Games of Warhammer 40,000 don’t have to be epic games between 2,000pt armies. With Kill Team we have been introduced to much smaller scale skirmishes with unique gaming mechanics that feel like 40K, but are different.
Kill Team introduced us to the Gallowdark, an Imperium vessel that almost every faction seemed to have an interest in. This lead to the release of scenery that reflected the interior of a spaceship, with walls and blast doors, exposed pipe work and lots of data panels to interact with.
A step up from Kill Team you have Boarding Actions. These scale games use the rules from Warhammer 40K, with larger forces than Kill Team. It also means a bigger board, but leads to an epic, strategic game of 40K in the close confines of a ship.
In this review I want to give a breakdown of exactly what is in this large tome, and if it is worth your hard earned coins.
As always, our thanks to Games Workshop for sending us this book to review. It is up for preorder right now, and if you fancy giving us a massive helping hand, then why not preorder through our affiliates at Element Games?
What is in Boarding Actions Compendium?
This book is designed as a one stop shop for Boarding Actions, with rules, missions, narrative campaigns and all the rules for creating an army from any of the 40K factions.
Aside from your normal Warhammer 40K essentials, you will also of course need a full board of Boarding Action scenery. This is currently available on Warhammer.com for £135 (or £114.75 from our affiliates over at Element Games!), which may seem quite expensive, however if you want a full board of 40K scenery, then you are probably spending more than that. Plus the contents of this book can make a variety of layouts for the missions in this book, so after a few games of Boarding Actions the cost will start to feel worthwhile.
Later in the book (such as the Breaching Missions) you may want to look to pick up some of the additional scenery sets, such as the Soulshackle Accessory pack (which is currently only available from Warhammer.com, and costs £40).
You’ll also need the rules for your forces, which are currently in either your 10th Edition Codexes, or in your Index rules if your army hasn’t had its book yet. What you will however find in this book is the rules on mustering your Boarding Patrol force, to ensure you have a legal 500 point army.
There are A LOT of missions in this book, broken down into several sections, which we’ll touch upon shortly. Needless to say however these include one off missions, as well as a full narrative campaign. Speaking of which, you also get rules on how to run your own narrative campaign here.
Finally, or should I say to start, the book has a handy fold out page which details each of the different terrain pieces, so when you are looking at the mission maps you know exactly what each piece looks like.
The Rules
The book opens with the all important rules section, basically how to play games of Boarding Actions.
Whilst the mechanics are basically from Warhammer 40,000, because you are fighting in such close confines, there are several points this book explains in specific detail, such as terrain and line of sight.
It also explains in a clear, concise manner how you set up the boards, to ensure you have a trouble free setup and gameplay experience. Something we are seeing a lot in current books is a page with a QR code which will take you to a page on Warhammer Community which hosts the latest updates and Balance Dataslate for Boarding Actions.
Everything explained in these opening few pages includes clear imagery to help with the understanding of the rules.
The book even describes exactly how Leader abilities work, as well as how to replace destroyed models (should you have an ability to do so).
Stratagems
Stratagems are an important part of games of Warhammer 40K. In Boarding Actions you have 5 set Strats that you can use, regardless of your faction. These are listed below. You do also have access to faction specific Strats, which I will mention more about later in the review when we start to look at faction rules:
- Command Re-roll: Works exactly like the strat in games of 40K
- Battlefield Command: In games of Boarding Action your leader units cannot join units. However, this strat works like the rule normally does. You select a Leader and a unit they would normally be able to join within 6”. Until the next Command Phase the bodyguard unit is treated as being led by the Leader.
- Counter-Offensive: 2CP this one, but it allows you to interrupt the fight order by fighting next. Again, just like in full fat 40K.
- Insane Bravery: Auto-pass Battleshock. Simples.
- Explosive Clearance: Now this one is new. It’s a little wordy, however you pick a unit that hasn’t shot yet. You then select one model in that unit that has a ranged weapon which has the Blast ability. Until the end of the phase when working out how many models are in the target unit you can include models not in line of sight. Also attacks made with that weapon can be allocated to models not visible to the attacker.
