First thing to note if you choose to play Crusade with the Pariah Nexus Chapter Approved mission pack - you don't select Agendas as usual. Instead, we play Secondary Missions - or Tactical Missions - and units that help you score victory points for those gain EP. Also, we can only do Tactical Missions and not Fixed ones.
The battle sequence is the same as everything else - if you're familiar with how Crusade games or even Matched Play games are played, nothing here is new. Like Crusade, though, we have Requisitions and Crusade Blessings, but unlike normal Crusade games, we have Secret Missions now! If you're behind in Primary Mission victory points, or have the same but are in a situation where you feel you won't be able to score any more, you can choose Secret Missions, which add flavor to your Crusade games!
This means you can't score more than 20 for Primary, and I think Secret Mission awards you a maximum of 20 victory points, so you'll give away 10 VP by default (so strategize accordingly by scoring both Secret Mission objectives and denying your opponent VP). It also throws a curveball in the narrative, which is cool!
Crusade Blessings are back, and while you have the standard High Strategy that gives you 2 CP, you also have stuff that buffs your Battleline units, giving them Stealth (not much help for me because I already play Skitarii Hunter Cohort), or allowing them to shoot/charge when they Fell Back (now we're talking). Not bad! Also, in broader terms, give up to 3 units Scout (allowing my Onager Dunecrawlers to scout with my Skitarii Rangers) or Ignores Cover when shooting at an enemy on a specific objective marker (not beneficial for my Skitarii Rangers with omnispex, but good for my Ironstrider Ballistarii and Onager Dunecrawlers without phosphor weapons).
There's also a specific set of pre-prepared missions: 12. They pair specific Deployments with Primary Missions and Mission Rules, so it's not as random as before, but still pretty cool.
Remember when I said you can gain XP from Secondary Missions? Depending on the Secondary Mission you draw, you can select a corresponding unit from your army to gain XP according to this table. Really cool!
We also have specific Crusade Relics, so yay! But you can just take the normal Battle Honors from your Faction's codex, and I prefer to do that anyway.
Last of all, we also have Victor Bonuses that vary depending on how much more points you have over your opponent! The 1 extra Requisition point looks like a pretty sweet one, not gonna lie! And if you win by 15 points or more, then you get to increase your Supply Limit by 300 points - more than the 200 points that a Requisition point grants you. Awesome!
Are you looking forward to playing Crusade with your Pariah Nexus Chapter Approved deck? If you can't get the cards, don't worry. In future, during a new season, I'll update this post with pictures featuring the Chapter Approved cards for the Missions, Deployments, etc., but that's only after the season for Pariah Nexus is over, and the Chapter Approved decks for it are no longer in production. For now, though, I'll respect IP rules and stuff. All I can say is that I'll try to make my blog as conducive for Crusade as possible! Narrative over Matched Play! Yay!
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