Pack by Circumstance (A short story) (Part 1)

Part 1: The Gathering

Explosions rocked the ship as Tormod Ripfang dashed his way through the ship in near darkness guided only by the red glare of the emergency lights and small fires around him. The claxons were going off with a loud shrill with the comm system announcing “All hands abandon ship, repeat abandon ship. Critical damage to the reactors overload imminent. Rally points have been transmitted via encryption for all survivors, Russ protect all of us.”

Tormod grumbled, “This was supposed to be a simple warp translation into a safe system, just a patrol….what in the seven Hels is going on?” He was just earlier with his pack taking their positions within the ship for warp translation. It was standard procedure to have all packs ready and at their assigned ship duty stations in the event of an emergency. It was usually just another boring drill, then once the ship captain gave the signal they could return to their training cages to spar, indulge themselves with some food and drink or enjoy respite in a rest cycle until duty called.

This was not the case, as they was deploying and the ship came out of translation the first explosions hammered the ship hull and sent a fireball down the corridor his squad was moving through. Only Tormod survived by some trick of fate as a blast door slammed down just in front of him as the blast of plasma was starting to melt the edges of his armor and ruined his helmet. Forced to remove it as the optics was damaged beyond repair, he snarled as the announcements started to echo through the ship as the alert klaxons started to go off. Something was attacking them….

The door before him was half open, sparks flying from the panel, it appears that someone carved into it with a power fist and ripped half the door back after a power failure caused it to no longer work. He smirked, “at least someone saved me the trouble” as he raced past the door into the savior pod section. One hatch remained open as he jumped inside to find it already occupied by some of his brethren. Quickly he slams a restraint harness over him and growls “Get us out of here…” in an impatient tone. “There is nobody else behind me and the entire deck is about to go!”

An older Space Wolf with a power fist glances up at Ripfang, “Ease up lad, we’ll make it…” Then he slaps the activation rune on the panel near him. The hatch started to close with a hiss as an explosion engulfed the bay in a wave of fire that licked around the hatch as the final hiss of pressure filled the pod leaving behind an orange glow from the view port showing the entire deck was an inferno.  A loud thump and click is all they heard as the pod was in motion spinning away from the ship towards the planet below.

Tormod was able to get a glimpse of the ship as the fires raged around it as it started to go to its final death. To him it was like the old stories of Hel itself had come and claimed the ship. Suddenly the ship exploded in a bright flash, the shockwave hit the pod moments later. Alarms started to go off and runes was flashing all over the console. Ferensian profanity and prayers to Russ flew through the pod as it began to spin in a wild decent.

The Wolf Guard calls out in an urgent voice, “Pod is off course, we have damage throughout, we must have been hit by debris…” Aaron didn’t find this reassuring and fell into his usual way of dealing with stress with banter, “Really? I thought this was all normal, but again this is my first exploding ship that I have been forced to evacuate…”

 Smoke was already starting to rise from the panel as the ship was already starting to hit the atmosphere of the planet and shaking the pod like how a child of the gods would play with a toy.  Everyone was already saying prayers or growling with displeasure as the pod began to vibrate their internal organs and the gravity was starting to claim the occupants making the restraints uncomfortable. The pod began to buffer against the atmosphere and the air around the pod howled like wolves on a dark Ferensian night stalking for their souls. Then without warning the pod struck the surface of the planet.



1850 Battle Report Orks Vs Grey Knights (Blue vs Grey)

 

Played at the LGS in Tampa last night against a Grey Knights player by the same name of Patrick (same name as me) in what I consider a close and interesting game. I considered several armies to bring and settled on Orks as I have not used them much except during the Apocalypse game a few weeks ago. Even so, not much of the Ork codex came into play as most things such as units and vehicles die so easy in that game that I could not call it an official game using all the rules as such.

He had the special HQ that had the Ghost Knights in tow (about 5 I think), Crowe, 2 Units of Purifiers with psycannons (full) in Rhinos, 1 Unit of Interceptor (teleporter squad with psycannons), 1 Dreadnought with a pair of TL Autocannons, Vindicare Assassin.

I had Warboss on Bike with Klaw and Cybork, Mek with Cybork, Klaw and KFF, 30 Boyz with 3 Rockets and shootas, 2 Trukk Squads with Nob with Klaw/Bosspole, Trukks has Red and Ram, Battlewagon with single big shoota, red and Ram. 15 Burnas with 3 Rocket Launchers on Meks, 12 Lootas, Snikrot with full unit of Kommandos with 2 burnas and 20 Ard boyz with Nob with Klaw and Bosspole.

