"Give Your Brain a Rest" - Army Cheat Sheet

"Never memorise something that you can look up."

- Albert Einstein

Hello and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

I'm sending loads of positivity your way, especially if you need it today!

In today's post I'm going to share a useful tool that I made for this Warhammer 40k Gaming league that I'm involved in. It's a cheat sheet (or script) that I follow so that I don't miss anything important during the game.

Warhammer 40k is an incredibly complex game. In addition to the stat line of each unit (which may or may not have multiple weapon profiles), every unit has at least one special ability plus a bunch of keywords which relate to interactions with various core rules, advanced rules or strategems. Then multiply this by the 10 - 15 unique units in your army and you can see that the rules just for your army are pretty immense.

Then you might want to have some idea about how your opponent's army works...

Plus you need to know the best ways to deploy your guys, move them in such a way that you pressure your opponent without exposing your models, who to target with shooting and with which guns, and in which order...and it goes on and on.

Part of the fun of the game (quite separate from the fun had imagining the cinematic qualities of the battle laid out in front of you) comes as you, as a player, move beyond the mechanics of the game (just figuring out the nuts and bolts) and into tactics and strategy. I'm just about at that point myself.

One of the things that I have done to greatly ease this information overload is to create a personalised script for my specific army that I can refer to in each phase of the game to help me recall rules that I know I'll struggle to remember.

I will paste my script here. Unfortunately it is so specific to my army and to the rules that I personally struggle with, that you won't be able to just copy and paste this for your army. You will, however, be able to use it as a template if you wish. I don't really recommend you read all this (my shorthand would make this difficult anyway), but rather skim it to get a sense of what you'd like to include in your own.

***

Pre-Game:

(Core Rules Pg 57)

• Muster Armies

• Read Mission Objectives

• Create Battlefield

• Determine Attacker and Defender (roll, winner = attacker)

• Declare Battle Formations

• EC with Ass. Int x 5 in Rep Ex (left flank). - EC has Artificer Armour (5+ FNP).  

• Cast with AI x 5

• Grimmy with AI x 10

• Marsh/Cast with 5xSB in Imp (firing deck)

• Marsh/Cast with 4xSB in Rep Ex (centre)

• 5 x SB (no leader) 

• Deploy Armies

• Int on obj, EVERYTHING in cover, Callidus can infiltrate or deepstrike, can uppy-downy, Combi-lieu can infiltrate

• Determine First Turn (read mission rules)

• Resolve Pre-Battle Rules

Pick Vow:

• Uphold: At end of command phase infantry units can sticky objectives.

• Can advance and perform action. 

Combi-Lieu: 

• Priority Objective: select one objective (centre) reroll wound roll of 1 for enemies on that obj. 

Command Phase:

• Battle Shocks (Insane Bravery Strat 1CP)

• Pick Doctrine (each one once per battle)

• Devastator: Advance and Shoot

• Storm of fire (ignore cover, if DevDoc also improve AP)

• Tactical: Fallback, Shoot and Charge

• Squad Tactics (End of opponent movement when they move/advance/fallback within 9” of my unit make normal move of D6 or 6” if in Tactical)

• Assault: Advance and Charge

• Honour the Chapter (Lance (+1 to wound if charge) and improve AP if in AssDoc)

• Grimmy: Pick a Relic:

• Banner: + 1 Advance and Charge rolls

• Column: + 1T

• Water: improve AP by 1. 

• Ints: sticky objectives

• Stratagem: 

• Adaptive Strategy (1CP) give any doctrine to one unit (instead of current one)

• Insane Bravery (1CP) once per battle auto pass Battle-shock (before rolling)

• New Orders (1CP) end of command phase - discard one secondary and draw another.

Movement Phase:

• Move = shoot normally; Advance (add D6 to movement) = can’t shoot (unless assault); or charge (roll 2D6). 

• Callidus: Deepstrike

• Transports: move/advance it and keep units inside then disembark next turn. Or can normal move, then units can disembark w/in 3” and charge.

