The Poxwalkers continued to shamble through the storm of Bolter fire, supported by the armoured bulk of Chaos Space Marines. The Intercessors under Brother Dalamon and the Reivers of Squad Vance stand united, and brace themselves for the coming battle.

The third mission introduces the Poxwalkers as much needed reinforcements for the Chaos side, and the concept of squad warfare. This game, the Black Legion manage to get the first turn and move up, firing at the Reivers with their Plague Marines, wounding one. The Poxwalkers don’t make their charge, and the turn passes to the Space Marines. The Reivers move towards the Plague Marines, hoping to deny their shooting, while the Intercessors take firing positions against the oncoming Poxwalker horde.

After an appalling shooting phase, the Reivers declare a charge while the Intercessors hold, hoping their overwatch might prove more deadly. The Plague Marine with Blight Launcher finishes off the wounded Reiver with overwatch, before the remaining two strike vengeance upon the traitorous dogs, taking down two of their foes. The Plague Champion hits back, wounding another Reiver.

The Poxwalkers divert, charging in behind the Reivers to support their champion, but failing to do any wounds, Repugnus strikes again with his devastating Power Fist, finishing off the wounded Reiver. The last Reiver, outnumbered, strikes at the Plague Champion but the tainted armour of the Chaos Space Marine deflect his blows.

The Intercessors, unable to fire upon the enemy, charge into the Poxwalkers to lend their weight of numbers to the ongoing fight. The Reiver strikes again at Repugnus, and this time his blow strikes true, felling the Black Legionmaire. The Poxwalkers try to take vengeance for their fallen master, wounding the Reiver once, but are wiped out over the next few turns, the Crimson Fist suffering no further casualties in return.

The first wave was defeated, but turned out to have been a diversionary attack. The Black Legion, veterans of ten thousand years of war against the Imperium, had sent another force to cut power to the defensive bulkheads, allowing them to roam freely within the ship. The Crimson Fists rush to defend the unexpected battleground, but the Plasma Fusion Cells have already been removed from the system…

The replay mission this time has two static objectives, one in each player’s deployment zone, and introduces the concept of Victory Points. The Crimson Fists surprisingly advance off their home objective, hoping to take down the Plague Marines with Bolter fire, but are unsuccessful. The Reivers shoot down a Poxwalker, but fail to charge. The Black Legion respond by shooting the Reivers and charging the Poxwalkers into the Intercessors. Impressive overwatch is negated by Disgustingly Resilient saves, but the Poxwalkers are nearly wiped out in combat without even wounding the Intercessors.

As the Intercessors finish off the Poxwalkers, the Reivers charge the Chaos Marines, but lose one of their number to a Plague knife. The combat drags on, until the Intercessors join, hoping their weight of numbers will help sway the balance, and though they kill a Plague Marine, another Reiver is brought low. The combat continues right up until the last turn, when the Crimson Fists are finally able to kill the Plague Champion and consolidate onto the Black Legion home objective, dragging a 5-0 victory from the jaws of a 1-1 draw.

Brother Dagor pulled his combat blade from the gurgling corpse of the final Death Guard, and ran over to the Plasma Cell, slamming it back into position and locking it in place. Behind him, his Intercessor brethren similarly secured its twin, but the battle had been long fought, and without power to the bulkheads and security portals who knows what horrors had bypassed the carefully constructed kill zones and defensive emplacements. The Lieutenant must be informed immediately

The Reivers of Squad Vance stalked through the shadows, their Phobos armour artificially dampening the sound of their footfalls. A small force of Black Legion had bypassed the main defensive line, and the newly arrived Vanguard Space Marines had been tasked with hunting them down before they could wreak havoc in the less defended areas of the ship.

Up ahead, the Reivers spotted their foe, ransacking containers of wargear. Righteous anger suffused the Loyalists at the sight of the corrupted foes defiling blessed munitions, and they let loose an amplified Battle Cry as they charged the surprised Plague Marines.

