Crusade: Pariah Nexus | Narrative Campaign Supplement Review | 40K 10th Edition (2024)

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So, here we go! Our second Crusade supplement for Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition (the first being Tyrannic War which came out on it’s own and within the core rulebook within the Leviathan box).

In a strange turn of fate, this next Crusade book takes us back to the Pariah Nexus which was the main stomping ground of the previous edition of the game.

Our thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a copy of this book to review!

What is the Pariah Nexus?

For those new to the game of Warhammer 40,000 since the launch of 10th Edition and the Leviathan box, then you’ll be forgiven for wondering what the Pariah Nexus is.

In short it was a section of space that was the home of the main narrative when 9th Edition launched. It focused on the Necrons as the main villainous force and featured the resource called Blackstone at the heart of the conflict as the forces of the Imperium battled the returning Silent King.

Games Workshop have decided to return to this setting with this book. The lore has moved on, so you’ll find brand new lore within this book. Whilst many forces of the Imperium are involved (including the Adeptus Astartes, Adepta Sororitas and the Astra Militarum) it is (for the purposes of the lore moving forward) the Adeptus Mechanicus who take centre stage against the Necrons.

The book does a fantastic job of bringing you up to speed on the events happening within the Pariah Nexus, and then drives the narrative forward. The writing is excellent and features some really big, key players including the Archmagos Cawl, Lord-Inquisitor Draxus, Imotekh the Stormlord, The Silent King and even a certain Chaos Space Marine character by the name of Vashtorr…

A really enjoyable read, interlaced with some fantastic artwork.

What is Crusade?

Crusade is another way to play Warhammer 40,000. Crusade is Narrative driven, with the story at the heart of your games rather than the competitive elements of matched play Warhammer 40k.

The basic Crusade rules are free and can be downloaded from Warhammer Community (don’t worry though if you don’t have a printer, as this supplement also contains the basic Crusade rules). Supplements such as this one give you a ready-made narrative that you can leave as it is or tweak for you and your friends. It also gives you additional rules, upgrades and other bonuses to unlock and use as you play through the campaign.

Pariah Nexus (and Tyrannic War) can be played standalone or you could even continue your Crusade armies throughout each one, as your units become veterans of these conflicts.

The Nephilim War: Pariah Nexus Crusade Rules

So with some nice fluffy writing behind us, along with the core Crusade rules, it’s time to delve in to the new gameplay elements and, let’s face it, the real reason you are reading this review and potentially be spending your hard earned cash on it.

First and foremost, whilst the background of the conflict has the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Necrons scrapping it out over Blackstone, do not panic if you have no interest in either of those factions, as any of the armies in Warhammer 40k can play out this campaign.

Blackstone Fragments

The main gameplay element is the inclusion of Blackstone Fragments. The goal across the campaign is to obtain as much of these as possible.

These fragments can be used to upgrade your units with Battle Honours or can be traded in to unlock special relics and weapons, or even as simple XP for your heroes. Alternatively, if you are playing this campaign using Alliances (more on this later) the resource could determine who wins the campaign.

Blackstone Upgrades

So what kind of upgrades can your characters obtain as you battle through the missions? Well…let’s take a peak at some of the Battle Honours and Relics up for grabs:

• Single-Minded Seeker: For 10 fragments your Warlord can obtain this honour. At the end of the battle you roll a D6, and on a 6, you obtain 3 fragments (adding 2 to the roll should you have won the game).
• Blackstone Amulet: 20 fragments, so it’s an expensive relic, however each time an attack is allocated to the bearer on an unmodifed save roll of a 6 it bounces a mortal wound back at the attacker. If it was a Psychic attack it triggers on a 5+ instead.
• Noctilith Armament: Again, 20 fragments, but you get a killer one per battle ability. This modifies one of your melee weapons and grants you a once per battle ability to ignore invulnerable saves for a phase. Ouch.

Battle Traits

As your Characters, Vehicles, Infantry or Mounted units gain experience fighting through this campaign, rather than earning Battle Traits from the core Crusade rules you can instead roll on the Battle Traits for this campaign.

There is a vast array of options here, ranging from giving your characters the ability to gain the Infiltrators keyword, +3 to their Objective Control and free re-rolls to Hit if your Character is duking it out with an enemy Character.

Monsters and Vehicles also get some cool honours, like, for example a 6+ Feel No Pain, free rerolls to Wound on 1s (if targeting another Monster or Vehicle) or even once per battle turn an allocated Damage roll to a 0 ability.

Crusade Relics

Fragment upgrades are one thing, but how about some general Crusade relics? Theirs some campaign ones to unlock in here. Some of them being very cool!

Like the core Crusade relics, these come in three ranks. Artificer, Antiquity and Legendary. Let’s check out two of each:

• Veil of Ancients: Bearer has a 4+ Invulnerable Save
• Armour of the Soulless Sentry: Improve the Save and Toughness stat of the bearer by 1.
• Noctiith Sigil: Unit gains a Feel No Pain save of of 4+ against Psychic Attacks.
• Dolmen Key: The bearer and the unit gain Deep Strike and can use the Rapid Ingress stratagem for free.
• Blade of the Dynast: Improves one melee weapon. Add 1 to the Strength, Damage and and AP.
• Noctic Shield: Improve the bearers Toughness and number of Wounds by 1.

Crusade Blessings

In games of Crusade, if things aren’t going quite to plan and you end up as the Underdog then you may need a leg up. That is where Blessings come in.