• Grimmy banner: +1 to advance and charge rolls

• SB: If enemy fall back, SB can make normal move (on to objective, into transport, behind cover etc.) can combine this with Squad Tactics for up to 12” move!

• Combi-Lieu: built in squad tactics (when enemy move / advance / fall back within 9”, can make normal move). 

• Stratagem: 

• Fire Overwatch (1CP): use on Rep Ex

• Rapid Ingress (1CP):  arrive from reserves at end of opponent movement phase.

• Squad Tactics (1CP): when enemy move / advance / fall back one unit within 9” can make normal move of D6” (or 6” if in tactical doctrine)

Shooting Phase:

• Impulsor: has Multi-melta, 2 fragstorm, and firing deck (2 x combiweapon = 24”,  1 x Plasma = 12”, 2 x pyre = 12”, 2 x Heavy bolt pistol = 18”

• Ints: +2A shooting against same unit. 

• Rep Ex: re-roll hits if shooting something w/in 12” of any of my models

• Stratagem: 

• Armour of Contempt (1CP): worsen AP by 1

• Go to Ground (1CP): after they have targeted a unit in shooting, unit gets 6+ invuln and Benefit of Cover

• Grenade (1CP): 8”, 6D6 mortals on 4+

• Smoke Screen (1CP): benefit of cover and stealth (subtract 1 from hit roll)

• Storm of Fire (1CP): gives Ignors cover, if under Devastator Doctrine, also improve AP.

Charge Phase:

• EC: if charging unit with character, gives +2 to charge roll 

• Once per battle EC’s attacks have Devastating Wounds against character unit. 

• Stratagem 

• Tank Shock (1CP):  roll 6D6 (+2 if S greater than T). Every 5+ = mortal. 

• Fire Overwatch

• Heroic Intervention (1C): after enemy ends charge, you can charge them with a unit within 6”

Fight Phase

• Assault Intercessor: re-roll wounds of 1s (if enemy w/in range of objective, = re-roll all wounds) - Sgt has Power Fist. 

• Castellan: Ld test, if failed, re-roll 1s to hit, if passed, re-roll all hits. 

• If his unit destroys a unit, gain 1CP on roll of 4+

• Callidus: Fights first

• Callidus: At end of fight phase, can fall back D6”

• Callidus: At end of opponent’s turn can re-enter strat reserve if outside 3”

• Grimmy: allows unit to re-roll hits in melee

• Marshal: crits on 5+, +1A to Marshal per enemy unit w/in 6” (max +3)

• Stratagem

• Armour of Contempt (1CP): worsen AP by 1

• Counter Offensive (2CP): after enemy unit has fought, one of my units can fight next (i.e. use it to interrupt charging units or “Fights First” units)

• Epic Challenge (1CP): a character gains precision

• Honour the Chapter (1CP): unit gets Lance (if bearer charged this turn add 1 to wound roll (additive with army rule) if in Assault Doctrine also improve AP by 1. 

• Only in Death…(2CP): fights on death 

***

As you can see, I have broken it down into phases of the Battle Round, and I have included things that happen on my opponent's turn as well as strategems that proc in that phase. I have not really included stats of models / weapons (I have data cards for that), so I have tried to walk the balance of being thorough so I don't miss anything important, while still having it streamlined enough that I'm not spending ages trying to find a specific reference.

Another thing I do to aid the mental load during a game is I review this script in the days before each battle. I make relevant edits for units that I have either added or removed and I also use this revision as a chance to jog my memory prior to the game. And any text that I remove (for units that I have taken out of the list) I paste into a different document, so that I can easily re-insert those things if/when I re-add that unit.

I hope that this is helpful to you as it certainly is for me! It really offsets some of that cognitive load so that I can enact my strategy without constantly worrying that I'm forgetting something important. I find that with each game I play, I refer to this script less and less, which is a nice little marker of progress!

Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Watching: Traitors (UK Celebrity)

Next Week:

Happy Hallowe'en!