined with the old school frontline gaming ITC deck of like scoring format merged in 10th edition, I want to say it was, and then it sort of coalesced into this now. Doesn't feel like a lot of it has changed. The secondaries are have pretty much stayed the same, but they've like been fine-tuning them. Potentially, what you could have got is every single year a different complete deck of secondaries to really mix up the gameplay. We've not had that. I feel like the internet and games workshop and the tournament scenes have like, no, this is what we want. This is what we want to have points for killing characters, killing vehicles, killing hordes, which sort of makes sense. I guess overall, though, um the downside, the combination of your primary missions being dictated by your forced disposition, your forced disposition being dictated by your detachments, and then the secondaries effectively forcing you to do two things a turn basically doesn't give me much freedom when it comes to for me playing the game. The detachment I select forces me to play a mission in a fixed way. And the cards I randomly draw force me to play the game every turn in a fixed way, even though I'm not doing fixed, I'm doing tactical right, I hope you understand. Um and it's kind of like an on-rails way of playing. And I think ultimately most people just want to play the game and kill stuff. Like it's a war game, that's why we're playing it. Things like uh the actions, to be fair, have been toned down. There's only, I think I said it was two um cards in the secondary deck that do actions now, which is good. There's no because before there was far too many, I think. And ultimately, that's probably a decent balance. But then there might also be a third thing you need to do in the primary mission, which involves actions. And some forces don't have the ability to do actions and shoot or kill stuff at the same time. Custodies don't get it, even though they're very lead and should. Uh, knights do get it though, which is great for them for at least one unit. Um, so yeah, it I do feel like the card deck forces me to play the turn in a certain way, which it has positives and negatives. If you're new and new, not sure what you're doing in terms of tactical finessing strategy. Having a card that says no go off and kill this particular type of thing is quite useful. But sometimes it's like I just want to play the game how I want to play it. I want to try and set these things up for turn two, three, four. Um, rather than having to be railroaded and go, oh, actually, now I need to do this. Um, it's a I I think overall it's just a very different game from what I really loved about 40k. And it's not to say I don't love this, it's just a bit different. Um, overall, as a summary, I think the coalescing of the forced dispositions, I'll get the name and remember it eventually. The forced dispositions, the primary missions and the secondaries makes this a very complicated game to get into. If you're someone that plays every week, you go to tournaments all the time, you'll probably love it for that reason. You'll love it for granularity, for complexity. If you're someone that just wants to play a casual game with your mates once a month or less, this is dreadful, I would say. Um, it's conceptually very cool, but it's just too complicated. Um, now the booklet does actually tell you to not use some of the things like the secondary mission deck, which is great that they included it in there. But I think most people will try and struggle and do it all because that's how humans work. Um actually they would be much better off going, cool, we're just gonna play a primary mission. We're just gonna play the same primary mission together because that's what one of the twists allows us to do. We're not gonna play with the secondaries because that's what the booklet recommends when we're beginning. And if you were doing that, I think you would have a much more fun time playing 40k. And I think but I just don't think people are gonna do that. Um, I really wish I did. I kind of wish I did when I did my first game. But um yeah, I think it's one of those things where you just need to play at least several games, get your head around it before you understand how everything works. And also, first few games, we're all just trying to learn the actual new rules, let alone understand like all the finest scoring mechanics and the forced disposition combos and how all of that works. So it's a lot to get on board. Um, yeah, but this is what we're playing for the next year. So I guess we better get stuck in. Um I think it's an is it enough novelty if you're a tournament player? Is this enough stuff to keep you entertained for a whole year? Maybe. I don't know. Like I said, overall there's only 15 missions. Uh I would have loved to have worked out how many different mission types there were in the the last year's deck. Uh noting that there were both sort of standard play, but also like these kind of cool asymmetrical ones. Um so yeah, it would have been um yeah, be interesting to go back and try those out or to see if you know maybe one day Games Lecture will give that back to us. But yeah, there's a fair amount of stuff to do just with chapter approved. Um so yeah. I mean, overall, it's good, it's just too complicated, I think, is my summary, I would say. Um so I hope you've enjoyed this part of the episode. Uh let me know down in the comments if you disagree. Uh tell me what I got wrong. And uh yeah, give me your thoughts and feelings on 11th edition, both in terms of the chorals, but also chapter-approved, uh, and what you think about it. Is this the best chapter approved like version ever? I'm not necessarily I I'm not convinced, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Uh yeah, let me know down in the comments over on the YouTube channel or on one of my Instagram posts where I promote this episode. Yeah, so let's go on with the five-star review. Transitional noise.

