Battle at the Farm 40K RT Battle Report

As teased previously on the blog, last night we finally played the "Battle at the Farm", the first battle of the planned mini-campaign pitting Conscript Greg's Crimson Fist Marines and RT Imperial Guard against Thrugg Bullneck's Space Ork Raiders and the rest of my RT Space Orks.

The Battle at the Farm, as every 40K enthusiast knows, was the original scenario included in the ur-40K rulebook, "Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader", published by Games Workshop in 1987. As the year 2012 represents the 25th anniversary of "RT", we'd collected some armies and planned a mini-campaign to commemorate it.

"Bultha's Rise"...

The eponymous "Farm"

The battle pitted three 5-man Crimson Fist squads, plus Captain Pedro Cantor, against Thrugg, his hench-ork Hruk, and four 5-ork squads with bolters. The Marines deployed around the Farm. The Orks entered play from the east, Thrugg's patrol's goal being to recover some schwag he had stashed earlier in the farmhouse. He also carried a communicator with which to summon reinforcements. Thrugg will do this only as a last resort, however, since he wants to keep his schwag to himself!

Conscripts Frederick and Mike A. each took a squad and deployed opposite the Farm. Conscript Mike F. and me took the others around the leeside of Bultha's Rise and made for the orchard.



Carnage on the ridge as the Marines open fire!

Things didn't go so well for Mike A. and Frederick as the Marines (and their plasma missiles) decimated the squads, leaving only Hruk and two other survivors. They pulled back out of range and followed the others around the Rise.


Thrugg and the boyz hotfooting it around the Rise.

Marines open up on Hruk's boyz

 

Sneaky Marine with missile launcher in the Farm building

 

The Marine players, Greg B., Dave V. and Bill, spotted Thrugg's flanking maneuver and threw a speedbump towards the orchard... a lone Marine with captain Cantor following behind!

First the boyz took care of Brother Beaky...

...then proceeded to light up Captain Cantor!

Cantor and his Marine companion confronted the Ork force in the woods, taking out a couple of Boyz in close combat, but the rest of the Orks surrounded them and opened up... even Cantor's 3+ refractor save couldn't stop that many bolter shells!! (Remember, in the RT era, power armour gave a 4+ save and Marines were only T3!) 

Fists break from cover, making for the Rise, and safety from the approaching horde

Even after disposing of Cantor, Thrugg realized that there were still too many Marines and not enough Boyz left for him to feasibly accomplish the mission without reinforcements. Thrugg needed to take a whole turn to activate his communicator and then roll a "6" to succeed in contacting the main force, which he miraculously did! The reinforcements would arrive in d6+4 turns... and when they did, every Marine left on the table would be considered lost! I rolled a "1"... for once, an excellent result! This meant that the Marines had only 5 turns to exit the table from the Eastern edge or be considered killed!


Mike F's surviving boyz repositioned from out of the woods and opened fire on the fleeing Marines.

Here at last was Thrugg's chance. As most of the Marines bugged out, there were only three Marines left behind to guard the Farmhouse and the hidden schwag bag. Thrugg seized the opportunity to charge in, fillet the Marines with his brutal chainsword and spirit away his ill-gotten gains before his reinforcements arrived... the dice were thrown for his two close combat attacks and...

...he whiffed. Big time. We saw more singles in that combat that at Happy Hour at the Palomino Club (Winnipeg reference). Seriously, there were alot of "1"s. Thrugg took out one Marine and died, broken and alone, and poor.

The game ended and victory points were calculated... four Marines had escaped at 1VP each. Three Orks lived, each worth 1/2 VP. No other bonus points were gained by either side [EDIT: The Orks picked up two bonus VPs for successfully calling for reinforcements - thanks Dave V. for the reminder!], so the game turned out to be a Crimson Fist vistory, four points to three-and-a-half. A nail biter!!

"War is Gilles" - attributed to Captain Pedro Cantor

An excellent game! It was great to play the original 40K scenario which, in over 20 years of playing 40K, I'd never before played. It had some real role-playing elements that are generally lost today, and was a ton of fun.

Thanks to Greg for bringing the Fists and to the guys for coming out. Watch for the second game in the mini-campaign next week, when the surviving Crimson Fists attempt to elude the Space Ork main force and rendezvous with an Imperial Guard force!