UPGRADES

Welcome back to the 40K Misfit and today I am going to talk about the sneak peak dump that Games Workshop released about all the in game weapon upgrades that are due to arrive in October which I will link HERE.

First up we have Heavy Bolters going to 2D which is a much needed upgrade.  This will bring the gun more in line with some of it's significant others like the Assault Cannon (for Imperials) or the Reaper Chain Cannon (for Heretic).  While it won't kill as many models, it will do a better job of taking out more elite models.  I do wonder if it will affect the price of the weapon since, as of right now, the Heavy Bolter is 10 points and a Reaper Chain Cannon is 20.  If the price of the Heavy Bolter doesn't increase I can see them becoming far more popular if the meta continues to move towards a more Elite MSU style army compostion.

Next on the list is that Flamers and Heavy Flamers have has a range increase to 12" and while you might not think that's much of a boost there are armies that can abuse this.  I don't know Salamander's rules very well, but I know they are all about the hotness with mortal wound bull shit, they also have a way to increase the range of Flamers as it is, so look for them to be getting even longer range Flamers  Chaos can take a unit of 10 Terminators with 10 Combi-flamers dropping with MoS and killing almost 2 full units of Orks, or a full unit of Primaris Marines.  Now, I don't entirely agree with this boost, but Flamers did need something to make them a little more relevant.  I'm betting that this change was to give Flamers the ability to be used more often during Overwatch.  Since deep strike keeps models outside of 9", it's impossible for your average Flamer to be usefull.  I think they may end up regretting this change though.

I don't actually know what this is exactly, but it came up when I Googled Melta.

Melta guns get a little something in that they now get +2D at short range in stead of rolling 2D6 and picking the highest.  This is ok, I don't see it as a huge change, but a good one that will make some difference in trying to decide if Plasma or Melta is better.  Multi-meltas are getting 2 shots, which is actually a pretty huge deal combined with the damage buff.  Considering it is currently one of the cheaper weapons a Helbrute can take, doubling the number of shots will make it a contender.

Power swords are getting a nice little +1S boost, although I'm not really sure why.  The energy field around the blade is represented by the -3AP, but I guess they didn't see enough on the table so lets make them better.  Chainswords are getting a much needed boost and becoming -1AP.  This will go a long way to making Power armour units deadlier which is an issue I have been talking about for a long time.  I have a couple articles on power armour, the last one you can find HERE which in turn links you to the first article.  Not only does this make Space Marines better, but makes combat far more encouraging for them, at least for your basic Marines who don't have -1AP Bolter weapons.  Once the Assault Doctrine hits it is going to be scary.  The boost to these 2 swords is going to make me wonder what changes are coming to power and chain axes.  Perhaps taking chain swords on your Khorne Berzerkers and having them keep their pistols might become a thing.

Everyone is going to get a pair of oven mitts when issued Plasma Guns because they will only "get hot" on an unmodified roll of 1.  Neat.

All of these changes are going to come into effect in October when the Space Marine Codex drops and they are going to affect every army.  This is going to be a huge change in that EVERYTHING is going to die really really fast.

There is one more little tid bit, and that is that Marines are all getting an extra wound.  I don't think is going to be as big of a problem and some people are making it out to be.  Not only do these extra wounds come with a significant point increase (18pts per model), but we have been dealing with 2 wound Marines, almost exclusively, for months now.  However, what this change means is that you will likely see a few more of your old school Marine units due to their flexibility.  Primaris Marines have a very 30K vibe to them in that the whole squad is armed with the same weapon.  That makes a squad very good at one thing, but Tactical Squads can have a few models in a unit with special or heavy weapons allowing them to take on multiple roles and not find themselves in situations where they can do nothing useful.  This will also see the return of units like Rhinos and Drop Pods.

This is going to make a big splash for Chaos Players though, who are happier than pigs in shit about this development.  While the weapon changes will take place immediately the wounds are not going to be applied to the Chaos Marines until their Codex comes out.  As I said, the rest of the meta has been dealing with 2W Marines for months, so this shouldn't be too big of an issue, but this could shake things up fairly significantly if Chaos Marines can continue to field units of 20 Marines.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.

CHAOS LEGIONS

...I like pineapple on pizza...

For anyone who as been following this blog for any length of time knows that I play Chaos, particularly Space Marines, not well but almost exclusively.  So I thought I would take a look at some of the options that we have available to us and see if there is anything we can work with until we get a new codex.  I've had a good think about how I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do a microscopic look at the codex, every unit, and every piece of wargear.  What I'm going to do is take a look at some of the phases of the game and pick out some strengths and weaknesses that can be found in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.

Starting with the Command Phase and scoring objectives.  So as we all have figured out that scoring objectives is going to require a fairly durable unit to weather the firepower leveled at them and Plague Marines and Rubric Marines do this better than most other units in the game.  The T5 and DR of the Plague Marines and the Rubric's All is Dust make both units very resilient to small arms fire.  Putting them in an Alpha Legion detachments is pretty obvious for the -1 to hit, but Iron Warriors have some pretty serious defensive abilities like Dour Duty (reduces incoming fire AP by 1) and Cannon Fodder (forces enemies to target nearby Cultists instead of unit).  Pair those with a Dark Apostle for a 5++ or -1 to hit where appropriate and you have a hard to shift block.  The downside is that they are not Troops, so not objective secured, unless they are in a Death Guard or Thousand Sons detachment, so you might want to get a Patrol Detachment of them.  The other downside of these units is that they only have one wound each, so if not having Objective Secured isn't a deal breaker we could take a look at Spawn.  They are T5 with 4 wounds each and can bee made incredibly durable with a ton of defensive buffs.  They are also pretty damn scary in combat with -2AP and a flat 2D.  I should also mention the Black Legion stratagem World Killers, which is a 3 CP stratagem played at the start of the battleround, gives all Black Legion units SUPER Objective Secured until the end of the battleround.  This one is REALLY good.

