The publishers of this blog take no responsibility for the resultant injuries and/or deaths from the immense shock and/or confusion readers will likely experience upon reading certain content in this battle report, namely that Mike won a game of 40k.
Imagine Risk 2210 combined with 40k. I combined rules from both to create a fully functional, well balanced 3 player 40k ruleset for a festive battle.
1)Each player needs a 2500 point list. 2)The board is divided with the following deployment zones and objectives:  3)Each player receives 3 reroll tokens to begin the game. These permit participants to either bid (explained below) or to get a free reroll of any dice rolled. 4) Participants must then bid on turn order by secretly selecting the number of tokens they are willing to bid and then by revealing their choice. The player that bids the highest number of tokens gets to play first. However, if there is a tie, those players would roll off against each other. This bidding is repeated at the beginning of each game turn (not player turn), so it is possible to go two turns in a row. Any tokens bid however are lost. Initiative can still be stolen if either player rolls a 6, so despite bidding and losing all their tokens, winning players could still get one-upped by a lucky roll.  Dokclaw vole l'initiative 5) Participants could gain more reroll tokens each game turn by seizing and holding onto a new objective or by wiping out a unit. This was not cumulative (thus one cannot get 2 reroll tokens for killing two squads, only one). No matter what, players always get one free token each turn to assure everyone can still bid. 6) The game is won by seizing the most objectives. In the event of a tie, the number of tokens left in one's pool becomes the determining factor. |
In traditional games of Capture and Control with two players, ties were very common. The extra objective makes this standoff less likely. In addition, the tokens being a backup determinant of victory further decreases the risk of a tie.
The reroll tokens add a new strategic dimension to the game. Does one save their tokens and go last, or is it better to risk all & try to dominate the other players by going first? Either strategy has its drawbacks and advantages. Going two turns in a row can be brutal, but one must remember that in the event of a tie, the tokens are the final determinant of victory.
Mike was playing his space marines with some blood angel allies. He set up in the D1 zone.
Le déploiement de Mike
Les schtroumpfs et les mecs sans bras
Les marins d'assaut
L'objectif de Mike
L'arrière vu des escouades schtroumpfs de Mike
L'arrière vu de l'escouade d'assaut de Mike
Dokclaw played his space wolves again with a few space marine allies. He set up in the D2 zone.
Le déploiement de Dokclaw
Beaucoup de mecs blancs avec quelque Longfangs saupoudrés dedans
Dokclaw a démarré plusieurs fois puisqu'il a volé l'initiative plusieurs fois et il a fait des offres agressives
Les loups tonnerres
Le déploiement des éclaireurs de Dokclaw
I played my death guard as per usual. I set up in the D3 zone.
Mon déploiement
Mes Havocs, quelques marins de la peste, et des enfants de Chaos contre le flanc de Dokclaw
Ma deuxième escouade des Havocs dans le même morceau de terrain de Chaos Ludik
Mon objectif
My well-endowed spawn rushed into the fray and was shot to bits for violating indecent exposure regulations, a typically heavy-handed response from those self-righteous space wolves.
Tué pour sa violation des lois de tenue indécente
Dokclaw plopped his scouts down in a hot zone between Mike's and my deployment zone during his scout move. They immediately attracted Mike's attention. He sent a bunch of assault marines after them but they never made it.
Les marins d'assaut ratent leur attaque contre les éclaireurs
A drop-pod came down and a bunch of sternguard with a librarian hopped out and wiped the floor with the assault marines.
Le module d'atterrissage de Dokclaw arrive
Les vétérans d'appui massacrent les marins d'assaut
L'escouade était affaiblie beaucoup
My greater demon deepstruck in but couldn't join in the fun due to the volume of fire leveled at him. Very unfortunate.
Pauvre Grand Immonde, tué non réalisé
Another pod lent a little more weight to the firepower directed against my Great Unclean One. No wonder he died.
La vie est dure pour mon grand immonde
As for the the scouts, they were eventually picked off with sporadic gunfire from my plasma wielding plague marines and autocannon Havocs.
A lucky shot from Mike's dreadnought iced my first flyer, my Hell Blade. It was wrecked, so it made a nice decoration still on the battlefield.
