Suburbia Blues - 2nd 40K scenario

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Foreword:
Suburbia Blues is the last mission of a mini campaign comprising three games in total: Two 2nd 40K battle and a single Space Hulk scenario. In the first game The Fallen had to access the buried ship. In the second game the Fallen needed to recover the MacGuffin and place explosives across the wreck. In the this game the Fallen have to reach the space port via fighting their way through an adjacent desolate suburbian area and retreat finally  from Pandora. The overarching story has been inspired by a Gav Thorpe novel in which Dark Angels hunt for the Fallen though my story is focussed on the actual actions of the Fallen.


Title: Suburbian Blues

System: 2nd 40K (Custom)
Uses Legions Imperialis order tokens and Alternate Activations.

Game Mode: Solo

Game Length: There is no turn limit. The game ends as soon as one side has achieved their victory condition.

Forces: Dark Angels (Fallen) vs. Genestealer Cult (GSC)
Mission Objective (Victory/Dark Angels): The Dark Angels need to escort Cypher, who is in possession of the MacGuffin, in to the deployment zone of the GSC in order to score a victory. 
Mission Objective (Victory/GSC): The GSC must remove Cypher from the battlefield before he is able to reach their deployment zone. 

Background:
Somewhere at the fringes of Imperial space lies the nearly forgotten system with the name of Borderlands. This story takes place on one of it´s habitable planets: Pandora. Cypher is leading a small group of Fallen to a remote region on Pandora which is the Dust Bowl, a valley which has never been explored by any Vault Hunter. Here in the Sandhills sector north of the central space port lies an ancient space ship buried under the sands. It harbours an important MacGuffin which use and power is only known to Cypher. The only access to said space ship is the entrance to the Blazing Tower which has been built on top of it.
Furthermore Cypher is being hunted by the Dark Angels and our villain made sure to provide evidence of his whereabouts to lure the Loyalists into a trap by planning to place explosives across the buried ship which will detonate as soon as his pursuers interact with it´s dormant machine spirit. Unknown to Cypher a GSC cell has found refuge in the buried space ship a few months ago. Their forces are way to small to take over a planet but should still prove to be a challenge for a small band of renegades.

The Fallen have reached the suburbian area named Rock Creek which has seen better times in the past. Currently it´s inhabitants are converted into cult followers by the works of a diligent Cult Magus. He has suffered psychic backlash due to the death of the Patriarch and has sworn bloody revenge on it´s killers. Here in Rock Creek he has amassed a large mob of Brood Brothers who have been whipped into a frenzy by one of his many rehearsed public speeches. The brainwashed yokels are intend to rip the transhuman perpetrators in half as soon as they can get hold of them. 

Battle Report in Pics:
The battle report has been uploaded to imgbb. Due to the nature of imgbb the first pics shown are the last recorded so a viewer needs to scroll down to reach the beginning. The first turn is comprised of panorama shots of the battlefield and then highlights in close-ups the units taking part in the battle. The beginning of a turn is visualized by a dice tray holding a single dice which depicts the game turn. The end of the turn features again shots from bird view. Pics have been uploaded in batches of ten pics each and sometimes later pics got uploaded first due to having a smaller data size. 

Pics link:

https://ibb.co/album/SNZLXq

 

Campaign Map:

https://ibb.co/album/C1z8sh

Forces (Dark Angels/Fallen) (Strategy Card: Divine Inspiration):
Cypher
Codicier (Psychic Powers : Iron Arm & Salamander) 
#10 Tacticals
#3 Ravenwing Bikers

Note:
The Chaos codex of 2nd 40K describes DA Fallen of being CSM veterans though I changed it for my story as I wanted to use the models I have painted for a challenge this year. So this force used the Dark Angels codex and for Cypher his entry in the Chaos codex. That´s the beauty of solo games as you can modify stuff on the fly without having tedious arguments with someone else.


Forces (GSC) (Strategy Card: Booby Trap):
Cult Magus (psychic powers: Hypnotic Gaze, The Gate, The Carmine Assassin, Displacement)
#100 Brood brothers split in four units (two units of 20 BB and two units of 30 BB)

Note:
Zombie models from the ZOMBIES! boardgame were used to represent the Brood Brothers. They are armed with knives and clad in rags (no armour save). The necromancer from Hero Quest has been used to represent the Cult Magus. I have allowed the Brood Brothers to be taken into units of 30 models due to their colour coding. I have decided for this mission that the cult hasn´t access to the Tyranid Ambush table because there are simply no genestealers present in Rock Creek. Therefore the cult has gained the right to draw a strategy card too.


Gaming Aids:
- Blood Drop: This means a wound has been lost by said model.
- Red Arrow: Each red arrow means the model suffers the effects of a Jam.
- Red Square token: First Fire order.
- Green Square token: Advance order.

