10th Edition Crusade for Veterans: The Quick List of What’s Changed

So no doubt you’ve just finished reading Goonhammer Reviews Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition – Part 5: Crusade and poured over the rest of the series so there’s every chance you’re suffering from information overload and need a lie down. Presented here is a quick and dirty breakdown of any major changes to your Crusade from 9th edition leading into 10th plus anything I particularly want to gush over.

Before we dive in, the usual thanks go out to Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of the Leviathan box for review purposes.

Mustering A Crusade Army

Let’s start with the changes to army construction. Aside from building an Order of Battle, Crusade armies generally work the same way as they do for Matched play. This means rules like the 3-per datasheet limit and needing to take one character apply.

Your Order of Battle

• Ding Dong Power Level is Dead. It won’t be missed. Now everyone builds using the same points all the time, and we all get points updates which reflect the game’s changing rules and balance. This does however mean that you’ll want to have some kind of plan for what happens if your Order of Battle suddenly can’t hold your army’s points values after an update.
• You can add or remove units from your Order of Battle at any time. Your fresh batch of Termagants got rinsed in their first game and came away with a Battle Scar? Yeet those suckers in the trash and replace them with their identical twin unit. You may want to reconsider this advice when it comes to your Legendary Terminator Captain though. For him we have a very expensive Repair and Recuperate.
• The starting limit for Crusade forces is a 1000 point Supply Limit and 5 Requisition.
• You may select which Faction to use on your Army Roster for the game but all of the units selected must share the same Faction. There are exceptions of course like Imperial Knights and various Imperial Weirdos.
• Epic Heroes (named characters) limited to 1 of each(And you’re still a monster for taking them in Crusade games).

Building Armies for Games
As mentioned earlier, these all follow the new matched play rules for army construction. We’ve included the most pertinent details here, but you can find more in our review of the rules, part 1.

• When you play your games you can select from three separate battle sizes: 1000pt Incursion, 2000pt Strike Force and 3000pt Onslaught. There are currently no 500pt Combat Patrol size Crusade missions.
• You can only have the one set of Detachment rules and everything in the Army Roster must follow the Detachment rules where applicable. Note that you can still build armies from your Order of Battle using different detachments (when those are available), but you’ll have to settle on one when you build your army.
• The “Rule of 3 and 6” is no longer just Matched play nonsense. This means you can only use the same datasheet three times unless that unit is a Battleline or Dedicated Transport, these are limited to six.
• Enhancements are limited to three unique choices and no unit may have more than one. Plus you need to use the Renowned Heroes Requisition to take these anyway.
• Dedicated transports need filling, requiring at least one unit embarked at the start of a battle, otherwise they will be counted as destroyed.

Requisition changes

The Requisition Points cap has been raised from 5 to 10 and you’re going to need all of those as the Requisitions are more expensive to use. Most of them scale now with the value of the unit they’re affecting, so the more experienced your units become the more RP you’ll need to work with them. This will hopefully slow progression down a bit.

• The Increase Supply Limit Requisition is still only 1RP. As mentioned before, Power Level is Dead so now this is an increase of 200 points.
• Renowned Heroes is a new Requisition that costs 1-3 RP. This is the Requisition you need to use in order to gain access to Enhancements – the equivalent of 9th ed Warlord Traits and Relics rolled into one. While you can only have three enhancements on models in your army, you can have more in your Order of Battle. The first enhancement you buy will cost you 1 RP, the second 2, and after that you’re paying 3 RP each time you add an enhancement to your Order of Battle. When you buy an Enhancement you can buy anything that the character you’re upgrading could take from any Detachment they can use, but note that once you do that you lock them in to only being playable in armies using that Detachment.
• Legendary Veterans is a hefty lad at 3RP and is the Requisition which allows your non-character units to continue gaining battle honours after they reach 30 XP – they can go from a maximum of 3 battle honours to 6.
• Rearm & Resupply remains at 1RP. Mostly still the same but improved as you are now allowed to replace wargear that has been upgraded with Weapon Modifications or Relics. Those upgrades are of course lost when replaced though. Any changes to the points total will count towards your Supply Limit.
• Repair and Recuperate is your go-to Requisition for removing Battle Scars and now it’s priced to make you think twice about it using it on more experienced units. This requisition has a base cost of 1RP PLUS an additional 1RP for each Battle Honour the target unit has, to a maximum of 5RP. As stated in the main review, I think this a great change and will keep you on your toes when it comes. Also note that you can’t buy some upgrades for units if they have certain battle scars.
• Fresh Recruits is the last Requisition and it also uses a sliding cost scale. It starts at 1RP and increases in cost based on how many Battle Honours the unit currently has: The cost is increased by 1RP for every two Battle Honours on the unit, rounding up, to a maximum of 4RP total. So since the Rank limit from 9th edition is removed, in theory you can now increase the squad size of your 10 stabby Legendary Termagants to its full-sized 20 crabby lads.

