A New Type of Objective In 40k
Pimpcron gives you a few good reasons to add a new objective type.
Salutations Earthlings! Your ever-loving blue-eyed Pimpcron is here and well. Ya know, there is something that has always made me scratch my head in regular 40k games.
There are battles fought every minute of every day in 40k, but civilians are never represented on the battle field. But the ironic part of this is that many of the races of 40k have killing, eating, or possessing regular people as a high priority. Dark Eldar want slaves. Nids want lunch. Chaos wants either blood, skulls, or play things in general. Tau want more citizens. Necrons just want everything living to die. By now I think you probably get what I’m driving at. So why are our battlefields devoid of squishy, scared, pee-soaked “normies”?
Make your own joke here. I couldn’t pick one. They were all too good.
“Civilians” Can Make Good Objectives
It isn’t that much of a stretch to say that no matter what army you are using, you could figure out a way to either be the defender of said Squishies, or the attacker of them. Even with some armies like Daemons who you would generally think wouldn’t defend anybody. They could either want the civilians for themselves and are thus protecting them to play with later, or you could say that the civilians are their stables full of “livestock” that are very important to their rituals and they don’t want them dead; yet, anyway.
So why would the “good guys” want to kill civilians? Oh come on. The Imperium kills people for not properly addressing envelopes and for pulling the tags off their mattresses. Warhammer 40k is well known for not really having any “good guys”, just varying shades of ass-hattery. It won’t take long to come up with a reason for them to kill normal people.
In other words, why would you place regular old objective markers, when you could place down something that gives a realistic purpose to your game?
Objectives Are Better When They Move!
One of the great things about using regular people as objectives, is the idea that they are crapping themselves with fright and may run around willy-nilly. How many other games have you played (besides Relic mission) that had moving objectives! In most cases, normal people in 40k may be equally frightened by their side’s warriors as much as the enemy warriors. So they wouldn’t automatically go towards their “defenders”.
We like to place the “people objectives” in a line in the middle of the map to start with. At the end of each turn, each objective moves six inches using the scatter dice. They are all rolled separately and Direct Hits mean that they stay where they are that turn. The only time that they do not randomly move, is when they are in base-to-base contact with a non-vehicle unit or a walker. So as long as that objective isn’t being claimed, they will run around.
Objectives Are Better When They Aren’t Just Tokens!
After spending so much time and effort on your army and terrain, it seems to be a wasted opportunity to just use regular tokens for objectives. That’s where civilian models come in. It adds a whole new level of depth to the scene and is a fun hobby project.
I use Heroclix figures as my civilians because they are already painted (or repaint them if you want) and they are roughly the right size. There are tons of figures in Heroclix that look like regular people, even if they really have powers in the comics. If you go eBay or have a friend who plays, I’m sure you can find a ton of Heroclix figures on the cheap. Pro Tip: In case you don’t already know, the word “singles” in your search for Heroclix will direct you to auctions where only single models are being sold.
Not to mention there are exactly three bajillion model companies out there that make “normal-looking people” miniatures in the 28mm range. Reaper Minis comes to mind immediately as being a big one, but there are many more.
Here’s a Fun Mission!
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission Special Rules: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker
Place six groups of five people across the center line of the board. Civilian Objectives cannot give First Blood.
One team is there to defend them and kill the enemy. The other side if the attacker and wants to kill the civilians for whatever reasons you come up with. An Attacker unit can only shoot or assault the civilians as long as a Defender isn’t within 12” of that Attacker Unit. If the Defenders are within 12” of the Attacker, they are too worried about self-defense to kill innocents. BUT they may combo-assault an enemy and a civilian unit.
Defender Gets First Turn Automatically.
They scatter six inches at the end of each game turn with the scatter die and if you roll Direct Hit, they stay still and gain Stealth because they are cowering. They are immune to Difficult Terrain.
Each “Normie” has the following Stat Line: WS-2 S-3 T-3 W-1 Sv-6+
Despite what you would think, they will have the Fearless special rule for game simplicity’s sake.
Victory Conditions: The Attacker Scores 1 Victory Point for every Citizen Unit they kill by the end of the game. The Defender gets 2 Victory Points for each Citizen Unit that survives the game.
Do you use civilians in your games?
Want to witness my slow descent into madness first-hand? Check out my blog at www.diceforthedicegod.com
