The Drukhari had one of our favorite sets of Crusade rules in Ninth Edition, combining a simple yet thematic minigame with some solid bonuses into a showcase of some of the best that Crusade had to offer. It had some weak points, though: while you could in theory compete with another Drukhari player in your campaign, if no one else local to you played them, you were stuck just watching Number Go Up over time.
But a new edition comes with new opportunities, and while framework around which that ruleset was built is still there, it’s seen some smart updates and reworks that have given it a new lease on life. If you’ve been waiting for the Drukhari to finally get their Crusade rules in the hopes they’d be even better than the last go round, we’ve got good news for you today.
As always, thanks to Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of this book. Looking for our review of the datasheets and detachments in the Codex? You can find that here. Want to check out Lady Malys’s new model as she returns from the mists of Fifth Edition, or see if the new Archon is worth replacing your old one with (Here’s a hint: Yes.)? That’s right here.
Ascendant Lords
When you start your Crusade roster, you’ll choose one of your non-Epic Hero characters to become your Ascendant Lord. This character will take command of your Crusade force and use the spoils from its realspace raids to try to exert control over the various districts and territories of the Dark City. While you might think an Archon would be best-suited to these sorts of pursuits, you can choose a Succubus or Haemonculus instead if you’d like, and those other options come with their own advantages as they attempt to stake their claim in Commorragh.
When you start, you’ve got effectively no influence, so you’ll need to mount a raid and bring back some spoils to show you’re worth your rivals’ attention. After every game you play, you’ll roll a d6, adding +2 if you won and a further +1 if your Ascendant Lord deigned to take the field. On a 4+, your Lord claims a random territory in Commorragh; on a 6+, they’ll claim 2.
There are 72 separate territories up for grabs, spread between 12 districts. If you’ve claimed the most territories in a given district, you get a bonus you can use in your next game. There’s a broad variety of bonuses, including the Toxin Distilleries, which grant [Lethal Hits] to your Ascendant Lord’s unit, the Arenas, which grant your units a bonus XP every time Dealers of Death triggers, and the Noble Spires, which let you take an extra agenda from the book if you roll a 4+ before the game starts.
Every two districts you control will increase your force’s Crusade Points by 1, which feels about right given the average power level of these abilities. They vary a bit, of course, but most of them aren’t quite as powerful on their own as some of the powerful effects other factions can offer. But given how quickly you’ll be able to pick up a handful of these and the shifting nature of them as you struggle to keep hold of the most territories in the districts you care about, you’ll likely find yourself entering any given game after the first 2 with at least a handful of abilities that not only improve your effectiveness, but also tell a neat little story about what your Ascendant Lord has been up to when they go back to the Dark City between games.
Rival Lords
“Wait a minute,” I hear you say. “What do you mean ‘the most’ territories? Who else am I competing against?” Why, your Rival Lords, of course. These jerks are the new addition to this system, and they really make it sing. Rather than just rolling on a table and tracking which territories you gain, you’ll be vying against up to three opponents who are plotting to keep you in check.
Your rivals won’t care about you until you’ve established yourself, and won’t take any actions against you until you’ve claimed three or more territories. Once you hit that threshold, though, you’ll roll for each of your rivals after every game to see what they were up to while you were out. Roll a 1, and your opponent might sit back and bide their time, buying you some time to marshal your assets and strike back. Roll a 6, and they’ll send out a hit squad to try to assassinate your Lord, potentially forcing them to take a Battle Scar.
Each Rival Lord starts with three territories, the first of which corresponds to the type of lord they are: Archons start with a territory in the Noble Spires, Succubi control an Arena, and Haemonculi will commence their plotting from a Flesh Market. They’ll also get a trait, which impacts how they’ll plot against you. A Ruthless Expansionist will never sit on their laurels: any time they roll a 1 on the activity table, they’ll instead try to take over a random territory. A Trueborn Heir, on the other hand, starts with an additional starting territory to represent their familiarity with the rarefied air of Commorrite high society.
As you vie with them for the various territories, expect to lose a couple, but if you’re good about completing Agendas, you’ll find that staying ahead of the pack is very doable with a little luck. Manage to take away all of a Rival’s territories and they’re defeated, at which point they slink off into the shadows, never to be seen or heard from again.
