{"id":2749,"date":"2015-01-09T23:18:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-10T04:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/?p=2749"},"modified":"2022-07-01T08:50:45","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T12:50:45","slug":"40k-skirmish-recon-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/2015\/01\/40k-skirmish-recon-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"40k Skirmish Variant: Recon Squad!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m pumped to announce the official release of Recon Squad<\/em><\/a>, our\u00a0unofficial skirmish variant for Games Workshop’s<\/a> Warhammer 40,000!<\/p>\n

\"Recon<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the rules!<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Colin, myself, and a bunch of PAGE<\/a> people have been working on this for almost exactly a year\u00a0now.\u00a0We’ve used it through two decently sized events (December<\/a> and January<\/a>)\u00a0as well as several playtest sessions\u00a0since the last set of big revisions, so I think it’s solid. Thanks to everyone\u00a0that’s contributed, Luke Walker<\/a> for the great cover art, and everybody else that’s given it a shot in events so far.<\/p>\n

We’ll be putting up more Recon Squad related\u00a0material shortly, namely a great narrative campaign and mission pack. If you’d like to be notified when those are\u00a0up, join our 40k announcements list<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Basics<\/h2>\n

Veterans will recognize\u00a0Recon Squad as\u00a0very similar to traditional Kill Team games. For those unfamiliar with that style of skirmish games\u00a0in 40k, it’s a variant for\u00a0very small, fast, tactical battles\u00a0of individual troops.\u00a0In this case armies consist of at most 200 points and are very restricted in the\u00a0roles and stats available. Once on the field, each model acts individually, running about on its own to fight the enemy and capture objectives.\u00a0I personally wouldn’t want to play this way all the time, but it makes a nice change of pace and can pack a ton of strategic depth. More people should give it a chance as it’s a really neat way to play 40k. It can also be a good\u00a0way to introduce new players to the basic game mechanics and models.<\/p>\n

Motivations<\/h2>\n

Just as it’s cool to occasionally throw down all the models you own<\/a> on the table at once, it’s also\u00a0really rewarding to occasionally focus on just a handful of models. Traditionally that’s been the domain\u00a0of Games Workshop’s official\u00a0Kill Team variant of 40k. Earlier versions were kind of weird, but the versions\u00a0released\u00a0throughout 5th edition 40k worked well, and were\u00a0tight, free 3-page PDFs. The latest, for-sale eBook\u00a0though is disappointing:\u00a0Overpriced, terrible\u00a0formatting, sloppy rules, and poor adaptation to 6e\/7e\u00a0despite being released\u00a0at the\u00a0end of 6th\/just before 7th. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. I have a review of some of the problems\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Sentinels<\/a>

Sentinels were *made* for this format.<\/p><\/div>\n

Recon Squad is our response. We think it’s a tighter ruleset, better adapts 7th edition to skirmish play, and has more balance. As just a few examples, it explicitly addresses Brotherhood of Psykers\/Sorcerors, makes\u00a0Astra Militarum\u00a0orders useful, and limits grenades and hordes. None of that is addressed in the current Kill Team. Obviously our\u00a0Recon Squad variant\u00a0is heavily inspired by the traditional Kill Team rules, but it is its own animal and a lot of thought has been put into tuning it\u00a0for modern 40k and casual to competitive play.<\/p>\n

A lot of emphasis has also been put on access. Obviously as a free PDF anybody can check it out. One of the problems with Kill Team as a $12 eBook is that it’s difficult to use it in\u00a0a tournament or campaign—nobody wants to be forced to buy another book just to enter. Recon Squad\u00a0doesn’t have that problem. As importantly, it’s also easy to jump in and play.\u00a0Unlike some\u00a0other\u00a0unofficial 40k skirmish efforts, e.g., The\u00a0Heralds of Ruin’s excellent ruleset<\/a>, it uses the same list building as always. The core mechanics also aren’t changed other than breaking units apart into individual models. So veterans can easily throw down a quick skirmish, and newcomers can play Recon Squad with their handful of models and\u00a0apply what they learn directly to standard 40k.<\/p>\n

Design<\/h2>\n

A few of the design considerations in Recon Squad are worth touching on.<\/p>\n

On a simple\u00a0note, our “Everyone Falls The First Time” rule adds in a basic ability to jump over short gaps. It also restores the ability for models to jump down from large heights in return for possible injury,\u00a0which was\u00a0removed in 6th or 7th edition.\u00a0These rules aren’t strictly required, but are very useful to help models move around on the super dense\u00a0boards many people will want to play on in this skirmish setting. Boards generally\u00a0still shouldn’t be completely jammed with terrain as shooting will become very ineffective, but there should be more terrain than usual and it can be a lot of narrative as well as\u00a0gameplay fun to construct very detailed, rich\u00a0environments that\u00a0wouldn’t work in standard 40k.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A very elaborate example of a Recon Squad board.<\/p><\/div>\n

