Battle Missions - Summary in First Post

[Scryer in the Darkness]

***PLEASE NOTE: This post is no longer being updated***


Overview

Book released March 6th, models March 6th & 20th. Black Boxes in stores now: book, Venerable Dreadnought, Deff Dread, Killa Kans.

Incoming article, 7th Dec:

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How would your Imperial Guard army fare if called to fight in a lightning assault, more commonly associated with the Adeptus Astartes? Would you be able to mount a fighting withdrawal with a Tyranid horde? This March sees the release of Battle Missions, a new expansion book for Warhammer 40,000 that is packed full of scenarios and promises to test the generalship and tactical flexibility of every general to the limit.

Battle Missions is a fantastic gaming aid for every Warhammer 40,000 player. The scenarios featured within Battle Missions are all based on the styles of warfare preferred by the armies of the 41st Millennium.

Jan White Dwarf:

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This March, the tactical acumen and martial prowess of generals and commanders will be tested to the limit with the release of Warhmmer 40,000: Battle Missions. A mighty tome laden with exciting new background and more than thirty entirely new scenarios, Battle Missions is the perfect way to put your tactical nous through its paces. With the Battle Missions book, each army is presented with a set of three scenarios that perfectly suit the battle tactics and background of the army in question. When you're preparing to play a game against an opponent, you roll a D6 to see which scenario you'll play - perhaps you'll play a battle mission that suits your force perfectly, or maybe you'll find yourself having to adjust your tactics in a scenario that favours your opponent. Battle Missions promises to test your skill and generalship to the limit.

GW blog, 8th Feb:

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This new supplement contains more than thirty new missions and having a quick flick through I was really excited by the fact that each one of them enables an army to fight in a way that its background and stories have always described them fighting. You can play surprise assaults with Space Marines, launch Webway attacks with your Eldar and engage in trench warfare with the Imperial Guard. At the back of the book there are even three special missions that can be used with any army; I'm particularly looking forward to taking on an entire Imperial super-heavy tank company in the Line Breaker mission.

The Battle Missions supplement is packed full of additional background, maps and battle plans that you won't have seen in any other Warhammer 40,000 book.

Short review of the Battle Missions book care of sovietspace:
http://theastronomican.blogspot.com/...ide-scoop.html

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Right then guys, I have seen and had a good look at the shiny new Battle Missions book, and I've come to share what I have learned! First off, the book itself is very nice. It's well put together, some good bits of fluff and some great shots of models/battles. I'm also happy to say I can allay some fears about the race-specific missions. Although they are clearly designed with each army in mind, this is more from a fluff point of view. It is clear that any army could happily play any mission, indeed this is expressed in the foreword. There is no reason why a Marine army couldn't play the Counter-Attack mission in the role normally filled by Tau, for example. This means we are in effect getting 33 new missions, as opposed to the few for whatever races your gaming group has.

As far the missions themselves go, they are a mixed bag. Some are subtle changes of deployment zone or objective placement, while others are really off the wall or ingenious. My personal favourite so far is a Guard mission that has a random bombardment. This involves cutting out bombardment counters, holding them 36'' above the table and letting them 'flutter' down. Wherever they rest suffers a large blast hit. I think this is a really simple but awesome idea (though not one for tournaments). There are other similar surprises throughout the book.

Finally I'm going to highlight the last three missions. Not only do we see a slightly modified return of Kill Team, but also a hero centric battle where only characters are allowed to kill off other characters. These seem like a real blast to play, and I'll be trying them out as soon as I can.

Missions

There are 33 missions in the book, 30 army-specific missions and 3 universal special missions, though there is the capacity of being able to use any army for the "army-specific" missions. The missions are quite varied, using lots of deployment variants and one or two simple special rules. Each army gets eight pages: two pages of background and two pages for each of their three missions. Each mission has a graphic of the battlefield showing deployment zones, etc, along with mission description and special rules, and also how you can play the mission with different armies.


Determining which mission you fight can be done a number of ways:
- Themed: Each player rolls D6, the winner gets to use one of his army's three missions, chosen at random.
- Random: Roll D66 on a nifty table.
- Ultimate Challenge: Roll D6 on a table, giving you three choices (standard rulebook, method 1, method 2).
- Selected: Basically you and your opponent choose one.