Il s'appelle Jesse James
Mon Hellblade est détruit
C'est un beau morceau de terrain
The space wolves had the temerity to launch a drop pod assault against my home base objective.
Un autre module d'atterrissage dans mon arrière-cour
I already had a squad of cultists and plasma plague marines holding the objective. They took the shots the space wolves dealt out and then I outflanked in two more squads of plague marines with my Chaos Lord on Palanquin and Huron.
Mes cultistes ont survécu
The space wolves then ate 12 shots of rapid-firing plasma, 7 melta shots, many bolter shots, a bunch of autopistol shots, and a blast from Huron's heavy flamer.
J'ai effacé les intrus avec toute cette puissance de feu
The death blow was dealt by a final squad of plasma plague marines that sauntered back from the edge of my zone.
Ces gars ont descendu le dernier gamin de loup
My objective was safe.
My Blight Drone cleaned up, taking out most of a space wolf drop pod squad that was bunched together and then further abusing the sternguard squad with another blast the next turn.
Des bonnes cibles pour le gabarit AP3 de mon Bourdonnement de plaie
Cela a tiré deux fois avant d'être éclaté
Unfortunately, it got destroyed soon after. I find it is somewhat comparable to the Drake with the AP3 blast only it does not ignore cover. It is much cheaper of course at 125 points.
I thought my decision to outflank all my heavy hitters to defend my base had left the majority of my force out of the game. Due to changes in the rules though, footsloggers can travel a fair distance in just one or two turns.
With no more threats from enemy outflankers, I walked my force in two waves: one towards the center objective and one towards the remaining sternguard and Mike's squad of straggler marines in the back of his zone.
La migration de Nurgle
Mes marines de la peste ont été déchirées s’ils devaient tuer des marines ou chasser l'objectif
The cultists and one of my plasma plague marines squads moved on the center objective. Only the plague marines made it and they got shot up pretty badly once there.
Mes cultistes suivent la migration
Cette escouade a chassé l'objectif
...et ils y sont arrivés!
My Chaos Lord on palanquin set his sights on the black marine squad in the rear. On the way, they finshed the scouts, and helped soften up the Sternguard.
Cette escouade était ciblée par mon seigneur de Chaos
Mon prince démoniaque les a laissés tranquilles...
The Lord was pretty brutal in close assault with five wounds and four base attacks.
...mais mon seigneur les a détruits d'un coup
He's based on my first attempt to make a scratchbuilt forgefiend. The forgefiend performed so badly that I had to do something else with the tracked body I made. The lord has turned out to be an excellent alternative.
The space wolves were hunkered down in their base with a bunch of Longfang missile launcher dudes.
La base de Dokclaw
Les Longfangs étaient fatigants
As usual, I didn't have any great response to this threat so the whole game I was catching missiles, especially in my Havoc squads just opposite them.
Mes Havocs ont mangé la plupart des tirs des lances missiles
I was happy that I didn't need to deal with these bad boys. Dokclaw sent them running over to Mike's lines. Mike met them head on with some assault marines and the assault dwindled on for several turns.
La cavalerie de loups tonnerres attaque des marines d'assaut de Mike
They only had one storm shield so they were not as devastating as usual. I think Mike actually killed them all but then something else whacked his survivors.
Les loups ont été réduits tranquillement
I think these smurf marines helped kill the thunderwolves in the end but I'm not sure.
Les chasseurs de loups
Dokclaw had to outflank his death star termie unit on the other side of the table due to bad rolling so I sent my Chosen after them in another outflanking maneuver. Only problem was that I forgot to shoot them. I effectively wasted the opportunity to hit 5 terminators in the back with no cover with five meltas.
L'escouade d'étoile de mort des loups de l'espace
The terminators made short work of my Chosen in the following turn.
J'ai oublié de tirer cinq fuseurs dans leurs dos
Les terminateurs ont détruit mes Élus
It didn't matter much to the course of the game because his termies were too slow and arrived too late to get where they were needed.
Despite all my misgivings about the changes to the daemon prince in the new Chaos codex, I still love the daemons' codex version. At 205 points, I still get a lot of bang with Wings, T6, Eternal Warrior, 3+ save, and Assault grenades (cloud of flies).