We rolled for the Mission and got Kill Points and Spearhead deployment. He won the dice off and picked his side. Deploying the Interceptors central, the Dread just behind, Crowe off to one side behind a Rhino full of Purifiers, the other Purifiers off to the other. The Terminators in reserve and the Assassin would infiltrate.

My deployment was basic, Lootas into a high building, one squad of boyz near a rock formation for cover, the rest in reserve. Burnas jumped in the Battlewagon with the Big Mek. The Warboss on bike ambushed with Snikrot (see latest Ork FAQ, yea dumb but figured what the hell).

Turn 1:

Failed to seize and he moved a little. I lost several orks from the Boyz squad to storm bolter fire and the Vindicare sniped the Nob with a 2 wound round. Lost a few Lootas. He also landed his Terminators near the Lootas. They had one turn to live.

My first turn was quick, I moved the Boyz into cover, fired a few shots killing a few Interceptor Grey Knights, the Lootas followed suit and wounded a few more despite only getting 1 shot each.

Turn 2:

His next turn took the terminators into the Lootas wiping the squad out. The rest of the army shot at Ork Boyz in cover.  The Vindicare tried to snipe one of the Rocket Launchers but the cover save was passed and the boyz managed to hold out despite terrible losses. Cover saved them from this round of brutal shooting.

Next round  I got the Battlewagon, Kommandos, Ard Boyz, and 1 Trukk.  One was stuck in reserve! At first I was going to send the Wagon into the Terminators and try to use the burnas to either flamer them down or try to break their armor and wound them as power weapons. Based on the halberds in that squad it would have ended badly for me. I ended up deploying the wagon to the far left side outside of the quarter I deployed in earlier as I could use the long edge. The Trukk rolled in beside it with the Ard Boyz behind for cover. The Trukk boyz deployed out towards the Rhino. Snikrot and Warboss moved in from the back side behind the Interceptors. I called the Waaaggghh and charged forward. I was in range to do a few assaults. The bonus move for the Trukk boyz got me close to the Rhino. Then I opened up some shooting. Some rockets and shootas caused a shaken result and a storm bolter to be removed. Assault phase kicked in. The Kommandos hit the Interceptors. The boyz failed their terrain test and failed to surround the rhino, which was my hope, pop it and trap them inside. The Boyz beat up the rhino and forced the Purifiers out (didn’t get to use the Klaw). The Kommandos took a few losses, then ate the Interceptor Squad, we slipped back into cover and waited.

Turn 3:

His turn took an interesting swing. Crowe moved to assault the Kommandos and Warboss. The Sniper and Dreadnought fired into the Trukk and Wagon. The Trukk failed the KFF roll and exploded on the spot after rolling on the mishap chart. Lost 2 Ard Boyz I think. Lost a few more boyz to fire from the Terminators, again cover helped. The Purifiers shot up the boyz that wrecked their ride and assaulted them.  He also got an assault with the hammer on the Trukk. Crowe killed the Warboss with his psychic “if I die, you die” power. Ugh! The other Purifier squad got out of the Rhino and tried to kill a few Kommandos and get an assault if possible. They failed their roll.

I pushed the Kommandos into cover, fired both burnas, wounded the Vindicare and killed a few Grey Knights. Once the assault was over, the Vindicare was dead but so was the rest of the Kommandos after an ugly bout with the Grey Knights. After we discussed moving the wagon, I opted not to move it and moved the Ard boyz around it to setup to clean house. I opened up on the Purifiers on my side, multiple burnas and rockets wiped them from the table in short order.

Turn 4:

He moved his terminators closer the boyz squad once 30 strong was a handful of survivors took a few more losses. The Purifiers started to run to the other side of the board, he moved his rhino to safety to avoid my lucky rocket launchers blowing it to hell and back. The Dread opened fire on the Battle Wagon again, again saved by the KFF.

My turn was again a quick one. A few shots into the Purifiers closing, he lost a few to a lucky rocket shots. The Wagon raced forward, out came the Mek and Burnas, 3 rockets streaked towards the Dreadnought and blew it to hell and back. I had expected the Klaw to be the one to finish it off. A nice surprise if you ask me. The other Trukk arrived, I started to move through a building rolling a nice “1” on the dice. Well, I had ram at least, then promptly rolled another “1”. The Trukk fired off a bunch of accurate shots and killed a few Purifiers that turn.

Turn 5:

He advanced up again, the boyz was down to less than a half dozen now.  To my surprise they held out well without a Nob leaving two rockets left when it was all said and done..