The second mission introduces Reivers and the Assault phase. The first playthrough seemed to start very strong for the Chaos forces, managing to wound the advancing Reivers with the Blight Launcher and Plasma Gun respectively, however this is where their good fortune ended. All of the Reivers made it to combat on the following turn, their Heavy Bolt Pistols having proven ineffective, but the three attacks from their combat knives were more than up to the task, taking down the Plague Sergeant Repugnus and one of the Plague Marines in a single round.

The Plague Marine with Blight Launcher proved slightly more resilient, but his return attacks with his Plague Knife that turn and next were wasted, and once the rest of the Reivers charged in on their next turn his fate was sealed.

The interlopers dealt with, the Reivers tracked their trail back to the hull breach they had crawled through, finding a Dreadclaw Drop Pod clamped to the outside of the ship. Armed with Melta Charges, they advance to destroy the foul machine even as more Black Legion disembark.

The replay requires the Crimson Fists to reach one of the Plague Marine deployment zones before six game turns have elapsed. All electing to advance this game, to close the distance more swiftly, there was no fire from the Reivers. The Black Legion, hoping to intercept the Reivers before they reach the breach, move up and open fire. Unfortunately for the Chaos forces, their shooting this game is far less effective than it had been in the last; not only do they fail to wound any of the oncoming Space Marines, but Repugnus’ Plasma Gun explodes, removing him from the game!
The remaining Chaos Space Marines charge the Reivers, though the Blight Launcher manages to fail his 6” charge as well, but outnumbered, there seems little the Black Legion can do to slow the Vanguard combat specialists.

On turn 2, the Reivers move up, the uncontested one advancing but not yet able to reach his objective. The Plague Marines’ armour seems tougher this time round, and the Reivers are unable to strike any down, but with no damage dealt by the Plague Marines both sides are locked in combat until the deadlock is broken. (falling back has not been introduced yet) Despite one of the Space Marines being wounded by a Plague Knife, the third Reiver reaches his objective in the following turn and secures victory once again for the Crimson Fists.

Unable to bypass the defensive line, the Chaos forces must instead now try to break it. To support their Legionnaires, they release the once-mortal crew of their ship, infected and corrupted wretches, to overwhelm the Crimson Fists in an overwhelming tide of disease.

I’m finally getting round to starting my hopefully regular updates on this blog. Having recently moved to the Isle of Man (just missing pathfindersaxe) means I’m without most of my vast collection, bitz boxes and hobby supplies, not to mention my Dad’s wonderful terrain collection, so I really had to think about what to bring with me to do, or rather, I didn’t as I was already planning to do this series and the move provided me with the perfect opportunity to stop getting distracted and get on with it.

The series in question is a playthrough of the scenarios in the Conquest magazines, which fulfills the combined criteria of slowly building up my Primaris Crimson Fists forces, as well as letting me write some story fluff to justify the battles. It does have the unfortunate side effect of forcing me to paint Chaos forces, which I don’t choose to collect but seem to have a lot of regardless, and I’ve decided to paint them up as Black Legion, both not to step on Bree’s Iron toes, and also because I like the idea of a force drawn from all the Traitor Legions united under one banner.

I’ve always enjoyed narrative scenarios slowly introducing the rules and building up forces, whether it’s Deagostini’s Strategy Battle Games in Middle-Earth magazines, the Battle for Macragge and the accompanying book the Battle Rages On. I think it’s a combination of nostalgia for those heady early days of the hobby; where a green cloth and some cardboard ruins formed an incredibly realistic battlefield for the Elves and Orcs to fight over, and the appeal that games like Battle Companies and Kill Team hold, building up the numbers of your force and getting well acquainted with each model or unit.

That’s enough of an introduction though. I have been having some camera troubles, so apologies for the image quality, and I’ve not been able to get any close ups of models or conversions yet so those will probably get updated at a later date.

