A new codex is on the horizon for the Leagues of Votann, giving us updated Crusade rules for the faction. If you missed our review of the book’s rules, detachments, and datasheets, you can find that review here.

As usual, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of the rules for review purposes.

This codex is particularly interesting in that it’s a new set of rules after we saw an updated set of Crusade rules for the faction in White Dwarf 503 and while we expected this might reprint or update those, they actually don’t. These rules are more similar to those found in the ninth edition book and seem more like a replacement for the White Dwarf rules intended to get players by.

So if you’re confused about what to do with the Crusade Rules in White Dwarf 503 well, join the club. We have mixed feelings here in the Goonhammer Offices. For the most part, a lot of the White Dwarf version refers to Index abilities which have either changed too much or are gone altogether. The Kindred Acquisitions is easily replaced with its updated version in the codex. Same with the Agendas and Requisitions. Grudges are gone, which is a shame as Beanith excels at holding them for the flimsiest of reasons (Beanith: Right, that’s going in the Dammaz Kron). Really the biggest reason it’s hard to let go are the Battle Traits given they were unit specific (Einhyr/Brokhyr/Hernkyn/etc).

That said, some were a little too good and there are a few that don’t work at all anymore so maybe it’s time to let them go? As always, this is a conversation you should have with your group and campaign master.

Kindred Acquisitions

Votann Crusades are based around managing four fundamental resources:

• Raw Minerals
• Biomatter
• Energy Sources
• Galactic Intel

In game terms, these are gained at random after each battle, with the amount gained based on the size of the battle (D6x5 for combat patrol, 2D6x10 for Strike Force games). These resources are used to purchase upgrades to your Crusade Force called Kindred Assets. These are things like the Mining Outpost (gives you more raw minerals) or Scout Vessel (let’s you re-roll which type of resource you get after games), and those Kindred Assets can then be upgraded to provide added effects. Resources are used to fund Expeditions (more on that in a bit), which then provided rewards for completing them. It’s worth noting that you can have duplicates of each Kindred Asset.

In addition to Fundamental Resources, you also have Rare Resources, which are basically the same thing, but labeled as Rare and harder to come by. Some Expeditions can reward you with Rare Resources, or you can get them through random luck. These are used to purchase most of the upgrades to your Kindred Assets.

In addition to winning resources, you can also lose them – once you have four or more Kindred Assets, losing a battle can cause your kindred assets to fail, requiring you to put resources back into them to bring them back online.

These more or less seem to replace the ones in the White Dwarf rules, which had different Kindred Assets with similar upgrade costs and effects. The Material names are the same as those, and the process for gaining them and rare resources has largely remained unchanged.

Expeditions

The big new mechanic this time around is Expeditions, which are basically the core questing mechanic for Votann Crusade armies. If your army isn’t on an Expedition, you can send it on one, committing time and resources to earn a profit. When you start a new Expedition, you pick a Backing level for it, one of three Goals, and then you can also opt to take on a Guild Contract for the expedition.

Your Backing for a Crusade determines the resource cost for undertaking it and the length it will run. Expeditions come in three levels: Free, Balanced (30 resources), and High investment (60 resources), and run 5, 6, or 7 battles, respectively. Once you have your backing, you choose a goal, from one of three options, each with its own reward:

• Farstryd Exploration: While you’re on this expedition, units in your Crusade force need to gain 2XP or more from the Prospecting Agenda in 3+ battles. Complete this one and you can pick a Character unit in your force to gain 3 XP and you can add a Mining Outpost Kindred Asset to your tracker (to a max of 3).
• Resource Allocation: While you’re on this expedition, your Crusade force has to use the Red-Handed Harvest Acquisition 3+ times. Do that and you can give a character unit 3 XP and also double one of your fundamental resource pools.
• Monopolise Site: While on this expedition, your Crusade force needs to win 3+ games. Do that, and you can give a character 3 XP and also upgrade one of your Kindred Assets without spending resources.

It should be clear from those goals that the number of games played is the real constraint here – winning three battles is easier when your expedition runs 7 games rather than 5 – but otherwise more of it will depend on accomplishing specific agendas.

On top of your goal and backing, you can opt to take on a Guild Contract at the start of your expedition. If you do, that contract will impose an additional goal on you – having some condition met by the end of your expedition – and if you achieve that, you get a reward. If you fail it, you get a penalty. There are six options here, split into categories for the Mining, Science, and Mapping Guilds. Four of these require having 60+ of one fundamental resource at the end of your expedition while the other two require one rare resource and gaining 30 XP across all your units, respectively. The rewards here are more resources – often rare – and the penalties for failure affect your ability to use Requisitions, upgrade and reactivate kindred assets, and gain more resources.

On the whole these aren’t too difficult to achieve and it’ll be pretty obvious which ones you can accomplish before you start out. It’s more or less always worth taking on a guild contract, if for no other reason than that it makes the crusade much more fun and interesting than just going out and fighting battles.

Agendas

Each of the Agendas for the vertically challenged miners and their robot pals come with the chance of earning Fundamental Resources that you will want for all of those cool Kindred Assets or paying for Expeditions

Prospecting is a fairly basic Agenda tasking you to position your units within 9” of a battlefield edge that isn’t your own and go digging for space rocks. You can nominate one unit per edge and they will gain 2XP. Pulling this off on two or more edges will net you the bonus 20 Raw Minerals resources.

