Warhammer 40K: New Missions, Points, & APP Preview
Games Workshop is showing off some of 40K’s new Missions, Points, and the APP for the next edition of Warhammer 40,000!
There was a lot of interest in the Matched Play changes and missions coming with the next edition of Warhammer and today GW is diving right in. They have brought in Mike Brandt to discuss many of these changes and give us a preview of what’s going on with the next edition.
Matched Play Mission Changes
“Each mission utilises bespoke deployment zones and primary objectives according to the number of points being used, creating a sensible story and intentional balance. For example, Incursion missions are used for games of 1000 points per side, while Strike Force missions cater for 2000-point battles. Yet even though the missions each share a primary objective, the secondary objectives are asymmetrical, and are actually chosen by the players themselves. The primary represents the shared story on the battlefield, while the secondaries represent your army’s theme and help balance tough matchups.”
Here we have the first look at the new Battle Sizes/Point Limits/Command Points structure for Matched Play. This is a BIG deal. For starters, we have 4 point levels to choose from and it’s a safe bet that each point level will have associated missions. Furthermore, we can see how the new Command Points will work based on the Battle Size now. If you’re playing 2000 points, get ready for a fixed pool of 12 Command Points to spend.
Secondary Objectives will be chosen by the players and will consist of a pool of objectives to choose from depending on the mission. They are divided into different categories and you cannot select more than one from a given category. This will allow players to help tailor their secondaries to the mission they are playing and the army they have built but will still force players to choose objectives that aren’t all just “wipe your opponent off the board.”
Here’s a bunch of the new secondary objectives to tease what’s in store:
New ‘Actions’ Added
“The new edition also adds actions to Warhammer 40,000. Traditionally, your models could either stand near objectives or shoot/punch. No longer! Now you can perform rituals, plant homing beacons, raise banners on key objectives and more. This creates dynamic moments where you may need to decide between firing at the enemy or bravely accomplishing a mission.”
These new actions were hinted at by GW in their Warhammer Daily Twitch Chat. These new actions will impact how you can score victory points and will add some thematic and dramatic elements to the missions and the game.
VP Caps
Victory Points have also been capped in the new missions. Every mission condition can only be scored a certain number of times so that players can still catch-up if they have fallen behind during the game. This prevents things like armies who are able to “Alpha-Strike” from completely dominating the game. Here’s an example from the missions – check out how the scoring works:
Restrictions on on Reinforcement unit deployments? Limits on when and how many points you can score? Interesting secondary objectives? Color me curious…
Point Value Updates
“Finally, as part of developing the new edition, points values were reviewed and have been adjusted UP across every faction. This may sound odd at first, but it yields several benefits. Firstly, games will play faster with, generally speaking, smaller armies on either side. This also makes starting a fresh army for the new edition a more accessible, quicker experience. It also means there’s room for more granularity when establishing how powerful one unit or ability is compared to another, and a global points reset ensures everyone starts in the same place on Day 1, with no established meta or ‘best army’. Here are a couple of examples so you can see what to expect.”
Okay – this is new! A points adjustment upwards means that armies in general will be smaller than before. Suddenly that 3000 point game limit is making sense, too. Now, we don’t know if these points count wargear options currently, but it is certainly an increase from GW. I’m betting we’re going to see all these new points along side the new PDF when that comes out and also in the App.
“The new app will do a number of things to assist players with their games, but one of the most useful will be the ability to build army lists using the updated points values and Detachments.”
Well that confirms that! The App will also have the points Day One. That’s great news for players who want to hit the ground running when the new edition launches.
What do you think of all these Mission changes? Which ones have you the most excited?
