A bleak and meaningless skirmish on the edges of a galaxy-spanning civil war...
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| an abandoned bunker amid the ruins of a worthless city |
Early 006.M30. Nomirhast Minor. Nomirhüüs-Б. A crumbling suburb leeching off a nowhere township on a minor worldlet, in a meaningless sector of a self-defeating war. The dust of orbital bombardment and the curling after-effects of rad-phages drift over the sludge-grey ruins. Sergeant Caliel Gloss waves a pale gauntlet through the murk, leading his patrol through the silent rockrete guardians. The traitors are here, red-mouthed revenants in their old colours, loyal to the masters who betrayed their oaths. He will find them.
Across the square, past the empty eyes of an abandoned redoubt, Classya-Lablas licks blood from his athame, witchlights burning in his pale brow.
A Horus Heresy game! First time in over a year, and at a lower point count than last time - 500 points! We're trying out the War Head Civil War format, mostly because James is a slow modeller and hasn't had much chance to paint his lads. Also because it's been bloody ages, so we wanted to start slow - which proves serendipitous.
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| the patrols deploy across the wasted landscape |
A Horus Heresy game! First time in over a year, and at a lower point count than last time - 500 points! We're trying out the War Head Civil War format, mostly because James is a slow modeller and hasn't had much chance to paint his lads. Also because it's been bloody ages, so we wanted to start slow - which proves serendipitous.
The two forces are my rebel Death Guard, this time without any officers:
ELITE - Apothecarion Detachment - 45 pointsApothecary - bolt pistol, chainswordTROOP - Tactical Squad - 145 pointsLegion Tactical Sergeant - Bolter, pistol, chainsword, artificer armour12 x Legionary - Bolter, pistol, power armourHEAVY SUPPORT - Heavy Support Squad - 175 pointsLegion Support Sergeant - Pistol, power armour, missile launcher (frag, krak, flak)5 x Legionaries - Pistol, power armour, missile launcher (frag, krak, flak)1 x Legionary - Augury scanner, pistol, power armour, missile launcher (frag, krak, flak)HEAVY SUPPORT - Heavy Support Squad - 130 pointsLegion Support Sergeant - Pistol, power armour, heavy alchem flamer6 x Legionaries - Pistol, power armour, heavy alchem flamerTOTAL: 495
And James's IX Legion, murderous demi-humans elevated by corrupted gene-seed into murderous post-humans, nominally in service to the false emperor:
HQ
Librarian consul (biomancer), force sword and chainsword
ELITE
2 x apothecaries (basic loadout)
TROOPS
Legion Despoilers - 10, sergeant with power maul and hand flamer, 2 x heavy chainswords, 1 x power axe, 1 x power sword, vexila
Legion Reconaissance squad - 7, sergeant with power fist and shotgun, scanner, chainswords instead of bolters, one sniper
As you can see, these are extremely low model counts, allowing us to have, um, plenty of time to frantically look up the rules. "Oh, right, we're Movement 7" now, I keep forgetting."
Turn One
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| from the filthy imperialist perspective |
A sensor glitch -- no, there! Grey movement, smeared with the world's ruin. Move in. Secure the area. Kill.
We varied slightly from the technical rules of Civil War, with the classic "I arrived first and set up the table; James selected his deployment zone." James elected to deploy first and then I failed to seize the initiative, meaning that I was forced to take the first turn - clever, as I wanted his melee-oriented savages to come to me.
That said, the heavy squad armed with missile launchers was devastatingly effective with their frag missiles, killing two of the recon squad and pinning it in place. Unfortunately, this actually just guaranteed James a Victory Point for holding an objective. Dammit.
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| recon squad cowers |
That said, the heavy squad armed with missile launchers was devastatingly effective with their frag missiles, killing two of the recon squad and pinning it in place. Unfortunately, this actually just guaranteed James a Victory Point for holding an objective. Dammit.
No other damage; the Tactical squad was accurate, but failed to dent the power armour of the scouts, and the snap-shots from the pinned recon squad predictably failed to do anything.
Classya-Lablas carves his athame across his palm as his almost-men sludge through the ash field. Blood and bone thrum as the sorcery gleams in their genes, lighting their eyes and pounding their skulls. The rebels will die today.
