Betrayal At Calth: Gameplay 1st Look & Walkthrough

The first reviews of the Heresy Box Set’s gameplay are coming in from around the tubes. Take a look!

First we get a text walkthrough of the basic rules:

via warseer’s Dwane Diblie:

So I played my first game today and I enjoyed it. There is a little tactical and a lot of luck to the game, especially with the big things.

I will explain the dice first. There are 12 dice in the box and each has a Critical Hit, two Hits, two Shields and one blank. These are used for everything.

Start of each round you roll for initiative, except the first round which is determined by the mission, each player rolls 3 dice + 1 die for each veteran sergeant they have on the board. A Crit is worth 2 points and a hit is worth 1 point. The player with the most points goes first.

Play alternates between players activating one of their units and preforming one action. Each unit has the ability to preform a total of two actions in a round. The actions are as follows:

Advance: Move the group 1 Hex.

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Run: Move the group two Hexes. You can not run if you are next to an enemy.

Consolidate: Move a model to an adjacent hex, joining a different group. You may be able to create a new group, but this was not covered. You may also be able to move more than one model or even completely rearrange all the models in the two hexes any way you want. Again the staff member didn’t go that deep in to it.

Shoot: Fire all models in the group at an enemy group they can see.

Assault: Move the group one Hex and make an attack against an adjacent enemy group.

Missions can contain special actions specific to the mission.

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When attacking, ranged or assault, you calculate the value of all models in the Hex and roll that many dice. If you roll a any Critical hits amongst the dice, they can be used to trigger the effect of any weapon in the group, your choice.
After resolving the effects of the Criticals, you pick a model in the target group to be the first target. That model must now roll saves against the attack. He will roll dice equal to his Armour value. For each shield rolled, remove one Hit or Critical hit die from the attack pool. Then apply the remaining damage to the target model until it has taken an amount equal to its stamina. The target model is removed. Pick a new target model in the group and repeat until there are no more Hits or Crits left.

If a model does not die as a result of loosing all its stamina in a single action then it is returned to full health. No would counting.

Here are what some of the weapon criticals are:

Bolter weapons: Each crit can be used to remove an activation from the target unit.

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Plasma: Each crit gives the attack an additional die. Though if the second roll is also a Critical then something bad happens to the group. In our game it did not happen so I do not know what the bad thing is.

Melta: If the target is with in a certain range, the first target model gets no armor saves.

Power Fist: Ignores armor.

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That is all I got to see in action. Some how I missed what the Assault Cannon does for its critical.

Oh and one more thing. When targeting the Contemptor, you randomly determine what location you hit with a deck of cards. Each location has different Armour and Stamina values.

There was a command deck but we did not use that, so I have no idea what is in it or how it works.

I found the game enjoyable.

Then we get a video walkthrough of the game’s rules:

via Spikeybits (YouTube):

So overall, it looks like a very streamlined fast paced game that feels like part killteam, part spacehulk, and of course lots of Heresy good vs evil theme and flavor.

We will see if GW is really committed to the game itself, as it would be child’s play for them to knock out more card decks for other Legions, and even packs of more board tiles.

~What do you think?  Are you planning on playing this, or tossing it aside and focussing on the minis?

Author: Larry Vela

Dad, Gamer, Publisher, Pilot, Texan. All games all the time since junior-high. I started BoLS Interactive in 2006. I’m a lifelong tabletop & RPG gaming enthusiast, and internet publisher working to entertain and inform my readers every day. I've been playing RPGs and Tabletop Games since the 1970s. I'm been playing and covering Warhammer and Warhammer 40K for over 35 years.