Behind Orky Lines

Last Saturday, after playing a Rogue Trader rescuing and Imperial Commander from Chaos Cultists in labyrinthine caverns below her palace on Friday evening, Bruce was back to lead a force of Guiacan Commandoes to rescue and Inquisitor of the Order Xenos captured by Orks after the Ambush at Carf Gakl! (This report's a bit late... it's been a... busy... week).

Brind's World 4.287.018.M42

Before the Valkyries even made it back to base a rescue operation was being planned. Though they had lost contact with the troops on the ground and they had been overrun, it was clear that they had not all been killed. A number of their emergency transponders were active and showing signed of life.

Unfortunately a series of minor disasters postponed a series of planned operations for an entire week - massive Ork attacks all across the Area of Operations kept all available troops pinned down and busy for days, followed by a couple of extreme storms the likes of which the Guaiacans had never witnessed on their homeworld (nor had many in the task force on any of the worlds they'd been deployed - and there were a fair few salty veterans of dozens of conflicts over as many worlds). Valkyries were grounded for days. Undaunted, the Guaiacans set out in the storm and covered the 100+Km on foot through dense jungle, in potentially hostile territory in four days.

A Squadron had been tasked with finding their missing battle brothers (it was the Squadron's #5 Troop that had accompanied the Inquisitor to Carf Gakl). When they arrived in the area they could only locate the Inquisitor's beacon. 2 and 3 Troops pressed forward to try and locate and extract the Inquisitor while the rest of the Squadron set up a Forward Operating base for them to fall back to and clear and LZ to evacuate from should the Valkyries be cleared for flying...

SCENARIO

We played the Rescue Scenario straight out of the Core Rule Book (pg. 206). The only change was we gave the Orks a few less sentries as when we played this before we realized ten was TOO MANY. The scenario assumes you are playing on a 4x6 table, and we were playing on a 4x4 (2/3 the size) so we gave them 7 instead. Also the Character to be rescued was supposed to have no more than 4 wounds, so we said the Inquisitor was still injured and had only 4 wounds (normally he would have 5)

Essentially the Orks would only start with the seven sentries on the table. The Commandoes could have as many as they like but if any end up with in detection distance of the Ork sentries at the end of a move phase the alarm is raised and the Orks start pouring onto the table.

Six of the terrain bits were marked as potential hiding spots for the inquisitor (who, I guess we assume has eluded his captors). As imperial forces move within a certain distance of them (3", I think) a d6 is rolled and on a 6 the Inquisitor is there! If he isn't found in the first five, he's automatically found in the last one contacted. If the alarm isn't raised before the Inquisitor is found, it is automatically raised when he is found...

Unfortunately three markers were placed by the attacker and three by the defender, which means three are along the defender (Ork) base line - so odds are

One strange thing about the scenario - it says nothing about whether the target (spy in the scenario as written, Inquisitor in ours) is actually ALLOWED to leave the table. Often is explicitly says something like "units off the table at the end of the game are considered destroyed". In some games where someone has to be rescued they have to exit off a certain point by a certain turn number. In this, they simply have to "been discovered and still alive" at the end of the game...?


FORCES

Imperium

Captain Zornwall - Squadron Commander (Company Commander - HQ - PL 2)
Command Squad - Elite - PL 2

# 2 Troop 2
Lt. Publio - Troop Commander (Company commander - HQ - PL 2)
Command Squad - Elite - PL 2
3x Infantry Squad - Troops - @ PL 3
Special Weapon Squad (Melta) - Elite - PL 2

# 3 Troop
Lt. Xerxes - Troop Commander (Company commander - HQ - PL 2)
Command Squad - Elite - PL 2
3x Infantry Squad - Troops - @ PL 3

Attached from Squadron Scout/Recon Troop:
Special Weapon Squad (Sniper) - Elite - PL 2

Attached from Squadron Support Troop:
Heavy Weapon Squad (Mortar) - Heavy Support - PL 3

Attached from Regimental Scout Sentinel Squadron
Scout Sentinel - Fast Attack - PL 3

Total Power Level 40
Battalion Detachment - 6 Command Points

Inquisitor Arndol Fornath


Orks

Warboss Blitzagg - HQ - PL 4
Meganobz (3) - Elite - PL 10
Lootaz (5) - Heavy Support - PL 8
2x Boys (20) - Troops - @ PL 9

Total Power Level 40
Patrol Detachment - 4 Command Points

Sentries - 7 Boyz


THE GAME



Setting things up... finnegan set up his Ork sentries... Bruce started setting up his initial forces.

