Mission Bonus Points

Although Eldar Fritz is a Blood Angel ally of convenience, I am not really sure about a supposed ally that cannot properly spell Mephiston. Remember to use the cleansing power of flame to deal with xenos filth or just crack open their face with the butt of your most righteous chainsword.

Let's break down this Fritz 40K article on mission bonus points:

We all know about building our army to capture objectives and complete mission goals, often taking at least six scoring units to accomplish this, just as we build our list with units taken to go out and remove opposing models and scoring units.

If you are following along at Yes the Truth Hurts, then it is not just six scoring units but some should also have transports to allow an extra layer of durability to them. Use those Assault Squad discounted razorbacks. Do not forget that you get that 35 point discount on Land Raiders too!

But do you build your list to capture the bonus points of slay the warlord, first blood, and line breaker?

This is what we are to discuss.

These are elements that you have to plan for, rather than victory points that you may or may not pick up along the way. Sure, they can break a tie and pull of a win for you, but more importantly they give you an alternative mission to winning the game.

Let's go over the conditions of each bonus point to give a starting point to the analysis. It is a huge assumption to assume that all three of these are equal in the ease of you accomplishing them and the competitiveness to achieve them as well as overall distraction and detraction to your main mission plan. I think the key word when looking at these is anticipation. The three mission bonuses will not be there for the taking every game, so you will need to be prepared to take advantage when opportunity arises. Fritz is thinking along the lines of tying up the opponent and cashing in on the bonus points when the opponent has already committed to the main mission and thus is unable to respond fast enough to the mission bonus points. Essentially, he is playing a different end game which hopefully works out in the final tally of points.

Slay the Warlord:

If, at the end of the game, the enemy's Warlord has been slain, you score 1 Victory Point. If the mission being played is Purge the Alien, then the enemy Warlord will, therefore, be worth 2 Victory Points in total.

Slay the warlord begins with my HQ choices- Eldrad and a generic seer since dual seers are now standard in running Eldar, or should I say trying to run Eldar in a competitive setting. This opens up mindwar access for two models who are going to be hunting those HQ choices. Most of the HQ choices we encounter are aggressive front line types- getting up there and wrecking face like Mepheston, etc. so threat and rage for the mindwar is never an issue since both seers are central on the table to support the rest of my warhost. 

Reading something like this might make you further consider protecting your warlord by placing him in reserve, giving him a unit to join or his own dedicated transport yet not lose battlefield effectiveness. Picking your HQ choice should be designed around your whole list, which may also include enemy warlord assassination but should not probably not be its primary function. Grabbing the Slay the Warlord point may not even always be possible or expedient, so it is essentially opportunistic.

First Blood:

The first unit, of any kind, to be removed as a casualty during the game is worth 1 Victory Point to the opposing player at the end of the game.

First blood is next, and is a dual fold strategy- we want to deny our opponent first blood, and take the point ourselves- and this is the most important of the three since it goes to either you or your opponent and not both in most cases.

Opponent concentrated fire when they have first turn can take this out of your hands pretty quickly, so the option may not even be there by the time it is your game turn. It is not going to be there reliably as a strategy.

Linebreaker:

If, at the end of the game, you have at least one model from one or more scoring or denial units in the enemy's deployment zone, you score 1 Victory Point.

And then we need a plan for the line breaker point, which is hard to score in some missions since by the end of the game both sides might not have much left in terms of models.

That pretty much says it right there. Blood Angels have some of the most resilient troops in the game with a Feel No Pain bubble around them although you do pay for it. Being prepared for The Scouring and Big Guns Never Tire missions will also help with this.

So what units do you have in your codex that you can dedicate to earning you these three secondary victory points?

First thing I ask myself after deployment is if I can beat the opposing army on the primary mission. Can I capture enough objectives to win? Most of the time, playing with pure Eldar (no allies) this is a very hard thing to do, especially given the point cost vs. usability of our troop choices. If I can’t take the field and capture the objectives I’ll then play my entire army for a tie on the primary- which is possible if my opponent is not aware of it. I throw everything in my army against their troops and scoring units first, while aggressively pursuing the secondary objectives- tie on the primary and win on the secondary.

Is this an advancement in list building or just refinement. I think this could be a step up in that it's an accounting of what my list needs to do.