OPEN PLAY

Open Play is a format of gaming that places the emphasis on the models in your collection. While other formats place restrictions on which units to include in your battlegroup, either defined by a specific story or by the need to play a precisely balanced or competitive game, Open Play allows you to field any models you wish. All you need to do is set up a battlefield, decide on a mission (which could be as simple as ‘Set up within 12” of your board edge, and wipe out the opposing battlegroup’) and start the first round! Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from adding some additional complexity – bringing in Stratagems from Matched Play, for example, or adding special rules based around your collections. With Open Play, the only restriction is your own imagination.

There are two types of players this approach might appeal to. Firstly, if you’re just starting out and only have a handful of models, Open Play is a great way to start playing straight away. It allows you to experiment with tactics and combinations, and get a taste for what models you might add to your collection next. Open Play can also be useful for when an experienced player is considering a new force and wants to get a taste for how it works, and so Open Play should not be regarded as a simplified, beginner-only option.

Many veteran wargamers prefer to use their own imagination and judgement when putting a force together, perhaps discussing with their opponent what they both want from a game and how best to achieve it. Such players regard points values and army restrictions as counter-productive and the beauty of Open Play is that it provides a common foundation for exploring this format and can even be used in pick-up games with new opponents.

With no formal restrictions on force composition in Open Play, it is recommended that players take the time to agree what they both want from an upcoming game. If one player is trying out a small force of recently-painted Knights for example, and the other wants to field every Warlord Titan in their collection, the game will likely be unsatisfactory for both parties. Therefore, a brief chat beforehand will not only save disappointment, but can lead to a very memorable experience indeed. That said, the aforementioned match-up could work very well with some thought put into the mission’s victory conditions – perhaps the Knights are fighting a rearguard action or scouting contested territory and they win not by inflicting losses on the foe, but by surviving for a certain number of rounds or escaping from a particular table edge.

Team Play

Open Play is particularly well-suited to large team battles. Later supplements will go into Team Play in more detail, but a simple way of playing would be to fight a battle where each player commands a number of Titans and/or Household Support units. Each player’s force has its own Princeps Seniores and, in addition, one player on each team should be designated the Princeps Tesarius, taking overall command of their combined forces.

Play proceeds as normal, with each team acting as a single player – for example, in the Movement phase, the teams alternate activating a unit and moving with it. The players on each team should decide the order in which they activate their units, but the Princeps Tesarius has the final say if a decision cannot be reached.

One consequence of Team Play is that players can take more time deciding what to do than actually playing. As such, a stopwatch or timer can optionally be used to keep things moving. When it is a team’s turn to activate a unit, they have 15 seconds to decide which unit will be activated – if they do not decide by then, the opposing team’s Princeps Tesarius chooses which of the team’s units is activated.