This was the second game in the narrative campaign my gaming group is doing. You can see the first game over here.
Second Game: Convoy Escort
This mission revolved around the alpha legion attacking a supply convoy en route to reinforce the site of a planetside macro cannon, and prepare it for firing at the chaos fleet when they arrive in orbit. The Alpha legion forces were deployed in secret, and could be revealed from the start of their second turn. The imperial forces add D3” to their first movement when they go flat-out.
Forces
Alpha legion
- Fire Raptor Gunship, xiphon interceptor, Contemptor dreadnought with twin linked lascannon and meltagun in dreadclaw drop pod.
- Primus medicae Trask – Artificer armour, power maul, power dagger, refractor field, meltabombs
- Legion apothecary (Power sword artificer armour)
- 2 – 5 Man meltagun tactical support squads (Sergeants have melta bombs, power daggers and artificer armour)
- 2 – 5 man plasmagun tactical support squads (Sergeants have melta bombs, power daggers and artificer armour)
- 5 Man heavy support squad with 5 volkite culverins (Sergeant has art armour and power dagger, unit will snap fire on the turn they are revealed.
Imperial
- 11 Transport vehicles (mix of rhinos, chimeras, razorbacks and a taurox.)
- Captain Tyraticus (Blood angel captain, artificer armour, pair of lightning claws, jump pack, melta bombs)
- 3 sanguinary priests (3 power swords, 2 bolt pistols, jump packs. One has an inferno pistol)
- 3 – 10 man assault squads (Jump packs, squad 1 has 2 meltaguns and a veteran Sergeant with a power axe and melta bombs, Squad 2 has an inferno pistol and a veteran sergeant with a power fist, Squad 3 has a veteran sergeant with a pair of lightning claws and meltabombs)
- Baal predator (Heresy configuration) Assault cannon sponsons, assault cannon turret, printle mounted assault cannon
- 1 Vendetta, 1 thunderbolt
The alpha legion Fire raptor and dreadclaw containing the contemptor are rolled for from the first reveal of an alpha legion unit. The imperial player can then make a roll for his air support (one 3+ roll needed to bring on both the vendetta and the thunderbolt) once the fire raptor arrives, the Xiphon will then automatically arrive at the start of the next alpha legion turn.
The blood angel assault squads each have a sanguinary priest assigned to them and can deepstrike in if desired
The objective for this mission is the transport vehicles. The imperial team gets a point of stockpile for each surviving transport vehicle at the end of the game, or for each that has left the opposite short table edge to where it entered. The alpha legion get a point for chaos if they destroy half of the transports or two points if all transports are destroyed.
Story Excerpt
54 hours until chaos fleet arrival. Windbreak canyon.
Captain Tyraticus looked down from the open thunderhawk ramp as the convoy moved below. The wind even this far out from the macro cannon site was fierce and buffeted the thunderhawk. As the vehicles started to move forwards into the next area of the canyon two erupted into flames as hidden forces cast off their cloak of secrecy and struck. A falling meteor slammed down engulfing a swathe of the ground below it in fire. He jumped from the gunship with his squad as Squad Sullust moved in from ground level. As he dropped Tyraticus noticed the arrival of a Fire Raptor gunship. It moved swiftly and close to the ground before it opened fire.
“Callsign Omega” He yelled into his vox as he struck the ground. The unit he had joined formed around him a moment later and started shooting at the alpha legion foes. The drop pod swept overhead as fire chased it. The thunderbolt and vendetta that had been seconded to the convoy turned it into molten slag as the contemptor dreadnought inside fell groundwards snapping its knees as it landed.
Story Excerpt
The third squad leapt from the thunderhawk gunship as a Xiphon interceptor sped in loosing a couple of ineffective shots into a weakened chimera before counter fire from the vendetta smashed it from the sky sending it crashing downwards before exploding on impact. Bolt pistol fire and the shrill sounds of chainblades sounded as autocannon, storm bolter and lascannon fire ceased signalling the end of resistance. The Fire Raptor now lacking targets and ground support peeled off away from the battleground. The two imperial navy fliers struggling to turn against the wind and give chase.
Tyraticus looked around as their sanguinary priests gathered up the casualties. Four blood angels had been lost and only two rhinos and two chimera tanks had survived the ambush. Once the priest had finished his task and recovered the gene seed Tyraticus opened the inter suit vox.
“Blood angels move out. We have 10 miles to cover. Sergeant Sullust your team takes point eye open for another ambush.”
53 hours until chaos fleet arrival – Macro cannon defence location.
The lookout flashed his beacon as the convoy approached. The wind noise was severe as the air howled around the site. The blood angels had detached their jump packs and where riding the transports via handholds or were walking calmly alongside.
The company commander of the defence unit came out of his bunker to greet the arrivals. Tyraticus left his troops to aid in the unloading of the supplies while he stepped into the bunker and out of the screaming winds.
With this game we had tested it twice before it was played as part of the campaign. The Alpha legion player managed to destroy one more transport than was managed on the test games. The Xiphon interceptor appears to be cursed as that is pretty much what it did in every other test game. Arrive, fail to damage an enemy vehicle, then get struck by imperial guard fliers and fail two 3+ jink saves before crashing to the ground.
This game granted the chaos forces another point of chaos and the imperial forces gained four points of stockpile. With the campaign as it stands that leaves chaos with 3 points and the imperial forces with 4 points of stockpile. I will cover more of the campaign as it unfolds.
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Cool report, and I like the mission. I’ll continue to say that this is how 40K is meant to be played, to tell stories. I’m looking forward to more of these.
Thanks Thor I’ll keep up on reporting the outcomes of the campaign as it progresses as well as explaining the missions we have been playing.
(some missions were only ever played as test games, as they didn’t add anything and we had repeating results with one side constantly winning. These included a mechanicum force moving through a zone mortalis complex to restore planetary communications [they won everytime] Cultists attacking a adeptus arbites precinct [Cultists tended to win this mission] Story wise we still worked these results in but we did not play them as part of the campaign)
Nice!
I love a good campaign, keep it up.
Will do. Look forward to more soon.
Good stuff, twas fun to read and you listened and added more pictures. Bravo!
I think the Alpha Legion could have tried for a couple of tactical squads to flesh out numbers and it would have helped them.
Fire Raptors are real beasts though.
It was closer than the results may have you believe. In the end one rhino and one chimera had 2 HP left, one chimera had a single HP left and the final rhino was undamaged. (The AL player could have funnelled the transports into traps using the scenery as he had the choice of what to deploy and how much. As his guerrilla force was concealed in the area waiting for the convoy. He went sparse to deny cover saves to the imperial convoy. Leaving them with 8 convoy hull points remaining.)
During testing the alpha legion did manage in one mission though use of terrain and insanely good dice rolls to completely box in and destroy all but one of the transports using the same forces presented above. [Although one rhino died when the xiphon’s exploded remains landed on it.] The average was 6 destroyed transports over the course of the testing.
(originally we had more transports in the convoy and more troops for the alpha legion but one of our players could not make it so we lost 4 imperial transports (and two land speeders) and a second heavy support squad (alpha legion) And two siege terminators [Five wrecked anything during testing so we settled on a unit of 2])