As far as holding objectives with troops from the CSM book, well we fall short in that regard.  You can throw a ton of buffs on them just to bring them up to tough, but any kind of dedicated firepower is going to annihilate them.  A decent way to increase their durability is to toss them in a Rhino, then make that Rhino tougher, it also doubles their speed which brings me to...

The next aspect of the game is movement.  For a long time this has been one of the more important aspects of the game and this edition is no different.  Well, there are some differences, particularly when moving larger units cause of Unit Coherency and such, but movement is important, that's what I'm trying to say.  Positioning is not the only important thing though as table control and durability come to play because movement and taking control of objectives go hand in hand.  Unfortunately Plague Marines and Rubric Marines are particularly slow so putting them in a Rhino is decent way to get them where they need to be.  We also have a good number of fast moving big threats like Disco Lords, Daemon Princes, Maulerfiends, and Heldrakes.  Yes, you read that right, I said Heldrakes.  Being the fastest moving, NON-AIRCRAFT, unit in the game for only 150 points makes this guy a pretty big deal not to forget he can still shoot that Baleflamer while in combat.  Now don't treat him like the ultimate beast that he isn't, cause he is basically a flying Helbrute.  Now you might be thinking "He hasn't mentioned bikes yet...", well, bikes.  They are an incredibly good fast moving unit that can auto advance 6" for a total of 20" and you can assault with them if they are Crimson Slaughter, shoot with them if they are Black Legion, toss a bunch of buffs on them to make them tougher, and potentially move them twice.  I like to use a unit of these guys to pressure my opponent's backfield, or dissuade him from sending off smaller units off on their own to hold objectives.

Besides fast moving units, we also have a bunch of units that can Deep Strike like Terminators, Raptors, Obliterators, and Mutilators.  Now Terminators and Obliterators are good units and are both durable and dangerous, but they are also very slow once they hit the ground.  Raptors on the other hand are able to land anywhere and still move very quickly, but their biggest downfall is that they are still only as durable as your average Marine yet you are still paying that premium for their mobility.  Raptors take an extra knock with the introduction of Strategic Reserves, Chosen and Marines can now pull off an outflanking maneuver making the Raptors less desirable.  Furthermore, the Alpha Legion have a bunch of abilities that help units move around the table like Forward Operatives, Renascent Infiltration, Mindveil, and Faceless Commander.

So as you can see we have a bunch of units that can reach any area of the table, but their biggest downfall is their need for support, whether it's more bodies, overlapping firepower, or buffs from characters.  There are many ways to do this, but as soon as you start pumping more and more points and CP's into these units, you have to start building your army specifically to cater to them unless you're using them as distractions or sacrifices.

Now we come to the Shooting Phase and we actually got a decent boost in this phase, particularly with our Daemon Engines.  Forgefiends and Defilers are now free to waltz up the field blasting away and with the Daemon Forge stratagem, and a Disco Lord nearby, they can put out some real damage.  Also don't forget they can shoot many of their weapons while in engagement range, though not the Blast ones which means Defilers can still shoot while they are punching.  The Helbrute is another mechanical monster that can put out some pretty potent firepower.  I played a game recently with two twin-las-missile Brutes and I took turns moving them and using Fire Frenzy to great effect.  Now, even though touching a vehicle or monster in combat does not prevent them from shooting, it does prevent them from shooting outside the combat they are in, so slapping a scourge on him for a whole mess of attacks will help prevent a couple models from stepping up to him and occupying his attention in his next shooting phase.  We could add the Deredeo and Leviathan Dreadnoughts in here as well, but they are incredibly expensive and the Butcher cannon array (arguably the best gun available to them) is only -1AP making it a little lack-lustre for the 75 point price tag.

One of the downsides to the big monsters is that they are big and easy to see, but don't worry because we have a decent amount of infantry sized firepower.  Obliterators are an obvious choice with being able to deep strike and shoot twice with Endless Cacophony and get a 5+++ with Delightful Agonies.  Add a Master of Possession for defensive and offensive buffs or take them as Iron Warriors and you have yourself a solid firebase, typically able to take out just about any target (with a little luck).  Even Havocs can put out a pretty hefty number of shots with the Reaper Chaincannon.  However if you are looking for ultimate damage output your best bet is probably Emperor's Children Noise Marines.  With Endless Cacophony, Excruciating Frequencies, the Remnant of the Maraviglia, Veterans of the Long War, and their ability to ignore the bonus to saves from cover they can remove nearly any unit from any objective (assuming its within 24").  Now if you are worried about not getting first turn and losing them, or getting first turn and not having a target, you can put that whole unit in Strategic Reserves for only 2 CP.  You lose out on the Remnant of Maraviglia, unless you can get the Dark Apostle in position in time.  We can also slide in the Rubric Marines into this area as their -2AP bolters can be incredibly potent especially in the Black Legion with Abaddon nearby and VotLW on hand, but they are probably still better off used in a Thousand Sons detachment as they also have a shoot twice strat there.

