The final chapter of the Arks of Omen series is available for pre-order this weekend, detailing the Lion’s surprise return to the 41st Millennium and the inevitable violence that follows.
Alongside all the juicy lore you’ve come to expect, this book also contains a plethora of new missions and game modes for Boarding Actions, as well as extra Boarding Patrol rules for the Leagues of Votann, Imperial Agents, Thousand Sons, and Adeptus Custodes.
Dread Encounter games represent six pivotal moments during the Arks of Omen narrative, transformed into unique Boarding Actions missions with unpredictable elements. In The Red Angel’s Wake, for example, a rampaging Angron cuts straight through the hull of the ship you're fighting on – rupturing your game board and forcing your troops to make risky leaps through the void.
The walls themselves can melt and disappear mid-game in Empyric Erosion as the warp shifts around you, while the cavernous corridors of Macro-Junction IV-B allow each player to take a hefty Critical Threat from a list of valid options like Broadside Battlesuits, Helbrutes, and Sentinels – the perfect mission for when you want cut loose and squeeze a hulk into your space hulk.*
Breaching Operations, meanwhile, introduce 12 new symmetrical missions with a new twist – Weakened Walls that can be destroyed to provide players with new tactical ingress options, represented by the Soulshackle terrain upgrades.**
There are three ways of taking out these brittle structural elements – shooting them with powerful ranged attacks can blow them open, or a hefty enough model can break right through with a decisive charge move. A new Breaching Charges Enhancement – joined by two others – also lets you vaporise these sections, with the bonus of dealing damage to anyone unwise enough to hunker down behind them.
Arks of Omen: The Lion also includes Boarding Actions rules for the last few factions. The Leagues of Votann are experts in extracting salvage from deep space structures of all shapes and sizes. Their void-armoured warriors eradicate anything standing between them and their prize with an Exacting Focus resulting from well-practised combat drills.
Poring over blueprints and schematics of voidcraft to glean an advantage in combat is the tactic du jour for many forces, but experienced Thousand Sons commanders can tap into the warp resonance of these oft-haunted hulks – a Walker of Fractured Ways can slip through imperceptible gaps in reality to ambush unsuspecting foes.
There are also rules for Adeptus Custodes, who live up to their awe-inspiring reputation, plus Enhancements and Stratagems to flesh out the varied odds and ends that make up the ranks of the Imperial Agents.
Arks of Omen: The Lion closes the twisting narrative with a surprise finish, gives you plenty of new Boarding Actions toys to play with, and is available for pre-order this Saturday.
* The hatches are still only human-sized though – no Deff Dreads squeezing themselves through those little port holes.
** These will be available separately soon, for enterprising voidcraft constructors.