The Burnas and Mek loaded up the Battlewagon and drove around the wrecked Rhino ready to pounce. Next turn he would be in assault range. Again, a few big shoots, pistol shots (Ard Boyz) and rockets thinned down his Purifiers to only 2 in the squad. Roll to continue happens.

Turn 6:

Terminators and the two Purifiers make a multi charge on the Ard Boyz and the two surviving rocket launchers in the Boyz squad. The Purifiers BBQ a few Ard Boyz and one rocket go down. The power weapons sliced of the rest like butter on a hot knife.

I roll up the Battle Wagon, 12 flamers and 3 rockets fly towards the Terminators. The Trukk Boyz gets out and prepares to assault the Purifiers. Oddly, again they both died due to the big shoota and some pistols! So, they are standing around with the mushroom in their hand waiting to be assaulted. Just a rhino, HQ choice left! The flamer wounds his HQ and a ghost knight appears to replace the one I burned down. *sigh*

We roll, we continue to 7!

Turn 7:

This was a fast turn, he wiped out the last Trukk Boyz squad and the disabled Trukk. The Wagon rolls up again, flamers away! I killed another terminator and wounded the HQ again, again he restores one! ARG! After something like 50+ flamer hits I killed 2 Terminators and wounded his HQ twice!

Kill Points Tally:

Orks Dead: Warboss (on bike), Boyz Squad, Ard Boyz, 2 Trukk Boyz squads (and transports), Snikrot/Kommandos and Lootas. Giving him 9 totals. I only had a Battle Wagon, Mek and Burnas surviving. (Don’t recall 100% if the last truck was gone or not, but I am counting it anyway).

Grey Knights Dead: Dreadnought, Vindicare, 2 Purifier Squads, 1 Rhino, Crowe and Interceptor Squad. Giving me a total of 7. He had was survived with his HQ with Ghost Knights and a Rhino.

A bloody game indeed! If the game ended on 5 I would have won. Maybe even on 6 I could have pulled a win or a draw. After 7, I would have had to wipe both the HQ and Rhino to draw. If I was more thoughtful I should have fallen back more and kept away from him instead of trying to fight it out like an Ork. Alas, that was not part of my Kunnin’Plan.

Unit Reviews:

Snikrot and Kommandos: Did well, they finished off the Interceptors, Vindicare and killed a few Purifiers as well as wounded Crowe before they died. A good showing.

Burnas: Earned their paycheck taking down one Purifier squad, 2 terminators and threw a few wounds on the HQ to boot.

Trukk Boyz: Didn’t earn their keep. The one squad downed one Rhino, the other finished off two Grey Knights then died. A few big shoota shots claimed a few more GK but not sure if enough to call it a success.

Boyz Squad (30): They got the Mork Award of bravery and shooting deftness. Serious, they held out against the odds and died to man, took down a few Grey Knights, maybe not their point value but drew enough fire to allow others to do stuff.

Warboss (on bike): Meh, he killed Crowe and died to a craptastic power.  Didn’t get to do much this game.

Mek (KFF): That KFF saved all but 1 shot against the Trukk. This was a major ace for the game for me. If that Wagon went down, it could have went REALLY bad for me.

Battle Wagon: Did well enough, got the unit from point A to B and survived well enough.

Lootas: VERY disappointing performance. Their one shot of glory was a 1! Then died to the Terminators of DOOM!

Ard Boyz: They were pretty much wearing toilet paper against an army with power weapons. Even the 4+ I needed a few times against explosions and storm bolters didn’t cut it.

In retrospect I should have went with more large blocks of Boyz Squads. Ditched the Trukks and Ard Boyz for them. 

Ork Deployment. First turn for Grey Knights

Terminators land near the Lootas.

Ork Boyz after first turn of being shot up!

Interceptors after several lost brothers from deadly Ork shooting!

Grey Knights Clean House!

Knock! Knock!

The Ork line from turn 2!

Komandos bash the Grey Knights!

Da Orks cheer as the Umies in silver are vanquished!

Did anyone bring the hot dogs?

Grey Knighs race to the battle.

Hey! Where did they go? I can't see past all the flames and smoke from the burna boyz!

Mek and Burnas take out the Dreadnough with lucky rocket shots!

Last stand for the Ard Boyz and the two survivors of the unstoppable Ork Boyz!

Orcpoclapse Aftermath

Overdue posting this up, but the mega battle was a bit of a bust. One guy was in an accident and the other forgot his rites of maintenance for his car and it decided not to work unless given oil as tribute.

As we had 3 Ork players and 1 IG. We broke our lists into 2k each and he managed to muster a 6k list for quick mega game.