5 Star Review

SPEAKER_02 2:19:05

So it's time for the five-star review. This five-star review comes from the great sage equal of heaven from Apple Podcasts of the United Kingdom. He says this is a five-star review. If you enjoy Warhammer of all flavours, please do enjoy yourself a flavor and subscribe to this pod for dedication of Phil to turn out regular content with enthusiasm and genuine love for the hobby, just like having a chat with your mates for transitional noise returns. Um, so yeah, thank you, Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Uh, glad you're enjoying the show. Glad even more that you're enjoying the transitional noise is back uh in my own little way, because Dan used to do them before. Um when I first came on the show solo, um I wanted a break from Transitional Noise. It didn't feel um well like it would work, but then there were quite a few requests uh to keep it in. So yeah, it's now back with uh a vengeance, but with a slight twist. Um so yeah, thank you very much. Uh, Great Sage Equal of Heaven. Glad you enjoyed my show and appreciate the content that I put out. Uh, if you would like to be like Great Sage of Heaven, you can leave the five-star review over on things like Apple Podcasts, um, audible in some fashion, not Spotify, but you can also leave a five-star review down in the comments of YouTube, label it five stars, find yourself some five-star emojis uh or something, and I will also read that out. So thank you very much. Um, if you would also like to support the show in multitudes of fashions, you can obviously like and share, tell people to listen to the episode. That's probably the greatest thing you could do that requires very little effort on your part. Um, but you can also buy merch from Red Level. And if you are so inclined, you can also support us over on Patreon. Patreon is the thing that keeps the lights on and allows me to buy the equipment and pay for the software that I use for podcasting. Uh, so that is greatly appreciated. Over on Patreon, you can also find some extra special content. Uh, last episode I was talking about big summer reveals, and I didn't have time for all of them, so I recorded an extra episode of Lookout Sur called Transitional Noise. Uh, we are now on episode two, which I put out last Friday, so the week in between for a regular Lookout Sur episode. Uh, that was all about Ogre More tribes, the reveals from the show, plus the extra Ogunmore tribes uh that they previewed since then. Tim came along onto the podcast and joined me, and we talked about um Ogammore Tribes because we both love Lat Faction. We're both probably gonna buy the army and get into it. Uh so yeah, there was a good, I think it was two to three hours worth of us talking about Ogunmore tribes. I appreciate not everyone is an O West fan. Um, but the transitional noise episodes will include both a Mixture of 40k and Age of Sigma, just whatever I could fit uh into transitional noise. Basically, what couldn't fit into the last episode went there basically. Um, there were still some extra big summary reveals I didn't get to talk about, which was custodies, because that was heresy, though it was also technically 40k, um, old world content and um a few other bits. Uh we didn't get a time to talk about them, so if people want, maybe that will be in Transitional Noise episode 3. Do let me know down in the comments. I take it all quite seriously. Um, and yeah, hopefully, if I have a bit more regular time coming up, there will be more regular transitional noise episodes to thank my Patreons uh for supporting me because that is greatly appreciated. Um so yeah, that is it for supporting the show. Now let's get on. Guys, a very hot shed. Let's get on to the outro transitional noise.

