The Massacre of the Chaplains

[Pictors Studio]

"Alos it is worthless resisting me, give him over now," yelled Captain Hrong of the World Eaters. His voice echoed through the helmets of all the Astartes in the maze of streets and ruined buildings.

There was no answer but the rattle of bolter fire.

Hrong's men had moved through the rubble in the building they were in and emerged in a plaza.


Chaplain Alos was well out of range with his plasma pistol but kept firing shots off in the hopes that the discharges would give confuse the sensors in the World Eater's helmets or give them a target to fire at.

He said over the com system to his own men, "Pull him back.  Get him out of here. It doesn't matter how many of us die, we need to get a message to any other Legion, the World Eaters have rebelled against the Emperor."



Armoured hands closed around the robes of the Enginseer and dragged him back through the ragged crater and smashed parts of a launch that had crashed there.

Alos stood, making himself a target of the enemy fire.


His men fell back as directed. 

"Tyler, keep your team up with me.  Cover the retreat of the rest of them," Alos said.

The marine with the missile launcher nodded even though he knew the Chaplain couldn't see him.

The four marines fired at the oncoming rebels while the rest of the group moved away, if they could make it to the entrance to the subway system only two blocks away it seemed likely that they would be able to elude Hrong.



Their fire pinned down the first group of marines to emerge but a second fire team moved up and splitting their fire between the two reduced the volume enough that the enemy could start making pretty accurate shots even at the range they engaged at.

Soon Alos was wounded in the thigh and had his right hand blown off by the explosive bolter rounds.  He was on one knee but still firing.  His pistol was getting hot in his hand but he kept firing until a bolter round hit him in the side of the head blasting his helmet apart and dropping the Chaplain.

The enemy used the opportunity to surge forward. 



The dreadnought moved quickly ahead of the men who moved up using it as cover.  Bolter rounds were bouncing off of it, the man inside, nearly insane with rage felt something that must have come from a rocket launcher ricochet off of his hull.


Despite being tough he was not invulnerable.  One of the marines he was pursuing left off pulling the Enginseer back and ran forward with his melta gun.  The heat weapon fired and a section of armour was instantly reduced to slag on the metallic monstrosity. 

The dreadnought returned the fire with contempt and the man was melted to slag.

Hrong's men pressed up and started to get behind their targets who, leaderless, continued to fall back.



Tyler was doing his duty, the rocket launcher was barely pausing in its fire, explosions ripped through the ranks of the World Eaters pursuing him.  A shot ripped off another big pieces of the dreadnought's armour.

Enough of the armour had been damaged now and a flurry of bolter fire concentrated on the machine was enough to down it, some essential circuitry being damaged the massive mechanical beast stumbled and them fell heavily to the ground.  The inarticulate scream from inside could be heard even through the armour and over the rattling of bolter fire.

The marines behind the behemoth had now pressed up and fired on Tyler's team as well as the last marine escorting the Enginseer away.

Tyler kept up a steady fire with his rocket launcher.  Explosions in the midst of the men were causing havoc all over the rubble strewn streets.


Eventually it was just Tyler and the Enginseer who was running alone now.



Hrong turned the corner of the building.  His first shot smashed into Tyler's face plate, exploding and stunning the space marine.  He fell dropping his missile launcher.

Hrong's second shot hit the Enginseer just before he went around the corner and to relative safety.  The shot hit him right in the lower back sending him to his knees.



Soon three space marines were surrounding Tyler. As he recovered himself he looked into the barrels of their bolters and they each pulled the trigger, the explosive rounds all detonating on his chest, shattering the armour and the man inside.

[Elbows]

Very cool, what rules are you using?  Actual 40K?

[Pictors Studio]

We used a modified Infinity for this.  I'll post the stats for the various types of troops and such in a little bit.

[Elbows]

Cool, I was going to say...it doesn't read like a 40K game. 

[nullBolt]

God damn, this is how 40k should play.

[Pictors Studio]

Yeah, especially one with World Eaters in it.  There was no close combat.

