I got my first taste of the variant 30k mission – Zone Mortalis – on Tuesday this week. I must say I think I am hooked!
First of all, the game is fast. We played a 1k per player game on the custom built 4×4 table (Featured Here) in less than an hour and a half. That included set up and pack up! For those of us who are strapped for time – this game is great to get a fast fix of 30k.
Secondly, the cost of entry to the game is low. Hear me out on this one! Ignoring the table itself, most ZM armies are between 500 and 1000 points and are a modified force organisation chart. Typically its a 1HQ, 1 Troop mandatory and then a second HQ, Troop as well as 2 Elite/Fast/Heavy available as well. With the costs of the units in 30k, getting more than 3 or 4 units should be tough even at 1000 points! This makes the army buy in very low and easy to expand to full blown 30k games as you build your force while still enjoying a fantastic mission set and rules.
Thirdly, despite the gorgeous table produced by Forge World, making your own can be very straight forward. The one I played on this week –
It took about 6 months to build and paint, is fully modular (the walls all move an come off!) and cost less than a third of the Forgeworld tiles for the 4×4 table. You could go even cheaper in the short term and use space crusade or space hulk tiles or even just big pieces of card with the walls marked off while you make something more elaborate.
Lastly, the game brings a whole new element to the game. Blasts and Templates are vicious in this environment (I had 4 seekers with S3 blast rapid fire bolter get 31 hits and 22 wounds on 10 marines in 1 volley!) and assaults are more likely and more decisive. The game is fast and brutal in every way! There are plenty of optional rules as well to simulate a ship collapsing as the fight takes place, zero G combat and many more. My personal favourite though is what we played on Tuesday – Blips! That’s right, hidden deployment and movement much like space crusade/hulk until you get physical line of sight – makes the early manoeuvres even more nerve racking as you just don’t know who you picked a fight with until the doors open and shooting starts!
The initial rules are found in the first Horus Heresy book from Forgeworld but have seen additional missions and amendments in just about every book since.
Its well worth your time to get a small force together and try it out – I very much doubt you will be disappointed!
As for my game this week – I am testing my new camera and recorded the whole game! I am hoping to have a time lapsed video edited this week and a link to my all new YouTube account in the next post here on the blog. The game sees traitor Emperors Children face off against loyalist Death Guard… 1000 points a side. Keep an eye out for it!