Stratagems, gems of a strategy

Being on form, Warhammer Community has posted on Stratagems today!

Apparently this is a new mechanic and it seems pretty...confusing at first. I'll try to simplify it for you guys.



Do you remember the Battle-forged Armies that we covered a week or so ago? Apparently you get Command Points for fielding certain detachments, such as Battalion or Brigade Detachment. What are those Command Points for, you must be wondering (I certainly was!). Well, wonder no more, because Warhammer Community has revealed that Command Points are spent on stuff called Stratagems!

As a side note, every Battle-forged Army gets 3 Command Points to begin with, so your Patrol Detachment gets 3 Command Points regardless of what the Command Benefits say.



If you take a Battalion Detachment instead, spending more of your points on additional Troops and HQ slots, then you get 6 Command Points!



And if you take a Brigade Detachment, which forces you to take even more Troops and HQ, you get an additional 9 Command Points for a total of 12!



There are also other options to increase the number of Command Points you have, for example, by including Commanders or Characters. Warhammer Community gives the example of including Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who gives you 1 Command Point. I'm sure Lord Castellan Creed might give another, but considering what happened in Fall of Cadia, I don't know if he'll show up as a Character in 8th Edition for the Imperial Guard. I'm sure Knight Commander Pask will give a Command Point or something.



Now what are these Stratagems, you ask? Good question! What happens is that you can activate a Stratagem during a phase when you deem it necessary, so long as you have sufficient Command Points left to do so. Remember, you spend the Command Points, so it's not a regenerating pool like the current Psychic Phase with Warp Charges pool. Once you spend a Command Point, it's gone. So if you have 3, and use up 1 in your first turn, you'll only have 2 left for the rest of the game. Make sure to spend them wisely! Anyway, let's see what we can spend these Command Points on. The three that every army can use are the ones below:



First one, Command re-roll is simple, I guess? If you need that lascannon shot to hit, for example, and you missed, you can spend 1 Command Point during the Shooting Phase to re-roll that missed shot. On the other hand, your opponent can also spend that 1 Command Point in that same phase to re-roll his armor save. So...yeah.

Insane Bravery costs 2 Command Points but allows you to pass a single Morale test. This will be useful for Imperial Guard! Especially if you don't have Commissars, but have a gigantic blob of Guardsmen marching up the table and taking heavy fire. You don't have to worry about losing more men now! Of course, 2 Command Points is nothing to scoff at, but if you're taking that many Guardsmen, you might as well use the Brigade Detachment and flood the table with platoons of Cadians (Draconians only use tanks, heh).

I don't understand Counter-Offensive either, but thankfully someone asked on the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page, and the admin/Public Relations guy gave an excellent example on how to use Counter-Offensive.

Sure thing.. it's like this. 

So, Nick's Ultramarines are playing Dom's Orks. It's Dom's turn.

Dom has charged 2 units into combat this turn; 
A) Ork Boys into some Tactical marines
B) Nobz into some Scouts. 

There are also 2 combats already taking place: 

C) Assault Marines vs Burna Boyz 
D) Command Squad vs Gretchin. 

It's the combat phase. Dom will be attacking with the Boyz from A) and the Nobz from B) first (before anything else) as they charged this turn. 

Dom activates The Nobz in combat B) to fight; they kill some scouts. 

Normally, Dom would automatically go next with the Boyz in combat A) because they also charged. 

But Nick calls Counter-Offensive, costing him 2 Command Points. He now gets to activate the Tactical Squad in Combat A), before the Boyz in Combat A) fight. The Marines kill 8 of the Orks (coz Ultramarines are amazing). 

Now, Dom activates the Boyz in Combat A).. there are only two of them left! 

Now it goes to units that have not charged. It's Dom's turn, so he activates the Burna Boyz in combat C). 

Then, Nick activates a remaining unit. The players then alternate activating units unit every unit has fought in the combat phase. 

I hope that helps!

You can check out the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page for more details.



We get more Stratagems for narrative and open play missions like Orbital Bombardment (I think), mines and silenced weapons (huh?).

For matched play, you can only use each Stratagem once per phase. So if you use the Command Re-roll to re-roll an armor save during the Fight phase, you obviously can't spend another Command Point to re-roll a To Hit roll later in the same phase. Got to wait until the next turn to use it again, and take stock of how many Command Points you have left!

Right, before I forget, note that these 3 are Stratagems that any army may use, regardless of Faction or Detachment or whatever. It appears that each Faction will have their own specific Stratagem. I'm sure Imperial Guard, Imperial Knights and the Adeptus Mechanicus will have their thematic, flavorful Stratagem to boost their performance in combat (not close combat, I mean warfare in general). I'm looking forward to that, and I'll let you guys know more once I get news on Faction specific Stratagems (only for the Imperial Guard, Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus, though! And Thousand Sons too).

Anyway, we'll be receiving news on the Indomitus Crusade tomorrow! I can't wait, because my Draconian Armored Force, Imperial Knights of House Yato, and the Skitarii maniples of Forge World Draconis IV will play a huge part in the Indomitus Crusade and retake Cadia or whatever planet they want us to retake!