The Price of Success
Your Ascendant Lord’s goal is to exert more power and take control of more territories until they’re one of the most influential beings in the Dark City. But is there such a thing as being too powerful? The answer appears to be “yes,” at least if you ask Asdrubael Vect.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where your Ascendant Lord controls all 12 districts of Commorragh, well, you won’t be the only one to have noticed that fact. Once that happens, your Lord has drawn the attention (and possibly the interest) of the Living Muse. To figure out what happens, you’ll roll a d6 to see which of 3 results occurs. On a 1-2, Vect sees your Lord as a threat, and consigns them to “a fate so horrible that it is best left to the imagination,” never to be seen or heard from again. On a 3-4, he determines your Lord might be an asset and recruits them, whether they like it or not, never to be seen or heard from again. On a 5-6, your Lord is smart enough to know that nothing good ever comes from being the object of Vect’s attention, and makes a run for it–you guessed it–never to be seen or heard from again.
Regardless of what happens, your Ascendant Lord is removed from your Order of Battle. It’s harsh, but it’s exactly what you’d expect to happen to someone who grew strong enough to warrant the direct attention of the Supreme Overlord of the Dark City. And from a gameplay perspective, it ensures that you’ve always got something more to strive for: if you manage to “win” the minigame, you can’t just sit on your laurels. Instead, it’s time to start a new story, and see if someone else can reach the same heights of infamy.
Agendas
Of course, just playing games and rolling randomly on the table won’t be enough if you want to crush your rivals and establish yourself as a true Ascendant Lord of Commorragh. To help you get the edge over your rivals you’ll need, look no further than the Agendas in the book. Several of them help you gain territories at a faster clip while having some control over which you get, and another hands out some much-needed RP that you can spend to take over multiple territories in the same campaign phase (or just buy off that nasty Battle Scar from your most recent assassination attempt).
Sublime Agonies is great for armies that find themselves with a surfeit of Pain tokens: every time you spend a Pain token to Empower a unit, you can spend a second one and set it aside on their Crusade card (or, more likely, just note down in Administratum that you did it). Then, at the end of the battle, up to 6 of your gluttons for punishment gain 1XP for each extra Pain token they gobbled down, to a max of 3. Then, if you spent at least 2 excess tokens on your Ascendant Lord, you get to add 1 to the roll to see if you claim any territories after the game. If you do this, you’ll always have at least a +2 to your roll, meaning you’ll only fail to claim a territory on a roll of 1, and if you managed to win the game it’ll push you to +4, guaranteeing you 1 territory and letting you claim a second on a 2+.
To Feed the Dark City has you bringing back plenty of raid spoils, potentially convincing your rivals to cut you a break for a round. Any time you kill a unit in melee, the unit who did the deed gains 1XP, or 2XP instead if they took down a CHARACTER or MONSTER unit. Then, when you’re rolling to see what your rivals are up to, if your Ascendant Lord picked up at least 3XP from this agenda, you can re-roll the result if you don’t like it. You won’t be surprised to find that Archons leading Incubi will find this agenda eminently achievable, but the buffs that Wyches and Wracks pick up in the Codex mean that you’ll still have a good shot at this even if you chose a Succubus or Haemonculus as your Ascendant Lord.
Demonstrate Superiority is the last one that impacts the Commorrite Real Estate Royale, and it offers a big boost to your Ascendant Lord if they can, well, demonstrate their superiority. There’s a list of 5 conditions, including destroying a Monster or Beast unit, ending the game wholly within your opponent’s deployment zone, or being Empowered 2 or more times during the game. For each one you complete, your Ascendant Lord model (not the unit they’re attached to; the agenda is very specific) gains 1XP. Rack up 3 or more, and the next time you claim a territory, you’ll actually choose the one you want to take rather than having to roll on the table. This one will be key when you’re trying to knock out Rival Lords or if there’s a particular District Bonus you really want. The trick is that it’s a bit harder to complete if your Ascendant Lord isn’t on the table at the end of the game, so you’ll need to be very careful with how you commit them. But death really is unbecoming of the Drukhari aristocracy anyway, right?