Army-specific Missions

>>> PLEASE NOTE: I will not be compiling a comprehensive breakdown of every mission, just a couple of things for each, for us to get an idea.

- Most missions have the army-specific player either having the first turn automatically, or on a 2+.

Chaos Marines

• Pillage
  - Spearhead-like deployment.
  - Objectives are placed as normal, however if the player controls an objective at the end of the turn with no enemy contesting, they get 1 Loot/Salvage point. Whoever has the most at the end of the game wins.
• Black Crusade
  - Kill point mission.
  - All non-vehicle units have Without Number.
  - All non-Fearless models on both sides gain Stubborn and Preferred Enemy.
• Scorched Earth

Chaos Daemons

• Night Fight
  - Board split into 4 triangular sections. Daemon player deploys normally, enemy rolls a D6 for each unit: 1-4 they must deploy in the corresponding section, 5-6 they choose where to deploy.
  - Night Fighting applies.
• Invasion
  - At the centre of the table is a warp rift. Four objectives are placed an equal distance between the rift and each table corner.
  - Daemon player may either deep strike or enter from the rift as if from reserves.
  - If for any reason an enemy comes within 6" of the rift they are instantly destroyed.
• Fight to the Death
  - Game has no set length. It ends when the last model from one of the sides is removed. Whoever is left standing is the winner.

Dark Eldar

- All Dark Eldar missions have the Dark Eldar player going first on a 2+.

• Dawn Raid
  - Night Fighting applies and stays in effect unless a 6 is rolled at the end of the turn.
• Slave Raid
  - The winner of this mission is determined by a tally kept of prisoners taken as 'slaves'.
  - Dark Eldar player gets 1 Slave point whenever an enemy unit is wiped out within 18" of one of his units, bonus points for killing enemy HQ models in close combat.
• Feigned Retreat
  - Table is divided into thirds lengthwise.
  - Dark Eldar player deploys two units in the center section, with the rest of the army in his own. Enemy deploys in the remaining section.
  - Special rule "Follow me, suckers!": Dark Eldar units in the center section get Hit & Run.

Eldar

• Pre-emptive Strike
  - Kill point mission. All Eldar units are worth 2 KP, enemy troops 1, enemy HQ 3, and all others 2.
• Flank Attack
  - Eldar vehicles with the Fast rule and embarked units may outflank.
  - NOTE: reporter may be getting some aspects of Flank Attack mixed up with those from Mobile Defense...
• Mobile Defence
  - All Eldar Monstrous Creatures, walkers and non mounted units start on the board.

Imperial Guard

• Prepared Assault
  - This mission uses special paper bombardment markers. Guard player gets two, the enemy one. Players drop their markers from 36" above the table and where they land suffers a S8 AP3 Large Blast.
• War of Attrition
  - All troops on both sides have Without Number.
  - Most points destroyed wins. Tally is kept of points of any unit destroyed multiple times.
• Trench Warfare
  - Guard player gets to place a certain amount of terrain (6" long obstacles, razor wire, tank traps) in his deployment zone.
  - Guard infantry standing out in the open that do not move from their starting point get a 4+ cover save. As soon as they move, it is lost and cannot be regained.

Necrons

• Ambush
  - Enemy deploys within 12" (or possibly 6?) of a central line running the long length of the table. They cannot deploy within 12" of the table edge, making the enemy stuck in a convoy-like line. Necron player deploys anywhere else on the table
• Reconnaissance in Force
• Implaccable Advance
  - Board is divided into thirds lengthwise. One objective is placed in each section of the board.
  - Nothing may outflank.
  - Special rule "Objective secured": Whenever an objective is taken by either side and held until the end of the turn, it counts as secured. The unit may then move off the objective, but the player keeps it still.

Orks

• Blitzkrieg
  - Both sides start with all units in reserve except Fast Attack.
  - Any vehicles with the Fast rule may enter the board on Turn 1 on a 4+.
• Waaagh!
  - Ork player may continue his Waaagh! for more than one turn. However after the first time, may not claim any cover saves at all. LoS rules still apply.
• Cut & Run
  - Orks get Hit & Run, enemy gets Stubborn(?)(reporter thinks).