Now that seems like kind of a depressing list of able bodied shooting units, but we are not quite done.  Units like Chosen, able to take 6 special weapons, can be put into Strategic Reserves so we don't even necessarily have to spend the points on a Drill for them.  Even Raptors, as over pointed as they are, can take 3 special weapons and have most of the table to choose from.  These units can be used to arrive on the battlefield, pump out not an insignificant amount of firepower and either kill something, or force your opponent to re-direct some of his resources to deal with them.

Again we come to the weaknesses of these units, and for most of them its a lack of range.  Most of the damage being dealt by the infantry is limited to 24".  While the Helbrutes and Forgefiends reach 48" and 36" respectively, they generally don't have the volume of firepower to put a large dent into any single unit. As you can see, our units typically have 2 of the 3 things you want in a "shooty" unit, range, efficiency, and/or durability.

Ok, here we go ladies and gents, we finally get to the section where we excel, melee combat.  Now I can go on for days on units that are good at punching shit in the face, from most of our characters, to Khorne Bezerkers, to Possessed, to Maulerfiends.  What we struggle with is getting those units in range to do the punching and keeping them safe once the punching is done.  One of the most obvious, and old school, ways is to put your assault units in a transport.  Rhinos are pretty good for this, particularly when you can put a Dark Apostle near a couple of them and use Illusory Supplication to give all of them a 5++ while the Smoke Launchers give them -1 to hit among other possible buffs.  In those Rhinos you are probably better off putting in three 5-man units with some characters for supports, as opposed to large units.  The one downside of this is that any stratagem you use will be less effective.  Above I listed a good number of ways to make units more durable to hold objectives, the same tactics can be used to keep melee units alive so they can accomplish all that fun chopping and ripping.

Making units more durable isn't the only way to help ensure they make it to combat though as there are many ways to increase their movement and/or charge range.  Night Lord have From the Night and Raptor Strike to increase their charge distances, although Raptor Strike is only really useful on Characters with jump packs, because Raptors and Warp Talons are kind of shit.  Alpha Legion have a bunch of movement shenanigans which can help get units into position, the top of the list being Forward Operatives for that possible first turn charge.  The Emperor's Children have the +2" movement from Combat Elixirs and the incredible Honour the Prince stratagem making the trek across the table and the following charge as easy as it can be.  Honour the Prince is particularly nice for a nice big unit of Terminators that have dropped in from deep strike.  Finally, the most blood thirsty of all Legions, the World Eaters have Apoplectic Frenzy which lets them move up to 9" before the first turn starts and Violent Urgency which is a Warlord Trait that gives all World Eater units within 6" +1" to their Advance and Charge rolls.  Too bad they don't also have an ability that lets them charge after they advance.  But you know who does have the ability to Advance and still Charge?  Red Corsairs.  This can actually surprise your opponents, when a unit gets a big Advance roll and is able to charge from what was thought to be a safe distance away.  Remember that this applies to all Characters, Infantry, and Bikes.  Bikes being a really key unit in this army for their auto Advance of 6" giving them a 20" move before they can assault.  They could actually make decent use of Flamers, softening up a unit before charging into it.

The Morale Phase has become more important with the changes to Insane Bravery and how Combat Attrition works.  Word Bearers get us the ability to re-roll failed tests which could be huge for smaller units that only took a couple casualties and rolled that unlucky 6 for Morale.  Black Legion units all get a +1 to their Ld, and the Icon of Vengeance gives another +1, plus they have a strat that can pass a +1Ld buff to other nearby legions.  We aren't quite done though as Crimson Slaughter can auto pass Morale tests after they kill a unit, and World Eaters have a stratagem that can do the same thing.

But we all know who the champions of the Morale Phase are, the Night Lords, but for the complete opposite reasons.  With their -1Ld ability, they are pretty good at causing casualties from failed Morale checks.  However, because the amount of damage done isn't determined by how badly you fail the Morale test by, piling the damage onto a single unit doesn't work any more.  The best way to maximize damage in the Morale Phase is to spread out the damage over a couple units and pile on the Night Lords units to max out the -3 Ld penalty with Raptors increasing it to -4 and Butcher Cannons adding on another -2 Ld if they cause any casualties.  Now lets be clear, this is not a great way to win games, but there are no other armies that really utilize the Morale Phase the way the Night Lords do, so if you have a chance to use it, make the most of it.

Now that we have that all out there, lets have a look at some lists and see what units can fulfil multiple needs.

Lets start with an Emperor's Children list and a big blob of Noise Marines which will be backed up by 2 more units of Noise Marines with Rhinos.  You'll want a Dark Apostle with the Remnant of Maraviglia and a Sorcerer with Delightful agonies and a couple big units of Terminators with combined-plasma and combo-meltas.  You'll also want a punchy Character, whether or not you want him to be your warlord is up to you as he will likely die.  The idea with this list is you only put one unit of Termis in deep strike (according to applicable targets) and the big unit of Noise Marines in Strategic Reserves.  The other unit of Terminators moves up and takes the centre of the table with a 5+++ along with their terminator armour, the Rhinos move up supporting one flank and when you want all the Noise Marines jump out of their rides and surround the Dark Apostle who has popped the banner for all that re-rolling goodness.  Your punchy character can either be a Lord or Prince, but he moves around offering his re-roll buff where it's needed and when the time is right, the big unit of Noise. Marines come in and blindside the enemy army, sprinkle liberally with Excruciating Frequencies.  When the Terminators drop in they can shoot and nuke something, then charge and nuke a second thing using Honour the Prince to ensure the destruction.  This army has durable units which can be buffed to be more durable, decent mobility with the Rhinos and Reserves, excellent shooting, and decent combat with the Terminators and punchy character.  The Emperor's Children have a little extra in combat in that they always fight first which is huge with the new changes to the order you activate units.

