Karnaro - Dead Man Walking

Yes, it's true. I'm absolutely in love with small scale 40k.

There tends to be a large bias amongst gamers that "bigger equals better" when it comes to armies. More points means more models, more models means more power. /timallen

What larger games tend to lose is a sense of scale. To me, 40k has always been about squad based combat, units of troops engaging in firefights and taking objectives. A large army tends to lose this feeling, where a smaller game puts the emphasis back on individual squads instead of the army as a whole. Losing a squad in a large game is a small loss in firepower, losing that same squad in a Combat Patrol can be a devastating blow. You'll be much more careful to soundly think about your every move when you've got to place a large portion of your force at risk with every action.

I've always been an advocate of narrative based games, and Combat Patrol offers an easy way to put a little back story into your gaming. A few pieces of dense terrain and you've got the perfect place for the forces of Chaos to ambush a passing Imperial Guard patrol. A fortified building is the perfect place for the remnants of a beleaguered Space Marine company to fight off the endless Tyranid horde. You get the idea, a little bit of back story and suddenly the 15 marines you're fielding have every reason to fight tooth and nail to survive.

Combat Patrol offers something many people overlook in their gaming. I'm not above tossing all my models onto the table and having an epic city spanning fight (And you can be fairly certain I'll be blogging about the joys that Apocalypse has to offer eventually), but there's something about getting back to the small scale roots 40k is based on.

Go on, give it a shot.