Space Marines

• Vanguard
  - Marines deploy by Thunderhawk (and/or Drop Pod I think).
  - Thunderhawk costs 900 pts and takes up one each of Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots. Arrives automatically on Turn 1 and takes off again on Turn 3. If it is destroyed, Space Marines lose the mission automatically.
  - All Marine infantry are scoring.
• Surprise Attack
• All-round Defence
  - Marines deploy in a circle in the middle of the table, holding one objective.
  - Any Marine model within 3" of the objective is Fearless.
  - Enemy deploys on all sides, whoever controls the objective in the last turn wins.

Tau

• Vertical Envelopment
  - Tau skimmers may enter play from the enemy's table edge.
• Counter-Attack
• Fighting Withdrawal

Tyranids

• First Contact
  - Table is divided into six equal squares. All Tyranid units start in reserve and come in on a table edge determined by a D6 (corresponding to each square).
  - All non-vehicle units are scoring(?).
• Wave Assault
  - Tyranid player divides his army into three waves. Enemy sets up in the centre of one table edge.
  - One wave comes in per turn from any of the three remaining table edges. May not come in on one used by a previous wave.
• Infestation
  - All area terrain counts as dangerous terrain.
  - All Tyranid models gain Stealth, while the enemy gains Preferred Enemy.

Universal Special Missions

• Kill Team
  - 200 pts max.
  - Special FOC: 0-1 Elite, 0-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack.
  - All models act independently.
  - You may select three models in your army to designate as specialists, to give any USR from the book. None may be given the same rule.
• Linebreaker
  - One side fields a normal 1500 pt army, the other... 3 Baneblades.
  - Baneblade player must get his tanks through the opposing player's line and off the table in order to take out a shield generator-type installation.
  - Baneblade player wins if a D6 roll plus the number of functioning primary and ordnance weapons leaving the table, equals 7 or more.
• Clash of Heroes
  - Both sides take a named character (if no named character is available, can use an unnamed independent character or a Monstrous Creature) and up to 4 Elites among the various FOC choices.
  - Nominated characters can only be killed by the opposing character but other models can reduce them down to their last wound. Should a character be killed, they lose the game automatically.
  - The sole aim of the mission is to cause maximum carnage with your character. At the end of the game, each side counts up the points of enemy casualties caused by its character, and subtracts that character's own points cost from the total. Winner is the one with highest final total.

Releases


Battle Missions book (96 pages) - £15.00 / US$24.75 / 22,50 € / Oz$42.00 - Mar 6th
- BoLS have put up a video of a runthrough of the Battle Missions book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amumozyCIAM


Metal blisters and bitz packs

Ork Flash Git with Targeting Squig - £10.00 / US$16.50 / 13,00 € / Oz$28.00 - Direct Only - Mar 6th
Pic: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...22#post4375922

Currently unassigned (some might possibly end up being for Blood Angels rather than Battle Missions) likely to contain a number of bitz packs:

<Space Marines metal blister code> - £10.00 / US$17.00 / 15,00 € / Oz$28.00
<Space Marines metal blister code> - £10.00 / US$17.00 / 15,00 € / Oz$28.00
<Space Marines metal blister code> - £10.00 / US$20.00 / 17,50 € / Oz$33.00
<Space Marines metal blister code> - _£8.00 / US$15.00 / 12,50 € / Oz$22.00
<Space Marines metal blister code> - £10.00 / US$16.50 / 13,00 € / Oz$28.00
<Space Marines metal blister code> - _£5.00 / _US$9.00 / _7,80 € / Oz$17.00*
*Flesh Tearers shoulder pads bitz pack (10 pads)


Plastic boxes

Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought_- £26.00 / US$43.00 / 35,00 € / Oz$72.00 - Mar 6th
- GW pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...19#post4375919
- BoLS vid of sprues: http://www.youtube.com/user/watch?v=2MvbvIMt-co
- Build review:

Originally Posted by The-Malefic

The weapons are indeed plug fit into any one of three different shoulders and they have a neat little design trick. The part of the weapon that fits inside the shoulder has a gap where the arm peg slots thru, holding it secure without the need for glue as long as the arm is attached to the torso. Even easier and more convenient than the recent Guard releases.