Iron within...

Next up we have a Monster Mash Iron Warriors army led by a couple Disco Lords, a Sorcerer with Prescience and Delightful Agonies, and a Master of Possession with Cursed Earth and Infernal Power, and finally a Prince for the re-roll 1's and Warptime.  You will need at least a couple detachments to get everything you need which is Defilers, Maulerfiends, and Heldrakes with some Cultists as needed for flavour, objective grabbing and action performing.  The basics of this list are pretty straight forward, the monsters move forward, using all the defensive buffs from the spell casters and the Iron Warrior strats.  Once they get close enough they do their thing and smashy smashy.  Your biggest problem is going to be dealing with terrain as you have several large base models.  The Heldrakes don't have to worry about that and they will have to be your first wave, holding up your opponent and drawing focus while the rest of your army maneuvers.  If need be, you can put something in reserve, but that starts to take away from your threat saturation, letting your opponent focus on fewer targets.  The monsters become incredibly durable, the Defilers, Heldrakes and Disco Lords can put out some firepower, but the real damage is in combat.  You do have an issue in that you are relying on Cultists to hold objectives because the monsters are a single model and don't have Obsec and that puts you in a really weak spot, but if you press the advantage hard enough, and hide the cultists well enough, you should be fine.

Ok, here is a little behind the curtain for you guys.  It's at this point, at the end of my article I re-read it and do some digging online to make sure I didn't miss anything or mess anything.  As I was doing this I checked out what Goonhammer had to say on the subject and it turns we have VERY similar tastes in army lists.  Eerily similar.  So I though I would post up a 3rd list and while it does have some similarities to the Black Legion list they posted, I change it up enough so that it wouldn't be nearly as good as theirs.  I can't be seen as being really good at this after all.

Oh, if have not heard of Goonhammer, go and check them out, they have several authors and pump out tons of articles full of interesting and useful information.

I have the best words, everyone agrees, my words are superb...

This list is going to use a Word Bearer's Detachment with a Dark Apostle praying double hard and a Sorcerer backed up by three BIG units of cultists.  With the changes to how Morale works, I don't really think that making them auto pass is really necessary since it's unlikely that the rest of the unit will run away even if there are only 5 left.  These bodies are going to surround a hit squad of Possessed with Greater Possessed in Rhinos.  The firebase will be Las-missile Helbrutes who can alternate moving and using Fire Frenzy.  Sprinkle with your God Marks of choice to keep everything alive as long as possible.  The next Detachment could be a Patrol of either Night Lords or Emperor's Children with a Chaos Lord, required Troop tax, and a big unit of combi-plasma Terminators.  If you go Night Lords, the Jump Lord can be given the Nurgle Fist and you can drop him in with the Terminators and use Raptor Strike to jump him out and smash some juicy target and Prey on the Weak evens out the hit penalty.  If you go Emperor's Children you can put the Lord in Terminator armour instead and use Honour the Prince on the Terminators to (almost) guarantee their charge into something.

Well, there we have it.  We got a couple lists out of all that hullaballoo and they are not terrible.  Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.

MISSION STATEMENT

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my first thoughts on the Chapter Approved: Grand Tournament 2020 mission pack.  This little booklet is a tournament goers perfect guide as it contains, not only, the 9 missions that are likely to make up the majority of tournament missions but also the rules that you need to play in such a mission.

Ok, so it's not a "perfect guide" and I'm a little disappointed in that it's not really written with a tournament in mind.  Unless GW is actually suggesting that you could potentially re-write your list, at different points levels, for each game throughout a tourney.  I mean it's great that the missions are supposed be play tested with a balanced tournament environment in mind, but wasn't the whole idea of the book to lay out how a tournament should be played?  Instead you get a sequence of 16 steps that outlines how to play a single battle starting from select battle size through placing objectives, choosing secondaries, deploying armies, and determining the winner.  In a tournament, you don't do steps 1 or 2, and usually step 3 and 6 are already done as well.  

In the end, TOs will still have to come up with tounament packs outlining all things that GW has overlooked when creating their Tournament Pack.  Unless they bring out an FAQ, which just seems messy.

I would like to bring your attention to one fairly important line in step 6 after the battlefield size chart.  It says that terrain features cannot be set up on top of objective markers (cause objectives are placed before the terrain is).  Which means one of 2 things, TO's will have to find terrain patterns that don't cover any of the places where objectives are located, or that players will have to move the terrain if it happens to be in the way.

Lets get to the Primary Objectives as there are only 2 of them and they are pretty much the same.  They are progressive style meaning that you earn points throughout the game, similar to the ITC primary objectives.  Points are earned, starting on the second battle round, at the end of each players Commend Phase.  Take and Hold sees a player earn 5 points if they hold one objective, 5 more points if they hold 2 or more objectives, and 5 more points if they hold more objectives than the opponent.  Domination is nearly the same except it's hold 2 objectives, 3 or more objectives, and hold more objectives than your opponent.  This is for a total of 15 points per turn, and it caps at 45 points per battle.

This is going to turn the game on it's head.  It puts an emphasis on unit mobility and even more importantly durability.  Since points are scored at the end of your Command Phase and your Command Phase happens at the start of your turn, you have to make it to the objective then weather an entire turn of your opponent's shooting to score.  Objective Secured is also a thing, making Troops valuable, so durable Troops are extra valuable.