Fear’s Cold Grip is a bit of an odd one: your units gain 2XP every time a unit within 12” fails a Battle-shock test, and another 2XP every time they destroy a Battle-shocked unit, capping at a total of 4XP. This is obviously situational, but between Wracks, Incubi, and a few of the detachments, forcing Battle-shock tests is easier for Drukhari than a lot of armies, and you can often force them at a penalty if you’re really going for it. You won’t take this in every list, but keep it in mind, especially if you’re running Covenite Coterie or Kabalite Cartel.
Finally, there’s Herd the Prey, which is completely different from the old Secondary Objective you probably thought it was going to be. Instead, you’ll choose three Drukhari units at the end of the game, then draw a triangle using one model from each of the units as one of the points. If there’s at least one enemy wholly within that triangle, each unit picks up 2XP. If you managed to encircle two or more, that increases to 3XP and you’ll pick up an RP in the bargain. Given that the main Crusade minigame is pretty RP-hungry, this is one that you’ll be wanting to take pretty frequently, and you won’t have that much trouble scoring it in games you win thanks to how fast your units can move. That said, you do need at least three units to survive the game in order to score anything off of it, so keep that in mind if you’re going into a matchup you’re not sure of.
Each of these agendas is fun and flavorful in its own right, and that’s before you consider how most of them tie so nicely into your turf wars in Commorragh, helping you gain more territory and acclaim for your Ascendant Lord without trivializing the process.
Requisitions
We’ll start with Serve Me or Die, as it’s the coolest one here. This requisition gives you the opportunity to really twist all those knives you carefully lodged in the backs of your defeated Rival Lords after stealing one of their territories. For 1 RP, you’ll roll a d6, adding 3 if the territory you just took from them was their last. On a 4+ (so you automatically succeed with the bonus), you strip them of all their remaining territories, leave them unclaimed, and add them to your Crusade force as a new Archon, Succubus or Haemonculus (whatever the defeated Rival Lord was). That model starts with 16XP, so they come in at Battle-hardened, and you may select two Battle Honours for them. And as long as they remain part of your Crusade force, for the purpose of Requisitions, your Ascendant Lord counts as having the same lord type as the new model. This one requires some luck and effort to pull off, but if you can manage it, it’s one of the best and most thematic requisitions we’ve seen.
That last kicker on Serve Me or Die matters for the next few we’ll talk about, as they open up other requisitions for use even if you don’t control the corresponding district. If your Ascendant Lord is–or counts as, thanks to having a new flunky to serve them–the matching Datasheet, you can use any of these regardless of how well you’re doing taking over the Dark City.
All Archons are Master Schemers, but other Drukhari can use this requisition as well so long as they control the Noble Spires district. The effect is simple, but useful: if one of your Rival Lords rolls up a result you don’t like, spend 1RP to ignore it.
If you control the Flesh Markets, you can use Involuntary Procedures even if you’re not a Haemonculus; otherwise, you’ll need some help. Once you have access to it, it’s a very useful little trick, allowing you to spend 1RP to pick a Drukhari Infantry or Monster unit, then swap out as many of its Battle Traits as you’d like for the same number of new ones of your choice. As long as the raid spoils keep flowing, you’ll have no need to worry about unfortunate Battle Trait rolls.
Next, Succubi are natural Patrons of the Killing Arts, but anyone can pass for one if they control the Arenas district. This 1RP requisition lets you choose a Wych Cult or Blades for Hire unit that destroyed at least one unit with melee attacks in the last game, then Mark it for Greatness in addition to any other units you got to mark that game. This won’t be hard for your Cults or Incubi to accomplish, and even Mandrakes can pull it off if they can catch some chaff out of position, so it’s an excellent way to push a key unit to the next level of experience.
Expansionist Plot is the almost-obligatory Coward’s Path requisition that helps you speedrun your Ascendancy in Commorragh, hoovering up an extra territory after every battle for a slightly pricy 2RP. You’ll want to use this a lot, especially early on in your Ascendant Lord’s career, so you’ll need to find ways to keep the RP flowing. Look for opportunities to take the Herd the Prey agenda, and if you succeed at Demonstrating your Lord’s Superiority, consider prioritizing the Docks District for a chance to pick up an extra RP after every game.