Battle Honour Changes

The biggest change here is that non-Character units are limited to 30XP/Battle-Hardened (rank 2) with a maximum of 3 battle honours. As mentioned above, you can use the Legendary Veteran Requisition to remove the XP cap, which will also increase the battle honours limit from 3 to 6. If a unit gains a new battle honours but has already reached its current limit, you can still take the upgrade but you must replace an existing one.

Weapon Modifications have slightly changed. The Melee and Ranged charts from 9th have been rolled into the one table but since they weren’t much different before in 9th, there’s nothing to really miss here. The only changes of note are that Heirloom changed from extra hits when rolling a 6 to just adding 1 additional attack to the weapon characteristic; and the new entry Precise which just gives the weapon the Precision ability. This means you can use 6s rolled to hit to target the character chilling in the unit assuming you have line of sight.

Out of Action

Devastating Blow received a major change from 9th. Before, It was a pretty wishy-washy decision when your Unit failed its Out of Action test – you were able to choose between losing some XP or taking a Battle Scar. Not the case in 10th edition, where losing has real consequences – now, you lose a Battle Honour if you fail an Out of Action test. Don’t want to do that? Instead you can have that unit gain a Battle Scar. Your unit can not have more than three Battle Scars, should they fail an Out of Action at this point then you must take the Devastating Blow action and remove a Battle Honour instead. If that isn’t possible, the unit is considered permanently destroyed and is removed from your Order of Battle completely.

On the topic, the Battle Scars table has been slimmed down from four separate tables in 9th edition to a handy single table in 10th. And the effects are all very mean and may completely ruin a unit’s day depending on their role in your Roster. It ranges from: Crippling Damage that stops the unit from being able to Advance; Battle-weary making them more susceptible to Leadership tests along with Battle-shock, Out of Action etc; and Mark of Shame not only renders a unit immune to any friendly Aura abilities, it also can’t form an Attached Unit which isn’t an ideal result for a unit of meatshields. On a character however? They’re now in for a Very Bad Time because unless they’re rocking the Lone Operative keyword, they now instead have a flashing neon sign kick/shoot me overhead.

Battle Traits

The Character table now includes a mix of new results and some from 9th with a bit of spin on it.

• Two results that can add the Stealth or Scout USR (Universal Special Rules) to the character so if they are attached to a unit with the same USR ability then you can still use the ability in question.
• The Feel No Pain has been increased from 6+ to 5+ in what I can only assume is to annoy us Death Guard players.
• Bonus attacks on charges are gone but instead all of your Character’s melee weapons now have [Sustained Hits 1] which is amazing for most characters apart from chumps like the Hexmark Destroyer.
• Natural Leader is an upgrade on Inspiring Hero allowing for a reroll instead of adding +1 to Leadership based tests, downside it’s only for that attached unit.
• There are no results for generating/refunding Command points anymore, instead you can now scare the enemy with a 6” Aura to reduce Leadership.

The Vehicle table is almost untouched at first glance. Walker units are excluded though so sucks to be a Knight or Dreadnought I guess. The two big changes are:

• Blessed Hull which now grants a 5+ Invun save vs was used to be a 5+ Feel No Pain against Mortal Wounds.
• Focused Gunner which lets you ignore the penalty to hit when shooting at units within Engagement range.

The 10th edition Infantry table has a lot of the more powerful results from the 9th toned down or removed outright.

• Vanguard Espionage is a result granting the Scout USR (Universal Special Rules).
• Grizzled (6+ FNP) has been rebranded as Battled-scarred Resistance.
• Battle-tested got nerfed and its replacement Obdurate Obedience just increases the unit’s Objective Control by 1.
• Cool-headed was also gutted and in its place is Resolute Veterans that adds 1 to Leadership based tests.
• Headhunters took a beating, gone are the days of adding 1 to hit and wound rolls against Characters, now you get to reroll 1s to hit and wound against a unit you choose at the start of the battle. And while we’re beating the dead horse, multiple units with Headhunters don’t get to choose separate enemy units, it’s the one enemy unit that gets the giant Kick Me sign.

Now we have a completely new table for 10th, the Mounted table is for Bikes and Calvary which all now have the Mounted keyword. There are some excellent upgrades on offer here so it’s a good day to be a White Scars or Evil Sunz Crusade force. The sound of your impending doom is probably just the Harlequin and Saim-Hann players revving their jetbikes. All the options are fantastic, from giving all ranged weapons [Assault], rerolling charges, charging after falling back and Strategic Reserve shenanigans.

Lastly we would have the here Monster Table… But since there isn’t one, I hope you and the Knight players like Weapon Modifications. Although technically there is the The Striding Behemoths table which first requires the Tyrannic War Veteran Requisition to grant your unit the Tyrannic War Veteran keyword which then lets you use this table… And you may actually want to do this as there are two results, one helpful and the other hilariously unintended as far as I can tell.

