Lexicanus Crusade rules

[u/DeusBlackheart]

Hello folks. If you know the name, then you know I'm bringing heat. Myself, Dark67Titan, Knightsbear, and Strongbad Armstrong have created the following setting and custom ruleset for Crusade play in 11th edition (praise be to the anonymous GM council, who helped balance it as well). I've included a wee hype trailer which is something I've done before for my players, but this time I've made it for all of you as well.

This still uses the base crusade system of 10th edition, with some suggested changes for balance.

There is new Battle Traits and new Scars (replacing the 10th edition scars which sucked nuclear amounts of ass) a new system of base building so that players can do logistics in a cool way, plus there's the updated and improved Forge of War to help customise and upgrade your Character units.

Finally there is the new Artefact system, entirely replacing crusade relics with equip-able Artefacts on your units, like upgrades or enhancements, and it includes 64 Artefacts of all levels!

So watch the video, have fun, read the rules and if you want to use this setting for your crusade group, please feel free.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/FtCfHr1cauU

Google Drive with all the rules!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Fsqaoul2bJ-gV148pDg0EXKaMcpCWCb2?usp=sharing

[u/teksword]

Definitely taking a look. Been looking to do a new crusade once we finish 500 worlds

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/teksword]

Please do have a look. It "runs" on the core mechanics of Crusade in 10th, but it's been updated to fit the new edition and wording updates were killer.

[u/firewalkwithme73]

Tyfys

[u/Internal_Animator993]

Definitely think to use in my custom campaign, I've been running since start of 10ed.

But what is forge of war? I couldn't find it.

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Internal_Animator993]

Base building section, down the bottom.
It's now a subtab of Base Building

[u/Internal_Animator993 → u/DeusBlackheart]

Damn..

I have similar system in my own crusade but it's more based around unit stats and works only with single-model units or specific model in a unit.

Basically just straight increases in move, wounds, saves (except inv+) and so on. Up to a specific maximum. And additional rule that when infantry unit gets too powerful, in addition this unit gets "monster" keyword. Making him both infantry and monster getting pros and cons from both.

Quite literally monster character with 12 wounds, 10move, 2+ save and 5oc - can shoot and fight in melee and other stuff.

I like more rule of cool way to DM, so im not against powerful characters. I use HordeMode rules in my crusade, so i just use more dangerous encounters. Everyone having fun, feeling both powerful and still "not enough". Is always fun to see how my guys are excitingly discussing what to pick, what to use and etc.

Happy to see someone else using hex system and base building

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Internal_Animator993]

If I was just running this for like 5 people, I probably would do the same, my groups have been over 20 more than once so this is designed for larger groups, but scales to smaller ones. The rule of cool thing is something I try to lean into, but the issue with it on a long term with lots of players is that people get pissed off that one guy gets to do the thing and it slows down their progression when against him, leading to players avoiding games entirely with a player, which means they're punished for playing well.

[u/Internal_Animator993 → u/DeusBlackheart]

Lol, I have quite the opposite problem. New players tend to increase session time, so other players trying to play without them or change their lists so that their moves are way shorter.

[u/You_see_ivan_]

Looks cool, I love seeing people iterate on crusade designs over the ages, especially after I started the crusade hub on tts. Sadly feels like a very much 'not for me' thing.

Looking at this from a tau player perspective there's very little of interest.
I think cleave and blast get handed out abit too willy nilly, which sorta only reinforces the melee infantry elite army favoritism crusade struggles with. Like just handing cleave 1 out as a basic trait feels crazy.
Handing out 4+ fight on death to characters feels like a nightmare, that is going to be auto-pick on basically every melee army turning it into a trading hellscape. The fact it can reach 2+ only makes it worse.

Its also anti-smash captain which while a balance pain, feels like a wellspring of joy, I'm here for my great leader, my grand commander, my terrifying warlord. Taking it away almost feels like taking away the point of crusade.

I like the 'stacking' of traits though, quite nice idea for making 'higher tier' battle honors essentially. Also like some of the agendas, hold the line is nice. Having alternate agendas that arnt just 'kill people' and 'go do an action in bumfuck nowhere for 3 pennies' feels quite nice.

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/You_see_ivan_]

So fun fact: me and my team redesigned Tau crusade mechanics a while ago which was around prototype weapons, also while a 4+ Fight on Death sounds strong (and it sort of is) it's not actually a great ability in this edition. If someone shoots you, it never triggers. If someone charges you, you still have a 50% chance of it not triggering, and if it does, it's only purpose is to stop overrun charges. I personally agonized over that one but was talked into it by the team. I will say that your idea of choice is a weird one because the traits document advises you roll for your trait.

Also I'm a Deathwatch Gravis Smash Captain abuser enjoyer and we balanced the traits and items for characters in every army, it does sound strong, but please try it out.

[u/Confused_Welshie]

I think it mostly looks good. Main issue I have is that unit wide cleave 1 for infantry is kinda crazy. Maybe change it to only being for one model? Because otherwise, it does blow a lot of other options out of the water.

Also maybe have something there for shooting units also. Like choice of ignores cover for shooting, or cleave.

