Battle setup

After determining the Primary- and Secondary Objectives, both players roll a D6 (a 6-sided dice, see Dice in the Definitions and Terminology chapter), rolling again until one player rolls higher. The player who rolls the highest, decides which player will be the Defender; the other player will be the Attacker.

The Defender chooses their Deployment Zone.

The Defender now performs all their Pre-game Selections.

After this the Attacker makes all their Pre-game Selections.

Spell Swapping

A common Pre-game Selection is for Casters to swap spells, using the following rules:

  • Hereditary Swap: Every Wizard may replace one of its Learned Spells with the Hereditary Spell from its Army Book.

  • Universal Swap: A single Caster in your Army List may replace one of its chosen spells with another spell it could have chosen in its place. This does not let a Caster change the Path of Magic initially selected in 1.B. Spell Selections. (If the Caster did not select a Path of Magic, then this is not relevant.)

Starting with the Attacker, players then take turns deploying their units fully inside their own Deployment Zone following the Unit Spacing rule (Unit Spacing is defined in the Definitions and Terminology chapter). On each of their deployment turns, a player can deploy any number of units, but must deploy at least one unit.

Any Attachable Model that wishes to begin the game joined to a unit must be deployed inside and simultaneously with that unit.

When one player has Deployed their whole army, that player immediately chooses who has the first Player Turn. This does not include units that can, and choose to be deployed during the Game Turns (such as units with Ambush).

Since finishing deployment first allows you to choose which player has first Player Turn, a common practice is to deploy your entire army the first chance you get. Once your are more comfortable with the game, you will start weighing the strategic benefits from knowing where the opponent’s troops are deployed against the advantage of choosing who has the first player turn.

Rules and Abilities of Undeployed Units

Until being deployed, units cannot perform any actions at all, and all their Magic Items, rules, and abilities not related to their deployment don’t work, unless specifically stated otherwise.

Undeployable Units

In the unlikely event that a unit cannot be deployed during the Deployment Phase for whatever reason (e.g. if there is not enough space in the player’s Deployment Zone), the unit counts as Destroyed and is removed as a casualty, unless specifically stated otherwise.

The Defender must choose a single of its deployed units to gain Vanguard(3"). This unit cannot contain any Characters. Remember a unit that already has Vanguard may still be chosen, the effects are just not cumulative.

Now units with Vanguard have a chance to perform their pre-game move. Starting with the unit that the Defender chose for Defender's Advantage.The players then alternate moving units one by one, until all units that can and wants to have done so.

Remember that as per the Vanguard rule, no model can move further than 12", or within 6" of an enemy unit. See Model Rules for further details.