Kill Team - Game Two

Wind howled across the ruined city of Folgard as the Kill Team approached.  

Millenia ago it has once been a vibrant prosperous city, like so many cities on Xoxigar Prime. But as the planet cooled and residents emigrated to the inner core worlds of Xoxigar Secondus (the newly established Forge World) and Xoxigar Tertium (even more recently terraformed agriworld) the cities of Xoxigar Prime fell into disrepair and were eventually abandoned altogether. Now Folgard, as so many of the other great cities of the planet, stand a silent sentinel to a once great past, frozen in snow and ice. 

Folgard is no longer a ghost town, however. After nearly a thousand years of vacancy, a few hundred souls have taken up residence among the ruins in the past few cycles. The Traitor Knight and his lackeys and minions. Also the Heretic Astartes that came from off world to aid the Traitor Knight in his bid to take the planet for his own. 

The Kill Team was made up of members of the Imperial Knight's House Guard. The team had come here as part of a reconnaissance mission to determine the numbers and dispositions of the force gathered here. How many had survived the uprising? What was the status of the Traitor Knight? How many had come from off world? Was is a force of the Heretic Astartes as they feared? What were they up to...? 

The force, far from their home base, has suffered innumerable set-backs. Lacking adequate fuel and supplies, half of their vehicles had to be abandoned before they even got close to Folgard. Those that did make it found little shelter that had not already been claimed by the enemy. The mission quickly changed from that of reconnaissance to simple survival. They would be sure to take a few of the traitors with them, though! 

Orion came by on Wednesday and we decided to take a break from necromunda to try out the new Kill Team. His copy had only arrived earlier that day and he'd only breifly perused the rulebook and hadn't even watched the How To Play Videos. So, as with the previous game, the day before, we just quickly bodged some stuff together and played a quick game to figure things out. 

I thought he was going to be bringing Adepta Sororitas... but instead he brought some Imperial Guard. Guard worked though. to fit the Xoxigar Narrative I dubbed them "Household Guard" (see above). Unfortunately, Orion had made the same mistake I had, thinking you could have one of each support weapon in each FIRE TEAM and so a few grenade launchers were now useless to him. I loaned him a Guard with a plasma gun and he carried on from there. Looking at these pictures, I still don't think he had enough troopers on the table...? Or maybe he meant to take the Tactical Assets (Artillery Barrage/Marked Air Strike/Guided Missile/Strafing Run) and forgot to use them...? 

Ah, well.. "LEARNING GAME"

I took a Traitor Marine Kill Team

It included a Heratic Astartes Fire Team with an Aspiring Champion and two Regular Heratic Astartes (One of them COULD have taken a support weapon... but the only one I had was a flamer... and they don't seem like they're going to be awesome - bolters are better) and a Cultist Fire Team - representing the Traitor Knights minions - all with Autoguns and one Heavy Stubber. 

Traitor Marines can use ANY of the TacOps card options (Seek and Destroy/Recon/Infiltration/Security). I chose Infiltration and they are WAY more fun than the Seek and Destroy options I had for the Harlequins the day before! And I was even able to SCORE some of them! 

Orion went with Security for his Team. 

Again, we didn't bother with extra equipment or sorting out a Base of Operations. 

SCENARIO

AGain, we did Mission 1.1 from the Core Book - as I was already familiar with it and it seemed interesting enough and not focused on eliminating the Enemy, but holding objectives - which, I think, Guard (and cultists!) SHOULD excel at, with their numbers

THE GAME

I set up my cultists spread out to sieze as many objectives as possible - and execute my Tac Ops. 

The Marines were concentrated to take the fight directly to the Guard and keep them busy, whittling them down, while my Cultists did the work of scoring VPs.

Teh Guard were mostly bunched up in cover. I think he was thinking the all needed to be close together to recieve orders... or maybe he wanted them all close to the medic, so he could use the MEDIC! ability when one of them inevitably got blasted apart by Marine Bolters! 

TURNING POINT ONE

I revealed one of my TacOps - I guess I didn't have to... but I put it out there on the table to remind myself it was a thing I could do. SABOTAGE! Basically if I have an Operative within 1" of a terrain feature with the Heavy trait, withing 6" of the Enemy Drop Zone, I can do a 2AP action to sabotage it! doing so gains me 1VP - I could do it once per such piece on the table. I think there were four potential pieces. As it required 2AP, there was no way I could do it on the first Turning Point. Best I could do would be to put people in position to do so. The more prudent thing to to would be to reveal it ON the Turning Point I was in position to start blowing shit up... or peeing in the grain bin... or... whatever... 

The Veteran Guard Gunner armed with a Plasma gun started things off...  

He took a shot at Lorgag, the Heratic Astartes Aspiring Champion, and grievously wounded him! Yikes! Plasma Guns are (STILL) nasty (at least you can't take FOUR of them!?) 

Argnbaal - one of the Traitor Marines stormed across the table and blasted apart the Grenadier - before he could finish off the Champion. Had that medic not been there to administer immediate first aid... he SOULD have been finished... Alas, he wasn't and with the one wound recovered by the prompt aid from "Doc", he finished off the Champion with a Krak Grenade. 

