Trouble in Eden

Eden, is the setting for our narrative 40k Campaign, it's something I came up with years ago and has been floating around for a while. So this Sunday (7/12/09) Rob & Jerry came over for a few 4oo point combat patrol games.

This is the board layout for the first game against Rob and his Ork patrol, I was playing with Imperial Guard. We called this area The Garden of Eden which is a large forested are on the planet. We used a GW battle matt for the base, a few of the GW "creepy trees"as well as Robs scratch built hills and trees. We also had a Pegasus Hobbies river down the middle of the board, we both agreed that this was a nice looking table!

Well for the game we decided that the first turn we would be using the Night Fight rules, and we also stated that when each force reached 50% we would take a Leadership test to see if the patrol stuck around or took off. Also since Combat Patrols are not in 5th edition, we used the guidelines from our 4th edition books to design the patrols.

Here is a few shots of the Imperial guard patrol force, armour was allocated or this mission in the form of a mighty Chimera transport vehicle.

Here is the deployment of the IG patrol, Squad Alpha is towards the top of the picture, followed by the Platoon Commander riding in the Chimera. Right in front of the woods in the center was the Veterans squad, with Beat squad right next to them. On the bottom of the picture is the Special weapons team with 3 sniper rifles.

The vets were equipped with two flamers and a melta gun as well as all units were equipped with vox casters.

The Platoon commanders squad had a Vox caster, two Plasma guns and one Melta gun, the Commander was equipped with a Bolt Pistol and Chainsword.

The first turn the IG patrol could here movement but were unable to see any enemies, the only sign that there was trouble was when a shell from some sort of gun rocked the Chimer shaking everyone up.

The veterans decided on turn two to advance towards the wooded hill in the center, they spotted crude shapes lurking before them, but could not make out what they were. It seemed that the enemy had covered some of there troops in crude oil turning them all black, but the veterans could hear the grunts of the Orks as they approached there position.

The Snipers on the right flank spotted a bunch of Boyz coming out of the woods but then heard a rough thumping sound in the air and saw two of the craziest looking copters approaching in some sort of grey stealth camo scheme. But the snipers were unable to radio in the targets due to the fact that their radio was left back at base. Needless to say the Death Copters engaged the 6 man team and made quick work of the Special Weapons team.

At this time the Chimera spotted larger than normal Orks leaving the far woods, they tried to open up on them but due to the cover none of the shots hit there mark.

A close up of the targeting optics revealed that these were Ork Nobz and they looked hell bent on engaging the guardsmen and broke off running towards the line of guardsmen.

Two of the fell beasts were shot down but it was clear that not even loosing two Orks from their group of five they were out for blood as they inched closer to the guardsmen.

Soon the Orks crashed into the guardsmen line and a brutal hand to hand fight ensued. The guardsmen fought bravely but were cut down to the last man by the three rampaging Ork Nobz.

The Veterans were also cut down by the Oily Orks in the center and soon, the crude oil covering camo had helped since none of the blows made by the veterans could harm the Orks. With that the Commander sent out a signal on the Vox caster to retreat since the Orks had the advantage. Out of 40 men, only 14 returned to base to tell the tale of what happened in the Garden of Eden. (Victory to Rob and his Orks)

Game two was played with me taking the same Ork Force to go against Robs Inquisitorial Patrol which had 14 Storm troopers mounted in two Chimeras. The objective was a crashed Imperial transport that was carrying a mysterious container. The Inquisition wanted to retrieve this from Eden. Since my IG Patrol was routed, we decided that the Orks were headed towards the crash site to try to Salvage anything they could to up armour themselves and maybe ind some bigger & louder guns.

Here is the board for the second game, all we added was the crashed transport sections to it and rearranged some of the terrain.

The shuttle on impact scattered wreckage on both sides of the river, it would come down to the roll off to see which side got the piece with the container. We also decided that this would be a grab and go scenario. The first patrol to reach the container would have one model spend an entire turn doing nothing but looking for it. You would need to roll a 4+ to see if you found it at the end of the turn. We also stated that night fall would happen on turn 3, so Night Fighting would be in play from turn 3 on.

Luck was with Rob as he got the side with the container on it (the section of the model that has the removable container section). This meant that all he had to do was race to the crash side and look for the container. The Orks would have to run to get there as well as cross the river. So with that the Chimeras rolled on towards the crash site as the Orks raced towards the center. The Two Death Copters turbo boosted into the middle trying to reach the center to do a Kaboom on the stormtroopers but fell short by 3 inches! The Kannon the Orks had fired but missed the Chimera, the rest of the mob ran forward.

The second Chimera took up an Overwatch position and proceeded to shot down both Death Copters which was the closest thing to the objective.

As the Orks reached the river, with the sun setting, the Inquisitor Stormtroopers recovered the container, dashed back into the Chimera and started to withdraw. The Ork Kannon took one last shot but one of the Grots forgot to put a round in the Barrel and all that was heard from the Ork Kannon as a dull click!

Although the Orks were not aware of the mysterious container they still were able to salvage the wreck for more "Hummie Stuffz". So the win went to Rob again as he was able to retrieve the container and take it back to his board edge.

Game three was seeing me face off with Jerry and his 19 Genestealer list, I took the IG patrol again. This scenario was played like the first one with us having to test once 50% of our force was destroyed. I forgot to take pictures during this battle but we had a generic farm stead in the center and the Genestealers raced towards the Guardsmen position. I was feeling pretty good shooting one unit of 6 Stealers to pieces, but 3 Stealers did make it to a 10 man unit of guard. The 3 Stealers were finally cut down but this allowed another unit of 6 to try to sneak up on the other side of the farm stead. Also another 7 Stealers raced towards the other Flank.

The Chimera was able to cut all but 3 Stealers down from the 6 stealers and the Sniper team was able to cut down the 7 stealers racing towards them. Being Genestealers, they had a leadership of 10 and Jerry was passing his tests. The 3 Stealers that had escaped harm from the Chimera were able to attack another 10 man squad on the other side of the farm. They guardsmen fell to a man and the Stealers advanced towards the Snipers on the hill. I passed my Leadership and was feeling pretty good that I could kill the three Stealers. The Stealers engaged the Snipers and I was able to kill two Stealers, but unfortunately the the snipers were killed to a man. This left one Stealer left and I had to pass a leadership test. I picked up two dice and threw double 6's!!!

So Jerry won with 1 Stealer and he sulked off into the woods...

So after three games I went 0 - 3 but I had a blast! Rob & Jerry also had a great time. Because of these games Rob & I will be playing a 40K Skirmish game with my Witch Hunters wanting what he has and Jerry & I can now play a game where I hunt for the Lone Genestealer that got away.

TK