- Purple Square token: Double Move order.

- Blue Square token: Charge order.
- Yellow Square token: Unit failed a Break Test.


Action Report:
Here comes a summary for those who have zero interest of clicking through numerous pics. It also includes useful info of what is going on as I haven´t provided descriptions in the pics themselves.

Turn 1:

All Brood Brother units use a double move to close distance as well as Tac #1 (Combat squad with Vet. Sgt. & Cypher). Meanwhile the Bikes and Tac #2 (Codicier with Heavy Plasma Gun  and Plasma Gun) are lining up their shots to attack the first Brood Brother mob running at them at full speed. In this one-sided fire exchange the cultists suffer 14 casualties but due to their Hatred they have passed their Break test with ease. In the psychic phase the Codicier casts with success "Iron Arm" on himself. The Cult Magus casts "The Gate" in order to allow one Brood Brother unit on the flanks to join the fight in the next turn as the second gate has been placed right in the middle of the position of the Fallen. In addition the Magus has also cast "The Carmine Assassin" on Cypher but the Champion of Chaos succeeded in making his Toughness test to avoid a sudden, painful death.

 

Turn 2:
All Brood Brother units move at double speed towards the Fallen except one unit on the flank which makes use of the Gate as it charges all Space Marine units who wait for them on First Fire orders. Cypher suffers jam on his master-crafted plasma pistol while the Vet. Sgt. evaporates three malformed humans with a burst of plasma shots. The heavy plasma gun of Tac #2 decides to fire at the enraged yokels but the plasma ball scatters to the left immolating two cult brethren and damaging two bikes in the process.

The damage is: 50% chance of losing control when moving (Red Star) and maximum speed reduced to Slow Speed (Orange Cross).

In total the Tactical squad manages to kill 19 Brood Brother while on Overwatch and as a result various body parts are plastered all over the dark green power armour due to the very short-ranged firefight. The lone survivor of the cult unit is riddled by high-explosive bolts fired from the stationary twin-linked bolters of the bikers. In the psychic phase "The Carmine Assassin" fails to kill Cypher (manages to save on his Toughness stat roll) while the "Salamander" is reflected back toward the Librarian (indicated by Blue Arrow). The Salamander, an ectoplasmic entity of Caliban folklore, travels through Tac#2 and fails to wound the psyker though manages to kill one brother marine armed with a bolter. Then "Hypnotic Gaze" is cast though only three member of Tac #1 are in proximity and all three manage to pass their Ld stat test to avoid the effects. Finally the Cult Magus tries to nullify "Iron Arm" but fails by rolling a flat 1.

 

Turn 3:
The turn begins with a booby trap (Strategy Card) going off right under Cypher although nobody gets hurt. Then a Brood Brothers unit on the flank charges successfully the Bikes and the riders need to rely on bolt pistol fire to get rid of two Brood Brothers as the charge was coming from the flank. The central Brood Brother unit charges Tac #1, which includes Cypher, and this combat squad kills four yokels on Overwatch. Now it´s Tac #2´s opportunity to kill more folks on Overwatch. The Heavy Plasma Gun of the squad immolates three brothers while the remaining firepower removes four additional cult members. Meanwhile the large Brood Brother unit in the back, who is shielding the Cult Magus, makes a double move.
The psychic phase turns out to be rather short-lived as the Empyrean was rather calm (rolled a double 1 for psychic cards). This meant the Librarian stored a single Force Card in it´s force Sword and the Cult Magus cast "The Carmine Assassin" on Cypher but failed to kill him.
Next came the melee phase and one brother bit the dust as he was disembowelled by the marine wielding the chainsword. Suffice to say none of the casualties seemed to bother the Brood Brothers (perks of having Hatred towards everybody) and they would happily throw themselves at the marines in future turns.

Turn 4:
Tac #1 fires on Overwatch at the remnants of the central Brood Brother unit right in front of them. The Vet. Sgt. chucks a frag grenade (plasma pistol is jammed aka overheated) at the misguided cannon fodder while the rest of his squad unleashes hell with bolter fire which results in a wipeout of the first large Brood Brother mob. This makes room for the second large mob and they charge Tac #1 while having only to worry about the Overwatch fire from Tac #2. The Heavy Plasma Gun deviates and kills only one target while thorough small arms fire removes seven additional threats from the battlefield. Though the rest of the brood manages to get stuck into melee with Tac #1.

Over on the flank the remaining brood brothers not currently in melee charge the bikers and two of them receive headshots due to accurate bolt pistol shots on Overwatch. The psychic phase begins with a banger as the Cult Magus finally manages to remove Cypher from the board with his trusted psychic power "The Carmine Assassin". What a one-trick pony this cult psyker is! The Codicier tries to cast "Salamander" but his power is nullified by the Cult Magus with ease. The cult leader then uses "Energy Drain" to end the psychic phase and to nullify all existing psychic powers in play which means the Librarian loses "Iron Arm".