Tutorial Mission 1 – Boarded

The Sceptre of Terra slid silently through the cold void away from the war-torn planet of Vigilus. The War of Nightmares was over, and though Lord Calgar had ordered several strike forces of Adeptus Astartes to remain on the planet to deter further invasions until the world could be refortified by the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists 5^th Company was not among the garrison force. Lord Kantor had instead dispatched them to the world of Sangua Terra, the other side of the Nachmund Gauntlet, to reinforce the defenders there.

With explosive immediacy, the silent journey was punctuated by blossoming explosions. A dark dagger shape, corpulent and distended, slipped from the impossible non-colours of the Great Rift, plunging towards the Imperial Navy craft. Lance batteries opened in reply, but the attacker seemed to ignore the wounds inflicted by the macro-weapons. The two ships moved closer, slowly and inevitably, until at last the smaller, faster ship was alongside the Sceptre. Even then it moved closer, firing living boarding hooks and extending flesh-coated docking tubes.

Aboard the Sceptre, the Crimson Fists had been stationed throughout the ship in preparation for such an attack, but not knowing where the invaders would strike the company was spread out widely along the kilometers-long craft. Those that encountered the foe first must hold out long enough for the scattered forces to converge and drive the enemy back.

The first scenario pits three Plague Marines against three Intercessors. I’m using the replay rules for weapons as it is far from my first game. Unfortunately this scenario is slow and frustrating.  The Space Marines moved towards the Plague Marines to get within the 12” needed to use their Rapid Fire Bolters in this mission, but the small numbers of dice being rolled by both sides and the fact that both sides are relatively tough meant that it took till turn 6 for the first model to be removed. The game reinforced in particular to me how frustrating Disgustingly Resilient is, as it meant that a third of the wounds you manage to get through the T5 and 3+ armour are simple ignored. The Black Legion were unlucky not to wound with the Blight Launcher before it was removed, as it is the only weapon in this mission able to reduce saves.

Eventually, on turn 17, the final Plague Marine was slain by the surviving Intercessors. Movement had very little to do with this scenario beyond the early turns, with the terrain too easy to get around when the forces were close together, the Chaos forces were unable to move quickly enough to protect their better weapons or get outside of 12”.

Brother Dalamon kicked the disgusting corpse of the Plague Marine away from the access hatch, and turned the handle. The metal here was beginning to rust and warp, though it had been pristine mere hours ago. Only purity of faith and purpose would stop the corrupting influence of Chaos before it took hold on the ship.

He and his brothers descended to the next level, the wide cargo area that had been given over to the Marines for use as a combat exercise area. In the semi-darkness of the emergency lights, he saw a prone form, his auto-senses identified it as Veteran Sergeant Perez, the unaugmented marine who had been assigned to help train and indoctrinate the newer Primaris Marines in the history and combat doctrines of the Chapter. To Dalamon’s surprise, the old veteran still lived, despite wounds that should kill any normal Space Marine without Cawl’s augmentations.

Impressed, Brother Dalamon signalled for his squadmates to cover him. As he advanced to recover the Sergeant’s prone form, he sensed movement from the other side of the chamber as shots rang out against his MkX plate.

In the mission replay, there is an objective marker the forces must pick up and hold on their deployment points. This time round, movement played a much greater part in the game. The first turn, one of the Intercessors advanced and claimed the objective, but then against all odds the Plague Marines were able to wound him twice, killing him!

The following turn another Intercessor advanced onto the objective, claiming it, and this time in their attempt to kill him the Plague Marine sergeant Repugnus blew himself up with his Plasma Gun!

The rest of their fire ineffective, the Intercessor advanced again the following turn, putting a container between himself and the Plague Marines, meaning they could no longer reach him to stop the Crimson Fists from recovering the objective.

Though initial casualties had been incurred, they were much lower than projected. Veteran Sergeant Perez was recovering in the ship’s Apothecarion, and though fighting was erupting along the lower decks, the Black Legion Plague Marines had moved too slowly to establish a proper foothold on the ship, underestimating the tenacity of the Crimson Fists as so many had before them. The battle however was far from over, the docking tubes convulsing as more Chaos forces surged into the Sceptre of Terra’s chambers and accessways.