We've Got Crusade At Home | Warhammer 40k Narrative Gameplay
Grab your paints and get comfy—Joshy and Jonny are diving into their personal Warhammer 40,000 Crusade narrative!
In this episode, we’re talking about our homebrew twists on Leviathan and Pariah Nexus, blending them with a digital battlezone, custom mechanics like Honour Guard, and a bespoke base-building system. Expect war stories, list-building, and plenty of chaotic fun as we explore how our armies and gameplay evolve. Listen now!
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TTP Field Manual is brought to you by Joshy and Jonny, best friends and gaming enthusiasts from their local group, Trust the Process Hobbies. Die-hard fans of the Warhammer universe, we use this podcast as a platform to share our passionate (and somewhat humorous) ramblings about all things Grimdark.
By day, Joshy is a therapist; by night, he's an RPG aficionado who grew up on (not-so) Final Fantasies and crafting his own Dungeons & Dragons worlds. Jonny, a hospitality manager, spends his downtime conquering more video games than Joshy can keep track of.
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Notes:
- Our homebrew Crusade campaign mixes elements from multiple Warhammer 40k supplements with homebrew rulesets into a fun mash-up.
- The concept of Hero Hammer is alive and well, with massive models and character units dominating our games like giant action figures in a playground.
- We’ve been experimenting with custom scenarios to keep gameplay fresh and engage everyone in the narrative more deeply.
- The fun lies in seeing how our armies evolve and the unexpected twists that arise during matches.
Transcript
Hello, Hello.
Speaker A:It is the TTP Field Manual podcast.
Speaker A:I am Joshi.
Speaker A:With me, as always, is my boy, Johnny.
Speaker B:Oh, hi there.
Speaker A:Hey, how's it going, gorgeous?
Speaker B:I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker B:I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker B:How are you?
Speaker A:It sounds like I'm a little baked, but I swear we were just doing voices before we hit record.
Speaker A:Hello, everybody.
Speaker A:No, I'm good.
Speaker A:I'm here to talk with you about Warhammer.
Speaker A:How else should a morning go?
Speaker A:Am I right?
Speaker B:I mean, it is something I think about every morning when I wake up.
Speaker A:Is it addiction?
Speaker B:No, I call it Inspiraash.
Speaker A:I call it hobbying.
Speaker A:Some sort of like, don't worry society.
Speaker A:It's okay to spend all this time and money on this because it's a hobby.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I don't wake up in the morning and check Instagram first to see what has been revealed.
Speaker A:Oh, I do that for the.
Speaker A:The dopamine hit.
Speaker A:It just so happens to show me Warhammer stuff.
Speaker B:They are constantly the first stories in my list.
Speaker A:Can we just talk about, you know, decade ago, decade and a half maybe?
Speaker A:I can't imagine, like, Warhammer would have so much going on.
Speaker A:And in fact, it definitely did not.
Speaker A:And now with all the various games and social media and extra stuff they do with like gaming and books, every freaking day, it's something.
Speaker A:It's like world news, but within Warhammer.
Speaker B:I mean, it's part of having a social media presence.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You gotta make sure that you are constantly doing something and making sure people wake up and think about 40k first thing in the morning.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And with how many systems they had available, there's always something to show.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think they do pretty well at actually saying, like, this is for Horus heresy.
Speaker A:That is different from the Warhammer 40,000 that you like.
Speaker A:You know, I think they do a good job of that.
Speaker A:But the amount of times I see on Reddit, it's like, I just bought these Space Marines.
Speaker A:Can I paint them as dark angels?
Speaker A:You do you boo.
Speaker A:That's kind of it.
Speaker A:Like, the amount of times I see threads and Instagrams and stuff like that, which is asking just such obvious things, makes me wonder if perhaps the company hasn't done enough to make it as accessible as they like it to be.
Speaker B:If you go back to previous editions, the colour of your models literally determined what they could do in game.
Speaker A:That is true.
Speaker B:It wasn't until 10th edition that they really opened up the you do you boo.
Speaker A:And the concept of wissywi.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Although we don't play with wysiwyg.
Speaker A:We do not play with wissywi, which is a funny acronym for what you see is what you get.
Speaker A:Yeah, usually that is.
Speaker A:Hey, like for today, this space marine with the sword I'm running as Space Marine Judicia Stat block.
Speaker A:Because I 3D printed that and it's not the same official model.
Speaker B:Careful we don't throw that word around too loudly.
Speaker B:We don't want Warhammer to find out that we're 3D printing models, alright?
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:I just bought hundreds of dollars worth of Sisters of Battle.
Speaker B:I'm also not anymore because my 3D printer exploded.
Speaker A:That was a hand me down from our other mate who does 3D printing.
Speaker A:Wasn't it mate?
Speaker B:That was a hand me down of a hand me down.
Speaker A:Oh dear.
Speaker A:But it made you tanks.
Speaker B:It did.
Speaker B:And then I came back and it failed so spectacularly that it.