The librarian and his despoilers come forward some more, channeling the warp to give them +1 S and +1 T (I didn't realise that biomancy could do that!), so my Tactical squad uses a reaction to pull away from them.
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| the witch leads his degenerates from the ruins |
Turn Two
The wretches cowered in place, pinned by the heavy fire from the emptied munition store. Gloss waved two forefingers, and his other squads converged, heavy fire pounding the ash-coated fortifications. Blood flowed.
The heavy flamer squad encircled from the left as the Tacticals slowly advanced. Everything went into the recon squad, although the fire was significantly less effective this time. I did have the satisfaction of burning the apothecary alive; several flamer templates overlapped him and he failed a single important save.
Unfortunately, the squad neither fled nor were pinned this time...
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| my position looks very strong from here |
Classya-Lablas carves his athame across his palm as his almost-men sludge through the ash field. Blood and bone thrum as the sorcery gleams in their genes, lighting their eyes and pounding their skulls. The rebels will die today.
The librarian and his despoilers come forward some more, channeling the warp to give them +1 S and +1 T (I didn't realise that biomancy could do that!), so my Tactical squad uses a reaction to pull away from them.
This was a mistake.
On the other side, the surviving recon marines advance into the barrels of the flamers...
But the recon survivors do not, and their sergeant has a power fist. The Death Guard legionnaries put up a good fight, felling the last recon marine, but the sergeant takes down two, and the Guard break.
..and the Sweeping Advance catches them. Damn. I should have saved my one-a-turn reaction to overwatch these bastards. I would have likely annihilated them and then been able to capture that objective.
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| advance! |
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| withdraw! |
On the other side, the surviving recon marines advance into the barrels of the flamers...
..and charge.
The despoilers fail their own charge.
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| blood! for, uh, the emperor. |
But the recon survivors do not, and their sergeant has a power fist. The Death Guard legionnaries put up a good fight, felling the last recon marine, but the sergeant takes down two, and the Guard break.
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| skull-eye view |
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| BLOOD |
..and the Sweeping Advance catches them. Damn. I should have saved my one-a-turn reaction to overwatch these bastards. I would have likely annihilated them and then been able to capture that objective.
Turn Three
The ash-fall thickens; death comes.
The Tactical Squad advances steadily, firing into the edge of the rockcrete forest; they kill the blood-stained recon sergeant easily enough. Behind them, frag missiles streak into the despoilers (and half the rest of the board - I rolled a lot of big numbers on those Blasts) but the former mutants' apothecary keeps their blood up.
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| so much waste |
The Tactical squad pulls away again as the Biomancer and his men lumber forward...
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| the dance of death |
Again, the blood flows down his forearm. Classya-Lablas raises the stained athame above his head, red light streaming from his eyes as the Warp channels through him. Too much! Too much! The cries thrum through the men, blood and bile boiling. The teeth of abhorrent things bite inside the pale-souled witch, gnawing, claiming, starving. In his frenzy to end the pain, he slashes out the throat of a brother, but it helps little as his own blood burns the inside of his skin red.
The biomancy didn't work this time.
But the charge did. And the guns of the despoilers, too, knocking a Guard legionary off his feet as they came in.
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| melee |
The resultant melee kills four Death Guard to none of the revenants, but the Guard hold their ground.
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| after melee |
Result: 0-1, IX Legion
Aftermath
At this point, we were running a little behind schedule. Three turns in two hours for a 500 point game is a little embarrassing, but we were both so incredibly rusty that it's hard to blame us! However, nap time was almost over, and Anna and Arthur had arrived to take me home
Besides, unless James broke my Tactical squad in my Turn 3, it was too late for either of us to get another objective. There were good odds that he would take out my squad, of course, as his despoilers were annoyingly well-equipped, but he hadn't managed it with the Blood Angel bonuses for charging, so we decided to call it.
Besides, his deployment of infiltrators literally on an objective for the first turn had already won him the game. Bastard.
Withdrawal. The bitterness of defeat - but what did it matter, on such a worthless field? Blood paid far more...
