Game 1: Get Ready For A Surprise

The Leering King appear on the small mining moon Adion in the neighboring sector. Mining Red Amoutite is an extremely hazardous process. The environmental hazards in the mines are so toxic that they can only be operated on by servitors with a majority of their vital organs replaced.

The baron overseeing the operation is Lord Varilus. Through sheer brutality he has complete control over the servitors. The Red Amoutite business is lucrative, and the ports are almost always full of traders hauling the raw material to one of the countless factories in the imperium. 

A patrol of Exorcist Space Marines had recently garrisoned the facilities in preparation for their operations in the the Alpha S'era 22 system. The space marines garrison was able to repel the mysterious Aeldari ritual but not before one of the main cooling turbines was destroyed.

Alex: As a Harlequin player I'm almost always drawn to the deployment zone with vantage point terrain, and I think that's just a habit I need to break. I also thought I could deny the space marines a vantage point and save some command points, but being concealed is just way more important early turns. I managed to squeeze out a secondary objective, but overall not one of my best outings. 

Game Stuff (Day 1):

Base updates:

• Gain a requisition point for playing a game

Operative experience:

1. Severe concussion

2. 2 XP

3. - 

4. - 

5. 1 XP

6. -

7. 2 XP

8. - 

Spec Op:

• Demolition
• Sabotage tally: 1

Requisition points: 3

Equipment Points: 2

Asset Capacity: 0

Stash: Wraithbone Talisman

Strategic Assets: Tactical Uplink, Comms Network

You know where you are? You're in the jungle!

He had never seen jungle like this.  A dense wilderness that spanned the entire continent.  He recalled the wooded regions at the outskirts of Hive Geminus, the isolated patches of natural growth that had yet to be claimed by the crushing industrial sprawl.  There, nature would eventually succumb to the progress of man.  But here, on the deathworld of Logetera, nature would not be so easily swept aside.  It would consume any structure and reclaim any land that man foolishly tried to take for himself.  

This was evidenced by the ruins that Brother Sergeant Godwyn and his squad stalked through.  They were the remains of some human settlement, overgrown and corroded, returned to nature.  The roots of the trees forced their way through the crumbled remains of plascrete walls and iron gates.  Branches and vines coiled around long dead power lines.  Godwyn wondered if 40 Gemini, the shrine world, his home, would have seen a similar fate had the Emperor’s Angels, The Exorcists, not arrived when they did.  He imagined the Great Basilica similarly overgrown, except instead of trees and life, it would have been masses of writhing tentacles blossoming with eyes and mouths and teeth.  He shuddered at the thought.

A quick flash of red through the trees ahead brought his attention back to the present.  One could hardly see more than 6 meters ahead in this dense jungle, but they seemed to be coming to a clearing.  With a few quick hand gestures, Godywn rallied the four other members of his squad and arrayed them along the treeline looking out along a narrow path.  Up ahead was a ravine, spanned by a makeshift bridge.  And moving onto the bridge were the tall, lithe figures of Drukhari wyches, their red armor contrasting against the green of the jungle.  

Godwyn raised his bolter, taking aim down the path.  His fellow marines followed suit, each one picking a target.  The xenos seemed to be unconcerned with the exposed position they put themselves in.  Were they really so foolish?  He didn’t waste any more time speculating on the minds of these pitiful creatures.  His finger depressed the trigger of his bolt rifle, and he felt the familiar kick as he and his squad unleashed a volley of bolt shells down the path.  The wyches fell almost simultaneously as the bolt rounds hit home, detonating within their bodies.  The wyches were blasted apart, limbs and viscera thrown into the ravine.  

One of the wyches in the back of the group was quick.  She was taller than the others and carried a long bladed weapon.  Their leader perhaps.  She moved fast and seemed content to use her fellow warriors as shields.  But eventually she had no one left to soak up the gunfire.  Godwyn pressed the attack, his bolter roaring, and the tall warrior fell in a bloody ruin just like the others.

The smoke cleared, and Godwyn looked out on the blood soaked path ahead of him.  No sooner had the echoes from the gun fire faded than the vox bead in his ear crackled to life.  “Objective secured,” Chaplain Benedict exhorted triumphantly.   “Squad Haluyn is pursuing the xenos leader.  All other squads rally to my position.  Glory to the Emperor, in whose light we are compelled.”

“The Emperor’s light compels us,” Godwyn said to himself.

Andrew:  Using the open war deck to play narrative games is such a stark contrast to the rulebook matched play missions that we have all become accustomed to.  You just need to accept going into it that this is a different game.  It’s not about scoring points, it’s about telling a story.  Throw in a crazy battlezone, like this 3rd Edition Catachan jungle, and you can have some fun narrative moments.  It’s just a shame that playing these kinds of games seems to be anathema to the 40k community at large.  Could you imagine asking someone to play a game where your shooting range is limited to 6”?  Where you can’t just blast someone off the table on turn 1?

