Trench Crusade 1.0.2 Rules Update
We are happy to announce the release of an update to the Trench Crusade rules! It consists of the following digital files, which are now available on our Rules page:
- Trench Crusade Digital Rulebook 1.0.2
- Warbands of Trench Crusade 1.0.2
- Rules Commentaries 1.0.2
- Changelog 1.0.2
Overview
The 1.0.2 Rules Update is part of our Living Rules Policy. We’d like to underline that rules updates like this one are different to the rules reviews we plan to hold twice a year. The purpose of our rules updates is to make the rules as complete, robust and errata-free as possible – in other words, to improve the quality of the rules, but not change the way in which they are meant to work. We will publish rules updates as quickly as we possibly can, as and when they are needed, rather than to a fixed schedule.
Our twice-yearly rules reviews are almost the complete opposite of the rules updates. Rules reviews are intended to look at ways to modify the rules of the game in order to make games of Trench Crusade even more enjoyable and balanced than they already are. In the past we’ve made changes like this in a rather ad hoc way, but from now on we are adopting a more structured and open approach, which will allow you to see what we are working on and to contribute to the process.
So, those are the principles – how does it work in practice?
The 1.0.2 Update
Since we’ve published Trench Crusade, we’ve received a welcome amount of incredibly helpful feedback, pointing out mistakes in the wording of the rules and inconsistencies in the way that they work. We have been collating and compiling all of this feedback, and it forms the basis of the 1.0.2 rules update.
The result is a set of changes to the Digital Rules and Warbands of Trench Crusade, which fix mistakes and improve the clarity of the rules. Many of these changes are very minor – fixing spelling mistakes, making sure that the capitalisation used for rules is consistently applied, removing extra spaces that crept in between words, and so on – but others are more important and can have an impact on how you play the game. Because of this we have put together a 1.0.2 Changelog file that lists all of the important changes, so that you can see where we have made important changes and (just as importantly) where we have not.
It’s important to note that, while there are quite a few changes to the wordings of the rules, none of them are meant to change the way the game fundamentally works. They are simply intended to improve the quality of the rules, and make sure they answer questions a player may have. Where we have had to completely rewrite a rule, any changes that have been made have been designed to create a new rule that is easier to understand and use, but has the same effect to the original rule.
A good illustration of this is the changes we have made to the Keywords in the Trench Crusade rules. When you read through the Changelog, you will find that we have added several new Keywords to the game; however, the new Keywords do not change the way the game works, they simply make the rules easier to use and avoid having to repeat the same rule several times. For example, the new Ammunition Keyword allowed us to replace five special rules with a single rule in the Keyword Glossary.
The 1.0.2 Rules Commentaries
The 1.0.2 Rules Commentaries answer questions from players who have asked us if they are interpreting the rules correctly, or if we can give a more detailed explanation about how the rules work in certain circumstances. Just like the corrections that we’ve made to the Digital Rules, the Rules Commentaries do not change the way that Trench Crusade is fundamentally played; rather they are intended to reassure players that they are using the rules in the correct way.
The April Rules Review
Alongside questions about how the game rules are written, we have received a lot of useful wider feedback about areas where the game play experience could be improved. Much of the feedback focuses on issues to do with the external balance between opposing factions, or the internal balance between models and battlekit that can be taken for a Warband, but it also lets us know about rules that create situations that are “unfun”, or that result in game play that is not thematic.
The first thing we’d like to say is that we appreciate this feedback and take it very seriously, so please keep it coming. However, unlike rules questions, this isn’t something that can be quickly fixed by changing the wording of a rule. We’ve found that quick reactions to these kinds of things will often not fix the problem, and can even make things worse. We’ve therefore decided to make a more structured approach, by holding twice-yearly rules reviews that will address issues like this. Furthermore, we want to make the rules reviews as transparent and open as possible, so that we can gather plenty of feedback before we make any changes.
The first of these reviews will be held in April 2026, and will focus on the following five topics.
- Grenades. Make grenades less dominant and mitigate “grenade spam”.
- The Amalgam. Make the Amalgam a viable choice that has rules that reflect the way it’s described in the lore.
- The Iron Sultanate. Buffs to make the army more competitive and thematic.
- Mercenaries. A rules and Glory Points overhaul to make each Mercenary an equally valid choice.
- Infiltrators. A rules overhaul to allow Infiltrators to do something different in scenarios when the Infiltration ability cannot be used.
We did consider including The Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent in the April Rules Review, but in the end decided that it is such a complex faction that it should instead be the focus for our second rules review in October, so that we can give it the time and attention it deserves.
The Rules Review Format
We will be using the following format for the April Rules Review. Our goal is to allow the Trench Crusade community the opportunity and time to help form any changes we make to the game, and then for the community to help us to ensure that when the changes are officially incorporated into the game they have been thoroughly playtested.
In order to achieve this, in February we will be publishing a preview of the changes we are considering for the topics that are part of the April Review (see the list above). The preview will include surveys and feedback options to allow you – yes, you! – to let us know which options you think would be best, or about other solutions that we may have missed. It will also give you a chance to play some games using the various options and let us know how well they worked.
At the rules review in April, the rules team will then go through the feedback we’ve received on that preview, and our own experience playtesting the proposals, and then decide on the changes that are to be made to the rules. The suggested changes will be published as a set of Beta Playtest Rules, which will be available for public playtesting and feedback, and they will be incorporated into the Digital Rules and Warbands of Trench Crusade once this process is complete.
Thanks
We’d like to finish this announcement by saying a huge “Thank You” to everybody that has sent us questions and feedback about Trench Crusade, and especially to those who have helped us by answering questions about Trench Crusade on Discord, Reddit and other forums.
Happy Gaming!
- Jervis Johnson, Tuomas Pirinen and the Trench Crusade Rules team