Battle 1: Meeting Engagement

Two opposing armies rush to secure a strategically important area; and they arrive at the same time. As they meet, each army seeks to gain the advantage as it scrambles to deploy from its column of march as effectively as it can.

Scenario special rules

Army Morale; Objectives

Armies

With your opponent, agree a maximum points value limit for the battle. Then build your army within this limit.

Maps

  • Standard deployment edges.

  • No deployment zones.

Deployment map for the Meeting Engagement scenario (long deployment edge)
Figure 1. Long deployment edge
Deployment map for the Meeting Engagement scenario (short deployment edge)
Figure 2. Short deployment edge
Deployment map for the Meeting Engagement scenario (corner deployment edge)
Figure 3. Corner deployment edge

Setup

  1. Set up terrain in the standard way.

  2. Determine which player gets to choose their deployment edge/zone in the standard way. That player must then choose the deployment edge/zone that they prefer, and their opponent gets the opposite edge/zone (see Maps).

  3. Choose your objectives, as follows:

    • Each player must have one objective per 500 points in their army (round fractions up). You may each choose up to one Rescue objective — the rest must all be Take & Hold.

      Example 1. Number of objectives

      In a game with a limit of 1,800 points for each army, you will each have four objectives.

  4. Place your objective markers in the standard way.

Disposition of forces

Determine the disposition of your forces.

  1. Place all of your Flyer detachments in Reserves.

  2. If you have any detachments that qualify for the Reserves rules on their own merit, place them in Reserves.

  3. Keep all of your other detachments at hand for your initial deployment.

Initial deployment

Do not deploy any detachments yet. Instead, place HQ units to indicate where the detachments you kept at hand for initial deployment will enter play during the first turn of the game.

Start with the player whose army has the lower Strategy Rating and alternate between you until there are no more HQ units to place:

  1. Pick an HQ unit to be first, and place it to indicate any point along your deployment edge.

  2. Each other HQ unit you place must indicate a point that is on your deployment edge and within 15 cm of the point that your first HQ unit indicates. You may 'stack' multiple HQ units in a column, to indicate the same point on your deployment edge — you might want to do this where a road crosses the table edge, for example.

  3. Each player may choose one detachment per 1,000 points of the maximum points value limit (or part thereof — round up) to be a flanking detachment, if they wish. You may place the HQ units of your flanking detachments to indicate any point along your deployment edge, rather than only within 15 cm of the point you indicated with the first HQ unit you placed.

Play the game

Start the game in the usual way: Proceed to the Start phase.

When you reach the first Movement phase and it is your turn to complete your moves, put into play the detachments that correspond to the HQ units you placed. Each time you put a detachment into play, measure the movement of its units — including its HQ unit — from the point that its HQ unit indicates on your deployment edge.

Aside from Reserves detachments, any detachment that does not enter play in the first turn counts as destroyed — deduct the detachment’s Morale value from your Army Morale total, as normal for a destroyed detachment. [1] [2]

Game length and victory conditions

Standard Army Morale win conditions apply: At the end of the Rally phase, if a player has an Army Morale value of zero or less then the game ends and the other player is the winner. [3]

  • If this hasn’t happened by the end of the 4th turn, then the player with the higher Army Morale value wins a 'tactical victory'.

  • Or, if you both agree, you could play for as many turns as it takes until a player’s Army Morale value drops to 0.

  • Either way, if both players' Army Morale values drop to 0 or less on the same turn, then the player with the higher Army Morale value wins a 'tactical victory'.

1. We consider the detachment to be 'destroyed' for the sake of the battle, but not for the war. That is, treat the detachment as destroyed for all rules purposes in the current game — but not for future games, if you’re playing a campaign.
2. Difference from Epic 40,000:  The original text for this scenario is ambiguous as it merely states that such detachments 'are lost'. We’ve defined consequences that are consistent with other unusual but similar situations that we’ve defined elsewhere.
3. Difference from Epic 40,000:  In a strict interpretation of the original text for this scenario, you might end the game as soon as a player’s Army Morale value reaches 0, whenever that happens during a game turn. However, we think it is more consistent with other rules, more fair, and probably the original intent, to complete the turn sequence and determine the overall game state only at step R4. Check the game end conditions, as usual. So, we’ve made the text clear in this respect.