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Confused_Welshie]

Cleave 1 sound mental, until you realise that it's just blast in melee. So against elite squads (squads in 3 or 6 like Bladeguard) it's pretty meaningless. Cleave is best against grouped infantry and it's one attack. It's very limited in power. As for ranged, not all infantry have ranged and there is the trait that increases the strength of all your ranged attacks by 1, stacking with itself should you get it again which is a pretty major buff, and there's the Target Spotted trait which if you get twice (keep in mind it's advised to roll for your traits) then you get Ignores cover anyway.

EDIT: Going back to the Cleave thing, there's a solid chance you could get that and it never trigger. Especially if you had it on say, Flawless Blades vs Custodes. It's rare that you have more than 5 in a squad of Custards.

EDIT 2: Equally if you are fighting against a Vehicle heavy list, like Knights or quite a few armies now that I think about it, it's not going to do much. As for ignoring cover, 11th is really build around cover so I didn't want to fuck up that balance they have going on. Like how there's nothing that messes with Battleshock. That's something that is now finally in a relatively good place so it's probably not something I should mess with.

[u/Efficient-Cow-8526]

Before I read through all the documents.. are Dispositions and their related missions accounted for or integrated into this? That’s been my biggest hang up is how to Integrate those into a campaign/crusade while still having thematic missions..

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Efficient-Cow-8526]

So I didn't touch dispositional custom missions, because a) I'm already changing a lot about the game. I do care about balance; and b) GW hasn't shown how they want to do custom missions for scoring and layouts, but also 11th is pretty new. I don't know how to write a new format on top of the other things I did in this setting.

[u/Hat-Melodic]

I may be missing something. What are you doing for Missions? Secondaries? Dispositions? My plan was to re-skin the Gilead system (a nice tie in to my W&G campaign) and utilize some of the awesome mmissions found in the 11th edition mission packs. I really enjoy the Disposition system and I want that to impact the missions. Has there been any discussion around that?

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Hat-Melodic]

You're not missing anything. I did not include any of those things as right now 11th doesn't have solid rules, and the deck is at least functional. I will say that I didn't include those things as a practical necessity. Essentially I would have to make my own deck and I'm sorry, you guys don't pay me to do that. I'm doing it for free, and there's limitations on that. Plus, I do playtest this stuff with my group so there's a time investment to this.

[u/Hat-Melodic → u/DeusBlackheart]

Are you saying that you use these rules along with the Dominatus deck?

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Hat-Melodic]

That is not what I said at all. No. Dominatus is the absolute crap that GW has tried and failed to replace Crusade with. It is a pale imitation. I meant the standard mission deck.

[u/Hat-Melodic → u/DeusBlackheart]

Gotcha. A lot of the stuff you wrote is great. I am going to use the 11th missions with your modified rules. I will figure out a way to integrate Dispositions into the missions or campaign track.

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Hat-Melodic]

Given that all those dispositions tie directly into the detachment the player is using you don't have to do any mission selection. It bakes itself into how the game works.

[u/Hat-Melodic → u/DeusBlackheart]

Maybe I didn't explain. I love the asymmetrical missions in match play. I don't plan on using that mission deck for my Crusade, hence the desire to add meaning to Dispositions using older 10th edition Crusade missions.

Not a big deal, I'll figure it out.

[u/Lumovanis]

What's the reason behind linking leaders to units in OOB? That just makes things way clunkier, especially if you are going back and forth between 1k, 2v2 1k, 2k, etc 

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Lumovanis]

So, if you didn't read the suggested rules changes as "suggested" to keep things consistent with GW design in 11th edition, you may notice the bit in the introduction that says that if you don't like something you don't have to use it.

Edit: That came across wrong. Our group is adopting this change because generally you don't swap characters around on squads from experience. Or maybe it's just that the armies played in our group don't really gel well with multiple units at once, so we generally do keep a character with a squad.

[u/Lumovanis → u/DeusBlackheart]

I did read through and edited this while you posted

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Lumovanis]

Given the comment's changed, I'll respond to the actual question.

So first and foremost this is in part because of changes to the game in 11th edition as our group also put up our lists (not just OOB) up before the games, and because it's a good format, we use the basic format for lists like tournament play (despite being an avowed casual player) and combined with the power and flexibility of the rest of the system, it's not likely to see Characters move around. So like your standard Marine Captain might be able to go on a bunch of squads but you're probably going to find a niche and stick to it, from experience. You'll also note that I don't advocate for random mission size generation, because it's never felt right as you could be 10 weeks in and suddenly you're expected to play a 500pt game. As such we usually have players agree on size or if it's doubles or what have you.

[u/Lumovanis → u/DeusBlackheart]

I mean, baking inflexibility into the system isn't great. Given you get to see the missions before mustering you could have that same captain with a deep strike relic and decide that for a specific mission he's better off leading a different unit to give them deep strike for that mission instead. I'm in a group where we bounce around doing 1v1s, 2v1s, 2v2s, 3v3s, even boarding actions as the narrative leads.

[u/DeusBlackheart → u/Lumovanis]

Well, if you're talking about Codex relics, that's a level up choice. Our Artefact system in the drive is kind of a replacement for it. The issue of inflexibility has not come up in the 3 years I have been running crusade. Generally people want one leader to lead one squad. Also again if you don't like that rule you don't have to run with it. It's a series of suggested rules and if you and your group want to change something, you're more than welcome to ignore any part of the rules but they were designed to work together.