Questions about rules & Eldar...

[Ze German]

Hello everyone!

By accident I rediscovered my ancient Space Crusade box over Christmas. Totally unplayable, unfortunately: in a real sorry state with figurines broken and parts missing... Nevertheless I got hooked up again, and it carried me away quite a bit. After a quick ebay search I found the best offer by a guy living two streets away - what a coincidence!

Now I need some help, though.
Back as a kid I never realized how poorly phrased some of the rules, event cards and equipments are.
For instance, how do other players handle the "marks of chaos" ?
They're either hardly useful (you pull an extra Orc), not really applicable (in missions with no reinforcements - where do they come in?), no use at all in missions where you get all reinforcement tokens) or super powerful (in missions where the alien players get all reinforcement tokens except dreadnaught - even one mark of chaos gives you a second dreadnaught).

Or "master controls" event card?
Who gets to control the doors: alien player or space marines? All space marines or one player only?

Many thanks in advance!

[Ze German]

Similar question about "Warlock's Warning" from the Eldar expansion:
It makes no sense to play it in the Eldar player's turn, like normal equipment cards, does it?
(The alien player would simply attack another Eldar Warrior - this way the card is close to useless)
If played it during the alien player's turn:
Does it have to be played before the actual attack / once the alien player announces the shot?
Can it be played after the dice are rolled (i.e. only in case of a fatal hit)?
Can it even be played after a hand-to-hand combat is lost...? (this way the card is very powerful)

Concerning the order card "Combined Fire":
Can the three shots of the shuriken canon or the two shots of the Exarch be combined?

Judging from other forums' discussions I guess it is widely agreed that Eldar warriors roll 3 white dice in hand to hand combat when they carry light weapons?
(as opposed to what's written on the Eldar reference chart)

[Gold Bearer]

Marks Of Chaos: We just played this one as written. Sometimes it means you get an extra dreadnought, sometimes nothing, depending on the mission. Never really saw it as a problem but you could house rule that you get to add a blank blip (I don't think there are any blank reinforcement tokens) as well or instead for every mark of chaos and roll a dice when it's revealed, 0 = Gretchin, 1 = Ork, 2 = Android, 3 = Roll again, 0 = Bolter Chaos Marine, 1 = Missile Launcher Chaos Marine, 2 = Chaos Commander, 3 = Dreadnought and roll again if you're using Mission Dreadnought, 0 = Mk VII, 1 = Mk VIII, 2 = Mk IX, 3 = Mk X.

Master Controls: It's for the marine players. We played this as the alien player picks a player and they can open or close any doors straight away and then carry on as normal but in the computer game the player could open and close any doors for the rest of the mission. The computer game is a bit different though, I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.

Warlocks Warning: Play this card to avoid death, after the dice have been rolled and they've actually died.

Combined Fire: This one's awkward. The only way that makes sense is that you can take some of the eldar's shots out of sequence, and you use one shot of a shuriken cannon. I'll give an example, you play the order at the start of your turn, a missile lancher moves and shoots normally, another missile launcher moves into position and you combine its shots with a shuriken cannon and las cannon that combines both its shots, you roll for all three separately and apply the combined score to the target square and add the missile launcher's highest dice to the las cannon's score on the squares they overlap. In other words each shoots normally and the scores are added together where they overlap. Now the missile launcher has had its turn, the las cannon can only move and the shuriken cannon has two shots and movement when it takes its turn.

Eldar Hand To Hand: That's not how I'd play it. The eldar are already really strong and the exarch uses 3W as standard with a force sword. After reading the rule book again it could be interpreted as the heavy weapon eldar get 3W, that would somewhat compensate for their massively reduced movement. Another method I like is that the eldar all get 3W if they're playing solo but 2W if they're with marines.

[Ze German]

Thanks!

While I agree that Eldar carrying heavy weapons are really slow I never thought of giving them 3W in hand-to-hand: making them stronger than the ones carrying light weapons seems odd to me...
Either way, as you say it is not straight-forward to give any Eldar 3W when that's what the exarch gets - however, the exarch probably has at least one card that boosts up his hand-to-hand abilities.

Some more questions, this time regarding the dreadnaught and / or weapons.
How do other people handle the plasma gun on a dreadnaught:
Is really on the left or on the right side, meaning that often the dreadnaught might not be able to attack opponents with it that are in full line of sight (even in the same corridor...)?
Or can the straight/diagonal line be drawn from any of the four fields covered by the dreadnaught?

Similar: taking cover behind a tarantula doesn't help against the plasma gun?

When firing Las-canon and tarantula: the player shooting them has to announce in advance (i.e. before rolling the dice) whether he'll concentrate the fire on one opponent or not?
Firing, then changing one's mind depending on the result of the dice is not allowed, I assume?
(I'd actually like to apply a similar rule to the assault gun: at least when you want to attack the dreadnaught you must announce it prior to rolling the dice. This way if one rolls 0-4, the shot is lost - it cannot be distributed on weaker opponents instead).

Please let me know how you play this, many thanks in advance!

[Gold Bearer]

There's two exarch cards that improve his hand to hand but the point is that even as standard the force sword should be better than the standard eldar. I think the exarch was probably going to have a better base stat for hand to hand but they lowered them all because they were overpowered and forgot to remove that part of the rules text.

Dreadnoughts can fire from any of the four squares I think, although it would make sense if they couldn't that would be a house rule.

Tarantulas give the gunner AV4 so with plasma guns I'd say it gives all the targets behind it AV4, behind a second tarantula would be AV6 then AV8 for a third.

With a las cannon and tarantula you have to decide how many shots you're going to use before firing. If you use more dice after that on the same target it's a separate shot.

With assault cannons you pick a target before rolling as you normally would and any left over score can be split how you like.

[Ze German]

Thanks again!

While I believe there are four Exarch cards for hand to hand (Distraction, Dire-Sword, Psychic Focus, Mighty Strike), I agree: 3W for light-weapon Eldar is somewhat odd if the Exarch also gets only 3W...

I appreciate you share my view on the assault gun!
However, I don't think that's what it says in the rule book:
Check page 11. Sounds to me like you can roll the dice, then freely split the hits...

[Gold Bearer]

Damn there were a lot of typos in my last post, fixed now.
I was just thinking of the two exarch cards that directly affect the hand to hand dice.
You might well be right about the assault cannon, it makes less sense though.
Some of the rules I'm thinking of were actually from the computer game, you had to pick a target first with the assault cannon.

[Ze German]

Once you start there seems to be no end...

1. In a multiplayer game with Eldar and Space Marines the alien player pulls event cards from both decks. Do both events happen (there might be a low chance of contradicting events...) ? Or does the alien player get to choose one?
I never considered option 2, then came across it in another forum...

2. Upon promotion the alien player can hold event cards. Does he have to play them eventually? Or can he shorten the game by not playing them...? (As above, option 2 was promoted in another forum)

3. Can missile launchers target empty fields?

4. I guess Space marines can block reinforcements by leaving a figure in line of sight of the entry points. Should all entry points be blocked and the alien player has no blip tokens & aliens left on the board (meaning he has to play 6 reinforcement tokens - see page 19): Nothing happens, I imagine - or does anyone interpret this as the alien player losing the game...?

[Gold Bearer]

1. Option 1.
2. Option 1 I think.
3. Yes!
4. Nothing happens.