Stinky (my daemon prince) came hurtling out of the skies and chewed up the remnants of the sternguard.
Puant descend
Puant attaque les Sternguard
After that, he took a lot of fire and almost died, but I used a token to save him. Mike had kept two squads hanging back in the rear both of which came to untimely ends, the yellow against Stinky, and the black against my lord on palanquin.
Mike a conservé toutes ces unités
Finally he moved on to the center objective where he made his final stand.
Il essaie de contester l'objectif sans réussite
Not a bad run for a unit my codex rendered obsolete. I just hope they don't Nerf him horribly when they update the daemon's codex. I guess I will just have to enjoy the rules as they last.
The center objective was a hot zone for most of the game and ultimately decided who was to be the winner as none of us were able to wrest a home base objective away from the other players.
It began with the smurf incursion that was subsequently waylaid by another of Dokclaw's ubiquitous drop pod assaults.
Les marins schtroumpfés sont attaqués par un autre assaut de module d'atterrissage
Les deux voulaient l'objectif
Un assaut schtroumfément sanglant
My terminators and demons soon cleared out the survivors, although the demons themselves were quickly wiped out.
Les terminateurs arrivent en Deepstrike
Some of the terminators survived Dokclaws desperate attempts to destroy them, and so they mopped up the remains of the drop pod squad I had already hit with my aforementioned Blight Drone's AP3 blast.
Le service nettoyant de terminateurs
I made my bid for the objective with a squad of plasma plague marines but they got shelled with missiles from both my adversaries. They lasted 1 or 2 player turns and then were wiped out.
J'ai amené cette escouade à l'objectif, mais il était anéanti par les lances-missiles
Juste un qui est restant
Mike had several tactical squads hanging back in his deployment zone. As the game rolled into the third or fourth turn, he began to walk them out towards the objective. They looked like migrating lemmings as they came out in long lines.
Les marins tactiques marchent vers l'objectif du centre
La tentative de Mike de gagner l'objectif central
My demon prince tried to stop him but it only succeeded in killing a few marines, not in wiping out the squad.
Mon prince démoniaque a réussi à tuer d'autres marins, mais Mike a gagné quand même avec ses survivants
Mike's waiting game tactic worked. His end game spammer rush for the objective was so populous that neither Dokclaw or I could remove him from the objective. The end result, Mike won with two objectives to each of our single objectives.
Oopa-lai! Mike a gagné!
Overall, I found the rules worked very well. The system for accumulating tokens never allowed anyone to seize a wild advantage. During our game, players gained at most two tokens a turn since no one was able to hold the center objective without it being contested.
Le champ de bataille à la fin de la partie
It did make for a much longer game though. You have to be ready to accommodate a third player. The turns could be really long too. When Dokclaw succeeded in going two turns in a row, and I was after Mike, that was a very long wait.
The 3 player dynamic forces players to be careful with the balance of power as it does in 3 player Risk. Players cannot afford to ignore one player. In general we were good with maintaining the balance except I think Dokclaw and I focused too much on each other, leaving Mike much too strong in the end game. The amount of marines he had left was absurd!
Another complication was the D1 deployment zone that Mike chose. I had decided to rule that outflanking functions as it usually does in a regular game. Unfortunately that meant that Mike, being so far from any of the side table edges, gained an advantage by being almost impervious to outflanks, whereas Dokclaw and I could have units outflanking directly into our deployment zones. A possible fix for this would be to make outflankers able to arrive from any of the table edges that don't open into a deployment zone (see the dotted lines in the following photo).
Des zones plus équitables de déploiement pour les débordeurs
Despite the length and the outflanking hiccups, I really enjoyed the game. Any veteran of the Apocalypse scene will not bat an eyelid at spending 5-6 hours on a game. Hopefully I remember the rules next time we have the dilemma of an extra player for 40k.
Thanks to Dokclaw and Mike for being sporting enough to test drive these new rules. Dokclaw has been my willing guinea pig for some time now. I personally love trying out alternative rules so that's why I keep inventing them. Here's to many more funky scenarios in the future.
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