Warhammer 40,000 Crusade

If you are anything like the team at Tabletop Conflict you'll love the idea of a narrative campaign that starts with a small group of characters and units and let's you build your army over time, all the while enjoying action packed tabletop battles and linking each and every game you play in to an ongoing war.

Warhammer 40,000 Crusade is our favourite way to play 40k, using story driven gameplay to document your chosen army’s tale, and combining your games into an ongoing campaign is a great way to immerse yourself in the 40k universe and enjoy playing battles with your friends and gaming groups.

Warhammer Crusade's increasing points element as you progress is also a great way to encourage purchasing, building, and painting new units at a steady achievable pace. Whilst playing your 40k Crusade your units will gain experience, level up, unlock traits and skills and sustain permanent injuries whilst shaping their story of great victories and crushing defeats.

Watch your force grow from a small recon team into a fully fledged battle company.

Whether you’re fielding the 41st millennium’s greatest warriors, the Primaris Space Marines, the awesome looking Necrons from the new Indomitus box set or your 20 year old Eldar Guardians, the first thing you will need to do is assemble your Crusade force by choosing your faction and putting together a list of the units you'll be taking into battle known as the Order of Battle.

Initially your army has a restricted Supply Limit, meaning the power rating of all units in your army must not exceed a power rating of 50 points, this supply limit can be increased by playing more games. You can add or remove units at any time during your campaign, once a unit is added to your roster however it cannot be changed, this includes its weapon loadout; so no swapping your plasma guns for melta guns when going up against a vehicle heavy opposing force. If you choose to remove a unit from your order of battle for any reason you will also lose any bonuses or wargear that unit may have acquired.

Once you have chosen your force every unit in your army will need a Crusade Card which is used to track progress, record experience and injuries, log wargear and abilities, and tally up enemy kills.

Your Crusade Force begins the campaign with 5 Requisition Points (RP) which are used to expand and improve your army throughout its journey. Requisition points are earned after every game through combat achievements, but may never be increased above the original 5; so, make sure you're either spending or saving them wisely after each and every battle.

You may spend your requisition points on either increasing the model count of any unit in your army, modifying a unit’s wargear, or removing its battle scars which are debuffs applied to any unit that was fully destroyed in its previous game. You may also increase your supply limit by 5 power for every 1RP spent. Over time, this will help you recruit more powerful units and grow your crusade force.

After every game you play you proceed to the post game reconciliation phase, this is where you claim any specific mission bonuses and log all unit progression. If a unit is destroyed during the game they must take an out of action test which could result in them losing experience points or suffering injuries that could debuff characteristics or cause movement restrictions for all subsequent games. Fear not, for destroyed units will be available in your next game however they may not be as formidable as they previously were!

All units that participate in a crusade mission will gain experience points for taking part, killing other units or being marked for greatness, these experience points may be spent on bonus battle honours throughout your campaign. Available battle honours include battle traits which can be used to buff characteristics and saves, weapon enhancements which can be used to improve a weapon’s strength, or increase its AP or range. Psychic fortitude bonuses are available to your crusade force’s psykers and special items and wargear known as crusade relics can be issued to characters.

With your Order of Battle cemented and your Crusade Cards all filled out, your Army is now officially ready for its first battle! I’m really looking forward to getting to grips with 9th Edition and even more so, taking my Poxwalker list to war.

Over the coming months Tabletop Conflict will be implementing a player’s Career Profile, this will track all my individual wins and losses including who I played, my army lineup and any battle reports I may have logged for every game I play. I’ll be able to log all my narrative input for any campaign I participate in, and my career profile will act as a permanent record of my gaming history. I’ll be able to revisit old campaigns and watch them play out again and again. This digital gaming footprint will be the perfect tool to document my journey, not just within the Warhammer 40,000 game system but for every wargaming system I can think of. Until then, Games Workshop’s Crusade Journal is my friend and will track my crusade progress using the old pen and paper!

Soon you’ll be able to use Tabletop Conflict to pull together all the stories of your Crusade journey into one visually rich environment. You’ll be able to track the growth of your army and have the ability to share your Career with other players. Stay tuned over the coming weeks as I document my Crusade using Tabletop Conflict!