So now we get to try to figure out what is better, taking the first turn or the second turn and this is not an easy question.  If you have the first turn you will get to move out first, claim the board, and strike first.  However, as I mentioned, terrain features cannot be placed on objectives, and leaving them out in the open  gives Player 2 a really good opportunity for a counter punch by either shooting the units out in the open or assaulting the ones that moved up to grab objectives and taking the objectives for themselves.  Taking the first turn does give you an advantage at the end of the game as you will have the last crack at removing enemy units from objectives in turn 5, without really have to worry about consequences.  You would have scored all your points and the only thing to need to worry about is if your opponent has a secondary focused on killing something.  All in all, for the progressive scoring primary mission, I think it's probably a little better off to take the first turn.

On to the Secondary Objectives, and this is going to take us a while cause there are quite a few.  First off, there are 5 different categories, each one having 3 or 4 objectives.  You must pick 3, none of which can be from the same category, and each earning you a maximum of 15 points for a total of 45 points.  Right off the bat I can see that it is going to be extremely difficult to score max points for all of these so you will really have to "hedge your bets" and pick the ones you can score the most on.

First up we have Battlefield Supremacy category which has 3 objectives in it, Engage on all Fronts, Linebreaker, and Domination.  Each of these are pretty straight forward "control the table" progressive objectives and are scored at the end of your turn.  Scoring them at the end of your turn is pretty big as it means you're opponent can't really stop you from scoring these.

Engage on all Fronts is table quarters, you get 2 points if you have units wholly within 3 table quarters and 3 points if they are wholly within 4 table quarters.  Your units also have to be more than 6" from the table centre.  Since games are set at 5 battle rounds, this means you have to achieve this mission to it't full potential every turn in order to score max points, which is very unlikely.  Although this mission is pretty good for certain fast moving armies with tons of little sacrificial units, Dark Eldar and Genestealer Cults come to mind.  With the new Strategic Reserves rules you can put unimportant unit in reserve and bring them in mid game.

Linebreaker has you scoring 4 points if you have 2 or more units wholly in the enemy deployment zone.  This one gets you full points after 4 turns, and honestly isn't that hard against some armies, yet is down right near impossible against others.  If you have a bunch of fairly durable units that can deep strike on their own, then this might be the mission for you, getting them in deep and in cover on turn 2 and get them stuck in, hopefully staying alive for the duration.

Domination earns you 3 points if you control MORE than half of the objectives on the table at the end of your turn.  Now this one seems like it would be really hard to accomplish, but with the right objective placement, and enough sacrificial units, and if your opponent is content with sitting back for a couple turns, you could score pretty high with this one, particularly on missions with an odd number of objectives like The Scouring or Sweep and Clear.

The No Mercy, No Respite category has 3 objectives, Thin Their Ranks, Grind Them Down, and While We Stand, We Fight.  Each of which you need to be focused on throughout the battle despite 2 of them having end game objectives.

Thin Their Ranks involves killing vast numbers of models or monsters.  Keep a tally of the number of enemy models killed (adding 10 to the tally for models with 10 or more wounds).  At the end of the battle take the tally and divide it by 10 and round DOWN, thats how many points you earned.  It becomes pretty obvious what armies this becomes good against as you have to kill 150 models, 15 models with 10+ wounds, or a combination of both.  Orks, Tyranids, and Guard are examples of armies to take this one against.  Because this one has an end game objective, taking second turn is not too bad.  Your opponent will possibly make some aggressive moves on his last turn to try and push you off objectives, hopefully thinning his already thinned ranks, making picking off straggling models all the more easier.

Grind Them Down earns you 3 points at the end of each battle round that you kill more units than your opponent.  This one could actually come back to bite you in the ass if you happen to kill too many things too early on.  You need to score this one every battle round to score max points, so going second and being able to know just how many units you need to kill is going to be very important.  Then being able to restrain yourself to killing only the units you need to max out the points is going to be a challenge.

Finally, While We Stand, We Fight is basically keeping your 3 most points-expensive models alive till the end of the game, for each one that lives you earn 5 points.  I don't like this one as I'll be throwing my expensive models at the enemy hoping to kill stuff.  I'm not even too sure which army this one would be good for in general as all large models tend to bite the dust eventually.  However, I have a suspicion that offensive tactics are going to take a bit of a back seat to durability in this edition, so perhaps there will be some armies that can take advantage of this.  I could see some Chaos armies with Deamon Princes making this one work as Princes can benefit from Look Out Sir, but they would likely be Thousand Sons style armies with little assault offence.  Again, being an end game objective means if you can push them out in to compromising positions at the end of the game and not worry about them getting killed, and if you can hide them well in deployment thats two turns you don't have to worry about them.

Purge The Enemy is a category that straight up requires you to kill shit which means they are all end game objectives.

Titan Hunter requires you to kill Titanic models.  10 points for killing one, 12 points for killing 2, 15 points for killing 3.  Now if you are up against knights, you will likely want to take first turn, even more so if you have an army that can kill knights pretty well.  This one isn't even all that bad if your opponent only has one knight as 10 points is not a small number of points.  Keep in mind, it not a good choice if your army is built around surviving, and not killing.  That seems obvious but I have seen players make the mistake of taking titan slayer in ITC against a knight army when they couldn't easily kill knights just because that's what everyone did when you played against Knights.

Bring It Down earns you 2 points for each Monster or Vehicle with 10 or fewer wounds killed and 3 points for each Monster or Vehicle with 11 or more wounds killed.  This one is brutal for Dark Eldar as they seem to have tons of vehicles and monsters, all of which are not overly difficult to kill.