Speaker B:It fell apart.
Speaker A:Oh, like boom, boom.
Speaker B:Like shook screws loose kind of bad.
Speaker A:What did you do?
Speaker B:I put a print on and then went over to a mate's place and I came home and it was bad.
Speaker A:Oh no.
Speaker A:Johnny boy.
Speaker B:So she died.
Speaker A:How are you going to change up your list now?
Speaker A:Whenever we do a crusade game, you're like, I'm gonna try something different.
Speaker B:It's simple.
Speaker B:I just need to get myself a Magnus.
Speaker B:I'm falling behind now.
Speaker B:There's two demon primarchs in our games.
Speaker B:I need one for myself.
Speaker A:You've heard of the concept of Hero Hammer, right?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:So in Warhammer, a lot of the various systems have a lot of factions.
Speaker A:You typically go for these factions based on like certain characters you might resonate with, whether it's aesthetically or storyline wise, maybe even rules wise, but especially in recent times, we're getting all these big giant centerpiece models, big demon guy, big hero guy, big angel guy, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker A:Our playgroup is just one by one, bringing in these huge centerpiece models.
Speaker A:And it's just like a big primarch dick waving contest now, isn't it?
Speaker A:Yeah, we've got potentially like six.
Speaker A:Yeah, six primarchs, which are the primordial demigod esque head of the original Space Marine.
Speaker A:Legions of old.
Speaker A:And now they're back as these big mythical play pieces.
Speaker A:All the bad boys coming back a lot quicker than the good boys.
Speaker A:We got Mortarion, got Angron Magnus.
Speaker A:Fulgrim isn't quite out yet, but he'll be here soon.
Speaker B:Willy, we would need a player for that.
Speaker A:We got Gilliman, we got the Lion.
Speaker A:I kind of feel Bad for like the other factions who just have like a.
Speaker A:Just a person, you know, a new person on the block up against the.
Speaker A:These mythical entities.
Speaker B:I mean, some of the lists have almost equivocal power units.
Speaker B:Like you've definitely got Necrons with Big Boy Silent King.
Speaker B:You could talk about Orcs and the fact that they have Ghazghullsraka Farseer.
Speaker B:I kinda see on more of like the first Captain level, like Abaddon and stuff like that, but that's about it realistically.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:We got, you know, various supreme commanders.
Speaker A:The Custodian have Trajan Valorous.
Speaker A:The Sisters of Battle have Morven Varl.
Speaker B:They feel more like first Captain level.
Speaker B:You know, that's more like the Abaddon of the army as opposed to the Big Boy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:If the Custodians were to be like, oh, by the way, Constantin Valdor's back.
Speaker A:Everyone be like, crap.
Speaker B:But also, please, come on, do it.
Speaker B:I'm all for it.
Speaker A:He exists.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He's in the setting still.
Speaker A:And I won't.
Speaker A:I won't spoil the how and the why, but you read some, some of the books that I have and you'd be like, hey, I know that guy.
Speaker A:But we're going to talk about something a bit more specifically.
Speaker A:Hey, we are.
Speaker A:This was something you suggested we talk more about today on account of us not being too prepared for anything else.
Speaker A:What are we going to talk about?
Speaker B:We are going to talk about Crusade, but specifically our Crusade.
Speaker B:We are about 5,6ish weeks into our latest Crusade campaign.
Speaker A:What is Crusade?
Speaker B:It is 40K, but story.
Speaker B:It is the narrative expansion to 40K, specifically 10th edition.
Speaker B:And it follows an ongoing growing force that you can build up alongside your friends, slash the players, and really allows you to upgrade units over time and gain XP.
Speaker B:It's like a RPG light attached to your games of 40k.
Speaker B:They release Crusade supplements once a year.
Speaker B:We so far have two for this edition being the Leviathan Focused Campaign and the Pariah Nexus.
Speaker B:And we've just got Nakmund Gauntlet revealed and released to the public.
Speaker B:Spoiler we haven't talked about yet.
Speaker B:That will be coming in the future.
Speaker B:But our personal crusade is a creation of your own, as the basically Dungeon master for this sure is.
Speaker B:Which is a fusion of Dark Crusade's map alongside both of the previously released Crusade supplements, all mishmashed into one giant story, which I think's pretty cool.
Speaker A:Did you want me to talk about my thought process as I put it all together?
Speaker B:I think that would be a good place to start.
Speaker B:And then we can go through what armies are being played, how the first chapter of this campaign has gone up until our points rise, and then maybe an overview of what might be coming in this current chapter.
Speaker A:Yeah, so you mentioned these Crusade supplements and.
Speaker A:And most armies also have a little bit of something to reflect their personal identity when interacting with the Crusade system.
Speaker A:A little bit of an add on to their army rule that works just within Crusade.
Speaker A:But the actual Crusade supplements are a little bare bones for my liking, Johnny.
Speaker A:They have a lot of missions which are unique and flavorful and not always feeling particularly balanced because that's warm.
