Planetstrike -- A Review

Posted by Ranillon on 8. July 2009 22:17

As any self-respecting 40K fan already knows Games Workshop just released Planetstrike, their new expansion book.  With it comes a number of new building models.  The question is whether or not the rules and/or models are any good.

What’s Good

The first thing that hits you when flipping through the Planetstrike book is that it enjoys the same great production value common to GW products.  The rulebook includes extensive rules, lots of great and inspirational pictures, and loads of source material.  At just $25 the book is worth picking up just for the reading value.

The rules are presented in a straightforward manner, although they are a bit “thick” (that is, make sure to read carefully or else you are bound to miss something).  The “Organizing a Battle” section goes step-by-step into everything you need to run a basic game of Planetstrike – setting up each side, choosing stratagems, and all the special rules involved.

The basic rules are both what is good and bad (more on the second below) with the book.  Unlike most similar GW efforts there are no points values for anything.  So, for instance, it is not the case that a defender buys his fortifications or even that he receives fewer troops in exchange.  Instead, you choose the type and number of the fortifications you like.  They are balanced out by giving the attacker various advantages.  For example, a wide range of attacking units may now Deep Strike while those that already have the ability can land and assault in the same turn.  Likewise, the attacker receives a preliminary bombardment while being able to fill his force chart with more non-troop units if he wishes.  In fact, he doesn’t have to take any troops at all, which is okay as in Planetstrike any unit – even if it only has one lone soul left! – can claim objectives.  The book also includes a number of different missions that tinker with the basic rules of Planetstrike to provide new experiences.

An important part of the rules are stratagems – Planetstrike comes with eleven pages of them!  These are split up into various groups, some which can be picked by anyone, some just by the attacker or defender, and some only by specific armies.  Both sides receive one stratagem “point” for every objective on the table, you can only buy a certain stratagem once, and there are many that cost more than one “point”.  Examples of attacker stratagems include “Dawn Assault” where the game uses the Night Fight rules and “Planetquake Bomb” where every non-vehicle unit (both sides!) must test for pinning and all bastions take a strength 10 hit! 

As nice as the book may be arguably the models are even better.  The three primary new Planetstrike box sets are the Aegis Defense Line (only $20!), the Bastion ($30), and the Skyshield Landing Pad ($40).  I’ve bought examples of the first two and they are excellent so I assume the Pad is as well.  The Aegis comes with a bunch of defense emplacements – units using them get a 4+ cover save or a whopping 2+ if they go to ground – and a quad autocannon in a mount.  The Bastion has two primary sections, one of which has defense guns on each side, and a mounted super lascannon (same boom, greater range) to go on top.

What’s really nice about these first two sets is that they are in many ways interchangeable.  The gun mounts for either can be freely exchanged, meaning you can place quad autocannons on top of your bastions and lascannons down with the troops.  The bastions are also modular allowing you to easily combine multiple sets into larger and larger structures.  For example, you could build a tower six levels high or a high wall across the entire battlefield.  The modeling possibilities are quite extensive.

The Not Good

Given how excellent the Planetstrike book and the associated model sets are it is rather shocking to realize just how basic – in my opinion – a mistake Games Workshop made in designing the rules.  The error can be reduced down to a single statement:  None of the new models come with point values.

At first this may not sound like much of a sin.  After all, the scenario rules (theoretically) take care of any force imbalances by giving the attacker a slew of advantages.  However, this “user friendly” version of setting up a game comes with a lot of potential drawbacks, problems that assigning points values could have addressed (if not solved).  After all, Warhammer 40K is a game built on the concept that everything has a points value which in turn can be used to properly contrast and compare the combat effectiveness of various units.  For that reason alone it is odd that GW decided to chuck the idea out an air lock.  Why fix something that ain’t broke?

As a result of this decision Planetstrike sets itself up for abuse.  The application of defense structures within the game is quite vague, allowing the defender to potentially take as many as he wants.  This is partially balanced out by the rule that bastions always count as objectives (therefore giving the attacker more pregame firestorm barrages), but a sly defender could pick his fortifications with care and get around this.

I realize that Planetstrike was written in the spirit of “just have fun” and if one player wants to make sure no one has any he can do so regardless of the rules.  However, in my experience most disagreements between players are a matter of misunderstandings, not deliberate attempts to ruin the game.  So, for instance, the defender may show up with a truck load of fortifications based purely on the expectation such is the “established” way for him to be victorious.  Likewise, an attacker with different expectations may bristle at the presence of more than a few sets of fortifications.  Without points values to help make sure each side has a fair amount of stuff hard feelings are a constant danger.

The lack of points for fortifications also makes it nigh impossible to mix and match the new sets with regular 40K games and, most especially, Apocalypse.  Having bastions and defense lines is a natural addition to the latter (forgeworld even has rules for fortifications in Apocalypse), but even in regular 40K pickup games a player could spice things up by replacing a tank with a bastion or including a few stationary defense guns.  Without listed points values you can’t really do this – and, frankly, “just make things up” is a poor way to resolve this sort of issue.

This problem also makes it hard to take up the suggestion given in Planetstrike to build extensive fortresses (something that the bastion kit itself encourages).  The rules for using large fortifications are vague at best and a bit clunky even if you discount the points value issue.  For instance, a one level tower is just as robust a structure as a ten level tower.  Technically speaking each is just single building requiring just one good hit to bring down.  You can mitigate this by building horizontally (different horizontal sections of the same fortress count as different “buildings” for purposes of the rules), but shouldn’t going vertical be just as valid a game option?  Should I be punished because my conception of an imposing structure is more tall than wide?  Likewise, there are stats given for different guns that could come with a fortress, but no real standards for their use.  Is taking a bastion with a missile silo really just as fair as one with a heavy bolter?

If nothing else you’d expect having point values to help with sales.  Why restrict a whole range of new sets to just one narrow range of possible applications when you can instead provide a new experience for the game as a whole?

A related issue is that to properly play Planetstrike you really do need for at least one player to pay out for fortifications.  A defender without any is pretty much dead meat and the Planetstrike format assumes there is always an attacker and a defender.  This requirement may sound utterly natural, but consider this – while Apocalypse encourages players to collect super-heavy tanks it doesn’t actually require that they do in order to play.  You can have a perfectly enjoyable Apoc battle with everyone using only units you would see in a standard game of 40K.  By comparison, Planetstrike insists that you spring for those super-heavies – or, in this case, for fortifications.  Likewise, there are no real rules for playing with more than two players, although it wouldn’t be too hard to just wing it.

The Sum Total

I like the book and especially the new fortification models far too much to give Planetstrike a bad review.  The game has a lot of potential.  I am just mystified by the decision to exclude point totals.  It suggests that the expansion was hurried into production or that the designers were just lazy and didn’t want to worry about balancing point values.  It’s a decision that needlessly increases the chance of arguments and limits the uses of the models.

My recommendation therefore is to buy the game, but keep in mind that issues of debate can easily pop up.