Pariah Nexus

Crusade - Mission Pack - Beyond the Veil | p18-19

The following section provides additional rules that you can apply to your battles that recreate the characteristics of the Pariah Nexus on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. If a battle uses the Pariah Nexus Theatre of War, roll on the table below to generate a Strategic Setback that has befallen the armies involved in the battle. This will provide additional rules for your battle. If you wish, and both players agree, you can also generate an Affliction from the table opposite to affect both armies. Afflictions will affect the game in a much more dramatic way, and so both players should be prepared for their army's effectiveness to be reduced by the overpowering effects of the Pariah Nexus.

Designer's Note: The Pariah Nexus Theatre of War rules are used for the missions within this publication, but players should feel free to use these rules for other missions found elsewhere. If you and your opponent agree, after determining the mission and reading the mission briefing, you can generate additional Pariah Nexus Theatre of War rules for that mission by rolling on the tables below and opposite. Note that for the purposes of Crusade rules, a battle that uses the Pariah Nexus Theatre of War is considered to be a battle set in the Pariah Nexus. Also note that some of the Strategic Setbacks require a player to have a deployment zone, or be able to use Reinforcements, and may not be suitable for use in some missions found elsewhere. If this is the case, do not generate a Strategic Setback for that game.

STRATEGIC SETBACKS

1. DISORIENTED APPROACH

Navigating their way through the unsettling calm, the formation of your forces has become fractured as they struggle to maintain discipline and cohesion.

Each player divides their deployment zone as evenly as possible into three equal sections and numbers them 1-3. When setting up a unit from their army on the battlefield, each player must roll one D3 to determine which section of their deployment zone that unit must be set up wholly within. If a player runs out of room to set up that unit wholly within that section of their deployment zone, roll again until another section is determined.

2. DEFERRED REINFORCEMENTS

Communications have faltered as ghostly whispers babble nightmarish nonsense through vox units. Pulsating waves of hopelessness and despair drive at your troops. And the eerie calm of the immaterium causes teleportarium chamber malfunctions. Among a myriad of calamities, your precision reinforcements suffer numerous delays in reaching the fray.

Reinforcement units cannot be set up on the battlefield until the third or subsequent battle rounds, and cannot be set up within 12" of any enemy models.

3. FALTERING DEPLOYMENT

A sudden surge of inertia and exhaustion has stalled portions of your initial strike. In stuttering groups, halting formations rejoin the front lines in ebbs and flows.

After declaring reserves and transports, each player must separate the remaining units from their army into three parts. Each part must include at least one unit. If a player does not have enough units to do so, they must separate the remaining units from their army into as many parts as possible.

When deploying armies, each player selects one part of their army. Only units in that part can be deployed. At the Reinforcements step of their first Movement phase, that player selects one of the remaining parts of their army to arrive as Reinforcements. At the Reinforcements step of their second Movement phase, the remaining part of that player's army arrives as Reinforcements.

When a part of a player's army arrives in the Reinforcements step of their Movement phase, treat those units as arriving from Strategic Reserve, except that you must set up those units wholly within 9" of that player's battlefield edge.

AFFLICTIONS

1 | SMOTHERING SILENCE

Over this battlefield, the oppressive shroud of the Necrons' contra-immaterial nodal matrix waxes strong. Psykers struggle to manifest their powers, grasping for an empyrean that seems to be no longer there.

Subtract 1 from Psychic tests and Deny the Witch tests. PSYKERS do not suffer Perils of the Warp.

2 | THE STILLING

A seeping sense of exhaustion and lethargy creeps through each warrior. Limbs slacken and passions shrivel as blows are struck with fading impetus.

Subtract 1 from Advance and charge rolls. Subtract 1 from the Strength characteristic of all models.

3 | UNNATURAL DREAD

The anomalous stillness and the sensation of being watched linger even in the heat of war. The unsettling horror unnerves every anxious warrior.

Units always count as being at below Half strength for the purposes of Combat Attrition tests. Subtract 1 from the Leadership characteristic of all models.

4 | LABOURING MACHINES

Machine spirits flicker with uncertainty and engines stall through the poor ministrations of enervated crews. Trembling gunners, feeling stifled twice over, panic within what may become a metal tomb.

Subtract 6” from the Range characteristic of weapons with a Range characteristic of 24" or more that VEHICLE models are equipped with. Subtract 3" from the Range characteristic of weapons with a Range characteristic of less than 24" that VEHICLE models are equipped with.

Subtract 3" from the Move characteristic of VEHICLE and BIKER models.

5 | BLACKZONE

Warp-powered defenses falter, and energy is sapped from the limbs of those dependent on their agility. Even technological shield systems fluctuate, their maintenance abandoned by those struggling to remember their purpose.

Worsen invulnerable saves by 1 to a minimum of 6+ ( e.g. an invulnerable save of 4+ becomes 5+ ).

6 | UNNERVED

Without the wisdom and persistent guidance of their commanders, squads fail to implement battle plans to their fullest. Once-ingrained orders are forgotten, mission parameters seeming a distant irrelevancy.

At the start of your Command phase, roll 2D6 for each unit from your army that is more than 9" away from any friendly CHARACTER units. If the result is equal to or greater than that unit's highest Leadership characteristic, until the start of your next Command phase it cannot perform actions or make use of the Objective Secured ability, and you cannot use any Stratagems to affect it nor the Command Re-roll Stratagem to affect any dice rolls made for it.

STRATEGIC SETBACKS

AFFLICTIONS

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