This really simplifies things during games and if you’re the kind of player who finds modern 40k is too complex, this may be something of a boon. Measurement, Range, and Visibility Once created, the Arks are placed under the command of Abaddon’s chosen followers and sent to their task, though not always fully aware of what they’re looking for. There’s some really cool details in the book on how these are outfitted and how Abaddon ensures they’ll achieve their goals, and it’s worth a read to understand more about the roles they play in the larger plan. What’s Next

This detachment also comes at no CP cost, so you’ll always end this process with 6CP to spend on Requisitions, and you can use these on the Warlord Trait and Relic stratagems (returning from Nephilim) or the new Heroic Support stratagem, which can be used once to bypass a one-per-detachment restriction – great news if you want to take multiple Hive Tyrants or Tau Commanders at a lower cost than putting in an additional Patrol used to run you. Finally, which Faction you select for your Arks of Omen detachment determines which set of Faction Secondaries you get access to, even if you choose to include an Allied Detachment. This is particularly good news for Ynnari, because a Ynnari detachment containing Harlequin or Drukhari models still explicitly counts as an Asuryani detachment, finally putting to bed the ambiguity over whether they get access to the Asuryani secondaries. The first three books reignite the classic struggle between the Imperium of man and the forces of Chaos – with the third introducing a major new character to the setting, Vashtorr. The fourth book will be a distinctly xenos affair, however. We’ll have more on that next year, along with news on the rest of the series… So, how does it work? When building an Arks of Omen army, you must start with an Arks of Omen detachment as the core of your army. This is a bit like a Battalion, except you can choose which Battlefield Role your mandatory slots come from, as shown below: On to the weapons. We have Vashtorr’s Claw, which is just a heavy flamer with extra AP and no melee profile. That’s fine though, he can punch with Vashtorr’s Hammer , which is Sx2 AP -2 D3. That’s right, AP -2. It’s got an ability to do 4 mortals instead, on a wound roll of 5+ and only against vehicles, but that’s both a corner case and very whiffable. Ok, fine, so the manifestation of the machine god’s will is a fancy thunder hammer. Not even a heavy thunder hammer. That’s fine, he exists for his abilities, surely.

Rad Leak takes the players into proximity of a leaking reactor. The board is divided into four sectors, labelled A through D, representing different levels of distance away from the reaction (sector A is particularly bad). During the course of the mission the radiation levels increase, ranging from “none” to “extreme” depending on how bad things are. The effect of radiation is to reduce Leadership, Move, and Toughness characteristics depending on the level. Players can score up to 15 points per turn for securing one, two, or more objectives. At the end of the game players score 15 points if they control both markers labelled Critical and 10 points for killing the enemy Warlord. As their name would suggest, the Space Marines are a dab hand at boarding actions, and many stories demonstrate their heroism inside the bowels of one mighty voidcraft or another. Warriors of Ultramar is of particular note, giving us one of our first glimpses inside a tyranid hive ship courtesy of Uriel Ventris – the description of the ship’s Norn Queen is harrowing indeed. The book does not contain any explicit Crusade content, but does have a paragraph stating that the rules and missions can be used with Crusade forces (and their Battle Honours, Battle Scars, and upgrades) so long as everyone understands that not all Agendas will actually work with the game setting. The book encourages players to discuss things ahead of time and mutually agree on how to handle things. Given that the Crusade system uses Power Level and Boarding Acton battles use points and a lot of restrictions it’s likely that players will be negotiating quite a bit. Not to mention the modular additions to the Gallowdark terrain that’ll arrive in upcoming Kill Team sets .

Farsight: Crisis of Faith gives you two boarding actions for the price of one, as the T’au Empire and Imperium trade blows amidst the eponymous commander’s early career. Their styles of warfare are as different as night and day, and the challenges Farsight faces are well worth studying for anyone looking to field a T’au Empire boarding patrol.* Reorganising their forces, routing their chaotic enemies under the Lion’s leadership, and evacuating, the Imperial fleet successfully blows the planet Wyrmwood to bits from orbit, along with any chaos forces still on it – but at great cost in Space Marine lives.Votann possibilities – we’ll have to see whether any Imperium armies decide to take the plunge on adding Votann, but it certainly seems probable that they’ll appear somewhere. Through various winding story segments, we follow Abaddon and Vashtorr’s hunt for the key fragments, and the assorted forces opposing them – including not only Imperials but xenos races too, most notably the Tau Empire‘s Commander Farsight.

Rob: Yeah I can see this being used as a set of side missions in a Crusade campaign, and it’s a much better 500-point start to a campaign in terms of balance and play experience. It’s something we’re planning to use and work into our upcoming global crusade campaign. Boarding Action MissionsThe Arks themselves are great space hulks, drawn out of the warp by Abaddon and his new ally, the chaos demigod of inventors, engineers, scientists, and artisans, Vashtorr, who is the focus of the third Arks of Omen book. Abaddon and Vashtorr have twisted these space hulks from their floating mass of dead ships, into powerful frigates that Abaddon filled with his warriors and sent out in search of powerful key fragments, that would see the dreams of Abaddon and Vashtorr fulfilled.

Rob: I think the nerf to Interrogation makes it substantially worse than Warp Ritual. Its value was strongly tied to your ability to do it on turn 1 and generate 15 VP out of it and now that will likely not be possible on most missions and against many armies unless you’re going second and your opponent decides to give you the opportunity to score it. If Interrogate is liable to cap out at 12 VP just because you won’t get it T1 going first then I suspect that it’s just not worth taking over Warp Ritual unless your army can trivially put psyker characters in the enemy deployment zone turn 1. Mission Rule ChangesBoarding Actions games use different rules for line of sight, cover, and visibility. Many of these will be familiar to Kill Team players who have played games in the Gallowdark.