For once this scenario seemed to give The Guard a bit of an advantage - the distance a unit was spotted at (but the sentries) was determined by it's power level - and all units were PL 5 or less they would only be spotted if they were within 3" of an Ork Sentry. Of course there was a Defender Stratagem that Finnegan used - Sensors - for 3 Command Points he was able to add 3" to the distance he could spot enemy models at. Still... 6"... It meant the Commandoes could sneak up to just out of 6" in their movement phase, then (with and average charge roll) charge and take out a sentry all quite-like in the charge/fight phases...



All set up and ready to go...


ROUND ONE - IMPERIUM

That thing where I said "For once this scenario seemed to give The Guard a bit of an advantage...?"



Guiacan Commandoes charge this Ork sentry... seven of the ten in the squad attack - including the Sergeant who had three attacks... and fail to take him out... the alarm is raised...

Doh.....

On the plus side when we remembered the check the adjacent bit of terrain which had a marker indicating a potential hiding spot for the Inquisitor Bruce rolled a six....



And so Inquisitor Arndol popped up out of the bushes and said "Hey guys! I'm over here!"


ROUND ONE - ORKS



Then he was promptly charged by two Ork Sentries... He sliced one in half with his power sword, but not before they landed a few telling blows on him! They actually scored enough wounds to take him out and I though this might be the end of the scenario! Taken out by sentries! Luckily he has a 4+ save and Bruce managed to save 3 of those wounds!



The Lootas, Meganobz and a unit of Boyz also arrived.


ROUND TWO - IMPERIUM

"ALL UNITS! ALL UNITS! THE NUT IS IN THE CRACKER! I SAY AGAIN: THE NUT IS IN THE CRACKER! FALL BACK TO ROMEO VICTOR TANGO!"

The Inquisitor fell back out of combat with the Ork (who was subsequently blown to pieces by nearby guard). Other Sentries were finished off with fire. Mortars dropped bombs on Lootas taking out one of them.


ROUND TWO - ORKS

The Other unit of Boyz along with Warboss Blitzagg.

The Lootas got within line of sight of some of the Guiacan commandoes and unleashed a tremendous volley of fire and... um... well... they must have been shooting at that buck-toothed antelope that dashed across the clearing off to the left, or mistook some of the trees blowing in the wind for some well camouflaged commandoes, or something, because according to the dice they clearly were not shooting anywhere near the targets Finnegan had indicated!


ROUND THREE - IMPERIUM



Bruce continued to retire all his troops towards his own baseline.



The mortars did one last shoot before packing up their gear and blew a few more Orks to bits.


ROUND THREE - ORKS



The Orks took one last round before we decided to call it quits. The Boyz and The Warboss and Meganobz all surged forward.

The Lootas blasted away and finally found their mark - they took out FOUR Commandoes in one round of shooting. Bruce used a Command Point and the Fight to the Death stratagem to prevent Andy further loss in the Morale Phase.

At that point we decided it was futile to continue. All of the Astra Mililitarum forces were within one move of their table edge and could pick up and move off. Though the scenario didn't specifically say they COULD do that, we all thought it was silly that they should have to sit on the table and fight it out for 5-7 turns.

Total Losses:

Astra Militarum: 5
(four were from the one round of fire from the Lootas, one was in Melee with a Sentry)

Orks: 10 Boyz, 1 Loota
(7 of those Boyz were the Sentries - all other losses were due to mortar fire)

I do like scenarios where the objective is something other than KILL 'EM ALL!

I guess I COULD see a reason for staying on the table and fighting it out to the end of the random turn length... In an instance - such as ours - where the attacker does find the objective they are trying to rescue early in the game, saying they HAVE to stay and fight it out until the random game end gives the defender a chance to get across the table and fight through the attackers forces to kill the objective. WHY would they want to stay on the table? Well, the LZ or RV for the extraction could be just off the table on the attackers side and so the attackers have to stay and hold off the defenders until the vehicles arrive to extract the attackers...?

It took us a while to get set up and was getting late and we decided to call it. It was fun though. Our Narrative continued...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Sisters of Battle! I did finish up the Sisters of Battle Squad for Amanda's birthday (which was yesterday) and threw a little surprise party for her. Perhaps there will be a little combined post with pics of the sisters and a bit about the party...? Or maybe just pics of the sisters... I don't know... Or maybe there won't be anything for another week... depends how much energy I have and how my head (and the rest of my body) is doing... It's been a rough week, folks... long story...

We've done hardly any boardgaming these last couple weeks... Hopefully we'll get some more 40K in this next week - so Amanda can try out her sisters. She's already thinking about what she wants to add to her force (Celestine, of course!)