Making Sense of Steamroller 2024: Battle Lines

Privateer Press's Steamroller 2024 is out, and some of the new scenarios are outright bananas. After taking a close look at each of the new scenarios, I thought it would be worth spending a little time to give each a quick analysis and review.

Today, we'll be looking at the second scenario in the packet, Battle Lines. Battle Lines introduces a new twist to scenario play: the objectives move. While not as mind-bending as some of the later scenarios in this packet, moving scenarios do add some complexity.

The scenario elements in Battle Lines are 30mm and 40mm objectives, and two flags which will become terrain scenario elements. 

The scenario elements in Battle Lines are actually completely symmetrical, which is unusual for steamroller 2024.

Scoring begins, as always, on the second player's second turn, which gives player two the first chance to score. Starting then, after points are scored, the player ending their turn must move one of the table's four objectives three inches toward the opponent's table edge.

As straightforward as this sounds, there's a lot to think about and take note of here. Firstly, unlike other scenarios, in Battle Lines, an objective is moved every turn regardless of whether it was scored or not. Also, the player ending their turn can choose any of the four, which is important to note because in other scenarios only some objectives will move. 

Scenario elements are moved towards the opponent's table edge rather than directly towards the table edge. This is important to note, because as long as you're moving just a half millimeter towards that table edge, you can take the rest of the movement sideways.

The last thing to note is that when you move objectives, they'll move through any models in their way if they can get completely past them. If not, the objective must stop its movement short. This means that if you want, you can theoretically block the objective's movement. It's unclear to me whether you can have it hit a building and stop, or whether you're then required to have it move to one side in order to get its full three inches of movement.

Stay tuned for our analysis of the remaining Warmachine scenarios in Privateer Press's Steamroller 2024 packet!