Cut Off The Head is scored by only killing a single model, the warlord.  However what turn you do it in determines how many points you get, 13 for turn one down to 1point if you kill him in turn 5.  You saw that right, you cannot score the max points in this one, but if you get first turn and your opponent has a big model as a warlord, like a single Knight or Magnus, and you can kill it, then it's a no brainer.  But they can put their warlord in Strategic Reserves now, they might have to pay some CP to do it, but it would be worth it for them.  Keep in mind they will have to bring him in on turn 3 at latest, and all the while he is not on the table, so you may actually be able to use this as a valid tactic to keep the big scary thing off the table.  There is also a weird interaction with Daemons that is going to need an FAQ(I think).  At the end of the mission description it says that if a model is resurrected or "OTHERWISE RETURNED" to the battlefield that they have to be killed again to score the points.  Now, there is a FAQ about summoning that says something to the effect of if a named character is killed can it be summoned again (assuming you have points available) and the answer is yes.  So if you can summon a named character that was just killed, could you summon your warlord back to the table after it was killed?  Maybe I'm just an asshole...

Finally we have Assassinate, which earns you 3 points for each Character killed.  This one is actually going to be a little trickier than you might think as there will likely be fewer detachments taken in games, meaning fewer characters.  While there are some armies that need a bunch of characters, your opponent can also put some of these models in Strategic Reserve if needed to keep them alive.

Shadow Operations is a category of objectives that use a new mechanic brought into the game, an action.  In order to START to perform an action a unit must not be in ENGAGEMENT RANGE, have Advanced, or Fallen Back plus it needs to meet whatever criteria the specific action requires.  While performing the action the unit cannot make a Normal Move, Advance, Fall Back, cast a psychic power, shoot, charge, or perform a Heroic Intervention or it will end the action.  So the unit can still Pile In, Fight, and Consolidate.  Also notice that most of these actions are started at the end of the movement phase, so you can make a Normal Move, Advance, and Fall Back before you start this action.

Raise The Banners High combines end game with progressive objectives.  It requires an Infantry unit to start an action at the end of it's movement phase and it must be within range of an objective that has no enemy units within range of it and is completed at the end of the turn.   Multiple units may perform this action but they must be performed on different objectives.  When this action has been completed place a marker on that objective and at the end of your Command Phase, and at the end of the game, you earn 1 point for each marker you have.  Markers are removed if an enemy unit controls an objective with a marker.  This one is pretty good since your going to be trying to hold on to those objectives for the primary mission anyway.  This just doubles down on your objective holding abilities.  It's also pretty good for taking the second turn as you can essentially score points twice on turn 5, once in your command phase and then at the end of the game without having to worry about any kind of retaliation.

Investigate Sites requires a non-character Infantry unit to start to perform an action at the end of your movement phase if you are within 6" of the centre of the table and there are no enemy models within 6" of the centre of the table.  This will earn you 3 points at the end of your turn making it a progressive objective.  This one is pretty easy to disrupt especially if your opponent has quite a few throw away units like guard as all they have to do in their turn is get a model within 6" of the centre of the table to prevent you from starting that action since you have to start the action before you can kill off the enemy units.  Very difficult to score high points unless you can completely cover the centre of the table and not get pushed off.  Maybe Primaris Marine death ball, or Nurgle Daemons?

While Deploy Scramblers can only score you 10 points, it is an end game objective that is incredibly easy to accomplish especially if you have deep strikers.  There is a bit of a gable in that it's all or nothing.  In order to score those points a non-character infantry unit must complete an action in your deployment zone, in "no man's land" (6" away from any deployment zone), and in your opponents deployment zone.  What makes it so easy is that the action is started at the end of your movement and completed at the end of your turn.  Perfect for Genestealer Cults who are bringing in units all over the table.  Keep in mind that the unit can't really do anything after starting the action, so it has to be somewhat a throw away unit.

Teleport Homer is only a viable mission if you find that you have a couple units that make it into your opponents deployment zone and don't die...even when your opponent is trying to kill them.  This action requires one infantry unit to start it at the end of the movement phase and be wholly within the enemy deployment zone and is completed at the end of your next Command Phase.  If you can do this each action completed earns you 4 points.  This one is really hard to accomplish multiple turns of but, as I said, if you happen to have units that spend 3-4 turns in the opponents deployment zone weathering turn after turn of punishment then perhaps this one is for you.  While you're at it you might as well take Linebreaker.

Time to start working on your chakras...

For the last category of objectives we have Warpcraft which require you to perform Psychic Actions, another new mechanic.  A Psychic Action is performed the same way a power is manifested, can't be done if you performed a Fall Back move, can be denied with Deny the Witch, and can cause a Perils of the Warp on double 1's or 6's.  If a Psyker unit performs a Psychic Action it cannot attempt to manifest any other powers.  However, I do find it interesting that it looks like a model can perform both an Action AND a Psychic Action,

Ironically the first mission, Abhor the Witch, requires you to have no Psykers, and earns you 3 points for each Psyker unit killed and 5 points for each Psyker Character killed.  Pretty straight forward.  Now, from what I can see, there is nothing that stops secondaries from stacking, so if your playing against an army with a ton of Psyker characters this one goes well with Assassinate.  Otherwise it's pretty much an auto take vs Grey Knights or T-Sons.

Mental Interrogation requires one of your Psyker Characters to pass a Psychic Actions with a Warp Charge of 4 while within 18" of an enemy Character for 3 points.  Only one of your Characters can perform this action per Psychic Phase, so you have to pull it off in all 5 turns to score max points.  This is not too difficult to pull of if a certain number of boxes can be ticked.  Your enemy does not have any Psykers that can Deny the Witch, your opponent is playing an army where his Characters needs to get into your face, you have the second turn, and you don't absolutely need your Psyker Characters to manifest other psychic powers.  If you check all those boxes then this one is a possibility for you.  I'm thinking maybe Guard with a couple Astropaths or something like that.

