This would be a straight up gang fight. no scenario, just fighting till one gang bottled. This would also be the last game of Shadow War. The game's limitations and flaws are becoming steadily apparent and without a decent progression system or campaign narrative its getting a bit stale. Hopefully Kill Team will be an improvement.
One last thing: We suck at remembering to take enough photos. Sorry about that.
On with the report!
Lee: Turn one.
Lee began the game by downing the Ochre Prince with Ulo, Oh. Not to be outdone Ulk shot down Larz removing the threat of my heavy stubber. Thankfully the cultist kept his footing and was saved from a painful fall.
Elsewhere the two Autogun boys Lek and Hesh were pinned. With the upgrades for inquistorial henchmen Lee's shooting was pinpoint, often hitting on 2+. He'd hit my gang hard, i'd struggle to deliver much of a response.
Al: Turn One:
First thing was to head forward with Karl, his flamer had done great things last game and here he delivered too, taking Ulo straight out of action. Seb, having sat out the last game, headed toward the Inquisitor and wounded the Imperial agent though his armour prevented him from real harm.
Cid managed to pin the Squat which was handy and the best part of the turn was saved for last as the Ochre Prince recovered to a flesh wound. He still had flesh to rend.....
Lee: Turn Two:
Lee started with more precision shots as Ulk downed my Leader Skarn, now that WAS a problem, not far off bottle tests already, good thing the Genestealer had recovered. His Deathwatch Marine threw a grenade but missed, bouncing the explosive off of a stanchion and into the path of the Inquisitor. Thankfully the Inquisitor wasn't harmed by the storm of shrapnel.
Al Turn Two:
The Genestealer charged the Crusader, even with a reduced weapon skill the Crusader should be toast, thinly shredded toast. Seb continued to make up for his absence in the last game by pinning Ulk, and Karl repeated the feat on the Inquisitor who was clearly fire retardant.
Lek pinned the Deathwatch marine with a lucky shot. Jaq opened up on the Inquisitor and managed to wound him, but with two wounds remaining he was going to be tough to get rid of. Somehow the Ochre Prince only managed to land a flesh wound on the crusader! Larz went out of action, ensuring that I would have to do with out my heavy stubber this game.
Lee: Turn Three:
Thankfully Lee's turn was mostly him standing his dudes up. Deaths Head did pin Brother Seb but not much else happened. Elsewhere the Ochre Prince was REALLY making a meal of the Crusader, only managing another Flesh Wound.
Al: Turn Three:
My turn was an array of missed shots, my guys arent as well trained as Lee's. I did land one important shot though as Lek repeated his shot on the Death Watch marine. This time though the impact was enough to knock the Space Marine off the ledge and plummeting to the ledge below. It's OK it wasn't that far only three inches, should be nothing to a mari....what's that? He's wounded? He's DOWN???
Oh dear....
Elsewhere the Genestealer failed to wound the Crusader, something was wrong, they are normally much more deadly than this....
Lee turn Four:
Lee started by passing his bottle test. He wasn't out of this yet. Ulk pinned Lek but he was running out of guys to impact the game. Things were made worse as I remembered that Genestealers have Rending Claws and the Ochre Prince's combat effectiveness improved significantly, the Crusader was promptly shredded.
Okay NOW Lee might be in trouble
Al turn Four
First things first.... Karl tried to toast Drakkensson but sadly his flamer ran out of fuel, the Squat ducked anyway and was Pinned. Karl was now pretty much holding a paperweight though. Need to get that boy a reload.
Cid and Jaq both shot the Inquisitor but missed. Seb, did better managing to hit and wound the inquisitor. He fell one story to the floor but suffered no further damage, he got up again with one wound remaining. He was dangerously close to the Ochre Prince though. Thankfully the Genestealer stuck around to get rid of the Crusader (yes we were still playing that rule wrong i know....)
Lee: Turn Five:
Lee wasn't running. He was very much running out of dudes though. Inquisitor missed the Genestealer, that might be fatal. Ulk pinned Seb and knocked him off the edge but he bounced well and suffered no further ill effects.
