The new season of Warhammer 40,000 is in full swing. The generals, despots, and immortal phaerons of the 41st Millennium have returned to Necron space en masse, making full use of the new rules and missions found in the Pariah Nexus Mission Deck. In an effort to ensure that all is fair in galactic conquest, the Warhammer Studio also released the Pariah Nexus Companion, a free download containing FAQs, errata, maps, tournament support, and more. Here’s Kenny – the head of rules for Warhammer 40,000 – with more.
Kenny: Hot off the back of the latest Balance Dataslate and Pariah Nexus Mission Deck releases, what an exciting time it is to be playing Warhammer 40,000 right now!
To support the new season, we have released the Pariah Nexus Tournament Companion. This has been designed to help provide guidance for players and tournament organisers alike – anyone who wants to use the Pariah Nexus Mission Deck, be that for a pick-up game in your local area, or at one of the many fantastic tournaments run around the world.
This document has several parts. Firstly, it reproduces the Mission Sequence leaflet contained within the deck. This should improve player accessibility and ensure everyone can access this important information as a free download. There are also some minor adjustments from the leaflet found in the deck: there are now recommended mission combinations and table layouts later on in the document.
Next is the Pariah Nexus Mission Deck Card Errata. These changes are either to make cards clearer for players or to adjust them for a more balanced and engaging gaming experience for everyone. As the season progresses, any future errata will live in this Companion.
Complementing the Errata, we will also maintain a Pariah Nexus Mission Deck FAQ to help clarify any potential questions about specific interactions within the Mission Deck and how to resolve them. The FAQ will be a living document that we will update alongside our Faction FAQs, so any additional questions that emerge throughout the season can be added here.
The Pariah Nexus Mission Deck has an amazing number of possible Mission combinations, with six Deployment Types, 10 Mission Rules, and nine Primary Missions. In pick-up games players are free to randomly determine the mission or select a combination to play. However, we have created a Mission Pool of pre-generated combinations which we feel provide an engaging experience. With 20 to choose from, players and tournament organisers can mix and match to offer the widest variety, or focus on the combinations they prefer.
To support this Mission Pool, we have created eight bespoke Terrain Layouts. These have measurements, and provide suggested footprints for Area Terrain features, as well as recommended heights for each piece and orientations for walls. These are all guidelines – feel free to adjust them to suit your own terrain collections. Our suggestions should provide a balanced tournament experience, ensuring there’s enough obscuring terrain to hide behind, but allowing movement for the most impressive models. We use these layouts for balance and internal testing within the Warhammer Studio, and we feel they reflect how a battlefield should look for balanced play in the current edition of Warhammer 40,000.
Finally we provide some guidance for Tournament Organisers on how to run the pairings and rankings. There are countless different ways in which a Warhammer organised play event can be run. While broad-stroke concepts like pairing off players with the same record are straightforward enough, the nuance of running a successful Warhammer tournament is the subject of continuous conversation and evolution. Our recommendations are focused toward newer organisers who are still establishing their principles to help improve the average experience at any Warhammer tournament. These principles are followed at most official Warhammer events.
Warhammer is more popular than ever. Over the last few years, more than a million games of Warhammer 40,000 have been played at tournaments around the world, and that growth will only continue in the future. With so many hobbyists participating in the game, we wanted a Companion that supports all players using and enjoying the Pariah Nexus Mission Deck, to make it as seamless and engaging an experience as possible.
Thanks Kenny (and Josh!). Metawatch returns to the Mortal Realms next week, where we’ll be investigating Spearhead from a competitive angle. It’s a finely balanced game mode that’s perfect for quick-fire tournaments, and we can’t wait to see how the tournament community tackles it.