Mustering an army with the biggest guns, the sharpest swords,* and roomiest transports for the upcoming edition of Warhammer 40,000 is all well and good, but all the firepower and fighting prowess in the galaxy is no good if you don’t complete your mission.
As you’d expect for a new edition, missions have changed in Warhammer 40,000. In fact, there’s just one in the Core Rules – entitled Only War, this is a perfectly balanced pitched battle in which two players fight for control of four objective markers, which they’ve taken it in turns to place.
These objectives are scattered across a battlefield of 44"x60" at Incursion (1,000 points) and Strike Force size (2,000 points), or 44"x90" for an Onslaught game (3,000+ points). With both players deployed on the short edges, It’s the perfect theatre for a thrilling battle.
The Mission Deck
Only War is only the beginning. The new edition features the Chapter Approved mission system – an evolution of both the popular Tempest of War cards and the Grand Tournament Mission Packs, allowing you to quickly generate balanced and varied missions for every game.
It’s flexible enough to generate anything from a casual pick-up game to the entire mission framework for a top-tier tournament. There are two different ways to pick your Secondary Missions – Fixed secondaries will feel more familiar to fans of the Grand Tournament format, while Tactical secondaries are more akin to Tempest of War. Either way, you’ll get an exciting and challenging experience.
Here’s how they work: Firstly, pick your game size and muster your armies as usual. Then divide the cards into their respective decks: Deployment, Mission Rules, Primary Missions, Secondary Missions (one deck for each player), and Gambits (one deck for each player). At competitive events, these combinations may sometimes be defined ahead of time, but you’ll usually generate them fresh each time you play.
Shuffle each deck, and draw one card from the Deployment, Mission Rules, and Primary Mission decks. These are your shared mission parameters – the Deployment card shows where both sides deploy and where the objective markers are, the Mission Rules card explains any special rules in effect, and the Primary Mission explains how each side collects Victory points (VP).
Once they’ve set up the battlefield and determined who’s the Attacker or Defender – but before actually deploying their armies – players select and reveal their Secondary Missions. These are personal goals they’re trying to achieve, like Assassination or Deploy Teleport Homer, which will allow them to score additional VP.
Each player starts with two Secondary Missions, and can either choose Fixed Missions – which remain in place the whole battle, reliable yet predictable – or take a risk with Tactical Missions, which offer greater rewards but must be replaced with a randomly-drawn card each time they’re completed. Both players can choose a different way to score, so you can play to the strengths of your army.
Finally, there are the Gambits – an innovation for the new edition.
Gambit Cards
Primary Mission not going as planned? There’s still hope – a daring Gambit may be your ace in the hole. At the end of the third battle round, either or both players may choose to play a Gambit card, chosen in secret from two identical decks.
Once a player reveals a Gambit, their original goal is thrown completely out of the window, replacing their Primary Mission with a completely fresh – and intensely challenging – new mission objective. They keep all existing VP, and their Secondary Missions, but can longer score – instead, they must pursue their Gambit to the bitter end.
A Gambit is a risky prospect, but pulling it off scores an intimidating chunk of VP, allowing a losing player to snatch an unlikely victory from the jaws of defeat. Better still, they’ll ensure battles stay valid – and violent – throughout all five battle rounds.
This set includes three different Gambits – one of which is randomly discarded before you make your choice – allowing you to keep your opponent guessing. Of course, you can also reveal the Proceed as Planned card, in which case you continue with your original Primary Mission. You might even bluff your opponent into panicking and taking on a Gambit themselves…
Gambits are hard to pull off – they represent a desperate hail-mary attempt to pull things back from the brink. However, they do ensure that any player who has fallen behind still has a meaningful longshot at winning even in the face of overwhelming odds.
There’s plenty more to discover about the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 – tune into Warhammer Community tomorrow for our huge preview event beamed live from Warhammer Fest, which includes an in-depth examination of what you’re getting in the launch box and plenty more besides.
To see what else is new about the upcoming edition, visit the Warhammer 40,000 hub here.
* Or local cultural equivalent.