Welcome, Generals, to the second Global Update for Armoured Clash!
If you’re scratching your head, wondering what a Global Update is, why not take a look at our first blog on the topic from March this year? But in short, this is where we look at every unit, every special rule, and every facet of gameplay, and tweak things based on player feedback and our own hard-won experience.
This blog aims to highlight some of the significant changes introduced in this update, before you encounter them in the field for yourself.
If you believe you have spotted an error or would like to give us feedback about the power level of anything in Armoured Clash (not just the changes made as a result of this Global Update) then please fill in the Community Feedback Form with your thoughts. We review submissions regularly, as they help inform future updates and changes.
Commanders
Those of you who have downloaded the recent Commonwealth or Alliance ORBAT may already have noticed that their Commander units are displayed a little differently to those in older ORBATs. Now, Commander units across all our published ORBATs have been updated to follow the same format.
We have also acknowledged the general consensus that Reinforced and Full-Strength Commander Variants were slightly on the expensive side and have scaled this back accordingly. Most Commander Variants will now cost around 65 / 90 / 120, allowing your officers to lead from the front rather than cowering in the rear.
Behemoths
As the game has grown larger, so too has the ambition and expertise of our players. It has been great to see you all playing ever larger games, but in doing so, we have decided that it is time to give ALL our Behemoths a decrease in points! We have also standardised their VPR ranges, as we’d noticed that some Behemoths (looking at you, Laoshan and Wutai…) had really low VPRs relative to their impact on the game.
As an example, we have reworked the Horsell Super-Heavy Extractor and Wells Super-Heavy Surveyor for the Enlightened, as we felt they were struggling a bit to make the most from their weapon loadouts. We just didn't feel that the existing profile was doing those iconic models justice! Their profile has been tweaked so that they have less Defense, but a much higher Damage Limit, meaning that you’ll be able to Overcharge more often without destroying your precious kill-machines! Additionally, the Wells’ big Coruscating laser has been buffed slightly, making it less reliant on Overcharging to be a worthwhile attack.
Next Stop: End Of The Line!
Continuing with the Behemoths, we’ve also reworked the Heavy Land Train for the Union’s Lakota Super-Heavy Engine and Durango Heavy Shunter. We found that taking a long train wasn’t felt to be particularly worthwhile, as it was very easy for your opponent to shoot out the first carriage and force the whole thing to fall apart.
Now, Union Generals have the choice to Emergency Decouple and have their carriages fight on individually, as before, or to Haul Dead Weight. At the cost of a small Speed penalty, the train can chug gloriously on, allowing them to keep their carriages around and to keep benefiting from the (newly buffed) Full-Steam Ahead quality. Our favourite editor and resident Union player (and this bit isn't being written by him - honest!) has always been self-confessedly ambivalent about his trains, but even he can't wait to field a full-length Lakota or two in his Force.
Direct Fire Artillery
We have noticed, generally, that direct fire artillery (meaning any artillery piece that does not have the Indirect weapon quality) has at times been outshone by its more parabolic brethren. They are difficult weapons to use, considering that they can barely move and therefore must be able to see targets from the start of the game, and are much less durable than tanks. The consensus was to leave them at home in favour of a similarly costed tank, or an Indirect equivalent.
With that in mind, we have reduced their Points Costs across the board. Now, you can make a powerful Artillery firebase for considerably fewer points than a similarly sized unit of tanks.
Additionally, the San Lei Heavy Artillery and Armstrong Heavy Artillery have received slight buffs to their attack dice and/or ranges. The clever General will combine this with certain boons to be able to get a really powerful attack off on the first turn of the game.
Flight of the Valkyries
In an effort to make Aircraft in Armoured Clash even more fun, not to mention deadlier in battle, we have made two important changes to all Aircraft units in the game.
Firstly, they have received a similar points decrease to direct Artillery. This will encourage Generals to field them as multiples, with Reinforced and Full-Strength units receiving even greater discounts compared to other units.
Secondly, and this one was hotly requested, we have introduced a new Special Rule: Rapid Response. This allows them to be deployed on Attack Runs in both the first and last rounds of the game, where before they couldn’t. We’ve also ensured that this rule is generic enough to be applied to other units down the line…
On not-so-Waxen Wings
The Empire's Bulnabang Winged Infantry have been improved, with a more apparent battlefield identity as a fast-moving unit, designed to maximise use of cover and secure objectives ahead of your main force.
They have lost the Bulky special rule and gained Stalker. This, in conjunction with Shrouded, makes them perfect first-wave units to fly ahead and claim Strategic Objectives, landing on their target and immediately Taking Cover within their clouds of Corrosive Fumes. With the defensive bonus this provides, and their On Lookout status (courtesy of Stalker), they should be able to survive any retaliatory fire, and opportunistically shoot back (or charge, if you have the right boon…) Then, once your Green Banner Guard Platoons have caught up, these terrifying bat-people can fly on to sow more disorder and death with their powerful melee profiles!
Siegebreakers
The Siegebreaker weapon quality has been reworked.
When you attack a unit that is Garrisoning a Defensible Building, you now use the same dice pool to determine whether or not the onslaught brings the building crashing down on their heads. If you roll as many Heroic Strikes as the building’s size, then it becomes Wrecked, and inflicts extra casualties on the Garrisoned unit equal to the size of the building.
