Last night the Voivod and myself finally had a 'proper' wargame again, after quite a long hiatus. There were plenty of skirmish games and boardgames, but something with more than, say, 10 miniatures a side had been a long time ago indeed!
We agreed on the date and time, but due to, stuff, the game was not only at my place, but also with my minis. Basically, I got to decide the entire game. And since I've been nostalgic for the fun and simplicity of playing older 40K rules, I quickly settled on Grimdark Future; it's 40K, but good, basically
So I wrote up a small 1250 pts scenario during a slow spell at work: Escape from Spadell IV. Wonder about the name? I needed to name the planet and the first things on my desk I noticed were my bottle of mineral water and my laptop, so there we were
Here's the quick fluff I threw in there:
+++ Escape from Spadell IV+++
When the first signs of an approaching tendril of Tyranid Hive fleet Leviathan were augured, the sparsely populated world of Spadell IV was in turmoil. It was merely a grade 4 Agri world and of no real significance to sector command, which had more pressing problems, shoring up defenses of worlds deemed more valuable to the Imperium.
Nevertheless, a small cargo ship was rerouted there to collect whatever stores Spadell IV had remaining. Its captain however was an empathic man, and allowed the sparse population to evacuate to his ship after the world's last crops were secured and stored in his ship's holds.
Every vessel capable of atmospheric landing was deployed and before long, the entire civilian population, small as it were, was carried off planet, up to the relative safety of the old cargo vessel in orbit.
It would remain there as long as it could, to also carry off Spadell IV's small contingent of PDF troopers still on the surface. The captain had even sent down a squad of his own security force to assist in the evacuation, and it, together with its shuttle craft, were now among the last humans on the planet.
All the while, the unstoppable xenos invasion had started in earnest, and the advance Tyranid waves were mere hours away from the last imperial position in the governor's palace in the center of what passed for Spadell's capitol, conveniently also called Spadell. It was manned by several squads of PDF troops and the naval squad that was sent down to assist in the evacuation.
Unbeknownst to the valiant defenders, a small Imperial Navy survey ship had been making invaluable scans of the approaching hive fleet, gathering information that would greatly help the sector’s defenders later on. However, it was attacked and destroyed while closely skirting the planet and broke up in orbit. A life pod came down near an abandoned PDF fortress, designated Gamma-12, several miles South of the capitol.
All remaining troops were hastily sent South to recover the escape pod and its occupants. The last received transmission from the hapless survey vessel had been that two engineers had boarded the escape pod, carrying the information on their person.
The Imperial force was ordered to rescue the occupants of the pod and then evacuate off planet. They arrived near the crash site, and took up positions in and around the abandoned fortress. The escape pod could be seen between the trees to the South, but the chittering sound of the approaching alien menace could already be heard. They would have to work quickly...
The mission
Imperial forces:
Rescue the two downed crewmembers and evacuate them off planet using the shuttlecraft before the fortress is overrun. Each rescued crewmember is worth 2 Victory Points. Each squad escaping while at half strength or above is worth 1 VP.
Available are two PDF squads (2x10), one Naval Security squad (15), a not-Sentinel (1) and one remaining PDF APC (1). A Space Marine combat squad (5) is held in reserve.
Tyranids:
Kill everything that breathes! Each squad wiped out is worth 2 VP.
Available are four broods of Hormagaunts (4x10), a brood of Gargoyles (10), a brood of Warriors (3) and a Carnifex (1). Whenever a unit is completely killed, it can redeploy on the Tyranid player's table edge at the beginning of the next turn.
Game length: 6 turns. After 6 turns, the cargo ship will be forced to escape from orbit, leaving the last defenders behind.
The Voivod chose the Imperials, so I got to finally play my alien horde; the first time they were used in anger! This was also the first time for my fledgling Wolfenstein Imperial Guard on the table btw
He set up first, behind the defensive positions around the fortress and bunker, but not in them. In fact he even deployed one of his PDF squads inside of his APC, indicating he wanted to play offensively.
The two hapless crewmembers were deployed next to the escapepod and cryotube respectively.
++Turn One++I decided early on that I would have to roll a 4+ on a D6 for all of my units to decide if they could come onto the table, as deploying them all at once would probably make for a very short game, since I would be easily able to kill both crewmembers. So even though I still probably could have, I held back just a little bit with the two Hormagaunt squads that managed to come onto the table during turn one.
The crewmember closest to me legged it towards the Imperial line and the APC roared forward, intent on collecting her midfield. The Navy security squad hopped over their defensive barriers and closed towards the other crewman, as did the footslogging PDF squad on their far left, next to the bunker.
A third squad of gaunts bounded onto the field in the meantime, going after the second crewman. Effective fire from the footslogging PDF and APC however reduced the brood on my right flank to just three gaunts and the same happened to the brood on my left flank. But those were also pinned down as they missed their morale check due to be ing under 50%!
++Turn Two++Turn two saw us deploying our deepstriking units. I had my broods of Gargoyles and Warriors, and he had his squad of Imperial Fists. The gargoyles flew on and threatened the Naval squad, while my Warriors popped up behind the PDF near the bunker. In the meantime his Space Marines dropped in near the shuttle and marched towards my Warriors.
My brood in the center made up its mind and proceeded to mince up the first crew(wo)man, while facing the guns of the disembarking PDF squad and their APC. The reduced brood next to them dashed forward, being too small a threat for the Imperials to bother themselves with.
On the other flank however, the Navy squad shot the devourer out of my Gargoyles, but flitty little creeps they were, they managed to avoid being shot up into ineffectiveness and they proceeded to dive onto the human morsels below, nibbling away at the overstrength squad. Which was not overstrength anymore after this.
The Imperial walker moved up from behind the fortress and fired its huge flamer at the Gargoyles, but managed to kill but one of them.
In the meantime though, the second crewman had managed to rush behind the protective meatshields of the Navy Security squad and was almost home free.
My Warriors made short work of the disembarked PDF squad and together with the Hormagaunts that ate the crewman earlier, they reduced the squad to below half strength. they did receive some incoming fire from the other PDF troopers and the Space Marines, but it was too little too late, although they were slowly being whittled down.
Also, my Carnifex lumbered onto the table and rushed forward with murderous intent towards the PDF squads.
++Turn Three++Seeing the inevitable collapse of his left flank, Voivod then wisely withdrew his Space Marines and Naval troopers back towards the safety of the shuttle, together with the surviving crewman.
My Carnifex charged into the larger of the two PDF squads and murdered four of them in one attack! The remaining single Hormagaunt from my rightmost squad piled in as well, making more casualties, and it was a foregone conclusion that I would kill off both remnants of the PDF squads next turn.
A bit of math and calculations then revealed that no matter what, we'd only end up in a draw; he had one crewman and two squads on the verge of rescue, for a total of 4 VP, while I would certainly kill off two of his squads, also giving me 4 VP, and there were no more points for either of us to win.
So the game ended in a perfect stalemate/draw!
It was great to finally move some miniatures around the table again and roll some dice. Grimdark Future is a fun and robust set of rules. A bit limited perhaps, but then; we played with the free rules off OnePageRules' website, while the paid for rules are more elaborate, have scenarios and campaign features, more rules for terrain, etc. So I'm strongly contemplating buying them.
Next week we'll probably play another game with these rules, as they're just fun and a perfect excuse to bring all those 40K minis back on the table after more than a decade of being shelfwarmers!
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 29, 2024, 03:11:18 AM
April 15, 2014, 01:28:29 PM
