Narrative Play Sustained Assault

Dear Archons,

yesterday I played my first Narrative Play mission from the vigilius book. We played the Storm the Lines (p.134) mission, where the attacker has the sustained assault rule.

I was the attacker and in the end, only 600 points of my 2k points army never died during the course of this battle, but in the last round I had 1850 points on the field, and in the round before 1500. I rolled average results on my reserve rolls, but having a 50% chance of getting back a unit is quite good.

Furthermore, the mission suggests that the attacker should have more points available if the armies are not matched in points. This does not make much sense to me because the attacker already seems to have an advantage.

To balance things a little bit we decided to give the defender a vengeance battery for free, but this didn't help much.

Did you at some point experience that the sustained assault rule seems too powerful or is it just because we are playing drukhari were this rule might help more than for other armies.

It's narrative play so the design team probably spent all of 30 minutes thinking about it before committing it to paper. Take that into consideration when you're pregaming.

It's possible that your army choice helped a bit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vigilus isn't just a single battle, it's a whole campaign, yeah? Written with specific factions in mind?

Yes, of course DE benefit more from sustained assault than most other armies because our units die and move fast, and it's narrative play which is not intended to be super balanced. But why do they advice that if the armies are not equal in points, the attacker with the sustained assault rule should be the stronger army?

Vigilius as rules for campaigns that add some extra rules to a mission. There are 2 x 5 missions in the book, where 5 are intended for specific factions while the other 5 can be played by any combination of factions.

We have been talking about how to rebalance this and I proposed that if a player gets the sustained assault rule, he also has to divide its army into 2 or 3 parts, that arrive in different battle rounds. This would add to the feeling that it's an endless assault and give the other guy some advantage.

What do you think could be done to rebalance this at least a little bit? (as good as possible for narrative play)

Most narrative games I find are written fairly poorly.

A couple ideas on how to balance out the sustained assault rule

Prepared positions: The defenders knew this day was coming. While they did not know when, they have been busy laying traps and preparing for it. All terrain pieces out side the defenders deployment zone may have booby traps. Every time an enemy unit enters or leaves a terrain piece, roll a die. On a 1, nothing happens, on a 2-5 that unit takes d3 mortal wounds, on a 6 they take d3+3.

Fire for Effect! The defensive guns don't need to see - they just need to keep shooting. With that many targets, they are sure to hit something... For every infantry unit not in the defenders deployment zone, roll a d6 at the start of the defenders turn. On a 4+, that unit takes d3 mortal wounds

Cut off the head! An army is only as good as it's leader. Cut of his head, and you cut off its. The attacker looses the Sustained Assault rule if their warlord is slain

Rise to the challenge! When the going gets tough, the tough buckle in and hold on tight. Every turn in which the Attacker brings on units through sustained assault, the defender gains an extra CP. If the Attacker brings 3 or more units on, the defenders gains d3 CP instead

Thanks, those rules are great, especially the cut off the head rule.

I will definitely use one of those (or multiple) in my next match with sustained assault.