This is the third in a series of articles I’ve been writing to help prepare you by presenting and reviewing some Arc40k practice missions. At Arc40k you won't see out of the book Chapter Approved missions.
In the previous articles I suggested really good ways to prepare for the unique and challenging nature of Arc40k missions is by playing any and all of the previous years.
There are always changes each year on how missions will be scored or played. Luckily, the man creating this year’s missions, Ben, has looked over and updated last year’s set. Thanks to his efforts I’m able to review, and you are able to download missions that reflect how the 2023 set will be scored.
So, play through them a few times and you'll see how you might need to tweak the balance of your army so that you can achieve the best results for all the possibilities Arc40k may present to you.
In this article I’m looking at the Arc40k 2022 Mission #3 - Priority Target
What a spectacular and challenging way to end day one of Arc40k 2022. This mission was mighty difficult to score points. And the updated version is of equal a challenge.
I suppose the key could be to feed your opponent the easy to kill units in the first turn. So through deployment or if you can in the first turn present the units that you know can or will be overwhelmed easily by your opponent - and let them die before he can earn 3 VPs for killing them in later turns.
But.. Nah... you'll need all your forces for all of this mission. The aim is to kill the other guy.
To score 15 Vps in a round you'll need to destroy two units and lose no more than one of your's. That's the key to earning maximum points from this Primary Objective. So you'll need to destroy at least 8 units. And hopefully loose only four.
The Second Primary gives you a bonus for destroying the four most expensive units in your opponent's army. Four Points per unit destroyed but giving a maximum of 15 VPs.
Deployment is the biggest issue to get right for this mission. There's not a lot of room - so a lot of your force will be jammed up tight at the back of the board. Reserves will be useful to have, so spend the CP or make use of all your Deep Striking units you can hold off the board.
It's potentially a way of keeping one or more of those Bonus Points units off the table until later in the game. Plus you can then bring them on in a position to get the drop on one of your opponent's top 4 units.
If you've got an army with loads of units you will have great difficulty stopping your opponent scoring the Primary Objective. Also, if your bigger points units aren't that big, then bubble wrap them to ensure you're not loosing to them on both the missions Primary objectives.
Play it, play it with different army configurations. You'll see how bringing a more balanced force to Arc40k protects you against giving over easy Vps as well as contribute towards you being able to achieve them.
Hopefully with this series of articles the advice on what to focus on, and the chance to play them for yourself will give you more confidence.
You should be better prepared because the fact of the matter is that the same or similar mission types, with similar objectives, and outcomes, will be challenging you all on the gaming table at Arc40k in 2023.
If you'd like to read more about my thoughts on the fun experience of playing Arc40k missions over the years has been for me then there's a whole article talking about that: https://www.arc40k.com/post/challenging-fun
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