Battle for Rynn's World - Game 2 Battle Report

Rynn's World Planetary Defence Force Company 6 

On Thursday evening we played the second game in our "Battle for Rynn's World" mini-campaign commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. In the first game, the "Battle at the Farm", Thrugg Bullneck's Space Ork Raiders were repulsed by Captain Pedro Cantor's Crimson Fist Space Marines. The victory was not without cost, however - among the Space Marine casualties was Captain Cantor himself!

The second episode of the campaign involves a seriously wounded Captain Cantor and some surviving Marines attempting a link-up with local militia and elements of an Imperial Guard force, on the outskirts of New Rynn City.

Cantor's surviving Space Marines and Imperial Guard Assault Squad

Space Ork force

Cantor and his Marines move on to the table from the south edge, their objective being for Cantor to leave the table from the north edge by the end of turn 8. Some Orks start on-table, as well as the militia squad; the rest of the forces arrive in escalating fashion.

Orks deployed in the cover of some craters

Keeping a careful watch for Cantor...

PDF militia deployed in the outskirts of the city

Cantor and his men move on-table...

As Cantor and his men moved onto the table, the IG Assault Squad arrived from reserve to challenge the Orks, already whittled down a bit from shooting by the militia.

Very impressive Assault Squad - note plasma guns!

IG Sentinels - the infamous "eggs on legs" - also arrived from the northern table edge...

...accompanied by a massive Predator tank!

The Guardsmen boldly deployed surrounding the Ork-held crater, peppering its occupants with surprising deadly laspistol fire...

Ork Super-Attack Onslaughter Dreadnoughts arrived from reserve, one deploying from the middle of the eastern table edge, the other at the northern part of it to challenge the Marines.

Predator and militia moved out to meet Cantor and friends, who had made it about halfway across the table before being shot up by the Orks. As they sheltered, hidden, in a wood, the Assault Squad moved towards their position...

"Waaaagh"

...only to be confronted by the Dreadnought and some surviving Boyz who caused a few casualties.

The second Ork Dreadnought roasted the remnants of the Marine squad to the south

Mention must be made of IG Lieutenant "Mad Phil" McMadd, who single-handedly killed or routed the entire Ork command squad. First he charged the Ork carrying a flamer - Ork missed, was killed with a chainsword. rest of the squad failed morale and fled. Then he charged the Ork with the missile launcher - was hit with a krak missile but his copy of the "Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer" he kept in his breast pocket evidently deflected the missile - no wound. Command squad fled again... and kept running... put that man in for a promotion!

Meantime the Ork Dread scuffled in the woods with the Eggs.

Cantor running as fast as his tri-bladder can carry him... but time is running out...

"Die, ork scum!!!"

The sweet smell of barbecuing Grot...

End of the line for Pedro - "missed it by that much"... The Pedro-philes in the crowd are disappointed by the Captain missing his escape by mere millimeters... I think we would have called the game an Ork win...

"OK, so boxcars on a Ld check is good, right?"

...save for the horrifying incompetence of the Ork commander, [name redacted]. After seeing the rest of his squad carved up by a chainsword-wielding maniac, he decided that wild-eyed panic was the better part of valour and fled, never to be heard from again.

Another great game of RT from the mind of Conscript Greg B.! Thanks to Greg for running the charts and bringing out his stunning marines and Guard, and to Conscripts Mike A., Mike F., Kevin, Dave V., and Brian for coming out! We'll pick up the thread again in a couple of weeks... after Thrugg Bullneck's visit to the local Bad Doc for some cybernetic augmentation...?

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!