Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Getting Started - Warhammer 40k tabletop gameplay in a glimpse.

A.K.A warhammer 40k tabletop for idiot A.K.A how to play warhammer 40k tabletop A.K.A beginner guide for warhammer 40k tabletop

Foreword :

This will be a short, point form summary of 40k tabletop gameplay as layman as I could, I hope this could shed some light for fellow beginner who wish to start the hobby but clueless about what it is....

The reason why I'm writing this is, being a noob with no previous experience in any form of tabletop gaming, I'm previously quite clueless on how this game been played, after some google search, the only thing I manage to salvage is long battle report, which, doesn't make much sense to a beginner, so I decided to contribute some simple (if not stupid) "article" which hopefully getting the enthusiast to break into the hobby =)

Important notice : This is a very simplify summary which only cover the overview, gory details are ignored for your reading pleasure, if those are added in, you might as well spend your time reading the well written rulebook instead of reading this piece of shit...
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- Warhammer 40k is turn based, one player complete his/her turn follow by the other player.

- A "turn" consist of below phase
  1. Movement phase : move your miniature to desired location
  2. Shooting phase : If your miniature having range weapon (guns, firearm whatsoever), you can decide whether to shoot the enemy within range.
  3. Assault phase : After shooting, you can advance your miniature for close combat if any enemy mini is within assault range

- Measurement tape is used when measure moving distance, weapon range, etc etc, mini can move freely provided it travel within predefined distance. The unit of measurement used in 40k is inches.

- All the result is of combat is resolve by dice(s), eg: you roll a dice to decide whether your mini successfully hitting the enemy, roll again to decide whether the hit inflict any damage on the enemy, then the enemy will roll to decide whether the armor/cover absorb/deflect the damage

- Certain weapon is having a template range, when said weapon is used, it will make use of a "template" (normally a piece of fan/circle shape plastic), any enemy mini touched by the template is consider successfully hit (of course, you need to roll again to decide how much damage does it inflicted and enemy can roll to decide whether the damage is waive by the armor, as outlined above)

- The Rulebook is the core book that outline the details of how the game is played, how to resolve the combat, what is the winning scenario, in short, the mechanism of how to play the game, all of the information/sample from this line above can be found in gory details in the Rulebook, you can think it as gravity, everything works under the law of gravity. BTW, the latest edition is 5th edition at the moment. Truth be told, I'm still reading it at the moment, still struggling to understand most portion of it =p

- Both side of player should agree on a point before the game start, eg: a 1250 point of battle, so each player will each gather miniature which worth a total 1250 point to pit against each other

- How point works : each miniature worth a certain amount of point eg: a puny infantry with no fancy gear and armor might cost you 10 point, while a special character/vehicle with fancy ability/gear/armor will cost you 250 point, so in the 1250 point example above, you can field 100 infantry (obviously this is a lousy and unrealistic example) with the special character.

- Normally a squad (multiple minis of same type) can be configure to arm with more fancy weapon by paying extra point for the weapon, eg: 10 puny unit in previous example cost you 100 point, you can make your squad more bad-ass by giving them a flame thrower with extra 10 point, a melta gun for anti tank capability with another extra 15 point, etc etc

- Codex is the book that outline what unit cost how many point and what "configuration/customization/ability" available to your trooper, and for how much point you could "buy" said configuration/customization/ability. Normally there is one codex for each race (with the exception of space marine, damn... they have so many variations... and oh, eldar with their estranged dark eldar kindred)

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Summary's summary :

- It's turn based
- You need dices to play
- You need a rulebook to understand the mainframe of how to play the game
- You need the codex for your chosen race to know the perks/disadvantages of said race and to calculate the point of your army
- You need measurement tape for measuring distance
- You need a set of templates for certain weapon
- Obviously, you need your minis

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Well, that's all I have for the moment, any comment/suggestion/correction on how to improve the chunk above and make it more easily understandable is welcome!

Till next time, I'm off to play my Vampire the Masquerade : Bloodline, I know, I know, its such an old pc game, tell you what, oldie is goodie =p

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