We’ll end with a requisition that’s just as cool and thematic as the one we started with: if you find one of your units to be a constant Source of Disappointment, feed the poor Battle-Scarred saps into the Woodchipper of Cautionary Tales, splattering the rest of your Drukhari units with a pointed reminder that failure isn’t a sign of personal growth. They’ll each gain 1XP and very specific instruction not to do what those chumps did.
Battle Traits
As you’re probably expecting, there are four tables here: one each for Haemonculus Covens, Kabals, and Wych Cults, plus a generic one for any Drukhari unit. Each of the “sub-factions” gets three, while the more general table has six. What’s particularly neat here is that one out of every three of these isn’t an always-on ability: Instead, it gives the unit you slapped it on a brand new Pain ability on top of whatever it has. For some units, these will increase the number of phases in which you might want to feed them a token, but if you can contrive to get them on a unit that already has a pain ability for the matching phase, you can pick up some additional effectiveness without having to spend again.
But before we get to that, let’s talk about the Special Table. You might remember from previous editions some units and upgrades that made your Kabalite Warriors, Wyches, or Wracks into “special” versions of those units with some bonus ability. Well, Kabalite Trueborn, Hekatrix Bloodbrides, and Haemoxytes are back as special Battle Traits that you can give to a matching unit when it hits the Battle-hardened rank. Kabalite Trueborn improve their Ld and BS by 1 each, Hekatrix Bloodbrides improve Ld and WS by 1 each, and Haemoxytes improve Ld and Sv by 1 each. They’re all pretty great upgrades, but don’t forget that Wracks now have a 5+ save natively, meaning that Haemoxytes now move to a 4+ save on top of being toughness 4 with 2 wounds. You can’t go wrong slapping one of these on any matching unit.
Other Covens units can either become Living Atrocities, gaining an aura that causes units failing Battle-shock tests within 6” to suffer d3 mortals, or gain a Scabhide, which adds 1 to their saving throw against 1-damage attacks. If you’re looking for something a bit more offensively-oriented, Baleful Armaments gives the unit a Pain ability reminiscent of the old Dark Technomancers ability: spend a Pain token, and all the unit’s ranged weapons gain the [Hazardous] ability but also improve their damage by 1. Living Atrocities is the most situational of the 3, but if you’ve got enough Wracks and Haemonculi on the table, it might come into play more often than you expect, while Scabhide and Baleful Armaments are both solid options on any unit that can take them.
The Kabals manage to keep up with three more useful abilities: Spitfire gives all [Assault] weapons [Rapid Fire 1] as well, then slaps [Assault] on anything that didn’t already have it, while Claws of the Archon gain 1 OC per model, which will be very helpful in playing the mission. The Pain ability, Inescapable, may not seem that great on its own–it gives the unit the [Ignore Cover] ability in your Shooting phase–but keep in mind that anything you can put it both has another Pain ability that triggers in the Shooting phase and has at least a couple of guns that would love to have this bonus.
And if you thought the Wych Cults would slack off comparatively, think again: Scent of the Kill gives your unit 6” Pile-in and Consolidate moves, adding even more mobility to their already-absurd speed, while Slashing Impact gives each model in your unit a 50/50 chance of dealing a mortal wound on the charge, up to a max of 6 on the unit. Either is outstanding on a unit of Wyches or a big brick of Hellions, and they both pair nicely with the mobility tricks you gain from the Spectacle of Spite detachment. Finally, Knife Dancers allows you to Empower the unit in the Fight phase in order to give it [Lethal Hits] against infantry. Stick this on a Succubus or some Hellions, and every time they fight they’ll have both Lethal and Sustained. Nasty.
