CHAPTER APPROVED 2018 MISSIONS: BASICS & ETERNAL WAR

The second part of my series of articles on how to score in the CA 2018 missions, today I’ll be focusing on the basic rules every mission shares and Eternal War. For Part 1 in where I wrote about Tactical Objectives and the new Refined Strategy rule, click here.

 

BASICS

There are a number of traits every Eternal War mission shares with which it is good to be thoroughly familiarized.

Deployment

The players must roll off after objective markers have been placed, and the winner gets to:

• Choose his deployment side (the deployment type is rolled randomly because of how the word “determine” is defined in the basic rulebook).
• Deploy his entire army after his opponent has deployed theirs.
• NOT start the game unless he seizes initiative or his opponent chooses to let him start.

Because of this, many players consider it is best to not win the roll because generally having the first turn is considered best. In my opinion though the first turn is overrated, specially now that you get to deploy your whole army after your opponent’s if you go second.

Acceptable casualties

A new rule from CA that nullifies Sudden Death. This means you no longer automatically loose if your whole army gets killed, a huge improvement to the game in my opinion asit discourages some not-fun army lists. Also, because of this, you no longer loose either if you only have Flyers in the table.

Random lengths

As per the rules, all missions still have a random length and can finish at the end of round 5, 6 or 7. Many tournaments house-rule against this, and many games are not played to the end because of time issues, but it is still something to take into account.

Secondary Missions

Every single mission in CA 2018 shares three common “secondaries” (they aren’t called that anymore, but it’s an easy way to name them) that each give you a point if you achieve them:

• Slay the Warlord: killing the enemy warlord gives you a point, meaning you should try to protect yours and hunt the other’s. Depends a lot on both your list and the opponent, though it is not usually that easy, so don’t always count on it.
• First Strike: destroying an enemy unit in the first round scores you another point, and you should always aim to do so as it’s generally the easiest secondary. Note that this now is possible to both players due to how it’s written in CA 2018 missions.
• Linebreaker: if you end the game with at least a model within the opponent’s deployment zone, you get a victory point. Again, pretty dependent on lists, it benefits mobile and aggressive armies, which are already the most common in the actual meta.

Next I’ll review each mission, one by one.

 

VITAL INTELLIGENCE

In this mission an objective marker is placed in the centre of the battlefield and four more in the middle of an imaginary line drawn from the centre to each corner of the board, and afterwards the players number the markers. At the start of each round a player rolls to see which one is “active”, all five being active if a 6 is rolled and, at the end of each round, the players get a victory point for each marker they control, or two if it’s active, and they are controlled in the usual way.

Pretty straight-forward mission, and one that potentially gives a lot of points, something important to take into account when playing a tournament in where this is relevant. As usual in Eternal War, it benefits a lot going second, as you don’t have to endure your opponent’s turn in the objective to score it, another reason why I believe building lists that favour not starting is a good idea.

Your goal should be to score, at least, 3 points each round, or 6 if all objectives are active, without taking into account secondaries or Tactical Objectives if both Eternal War and Maelstrom are being played. In this way you make sure your opponent doesn’t score more than you, as each round there’s a maximum of 6 points that can be gained (4 markers +1 active) or 10 if all are active, but as you cannot get 5 points because it’s not a multiple of 2, you should aim for 6.

 

NARROW THE SEARCH

A single objective marker is deployed in the centre of the board, and players control it if they have more models than their opponent within a distance that starts at 18” and shrinks by 3” each round. At the end of the round, the player controlling it gets a point. Note that objective-secured-type rules still count here, so a single troop model will control the marker even if there are more enemy non-troops within range. Additionally, invulnerable saves CANNOT be taken within 12” of the middle of the board.

My least favorite mission from the book, as I think the Null Field affects some armies so much  more than others. Daemons, for example, are screwed here. However I do believe there are ways to around it.

The first one is, surprise, surprise, going second. If you’re first, you must survive your opponent’s turn with more models, which can be difficult for some units without taking invulnerable saves, but if you go second you can simply move your units inside the area and they’ll score, even if they’ll probably get obliterated next turn.

The second is to ignore it altogether. A single point per round isn’t that much if you’re playing in conjunction with Maelstrom of War, and you can take advantage of your opponent weakening his units to score while you get points in other, less risky ways.

You should also take into account that during the two first turns, you can get units into the objective area without losing your invulnerable just by carefully placing your models, so you can put pressure on the middle at first to get a couple of points and leave it afterwards.

Finally, this mission really rewards to have ways of moving in your opponent’s turn, specifically in the assault phase, to be able to get into the zone after the shooting phase. While this kind of movements are quite limited, they do exist, like custodes bikes with their countercharge stratagem. Or you can also use the basic assault phase rules to move, as a unit outside the null zone that gets charged or was already in combat can move 3” as pile in-move when they’re activated, and another 3” at the end of the assault phase as a consolidation. An unengaged character who has an enemy unit near can move up to 9” (3” heroic intervention +3” pile-in +3” consolidation). It might not be much and limited by the position of enemy models, but can be just enough to rob the objective from under your opponent’s nose if you leave your units near it, specially in turn 3 when the distance from the null zone is the same that from the objective.

