Forget the promises of the Imperial Truth; it is a veil for the weak.
From truth comes betrayal, from betrayal comes retribution, from retribution comes vindication.
+ Meditations of Koronos, vol II +
+++
+ Tallarn. It's had a place in the PCRC's noospheric net for a long time. When the concept of Team Fisto came about – long before the Games Workshop Studio or Forge World books – we were all on tenterhooks waiting for the Black Library to release a book on Tallarn, so we'd get some info on the Imperial Fists. +
+ Now, that never happened, but the concept of a burned-out wasteland and fighting over precious bunkers is an awesome one, so Bob Hunk and I decided to start a little campaign set on the dead world, using the Victory is Vengeance rules. +
+ Bob Hunk's force of Imperial Fists Survivors is holed up in one of the anonymous Imperial bunker systems, and my Iron Warrior Exterminators have forced their way in. We played a simple mission fighting across an Imperial Army vehicle depot, with both of us using the Supply Raid and Murder Raid objectives. In short, we needed our forces to kill each other and claim a number of objectives. +
+++
+ Opening moves +
With a slight advantage in numbers, the Iron Warriors push forward into the to make the most of their short-ranged weapons. Lieutenant Çjarn waves his mean forward. Seeking absolution for his part in the Olympian Purges, he wears the penitent marks well-known to the Imperium.
+ During this campaign, I want to explore the background of Çjarn, who becomes a blood-soaked, idealistic lunatic by the time of the Siege of Terra, warped by the daemon blade he carries. Tallarn, of course, is set before Siege, so here he's simply another line-officer. I decided that he would have had regrets over the events of Olympia (the Iron Warriors destroyed their homeworld when it rebelled), and gave him the Martyr trait. This boosted his Action Point total when he is hit or taken out of action. +
Basilikoi advance behind the cover of a refuelling Valkyrie.
+ The Basilikoi are represented by a Legion Tactical Support squad with volkite chargers. +
Sergeant Yce and his Breacher teams thunder forward, determined not to cede an inch of ground to the Warmaster's forces.
+ Bob Hunk had selected a simple Breacher Sergeant as his Hero, and granted him the Paragon trait. Yce may be a reluctant hero, but the shaken forces under his auspices look to him for inspiration – and what Imperial Fist would allow desire to overcome duty? Certainly not the stout-hearted Yce, who steps up and leads from the front. +
Crewless tanks, supply crates and other detritus offer dense cover for the clashing forces.
Long-range fire from the Fists pick off two or three unfortunate Legionaries of the IVth.
+ Mid-game +
The Rapier crew draw to a halt and prepare to fire on anything that hoves into view.
Çjarn's advance through cover falters as more and more of his men are picked off by sharp-eyed Imperial Fists, while his forces' powerful Martian deathrays and bolters fail to inflict a single casualty.
Called in to bail out their Lieutenant, the Iron Warriors on the right abandon their objectives and race over.
Yce confronts Çjarn, but the Fists' firepower falters at a critical juncture, causing no wounds...
Honoured Aedard, the Fists' Dreadnought, is hit by the Rapier's graviton cannon, but shakes it off. Returning fire, his quad autocannons hammer one of the Iron Warriors to the floor, sobbing blood from great rents in his armour.
+ Clash of arms +
The heroes meet! Three Iron Warriors make their way through the Fists' reaction fire, though Çjarn sustains a wound as he over-reaches to shield his comrade.
From the Valkyrie's wingtip pict-thief, the Iron Warriors predicament is obvious.
Before he can bring his axes into play, Çjarn is cut down by Yce's glittering power sword. His men fall shortly after, battered to the ground by the surviving Breachers.
The supporting Iron Warriors halt in dismay as their leader falls, and begin a punishing barrage of fire.
It's not all going the Fists' way, as the Rapier team tracks round...
... and hits Yce and his men with a physics-distorting wave of power. Straining to remain standing, Yce watches in dismay as two of his comrades are flattened in their armour. Nevertheless, it's too little too late, and the Iron Warriors are forced to retreat.
+++
+ Post-Action Report +
+ Ha! That could have gone better. Don't think Perturabo will be particularly pleased with Çjarn after this one. The final result was an embarrassingly large margin of victory for Yce and his victorious brethren. Bob Hunk can give the precise results (he took notes on the final result as we packed up – I had to dash), but it was something like 30 Supply Points (SP) and 3 Victory Points (VP) for capturing three objectives, plus another 14SP and 7SP or so for the kills... Meanwhile, I'd managed the grand achievement of 0 objectives – foolishly abandoning the two I had claimed in order to try and bail out Çjarn – and only managed to take out four of his men. Imperial Fists are serious business! +
+ I can't blame bad luck, as Bob Hunk was equally unfortunate with his ammo rolls and pinning checks, his men uncharacteristically disorganised – perhaps the Iron Warriors assault had caught them off-guard? +
+ The Iron Warriors were left in a parlous state; unable to spend sufficient Supply Points from their meagre haul to maintain any of the Armour, Ammunition or Personnel levels – all of which dropped to Lacking. I'm in trouble for the next game... Çjarn, fortunately, escaped permanent negative effects from his injury, and picked up a personal objective to fulfil next time. +
+ The Fists, meanwhile, were flush! The Survivors start off on at a disadvantage to the Exterminators, but Yce has turned things around nicely, managing to spend enough Supply Points to bring everything up to the Plentiful level. +
+ It was, despite the result, a lot of fun. The small scale of the Victory is Vengeance games made this tense and swift, and the additional rules (once we'd deciphered them, that is – there's a lot of needlessly complex explanation and the rules are scattered about all over the place in the FW books) were fun additions that didn't slow things down. +
+ I'm already looking forward to the next game. +
1 comment:
Thanks for the excellent game Apologist, really looking forward to our next trip to Tallarn! :) Yes, as requested the final score was 3VP & 6SP to you and 19VP & 56SP to me. I do think you had a bit of bad luck though, like the Graviton blast failing to even glance the Dreadnought. If the fight between Cjarn and Yce had gone the other way then things would have been very different! :)
Until next time! :)
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