DAMN! 

Those are even NASTIER!? 

Cultists moved forward to seccure and loot objectives gaining VP. 

The Veteran Guard Team's 2IC decided to charge Argnbaal... 

BIG! 

MISTAKE! 

It has become lear to me that, in this game, charging an opponent that is better at melee than you, is just giving them an opportunity to kill you FOR FREE! 

Argnbaal crushed the poor fellows ribs and shattered an arm with his bare hands... 

Well... bare hands...  in Power Armour Gauntlets... 

Vusour advanced under cover and secured and looted another Objective. 

Sithoth did the same. 

I think this was where everyone was at at the end of Turning Point One. 

TURNING POINT TWO

AT this point I decided to use TWO Strategic Ploys - no sense in just sitting on these Command Points I'm accumulating. I used Malicious Volleys - which is basically the same as the Marine Bolter Discipline Ploy, allowing me to take TWO shoot actions with a Marine, as long as that Marine doesn't do a fight action, and Hateful Assault - also the equivalent of the Space Marine ploy that allows them to do the FIGHT Action twice, as long as they don't shoot. 

Xanthaleng, one of my Chaos Space Marines went first and used the Malicious Volleys to shoot at that pesky Grenadier with the Krak Grenades. He failed to take him out with the first shots. DID take him out with the second... but again "Doc" came to the rescue with the "MEDIC!" ability and returned the Grenadier to the table with one wound... Seeing the greivously wounded grenadier prop himself back up and brace his Grenade Launcher to fire back, Xanthaleng used his last Action Point to get the fü¢k out of there and move clear out of LOS, behind one of the shipping containers! 

I don't remember what the Guard did with their first activation. 

Argnbaal went next. He used his first Fight action to finish off the 2IC that was in contact with him, charged across the Plasma conduits and finished off the GReadier with his BARE HANDS!

Well... you know what I mean...

Mortmek made a run for the Enemy Killzone Edge! 

One action brought him within 1" of the edge and I was able to reveal my second TacOps card; INTERLOPER - I had to nominate one Operative at the beginning of the game (secretly writing it down) and when that Operative was within 1" of the Killzone Edge spend 1AP to do the "Interlope" action and scurry off the table to gain 2VP!!!

Infiltration TacOps RULE! 

Well... as long as you have chaff like Cultists that won't be missed. 

Teh one other I had, that I didn't use, and likely woudn't have was "Cpture Hostage & Infiltrate" - If an Enemy Operative was incapacitated withing 2" of a Friendly Operative, I could remove my Operative from the table to gain 1VP (dragging the injured Enemy off for interrogation back at base) it would be worth it if it were a Cultist... but not the Marines. 

More looting objectives and taking useless pot shots at teh Guard in cover down teh way. 

Autoguns are.... not good... 

Finding not a lot to shoot at... my Cultist Gunner actually moved into position to sabotage one of the Terrain Pieces in the following Turning Point. 

The Zealot Veteran that had ended up in Engagement Range of Argnbaal when he'd charged the Grenadier, wisely Fell Back out of Engagement Range and Dashed to contest one of the Objectives before I could loot and score it. I just moved another Cultist in and scored it anyway... 

TURNING POINT THREE

Used the same two Strategic Ploys again - just in case anyone was silly enough to try and charge the Marines before they activated...

Arngbaal leapt over the Plasma Conduit and, making good use of Malicious Volleys blasted apart the zealot and... one of the other Guard cowering nearby... 

And... at that point we had to call it, as Orion had to be somewhere else... 

I was totally set up to score LOADS more Victory Points that turn. 

Zorithus was ready to start sabotaging... 

Kazmort was ready to do some more looting. 

As was Sithoth... 

And Vusour... 

And these guys... 

And Chazmaz, the Cultist Gunner with the Heavy Stubber was poised to do some Sabotage as well... 

As it was the score was 9-5 for the Traitor Marines, I would have scored 6 more in the Third Turning Point and potentially a few more in the final one... 

The Guard might have gotten a few more... buuuuut... There was no way they would have caught up... 

Mind you, as I mentioned earlier, they didn't actually have enough boots on the ground - or forgot to make use of the aforementioned Tactical Assets (Artillery Barrage/Marked Air Strike/Guided Missile/Strafing Run) which would have made a HUGE difference - if they'd been used earlier in the game and managed to take out more of the Marines. 

HAd they been deployed a bit more spread out, they possibly could have denied me a lot of points by seizing scoring - or at least contesting objectives. 

THOUGHTS

Marines of all stripes and colours are murderiferous-kill-machines! 

Flashlights... er... lasguns suck. 

Yes, the Guard did poorly here... but I think actually making use of all the specialists the Veteran Guard have to offer might make a bit of adifference - and playing to their strengths - NUMBERS - swarm the board with objective securing bodies! 

I'm super excited to play again. I had a game lined up for today, but my friend had to bail. Finnegan and i are planning to play again on the weekend - possibly Sunday...?