Oh yeah, we also had debris falling from orbit doing mortal wounds.

Episode Two: He's worse than crazy, he's evil!

Vypus the Pale was ready to die. He had killed the Space Marines that had ambushed his Raider after it had crashed, but the relentless bolter fire would eventually claim him too. It was inevitable.

Just as he thought it was too late, an almost impossibly black arm grabbed around his chest and pulled him back into the Webway, back to Commorragh.

He didn't know who grabbed him out of real space and pulled him back to the dark city, but as he landed the creatures that were responsible disappeared back into the shadows. The blue flames evaporating into the darkness.

'Who is responsible for this?' Vypus growled.

His question was answered when the a black leather boot landed flatly against his chest, and pinned him back to the hard ground he had just landed painfully onto.

"You don't sound very grateful"

It was Nessyla 'Thumper' Krael, one of the most famous Succubus in The Spire of Seven Talons. Her rivalry with her twin sister -- also a distinguished gladiator--had been the stuff of recent legend around the Spires. While Nessyla's star in the gladiator pits were well established, her sister's had recently been far outpacing her own celebrity; but Nessyla would never admit to it.

'Overrated!' Nessyla would snarl at anyone brave enough to mention her sister. 

The younger Aelf had saved Vypus, but what this hypebeast would inevitably expect in return was still unknown to him.

---

++ Mission Date: 995.M41

Location: Logetera (Deathworld), Alpha S'era 22 Sector. 

Mission Transcript:

(Mission Time: 002:45) Objective secured. Xenos detected. They were unprepared for our attack. Requesting further intel.

(Mission Time: 002:48) Casualty Report! Xenos mine detonated, we couldn't detect under hundreds of years of overgrowth. It must have been there for centuries?! Apothicary requested.

(Mission Time: 002:48) Request Confirmed.

(Mission Time: 002:51) Combat report: Xenos forces have been neutralized. Minimal Resistance, Assault Intercessors unit 34 advancing to jungle sector 17.45.936.

(Mission Time: 002:58) Assault Intercessors unit 34 reporting: contact.

<Redacted>

(Mission Time: 005:34) No response from the commanding officer in Assault Intercessors unit 34 operating in jungle sector 17.45.936. Request extraction.

(Mission Time: 005:34) Request confirmed.

++End Transmition++

Alex: The 3rd edition Catachan rules are essentially a completely different game, and I really need to work out a more coherent strategy if we're going to play it again. On paper it seems like using the clearings and trails would be vital to the strategy, but in reality it just makes you an easy target. A -1 to being hit is a way better benefit than not having to roll for movement.

Only being able to see 6" also means I couldn't bring my superior number to bare against the Space Marines.

If we were to play a matched play game with these rules, I think the play would be to use the Raiders to drop on objectives with the Kabalites and hopefully rack up enough early turn points to win.

Game Stuff (Day 2):

Crusade updates:

• +1 Requisition Point

Power Level: 41

Crusade Points: 4

Controlled Territory: The Gland, The Spire of Seven Talons.

Requisition points: 3

Archon (Vypus the Pale): Parasite Kiss, Hatred Eternal, 2 Kill, 6XP, Perfectionist.

Kabalite Warriors (trueborn): 2XP

Kabalite Warriors: 1XP

Raider: 1XP

Ravager: 1XP

Succubus: Precision Blows, The Blood Glaive, 1XP

Wyches: 1XP

Mandrakes: 1XP

Episode One: A Mysterious Craft Emerges

A sudden warp rift opens over the small moon of Yiorus. The shadow of the massive Imperial ship is large enough to cast a significant shadow over the rolling grasslands. As the shadow passes over the green fields, the large shape begins to break down into smaller masses as the hull is ripped apart. Even with the catastrophic damage, the sheer volume of the craft means portions of the ship -- massive in size compared to an average human -- make it to the planets surface

...

A sudden blink into real space, Vypus the Pale emerges from the Webway. This isn't his first time on a real space raid, but it's his first time leading one. His grip on the Parasite Kiss was tight. Unlike in the Webway, in the real space there is an atmosphere and he felt the sudden breeze on his face. As his eyes adjusted to the natural solar light, his surroundings came into focus. It was a human planet, and also one that had seen lots of war.

The novice archon looks out on his new crew. What they lacked in experience they made up for with ambition. He had once been among them but now he was their leader, and he intended to project that confidence. 

"Full acceleration" screamed Vypus, and both of the vehicles noticeably accelerated. The razor sharp blades of his Aeldari craft would eviscerate the humans he had emerged upon.

