The 11th edition of Warhammer 40,000 has transformed the way the game is played in a number of good ways. Key to this are the new version of Detachments which now include bonuses and stratagems to use in your battles.
The Detachments don’t dictate what you must bring; there are no rules that say you must have Scout Sentinels in your army. However, the Designation Force Detachment for the Astra Militarum does give Scout Sentinels and infantry units with the Smoke keyword signal flares that make it easier to target enemies. In addition, it allows you to purchase an upgrade for Scout Sentinels that gives them Infiltrators, allowing them to set up deeper into the battlefield before the game starts. So, while you’re not required to bring Scout Sentinels, there are good incentives to do so.
Each Detachment also comes with a Disposition, which describes roughly what the force wants to do during a battle. There are five Dispositions: Take and Hold, Disruption, Purge the Foe, Priority Assets, and Reconnaissance.
Depending on the size of your army, you might be using more than one Detachment. However, before the game starts, you must choose a single Disposition for your army. The missions you play are then based on your army’s disposition and that of your foe.
This gives you asymmetrical missions. While in 10th edition, you and your opponent were usually trying to achieve the same primary mission, with random Secondary Objectives to spice things up, in 11th edition you and your foe might not have any objectives in common (though it is usual for the primary missions of both sides to be mutually exclusive).
To find out what mission you’re playing, you’ll cross-reference from your Disposition and your opponent’s Disposition. For instance, if your army is using the Priority Assets Disposition and your opponent is using Purge the Foe as their Disposition, you’ll play the Vital Link mission. Most missions give you a choice of a handful of different layouts for terrain (remember that your objectives are terrain pieces now, not imaginary circles on the board) and possibly special rules as well.
In Vital Link, the Priority Assets player wants to control Central Objectives, earning 2 Victory Points for each one, but they can get an additional 1 VP for each Operation Marker you place on the objective, meaning you could earn 25 VPs for holding and performing an Action on the objective every round for five rounds.
Your foe, however, with a Purge the Foe Disposition, is more interested in killing your units. They get 3 VP in each of their turns in which they destroyed one or more of your units, and after the 1st round, they get an additional 4 VP if they killed more units this round than you did last round. So while you’re trying to maintain control of your Central Objectives, you’ll also be wanting to take out as many enemy units every round as you can in order to make killing enough of your units to earn those extra 4 VP very difficult for your opponent.
This is probably the biggest missions overhaul in over a decade for 40k and is going to lead to some fun, dynamic, and very cinematic games. Instead of everyone just piling in to swamp a few objectives shared in common, you’ll have things happening all across the board as both sides attempt to complete their missions while denying their opponent the chance to complete completely different missions.
The first Munitorum Field Manual for 11th edition has just dropped. Check it out, build your army, pick Detachments and a disposition that fit your force, then plan to meet your friends for a more dynamic battle experience at your local Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® today.