Speaker A:You have a lot of these upgrade tables, war gear perks, maybe secondary resources, secondary types of missions.
Speaker A:That's all well and good, gives you a bit more to think about.
Speaker A:And then every, you know, unit obviously upgrades themselves over time as well, but that's kind of it.
Speaker A:And we played a crusade last year.
Speaker A:We followed the Leviathan mission pack, where a few of us use it to really learn the game.
Speaker B:We called it the tutorial season.
Speaker A:Yeah, Season zero, Season one, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker A:But we got our head into it.
Speaker A:We understand it.
Speaker A:And for this year, I wanted to do something a bit more in depth.
Speaker A:I wanted there to be a little more going on than all right.
Speaker A:This week, Johnny vs Joshi play this mission.
Speaker A:Like, I didn't really want to do that again.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A: K early: Speaker B:What a beautiful time to be alive.
Speaker A:What a beautiful time to be alive.
Speaker A:As the dawn of War first game went through its various expansion cycle, they started to play around less with a linear campaign of missions and more of what was known as the meta map, where you would have a sort of strategic overlay of either a planet or a planetary system.
Speaker A:You and the computers would take turns choosing tiles to attack.
Speaker A:You would resolve these missions and then the phase resets.
Speaker A:The idea was to obviously expand your army across the whole battle zone.
Speaker A:Taking this region, taking that stronghold, taking this tactical resource.
Speaker A:And that was fun because, you know, you kind of were involved in this global or even solar level conflict.
Speaker A:And I wanted to replicate that.
Speaker A:And so I found via Reddit, someone who had done a very high resolution render of the dawn of War Dark Crusade.
Speaker A:Cronus metamap.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And that was the tipping point.
Speaker A:All of our players we assigned to the actual starting locations that various factions did.
Speaker A:So in the video game.
Speaker A:We would then choose each weekend that we play tiles to attack and then we would sort of either going off of a bracket system or a random roll off be assigned opponents and then from there the various opponents would then roll off whoever had the higher result.
Speaker A:We would then set up one of the actual Crusade mission packs from either Pariah Nexus or the Tyrannic War to be the mission that's actually played.
Speaker A:And whoever actually wins receives the perk assigned to that particular tile set.
Speaker A:We then go to our little digital meta map and like highlight the zone like this is, you know, held by like I place this as a battle.
Speaker A:I picked yellow.
Speaker A:Like Josh won his match.
Speaker A:This region is yellow to represent it's under the sisters control.
Speaker A:And every region is assigned one of the actual missions from the book.
Speaker A:Several of the missions in the actual video game came with a specific strategy phase affecting perk.
Speaker A:So I tweaked them for this actual 40k tabletop game.
Speaker A:Yeah, we just play the actual competitive tactical mission decks for those.
Speaker A:And that's sort of the first real phase, the first big meat of this sort of direction I've taken us in.
Speaker A:And you've played more games of this than all of us.
Speaker A:Jonny, how do you like it?
Speaker B:Well, I think that it's very well done.
Speaker B:I think you've done a really good job putting everything together and having everything kind of work out.
Speaker B:I do have one overarching issue with Crusade in general, but that's a me problem, not a game problem, which is I want to play different armies all the time.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:You know, in the interest of the fact that yes, I have played the most games and that can kind of lead to some snowballing because you can gain experience.
Speaker B:I have been swapping between two forces to kind of keep myself on like an even playing level, which honestly has been great because it means that I can play my main Crusade force and then occasionally break it up, which is a lot of fun because I do enjoy breaking it up and doing something a little differently.
Speaker B:In my ADHD trainwreck that is a brain.
Speaker B:I am constantly jumping between army lists for like three or four different armies.
Speaker B:For me, list building is a lot of fun and an interesting exercise on learning what's good and what can be used.
Speaker B:But for the overarching like Crusade stuff, I think you've done a really good job.
Speaker B:It's still 40k in a nutshell, but I mean some of the little bonuses that you can get are pretty decent and have pretty good effects there.
Speaker B:I do think there is some tinkering we could do in some aspects, but that's something we can Discuss in the future for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's not an official product, it's just our fun game.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker B:I've been having a blast.
Speaker A:Should I talk about more than the additional systems that I've sort of tacked on to this?
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker B:Maybe touch on the ones that we're currently utilizing as opposed to the one that's still whip.
Speaker A:That's still whip.
Speaker A:So to get out of the way, the issue first of well, what if someone attacks a region?
Speaker A:What if someone attacks a region but then like you're not there to defend it?
Speaker A:Well, I actually have four custom scenarios for resolving matchmaking and as it were based on several parameters.
Speaker A:Right now we are in a lot of the what I call initial expansion phase where people are just grabbing neutral territories with no ability to actually contest regions.
Speaker A:But then I have other matchmaking parameters that I call Territorial Aggression, Overwhelming Force and Meat Grinder, which is obviously to represent the raising of the actual conflict as people start to attack one another.
Speaker A:Maybe create some pseudo alliances, etc.