Outro

SPEAKER_02 2:23:06

Hello everyone. It is time for the outro. Get cozy for the last bit of the show. And get cozy in the UK because it's currently a heat wave, it's around 30 odd degrees in my shed, and I am very hot. So I will probably not have this as too long uh outro, a little ramble. I'll talk about some of the hobbying that I've been up to lately. I was away on holiday for a week down in Devon. Um, so I didn't get to do any hobbying then. However, I did get to go around some lovely uh scenic sites. Got to go round two castles. One was Dartmouth. No Dartmouth Castle. Uh and then the other one I can't remember the name of, which was much smaller, but the smaller one was one of, if not the oldest castle in the UK in terms of Mott and Bailey. Um, and that was just up north of Dartmouth, uh, up the river on a little river cruise. Um and the reason why I talk about this is every time I go round some old classic sites and you see some castles, I get really inspired to want to A, play more time, and B build some cool castle terrain. Uh so I took loads of photos, and I've done this loads of times, and I go round castles, and there was also a church in one of the castles in Dartmouth Castle, um, and there was like lots of gravestones. So I take photos of gravestones every time because I keen to make some cool graves. Um so yeah, castles, I absolutely love the idea of making my own at some point, um, like scratch building one. And I don't think I've really gotten into the habit of making my own terrain. I sort of would like to, um, but it's just easier to buy games workshop kids a lot of the time. Uh you can maybe see behind me, if you're watching on YouTube, uh, ignore the box of Armageddon. Well, there's also some Age of Sigma terrain. So um tonight, I'm hoping that Dan is um going to come over and we're gonna play a game of Age of Sigma on my gaming table.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:15

This is the voice from the future. Dan did not come and play Age of Sigma. How disappointing.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:28

Um I don't have my gaming mat yet, which I think I maybe mentioned last episode.

