Rules preview, Keyword BLAST
On the horizon, through festering mud and sickening fog, a machine grinds forward, freshly anointed with sacred oils and prophesied design: the ever-coveted Trench Crusade 1.0 Ruleset. Within this digital tome we find a plethora of old, new, and revised rules for marching your wasted soldiers across No Man’s Land. While you should expect a similar play experience to the previous iterations of Trench Crusade, 1.0 features a series of changes that simultaneously streamlines rules and widens play features. Keywords, for example, have undergone a serious expansion, forgoing lengthy unit text for an index of unified and consistent rules, best showcased by an earth-shaking BLAST.
BLAST in the past
BLAST (X): A weapon with BLAST (X) has an area of effect with a radius of inches indicated by X. If this weapon targets a model, this radius is measured from the centre of that model’s base in all directions. If this weapon targets a point on the ground, this radius is measured from that point in all directions, including vertically. If the Attack ACTION with this weapon is successful, it hits every model within this radius that the target (either model or point) has line of sight to (i.e. not completely blocked by terrain).
The new BLAST
BLAST (X”) (Effect): A Ranged Weapon with BLAST (X”) has a blast radius in inches equal to X (including vertically). When you make an attack with the Weapon, you must pick a target point for the attack. The target point can either be a point on the Battlefield or an enemy model; whichever you choose must be within the attacking model’s Line of Sight and the Weapon’s range. If the Success Roll for the attack is a Failure, the attack misses and nothing happens unless the weapon also has the SCATTER Keyword (▶ see SCATTER). If the Success Roll for the attack is a Success or Critical Success, make an Injury Roll for every model within the Weapon’s blast radius as long as a line of sight exists between the model and the target point. Note that the Shooting into Melee rule does not apply to a BLAST (models within the blast radius are automatically hit whether they are within 1” of an enemy model or not). If you roll a Critical Success, you only add +1 INJURY DICE to the roll for a model if it was chosen as the target point of the attack.
From Hell-forged artillery and alchemical cannonades to the humble hand grenade, the BLAST keyword tags onto anything that goes boom, forcing an Injury Roll on all models hit within the blast radius. BLAST weapons may now pick an enemy model or a point on the battlefield as the target of the attack, offering more flexibility in how you approach your demolition operation. Gas grenades can be lobbed around a corner to flush enemies hiding just out of sight, and a carefully placed mortar can disperse clustered fireteams. Experienced players that have had the [dis]pleasure of encountering weapons such as an Artillery Witch’s Infernal Bomb or a New Antioch Satchel Charge may be aware of the potentially indirect nature of such attacks, now reflected in the new SCATTER keyword. Heavy bombard shot and screaming goetic fireballs fly over the battlefield, far too large and powerful to ensure a true strike, making them threat to friend and foe alike. There are no duds for SCATTER weapons; a failure result on a Success Roll instead gives the opponent a chance to redirect the attack off course, either sending it wild into the mud or right back in the face of the attacker.
Behind the corpse-scattering cadence of artillery, the crack of rapid fire rips through No Man’s Land. The tools of the Great War have expanded. Keep your heads down and feed the belt; this fight is Automatic.