review: Battle Missions

[Hoxtalicious]

What is it?
Battle Missions is an expansion for Warhammer 40,000 that contains more than thirty new missions for you to play. Each mission is designed to provide you with a battle that will really challenge your ability as a commander on the war-torn battlefields of the 41st Millennium.

This 96-page scenarios book contains 30 new missions and three special missions for use in your games of Warhammer 40,000. This book also includes extensive background material and maps describing different battle strategies and tactics used by the armies of the 41st Millennium.

Okay, what is it really?
A rehash of those six missions found in the big blue book for the most part. There are some added extras but for the most part it's KP missions. I hope you like KP missions, because this book certainly likes them for the most part, with some exceptions here and there.

While it is flaunted as a full-colour publication, there's not really all that much in there that has to be shown in colour. The "background and maps" is a two-pager per race, with essentially a recap or rehash of what can be found in the codex. It's written by Jervis Johnson, which detracts from it a tad more, though YMMV. This being Jervis, he spends two pages introducing the book, another two pages explaining how it works, something that could've easily be done in one paragraph without including the design studio and ego stroking.

There's not much else so without further ado, let's just delve into the meat of the subject, the missions.

We're on a mission from the God Emperor.
Each race has three missions that are tailored to their background and needs. Necrons ambush, Guard has trench warfare, Dark Eldar raid for slaves and so on. Below I'll list each mission along with a short description.

Chaos Space Marines
- Pillage: Units in contact with objectives gain a loot marker at the end of each enemy turn, the side with the most loot wins.
- Black Crusade: All destroyed non-vehicle units are recycled so they can be killed again for KP's. The side with the most KP's gained wins.
- Scorched Earth: All terrain is either smoking or on fire, the side that holds the most objectives wins.
Chaos Daemons
- Night Fight: Capture and Control with night fighting for the entire game.
- Invasion: Capture and Control with a Warp Rift in the middle of the board through which Daemons can enter play.
- Fight to the Death: Meat Grinder that goes on until one army is completely destroyed or routed.
Dark Eldar
- Dawn Raid: Capture and Control with night fighting rules until a 6 is rolled.
- Slave Raid: Units slain in an assault gain you one slave, the side with the most slaves wins.
- Feigned Retreat: KP and two units placed in advance receive the Hit and Run rule to represent them being bait.
Eldar
- Pre-Emptive Strike: KP mission where Eldar units are 2 KP's.
- Flank Attack: Capture and Control, Eldar units may outflank.
- Mobile Defence: Capture and Control, Eldar reserves arrive on a 4+, not 5+ etc.
Imperial Guard
- Prepared Assault: Capture and Control, Guard player gets two artillery markers (1/2" squares), the defender one that represent stray rounds. These must be held 36" over the board and hit any unit they flutter onto.
- War of Attrition: Victory Points, no Troops may be put in reserve, slain Troops choices must be recycled.
- Trench Warfare: Capture and Control, units that do not move after deployment gain a 4+ cover save, each player gets D6 obstacles, either tank traps or razor wire.
Necrons
- Ambush: KP scenario.
- Reconnaissance in Force: Capture and Control, Necrons surround the enemy. Fog of War in use for the first turn, if you want to shoot or assault you must first pass a Leadership test.
- Implacable Advance: Capture and Control, no outflanking.
Orks
- Blitzkrieg: Capture and Control, fast units may arrive from reserves on turn one on a 4+.
- WAAAGH!: Capture and Control, a Waaagh! may be called and carried on to the next turn.
- Cut & Run: KP, all Orks have Hit and Run, all enemy units are stubborn.
Space Marines
- Vanguard: Capture and Control, all Astartes infantry can hold objectives, not just troops. They may also use a Thunderhawk as part of their army, if shot down the marines auto-lose.
- Surprise Attack: KP, foes have move through cover and stubborn, deep striking marines may do so on turn one.
- Allround Defence: Single objective that the foe must take from the marines, any unit within 3" of it is Fearless.
Tau Empire
- Vertical Envelopment: KP, Tau skimmers that are in reserve must enter play from the enemy table edge.
- Counter-Attack: KP, all Tau units have Stealth
- Fighting Withdrawal: Capture and Control, all Tau have Hit & Run
Tyranids
- First Contact: Capture and Control, six objectives, one per 2'x2' section, Nids enter play by rolling a D6 and landing in that numbered square, any non-vehicle unit can capture objectives
- Wave Assault: Capture and Control, Nid must divide his army into three waves and randomly start the game with one, turn two sees wave 2, turn 3 wave 3, each wave must enter from a different edge.
- Infestation: KP's, Nids have Stealth, enemy has Preferred Enemy, all area terrain counts as dangerous terrain.
Special Missions
- Line Breaker: Three Baneblades are pitted against a regular 1500 points 40k army, no Apocalyptic formations or units allowed! Baneblades must escape from the board, the defender must disable them or at least destroy their ordnance weapons.
- Kill-Team: Each side picks 200 points from 0-1 Elites, 0-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack. Three models from your force may have one universal rule to make them more special. Uses classic Necromunda bottle out rules for suffering 50% casualties.
- Clash of Heroes: Named characters can only slay one another. He who slays the other character wins. The rest of the army can only ping the wounds down to one, only the named character can give the killing blow.