• Destructive Impluse lets you speed through the The Striding Behemoths upgrade path by earning extra Tyrannic War Veteran tally marks for every enemy unit destroyed.
• The second result, Rapid Adaptation, gives you a free result that doesn’t count towards your Battle Honour limit from the Monster Hunter upgrade path which you may notice is for Infantry & Mounted units. It’s mildly amusing until you realise you can give your Knight Nimble Defense (5+ FNP from Monster/Vehicle attacks).

Crusade Relics

10th edition Relics have been dialled back a notch, you won’t find any relics that grant Invun saves or render you Immune to Psychic Powers. Gone are the multi-purpose relics that grant several different small bonuses, instead we have fewer relics that focus on typically doing the one thing ‘decently’. I’m largely in favour of this myself as it was too easy to build the Cruise Missile Character.

Crusade Relics increase the Character’s Crusade Point total based on the relic level. So Artificer will increase the point total by 1, Antiquity by 2, and Legendary Relics like the Vortex Grenade by 3.

For the Characters fresh from the Training Academy you can have the Artificer Relics.

• Artificer Weapons remain unchanged.
• Master-crafted Armour lost the 6+ FNP for Mortal Wounds but other than that is the same as well.
• The Crimson Medal of Bastior is vaguely similar to the Laurels of Victory in that it deals with additional Command Points but this one you need to be standing near an objective and there’s a 50/50 chance of it not working.
• The Biosplint Gland is mostly ok in my book making your unit harder to hit in the turn it charges. I would have loved to seen an ‘and was charged’ tacked onto the end.

Antiquity Relics has some new toys in 10th and some off-brand dodgy knockoffs from 9th.

• The Sigil of Sol lets you use a Strategic Ploy stratagem like Counter offensive, Overwatch or Heroic Intervention once per round for free. This is a giant improvement over similar relics from previous editions where they tended to be once per game. Plus it’s for stratagems you will always use.
• Cranium Obscura is the dodgy knockoff Blackstone Shard Amulet from 9th where it is no longer granting the bearer immunity to psychic powers, instead you’re just slightly harder to hit by Psychic Attacks.
• Shadesplinter Cloak grants a character Lone Operative, so welcome back Jump Captain Cruise Missile, you were briefly missed.
• Lantern of Detestation is a nice little relic that offers the chance to prevent falling back with the caveat that it doesn’t work on Imperium/Chaos… because fuck Xenos thats why? Meh, that can’t all be winners.
• Shard of Dying Light gives Psyker models a +1 to wound on psychic attacks.
• Archeotech Nano-meds makes a return from 9th but not before getting nerfed. The character can now come back from the dead on a 4+ instead of a 2+.

Rounding the section is the Vortex Grenade and the other slightly less pretty Legendary Relics.

• The Gheist Prism Field lets the bearer make Normal, Advance, or Fall Back moves through terrain & units without penalty and dish out mortal wounds to an enemy unit that it passed through.
• The Vertebrax of Vodun copies and pastes an Aura ability from another model and uses it on the bearer, it’s also missing the once per game rule so you could use this every turn. I think this is awesome. How many Vertebrax do you eat?
• Vortex Grenade remains largely the same but is now classed as an assault weapon and has a BS 2+ so Orks have a fighting chance of hitting the side of a barn from inside said barn.
• And the Null-field Disruptor remains the same from 9th. Suck it Storm Shields.

Monsters and Those Who Hunt Them

All new content for 10th and by all new content, its similar to the Crusade Pack Amidst the Ashes with a Requisition that grants Infantry, Mounted, Monsters and Walkers the Tyrannic War Veteran keyword, another thing to tally and two upgrade trees to use. Check out the relevant section of the Goonhammer Reviews Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition – Part 5: Crusade article for a more in depth review.

Playing a Crusade Mission

The Sequence is mostly unchanged with some minor tweaks and one new step which adds in Crusade Blessings. The order of steps has been changed as well so you may want to watch out for that. You’re limited to two Agendas unless you are coming into this battle as the Underdog and select the Secret Orders Crusade Blessing we covered in the Goonhammer Reviews Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition – Part 5: Crusade

Agendas

Categories (e.g. Purge the Enemy, Shadow Operations etc.) are a thing of the past now so you are free to select any two from the seven on offer (nine if you’re a Nid player or playing a Nid player). They are quite similar to the 9th edition Agendas for the most part but check out the Check out the relevant section of the Goonhammer Reviews Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition – Part 5: Crusade article for a more in depth review.

Missions and Rewards

War. War never changes. And assuming I don’t get chased up by Bethesda for mangling that quote, neither do the Mission Rewards change much from 9th to 10th either. It’s mostly a repeat of the usual three suspects: Supply Limit Increase; an additional unit to be Marked for Greatness; or an additional Requisition point awarded.

There are some standouts though, a couple have conditions that require the additional unit to be Marked for Greatness to be holding a particular objective at the end of the game. Some reward more XP to the unit that achieved the mission objectives. There’s even a mission the will let the Defender have their next unit added to their Order of Battle start with 6XP.

That wraps up our “quick” look at the Crusade Rules for 10th edition and what’s changed from 9th. As always, if you have any questions or feedback drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.