We used the following for stats for everyone:

Space Marine

MOV 4-2   CC 15  BS 14    PH 15   WIP 12    ARM 4  BTS -3  W 2

Terminator

MOV 4-2   CC 15  BS 14     PH 15   WIP 12  ARM 6  BTS -5  W 2

Contemptor Dread

MOV 6-4    CC 16  BS 15    PH 17   WIP 12   ARM 10  BTS -9  STR 3

Captain

MOV 4-2     CC 18  BS 15  PH 15    WIP 13    ARM 6   BTS -5   W 3

Chaplain

MOV 4-2     CC 17  BS 15  PH 15  WIP 14   ARM 4  BTS -3  W 3


And for the weapons:

Bolter

S 0-8 +3   M   9-16  +3  L  17-24 -3  Max   25-48 -6     DAM  13  B  2  Ammo EXP

Heavy Bolter

S 0-8 0   M   9-32  +3  L  33-48 -3  Max   49-96 -6   DAM  15  B  4  Ammo EXP

twin-bolter

S 0-8 +3   M   9-16  +3  L  17-24 -3  Max   25-48 -6     DAM 13   B  3  Ammo EXP

Bolt Pistol

S 0-4 +3   M   4-8  0  L  8-12 -3  Max   12-16 -6     DAM 13 B  2  Ammo EXP

Missile Launcher  (or hitile launcher as that guy was red hot this game, he didn't miss anything)

S 0-8 0   M   9-32  +3  L  33-48 -3  Max   49-96 -6   DAM 13 or 15  B  1  Ammo EXP or AP  Template circular or none

Plasma gun

S 0-8 +3   M   9-16  +3  L  17-24 -3  Max   25-48 -6     DAM 14   B  3  Ammo Plasma

Plasma pistol

S 0-4 +3   M   4-8  0  L  8-12 -3  Max   12-16 -6     DAM 14 B  3  Ammo Plasma

Melta gun

S 0-4 +3   M   4-16  0  L  16-24 -6  Max   24-48 -9     DAM 15  B  3  Ammo AP

Multi melta

S 0-8 +3   M   8-16  0  L  16-24 -3  Max   24-48 -6     DAM 15  B  3  Ammo AP

Flamer and heavy flamer used the standard 40K template for those and had a DAM of 13 and 14 respectively and had AMMO type FIRE

Everyone, except the terminators and dreadnought, had frag grenades that they could throw up to 12 inches and had a circular template with a DAM rating of 13.

I modified the rules slightly to count up to four models as a single model for Infinity game purposes. Sort of like the Fireteam rules except this was the rule:

You could  use any model as your shooter for both action and reaction fire.  For each model beyond the first with the same weapon or a stronger* weapon you can add 1 to the Burst value of the shooter.  

For each model beyond the first in the group with a weaker* weapon you can add 1 to the BS of the shooter.

So if a group of 3 marines is firing as a team all with bolters you pick which one you want to shoot with and then would add 2 to the Burst value of the bolter (normally 2) to get 4 shots.

If the unit contains 4 marines and one is armed with a Heavy Bolter and you choose to shoot with the Heavy bolter he would get 4 shots at a base BS of 17    (B value of weapon is 4, each marine past the first adds one to the BS of the guy shooting as they have weaker weapons.)

The reasoning behind this was that they are firing as a weapons team, if they are all shooting roughly the same thing then their shots are being combined to be more effective so more shots.  If they are shooting to support a model shooting a better weapon then the shooting keeps the heads down or distracts the enemy allowing a more accurate shot.

Not exactly scientific but it seemed to work pretty well.  

* Weaker vs. Stronger weapons.  You can define this as you will of course, we used DAM as the defining characteristic.  We never had a situation where an HMG and a multi melta were in the same shooting group or anything like that.  We basically broke the marines up into units of 3-4 typically and included one heavy or special weapon in each.  I'd recommend this as it keeps it easy.  The characters were separate.  The dread was separate.  Both of these had to be. For the termies we had a group of 3 and a group of 2.  

[eilif]

I've not played Infinity, but this looks like a brilliant idea!
How long did this scenario take to play?

[Pictors Studio]

Maybe about an hour or so.

The infinity rules are free online.  www.infinitythegame.com

[The Voivod]

Nice, I love the atmosphere of these pics.
I do love the 40k setting, it's just the rules are soo bad.
This might be worth a go. Finally a use again for those models I love and using rules I love.
Though I would be bottered by having to balance the game....

Love the scenery, by the way. I have an imperial sector lying around in the box and I start to feel like doing some building..

[Major_Gilbear]

Lovely battle report!

