Quirkworthy

I’m reverting to Blaze Away not being able to get an Aim bonus. It’s getting too big a set of bonuses and making it too easy to suppress people. Whilst there are a few reasons to like it, overall it’s a better balance as it was originally.

Some good points came up in the comments about last night’s quick thought. I thought I’d carry on here though as I wanted to make some additions.

Firstly, while we may do a whole mercs army at some stage, for the moment we need to focus on the main factions. That means that mercs aren’t the main event here, they’re the cherry on top.

In a background sense, especially in campaign terms, I don’t see any military unit progressing and being well regarded if their work is all done for them by hired hands. For that reason I’m tending towards being quite restrictive with the amount of help they can give. One brutally simple option would be to say that forces which included mercs cannot advance as a result of that mission. Individuals may skill up, of course, but the force as a whole wouldn’t as they weren’t actually doing the work themselves. Maybe that’s too much though.

Another way would be to say that mercs cannot earn VPs for any mission goal. This is what I mentioned yesterday. The logic holds for any goal as having your work done for you doesn’t differentiate about the work. And would you believe them anyway? “Yes, of course I killed, oh, 5 or 6 Stage 1s. They’re just around that corner. You can’t see them because the building collapsed on their bodies. Can I have my bonus now?”. Yeah, right.

Even if you did believe them, whilst achieving the mission may be great however it is done (from the point of view of the overall command), it isn’t going to earn Brownie points for the unit involved if they rely on hired guns. It might make the merc more famous though. I’m sure they’d love that. However, we’re not playing a game about a single merc (that would be an entirely different game), we’re playing a game about a strike force from one of the main factions. As such you have to look at it differently.

Individual units don’t have the cash to hire mercs. They’re paid by the higher echelons who have the budget for these things, and they’re only hired when they think that their own units can’t hack it on their own. That does not make the units look good at all. No sir.

So, while I’m not 100% sure of a final version of the merc rules, I’m thinking along the lines of a maximum of 1 per game per side, and them not being able to claim any mission goals. As a starting point.

They probably shouldn’t be able to complete goals for your mission.

(Told you it was quick).

Just till I get the full write up posted, try going for 8VPs instead of 7.

Also, a note on objectives.

Imagine the board is divided into 5 zones. Each player has a deployment zone, and there is a central band into which half the items are deployed. This leaves a strip of no-man’s land on each side, between the central band and the deployment zones.

Set up the Objectives with one in the middle area where the items go, and each player setting up one of the remaining objectives in the strip of no-man’s land on the opposing side of the middle band. If you see what I mean.

If a model leaves the table via Infiltrate they cannot return. If they leave via Scour then they can come back onto the cube they left the board from.

It’s not really right (in fact it’s rather left), but the best theme music I could find for reading this was:

😉

Rebels Faction deck v4

As before, but for the mercenary hordes of the greenies.

Marauder Faction deck v6

As before, the full deck with missions, stat cards and battle deck.

Plague Faction deck v5