unknown 2:25:34

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:34

I talked about it at one point that I was thinking about buying a gaming mat, but I'd now committed. Post holiday, I bought a gaming mat. Um gamesmat.eu, they do double-sided mats. Uh I bought one of those, one which is a sort of sandy desert side, and the other side was grassy, more sort of AOS uh affied. I thought, oh, do you know what? I'll just get that. Um so hopefully that arrived at some point um to decorate my table slightly more. Um, although that was, I think it was around 80 pounds, which is probably quite a lot of uh Games Workshop terrain that I could have bought, noting because obviously the new Games Workshop terrain comes with those cardboard tiles, and as we talked about in the last episode, they look very good for both 40k and Asia Sigma. So I could have just held off and got that, and I might still get those because they are kind of cool. Um, but having a sort of double-sided felt, you know, mouse pat style might be quite interesting. I've never had one before, so I was like, I'll just take the plunge and I'll buy that. And that's going to come out sooner before the Games Workshop one comes out. Because while they've pre-ordered the starter sets, um they haven't actually, I think, included the ones that include the mats, or at least the standalone terrain boxes Games Workshop haven't done. So yeah, I built some AOS terrain. It's not enough, it's a mixture of um some more cry terrain that I bought ages ago. The Skaven Tide terrain some old Citadel woods that I bought for my night home project, um, but with none of the trees on, it's just the uh you know the base bits of the tree. I think I've kind of used all the other bits of the tree for something else, so I'm gonna fill in those and uh make it look like they were trees chopped down, basically, and that's my plan for those old Citadel woods. Um and I have one extra set of the old kind of giant kind of chaos crypt thing, chaos ruins or something. Um that's tucked away and beloft that I've got to find as well at some point. So I might be able to get that down in time for our game. So I've got got at least some terrain for my game. Um, but yeah, that made me think about it. While it's easy to just build terrain like this, it would actually be really nice to scratch build terrain. Uh the Citadel Woods is great, and I could potentially buy some for it's not cheap, but you can still get them online somewhere. Um, but what I was thinking about is wouldn't it be great to customize the AOS terrain to theme it to my armies? I like the idea of having some graves or mausoleum type stuff for my night haunt. Um so what I was thinking is maybe for the Citadel Woods, take that Citadel Woods sort of footprint, cut that out in plaster card, or maybe change the shape slightly so it's a bit more unique, so they're not all the same as the Citadel Woods. And then rather than put trees on there, and often trees just get in the way of the model, so tournament people like to just use the footprint of the trees, and there'd be no trees actually there. At least the way I'm doing it here. In fact, I'll just show you with my wheelie chair. There we go. So I wasn't that too hard to interrupt the uh the shade whatsoever. So you can see here uh the base of the old classic Citadel wood with the bases of the trees just on there, but then the trees are hollow, there's nothing in them, and the trees were meant to be in them. And originally you could just remove them, so you could take that piece off if you want your units to go where the tree belongs. But instead, I think this works really well just as it is. Like I said, I'll I'll green stuff in the tops here, uh, and then do rings in them so they look like they've all been chopped down, and then I'll glue these down because actually I feel like woods should have bits of terrain that do get in the way that your models have to get around, because it's a wood. Wood isn't transparent, is is a dense thing that you've got to move through. So that's the plan. Um, but the other option I was thinking, make something similar to just the base. So this sort of size, if you're watching along, um, but then decorate it with gravestones. And then I've got basically, instead of woods, instead of woods, I've got like a grave site um with lots of little graves of certain sizes. Obviously, they're not tall enough to really be as big and dense as trees, but I think thematically that you can say this is a bunch of gravestones that people could of human size could be hiding behind. Yeah, that does make sense. And then there'd be enough scattered in there to sort of get in the way of some models, but I'll space them out so they're not getting in the way completely. And that would be a nice thematic thing to represent woods, well not being woods, uh, but also tying in with one of the armies that I play. So I think that's um, yeah, giant grave size is what I might build at some point when I get a bit of free time for Age of Sigma. Um, I did also order on eBay um some terrain. I think it cost 30 pounds, someone was selling, um, and it was like three or four of the AOS terrain pieces. So it's um I can't remember what they're called. It was like penumbral engine, I think, one of the things with big balls, um, which is the old kind of classic AOS terrain, one of the more modern statue type things, and then I think it was some more ruin y type uh bits as well. I can't quite remember. So that's hopefully turning up soon. Uh, maybe I'll show that off in a future episode. Um, so yeah, building uh terrain uh for Age of Sigma is the only hobbying I've really done this week. Uh I also had my game with Richard on Monday. Uh he had knights, I had my Thunder Warriors, which I obviously say every time, is Custody Warriors. Uh it was quite a close game. I felt like I was getting smashed. Um, but actually it ended up being he had two units, I had two units, but his two units was um I think one big knight and one armager. Uh although his armager was a Braxtia from Age of Sigma because he was proxying it uh because he didn't have the right um model. But it looked cool actually, it sort of felt like it would fit in with uh 40k in some fashion. Uh and then on the fourth turn, he tabled me with those two units killing my units. Uh but I was on up on points. Uh one of his units got battle shocked because he used a mobile rule to get into the central objective and it had to go through a ruin, so it got battle shocked. And then in the last turn, um it stayed battle shocked, so it couldn't score points. And um the other unit, uh, he sort of thought the only way to get to an objective to do an action was to go through the ruins. So again, he rolled a one, so it automatically got battle shocked. Um, and then realized I won the game at that point, and he kind of conceded and shook my hand. But then actually afterwards he was like, well, actually, let me just measure, and he's worked out, he could