Enhancements
You cannot use Enhancements from your Codex or Indexes in Boarding Actions. Instead each faction has there own selection, as well as the generic ones, which I will sample in a moment. An enhancement costs zero points, so you can just go ahead and choose the one that reflects your play style/character/army.
The generic ones are as follows:
- Superior Boarding Tactics: Start the battle with 2CP
- Close-Quarters Killer: Re-roll the bears wound rolls in combat
- Peerless Leader: You can target the bearer with the Battlefield Command Strat for 0CP once per battle round.
- Expert Breacher: The bearer’s unit can attempt to operate a Hatchway at the start or end of the Move units step of the movement phase.
- Personal Teleporter: Bearer has the Deep Strike ability
- Trademark Weapon: Select one ranged weapon on the bearer. Give it +1 Strength and Damage.
A nice, varied list of enhancements which could prove to be a lot of competition for your faction specific options.
Missions
This book is RAMMED with missions. I mean rammed. Each mission has a clear map layout of how you need to set up your board, as well as a special mission rule and objectives to complete during the game.
They are broken down into different sections. Now, I am not going to go through each mission, however I will go through each of the sections, starting with…
Symmetric Missions
As the name suggests, these are missions with have a symmetrical layout, giving a balanced game of Boarding Actions. You get 9 of these.
Asymmetric Missions
As the name suggests, the maps for these missions mixes things up a little bit. They also include some optional terrain features (terminals, Pipes, Electro-Nodes, Explosive Canisters and collapsed pipes).
You get 6 Asymmetric missions to play out.
The Rock Besieged | Campaign Missions
The next segment turns up the narrative to 11, as you can play out 8 inter-linked missions. These were originally seen in the Arks of Omen: Vashtorr book.
Although the campaign is designed as an Imperium Vs Chaos campaign, you can mix it up and play with Xenos too.
It does recommend having the Shadowvaults Killzone upgrades, but they aren’t compulsory. If you do decide to use them, then you can pay points for Defender and Attacker upgrades, the Sentry Gun and Breaching Robot. The rules for both are included.
Narrative Missions
Fancy playing out your own Narrative campaign? Well you are in luck, as the book moves on to setting out rules on how to create your own inter-linked missions.
This section includes 6 missions to utilise in your narrative games, but of course you could use, or even modify other missions from the book to make your campaign your own unique story.
Breaching Operations
Again, as the name suggests, this is where you’ll find missions which include breaching walls.
Of course, you’ll need breachable walls for these missions, so you will need to purchase the Soulshackle upgrade pack.
The book again clearly displays the rules for breaching.
Something that is new to these missions segments are unique enhancements, such as Breaching Charges, which provides the bearer with the ability to destroy Weakened Walls within your Movement phase.
You get a whopping 12 missions in this section.
Dark Depths Missions
In an interesting twist, these next section of missions take a leaf out of Warhammer Underworlds book.
As well as mustering your force, you also get to choose between different board layouts, which when placed next to your opponents provides you with a full battlefield. This allows you to choose a layout which reflects your army.
This section only includes one mission, however thanks to the multiple choice of layouts you can get a number of different games out of this mission.
Multiplayer Missions
My favourite section!
Whereas as all the above missions are designed for two players, this next sections includes missions for between 3-4 players, ensuring an absolutely chaos and fun filled game of Boarding Action.
You can play out the included missions in any of the following ways:, all of which are fully explained and detailed:
- 4 Players (all vs all, or 2 vs 2)
- 3 Players (all vs all)
- 2 Players (1 vs 1)
Because of the larger number of players, this section helps organising your games by discussing how to work out the turn order, and working through the shooting and combat phases.
You get 12 different missions to play out. I cannot wait to get the rest of the Sprues & Brews team round to play out some of these!
Faction Rules
Rounding out the book we have a massive section which covers all of the different ways to muster your army, covering every single faction in the game.