The generic Drukhari table has some real bangers as well, and you might want to dip into it even for your units that have access to one of the other tables. Fuelled by Anguish lets you gain a Pain token once per game after spending one on the unit, helping ease your Pain economy and letting you do some truly spiteful things–perfect for units like Incubi and Hellions who really lean on tokens to get things done. Illusive lets the unit shoot or charge after falling back, and Fleet Raiders adds 1 to the unit’s move characteristic and its advance and charge rolls. Either are great movement buffs on an already speedy army. Meanwhile, Clone Generator lets you redeploy the unit or place it into Strategic Reserves. You have to use it before you determine who goes first, so its utility is somewhat limited, but it does mean that you can deploy the unit first in an effort to gain just a smidge more info during deployment. Finally, the two Pain abilities: Razor’s Edge gives the unit [Sustained Hits 1] in the Shooting phase, making it a great option for things like Scourges, Ravagers, Kabalites, or even Talos. Drawn to Suffering is probably the least exciting option here, giving your unit +1 to hit enemies that are below their Starting Strength, but with the amount of darklight most raiding parties are likely to be toting around, you’ll be able to get use out of it more reliably than you might expect.
Crusade Relics
The lore for each of these Relics are amazing and really sell the theme that the Drukhari don’t mess about when it comes to crafting these monstrous items. The Artificer relics are both fancy hats, with the Helm of Spite giving everyone in the bearer’s unit a 5+ Feel No Pain against Psychic Attacks. Meanwhile, the Mask of Screaming Skulls gives the model a 12” aura of Not Today, preventing enemy units arriving from Reserves.
Moving into the Antiquity Relics, Archons can choose to don the Armour of Misery, granting them a 3+ Save and, presumably because it makes the enemy a little sad, your Archon is also slightly harder to hit in melee, reducing hit rolls by 1. Succubi, on the other hand, get a very fancy set of steak knives in the Blood Glaive, which adds the [Twin-Linked] ability and an extra point of damage to their melee weapons, turning your chosen champion into an outright blender. Haemonculi aren’t left out either: they get to bring a Nightmare Doll to the battlefield. This nightmarish cabbage patch kid brings the Haemonculus back from the dead on a 2+ at full health. They also get to re-roll Out of Action tests. The only downside here is that this relic prevents the use of the Postmortality Stratagem, but that won’t matter if you’re bringing them anywhere other than the Covenite Coterie detachment.
Rounding out the section is the Legendary Delirium Cowl which gives the bearer a 4+ invulnerable save, with a 5+ invulnerable save to the unit it’s leading. If that was all, it would probably be just an Antiquity… So wait! There’s more. Once per battle, during your opponent’s Shooting or Fight Phase, just after an enemy unit has shot or fought at your unit, you may press the fancy red button on this Crusade Relic and be immediately removed from the battlefield and setup anywhere else more than 6” away from enemy units. This is simultaneously one of the silliest and most interesting effects in the book, and I can’t want to watch the look of exasperation on my opponent’s face as that unit of Wyches they failed to kill vanishes, only to appear exactly where they wish they wouldn’t.
Final Thoughts
Beanith: These have to be my favorite set of Crusade rules to date. I get such powerful Necromunda vibes from the Territories, and the Ascendant Lords scrabbling over them while Vect watches on with a careful eye is just beautiful. I feel if I were to play a Drukhari crusade force I’d probably want to play even more crusade battles just to see what happens next.
Condit: I was a big fan of the Drukhari crusade rules in ninth, but the main thing it lacked was any kind of interactivity or sense that you were playing this game of gang wars and territorial expansion against anyone else. I mean, technically, you could, if there was another Drukhari player local to you, but how many people had another Drukhari player who actually wanted to play in a Crusade campaign close enough for that to ever happen?
The changes to the main gimmick really put the finishing touches on this mechanic and really make it fun to play, even for a weekender. Are you going to manage to draw the gaze of Vect within six games? Absolutely not, but that points to another thing this book really nailed: you probably don’t actually want that. And while you won’t “finish” your Ascendant Lord’s story unless you’re playing in a very long campaign, you’ll definitely get at least a couple bonuses in a relatively short time, and the ones you end with might not even be the ones you finish with.
Add to this some great requisitions, a murderer’s row of Battle Traits, and Agendas that tie in nicely to your Crusade mechanic while offering some fun and legitimately puzzling objectives to try to accomplish, and Tenth Edition Crusade has finished as strong as it’s ever been, if not stronger.
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