have snuck through the gap and gone around and not done it, in which case he would have won. So we were like, okay, cool. So you did win, really. Uh so we called it there. And I but he was only still, I think, maybe five, ten points ahead at that point. Um, or maybe it was less. I can't quite remember. I wasn't keeping score. And that was the one thing I noticed with the app is you you link your game, but you're only really linking it for the purposes of seeing the other person's army. You're not linking it in terms of scoring or even setting it up. And that's a bit frustrating because, for example, one person can go, cool, this is the deployment we're picking, I go first, you know, you go second, attack and defender, those sorts of things. Things. Um, and I can understand the logical that you both keep separate scores on the off chance one of you um scores incorrectly, you can go back and you can check so you both have sort of verification of what your scores are. But the fact is that the setup you both have to do, I'm like that's so much fuss. So I was like, just you do it, Richie. And normally I'm the person that always has the app and does scoring, but I was like, I just can't be bothered. You do it and let me know what the score is, um, sort of thing. And maybe if I had done it as well, I'd have been more aware about what I was having to do to score because I clearly forgot about the one of the operation markers that it effectively was an objective for me, and I could have just hung on it. Instead, I was coming off of them because I forgot. I didn't realise that that was uh helping me score. So yeah, that was my mistake. The other thing I noticed while we were playing the game, so I don't have 40k uh mat at all. I do have below me the old classic gaming tiles, but we didn't want to use that. Um but I had two kill team uh mats which I use, which has the sort of city design on it, the um uh the old kill team city uh tile design printed on. So I had two of those, uh, but I needed another two. And I was like, oh wait a second, I've actually got the boarding actions uh tiles. So let me just attach those on, and obviously they will be the same size. So I hear I would have created my 40k board. Um but no, it turns out the boarding action boards are not the same size as kilting boards. Kilting boards match the uh 40k board sizes, but boarding action specifically is a different size, they are slightly uh wider at one end in terms of the the length should be 20 millimeters per board, and you put two of them together to be 40 millimeters, but the boarding action ones are longer. So to compensate, we just overlapped two of the boards to make the right size, but then the edges, the lengthways, where they are 60 inches, well, the whole game table's 60 inches, right? So then it becomes um no instead of 40. No, 44 becomes 22, so is what they should mean, but they were longer, and then on the other side it's 60 becomes 30, uh, but they were too short. So we sort of lost a few inches off the one side. Um, but the weird uh half of the battle being boarding actions, half being city, a bit odd, but it's all worked fine, and it just meant we weren't playing on plain MDF topped table, so that was a bit nicer. Um for tonight I don't have anything AOS E. So for my game with Dan, it might look a bit uglier. Um, although I think Dan might bring a table mat um with him. So fingers crossed. Um, yeah, that game was good. Uh first game of 40k, good, a bit frustrating at times. Um, there's a lot of complexity around the force dispositions and just the scoring. It's just all a bit complicated. Um it will be interesting to compare the new chapter-approved 40k game versus the new General's Handbook Age of Sigma game, and which one I prefer. Um, it's also worth noting, I think I might have said this before, I don't think Age of Sigma should have bothered with the General's Handbook in the same launch month of 40k. That just feels a bit stupid. I think they would have been better off doing it this month or next month, so there's a bit of a break between them, and the people that play both can be excited by both. And you know, if you want to win over, and Games Workshop does want to win over 40k players to Aegis Sigma, you're not gonna do that by launching effectively the new annual edition of AOS at the exact same time as the new edition of 40k. Just madness. I don't know why they did that. So, yeah, I think that's all my hobby for this week. Um if I get time, uh next week I will try and work more on my Wasteland miniatures, the gang I'm doing for my game, and obviously work more on the game concept as well. I'm hoping to do more of that. And if people are interested, I will do a whole episode dedicated to my post-apocalyptic grim future skirmish tabletop game. If people are interested in hearing about that. If not, I will talk more about uh 40k. Um, next episode, I believe I probably want to talk about Dominatus. Um, so I will probably cover that, although I'm tempted to do that as a transitional noise for this episode, um, because I like the idea of there being companion episodes. So, you know, this episode is all about chapter approved, being a tournament player. The transitional noise could be all about dominators and being a casual player, um, but I almost feel like that's a worthy topic in and of itself for Tagara into the wild for as a main episode. Um, but I'll see what happens over the next few weeks if there's going to be a much more interesting topic. Um, I would also just like to talk about hobby terrain. Um, yeah, I some controversial stuff around 40k and whether it's satire or not. I think that might be another deep dive episode that I'll be tempted to do, but I need to do more research um on that. And that's sort of like a little itch that is uh wanting to come out. Um and yeah, lots of other stuff. So anyway, I hope you've had a good time. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I feel like I've now rambled on for long enough. Um, yeah, don't forget on Patreon there is Translational Noise episode two, where I wax lyrical about Ogun War Tribes. Ogun More Tribes is coming out in the box set, limited box set, uh this week, same weekend this episode comes out for. Uh so I hope you'd be trying to pick that up. Uh, that'll be fun. That'll potentially be my new Age of Sigma army going forwards. Um, there's lots of chat about um uh oh yeah, Warhammer World events and uh the new events happening around the UK uh that Games Workshop are doing. So that might be next episode, that might be transitional noise uh or just uh a ramble that I'll squeeze in somewhere else, uh just not now, um, because I am sweating far too much in this hotbox because air conditioning units are sold out everywhere. So I wish you well, I wish you a great, lovely weekend, week of hobby gaming, walking your dog, going to work, whatever you might be doing. Um, and I will see you in the next episode. Bye bye, everyone. Take care. Bye bye. Bye.