The game was over pretty quick, about 3pm we was packing up and heading to IHOP to treat the IG player to a well earned meal. He fought a good fight but he learned quickly it is a bad idea to allow orks to get close to your lines.

Here is some pics of the game as highlights:

IG Deployment!

Ork First Turn

Orks swoop into Imperial Lines

Stompa and Skullhamma

Another table shot of the orks on approach.

Orks disembark and assult! We needs parts!

Lootas hiding in a crater.

The Brave Imperial Commander!

Kommandos in behind the lines!

Deffkoptas on approach!

Orks Amok us!

Kommandos krump a few tanks!

Battle of the Fang Review

Just finished this book, all I can say is WOW! Pick this book up and read it! It follows up after Prospero Burns and A 1000 Sons, the books tie in nicely and brings some light to one of the historic battles of all time. Simply a great read! Anything else would spoil the story and ruin the read! So get to reading!

40k Web Comics and Reviews

Howdy folks,

Figure this time I would share of some of my favorite web comics that I have found and offer up a small review of each.

1) EatATau

http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/

By far is one of the best I have read so far, the web comic has a great cast, good personalities, well drawn in anime style and full of adult humor and language. Not for the kiddies!

2) Turn Signals on a Land Raider

http://tsoalr.com/

While this web comic has since been called to an end, the archive is there and worth the time to surf and enjoy. The story centers around a Land Raider and her crew following their adventures on the game table. By far this one holds the best relationship to the game and brings often to light some of the funny things that come up during a game.

3) Wolf And Sister

http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/2011/02/wolf-sister.html

A new kid on the block in web comics. The artwork is good, the story is mediocre for the moment and I hope it will bring forth something interesting.

4) Gone to Ground

http://gonetoground.ca/

This is about the adventures of Bacon and Eggs a pair of new recruits to the Imperial Guard and their exploits. The website had some issues with hacking and virus  hits that has now been cleaned up. The comic still appears on hold though. A good laugh that is worth a read.

http://www.servantsoftheimperium.com/comic/about.html

Another great Web comic and perhaps my second favorite right now. The artwork is very baseline but the style is something you will come to enjoy. The story and comedy is contained within is great and again a well worth the read.

Hope you enjoy the read and feel free to tell me what you think!

GW updates FAQs for Core Rules, Space Marines, Grey Knights and Orcs

My only thoughts are...

OR

Does GW hire the dumbest people they can to work on their games? I think the answer is yes.

• Let's contradict rules.
• Let's just ignore the core rules and say Orcs don't use their BS to adjust scatter of blasts but anyone else can.
• Let's come up with the dumb 4+ rule in the event two powers nullify one another, then not far behind. Just say well if I reroll saves and they force rerolled successes, do they cancel. Sure!
• Let's just totally rewrite our rules for exceptions for everything.
• Let's totally jack over the English language with the difference of  "hull" vs "wing".
• Let's answer questions from 11 year olds instead of the intelligent adult ones that we may actually have to think about and give a good answer!

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2011/07/live-blogging-40k-faq-updates/

Stelek pretty much sums of my thoughts as well on the FAQs.

Orcpocalypse Now!

Just a mere two days away from what I hope will be an epic Apocalypse game. Our side with the Orcs is busy right now working on a cunnin' plan and making sure our boyz are ready to crump some umies!

I am taking this as a personal challenge in this game working with an older codex against a superior one like the IG and loaded with tons of formations and upgrades for their side.

Stay tuned as I plan to take pictures, post a battle report and maybe a little story to how this plays out.

For MORK AND GORK!

Book Updates

Just finished the first book of the "Enforcer" Series and I have to say, "WOW! What a great book!" This was a true sleeper, I am looking forward to picking up the other two now to see where this is going. This was by far not your standard 40k book, it instead gives you a taste of what the Arbites are truly like and about the cultures they work within. In some ways it was a sci-fi gumshoe book with detective work being key to the story.

I have since over the week just launched past the mid mark of "Battle of the Fang". Again, this book is a surprise as I didn't have huge expectations for the Battles Novel series. Now after reading the Dark Angels and this one, I am again impressed with this. The center of the book has a map of the Fang, a ballad that their skalds would tell, artwork and some battle maps of the engagements they fought at that time. Again, I strive to avoid spoilers but the story has many elements and spans in several directions including some perspective of the 1000 Sons.

An Outing with Two New Armies

This battle report is about a week late, but work has been taking alot out of me and I've been lazy.

Chris has been toying with a Blood Angel list and just was able to cobble enough together for a 1500pt list. I tossed together an all Inquisition list to see how this would turn out.