Verdict?
This is for the most part something that could've easily been published in the White Dwarf or distributed through PDF files from the GW site. While there are some interesting scenarios to be found here, it is sadly not a whole lot to make me say that it was a €22,50 well spent.  

[Lady Blodwynn]

It's not all that bad, though it is a group purchase and with a discount. sweatdrop  

[Sir Kyle Aziz]

Hahahaha, all Tau units have Stealth.


Muahahahah!

Wow this seems kinda fun though. My only question about the Prepaired Assualt for IG. What if they flutter off the table? An are they capable of being used more then once?  

[Sir Doober]

We played Prepared Assault as one-use-only stray shells, and if the paper went flying off the table, then it was clearly more stray than expected. My opponent's one managed to fly off in one direction away from my guys, then went straight back and landed on an Infantry Squad. Twas painful.  

[Pouncey]

Aww, nothing for Battle Sisters? ;_;

That makes the Pounceykins sad.

Edit: Oh well, at least we've got what's in the Codex...  

[Hoxtalicious]

Despite claims that the missions are best played race specific, they can easily be used with other armies in the limelight. So Daemon hunters or Sisters of Battle can do most other things with ease.

The prepared assault stray rounds can be used every round.

I've just kept the descriptions as basic as possible to avoid certain members from going "wah wah wah GW is gonna sue" on us again.  

[Pouncey]

Lt. Brookman

Despite claims that the missions are best played race specific, they can easily be used with other armies in the limelight. So Daemon hunters or Sisters of Battle can do most other things with ease.

The prepared assault stray rounds can be used every round.

I've just kept the descriptions as basic as possible to avoid certain members from going "wah wah wah GW is gonna sue" on us again.

Hm, very true. : D

Hadn't thought of it like that. : 3  

[Van Evok]

IMHO GK can play vs demons as "defenders", and INQ generally can substitute as marines (or chaos - substitute loot counters for worship at the shrines)  

[Lady Blodwynn]

The loot scenario has the attackers ransack the objectives while the defender tries to safeguard as many counters as possible.  

[Oryn]

I'm definitely underwhelmed by this book. bought it during the store's sale day, so at 20% off, and still feel kind of gypped. Orks and Tau get screwed. Why are give two of the lowest Initiative races Hit and Run for their own scenarios? On top of that, Tau get screwed hard for all of their missions. One of the most hard up armies to conserve KP and and 2 of their missions are KP based. The Other gives Tau the mostly useless Hit and Run. And then there's a mission which forces your skimmers to come on from the enemies edge. NOT HELPING GW. Not helping. On top of that, Inquisition doesn't even get a mention.

And don't even get me started on Kill Team Kill Team in it's current state is so easily broken it isn't funny. Just look at the KT thread in the 40k forum for a couple of ideas that came out of 10 minutes of discussion with a friend.  

[Hoxtalicious]

Guard has a tougher time with those KP's, as blobbing up is in most cases not a desirable option for platoons.

But yes, a missed opportunity if you ask me. They have some nice ones in there though, just a pity that it's mostly KP and rehashes of Capture and Control.  

[Oryn]

Lt. Brookman

Guard has a tougher time with those KP's, as blobbing up is in most cases not a desirable option for platoons.

But yes, a missed opportunity if you ask me. They have some nice ones in there though, just a pity that it's mostly KP and rehashes of Capture and Control.

Yeah, but all three of the Guard specific missions are Objective missions, whereas 2/3 of Tau specific missions are KP missions.  

[Lady Blodwynn]

Prepared Assault certainly is fun, if only to play around with those stray rounds. burning_eyes  

[Van Evok]

Line breaker seems a must for someone who has 3 Baneblades to field - just to see whether enemy can stop them. Just pray you dont run into IG (those veterans with cheap meltabombs and meltaguns would ruin the day...)  

[Hoxtalicious]

I have three Baneblades (technically two Blades and a Hellhammer, but the latter can mount my dearly departed Lucius pattern turret instead) and a Guard army, so I can certainly tackle both sides of the scenario.