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Something about seeing that dreaded six when we roll for game type upsets us every time. It always comes down to us talking it over to see if we should just re roll it or act like men and stomach it. Occasionally we decide that it's worth a shot. Maybe it isn't as bad as we remember? Wrong! It's the relic and we all hate it.
The relic is one of the missions that comes out of the 40k BRB meaning it should be pretty basic. The main idea behind the game type is something that I love. What the game breaks down to is capture the flag for miniatures. I used to even say that this would be a really cool homebrew game type back in 5th edition but I never came up with anything for it. For some reason though, I just cannot stand playing the relic no matter what army I'm fielding or my opponent is bringing.
The Pros-
It all seems pretty straight forward. Grab that relic and run. What it turns into is two forces clashing in the middle just ripping one another part with tons of close combat, rapid fire and overwatch. Don't even get me started on how fun this makes templates of all types. Flamers burn the Xenos, Doomsday Cannons remove handfuls of marines, and Frag Missiles really get to force some armor saves.
This even creates an interesting battlefield for armies like Imperial Guard and Tau that may prefer to sit back on their firing lines, they have to move up if they hope for victory points other than secondary objectives. Making those weak infantry come out of their safe cover and transports really forces you to think differently. Having you react to new situations like this is exactly what makes a good general out of you.
The relic really begs for lots of blood. What I love about this is it can really force people out of strategies like castleing up and just laying waste into their opponent from a far and into to something a bit less favorable for them. And when it comes to armies that can control deployment like Daemons or Drop Pod Marines, they're not at as huge as an advantage as one might think. As long as you take a transport it is more than easy to be on top of that relic on turn two as it would be for those armies.
The Cons-
Now with all those kind words about the relic you might be wondering how we could ever have anything negative to say about it. What it really comes down to is the secondary objective first blood. In nearly every game of the relic we've ever played it turns out to be nothing but a race to pull all scoring units of the board and then complete the secondary objectives. It feels much less like we're trying to gain access to this relic and take it back to cover. I would even say it a fair amount of our games that relic doesn't move much from the center of the board at all.
The other major issue we tend to see with the relic is it really makes games predictable. At the end of every last relic game, we're all rushing towards that center one and only objective to try and claim it in the name of some god or empire. With the objective always being in the same place, albeit it is the most fair option, it really creates a lot of monotony by every game starting in a very similar fashion.
While I have been warming up to the game type recently, I tend to find that the relic can be called by turn one or two by seeing who was able to manage wiping the first unit off of the board.
My name's XinZ and I've been dabbling in this hobby for about eight years now. I only joined the blogosphere recently, but I more than look forward to being around for quite awhile. http://theflyingpredator.blogspot.com/
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