Battle for Rynn's World - Part 2 coming up

Carrying on from last week's Battle at the Farm, this week we'll play part 2 of our mini-campaign. In the previous game, Crimson Fist Space Marine Captain Pedro Cantor was grievously wounded while holding off an Ork rampage at the Farm. Many of his men escaped, bearing off his all-but-lifeless body with them...

But being a Space Marine, and possessed of a constitution and recuperative powers far beyond that of a normal human, Cantor has recovered enough to direct his remaining force to link up with other Imperial regulars and militia in the planetary capital, New Rynn City. Cantor and his men have reached the outskirts, and are about to make contact with a unit of Planetary Defence Force Militia, when a reinforced Ork patrol arrives on the scene... 

Rogue Trader Imperial Guard Assault Squad

Imperial Guard Assault Squad ready for duty.

A new addition to participate in our 25th Anniversary Mini-Campaign - an Imperial Guard Assault Squad.  These troops will take part in the next part of our mini-campaign this week.

Each trooper carries a pair of laspistols...not scary, but somewhat useful.

Equipped with jump packs, the Assault Squads are intended to close quickly with the enemy and engage in close fighting.  I don't think pairs of laspistols will scare anyone, but the squad is equipped with a pair of plasma guns, weapons that were actually pretty effective before they were neutered by stupid rules like "gets hot". Plasma guns are "following fire", had high strength and hard-hitting save modifiers - pretty good covering fire for the other troops.

Each squad has two plasma guns for support - and in RT, plasma guns are actually useful.

RT-era sergeant, ready to lead the troops.  A chain sword is actually useful in RT 40k...

The jump packs are actually Space Marine backpacks, but the jump packs of the RT era were huge metal turbofan deals (close in look and size to the assault packs worn by the Space Marine assault troops of the contemporary lineup).

Snapshot from the 40k Compendium, showing the jump packs - pretty close to the Space Marine packs...

Back when I collected my first Imperial Guard "army" in the early 90s, I opted for Space Marine jump packs in place of the enormous metal jump packs.  I think GW even realized the metal jump packs were out of kilter - when you look at the graphics in the 40k Compendium, you see jump packs on the Imperial Guardsmen that look very much like the back packs of the Space Marines.

More jump troopers.

Our campaign kicked off last week with a re-fight of the "Battle At The Farm".  Our next game will feature the Marine survivors trying to connect with Imperial Guard troopers from the garrison holding out in the capital of New Rynn City.  I'm sure these newly-painted troops will dominate the table top...

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!

Game This Week

Well, our intentions this week have been a bit obvious, but still, here is the formal notice - this week we will be playing classic Rogue Trader 40k, "The Battle At The Farm".  The scenario will pit Pedro Cantor and his small band of suriving Crimson Fists against Thrugg Bullneck's Ork patrol.

Order of battle for Thursday night's game...

The game will kick off a mini-campaign of linked Rogue Trader games set in the battle for Rynn's World.  Will Pedro Cantor and his survivors take out the Orks before they raise the alarm? Or will Thrugg, Hruk and the boyz stomp on this final mini-pocket of Crimson Fists en route to victory on Rynn's World?  Come by on Thursday night to find out!

Thrugg Bullneck's Space Ork Raiders

Inspired by Conscript Greg B.'s excellent Crimson Fists post, here's some pics of Thrugg Bullneck's Space Ork Raiders getting ready for the Rynn's World "Battle at the Farm" mini-campaign.

Thrugg (right) with Hruk, trusted squad leader and right-hand Ork, with Hruk's squad behind him.

First squad of five Boyz.

Second squad.

Third squad.

Looking forward to the game on Thursday, should be a classic!

Occupy Mordheim!

"OCCUPY MORDHEIM! WE ARE THE 99%! WE HAVE DEGREES FROM THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY AT ALTDORF AND WE WANT OUR SHARE OF WYRDSTONE!!"

 

So last week we further amortized the 4x4 table with a game of Mordheim. I supplied three warbands - Vampire Counts, Sisters of Sigmar, and my favourite, Orcs. I say that the last is my favourite because it's composed entirely of old-school models from my youth - Orcs of the Severed Hand, some ancient (1982!) Ral Partha Bugbears, and a Citadel Troll. 

