2008/07/11: Lunchbreak 250

While consolidating recent victories and strengthening their presence on the polar world of Lechten IX, Kingbreakers leaders were notified of a possible Chaos taint in one of the abandoned sectors of the frozen world. A small force was quickly dispatched to investigate the threat and measure its extent. Sure enough, Captain Lijurius and his cadre of Marines quickly found themselves eyeing a squad of traitorous Chaos Marines and their champion. But before they could even begin an engagement with the pustulous scum, the Kingbreakers were set upon by a Dark Eldar raiding party!

Sadly, their arrival was heralded by a blaze of Disintegrator fire which annihilated Tactical 1 in its entirety. Watching his sole heavy weapons support fade into the crusty, freshly blooded snow, Lijurius quickly gathered his resolve, rallied Scout 1, and made directly for the heathen xenos. Nimbly dodging incoming fire, the troops double timed into an Assault on the attack skiffs and shorn the lead vehicle of its main weapons with ease.

Sensing a threat to their own existence as well, the Chaos forces also quickly turned their plasma rifles onto the newcomers and the second Raider went up in a firey explosion that took half its doomed passengers with it. Trapped in a losing position, the remaining Raider then fled for cover, exposing the shaken troops from the burning wreckage of its companion to a decimating assault from the Kingbreakers that avenged the loss of Tactical 1. Nurgle's warriors then quickly re-sighted the fleeing alien flyer and brought it and nearly its entire boarding party down in a flaming heap.

The tides of war having shifted and the Xenos threat largely removed, the Kingbreakers quickly returned their attentions to the traitor legions. Dashing in with knives and pistols ready and eager to carve rotting flesh, Scout 1 made short work of several of the apostates and shred to pieces a Beast of Nurgle that dared stand in their way. They were quickly brought up hard against a veteran sergeant however, former hero of the Imperium long since twisted into a champion of Nurgle. The traitor sergeant's power sword infused with unholy energies temporarily granted by the lord of decay, Lijurius and his men were no match for the strength of the champion and quickly fell to his might.

Having dispatched the Kingbreakers, the Chaos forces then quickly mopped up the sole surviving Eldar warrior as he struggled in the wreckage of his Raider, blasting the pirate to ash with well placed plasma fire. With no opposition left to confirm their existence and summon assistance, the Chaos force withdrew to simmer and plot, a fresh beachhead now established for the re-taking of Lechten IX...

Stats & Results

250pt game, 75 minutes: Dave W on Dark Eldar, Matt W on Chaos (Nurgle), and Joe K on Space Marines (Kingbreakers). Dark Eldar and Kingbreakers obliterated, a few Chaos Marines returned to the warp---strong victory for the forces of darkest terror!

Lessons

Tactically, a reasonable game. There's just not much you can do to stop being obliterated by a skimmer that's moving stupid far, ignoring terrain, on a 24" board, carrying a boatload of weapons, and moving first... Tactical 1 could have and clearly should have deployed into better cover, but they were trying to setup for an opening missile salvo, and they probably could not have avoided that first attack from the Raiders.

Scout 1 fared reasonably well, but would have struggled heavily against the Raiders without the Chaos forces chipping in plasma fire. The Raiders down though, they didn't have much choice but to Assault the traitor marines. A shooting battle---pistols against plasma guns---probably wouldn't have gone so well, and if the Captain had landed just a few of his power sword strikes, particularly on the power sword equipped sergeant, things could have easily gone much better.

For very short tables like that, it may be sensible in the future to adjust the Infiltrate and a few other similar rules such that they're actually usable in that size area. Another possibility in multi-player games is permitting units of a player not engaged in an assault to shoot into that assault. Otherwise they're just kind of standing around waiting for it to resolve.