High caliber ammunition begins to penetrate the night shield and as they get closer, the small arms fire intensifies. While each round doesn't penetrate the shield in full, each shot manages to significantly punch through and damage the hull. After slicing through the initial Space Marine lines, the relentless firepower managed to bring down the Xenos boats.

Emerging from the wreckage, Vypus is able to kill a few of the Space Marines before he is finally slayed by the sheer volume of firepower. As the Space Marine force begins to inspect the wreckage of the Aeldari crash, they discover that the remains of the Archon had been dragged back to Commorragh. 

The Exorcist chapter of the Space Marines had been on Alpha Sera 22 to investigate the simple allegations of conspiracy, but after examining the wreckage they now have the feeling the mysterious tides of the warp may have destined them to be here.

Alex: For my 2022 Dark Eldar I wanted to try to reverse engineer the Power From Pain bonus, especially since that was the only benefit of the Kabal of the Black Heart up until the 9th edition gave them a free reroll.

To take full advantage of the Black Heart benefits I'd have to get a first turn charge off after an advance. I still think that was a good idea, but charging the Ravager into the Marines to try to deny a shooting phase was a mistake. Even though the Ravager isn't bad in combat, three Dark Lances into a target of my choice is just way more of an efficient use of the points.

Rolling dice better also would have probably helped.

Game Stuff (Day 1):

Crusade updates:

• +1 Requisition Point

Power Level: 25

Crusade Points: 2

Controlled Territory: The Gland

Requisition points: 4

Archon (Vypus the Pale): Parasite Kiss, Hatred Eternal, 1 Kill, 1XP

Kabalite Warriors: 1XP

Raider: 1XP

Ravager: 1XP

Deathworlds - Codex: Catachans

 

The Codex: Catachans is one of those crazy things that Games Workshop did back in the days before the entire company was consumed by Matched Play and obsessed with being perfectly balanced. It's essentially what we would now call a Battlezone but disguised as a playable army. It's unique rules set essentially eliminates almost an entire phase of the army, and significantly changes another. Competitive players would go absolutely ape shit if they released something like this today.

But the really funny thing about this codex is that they then create a specific army, with brand new models and all, that is unaffected by this new Battlezone. I would love to have heard the Catachan player trying to convince their local game store to introduce more Deathworld missions into their repertoire.

The Rules:

The 9th edition updates:

I think we can pretty much use these rules straight out of the book, but there are some translations that need clarifications:

Replace skimmers with units with the FLY keyword. That's a pretty obvious one.

They dangerous terrain would give you a mortal wound on a 4+. Most rules like this are a 6+ in 9th edition, but I think deathworlds should be noticeably more brutal than just slippery ruins.

The vehicle rules are a little tricky. I'm thinking you roll for every 6" the vehicle moves and on a 6+ it takes d3 mortal wounds. I think it would be cool to make it even more risky and say on a 4+ it is immobilized, but that's not really a thing anymore in 9th edition. Units with the keyword TITANIC would be exempt from this. 

The Splinter of the Funeral Fog

In the Drukhari world of Commorragh the splinters are in a constant struggle with one another, and Archons are constantly positioning for power. Lead by Vypus the Pale, the Splinter of the Funral Fog have recently emerged in the Gland District, one of the toxin districts in the Dark City. 

Vypus the Pale has always been a particularly miserable young Kabalite. His hatred for the what he considered the lower races of the galaxy was all consuming. Recently, while in The Gland, Vypus came across a mysterious weapon. He's unsure as to whether his discovery was accidental or maybe it was left intentionally.

The Parasite Kiss is a powerful splinter weapon that leeches the victim's soul back in to the shooter, giving the sadistic elf an incredible high. This new power allowed him to finally consolidate influence on the streets, but he's also beginning to suspect that the weapon itself is responsible responsible for the nagging feeling that he may be going insane.

Game Stuff (Day 0):

Crusade updates:

• Spending a requisition point on a Relic
• Spending a requisition point on a Warlord Trait.

Power Level: 25

Crusade Points: 0

Controlled Territory: The Gland

Requisition points: 3

Archon (Vypus the Pale): Parasite Kiss, Hatred Eternal

Kabalite Warriors:-

Raider:-

Ravager:-

A Brief History of The Exorcists

“The Emperor’s Light Compels You!”

The origins of the Exorcists chapter of the Adeptus Astartes can be traced back to the birth of the Primaris legions and the early days of the Indomitus Crusade.  The chapter began as a detachment of Greyshields led by Captain Gulielmus Petrus.  They served in the expeditionary fleet led by Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium.  The detachment fought in several engagements alongside Guilliman himself, learning the ways of the Codex Astartes directly from its author.

