Today we're happy to finally release v3.5 of our games!

This release was only possible thanks to all of the feedback given to us by our lovely community over the beta period, and we're excited to update the games how you told us that you like them. This process once again has highlighted the incredible collaborative process that OPR is, and how fans get to shape the games they love to play.

We're going to try to keep this post a brief as possible, but ultimately the rules will speak for themselves, so if you are too excited to read, you can go and get playing right now. All of our PDFs on the OPR Website, Patreon, and DTRPG/WGV have been updated, as well as all of the armies on Army-Forge, and as always this is all completely free!

What is New?

Over the course of development the scope of this update has changed a lot, but ultimately the main goal has been to give you lots of new toys to play with. This means new units, new upgrades, new special rules, and much more.

This update mainly focuses on adding new stuff to the armies, so the Core Rules are staying the same, and the game is still played the same way. There have been some slight tweaks to language in the Core Rules, and there have been some updates to some of the common special rules, but nothing that changes how you play.

If you play Quest or Star Quest, those games have received some major balance tweaks in their Core Rules and Campaign Builder, but the games are also still played the same way.

Special Rules Names & Aliases

Before we get into specifics about army updates, let's quickly talk about special rules names and aliases.

In v3.4 armies relied heavily on rules aliases, which means that there were dozens of versions of the exact same rule with a different name, which became very confusing, especially for new players. With v3.5 we've decided to remove rules aliases, as well as re-name lots of rules to have clearer names, as well as following patterns that make it easy to understand what a rule does by just reading its name.

As part of this process, we've also changed the names of lots of rules to be more generic, so that players that build custom armies have an easier time finding a way to use special rules on a variety of units. That being said, rules aliasing is still in the system, so players can still use them for custom armies, but official armies don't use aliased rules (except for army-wide rules, which is max. one per army).

General Updates to All Armies

One of the key goals of this update was to make sure that all armies have something special to them. In v3.4 a lot of players felt that armies were feeling a bit samey, and that some armies got more love than others. With v3.5 we're pushing a general suite of updates across all armies, to make sure everyone gets some fun toys to play with.

There are too many changes to go through every single army, so we recommend you closely inspect your own army to see exactly what changed, but generally speaking, this is what is being updated in all armies:

• All armies now have an army-wide rule, and some army-wide rules were changed
• All armies have some new weapons and special rules to play with
• All armies now have more and re-worked hero auras
• All armies now have new and re-worked spell lists

This combination of army-wide rules, new special rules, new hero auras, and re-worked spell lists now makes each army much more unique than before, giving you an enhanced play experience. We're going to keep working on this in the future, tweaking and adding more features over time to make each army feel unique.

Key Highlights & Point Costs

Whilst there are a ton of tiny things that have been tweaked on all the various armies that we could talk about forever, here we're going to touch on just a few of the major changes that will affect most players, and explain why these are happening:

• Undead - We are removing Undead as an army-wide rule across all games, and the armies that had it will be able to access it as a hero aura instead. This rule is messing with the game too much, where it feels too punishing for casual play, and too powerful for competitive play.
• Daemon - We are removing Daemon as an army-wide rule across all games, and the armies that had it will be able to access Ambush as a hero aura instead. This is another rule that is messing with the game too much, and was changed based on player feedback.
• Rending/Poison - We are removing Rending/Poison as army-wide weapon rules across all games, and the armies will have a similar equivalent on their weapons instead. Having entire armies that can ignore regeneration completely invalidates taking anything with regeneration, which leads to less interesting army lists.
• Aircraft/Lock-On - We are removing the -1 to hit penalty when targeting Aircraft, because they're generally considered to be too survivable. We're also tweaking Lock-On to be more universally usable, so that players are encouraged to take those weapons not only to target Aircraft.
• Move Orders - We are removing all instances of rules that allow you to flat out move another unit by 6". This rule is simply too significant where it makes every army with it much better than any army without it, and it generally messes with the flow of the game.
• Artillery - We are re-working all artillery units to have a specific Artillery rule, which makes them immobile but gives them +1 to hit at range. Many armies now also have access to artillerists that allow them to re-position artillery, so you can combo them for maximum efficiency.
• Swarms - We are increasing the Quality of all swarms to 5+ and removing Ambush and Fearless from them. Swarms are currently too cheap and too durable, plus being able to Ambush them makes them far too flexible, to the point where any army with swarms is much better than any army without them.