Chris had:

• Stormraven
• Land Raider
• Tactical Squad
• Partial Tactical Squad in Razorback with heavy bolters
• Large unit of Death Company with 2 power weapons and a power fist.
• Captain with power weapon.
• Full Jump Troop choice.

I had (from memory):

• 2 chimeras (standard) with 8 psykers, 2 Jokero and 2 Plasma Weapons
• 2 chimeras with (heavy flamer in the hull), each with 4 Crusaders, 4 Death Cult Assassin, 3 Melta Guns
• 1 chimera (standard) with a mix, 1 crusader, 3 death cult assassins, Demonhost, 3 melta guns, servitor and 2 normals.
• Vindicare
• Techmarine with Warding Stave and Rad Grenades
• Cortez
• Xenos Inquisitor with Rad Grenades and Psyker Upgrade.

Base game was Capture and Control (2 objectives one in each deployment zone) with spearhead deployment.  I won the dice off and opted to go first. He had range over me and this could end badly for me without some bit of luck.

We deploy, I try to setup in a defensive stance to get cover while he spread out to engage from different vantages.

Chris tossed a 6 on the dice and took the first turn! He moved the Stormraven up, advanced the Land Raider, pulled the Razorback out of cover and turned it to shield the jump squad behind it.

Shooting resulted in some bad dice rolls for Chris first turn, he removed one weapon off and very little else happened. He either missed or failed to pen the vehicles.  My return fire blew one lascannon off the land raider. The Raven took a hit from either the lascannon or psyker blast and went crashing down in flames of an explosion. The Razorback also took a pen and blew up also.

At this point the game was already written in stone. Next turn the Land Raider took another hit and was made immobile and I started to slowly shooting his army apart. Only three assaults happened in the game and was all rather one sided. The best for Chris was charging into cover and he again had some bad dice rolls and I was able to mop up the squad with Hammerhand and some power weapons. Same for the other two, shooting down the unit then the assault finished off everything else. In the end I lost two Chimeras and about 1/3 out of 3 squads.

The game ended on turn 6 and Chris only had the character, land raider and part of the Death Company left to defend his objective. I kept rolling badly to take out the Land Raider, it was still alive at the end of the game despite 6 melta guns trying to work it over. BS 3, bad pen rolls or a bad roll on the damage chart didn't work out in my favor. It lost a heavy bolter, lascannon and was immobile.

Looking back on the game here are some of my thoughts:

For Me:

• I need more long range. BS 3 on the Jokero was a joke. The psykers was ok but LD 8 sucks, I failed about 1/3 of my rolls. One squad usually sat around every turn doing nothing. Perhaps adding more Jokero or perhaps an orbital bombardment option would be some good options.
• Add more Crusaders.
• Reserves. I feel if I went into reserves, this would have thrown off Chris and I would have been able to push to his objective quicker to take it.
• Lack of Frags. I am looking at taking Land Raiders for their Frag Launchers, I was very afraid in that one assault going through cover. I could see a unit get slaughtered very easy.

For Chris:

• Could have played for a draw very easy. A good defensive stance could have kept me at bay and if he stuck to range, damaged my transports this game would have went badly for me. If he stayed back out of range and slowly sniped my army to bits.
• Reserves: Putting the Raven, Land Raider and Jump squad into reserves would have been a great idea. Deep striking the Raider and Jump Troop would have put two units in my face and the Raven could have went flat out and delivered the Death Company. Even moving in from the long table edge would have been a huge game changer to me.
• Chris purchased a Librarian and is adding it to the list. This would have also been a major thorn in my side as it would have shut down Hammerhand and the Psyker blast powers causing further impairment to my army if he was in range.
• Chris forgot to roll for Blood Rage.

This was a first game and just a test to see how the armies would perform and if Chris had his usual Space Wolves I would have been wearing Milk Bone Underwear.

Pics of the game:

My Deployment Zone

Objective Marker

Deployment Zone for Chris

/Another angle.

Proxiy Land Raider

Death Company after the Raven goes down. Jump troops hide behind the wrecked Razorback.

Taticals pile out of the Rhino into cover.

Jump Troops prepare to press forward.

Another shot.

Jump Troops prepares to assult Cortez and crew.

Failed shooting and assult ensures a good assult next turn for the Magos (Techmarine)

Pile out boys! Shoot'em up!

Inquisitor takes cover towards the end of the game. Land Raider downs another Chimera.

6 Meltas Guns = Epic Fail

Cotaez finishes off the Tatical squad.