Each faction gets a number of Detachments (between 2 to 4, depending on the faction). Each faction gets an army rule, and then each detachment includes a list of models you can take, including limitations. You also get a specific detachment rule, unique enhancements and stratagems.
It would take me forever to go through every single one, however from what I have seen I really like how these detachments are laid out, and all have fun and interesting mechanics.
To give you a good idea of how these detachment works however, I thought I’d go through one of the Agents of the Imperium ones (inspired by my other review which went live today, which you can find here!).
The detachment I am going through is called Interdiction Team. When creating your army you have the following restrictions:
- You can include up to two Exaction Squads
- You can include up to three of the following units: Subductor Squad & Vigilant Squad.
- You can include one Inquisitor
- If you have an Inquisitor, you can include a unit of Inquisitorial Agents.
The army rule is called Imperial Insights. Each time a unit performs the Secure Site Tactical Maneover, the objective marker immediately is secured, instead of having to wait for the following Command phase. The unit can go on to make a Normal move action (up to D6”) however that unit cannot charge or shoot.
The detachment rule is called Chastisor Auto-Vox, which forces your opponent to take battleshock tests (at -1 to the Leadership value should they be below half strength).
There are two different enhancements available to choose from:
- Manhunter’s Helm: Usable on a Proctor-Exactant model only. At the start of the first battle round you can choose an enemy unit to be the Priority target. So long as this model is alive your Arbites models gain +1 to Wound the priority target. Again, if the bearer is alive, each time the Priority Target is taken care of you can then choose another enemy unit to become the Priority Target.
- Vasdy’s Auto-Oppressor: Again, can only be given to a Proctor-Exactant. At the end of your Movement phase you can select an enemy unit within line of sight of the bearer. That chosen unit must halve there movement, charge and Advance distances,
You then have 4 unique stratagems for this detachment. These are as follows:
- Crackdown: 1CP, and usable on an Adeptus Arbites unit. Grants them full rerolls to Hit and Wound. Only usable in the fight phase.
- Duty and Death: Usable in the enemy’s shooting or combat phase and costs 1CP. Grants the chosen Arbites unit a 4+ Feel No Pain.
- Arbitrary Execution: You can use this Strat in your shooting phase on a Arbites unit. Until the end of the phase, any shotpistols get 2 shots and the Lethal Hits special rule.
- Inescapable Judgement: Usable in your enemy’s movement phase, just after an enemy unit Falls Back. The enemy unit must take a Desperate Escape test as if they were Battleshocked. If they were Battleshocked already, then they must subtract 1 from each of those tests.
Summary
And that, brings us to the end of the book.
I was a little worried that following the conclusion of the Kill Team Gallowdark boxes, we may see the end of Boarding Actions. A lot of people were unable to pick up those boxes due to far too few being available to buy. What a relief that they not only decided to release a box with all the scenery you would need, but also now to release a book which includes all the missions and rules.
For me, that is the best thing about this book. It is completely all encompassing. You’ve got all the rules you need to play games of Boarding Action. From the basic rules to the optional rules for the upgrade packs. You’ve got so many different missions in here to play through, which you could mix and match in campaigns of your own creation.
The Multiplayer missions are my favourite missions from the book, and I strongly believe you could have some epic 3 and 4 player games of Boarding Actions thanks to this book.
And finally, the book, which is already great value, then finishes with multiple detachments for every single faction in the game, all with unique enhancements, Strats, army and detachement rules. All of which feel fun and fluffy, and a great reason to pick up some different armies to build, paint and play.
This book has inspired me to finally finish painting my Boarding Action terrain, so if you need me, you’ll find me at my hobby desk…
A fantastic, fully loaded compendium. Go grab a Boarding Actions box, preorder this book and get battling on those spaceships!
Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us this book to review. If you do decide to preorder this book, or maybe you want to pick up the Boarding Actions terrain box, then make sure you use one of our Element Games links to save money and help us out!
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