Besides that, there were general point cost tweaks across the board, mainly to try and make sure that armies still remain playable at our standard game sizes, as well as to address the high cost of Tough units. It's important to note that due to the amount of tweaks and new army-wide rules, some units will simply cost more/less than they did before, because the mathematical ratios have changed.

Patch Notes

Alright, now that we've spoken about all the major points, here's some patch notes for you. Note that for armies we've only highlighted only a few of the key changes to them, but they're all getting lots of new toys in the form of army-wide rules, new weapons, special rules, auras, spells, etc. (make sure to check out your army in AF to see everything that's changed).

CORE RULES

• Clarified the language between seizing and controlling objectives
• Rules that required "most models" to have them now require "all models" to have them
• Aircraft now doesn't give -1 to hit rolls anymore
• Entrenched was re-worked into the Artillery rule
• Lance was re-named to Thrust
• Lock-On was re-named to Unstoppable, and now ignores Regeneration and all negative modifiers
• Poison was re-named to Bane
• Relentless now works when shooting at enemies over 9" away
• Scout wording was tweaked to better interact with other rules
• Sniper was re-worked into the Takedown rule (sniper rifles now have Reliable + Takedown)
• Surge was added to the core rules
• Tough was clarified so that heroes must always be assigned wounds last, even if wounded
• Transport was clarified so that units inside/outside can't target others outside/inside
• AoFR: Ambush now requires placement over 9" away from enemy units
• Note: All Narrative Campaigns and Mission Packs were updated to match

BEGINNER'S GUIDE

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Clarified that unit actions are taken during an activation (so units can use rules before picking an action)
• Clarified the language between seizing and controlling objectives
• Further clarified what being idle means in the morale section
• Added a note about rules timing and how to handle disputes in the rules priority section
• Elevated terrain now allows a 3" coherency to models on different elevation if they can't fit
• GFF/AoFS: Clarified that wounds are only resolved after attacks from all weapons have been resolved

ADVANCED RULES

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Clarified the language between seizing and controlling objectives
• Deployment Styles (GF) - Fixed incorrect measurements on Tactical Push deployment
• Extra Missions - Clarified that objective markers are dropped within 1" of the destroyed unit
• Advanced Casting - Clarified that Linked Jumpgates/Voidgates can be used by anyone
• Unit Psychology - Added a new Intimidation rule to simulate objective control
• Command Points - Disrupted Sight now gives -1 to hit rolls
• Twists & Gambits - Re-worked the All-out-Assault twist to provide different VPs per objective
• Multiplayer Games - Free-for-All turn order is now works the same way as it does when playing regular games
• Massive Battles (AoFR) - Artillery can now be combined into units of [3]
• Note: All Narrative Campaigns and Mission Packs were updated to match

EXPANSIONS

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Mission Cards - New mission cards designs are available, including separate cards for skirmish games
• Campaigns - Clarified that players don't have to bring all their units to a game
• Campaigns - Clarified that dead units lose all their points
• Campaigns - Clarified that heroes attached to units also earn XP with the unit
• Campaigns - Clarified that heroes get Skill Traits on top of regular Traits
• Campaigns - Clarified that disbanding only serves as a way to remove unwanted units from armies
• Tournament Guidelines - Completely re-worked to be more in line with official tournament packs
• Note: All Narrative Campaigns and Mission Packs were updated to match

NARRATIVE CAMPAIGNS

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Added info about each campaign's respective saga, and which book in the series it is
• Secrets of Tixal - Generally tweaked missions with rules that affect the entire table
• Secrets of Tixal - Mission 4: Adjusted the Afterquakes rule to apply on 5+
• Assault on Malhadra - Mission 6: Defender now scores 1 VP for each objective
• Out of the Shadows - Mission 9: Stalker Ambush now spawns half of the reserves

TOURNAMENT PACKS

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Re-worked the format of the pack so page 1 is for organizers and page 2 is for players
• Removed all optional content, with an exception on optional army structure
• Players are now paired in order of TPs and overall VPs
• All scenarios now feature side-missions to score extra VPs
• In case of a tie, the tournament is won by the player that scored most VPs across all matches