Theirs a series of Pariah Nexus blessings here which should hopefully even out the odds a tad.

High Strategy for example, grants you an additional 2 CP at the start of the game, Blackstone Bounty gives you 1 Blackstone fragment just for finishing the game (and an additional one if you won!) whilst Fortune Favoured once per battle round gives you a free Command Re-Roll (at least that is until your Warlord is destroyed).

Agendas

The Pariah Nexus Agendas are quite similar to the core ones, albeit each one offers an additional Blackstone fragment reward, as well as XP.

There is however a Blackstone driven Agenda, Recover the Blackstone Data.

It’s simply an Action that can be done by an Infantry or Mounted unit (that is not Battleshocked) and is within range of an Objective Marker. You then roll a D6. On a 6 the unit doing the Action gains 2XP and the army gains 1CP or on a 4-5 the unit simply gains 1XP. For each XP gained you also gain a Blackstone Fragment.

Another cool Agenda is Re-Establish Communication. Your opponent selects an objective marker at the start of the battle to be a Comms Relay. If you control that at the end of the game with a Character model then that model gains 4XP and you also gain 4 Blackstone Fragments.

Crusade Badges

If you manage to successfully complete a number of specific achievements you can unlock Crusade badges, which you could print and cut out, and then add to your Crusade roster should you wish! Slightly oddly, these are only achievable if you are playing the game with Alliances (I promise, we are getting to Alliances!) but you and your opponent can easily just unlock these solo.

As an example of how to unlock the Seeker Adepts Crusade badge your army will have needed too:

• Gained 10 or more Blackstone Fragments
• Won Three or More games during the campaign
• Purchase 2 or more Blackstone upgrades

Campaign Master & Forming Alliances

Ideally, if you are going to run a campaign you want someone who is going to make the main narrative decisions. This person is called the Campaign Master. If you are only planning to play with one other player than you can easily get away with not having one, but I highly recommend that any more than two players then you nominate someone to be the Campaign Master.

The first thing the Campaign Master can do is to choose to form Alliances. Again this really depends on how many people are getting involved in the campaign. The game supports from just two players, to over a dozen, so you could easily get a gaming club involved.

Their are three different types of Alliances, and whilst they have recommend factions, they aren’t strict and the Campaign Master can work the narrative around the factions of the players involved. The most important thing is to ensure the Alliances have roughly the same number of players involved.

• Seekers: This alliance is seeking the Blackstone in order to put an end to the Stilling (as well as potentially for their own ends). The book recommends Imperium factions for this one.
• Protectors: This alliance is for those factions seeking to protect the Blackstone or have their own goals for the Noctolith. The Necrons are recommended for this one.
• Interlopers: This final alliance is aimed for those who wish to carve their own path, and have their own reasons for being involved. The book uses Chaos (seeking to use the Stilling as cover), Aeldari & Orks (for their own raiding reasons).

Campaign Length

The book recommends running the campaign over 2 weeks and to have an equal amount of games per the number of players involved. Remember these are only guidelines, as you may struggle to get that many games in to just 2 weeks. The goal is to set sensible goals and timeframes.

Campaign Phases

The next few pages get into the real meat and potatoes of scoring, working out who is the underdog, scoring Strategic Points (which will ultimately play a big part in who wins overall).

All this forms part of the Campaign Phase (almost like the Command Phase I guess!). Once all the points and such have been worked out, each Alliance then gets the opportunity to purchase upgrades both for their Crusade force, as well as their Alliance, whilst involves a bit of teamwork!

The Alliance Upgrades only last for a battle, and once chosen are then locked out for everyone for the remainder of the campaign, making them incredibly valuable! You’ve got upgrades such as Supply Surplus (every Alliance member gets 3 Requisition Points each), Might of Antiquity (each Alliance member picks a Hero, but not an Epic Hero, and then gets to give them a Crusade relic) and Orbital Bombardment (once per battle, at the start of your shooting phase, you can call down an Orbital Bombardment, potentially dishing out D3 mortal wounds to multiple enemy units).

Strategic Footing

Following the Campaign Phase it’s then time to work out your Alliance’s Strategic Footing.

This was recently explained in a Warhammer Community post, which I have linked here, and have included the box-out on how the pairings work below:

Battleplans

Finally, to wrap up the book, we have 15 (FIFTEEN!) different battleplans to play through.

Every one of them is unique, with a fantastic variety of objectives and deployment maps, and honestly are a Campaign Masters dream. You can easily forge together your games based on how the narrative is going amongst the Alliances using these battleplans. They all seem super fun!

Summary

All in all, I’m really impressed with this Crusade supplement. Its comprehensive, includes all the rules you need to run a successful campaign, has lots of cool additional mechanics, is easily adaptable depending on the amount of players who wish to take part and most importantly…feels super fun to play through.

I really want to get the rest of the guys to run through Pariah Nexus with me, as it feels like the perfect way to start and finish a well structured campaign in a timely manner, whilst having the maximum amount of fun!

I wonder if the next Crusade book takes us to another historical 40k conflict that is still ongoing out in the galaxy? Or potentially we’ll move on to a brand new conflict? Who knows, but I’m looking forward to finding out!

Crusade: Pariah Nexus is up for preorder right now. Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us a copy to review. Again, if you fancy preordering this, please consider using one of our Element Games affiliate links!