The Many Points of Crusade 40k

 I've uploaded this to youtube, but here is the script in case anyone wants a clarification of my accent.

Hello and welcome to Mek It So, a channel to discuss the crusade rules in 40k. So what better way to start than discuss the rules themselves, starting with clarifying the points.

Crusade does involve some bookkeeping, with various points to track which can cause some confusion when asking about how many points something is. So let's go through them.

First, matched play points, 2k lists, 5 points for a weapon and all that - is NOT in crusade. So forget about that straight away. In crusade we use power levels, which everyone naturally refers to as power POINTS.

Next, we have Supply. Just supply but often called, by my group at least, supply POINTS. This is the total that can be included in your army and starts at 50. You draft up to 50 power LEVEL of units into your crusade FORCE. You don't have to play them all every game, you could make a 25 power game, but so far we've mostly been playing 50 so at the start used our full list.

Next, we have Requisition POINTS. They start at 5 and are capped at 5. You earn 1 for every game you pay, occasionally more, so make sure to spend some early. These can be spent in numerous ways, and will be covered a little later.

Experience POINTS are earned in games by your units and will eventually level those units up. When these units level up they gain abilities and to reflect this, they gain an appropriate amount of crusade POINTS.

When comparing two armies, whichever has fewer crusade POINTS gains bonus command POINTS for use on stratagems in game to balance the difference in experience.

So, to summarise, you'll use power points to make a list to match your supply points spending some requisition points to increase your crusade points. When you play a game you'll agree a power points level below or at the supply points level of the smaller supply, then draft that many power points from your supply points. You'll add up the crusade points to work out the bonus command points. You'll then play a game keeping track of victory points, kill points, agenda points and experience points. At the end of the game you'll record your points, earn requisition points, work out your new experience points and if needs be, add on crusade points. But no real points. Do you see my point?

Yes, this is intimidating, but it's really not that bad. There is some book keeping involved - if I kill an enemy unit I need to mark on a sheet which of my units did it, how they did it, and check if it helped in my secret agendas too. This will naturally slow the game down a little, so is probably not suitable for time pressure situations like tournaments, but that's hardly the target audience anyway.

There are a few differences from a crusade force to a normal army, the obvious one is each unit gets a sheet to record it's progress. It also locks the unit as is (unit size, weapons, upgrades) unless you spend req points to upgrade them later.

You also don't automatically get a warlord trait or relic, nor can you use strats for extra ones. Instead, ANY character can be given a warlord trait or relic by spending req points. You won't have 2 warlords, it's only for the purposes of the trait, but I like this. It draws you further into the depths of your codex. Ok, of course you're going to give the BEST warlord trait to your warlord, why wouldn't you? But... that trait you never use... that could work well for your librarian...

The cost of a relic or warlord trait is 1 req point and it translates into 1 crusade pint. Given your opponent earns 1 command point for every 2 crusade points you have an advantage in, this puts additional relics and warlord traits at 0.5 Command Points each, cheaper than stratting them in like matched play games, and without limits too.

Well, except that you can't have the same relic or warlord trait more than once in your supply. Once you give that guy the Black Sword - no take-backsies. Not until he's dead anyway. But as it's the ONLY way to get relics and warlord traits into your army, you HAVE to give them to someone. So planning ahead could prove crucial.

After a game, any units that died have a 1 in 6 chance of taking a major loss, so not that common. And you count up your in game experience, and once you reach certain levels you can skill up and make that unit be worth crusade points. 

It's still early days in my crusade I am running with friends, so we're getting the hang of the book keeping but haven't gone beyond 50 power yet. A couple of us are probably close to trying 75, or may wait toll we reach 100. It looks roughly like 25 power is about 500 matched play points, roughly. Extremely roughly, don't get me started on that. We are however about to add a new player to the group, which will be interesting to see if a bucket of command points makes up for the skills and experience our armies have earned.

One final thing to mention is those level ups. Your characters and units can get extra abilities, better guns, better psychic abilities and even extra relics. While you can only have 1 normal relic, the special crusade relics do not have that limitation. There can still only be one in your supply list, but you can build a character with a warlord trait, a relic, a special ability, a better gun and 2-3 crusade relics to really bling him out - and he may not even be your warlord!

Naturally with such gaudy ostentatious possibilities my first crusade force will be Ork Freebootaz, and I will be discussing their possibilities for the next few weeks.

Thank you for watching, do the youtube thing you know how this works. And remember to Mek It So.

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