As the years went on, Captain Petrus and his company began to see Guilliman as a divine being, second only to the Holy God Emperor on Terra.  Knowing that the primarch was staunchly opposed to the Ecclesiarchy and the religious fervor that had dominated the Imperium during the ten thousand years of his absence, they kept this reverence secret.  Eventually, Guilliman became aware of their secret faith.  He would have chastised Petrus and his men, but he could see that the religious devotion was not unique to this company, and he had little time to spare for such distractions.  Thus he grudgingly tolerated their worship. 

As the end of the first phase of the Indomitus Crusade drew to a close, Guilliman dispatched the Primaris throughout the Imperium Sanctus.  Some went to reinforce existing chapters, others to form new chapters of their own in defense of the myriad human worlds under constant threat from Xenos and Chaos factions.  Captain Petrus’ company was sent to bolster the defenses of 40 Gemini, a shrine world on the edge of the Cicatrix Maledictum near the Nachmund Gauntlet.

40 Gemini was besieged by Chaos Demons spewing forth from a warp rift close to the planet.  The imperial forces in the system were all but overrun when Captain Petrus and his Greyshields arrived.  The Primaris marines were a boon to the remaining defenders, but it still took nearly a decade to expunge the demons from the planet.  Captain Petrus rebuilt the stronghold at the shrine of Saint Regan and made it the home of the newly named Exorcists, where he assumed the title of Chapter Master.  He replenished the chapter’s strength by drawing recruits from the remaining imperial citizens, a deeply religious people whose devotion to the Imperial creed was emboldened by the arrival of the Emperor’s Angels.

The Exorcists adhere closely to the Codex Astartes.  They deploy a combined arms approach to battle, though they specialize in infantry tactics.  They favor bolter weaponry, which they wield as holy icons.  Bolt ammunition is sanctified with holy water and inscribed with prayers to the Emperor.  In combat, they dispense the Emperor’s absolution through punishing volleys of bolter fire.  

It is speculated by some that their trait of deep religious faith is a byproduct of the genetic manipulations of Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl during his creation of the Primaris legions, and that the gene seed of these particular Primaris marines includes some genetic material from Lorgar of the Word Bearers.  Though they are now more open about their religious devotions, this suspicion is only held by the highest ranking members of the chapter and remains a closely guarded secret.

Veiled Path '22

 

Veiled Path '22

The Leering King travel the galaxy performing their dance. They tell the story of the assassination, wake, and resurrections of Asdrubael Vect in Commorragh. As they perform, they act with an mocking cruelty as they slice though their enemies, seemingly taunting them for their combat impotence.

Game Stuff (Day 0):

Base updates:

• Spending a requisition point on Tactical Uplink.
• Spending a requisition point on Comms Network
• Spending a requisition point on 5 equipment points.
• Spending 3 equipment points for 'wraithbone talisman'

Spec Op:

• Demolition

Requisition points: 2

Equipment Points: 2

Asset Capacity: 0

Stash: Wraithbone Talisman

Strategic Assets: Tactical Uplink, Comms Network

Crusade 2022 - The Alpha S'era 22 Campaign

Setting:

The Alpha S'era 22 system is a remote gas giant located on the other side of the Cicatrix Maledictum. While the planet itself is uninhabitable, the many moons that orbit it are. The exact history of how the Imperium came to colonize these planets has long been forgotten, and the inhabitants had been at a constant state of war with each other for as long as anyone can remember, or has any record of.

Peace was thought to be impossible in Alpha S'era 22, but sometime around M39 the dignitaries from each of the 11 moons were able to broker a tentative cease fire. Almost directly after the cease fire, two dominant factions would emerge and consolidate their power, House Fennyr and House Gronvek in the majority. Since then the system has been at the perpetual brink of civil war, with just the slim governable majority. It's common knowledge among the civilians that a return to war would be catastrophic.

The rules:

We intend to stick as closely as possible to the crusade narrative rules as written in the 9th edition rulebook, and the various codexes. I think we've learned a lot from last years season about how the 9th edition works and how the crusade system can potentially snowball, so we may need to revisit that.

As always, the 'rule of cool' trumps everything.

Everyone will keep track of their own rosters, but you get extra credit in the form of an approving nod if you track your roster in the form of a blog post. 

Any games that are played by the crusade force, whether explicitly part of this narrative or not can count for the purposes of crusade experience if you post some kind of battle report on the blog.

In addition to the Warhammer 40,000 games this season will include the Kill Team campaign system which will narratively be taking place in the same setting. Like with 40k games, any game that is played with your kill team roster can count for the purposes of experience if you post some kind of battle report on the blog.

My intentions are that the narrative to be kind of a crowdsourced DM project, so it may not always be perfectly competitive.