This is an initial pass of the core Marauder battle and stat cards to get you started. It’s not got the Rippers in yet as they didn’t do what I wanted yesterday and need a bit more fiddling with. However, you might as well make a start with the others.
Note that the Commander is intended to hide at the back and think clever things rather than get stuck in.
Given the short time available for testing all these decks, updates will be frequent, but don’t let that stop you having a go. The time to get your game on is now!
Abilities mentioned here are:
- Sniper +2 shoot
- Slow – shoot is long action for this weapon not short
- Single shot – no BA
- BOOM! – explodes when they die. May choose to explode at any point during a friendly turn. Explodes like an accurate frag grenade.
Quirkworthy 
I understand that the commando captain is not supposed to be stronger that his men, just a good leader, but should he get at least the same combat abilities that a normal commando ? Having only 6+ on both combat stats while a normal commando is 5+ seems strange, unless of course there is something in the fluff saying that commando captain are supposed to be weaker.
Of course, if for exemple they are supposed to be older Orxs, old wounds and old age can explain the reduced abilities perfectly. Cunning Orx letting other fight for them while in reality being cowards could also do I suppose, as long is it is explained somewhere.
Oh, and thanks for the cards, it’s good to see the game evolve and progress. ^_^
Will the updated beta rules tell us how many to use/what the special abilities mean?
Oops just noticed my second question is answered in your post, still need to know model numbers before I play though 🙂
Surprised that orx have better leader than the enforcers. Nice to see the game evolve… But getting mad to see all the cards XP
Thanks jake for letting us test all these goodies
Well the enforncer leader we’ve seen stats for so far is more of a squad leader and not the main leader(The Enforcer Captain)
Are the Marauders supposed to have 12 battle cards (as provided) or 13 (like the Enforcers & Plague)?
All the final decks will have rather more than that and draw a specific number from the larger set for a battle. Working on finessing that mechanic at the moment.
To answer several points at once, the background of the Marauders is centred on their mercenary endeavours and the Captain is a prime example of one who has studied war for many years. he considers himself a professional and is not a combatant. Old war wounds don’t help either. He isn’t their only leader, just the most obvious signature style. By giving him worse stats than the normal commandos you are encouraged to play him as he should be – commanding the battle from the shadows. It’s only making him this bad that stops folk chucking him into combat willy-nilly, and that spoils the character 🙂
I’m adding an extra command function for top level leaders such as this chap and that will give him more to do as well as differentiating him better from the combat leaders.
There will be a much more combat oriented “lead from the front” leader for the Marauders, but he won’t be as good a commander.
How many of each figure do the marauders get?
@Chris Pearse
“Stats first, Points second.” Jake said that yesterday.
Just look at the starter packs on the Kickstarter as a guide. What you really need to do is get them on the table and kick it about. You have to play it to know what needs tweaking. Just plonk some models down and see what happens 🙂
I’ll do some points values once I’ve got the cards up to start with.
Isn’t the commando captain modeled with some sort of taser stave/force pike?
Are there no rules for that weapon?
It’s a fancy swagger stick, not a weapon. It’s simply a badge of office.
thnks Jake! I’m trying to get some interest in my area. are you going to release the v2 Beta rules soon? I think diagrams of examples etc. would make the game an easier sell as they illustrate
game concepts with less confusion.
Yes to Beta v2, not so sure on pretty diagrams. It will be a PDF of a Word doc rather than the laid out stuff that you saw before. It will have more explanation and some of my diagrams though.
I really like the non-stereotypical roles for these space orcs. Goblins that are crack shots, and captains that aren’t close combat beasts are a real breath of fresh air. Theses are a thinking man’s greenskins. Bravo.
Sounds like I need a new T-shirt 🙂
“The thinking man’s Greenskins”
You do the T-shirt, I’ll buy one.
Had a couple of games using the Marauders now, both against Enforcers. I went for 1 Commando Captain, 1 Sniper, 2 Mawbeasts and 3 Commandos, up against the 5 man Enforcer team we already have rules for. Both games the Enforcers won fairly comfortably.
The main issue was essentially the Marauders really struggled to kill the Enforcers. Short of the Mawbeasts in a fight, they have no obvious way of doing enough damage against the Enforcers high armour and survival. On paper, the Sniper looks really deadly. However, he has to maneuver to a position to be able to deal damage. With Shoot being a long action (fair enough), even when the sniper gets to a good position, he will be exposed for a turn before he can Shoot. With his lack of armour and poor survival, I found that he goes down quite quickly and easily.
Both games started with Enforcers trying to take out the Mawbeasts at range. Then, when the Sniper popped his head out, attention turned to him. He never actually got a shot off! In the second game, the Marauders had a little success suppressing an Enforcer, using an Ammo Box and a friendly unit to help out with Blazing Away. This enabled a Mawbeast to get into a fight. It killed the Enforcer comfortably. Once the Mawbeasts were taken care of, the Enforcers were able to pick off the Commandos fairly easily.
Has anyone else used them yet? Does the 7 man Marauder team seem a fair amount of bodies to other people?
Thanks Ian. As Mike said, they really need the Rippers (who I think will be up today). Also, try using a move card to get the sniper into position, and then his own action to do the actual shooting.
Enforcers are always a tough nut to crack, which is why there will be rather few of them (relatively) when the points are finalised. You can’t have lots of highly elite troops. Something has to give. However, they do have loads of options to pick from, which makes choosing an Enforcer strike team an intriguing balancing act.
If the Snipers have a commanding position that can’t currently see anything, Overwatch looks like a pretty good idea to allow the Snipers to cover your other Commandos…
Sure does. There’s no reason you have to use snipers aggressively and go hunting. You can let them walk into your cunning trap…
well, the marauder starter has 2 snipers and maybe it’s because they work well in pairs; one moving/shooting while the other covers? Also, we have no Ripper stats so you might be missing the heavy hitting/suppressing fire that a Ripper might provide. Given the number of models in the starters, the marauders have 1 less than the enforcers so if they’re equal in points then the rippers should be mighty powerful.
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