Speaker A:And we'll talk about that more as they actually come up, which they have not now besides that, as I said, we got some perks in certain regions.
Speaker A:This can include generating additional resources.
Speaker A:It can do certain things such as better defensive capabilities if you like were to be attacked.
Speaker A:We obviously have our strongholds which have an extra layer of defensive capability baked into their like actual existence.
Speaker A:So you're not going to just like go pick on the new guy and like take his territory.
Speaker A:You actually have a bit of an uphill battle that's multi game staged so that you know you're not just going to be wiped off the board in one weekend.
Speaker A:The thing that we are playing with is called Honor Guard.
Speaker A:In the Dark Crusade video game you would be able to take these various regions and you would get like a Space Marine Lieutenant or like an Elder Exarch or a Chaos Sorcerer, you know, something like that.
Speaker A:And you'd be able to start your actual strategy game like missions with them running around with your boss.
Speaker A:I love that idea.
Speaker A:And so I've got an honor guard system.
Speaker A:If you manage to secure territory, you get a one time buy in to a particular honour guard unit.
Speaker A:It's all relatively balanced to other factions, but let's say Chaos Space Marines takes the jungle.
Speaker A:All right, cool.
Speaker A:Now you can spend a requisition point to have the Nemesis Claw walk around with you at the start of the game.
Speaker A:And these Honor guards don't actually count for Crusade if you want to take them and you actually have quite a leap on your opponent.
Speaker A:They get additional perks to counteract you if you are being attacked.
Speaker A:You can deploy more honor guard without this penalty.
Speaker A:And it's just sort of like a little like inner circle, you know, hero's court kind of vibe for your warlord as it grows.
Speaker A:And without touching too much into it.
Speaker A:My two work in progress systems is a replica of again, the Dark Crusade War Gear system where you do sort of in game achievements such as conquests, defenses, kill, lots of things.
Speaker A:You get war gear points.
Speaker A:Your warlord gets a new bit of gear that's still a work in progress, as is base building, which is a sort of an outer phase between games system that allows you to spend a separate resource to do things such as an armory, a medical facility, defensive lines, and overall, just reinforce your position.
Speaker A:With unique structures being available to all the specific factions, such as, let's say the Sisters of Battle.
Speaker A:They get a Saint shrine, for example.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And that's kind of all of the various systems I've been whipping up for us.
Speaker A:Does that get you excited?
Speaker B:It sure does.
Speaker B:I do like customization and I do like the ability to adjust over time.
Speaker B:I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker A:But with that out of the way, do we want to talk about the people that are actually playing in the Crusade?
Speaker A:Do you want to talk about your actual crusade force?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Do you want to talk about the narrative I've set up?
Speaker A:Where do you want us to go?
Speaker B:Well, let's start with what people are playing.
Speaker B:Not necessarily like names or anything like that, but the forces that are at play.
Speaker A:Yeah, of course.
Speaker B:And then we can go into the narrative that you have set up for, like why this is happening based on the people who are involved.
Speaker A:Take us away, Johnny.
Speaker A:Who, army wise, is in this game?
Speaker B:Well, we have currently six active players, of which I think I'm the only one running two forces for now.
Speaker B:For now, we have the Imperial Forces in the Adeptus Sororitus being played by yourself.
Speaker B:We have the Dark Angels who have made an appearance for the Adeptus Astartes we have representing the Xenos factions, Orcs.
Speaker B:And then things get a little icky from there.
Speaker A:You have chaos.
Speaker B:Chaos reigns in 50% of the forces at play.
Speaker B:We have World Eaters, a new Death Guard player who has just joined us, and me representing the forces of undivided Chaos in Chaos Knights and Chaos Space Marines.
Speaker B:It's been really fun to kind of see everyone getting involved, joining in, doing what they need to do, seeing how people are growing and building and how terrifying some of these armies are to fight on the table already.
Speaker A:I'm constantly anxious.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Every game.
Speaker B:Like, how do I deal with this issue that is in front of me?
Speaker B:The answer is through great strategy and clenched cheeks.
Speaker A:Strategy?
Speaker A:In my strategy game.
Speaker A:You mean I can't just roll dice and win?
Speaker B:No, you cannot just roll dice and win.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's been a blast.
Speaker B:I honestly have no complaints regarding the actual playing of the game.
Speaker A:Yeah, and we're building like more terrain pieces and stuff so that our battlefields can be a little more varied.
Speaker B:Would you like to discuss what your thousand points of Adeptus sororitis looks like?
Speaker B:Who's leading them, and a little bit of lore behind why they have come to this planet.
Speaker B:And maybe a part of the narrative of what's going on on this planet.
Speaker A:I could do the Star wars spiel that I sent to our group chat a few weeks back.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:If you want.
Speaker B:I think that's a good place to start giving everyone at home an idea of the events that have perpetrated this war.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:Alright.
Speaker A:So, the second war for Cronus, a world scarred by the conflict known as the Dark Crusade, is now once again plunged into brutal battle.