Psychic Ritual is an all or nothing, for 15 points.  One Psyker Character must perform a Warp Charge 3 Psychic action three times within 6" of the centre of the table.  All three actions must be performed by the same Psyker.  This one seems like it's an easy one to pull off, but again there are a number of things to check off.  You have to be certain that you can keep your character alive to perform all 3, you also don't need that Character to be manifesting other powers.  You also need to be comfortable holding the centre of the table which makes this one pair nicely with Investigate Sites.  This is not an easy task but can be pulled off by certain army builds who can flood the centre of the table with extremely durable, and psychic, units.

Pierce the Veil is another end game objective, but it has a middle point, 8 points if the action is performed twice, and 15 points if it's performed four times.  The Psychic Action has a Warp Charge of 4, and must be performed by a Psyker Character within 6" of the opponents Battlefield Edge and more than 6" of any enemy models.  This one is not for your typical army, you should have multiple Psykers, not need them to cast powers every turn, have them be very mobile or able to deep strike OR play on a map like Sweep and Clear or Vital Intelligence where their battlefield edge is not fully in their deployment zone.  It is not an optimal choice, but it might be slightly easier getting 8 points on this one than more on some others.

We have covered all the basic Secondaries, but we are not quite done as I also want to talk about each of the missions, which have their own dedicated map and objective placement as well as their own Secondary Objective.  Now I'm only going to talk about the Strike Force missions, the ones designed to be played at 2000 points because that's the typical tournament size.

Retrieval Mission has the "Hammer and Anvil" style deployment with Take and Hold as it's Primary.  It's fairly easy to score 10 points with this Primary as you have one objective in your deployment zone and 2 more just outside it.  The key to getting 15 will be keeping your opponent off of one of his objectives so watch for your opponent to try and overwhelm one side of the table to take one from you and use that movement to to either counter strike and crush the forces he sent at you, or to move along the opposite side and do the same thing he is trying to do to you.

The Secondary Objective for this mission is Minimize Losses, which earns you points for NOT losing units.  Before the battle starts count up all the units you have, if you have 75% or higher of the number of units at the end of the battle you score 15 points, 10 points for having 50% or more, and 5 points for more than 25%.  If units split or merge as the game is being played you adjust the total accordingly.  So if you have 2 guard units merge then you would reduce your total unit count by 1.  I have very rarely played a game where I still had more than 50% of my units left at the end of the game, so this Secondary is limited to extremely durable armies where the whole army is durable, not just a couple key units.

Raise the Banners High is a pretty good Secondary for this map as you are likely to get 3 objectives with banners right off the hop.  Engage On All Fronts also has potential, especially if you are the kind of army that is going to try and push to take one of the 3 objectives on the other side of the table.

Scorched Earth has the good ol' fashion 12" from the centre long table edge deployment with 6 objectives.  It has Take and Hold as a Primary Objective, although this one is going to come down to who can hold the objectives in the middle.  This mission has a special rule to it that allows one player to remove an objective that is in the other players deployment zone by starting performing an action at the start of their movement phase.  The primary mission is Take and Hold, so if you can destroy one of the objectives early in the game it could very well cripple your opponent.  You shouldn't have too much trouble scoring 10 points a turn as there are 2 objectives at the edge of your deployment zone.

The mission specific Secondary Objective is to Raze the other players objectives.  You get 6 points for one and 12 points for both, so you can't get your max number of points for this secondary AND it's not easy to accomplish unless you are a particularly aggressive army and plan on spending a good deal of time with most of your army in the enemies deployment zone.  If this is the case, then Pierce the Veil and Linebreaker might not be bad choices to fill out your other choices.  Here is a funny idea as well, if you manage to raze one of the objectives, then achieving Domination becomes significantly easier.  You will still have a heck of a time getting all the points, 

Vital Intelligence has an interesting special rule in that if you hold an objective at the end of your command phase then you count as holding that objective even if you move away from it until your opponent controls it at the end of any phase.  This is important because the Primary Objective is Domination.  This one has a diagonal deployment, and the way the objectives are place you will likely look to push clockwise around the table to the closer objectives.

The Secondary Objective is an interesting one called Data Intercept where one of your units starts performing an action at the end of your movement phase and you score a number of points equal to the number of objectives you hold when the action is completed at the end of your next Command Phase.  You will need to be careful with this one as your opponent can toss quick cheap units at your objectives to steal them away from you if you're not babysitting them, and the objectives are placed far enough apart that keeping a firm hold on more than 3 will be really tricky.  This is one of the maps where Pierce the Veil is an option as your opponent's deployment zone does not stretch across his whole Battlefield Edge.  Also your deployment zone spans 3 of the 4 table quarters, so Engage on All Fronts isn't a terrible choice.

Surround and Control has some pretty widely spaced out objectives which will really help out mobile shooting armies (like they need much help).  The Primary Objective is Take and Hold, again helping out fast moving armies as holding 2 objectives for 10 points shouldn't be much of an issue.  Getting that third one will be tricky.

Surround Them is the Secondary Objective and requires you to hold both objectives in your deployment zone and one objective in your opponent's deployment zone at the end of your Command Phase to score 4 points, or to hold all 4 of the objectives in the deployment zones for 8 points.  While this is scored in your Command Phase throughout the game, it is also scored at the end of the game which makes taking second turn a possibility to score this one in a late game dash and making it somewhat reasonable to pick up 12 points with this one.  You are still probably better off not taking it though.