Al turn Five:
Time to put the knife in, Literally. Lek charged the fallen Deaths Head, looking to take him out of the game. Karl moved towards the Inquisitor and triumphantly squeezed the trigger on his Flamer only to have it spurt and spark. I'd completely forgotten he was out of ammo! Ooops.
A few of my guys stood up, Lek shivved the Marine and The Ochre Prince moved malevolently toward the Inquisitor.
Lee: Turn Six:
Do or die for Lee now. The inquisitor shot the Ochre Prince but failed to wound. We decided that a shotgun wasn't high impact enough to pin him though. Thankfully for Lee the Squat was hefting a boltgun though and this certainly was. The Ochre Prince pinned, Ulk pinned Lek from up high. Hitting his target wasn't a problem for Lee, putting them down was.
Al Turn Six
The Ochre Prince, recovered from being pinned easily (high initiative) and charged the Inquisitor. Karl joined in too, weilding his heavy but useless flamer. Hesh shot Ulk and lee failed his initiative check, plunging the Pug mutant off of the roof and falling a long way down. He didn't bounce and went Down.
Drakkensson was in heavy cover but Cid hit him anyway on a 6 and pinned the Squat.
Time for the Title Fight.
Ochre Prince vs Inquisitor (with Hatred)
The Genestealer has lots of attacks but the Inquisitor has a sword and can therefore Parry. Parry is a really powerful ability that has the potential to drastically change a combat roll. That is what happened here, but the Genestealer still got in one hit which stripped the last wound from the Inquisitor and put him down. Karl then bludgeoned him with the flamer putting him Out of Action.
Even better, Skarn, the GSC leader finally decided to recover to a Flesh Wound after being on the ground all game!
Unsurprisingly Lee gave up the ghost and finally conceded. The Brotherhood of the Yellow King had comprehensively defended their territory and repelled the invaders. But the inquisitor would be back, he had many resources to call upon....
End game action:
Bit pointless really becuase we weren't carrying on but we rolled anyway for shits and giggles.
The biggest upset was that Ulk DIED! He was the best performer of the game. It was probably a good thing we weren't carrying on, it was a crippling blow for Lee's warband.
Lee's Inquisitor hated Karl
The Crusader hated The Ochre Prince.
Larz, who had done nothing all game, being put down in the first turn had apparently learned a great deal (presumably about lying on the ground) and advanced gaining Marksman.
Drakkensson got to reroll Ammo tests and Lek, who took down Deaths Head yes? got an extra wound.
In total I won the campaign 7 promethium to 2. This would benefit me in some way in a future game.
This mini campaign highlighted for me the main problems inherent with the Shadow War Armageddon rule set. I'm gonna bullet point them.
- Despite using the original Necromunda Ruleset the very best part, the post game sequence, has been absolutely butchered. There is little sense of advancement, kills make no difference and this can heavily skew the progression of your warband. The equipment that you can take is very basic and SWA really feels like a hybrid game rather than having its own identity. Consecutive games throw in stark relief the fact that SWA was nothing more than a stop gap. A chance to sell some new scenery and keep people buying kits in the sales lull during the lead up to 8th edition.
- The lack of a 'gang rating' means that there can be no underdog system. This can often mean that one gang can get on a roll and the warband taking a beating can find it tough to recover.
- Another problem with porting over the Necromunda rules is inherent to the rule set itself. Lee found himself pinned far too often, unable to respond. In Necromunda you would nearly always have at least 8 models some of which were juves so if a few got pinned it wasn't the end of the world. Lee had a much smaller group even with his Special Operative so, especially once he had taken a few casualties he could quite literally spend his entire turn standing his guys up just to get shot down again. Pinning is far too powerful. Given that some armies will by necessity have very few models the case can be exacerbated.
GW are also clearly unconvinced as ANOTHER version is coming out this year, Kill Team. With a completely unique ruleset (different polygonal dice for the first time in a long time) hopefully this time they will deliver a rule set that will do justice to the idea of an elite squad operating over the course of a campaign.
Time will tell.
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