How Some Space Orks (Partially) Stole Christmas - A Rogue Trader Battle Report

Imperial Guardsmen advance during the game this week

This week we played Rogue Trader at Dallas' place.  The game - set in winter terrain to match the holiday air - pitted a band of Orks against a platoon of Imperial Guardsmen and a squad of Space Marines.  Both sides were trying to recover three surviving Imperial Titan crewmen.

Ork squad in winter wonderland - note the captured titan crewman (back at the left) they have "recovered" - no Christmas for him... 

Space Marines from the Howling Griffons Chapter enter ruins to look for the titan crew - unfortunately my pictures of Dallas' excellent RT-era marines did not turn out well....d'oh!

The game was set on a 6' x 4' table, and six "blip" counters were spread out around the table to represent possible locations of the three hiding crewmen. To "check" the blips, players would have to make base contact with it, and roll a d6 to see if it turned out to be a crewman.  The rolls would be progressively easier - so a "6" was needed on the first blip, a "5" or "6" on the second one, etc. until all crew were located and at that point any excess blips would be removed.   The side that managed to evacuate the most crewmen would win.

Da Red Barun makes another strafing run on the Imperial troops - he was eventually shot down....

The Imperial side had three tactical squads, a command section, a Rhino, a Predator and a Robot.  There was also one squad of Marines with a Rhino of their own.  The Orks had thirty boyz, two "skorchas", a wartrak, two dreadnoughts and looted Rhino.  They also had the services of the Red Barun.

Dallas, Mike F and Mike A played the Ork side, while Frederick and I rolled with the Imperial side.

Shot of the Imperials advancing, supporting by a Robot. In the grim darkness of the far future, it still all starts with a PC running Windows 7....

Rules-wise, we played what is probably best described as a "hybrid", sticking to Rogue Trader with the exception of a few tweaks, the most significant being that we use the vehicle rules from the otherwise-awful current version of 40k.

Ork boys with missile launchers focused a lot on the Predator

The Orks got a good early start, rolling a "6" and finding one of the crew almost right away.  But that turned out to be the least of their "blip" luck, as Frederick and I were able to turn up the other two blokes and evacuate them with relative ease.

"These ruins should provide great cover guys! Unless they have flamers...."

The looted Rhino leads the assault for the Orks.

Picture of the Imperial Command Section - these las cannon gunners brought down the Red Barun.

My completely perfect flank, which could never be turned....

That didn't stop the Ork players from pushing hard to earn a "Thorpian Moral Victory", and boy did they do that.  I used the Predator to anchor my flank, confident the heavy firepower, armour and power-field would keep the Orks from any undue mischief while the Imperial gunners pounded away.  But the Orks pulled a sneaky flank move (the buggers!) and I missed some key lascannon shots.  The outcome was that two full tactical squads got BBQ'd by skorcha bikes, and the Predator was KO'd by concentrated fire from the dreadnoughts and Ork infantry.  OUCH.

Predator commander counts all the Ork missile launchers....

The Imperial right flank disappears in a cloud of flames and dreadnought claws....stupid skorchas...

  

But hey, we still won!  The two crewman recovered to the Imperial side will spend Christmas being interrogated to find out why they lost their Titan in action.  The crewman recovered by the Orks...well, I don't think his Christmas will be a happy one, but Warlord Snagrod will have another helmet for his festive "tree".

As always, it was absolute great fun to play Rogue Trader - and the hybrid with the current vehicle rules works really, really well.  I look forward to playing Rogue Trader again soon with the group. Thanks again to Dallas for hosting, and to everyone who came out to play.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone out there!
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Nice report Greg - and thanks for figuring out a scenario and doing up the OOBs; that's the one thing about RT that makes me a bit mental. It was great to just roll out figures and terrain and play. I also took some pics of the game...

Initial dispositions.

Guardsmen sneak around a building.

Da Barun on a strafing run.

Boyz about to investigate a "blip".

 

Guardsmen and Space Marine vehicles in the ruined city.

Boyz make off with one of the Titan crewmen.

Scorchas turn a Guard squad into barbeque, as Imperial Robot looks on. Too bad its programming didn't account for the masterful flank attack ;-)

Thanks again to Greg and the boys for the game!

-Dallas