Conscript Indo rolled with the Orcs and Conscript Greg B. assumed leadership of the Sisters warband. We rolled a scenario at random and it was "Occupy".

 

"Occupy" involves placing an objective marker on D3+2 buildings. The game lasts 8 turns, and if you have a model in an objective building and no member of the other warband does, you get a point. The side with the most points wins! Above we see a (blurry- dammit) photo of two Orcs and a Bugbear moving through the graveyard.

More blur, which is especially annoying since I only had one beer that night. It's the Troll with the leader of the Orc warband and another bugbear.

A better picture of the Troll. Easy to get in focus as he did very little in the game... due to Stupidity. Mini-rant follows... the Mordheim rules are not clear at all on the Stupidity rule, in particular whether a leader's Leadership may be used to take the test. In one section it says "the leader's Leadership may be used to take Leadership tests..." and in the Stupidity section, "the model must roll under its Leadership to pass the test." We played it the latter way but with a Ld of 4 the Troll was pretty much ineffective. Will play it the other way next time!

Panorama of the battlefield set on the outskirts of Mordheim.

Some Sisters beat on an Orc. This combat was amusing as five Sisters had him Knocked Down, then three took off (below)... then the Orc got up and kept fighting!

Sisters head off to another objective building.

"Duurrrrrr..."

Bugbear feels the beat... in the end the Sisters won by two objectives to one. I really feel bad about the Troll Stupidity rule interpretation since the Troll was a major part of the warband and was essentially useless... oh, except for beating one of his Orc allies to death in close combat after an EXTREMELY unfortunate Animosity check resulted in the Orc attacking him.

I like Mordheim a lot. Small warbands, fast play and some interesting scenarios provided. I also like using the 4x4 terrain board from time to time and it works well for this game. I'm hoping we can use it for a further game in the "Battle for the Farm" 40K mini-campaign!

Rogue Trader Project Finished

Pedro Cantor and his surviving Crimson Fists.

Earlier this year, as GW (sort of) marked the 25th Anniversary of the game Rogue Trader, I embarked on a little anniversary project of my own - collecting and painting the small detachment of Crimson Fist Space Marines featured in "The Battle At The Farm", the starter scenario from the original Rogue Trader game.

A sergeant holds some kind of scanner...or maybe a cell phone from the grime darkness of the far future...

The detachment consists of Commander Pedro Cantor and three five-man squads, one of which has a missile launcher.  By the standards of the current 40k game, the detachment represents a rounding error beneath an Apocalypse template, but in the Rogue Trader game it's quite a few troops.

The missile launcher was very difficult to assemble...it did not fit well with the pewter shoulder pads.

To help them stand out a bit, I added some after market bits from GW with the famous "fist" iconography.   This makes them look a little sharper, and also compensates for the fact that the Crimson Fist decals do not fit at all on the old Rogue Trader shoulder pads, and my painting skills are not at all up to the job of painting the logos by free hand!

Another officer with a Crimson Fist PDA.

These figures were fun to build from a nostalgia standpoint, but GW's current lineup is much easier to work with from an assembly and modelling standpoint.  It took a fair bit of hacking to get the pewter bits on.

A close up of the officer figures in the detachment.

I painted some test models a couple of weeks ago, while in the midst of Curt C's painting challenge (which was for historical figures).  Now that the challenge is over, I got back to these in fairly short order and they painted up pretty fast.

Pedro Cantor - ready to lead his survivors - an old Rogue Trader model.

To represent Pedro Cantor, I tracked down a very average looking Space Marine Sergeant figure that closely resembled the drawing of the character in the Rogue Trader book (and also had the right equipment - pistol and a power fist).  I hacked the shoulder pad off to replace it with another of the newer pewter shoulder pads.  I also applied a newer pewter backpack (again, with a handy "fist" symbol on it).

Close-up of the missile launcher dude.

One thing that really stood out when painting these old figures is how spartan they were - the models are not draped in scrolls, shoot-the-demon reminder scripts and other stuff.  And they have no skull symbols - none! It's refreshing.

So we are ready to play "The Battle At The Farm" - and kick-off a little mini-campaign set in the battle for Rynn's World.