A Fistful of Crowns
By Ian
I’m letting you in on a secret: I wanted to save this article for later on in the life of the blog, but it’s so fundamental to so many of the large games our group plays that I had to publish it early.
Crowns are an alternative mode of Command Point (CP) generation and spending that is fun for big team games. You can certainly use it in smaller formats, but I wouldn’t recommend it for 1 vs 1.
So do we all have to wear Crowns or what?
Crowns are part of the in-lore currency for 40k, described as coins of various denominations. It’s a big universe, so I’m sure there are other types of currency, but my understanding is Dan Abnett coined this one, so it’s literally gospel to me.
For games of 40k, each player is given a number of crowns at the beginning of the game equal to the number of starting CP, (which, in this mode, is usually consistent for each player). Crowns are represented by small wood coins sprayed gold and with a symbol on one side. You could use anything, but there should be a physical object that can be exchanged.
When one player spends one or more CP, they give that many crowns to the opposing side: if it’s a team game, they should be given to the player who the stratagem is targetting or to who on the opposing team is affected the most by it. These crowns can then be spent later by their new owner and so on and so forth. For team games, players can share, beg, or bargain for their teammates’ crowns.
Abilities that allow additional CP to be generated are typically ignored in this mode (though you can play them as taking a crown from the opponent). This should be communicated to players ahead of time so they don’t spend points on units or enhancements that generate extra CP. Abilities that increase the cost of Stratagems are used as normal.
Why use crowns
Having a physical representation of your CP is a lot of fun. This is a very tactile game: rolling dice, moving models, measuring distances. This adds another element to that experience. The badassery of tossing your opponent coins before triggering a deadly combo is amazingly fun. It also takes the sting out of being on the receiving end: sure I just lost a whole squad to that bullshit stratagem, but my opponent literally paid me for it. And now I can spend those crowns on retribution.
I can hear what you’re thinking: can’t one side just hoard all the crowns? They certainly can, but that would mean they’re hamstringing themselves by not using any stratagems. Generally though, if you’re playing this mode, you’re doing it for the fun of the game and want to see a constant exchange of crowns.
Examples and best practices
We started using crowns in 8th edition when some armies could trivially begin the game with 18 or more CP. In those days, each player would start with six crowns: which means typically they’d be spending 12 crowns on each of their turns. Combine that with no restrictions on repeating stratagems in 8th edition narrative play and you could just reroll all of Abaddon’s failed armour saves and keep him alive almost indefinitely (that was a fun game).
Now in 10th, CP is much more limited. I’ve only played three games in 10th with crowns – and we were all very new to 10th – and each player started with a single crown. This worked fine and was in line with 10th CP rules of generating one each player turn. For these games, the GM also disallowed the Command Reroll stratagem; with it, there may have been more crowns going back and forth.
Another variation if you’re running a multi-game event is to allow players to carry over their balance of crowns from one game to the next, adding an additional layer of late-game strategy to CP use. At one event I ran, I even gave an award for the player with the most crowns at the end of the day. If you’re doing this, I recommend divvying up the crowns after so each player takes home the same number.
Though this system could be used by tracking CP with dice (I adjust my D6 tracking CP down, you bump yours up) I’d strongly recommend using physical tokens. I make mine with these from Michaels:
Typically, I spray them gold and then use a stamp or stencil with black paint to put a symbol on one side. Players keep these after the game, so I leave one side blank in case they want to put something on the reverse. They’re a nice keepsake and much cheaper than ordering custom dice or something similar. (If you’re doing a public event where you don’t know everyone, it may be best to create unique crowns so players can’t sneak in counterfeit crowns or ones from previous events, rather than asking players to bring their own or repeating symbols.)
Seeing players in my group use the crowns I gave them for CP counters or objectives in regular games really warms my heart and it’s great to see them from different eras. Most recently, I printed images on a foil sticker and cut them out and stuck them to the crowns.
I’m sure there’s lots of ways these could be made better, but this is my cheap and fun way of getting them on the table.
For a few crowns more
Since its inception, our gaming group has used crowns for every large team event we’ve run. They allow stratagems to continue to be relevant late into the game and generally allow players to use more and varied stratagems. The fun of flipping your opponent a coin to reroll a save or pooling crowns with teammates so one player can pull off an unreal combo cannot be overstated.
You probably have a few promotional coins or tokens in your dice bag: why not give crowns a try during your next team game? I promise you’ll love it.