 

CUT OFF THE HEAD

In this mission three “intel points” must be distributed evenly through CHARACTER in your army, meaning that, if you have three characters you can’t assign the three to a single one, but rather give each of them a single point. Additionally, an objective marker is deployed in the centre of the board. From the second round onward, you score more points if you have more models with intel points controlling the marker than your opponent and also, starting the third battle round, you get a point for each Intel Point you have in a living character at the end of the round.

Though still beneficial, going second isn’t as good in this mission, because of the more resistant nature of characters. And, even though it’s only them that can control the middle objective, you should bring the thick of your forces there, as you need the Intel point carriers well protected to score from third round, which is the true way of winning this mission as, by controlling the marker, you can get a total of 6 points through a 6-round battle, while you score 12 if your three characters with a point survive it.

So, against aggressive armies, you might want to keep your characters at the back, even if it means giving up the objective, to score more later, while focussing on killing the enemy characters, even using the middle as a lure by leaving it without intel points of your own.

Of course this is taking into account you get to play all the turns, if you think you won’t, capturing the market becomes a much more important task and you should prioritize on it even if it means losing a character.

 

THE FOUR PILLARS

Four objective markers are deployed in the diagonals of the board at 15” from the centre, and players score a point at the end of the battle round if they control more markers than their opponent, or 3 if they control all four. Additionally, the player who destroyed more enemy units gets another point each round.

The most similar mission to how ITC works, The Four Pillars rewards careful planning before starting each turn, as you must distribute your forces the best you can to hold the points while killing your opponent’s units while not getting your own killed.

As general guidelines it’s a good idea to make sure you get at least a point each round, either by killing or holding more. But still never let your opponent score the three points, you should hold to at least one objective marker even if your planning to get your point by killing this turn. So you either focus on holding three (or the four) markers and so can sacrifice units without worrying, which is what I recommend if going second, or you play without objectives in mind and place your units in a way they can damage the enemy the most while not getting too exposed, which is an easier approach if you had the first turn. In this way you never score less than your rival, and it’s better to get a single point than to stretch your lines too thin and get none.

Because how easy this situation of each player getting a point per round is to sustain, Tactical Objectives and secondaries are what truly make the difference here. Also beware hyper-board control armies (like a horde of Nurgle  daemons) in tournaments where this mission is played, as they’ll be able to score three points per round with relative ease while most people only get one, which might make then unexpectedly jump to the top positions.

 

SUPPLIES FROM ABOVE

Four objective markers are placed alternately by the players in the usual way, and each of them grants a victory point to the player controlling it at the start of their turn, starting from the second one, though units with the keyword FLY have priority over the rest when determining who has the objective. In addition the players must roll off for each marker and the winner can move it 3”.

This mission is quite different from the previous four because scoring is done at the beginning of the turn, which means the opponent has their whole turn to get you out of any markers, and because it is done each turn instead of each round, there are no advantages in going second here, at least for scoring. If that wasn’t enough, there’s a 50% chance your rival will be able to move the markers you’re holding, further increasing the chances of you not scoring.

Just as with The Four Pillars, usually the game will be decided by tactical objectives here, as scoring in this mission is quite unreliable. Because of it I would focus more on not letting your opponent get points rather than getting them yourself, as exposing and committing units in an unnecessary way is certainly not good. When you get an objective, however, make sure to place your unit in such a way the marker can’t be moved out of their reach, if possible.

Finally, in the same way I mentioned before, moving in your opponent’s assault phase is the most reliable way of getting victory points, and usually in those situations you won’t be able to get around the marker to prevent it from moving away control distance, so don’t count on that too much either.

 

BEACHHEAD

An objective marker is deployed in the middle and, after sides have been decided, players set up another marker in their corresponding deployment zones. During the game, if you control a marker in your zone at the start of your turn, you get one victory point; two if it’s the one in the middle or; if it’s placed in the enemy deployment zone, you score three points.

Again scoring is made at the start of the turn, making it much more unreliable and going second less of an advantage. However, as you can place the marker in your zone, you can hide it if there’s good scenery to make getting a point per turn much easier. Additionally, because the reward is higher, it’s more worth it to commit resources to control the objectives, specially if you can get to the opponent’s zone, not to mention that the markers can’t actually run away in this mission.

Because of all of this, you should defend your zone well, mainly to avoid your opponent from scoring three points, but it’s probably wise to push elsewhere so that the fight isn’t too close to it. Because most opponents will follow the same approach, this means usually the thick of the fight will be in the marker of the middle.

So it will be usual for each player to score their point each turn, with the one of the middle being the more decisive one, though both opponents will be trying to push forward to get the third marker. Of course this setting will vary a lot depending on both armies, as some armies tend to put more pressure on the opposite objective while leaving theirs unattended, which can change drastically the course of the game.

At the end, this mission promotes the traditional way of playing of both armies moving forward forward to clash in the middle, so it shouldn’t suppose a big change to your game plan.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

As you might have noticed through the article, the trick to Eternal War is not to score as much as possible, buy rather to not let your opponent score more than you. This is because of the very nature of the missions, being exactly the same to both players, which can make them a little dull if played standalone. However, if mixed with Maelstrom of War, it makes for a much more interesting system as you get the random tactical objectives as a tiebreaker but you get a chance to do something in case you draw bad cards, while not being able to ignore the set objectives of EW because otherwise your opponent will overwhelm you there,.

So remember, don’t risk Eternal War, just score steadily and be prepared to take advantage of opportunities when they appear! And don’t miss Part III to know more about Maelstrom of War!