Things start to unravel for the Fallen as Cypher´s absence spells doom for the small band of marines. First the Vet. Sgt. and another brother marine get killed in melee without the brood suffering any casualties. Next ALL the bikers get torn to shreds by enraged unaugmented humans while the Brood Brothers don´t suffer any casualties again. Due to follow-up moves after close combat two Brood Brother manage to engage the Librarian in melee. What a horrible turn for the marines!


Turn 5:
The marines already lost this mission due to Cypher´s removal from the board in Turn 4 but I decided to play the standard game length, which is five Turns, just to see how awful the overall situation will turn out to be for the marine survivors. Tac #2 fires on Overwatch and the Heavy Plasma Gun kills seven cult members while the small arms fire deletes three more. After that the whole Tactical squad is in melee.
The Librarian casts "Iron Arm" and the Cult Magus casts "Hypnotic Gaze" with Ultimate Power" but only a single marine is affected (gets hit automatically in melee). Then the Librarian tries to nullify "Hypnotic Gaze" but fails to do so. This was a mistake because the attempt wasn´t even allowed due to the nature of which the power had been cast (Ultimate Force prevents the nullification of said power in the turn it is cast). After that "The Carmine Assassin" is being nullified by the Codicier.

Not much happens in melee. Tac #1 kills two Brood Brothers and suffers a casualty in return. Tac #2 kills a single Brood Brother in the close combat phase. The Brood Brothers remain in close combat.



Campaign Outcome:
The Blazing Tower: Draw
MacGuffin: Marine Victory
Suburbian Blues: Cult Victory
This means we have a draw as an overall result.


Epilogue:
As night falls the cult members break off their attack having achieved their goal of killing the Chaos Champion Cypher although unbeknownst to them the Chaos Gods saved him yet again (roll was a 4+ with three dice added together...) by whisking him to another part of the galaxy. In the ensuing tumultuous melee fight a lone cult brethren sees the saddle bag which contained the MacGuffin. He picks it up and decides spontaneously to leave the cult behind. Due to the chaos of the battlefield the Cult Magus does not notice that one of his sheep left his flock.

Edited January 11 by Deus_Ex_Machina

[calgar101]

Woah very impressive work here, I enjoy your lore background to this and using more than just 40k in a campaign. Like the terrain.

One question, the unidentified black xenos creature, did you manage to subdue the threat?

Big kudos for this! 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

The xenos creature is a warp entity characterized by the Magos Biologis from Terra as the Black Cat. She often visits battlefields due to her inquisitive nature.

 

 

And to be more serious my cat was afraid due to all the New Year´s Eve fireworks and so I needed to comfort her. This is also the reason why this battle report is being produced now in a piecemeal fashion.

 

And thanks for the praise! I just uploaded Turn 2. The rest will be done in the following week. The terrain is from Battle System (buildings) and the rest hand-crafted except the cacti from the pet store. Mostly styrofoam, wood glue and sand have been used. Also tooth picks for the cacti and then most of the large stuff was painted with tinting colours.

 

I have also another campaign (New Mars) going which is larger by nature and not yet concluded. If you are interested you can have a look as well. These are the battle reports which have been done so far and they can also be found here on B&C:

 

1. Monument Preservation (Legions Imperialis)

2. The Weakest Link (2nd Horus Heresy)

3. Carnage at Craterside (Legions Imperialis)

 

Last year I also did a Space Hulk report with epic proportions for New Mars although most of the pics have been lost. I will do a summary of that scenario when I have time. There was also another battle report for 2nd Horus Heresy but so far only Turn 1 has been uploaded and then I forgot about it. So this will be concluded too in the next weeks.

[calgar101]

Ahh yes the highly sought after Black Cat, I'm sure entire explorator fleets have been launched at the mere mention of a sighting. Unfortunately fireworks are not their friends, it's good you found time to comfort.

I will be reading turn 2 now.

 

Thank you for the terrain information, so many shops out there! I need to update my terrain, I have looked at making stuff, from styrofoam, plasticard and wood sticks but the ideas in my head are let down my my uncreative hands.

 

I will look into your other stuff too, New Mars sounds very interesting, especially the LI ones, I missed Epic back in the day and haven't got around to AT or LI so far but I am very interested. 

Shame you lose the pictures for that Space Hulk campaign but I would be very interested in reading a summary. I don't place much now so I enjoy reading/watching battle reports.

I am slowly going to get back into gaming this year, I am planning a campaign of my own, my small gaming friend circle may take part, so will definitely read your stuff especially any solo games, for tips/ideas.

 

Love it.