Yield Prophecy wants you to manage your Yield points carefully throughout the battle as at the start you set yourself a targeted number of Yield points to have on you when you finish the battle. Matching the Yield nets the Warlord 3XP, one under or over gives the half-pint 2XP and phoning it in nets them 1XP. You’ll need to earn 2XP or more for the bonus 20 Galactic Intel resources.

Exhaustive Pursuit is the objective Agenda but without any pesky actions required to distract your diminutive friends from doing important things like shooting and charging. Whenever you take over an objective for the first time, choose a unit within range and they gain 2XP. Managing to do this to all of the objectives is key to gaining the bonus 20 Energy resources.

Debt to be Paid is the perfect way of rewarding your Battle Scarred micro boys and girls for how well they can hold a grudge. Each time a unit with a Battle Scar destroys your enemy, they gain 2XP unless you have already previously fought a game against this opponent, then they get 3XP. Earning 4+XP scoops you a pretty 20 Biomatter sized pile of resources too.

Requisition

Red-handed Harvest gives you a chance to earn some bonus Fundamental Resources after a battle totally dependent on the faction of your opponent The Aeldari and T’au are a source of Raw Minerals; Chaos and Imperium are Galactic Intel; Necrons are your Energy Sources and everyone else are a source of Biomatter. For each unit destroyed, roll a die and each 5+ adds 10 of that resource to your roaster.

Fancy a shopping trip to your local Trading Hub assuming you have one? Guild Patronage lets you do one of three things:

• Trade one type of Fundamental Resource for another (ie 60 Biomatter is turned into 50 Galactic Intel)
• Turn your Rare Resources into 50 Fundamental Resources.
• Or trade in a Rare Resource for a random Rare Resource.

Have you invested in an Evaluation Vault? Then you may want to spend the 2RP required to give your Infantry or Mounted units to grant them a once per battle ability to give all of that unit’s weapons abilities from the Weapon Modification Battle Traits for an entire phase.

Returned to the Ancestors lets you chuck Battle Scarred characters into the retirement woodchipper for Biomatter and Raw Minerals. Those that had Battle Honours also earn you Galactic Intel on top. And just to hammer home just how bleak retirement is for your Lilliputians, every other unit gains 1XP.

Battle Traits

There are three tables here. Two D3 tables for Characters and Mounted Units and a full D6 table for Infantry Units.

Characters can get +1 OC for their unit, 5+ Feel No Pains for character models in the unit, and Lethal Hits and Precision for a unit you select at the beginning of the battle. That last one is probably the most interesting but the OC bonus one is probably the most valuable at the end of the day due to the fact that it’ll help you control your YP a bit better.

On the Mounted side of things, you can get +2” of move, a 5+ Invulnerable, or +6” on their weapons. These are all valuable in their own way, you can’t go wrong selecting this table for your bikes.

Infantry units get the lion’s share of traits. You can always be in Hostile Acquisition with a unit with Ruthless Efficiency or be in Fortify when you’re on an objective you select on the beginning of the battle with Guardians of Need. The Fortify one is a bit more valuable because you can choose when it is or isn’t online. The rest are more straightforward, granting things like +1 to hit under starting strength and +1 to wound when under half, Sustained Hits in melee, +1 to save when in Fortify against damage 1 attacks, and the ability to reroll one hit and wound when they shoot or fight. All of these have some value but none are particularly stand outs.

Crusade Relics

You get the standard faire of Artificer, Antiquity and Legendary relics. You get some basic stuff on the Artificer side of things. Grey Crest gives a unit Stealth and Flayre gives some extra attacks based on if you’re in Fortify or Hostile Acquisition. The standout here is the Murmuring Stave which can only go on a Grimnyr which lets you pick an extra Votann agenda at the start of the battle. This will be great for getting some extra resources throughout the campaign.

On the Antiquity side, there’s the Thyrikite Plate which gives your character -1 damage or change all damage to 1 if you’re in Fortify. If you can get this on an Einhyr Champion they can make for a powerful melee threat. Meanwhile the Wayfarer’s Grace which lets you stand back up on a 2+, another good pick for a Einhyr Champ.

Lastly there’s the First Knife which lets the bearer re-roll hits and wounds. In addition you can spend up to 4 YP at the end of the Fight Phase and roll a D6 for every point spent. On every 2+ you do a mortal to something within engagement range. This is nice and a neat ability, but not exactly on par with other Legendary relics that fully change how your army plays.

Final Thoughts

Rob: These are fine. They’re very similar to the White Dwarf rules in a lot of respects, but the Kindred Assets notably do a lot less for your army – they’re more focused on resource acquisition rather than in-game effects like you could get from the White Dwarf rules. In that regard, it’s a good thing because they’re not nearly as powerful as some of those rules, but it does make them feel a bit too parasitic. There’s generally a notion or feel of “why am I doing all this work just to make number go up?” but well, that’s also pretty much capitalism, so maybe the designers were doing some clever social commentary with this rule set.

Beanith: Yeah, I’m a bit on the fence with this one. They’ve taken the 9th set of rules and polished it in the White Dwarf of all places and then they just pushed it a little bit further in this Codex. At the very least I would have hoped to have seen something new for all of the units added especially for the Steeljacks and Arkanyst Evaluator which is a shame. I would have loved to see something around the Evaluator building something daft with wierd and wonderful side effects. All in all though, it’s a solid set of rules and I for one can’t wait to go fossicking for random futuristic space gizmos.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.