Speaker A:The emergence of the Pariah Nexus has has sent ripples of chaos and entropy across the Segmentum and Cronus, cursed since the Horus Heresy is once more the epicentre of an all consuming war.
Speaker A:A strike force of the Dark Angels under the orders of Chapter Master Azrael arrives on the frozen cliffs of North Vandir and reinforces a desolate fortress once held by the Bloodravens.
Speaker A:What should have been a simple reinforcement mission to aid the beleaguered local PDF quickly devolved into something far more sinister.
Speaker A:They arrived during the prelude of yet another chaos incursion.
Speaker A:Before the Dark Angels arrival, the exiles of Iron Warband had already laid claim to Cronus, reconstructing cursed warp portals from the blasted graves of the Deimos peninsula, calling forth their new Dreadblade allies.
Speaker A:The forces of Khorne, driven by an insatiable lust for bloodshed, did not arrive by these Warp gates lured.
Speaker A:Regardless, they arrived upon a blood wave crashing into the frigid northern reaches of Cronus, forcing the Dark Angels into a deadly two front war.
Speaker A:The warband calling itself the Skull Creed, declared war upon all who dared to stand before them.
Speaker A:Their thirst for carnage unquenchable and their advance towards the Nephalem sector will leave a bloody trail.
Speaker A:Following the arrival of the Khornet warband, a mission of the Sororitas Order of the Ever burning Lantern was ripped from their warp course by the virulent blood wave cast adrift.
Speaker A:Canon Ass Susannah and her sister Johanna landed in Victory Bay, preparing their consecrated force for the brutal war surrounding them.
Speaker A:On the Green coast, the latent spores of the orc gene have once again found fertile ground.
Speaker A:Several Warbosses and their brutish followers, emboldened by the promise of endless carnage, gather their forces, scrapping together the heaviest suits of armor and choppiest of claws or all, while chanting the timeless rallying cry of a Nua.
Speaker A:Had to do it.
Speaker B:You had to do it.
Speaker A:The Dark Angels reconnaissance force known as the Unmerciful, survived a brutal ambush by mutant heretic Astartes, but failed to purge the taint creeping into the forested lowlands.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, the Dreadblade, Heretic and damned forces aligned with the Exiles of Iron clashed with the Skull Creed along the Moria coast, a bloody conflict that only worsened as the forces of Khorne pushed forward with savage abandon.
Speaker A:Amidst the carnage, the Sisters of Battle, true to their name, were consumed by righteous fury.
Speaker A:In the Eris Badlands, they found themselves locked in a deadly street brawl With a massive orc warband, the Sisters, unyielding in their resolve, slaughtered the orcs without mercy, their rage unleashed in every brutal Melter blast.
Speaker A:And that's where we are.
Speaker B:No, I'm really glad you went through that because it sounds really cool.
Speaker A:I used to run D and D games.
Speaker B:It shows.
Speaker A:We played a couple matches since, but that was the opening spiel I wanted to give our group, and now I've given to all of you.
Speaker B:How do you feel about how things have gone so far with your Crusade force and the game in general?
Speaker A:I think the game in general reflects still the overall win rate of our various players both in and out of Crusade.
Speaker A:So nothing feels particularly changed in like a strategic sense, at least from my observation.
Speaker A:My personal force is been quite anxious for me to run because there are a lot more glass cannon y than I'm used to in a force.
Speaker A:However, I have won two out of three games.
Speaker A:The ones that I won were against Bully Boy orcs and an iconoclast fiefdom where half the army was a knight tyrant.
Speaker B:I don't know what you're on about.
Speaker A:And even my third match against the Dark Angels was such an uphill battle, but it was a lot closer than it realistically ought to be.
Speaker A:So I'm actually having a decent bit of fun leveling up my girlies, giving them their relics, going through the trials of the Saint Crusade stuff.
Speaker A:And that's been quite fun.
Speaker A:I don't have a meta list or anything like that.
Speaker A:I don't realistically believe in being the deadliest list, but I do like a bit of synergy and there definitely seems to be a little bit of synergy.
Speaker A:I think my actual battle line units don't do very much, but my characters and my heavy support do almost too much in comparison.
Speaker B:I mean, as long as someone's getting the job done right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How about your force?
Speaker B:My main force is Chaos Knights, as you said.
Speaker B:Up to the thousand point mark, I was running a knight tyrant as the majority like half of my points allocation.
Speaker B:Mostly because I think he's super fun and definitely not meta, which is also something that I don't really like to run meta lists necessarily.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's always fun to throw the biggest possible thing I can on the board and just see.
Speaker B:It's been an interesting game where the knight Tyrant has definitely been worth his weight in my opinion.
Speaker B:I think the model is very slept on and can accomplish a lot of really fun, swingy things, especially in the face of some of the stuff that is being thrown on the table.
Speaker B:Him, backed up by a couple of war dogs and some cultists, was the majority of my list at a thousand points and is very iconoclast in nature.