Heads:
- Grey Knight style with the knightly mouth section, like the Company Champion head.
- Iron Armour* style, with plenty of studs.
- Crusade Pattern* with a slight style update, like Master of the Arsenal / Chronos.
*names might be wrong way round.

All of these are fully interchangable with the whole Marine head range pretty much, you could probably even have an unhelmeted head if you wanted a "naked" Dread. The replacement plates for the front and side armour are pretty much all cool and include a Tyranid Hunter icon (Tyranid head with a sword thru it). The kit also includes an Iron Halo which fits onto the sarcophagi with the rounded tops. There are also two other sarcophagi (one with an aquila debossed on it, another that has three blank scrolls) both square like the standard version Dread except it seems like you can leave the marines helmet showing thru a gap where the vision slit would be, that you can also replace a regular slit. And some of the side bits have arches like the Assault Cannon ammo box from the metal model, but cleaner looking.

Best plastic kit so far this year, easily. Oh, and it seems ever so slightly larger in width than a regular Dread.

- Black box build pics:

- Many more pics here: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...09#post4396009
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...69#post4400369
- BeastsofWar unboxing vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fitv38P3Y8


Ork Killa Kans - £27.00 / US$44.50 / 35,00 € / Oz$74.00 - Mar 6th
- GW pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...19#post4375919
- BoLS vid of the sprues: http://www.youtube.com/user/watch?v=vxOKyUjuQiA
- Black box builds:

- Many more pics here: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...63#post4409563
- BeastsofWar unboxing vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZDCY__teg4


Ork Deff Dread - £30.00 / US$49.50 / 39,00 € / Oz$83.00 - Mar 6th
- GW pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...64#post4375864
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...22#post4375922
- The Voice says "the ranged weapons from the Deff Dread will be somewhat compatible with the Trukk and Battlewagon kits, but the Kans will require considerably more work. Those of you who want Rokkit Launchas for your Trukks could be in luck here."
- BoLS vid of the sprues: http://www.youtube.com/user/watch?v=HKhJ8jIaULg
- Black box build:

- More pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...93#post4399493


Imperial Guard Chimera - £20.00 / US$35.00 / 30,00 € / Oz$55.00 - Mar 20th
- GW pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...21#post4375921
- Total sprue recut. The accessory sprue isn't included, but there are many more accessories included than we saw with the Hellhound.


Imperial Guard Basilisk - £30.00 / US$49.50 / 39,00 € / Oz$83.00 - Mar 20th
- GW pics: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...21#post4375921
- Essentially a repackage, new Chimera hull sprue combined with old Basilisk-specific sprues. Vehicle accessory sprue is included however.


<Scenery plastic box code> - £15.00 / US$24.75 / 19,50 € / Oz$41.00^
^ In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning the contents of the scenery plastic box.

[sigur]

Sounds very interesting. At least much more so than Planetstrike.

[Orkman]

New Codex PLUS new Orks, IG, and Marines? I'm down!

Hopefully that means new plastic Flash Gitz! /prays to Gork or possibly Mork...

[Sidorio]

Wasn't Harry saying something about another half to the story in March or so next year with the Blood Angels? If so this might be it.

[ard boy stu]

awsome I cant wait to see what the new ork moddels are

pleas plastick killer kans

[The Custodian]

Hmmmm, hopefully these black library missions may involve pre heresy things? A PH kit? *crosses fingers and prays to the god emperor*

[sigur]

@Scryer in the Darkness: Gah, I edited it seconds after I posted! How could you ....so fast...

Releases for Orks, SM and IG, eh? Guess we'll see an artillery tank kit (as indicated by the Basilisk with the new Chimera chassis) for IG. For the other armies, I'm at loss. A deffcopta kit finally?


@the_custodian: Pretty surely not.

[The Custodian]

Originally Posted by sigur

@the_custodian: Pretty surely not.

A man can dream can he not?

All in all good news... Normal games tend to get a tad boring after a bit and while I enjoy planetstrike and apoc they still lack fluffy premise other than RAWR I INVADE PLANET/ BIG FIGHT/ SKIRMISH! Yes I know you can make your own missions but as you know it is sometimes hard to find someone willing to go along with your modified game.