QUEST/STARQUEST

• Generally fixed typos and grammar, and updated everything to the latest standard
• Heroes now have Power that the spend instead of Stress that they suffer
• Tweaked all instances of spending stress, and added a reference of the most common ways to spend it
• Unconscious heroes now don't bleed out anymore, and models are automatically revived after missions
• Heroes may now attempt skill actions multiple times
• Clarified that enemies with ranged and melee weapons will use whichever is strongest and in range
• Ambushing enemies are now placed with 6" of the AI goal
• Tweaked length of chapters, difficulty, alertness, injuries, levelling, search tokens, and optional challenges
• Heroes now have the option to get -1 Qua, +2 Ski, +2 Pow
• Trickster and Multiply now only place one marker
• Rage, Concentrate, Dark Warding, and Power Elixir/Injector now give +2 to the roll (instead of turning it into a 2+ roll)
• Skills that restored D3 power now restore D3+1 power
• Certain rules that used to be limited to work "once per game" now work "until the first wave of reinforcements"
• Players can now increase difficulty up to 10
• Note: All Narrative Campaigns were updated to match

GRIMDARK FUTURE

Alien Hives

• New units: Grunt Veteran
• Heroes now have access to auras
• Synapse Tyrant is not a Hero anymore
• Heavy Beasts now have Tough(15) to fit better in standard games
• Hive Titan was re-worked to include two new Emissary options

Battle Brothers

• Detachments can now take Artillery Guns

Custodian Brothers

• New units: Veteran Master Custodian, Veteran Custodian Brothers

DAO Union

• New unit: Security Grunts

Dwarf Guilds

• New units: Mine-Bot Guard
• Added new weapon options to Attack Vehicle and Artillery Gun

Goblin Reclaimers

• New units: Death Walker Champ, Killer Tank Champ

Havoc Brothers

• New unit: Change Brothers Sentinel Walker

Human Defense Force

• New unit: Tank Company Leader

Human Inquisition

• New units: Inquisitorial Officer, Breacher Guard, Riot Judges, Combat Vehicle
• Assassin Heroes were re-worked into Tough(3) units to fit better in standard games
• All units were heavily re-worked to be more usable

Prime Brothers

• New units: Grave Destroyers, Prime Drop Pod, Wolf Brothers Great Hunting Wolves

Saurian Starhost

• New unit: Vulturedactyls

Soul-Snatcher Cults

• Re-worked Elite Snatchers into Mutant Soul-Snatchers

Titan Lords

• New unit: Vassal Micro-Titan
• Heavily re-worked upgrade options across all titans

Wormhole Daemons

• Heroes now have access to auras
• Ambush can now be bought as a Hero aura, and some units now have Scout instead
• Added new ranged weapons to shooting units to make them more competitive at range

AGE OF FANTASY

Chivalrous Kingdoms

• New unit: Pledge Knights

Deep-Sea Elves

• New unit: Crab Swarms

Ghostly Undead

• All heroes now have access to auras
• Ethereal was heavily re-worked

Giant Tribes

• New unit: Half-Giant
• Heavily re-worked upgrade options across all giants

Goblins

• New unit: Great Wolf Riders

Havoc Brothers

• New units: Infernal Shooters, Bull Construct

Havoc Warriors

• New unit: Barbarian Hunters
• Barbarian units now all have Scout

Kingdom of Angels

• All Angel units are now much more customizable

Mummified Undead

• Death Casket was re-worked to not be Artillery
• Skeleton Chariots now have Qua 4+

Ogres

• Fang-Beast Riders now have more useful command upgrades

Ossified Undead

• New units: Great Stalker, Reapers

Saurians

• New unit: Vulturedactyls

Sky-City Dwarves

• New unit: Balloon Hunters

Once again we'd like to thank our awesome community for helping shape v3.5 and the future of our games. We hope that you enjoy this update, and are looking forward to your feedback.

For the future, there might be a hotfix patch in a month if we catch any major grammatical errors that need immediate fixing, but otherwise we'll be doing quarterly updates to armies as always, and the next book update will only be in a year from now. We've got lots of things planned for the future, so keep your eyes peeled.

Happy Wargaming!

– OPR Team

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