Speaker B:The cultist mobs have been irreplaceable in terms of having something on the board that can do things around your knights.
Speaker B:And it's so good to have access to a detachment that gives me some sort of ally.
Speaker B:I have had an absolute blast.
Speaker B:I already have 25 point experience on my Knight Tyrant, which shows in his crusade points.
Speaker B:One key thing to think about with big models is the towering keyword does have an effect.
Speaker B:Oh, sorry, the Titanic keyword does have an effect on crusade points.
Speaker B:So all of my big knights, when they would normally gain one crusade point, instead gain two.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So he is.
Speaker B:He himself is six crusade points.
Speaker A:That's more than I have.
Speaker B:But it's only because he has three upgrades.
Speaker A:You want to hear my reason for having less than six crusade points, Johnny?
Speaker B:Go on.
Speaker A:So for every unit that dies in a crusade game, you have to roll an out of action test on a D6 result of A1.
Speaker A:They have failed that test.
Speaker A:They can either give up one of the battle honors they have gained from leveling up, or you can give give them a battle scar.
Speaker A:And battle scars can range from things such as no charge bonus to no leading units or being attached by a leader to worse leadership tests.
Speaker A:Just nothing good.
Speaker A:And I swear to goodness I keep failing.
Speaker A:So despite all of my upgrades, I think I have maybe 11 or 12 crusade points.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:But I have so many fails that I'm like on par with your knight tyrant.
Speaker B:Just cancelling them out.
Speaker A:Which is actually a little strategic in the sense of if the actual battle scars I receive aren't too breaking on my strategy, it works in my favor against people with not many Crusade points because Crusader wants you to have a little more balance.
Speaker A:So you get like Crusade blessings if your opponent is a certain threshold above yours in terms of overall experience to their army.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:But if you have battle scars, it brings that total back down, reducing that gap between players.
Speaker B:It sure does.
Speaker A:So that's kind of funky.
Speaker A:But we have played a couple of matches.
Speaker A:Only a couple.
Speaker A:Like one or two.
Speaker A:Our Death Guard mate has joined in.
Speaker B:And is already rearing to go.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Bought some stuff, built some stuff.
Speaker A:They're onto it.
Speaker A:The Death Guard have risen from the desert where the Tau used to be in the Dark Crusade and they are bordering the World Eaters and the Orcs.
Speaker A:So that's fun.
Speaker A:The Necron Tomb, which is currently non claimed by anybody, is starting to come to life mysteriously.
Speaker B:I don't like that.
Speaker B:That's right on all of my borders.
Speaker A:Right on all of your borders.
Speaker A:I have taken an idea from Necromunda, which is the game master, has an arbitration force, basically a sort of police, if you will, within the system to bully the top dog to sort of kick them down a peg.
Speaker A: ws me to actually use my like: Speaker B:Sounds like a good idea.
Speaker A:Maybe the Crusade force that I was running last year, since they are beefed up.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, that could be a good idea.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:On top of that, our World Eaters player is chomping at the bit to have a Tyranid High Fleet come into the system and randomly consume regions on a victory maybe once every few games to sort of present this vanguard of the hive fleet.
Speaker A:And I think that's a pretty neat idea.
Speaker A:We'll.
Speaker A:We'll, you know, try and implement that in an effective way.
Speaker A:And so there's classic Warhammer conflict where.
Speaker B:Everybody'S here, which you say classic Warhammer thing, but it doesn't happen very often.
Speaker B:It's kind of like these big narrative events where you get this huge collection of factions in one area which normally have a lot of lore and story behind them.
Speaker B:So it's really interesting to see all this lore and story we're building as we play.
Speaker B:But I'm also not gonna lie, it kind of makes me want to go back and play dawn of War.
Speaker A:Do it.
Speaker A:No one's stopping you.
Speaker B:Exactly right.
Speaker A: But we've just gone up to: Speaker A:So last year, when we did our first crusade, we started with combat patrols.
Speaker A:And by that I mean the actual points value that the community tends to assign to that term, which is 500 points.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:Not the actual Combat Patrol boxes you buy because they're a little imbalanced and not always 500.
Speaker A:Almost never, actually.
Speaker A: to: Speaker A:And then we are in this year's season, we are starting with 1,000 incrementally going up every month or so, roughly three to four games, because we do have the ability to play weekly or fortnightly at worst, and that's very cool.
Speaker A: So we've just gone to: Speaker A:In the waterworks.
Speaker A:My whip systems are being activated one by one as people become a bit more confident in managing their army's roster and all of that stuff.
Speaker A:What are you hoping to, like?
Speaker A:What direction are you wanting to take your force in, and what are you anticipating with the crusade?
Speaker B:I want to build up my force primarily focusing on the larger knights.
Speaker B:I currently have four built, and I want to use them.
Speaker B:Less focus on the war dogs, even though I have a few of those built as well.
Speaker B:But I'm really interested to just, like, throw some stompy robots on the board and watch what happens.