More importantly,\u00a0the “Frag Bag” rule limits how often a model can throw grenades. In standard 40k the relatively recently added rules for\u00a0using\u00a0grenades in\u00a0shooting attacks aren’t\u00a0a huge deal: You’re not frequently in range, and only one model per unit can do it at a time, so the effects are muted. In skirmish though each model is their own unit, and they’re frequently in range. Marines in particular become supercharged because they’re all running around with a free S8 AP3 assault gun due to their krak grenades. Recon Squad\u00a0explicitly curtails that.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Brotherhood of Psykers\/Sorcerors needs to be explicitly addressed as the army\u00a0unit is broken up into\u00a0a bunch of 1-model units running around.\u00a0We’ve gone with allowing one model in such a unit to\u00a0act as a psyker each turn. The main basis for this is that making each model an independent psyker would be an overpowering buff. At the same time, discounting it would render many units completely powerless, as Kill Team does.\u00a0Our “Cast A Spell On You” rule tries to strike a balance between the two.<\/p>\n

\"Horrors<\/a>

Horrors and orks goin’ at it.<\/p><\/div>\n

We’ve also broken with traditional Kill Team rules a bit\u00a0in\u00a0the force organization and army restrictions allowed. An HQ slot is\u00a0given, and the limits on\u00a0wounds and armor are both bumped up. This\u00a0permits a number of non-traditional units, but squads are\u00a0still kept within reason and a number of fluffy builds are enabled. For example, a common Tyranid complaint with Kill Team is that it doesn’t permit Lictors because they have 3\u00a0wounds, though they\u00a0are otherwise an extremely appropriate selection by both narrative\u00a0and gameplay. Space Marine Captains and Terminators are also both permitted in Recon Squad. Running a squad of 5 bare Terminators to hunt down xenos is\u00a0super fluffy and probably isn’t\u00a0actually overpowering despite the traditional ban—it’s probably actually not even a great\u00a0squad. They’ll be real tough to kill for most troops, but special weapons combined with specialist traits\u00a0will make short work of them and with so few models the squad will\u00a0have significant\u00a0trouble holding objectives, or even getting to them before being mobbed. Similarly, 100+ points on a Captain that could easily die to an ignores cover-meltagun or relentless-lascannon\u00a0is\u00a0probably a poor investment but could certainly interest someone.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the rule we were most conflicted about: Squads are capped at 20 models. This does eliminate some fairly narrative\u00a0builds, like a basic Astra Militarum Platoon.\u00a0The rationale though is simple\u00a0math. Above twenty models\u00a0and most\u00a0factions will really struggle to\u00a0do enough damage each turn to have any chance of breaking the squad or\u00a0not being simply physically blocked\u00a0off every objective. Even at twenty\u00a0models the opponent has to eliminate a considerable number each turn to whittle it down significantly. While it’s unfortunate to force the Imperial Guard, Orks, and some others to focus less on their most basic troops, it’s not out of narrative character for Recon Squads to be composed of more\u00a0elite troops.\u00a0This\u00a0restriction also goes quite a ways to addressing one of the main balance problems in Kill Team play, and isn’t something addressed at all in the traditional or current official rules.<\/p>\n

For the Emperor!<\/h2>\n

All in all we think Recon Squad<\/a>\u00a0is a pretty solid ruleset, and have been happy with how it’s worked out in our events so far. There’s little new to learn to play except the tactics, and those tactics are pretty deep. In our campaign last Saturday<\/a> Colin and I had a super tight match between his Fallen and my Kingbreakers that was among the most chess-like 40k I’ve played in some time as Sergeant Harmon and his Ghosts (Sternguard)\u00a0ran the traitors down among the ruins of an Imperial shrine.\u00a0So grab your favorite plasmagunner, make him an Ignores Cover specialist, and\u00a0get him out there to fight for the Emperor!<\/p>\n

Check it out!<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Fallen<\/a>

Fallen and Kingbreakers have a standoff in a ruined Imperial chapel.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m pumped to announce the official release of Recon Squad, our\u00a0unofficial skirmish variant for Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000! Get the rules! Colin, myself, and a bunch of PAGE people have been working on this for almost exactly a year\u00a0now.\u00a0We’ve used it through two decently sized events (December and January)\u00a0as well as several playtest sessions\u00a0since the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[398],"tags":[272,257,197,62,10],"class_list":["post-2749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design","tag-40k","tag-featured","tag-recon-squad","tag-rocketship-games","tag-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2860,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions\/2860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}