Yesterday at my local gaming group, Framhammer we played a big team game, the finale to 'The Forge of Silence' Narrative Crusade campaign I've been running. This game saw three teams - Imperial, Votann and Necrons - face-off across two game areas; the first a pretty big 132"x60" table (3 standard 40k tables joined together ), the second a 'sort of' Boarding Actions type of affair. 

 

 

The first area was on the surface of Rostokhar III, where the campaign was fought; narratively speaking, that concluded with the reveal that the High Fabricator supposedly running the Forge World had been murdered by a Necron Phaeron who had assumed her identity - in order to reactivate the ancient device that lay hidden beneath the planet's surface. 

 

The device was now powering up causing devastation on the surface of Rostokhar III, and the forces of the campaign were arrayed to either destroy, loot. or defend the machinery of the device. 

 

 

The five objectives represented part of the device, the numbers on the deployment map indicating which turn they became energised. 

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - when they became 'activated' there were effects that came in to play - effecting morale and psykers, or having strange gravitic effects that either slowed or increased movement:

 

This Necron device had opened the way to a pocket dimension where High Phaeron Nepharekh of the Celestial Hegemon had sequestered her legions and warhosts - this was the second game area. I used three of the Kill Team Pariah Nexus boards, making some walls that fit the marked off areas for one of the two sides, and painted up a bunch of the scatter terrain that went with that set:

 

In the centre board, on the large terrain piece, Nepharekh herself was placed - if either the Imperial or Votann teams moved any models within 12"of her, she would react - the Necron team could use her (with Illuminor Szeras' profile). As well as that, there were a number of tokens representing random Necron Patrols that team could place.

 

One member from each team picked 500 points of infantry from their main army to be 'teleported' to this pocket dimension and start the battle there. In this second area, the teams were battling for control of 6 'nodes' that sent energies to the machinery on the main area. If the Necrons controlled more of these at the start of the 5th battle round, then on the main board every unit within 9" if an objective would take D3 mortal wounds as its devastating energies were released! 

 

So three teams - each fielding 6,000 points a side - lined up for the climatic showdown 

 

The Imperial team deployments (I borrowed an Astraeus from a team member who could only muster 1,500 points of Imperial Agents, to make up points to 6k on our team):

 

The Votann team (ironically the campaign player actually using Votann couldn't make this game  so Xenos mercenaries did their fighting):

 

And finally the nefarious Necron team, and their mind-shackle Scarab controlled Tyranids (boo, hiss, ):

 

The game was played with a round of 'normal' 40k, then a round on the second area. Points were scored for controlling one of the objectives, more objectives than the other teams, an objective that is 'activated', and (on the main board) destroying any enemy units and destroying more than the other teams. 

 

It was, as you can imagine, absolute carnage ) - the funniest thing was how quickly the biggest units went down in a game this size; the Astraeus was taken out turn one (tag-teamed by Broadside rail guns and overwatching Tyrannofexes ), the Knight went turn 2, the Heirophant turn 3, and a Necron Monolith was destroyed the turn after it arrived from reserves 

 

 

On one flank, the Ashen Sentinels and Imperial Agents came back from initial heavy Tau fire to inflict some heavy losses and pretty much clear the way to hold the objective there for the rest of Battle. On the other, the stoic Salamanders were unflinching even in the face of a titanic Tyranid monstrosity, pushing forward to try and contest the objective on that side regardless. 

 

In the centre, the Necrons pressed on despite intense fire and pressure from both the Tau and Salamanders inflicting a few losses - with their Tyranid 'allies' they quickly took the central objectives, and kept hold until the end of the game (only losing one at the end to the tenacious Salamanders who managed to grab it with a squad of Infiltrators). A valiant push by the Salamanders and Ashen Sentinels attempted to storm through to the central objective, but assaults from Tyranid monstrosities and some ridiculously accurate overwatch fire from a Tyrannofex  blunted the charge. 

 

The main game ended with the Necron team winning on points - but it didn't all go their way on the day. 

 

 

On the other game area, carnage also ensued  An early push by the Ashen Sentinels saw a couple of objectives grabbed and some Xenos purged, but soon the number of Necron reinforcements were overwhelming the Astartes. 

 

However, the Votann's mercenary allies realised where the true threat lay, and focused their efforts on taking other objectives and focusing their attacks on the Necrons. 

 

With reinforcements pouring in from their team, and the Imperials (there was a rule on the main area that any infantry unit in base contact with one of the main objectives could 'teleport' to the Pocket Dimension), the Necrons were prevented from winning back the objectives the other teams controlled. So the full power of the Necron device would not be unleashed on Rostokhar III..! 

 

We intended to play out 5 rounds, but ran out of time and called it at the end of the 4th. It was an immensely fun game, I think everyone enjoyed it  and it made for a memorable finale to the campaign. 

 

After many weeks of prep - planning and writing up the scenario, building and painting terrain - I'm feeling a tad spent creatively    It'll be a while before I run another campaign - but there are more stories that can be told featuring my Ashen Sentinels and the worlds of the Strontium Protectorate..!