Speaker B:At this current points increase, I have added my second large knight, being a knight rampager, and frankly, I kind of want to add another one and just run like two rampages in the near future.
Speaker B:At the moment I have.
Speaker B:In terms of the map, I've spent the last couple of games reinforcing my current location, so I've grabbed a couple of the regions around my starting base without stepping on anyone's toes or pushing too far in any one direction.
Speaker A:But now you're on everyone's toes.
Speaker B:Now I kinda wanna push some people and make them uncomfortable.
Speaker A:It's interesting that you say that, because I think people are gonna start doing that to you.
Speaker A:You and the Dark Angels player have played maybe not the most.
Speaker A:You have played the most, but the two of you are the ones who have had the most victories.
Speaker B:Yeah, we have pushed out the most.
Speaker A:Your Presence on the meta map is considerable.
Speaker A:I have taken smaller territories.
Speaker A:They're all equally important, but my territories visually are smaller.
Speaker A:But there's just a big blob of green for the Dark Angels and purple for you, just smothering this region.
Speaker A:But we've got a few threats from all these other players.
Speaker A:The Dark Angels player has claimed the spaceport, which allows them to attack any territory, provided that there is an actual, like, border attack.
Speaker A:You can't just go straight, like behind the enemy line.
Speaker A:You have to go and attack like a border region.
Speaker B:But I don't know if it's necessarily something you want to do.
Speaker A:We'll tweak it.
Speaker A:But it allows him to not have to just fight like me or the world.
Speaker A:He's like.
Speaker A:He can go across to the other side of the board.
Speaker B:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:And potentially flank the orc.
Speaker A:The Death Guard put a bit of pressure on them.
Speaker A:There's a zone between the orcs and you that they could easily pop into.
Speaker A:Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little Imperium team up.
Speaker B:I don't like the sound of team ups.
Speaker A:Well, one of the calculations for matchmaking literally is, you know, the way the math has gone, you need to force an alliance of convenience.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker A: But I have gone to: Speaker A:The state of Sisters of Battle is not fantastic.
Speaker A:I am playing their crusade.
Speaker A:Miracle die.
Speaker A:Sorry, not the crusade.
Speaker A:The Codex.
Speaker A:Miracle die.
Speaker A:So not going with this rubbish, Nerf.
Speaker A:They've gone with sorry, guys.
Speaker B:Well, they have just readjusted it again as well.
Speaker A:So it's not what it was.
Speaker A:But it's better than they had it.
Speaker B:Yes, but it was a top performing army.
Speaker A:No, it wasn't.
Speaker B:Way back when it was up in the top chart, the index was.
Speaker B:But then, yes, they definitely got hit harder than they needed to be.
Speaker A:The Codex came out and the internal balance is not superb.
Speaker A:You're kind of like encouraged to go down the parking lot route, which is a lot of vehicles.
Speaker A:And that's okay.
Speaker A: My: Speaker A:And we talked about her once before in an episode.
Speaker A:Efriel Stern and the only named Harley Quinn Miniature the racist herself.
Speaker A:She's not racist.
Speaker A:She's just doing her best.
Speaker A:She literally has an alien for a bestie.
Speaker A:How is she racist?
Speaker B:Oh, she's racist against chaos.
Speaker A:That seems just like a conflict of ideology.
Speaker B:That feels like targeted hate, which is the definition of racist.
Speaker A:Okay, if you say so, social studies major.
Speaker A:That's where I'm going.
Speaker A:I have gone big and have purchased several units at once.
Speaker A:So now I will be able to field a 2K army of sisters with no wiggle room options.
Speaker A:I have pretty much just 2,000 points.
Speaker A:Assist us.
Speaker A:And that's cool.
Speaker B:That's neat.
Speaker A:That's neat.
Speaker A:You can play 3k games.
Speaker A:Not sure what I would do for that.
Speaker A:But I liking this like 2k force.
Speaker A:Let's start there.
Speaker A:Build it.
Speaker A:Paint it.
Speaker A:I really like penitent engines.
Speaker A:They've been my MVPs consistently.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:They just don't die mortifiers.
Speaker A:Penitent engines.
Speaker A:They're good.
Speaker A:They're scary.
Speaker A:They hit harder than you expect.
Speaker A:Meanwhile my actual Sisters squad just getting picked up by small arms fire and artillery strikes.
Speaker A:My battle sister squads have done sweet fa.
Speaker A:They sticky their objectives.
Speaker A:Maybe they generate me some more miracle dice and then they just get blown up.
Speaker A:They're melter guns and rifles.
Speaker A:Even if I substitute a miracle die to guarantee a hit or guarantee a wound like the person will just save it or it'll do like one damage.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:It's like okay.
Speaker A:Then I throw paragon warsuits at anything and they fall over.
Speaker A:Not the warsuits.
Speaker A:What they're looking at.
Speaker B:It's quite often the case.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I don't have too much time left that I can talk today, my friend.
Speaker A:Is there any other things you'd like to talk about?