With the increased impact of Siegebreaker, we’ve also expanded the number of units with the Occupy special rule, to allow you to make full use of all of those Wrecked Buildings in your games.
We've also given the Crown's Royal Engineer Sappers Demolition, because why wouldn't we?
Fireteams
Fireteams are arguably the signature element of the Union Army. In recognition of this fact, we have removed the rules for them from the Glossary of Special Rules & Qualities and placed them in the Union ORBAT, where they belong. These have been re-worked and clarified, with when and where they contribute to combat in unusual edge cases being made much clearer.
Notably, thanks to the Low Profile rule, they can no longer be targeted by Ranged Attacks at all, so long as they remain within 3” of their Parent unit. Now, your tiny Fireteam units can provide fire support throughout the game, without having to worry about being wiped out in a single round of shooting.
Boons
Two Boons have been altered.
Firstly, Forlorn Hope has been slightly reworked, rather than providing Vanguard 10”, which disproportionately buffed really slow units, making it an almost auto-include in lists that fielded them, it now provides a first-turn free move of Speed + 2”.
Tactical Brilliance, on the other hand, has undergone a complete transformation. The extra card in the first round of the game simply wasn’t proving impactful enough, especially when the real fighting tends to kick off after Round 2. From its ashes arises Headstrong Commander, allowing you to draw an extra card each round, and then immediately discard one. This gives you much more control of the cards in your hand, at the cost of running through your deck a little faster. In testing, this has been such a beneficial change, and made Headstrong Commander one of our favourite Boons in the office!
Withdrawing
The rules for withdrawing after combat, particularly considering all of the unusual (and frankly, unforeseeable) battlefield circumstances that occur during a game of Armoured Clash, have proved troublesome for players (and we admit, even some players here at Warcradle) to figure out. Now, we have clarified the rules to emphasise that the losing Officer is moved 3" directly away from the winning unit by 3”, with the rest of the unit then reforming around them following the usual coherency rules. Any model that can't be set up according to these rules is immediately destroyed.
Multiple examples of the new wording in action will be added to the updated Designer’s Commentary.
As a result of these changes, Rear charges have become significantly more powerful, forcing a unit to move much further, depending on its size. Depending on the circumstances of the retreat and how well you have controlled the space on the battlefield, this can be really bad news for your opponent! This has certainly been the case in some of our office games; just ask Pete how he lost a Full Strength unit of Green Banner Guard Platoon after being crushingly outmanoeuvred by Chris’s Horse Guard Cavalry.
Terrain
We have fully reworked Elevation and how to define it. Now, Elevation is tied to a new terrain type - Hills! They cover how we have all instinctively been playing over these types of Terrain, it’s just now reflected correctly in the rules.
Similarly, we’ve changed the way units and Defensible Buildings interact. We have removed the idea of a Building Capacity Limit, so any size of unit can now Garrison a building without having to lose models. This means that units with the Bulky special rule no longer have the penalty of counting double Building Capacity. We made these changes in part because buildings are self-evidently bigger than tanks. Also, given the level of abstraction at which a game of Armoured Clash is played, it didn’t seem appropriate to have that degree of granularity.
Tow / Limber
Tow and Limber never quite worked out in the wild as we envisioned them. In a game with as few Rounds as Armoured Clash, spending valuable shooting time with your field guns being towed up the board simply wasn't capturing the imagination of our players.
The usefulness of these gun tractors would probably be greater during deployment, the weapons being hauled into prime firing positions before the fighting actually begins. With this in mind, Tow now provides a means to give a Field Gun unit a Vanguard move, and put them On Lookout at the start of a game.
A deadly combination that we expect to have a lot of Imperium players dying to get some of these units on the board.
The Change Logs and older Tips and Tactics blogs.
If you want to find out more, as we have only been able to cover some of the larger, more far-reaching gameplay changes here, check out the Change Log at the back of your ORBATs, the updated Glossary of Special Rules & Qualities, and the Rules Errata. Here, you will find detailed lists highlighting every change that we have made, so you can see how this Global Update will affect your favourite Battleforces.
Given the number of changes we have made, some of the early Tips and Tactics articles have become outdated, but fear not! We have reviewed them all again and reworked them with the new rules and point costs in mind. These articles are an excellent resource for new Armoured Clash players or more seasoned players toying with the idea of a new Faction. These posts are now live and include example Battleforces for 1000, 2000, and 3000 points. Take a look to get some ideas for your own Forces - or get some intel on your enemies!
While we at Warcradle hope that you enjoy the Global Update, we acknowledge that one or two errors may have inevitably crept in. Fans of Dystopian Wars may already be familiar with the Feedback Form that we introduced with the release of that game's new edition. It has been a great success, with some constructive responses from our community of players. It is frankly humbling to see you all so engaged with our games. As such, we have developed a Feedback Form specifically for Armoured Clash that will help us collate your thoughts on the Global Update revisions. This form can be found here.
All that remains is to wish you happy gaming, and we hope you have as much fun playing Armoured Clash as we have over the past few months.
Chris and Pete.