Also, intrigued by the use of the Infinity rules... Thank you for sharing.

I wonder if the Bolt action / Antares rules would work for 30k?

@ The Vovoid:

You could just use existing model profiles from the game, as these are balanced and costed for you already.

Most factions have various Heavy Infantry profiles for the troops, and I suppose TAGs would work for the Dreadnought. All the Infinity unit stats and points are freely available via the official army builder here.

Alternatively, I wonder if Warlord's Bolt action / Antares rules would work for 30k?

[blacksoilbill]

Great looking game, and sounded like it was exciting to play too. I've not played Infinity, but it sounds like it produces good things.

[Pictors Studio]

Infinity does produce good things.  I've played it a lot over the years and it almost always produces an exciting game.

"Though I would be bottered by having to balance the game...."

Then don't worry about it.  Just come up with a neat storyline and play through what you think are reasonable forces for each side.

I used ORC troops from the Pan O list for the base stats for Astartes with a 1 increase in PH.  They count as armed with Multi rifles with EXP ammo.  So they are about 40 points each.

The contemptor I counted as a Jotum more or less.  Only I gave it the Multi melta instead of the assault cannon.  With the Assault cannon you could use it just about as it is and it is 110 pts.

I based the termies and characters on regular Astartes with a few extra stat points here and there.  So termies  have a better save.

Their save is nearly the same as the Swiss guard but they don't have the TO camo, which is worth a lot.  The swiss guard are 70 points so I'd imagine something like 55 each for the termies would be reasonable.

Honestly I don't play with points anymore so it really isn't an issue. 

The scenario you pick is going to throw most points balanced armies out the window anyway and unless you are doing kill each other and seize objectives on a fairly equal table figuring out whether you should do 1500 pts. vs. 2000 pts for a given scenario to balance it is just as difficult as having armies designed for their appointed task and figuring it out.

Besides, both sides win if it is a fun game with a neat story line. 

[The Voivod]

you could just use existing model profiles from the game, as these are balanced and costed for you already.

Yeah, I already considered that. Problem is AVA is always limted on the more special troops, like ORC troopers. Maybe lifting these is an idea, but I don't know how much this would unbalance the game
The other options is offcourse:

Then don't worry about it.  Just come up with a neat storyline and play through what you think are reasonable forces for each side.

But that's a bit of a hurdle for me to overcome. I know plenty of people have loads of fun this way, but I'm a bit of a weird breed.
I guess you could call me a casual competative player. While I prefer to play in a laidback atmosphere ( reminding opponents of moves they forget, play rules as intended and such), I really want to have a head to head game. I don't mind losing because I let my opponent roll that extra dice he forgot, I don't like winning or losing when I feel the sides did not have an equel chance to begin with.
Maybe I just need to get used to the idea...
Maybe I just need to sit down a few nights and type up some rules. I've done that before and I could balance and tweek as I play.

I must say I do like your 'fire-team'-rule. This allows for more boots on the table and speeds up gameplay.
It might also be tweeked to include stuff like guardsmen ( or gretchin) and make bigger mobs of them equal to small units of marines.

Pretty sure I'm gonna give it a go at least.

[Major_Gilbear]

Yeah, I already considered that. Problem is AVA is always limted on the more special troops, like ORC troopers. Maybe lifting these is an idea, but I don't know how much this would unbalance the game

Well, remember that in the official game the AVA is balanced against the whole faction's selection of choices and profiles.

However, if you're just pitting HI against HI (i.e., Marines vs Marines), then they should be pretty evenly matched if you both get the same points' worth.

Also, both players can use the same faction stats if you want; both choosing PanO or Nomads for example, which again makes it pretty much a balanced match-up as long as the points level.

[eilif]

I was glancing at the force builder that the Major posted. Looks like there's such a wide range of stats that it'd be easy to represent most any GW unit. 

I like to have points as well (though I'm not too strict about it) and I think it'd be easy to approximate some relatively equal forces even if you made a few tweaks to the gear to better represent their loadout.  I'm not sure the rules are going to be quite to my rules-lite taste, but I'll look over the rules and may give it a try sometime. It's certainly a well developed and well respected ruleset.

I'm looking at the upcoming Warpath rules (both the platoon and company level versions) as ways to get my 40k figs on the table for a fast-moving pulp-sci-fi game that isn't weighed down with needless amounts of rules.