Speaker B:I will say I really need to go through some more of what you've written up personally and really focus on what I can get out of certain tiles so I can plan my next attack.
Speaker B:I'm really interested in picking up a couple of decent honor guard.
Speaker B:Preferably something that can match the the power of our Dark Angels player who just got a very good honor guard.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm pretty happy with where we're going and where we're at.
Speaker B: s in this next chapter as the: Speaker B:And now I think we're going to get into some really sticky fights.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:So we're going to now get into some territorial aggression.
Speaker A:The tier two of my perceived course for this particular campaign.
Speaker A:It'll be nice to come back and give the recaps and talk about how it's all going and how the systems whip into place that I've been riding up.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For sure.
Speaker A:See if the top dogs get knocked down a peg or two.
Speaker B:Oh, I'm sure it'll happen.
Speaker B:It'll be just like our last campaign, where I got a decent win streak at the start and then balanced out to 50% by the end.
Speaker A:At the end of our first season, you came in third place with a 50% win rate over eight games.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:I came in at 63% win rate over eight.
Speaker A:And our Dark Angels player came in at 67% over nine.
Speaker A:Our other friends below 50% currently in our games.
Speaker A:Just looking at the 1v1s.
Speaker A:Because you did do a multiplayer game with our newer players last time.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Which was actually incredibly enlightening for the other two players.
Speaker B:I will say it was very good to be able to sit there and kind of give them a little bit of direction, strategic thinking, be able to like, weigh up options and really help them.
Speaker B:So I'm hoping to see some increase in their strategy in the future.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I am coming in second place, I suppose, with a 66% win rate over three games.
Speaker A:And you are tied with our Dark Angels player for 75% win rate over four.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker A:And then our other players below 50%.
Speaker B:Hey, they've had a tough time fighting into me, I'll be honest.
Speaker A:Yes, you need good dice, you need good stat sheets, you need an awareness of your actual army abilities and stratagems, and you also need a little bit of tactical acumen.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:There's a lot of things to really.
Speaker B:There's a lot of plates to spin, comparatively.
Speaker B:Like, I've been playing Chaos Knights longer than any of the other players have played their current armies.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:So I have a little bit more knowledge on what I need to do with my army, which is helpful.
Speaker B:And as we saw last time in the last Crusade, we played like, as people understood what I was doing, what they were doing, my matchups became harder to win as people learnt.
Speaker B:But if you just do this, you remove it.
Speaker B:Like, Chaos Knights is a very stat checky army, as everyone will say.
Speaker B:Once you have an idea of what they're doing, it's fairly easy to counter them.
Speaker A:Crusade missions, also, Crusade missions are also a little swingy.
Speaker A:You'll have things that you're objectively just not going to be good at doing.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And honestly, crusade is a really big advantage for Chaos Knights as well, because you don't lean on secondaries as heavily.
Speaker B:You have your own personal secondaries that you do.
Speaker B:Which allows me to really focus on what I'm doing instead of getting thrown for a loop when the game decides I need to do this thing I'm not good at doing.
Speaker A:Hell yeah.
Speaker B:But no, it's been a lot of Fun.
Speaker A:I'm gonna have to call us there.
Speaker B:Let's do it.
Speaker A:I have enjoyed this as well.
Speaker A:A nice little casual, concise chat about crusade alliteration.
Speaker A:I am looking forward to getting my butt kicked soon with sisters.
Speaker A:Or just eking out a turn five win like I have done several times.
Speaker B:Hey, there's nothing wrong with a turn five win, alright?
Speaker B:I've done it before.
Speaker A:Yes, it's been cool.
Speaker A:I will be always tinkering away at this and we'll always be playing on our Sunday sesh.
Speaker B:Although with me going away for two weeks soon, I will be getting a couple of buys and letting people catch up a little bit.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll talk about this again in a couple of months.
Speaker A:Time Crusade Diaries.
Speaker B:Yeah, cool.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker A:Paint your models.
Speaker A:Conquer the galaxy.
Speaker B:We have an Instagram now.
Speaker B:Please check it out if you want to.
Speaker A:Oh yes, I always forget to do these.
Speaker B:If there's anything you do want to see the few people that are out there listening regularly, please let us know.
Speaker B:We're more than happy to take on any feedback we can receive, anything we can improve on.
Speaker B:This is a hobby for us, but is also a very new experience for both of us.
Speaker B:So we are looking to make this something we do for the significant future.
Speaker B:So please reach out chat.
Speaker B:Eventually we will open up a Patreon and YouTube support eventually and all of that fun stuff as time goes on.
Speaker B:The more that we engage with our community, the more likely this will happen more regularly and that we will give you content you actually want to hear.
Speaker A:Space Marine Tier list.
Speaker A:Alright, thank you everybody.
Speaker B:Thank you all for listening.
Speaker B:Enjoy your hobby.
Speaker A:Thanks Johnny.
Speaker A:Have a good day.
Speaker B:You too.
Speaker B:Eh.
