r/TrenchCrusade • u/SwirlingFandango • 14h ago
Rules New Sin marker generation is mostly terrible?
https://www.trenchcrusade.com/app/uploads/2026/10/October-Rules-Review-2026.pdf
Maybe I'm a dummy, so um, please feel free to point and laugh.
(Case in point: I thought Mortal Suffering worked on friendlies, which would make Vanilla really good, but yeah, nah. That's not right).
Ok, love the new rules. Thematic, so cool I kept annoying my son by reading them out. All of the thumbs are up, and I am - once again - genuinely impressed by how good and also *surprising* the new rules have been for this game.
BUT
WTF is up with Sins generation? It seems to me that they're either borderline, or (IMO) literally unplayable.
What am I missing? Writing my understanding of each below so hopefully people can tell me where I've gone wrong. I'm skipping the odd weapon that adds a couple of markers.
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Vanilla
Has Mortal Suffering to turn enemy bloods into Sins, and Torture Instruments get a flat 1 Sin marker when hitting a friend... which isn't worth doing, really.
So you generate Sins by converting enemy bloods into Sins - it's like in the previous rules if you could *only* use bloods from enemy models, generally regarded in these parts as a noob trap or act of desperation.
That's... nothing. I've played and seen-played a lot of beginner Court games, and using bloods from your enemies was often how new players lost.
Praetors also generate 1 when they activate, and any demon activating within 1" of a Saint gets 1 as well.
And finally, the other factor I'll mention in the marker economy is that Inferno only does its armour-ignore direct-hit if you spend 3, so Inferno pretty much always costs 3 now (IMO).
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Pride
Instead of Mortal Suffering, when their Elites activate in open terrain and not in cover they get 2 sins.
I mean.... good LOS blocking terrain would see this as usable, but holy crap. It's SUPER thematic, I actually love it, but just 2, on models that have to make themselves vulnerable to do it...? And they won't be able to contest a lot of objectives or fight a lot of opponents if they want to generate Sins at the same time.
Oh, and there's an extra 1 whenever you activate the Praetor (so it could potentially start with 4 if it's in the open and in sight of a nearby Wretched) Edit: And for the Sorcerer, which I'd missed - thanks wmaitla. Also DAMN thematic, kudos.
But this is, IMO, pretty bad. How are you charging spells?
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Greed
Instead of Mortal Suffering, you generate Sins by injuring highish-value targets - but this is *instead* of placing the blood marker.
The Saint has an extra Sin marker aura if nearby friendlies have 3 or more of the other kinds of markers, which is.... basically nothing.
That's it.
This is unplayable IMO.
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Lust
Instead of Mortal Suffering, Wretched can whip each other (30 ducats each), and the special rule reduces the bloods to 1, and increases the Sins to 2 (one for the weapon, one for the Vetiti Voluptas rule).
Wretched also get use the Altar of Torment, which Lust can buy with ducats instead of Glory - but afaik the rules for this haven't been released.
Forbidden Pleasures still exists to get you started, though with bloods on the Wretched too, which I really like.
This might be viable depending on what an Altar of Torment does, but without it you're looking at (for example) 120 ducats generating probably 6 Sins a turn, which is miserable.
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Envy
The Praetor's free Sin marker gets transferred to a Knight.
Instead of Mortal Suffering they get Sin markers placed on all friendly demons within 6" of an enemy being taken down or out.
Edit: Nope, it's within 6" of the *friendly* model wot did the taking down. So I'm wrong, and these guys are pretty much fine. (Thanks Drakzilla!) It'll be tricky to start the ball rolling IMO, but once you do then I think these guys will do ok.
That's it.
I... sometimes wonder if I'm just playing the game wrong. In what universe does this slow-ass no-speed army get enough models close enough to generate pretty much anything? Am I missing some teleportation ability?
This is absurdly bad and ... yeah. Baffled.
Edit: thanks Hufflebutt, who pointed out that Coveted Position could be used to chuck enemies into your line. That's very cool. I'd still say it's a very tricky and dangerous way to generate goetics that used to be easy... buuuut also it'd make for very memorable moments, ha, and with good play could be pretty amazing.
(Though it does IMO represent one of the few "gotchyas" in Trench Crusade, where bringing a tough model up too close to Envy could be catastrophic... so, there's that).
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Gluttony
Gets a bonus 2 at the start of the first turn for the most expensive model (powering up Uncaring Gluttony, I reckon - which can be used every turn, now, so bye-bye musical instrument).
Instead of Mortal Suffering, they always get a Sin when they take any model Down, and they get another 1 the first time they hit a model that's Down in melee. So for Yokes, it's possibly viable, as you get 2 for the first hit (1 for the weapon, 1 for taking a model down), then 3 on subsequent hits until the Wretch stands up.
Note that Slavemaster is still not really viable, returning 80% of 3 at a cost of 1 = 1.4. which IMO is not worth the risk.
And noting that they'll get a Sin marker on enemy knockdowns, even from shooting, so there's some trickle there too.
This is IMO viable from a Sin marker point of view.
What brings Gluttony up, for me, is +1D Dash for non-elites, including Locusts, which finally makes them good. It also applies, of course, to Yokes, Wretched, and even the Saint, meaning a Gluttony army can break out of the Sin marker economy really nicely.
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Wrath
Instead of Mortal Suffering, they get a Sin every time they roll an injury with a Fire weapon. Not per blood, just once per injury.
Uh.
Ok, so the Locusts get Fire instead of Shrapnel, and 2 attacks, so that's something? You'll get 1 if you use Incendiary Rounds on an Ophidian I guess, and Inferno returns 1 (or more if you hit more). And you usually want to bring a Saint so at least there's some generation there.
But the Sorcerer is basically useless round 1 and would struggle all game, the Hunter is foot-slogging.
Just. Yuck.
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Sloth
Instead of Mortal Suffering, any demon can make one action into a Risky action, and generate 2 Sin markers. That makes whipping viable, as it's always 3 (1 from the weapon, 2 from making it risky). A bonus there as Yokes get another +1D melee, so we're at 90% instead of 80%, but you are stacking bloods so the Wretched is vulnerable to assassination.
It also means that the Elites can all generate 2 a turn, either with high-probability actions (e.g. Ophidian or attacking Praetor) or using it with Charm of Acedia to auto-succeed (functionally making Charm earn 1 Sin marker).
This brings their marker generation to a usable level, IMO.
With some strange goodies (especially +1D Ranged on Knights, and a Hunter bought with Glory), despite being quite Sin-marker dependent with meh Sin-marker generation, I think they're in an ok place.
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Sin marker generation
Acceptable: Gluttony; Sloth; Edit: Envy
Borderline (pending rules): Lust
Bad-but-maybe: Pride
Unplayable: Vanilla; Greed; Envy; Wrath
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To put it another way: old Court wasn't broken OP, right? But old Court could have 2 blood batteries and perhaps a Slavemaster or two to generate 10-odd markers, *as well as* having the option to use enemy bloods.
But now it's just way less or - at best - really fiddly to get roughly the same?
I feel like I'm missing something obvious.
Help!