Next up we have Battle Lines which uses Take and Hold Primary Objective and has only 4, fairly widely spaced, objectives.  This makes it a little more difficult for death ball style armies to hold multiple objectives, but there aren't enough objectives for delicate fast moving armies to hold while easily avoiding enemy units.  If you can push and hold the middle of the table then you are within striking distance of most of the objectives, but not necessarily within holding distance so you should probably look for holding 2 and then just preventing your opponent from holding any.

The Secondary Objective, Vital Ground, earns you 3 points for holding the objective in the opponent's deployment zone and 2 points for holding each of the objectives in "no man's land" for potentially 7 points at the end of your Command Phase.  However it can't be scored on the first turn so your Scouts will have to hang tough and survive a turn.  If you can hold the centre of the table, then you should be able to get both of the objectives in "no man's land" and while you're there you can Investigate Sites and/or Psychic Ritual some more secondary points.

The Scouring has a weird central Hammer and Anvil style deployment and 5 objectives all of them placed in "no man's land" making them all fairly close together which makes the Primary somewhat easy to achieve despite it being Domination.  A highly durable army that likes to hold the middle of table is really going to excel on this map as all of the objectives are in no-mans land and are relatively close.

The Secondary Objective also has some serious potential to be achieved as it requires you to Strategic Scan as many objectives as you can by starting an action at the end of your movement and completing it at the end of your next Command Phase(or at the end of the game).  You can't scan the same objective twice, but if you complete 4 scans that earns you 15 points.  For a central table control army this should be pretty easy. Pair this with Domination and all you have to do is hold 3 objectives and easily win this game.  I see this mission being a blowout one way or another.

The Primary Objective in Overrun is Domination, which isn't too hard as 3 of the 6 objectives are close to or in each players deployment zone.  While holding 3 objectives shouldn't be too hard, holding more than that could prove tricky as you now have to push deep into the enemy half of the table.  If you can hold the centre of the table and hold the left or right side, that will give you access to 4 different objectives.

That brings me to the Secondary Objective which is also called Overrun.  I guess the naming guys took the day off for this one.  Anyway, you have to hold the objectives in the enemy half of the table at the end of your Command Phase.  One objective earns you 2 points, two objectives earns you 3 points, and all three objectives earns you 5 points.  The problem with this is is that if you push your army across the table to hold your opponent's objectives, he will likely be able to move across and take yours.  So if you can hold the 4 objectives on the right or left half of the table you're set.  Easy right?

Sweep and Clear is another mission where you still count as holding the objective even if you don't have models near it until your opponent controls it.  It also only has 5 objectives with Take and Hold as the Primary.  The deployment is table quarters with a 9" no-mans land in the middle, so once again if you are a tough durable army who can push the middle of the table you shouldn't have much trouble holding the 3 objectives you need to fill our your Primary score.

Direct Assault the Secondary Objective for this mission is holding the centre objective and the objective in your opponent's deployment zone.  You score 3 points for holding one of them and 5 points if you hold both of them at the end of your turn.  This map is one that makes Pierce the Veil possible, although Psychic Ritual might be better along with Investigate Sites.  Move your whole army to the middle of the table and watch those points come rolling in.

We have finally made it to the last mission, Priority Target, which has 5 objectives and Take and Hold as the Primary Objective.  2 of the objectives are labelled A and 2 are labelled B.  There is a neat little back and forth that happens before deployment though and I really kind of like.  Before any models are declared for reserves or to be put in transports the Attacker moves one of objectives labelled A or B 6" in any horizontal direction making sure it is not placed within an obstacle or Defensible terrain.  The Defender then moves an A AND B objective that has not been moved yet, following the same rules, finally the Attacker moves the last A or B objective that has not been moved.  Once all the markers have been placed players secretly mark one of the 2 objectives in their half of the table as their Priority Objective, the is really only important for the secondary.

Which is Priority Target in which you get 3 points for holding one of the Priority Target Objectives or 5 points for holding both of them at the end of your turn.  This one is actually a little weird and seems like you can just score max points by holding your objective for the entirety of the game.  If you are playing a mirror match where both armies are the slower moving durable table control armies that is what we will have.  Then the game will basically hinge on the objective in the middle along with the other secondaries, which will likely revolve around holding the middle.  The movement of the objectives will be key as faster, more agile armies will want to spread those objectives out and the "turtle" armies will want them closer together.  If we have a mismatch in armies we will want to watch for the more dynamic army make a big move turn 3, bringing in a bunch of their army from reserve and striking hard looking to cripple their  opponent and steal their objective for the last 3 turns to score max points.

It's a whole new ball game.

The game has changed pretty drastically from how armies are built, to how you score points, to how terrain works.  You are going to start seeing fewer armies that are straight up dedicated to annihilating your army turn one and more armies designed to hold the table and not go anywhere.  Now, we could simply move to a paper, rock, scissors type game where some players will build "turtle" lists which move to the middle the table and stay there, others will build "sledge hammer" lists which rush forward and smash whatever gets close enough, and others will play a scalpel style army that moves quick, strikes hard, and is generally anywhere and everywhere at any given time.  All of these look like they fair well in 9th, but only the best will survive.

Thank you for reading, I know this was a long one and you stuck it out to the end.  Or just skipped ahead to see how it ended.  It's the from dark, it doesn't end well.  Feel free to leave a comment if I got anything wrong or if you have some insights.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.