[ant1clock]

I hope this doesn't mean that BA are not going to be in March, now. Or would they keep the shroud of secrecy over them until next year.

[ard boy stu]

Originally Posted by The Custodian

A man can dream can he not?

All in all good news... Normal games tend to get a tad boring after a bit and while I enjoy planetstrike and apoc they still lack fluffy premise other than RAWR I INVADE PLANET/ BIG FIGHT/ SKIRMISH! Yes I know you can make your own missions but as you know it is sometimes hard to find someone willing to go along with your modified game.

I totally agree hopefully Battle missions will be the end of this but we will have to wait and see

[Vaktathi]

Interesting, sounds cool, it'll be nice to get some new missions other than C&C/SG/Annihilation that people might actually play, especially if they start using these at events.

By far the most interesting bit I've seen regarding 2010

I wonder what sort of kits we will see. I could care less about SM stuff really, but new Ork and IG stuff sounds very cool (hopefully it'll mean replacements for Rough Riders, Storm Troopers and variants for Bassy's), although I wish they'd throw some stuff out for some other armies as well.

[Vindikhein]

Book sounds cool, but I'd be a lot more excited if the IG mini release is plastic stormtroopers rather than the plastic basilisk kit. More in keeping with raids and assasinations as well although I'm sure there'll be some larger scale battle missions that the basilisk will be appropriate for.

[bigcheese76]

Has anyone else noticed that the Basalisk in the picture on the email isnt the current one. That presumably means were getting another kit like the hellhound and leman russ demolisher. So finally we should be able to field the Medusa, the Colossus and the Griffon without buying resin ones from FW or doing our own conversions.

[firestorm40k]

Whilst I welcome the release of a new missions book, the first time GW have decided to do this since 2nd Ed., two comments have stood out for me:

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Each of the thirty-something scenarios detailed in Battle Missions has been designed to allow you to fight the sort of battles normally the subject of Black Library novels.

So, taking 'Brothers of the Snake' as an example (as I'm currently reading that one), does it mean that you'll have rules that will enable a squad of 10 Space Marines to fight and slaughter about 2,000 Dark Eldar, without lsing a single man? That's great for the existing imbalances of the game, isn't it???

Also, here's another thing that gets me:

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Of course it just wouldn't be the same if there weren't some great new miniatures to fight through these missions with. Fortunately, there will be new sets for Space Marines, Orks and the Imperial Guard released alongside Battle Missions in March.

I see they omitted the bit that says, "so you Chaos Players desperate for your Plastic Daemon Prince, or you Eldar players who've been awaiting the new Plastic Jetbikes for THREE WHOLE FREAKING YEARS, and any other players desperate for something your army actually needs, will just have to wait for new miniatures for armies that have just had MASSIVE, MAJOR releases of new models (so arguably, don't actually need anything new, in most cases) in favour of your own. And you'll like it, and you'll accept it, because we're GW and this is how we treat our customer base."



Yeah, I know there's more Orks and Guard stuff that could be released from their latest Codexes, but you can't deny that there are many models that nshould have been released by now. And I can imagine how DE & Necron players feel that their new 'dexes have been pushed back to release this...

Sorry, I've woken up in a really bad mood this morning...

[Arakanis]

MORE Imperial Guard, Space Marine and Ork models?! Well, that's good, because we don't have NEARLY enough of those!

Don't mind me over here, trying to convert my mostly metal Aspect Warriors.... damn arm broke AGAIN.

[Frgt/10]

looks like we have the other half of the blood angels story then
looking forward to this

[Scryer in the Darkness]

Originally Posted by Frgt/10

looks like we have the other half of the blood angels story then

Nope. Very, very far from it.

[Karham]

How cool!

Finally i can play bg mission for my Raven Guard (maybe against orks)

Any suggestion on which models will be released for the SM? They don't lack so much models...

[bocaj]

New space marines, orks and Gaurd what?
Its space marrines 3rd wave now
Its Gaurd's 3rd wave now
Its orks 3rd wave now
What about daemons? They've still got over half their product range in metal and some without even models.

[Scryer in the Darkness]

Originally Posted by Karham

Any suggestion on which models will be released for the SM? They don't lack so much models...

Blood Angels.