More Kill Team teasers for our Rules of Engagement this week. We’re going to be taking a look at the Matched Play vs Narrative Play experience. Veterans take note of many similarities to the old Kill Team. However, I expect play to flow smoother than first edition!
Rules of Engagement – Matched
Let’s begin with Matched Play and a very familiar roster from our last article on recruiting operatives and building a roster.
As we can see, you’re limited to 20 Operatives drawn from your faction. You’ll build a legal Kill Team from the contents of your roster after you’ve been told your opponent’s faction and know the mission. No worries regarding points or gear, just fill your Kill Team and go.
The Critical Operations pack gives you nine matched play missions. Each mission includes mission objectives and special actions. Mission objectives tell you how to score Victory Points needed to win the game. Meanwhile, special actions will change the way a game plays as you seek out the benefits provided. Below you’ll find a pair of examples drawn from the Consecrated Ground mission.
As you can see, Consecrated Ground missions are going to revolve around controlling objectives. However, the Consecrate Ground special action improves the effectiveness of your operative and makes it harder to dislodge them.
Now, while you and your opponent both know the mission objectives, they are not the only way to score Victory Points. Tac Ops are secondary objectives. Some of them don’t get revealed until they happen while others are displayed early. Teasers include Challenge, Rob and Ransack, and Interloper.
Challenge gets revealed early, but with the confined spaces of a Kill Team mission that may not matter.
Perhaps you’d rather isolate a target and search them for sensitive intelligence.
And then there’s straight up blowing pas the enemy skirmish line and raising havoc in their rear.
Each of these Tac Ops grants up to 2 VP. This may not look like much, but consider Consecrate Ground. That mission may stall out as each side consolidates on a few objectives and runs down on operatives to push the foe off of one or more. Two points may easily swing a victory.
Also, we don’t know how many Tac Ops we’ll have per game.
Rules of Engagement – Narrative
Matched Play promises tightly constructed competative play. Narrative Play, on the other hand, engages players with a growing history and story. Like Fated Quests from Warcry, Spec Ops are multi-stage missions that require teams to complete a specific set of conditions over the course of multiple games. And just like Fated Quests, each player progresses theirs independently! You may even progress when engaged against a matched play opponent, although you won’t get your special bonuses. Fair’s fair after all.
A unique aspect of Narrative play will be your base of operations. Kill Teams on campaign operate far from friendly lines and support. They need a safe place to rest, recover, and rearm. Your base grows with the Kill Team as games progress, starting from a shallow hidey-hole to a fully kitted armory and support system.
Below is an example of a narrative dataslate and datacard.
The Dataslate shows the expected name, faction, and probably flavor history and quirk list. But we also see a stash of special gear with a rosary, topographical charts, and 2 trench shovels(!). Next to the Stash are Strategic Assets, in this case a Med Bay, but there’s plenty of room for expansion. Above them are a space for requisition points, asset capacity, and a Spec Ops log.
We’ll need to see more from the rules to know what all these do. Will we hand out Stash gear for mission after mission or are the consumables? What bonuses does Med Bay give and how hard was it to acquire? Spec Ops has three slots. What happens after the third Op? Do my Operatives look forward to some R&R? Or will they rotate to another sector of the line? I’m looking forward to finding out the answers.
The Datacard shows us some sort of progression. Sergeant Venner has 6 experience points which connect directly to the two checked icons below. Are they advances you may select for your operative? One of the Specialisms, only used in Narrative Play, has been circled. Was this an advance?
We can also see Battle Scars, a lasting toll that combat takes on your operatives. There also appears to be space to add additional Battle Honors as your operative gains abilities in play.
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