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Grimdark Future: Tendrils of Corruption

Posted by Comrade on October 3, 2023
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We got together earlier in September for a game that could very well represent the grand finale of our Grimdark Future campaign.

Recall that we launched our campaign (The Cauldron) at the beginning of 2023 as an escalation league, wherein each player would start with a handful of models each and play smaller skirmish games of Grimdark Future Firefight, slowly adding more models as we went along through the spring and summer.

I’m happy to report that this approach proved to be a smashing success! We all stayed motivated to build new armies, one unit at a time. At our height, we had 8 players participating in monthly games. Now we’re approaching the end of 2023 and we all have decent sized armies that have gained some experience on the tabletop…mission accomplished, I’d say!

So, this game was a bit of a bookend for our highly successful campaign.

We had 4 players for this game, and everybody wanted to bring some of their larger, more expensive models (tanks, mostly), so we decided to go for a larger 2-vs-2 team game. We set the game in the upper reaches of Ardent Maxima, a hive city on the planet Gamma Euphorion Prime that was in the process of falling to the forces of darkness. Daniel’s newly painted Realm of Battle terrain tiles provided a stunning backdrop for this game.

Chaos Space Marines from the Death Guard legion had allied with Genestealer Cultists boiling up from the depths of the underhive to push the defenders of the Imperium back to the very highest levels of Ardent Maxima. After the destruction of the monument to St. Deneia in last month’s game, the Imperial defenders retreated to link up with their Eldar allies.

The forces of the Imperium and their Eldar allies made their stand in a vast plaza that had been defiled by thick, fibrous tendrils of fleshy matter. The origin of these throbbing purple members was unknown – were they some organic artifice of the Genestealer Cult made manifest, or perhaps a symptom of a planetwide plague delivered by the followers of Nurgle? No one dared ask.

John’s Imperial Guard took to the field alongside Josh’s Eldar – or Aeldari, if you prefer. They had some hard-hitting units, but they would be hard pressed to counter the advance of the forces of evil as the game got underway.

The game began with some long-range firepower as the armored vehicles opened up on each other. My Chaos Predator (a new addition to my army, nice!) dug in behind a makeshift barricade and unloaded its weaponry on the distant shapes of a couple Leman Russ battle tanks, barely visible behind the haze of dust and smoke.

With a roar of combustion engines, Daniel mobilized his fleet of trucks and began advancing on the objectives. Cultists wielding a variety of improvised weaponry scaled the crumbling masonry of a shattered building and brought fearsome firepower to bear on the Imperial armor.

The cultists’ advance brought them crashing headlong into the Eldar vanguard. With a guttural howl, the cultists swept into the frail, spindly looking space elves, blasting the infantry apart with heavy caliber weaponry and rending their grav tank into utter wreckage.

On the left flank, the foul daemon engines of Nurgle roared to life, following the cultists as they advanced to seize an objective located athwart the rusted TECHNOBRIDGE.

Even as the Death Guard daemon engines were pressing their advance on the right flank, realspace flickered and frost scabbed the pitted metal flooring as reinforcements arrived from the Warp: a foul Daemon Prince of Nurgle and a trio of battle-hardened Blightlord Terminators.

These lumbering behemoths arrived in the Imperials’ backfield and immediately commenced sowing havoc and despair. Terminators are jacks of all trades in Grimdark Future – OK at everything, great at nothing. Their mere presence had the desired effect of ratcheting up the tension. The defenders’ line appeared fragile – would it falter??

Ultimately, the TECHNOBRIDGE did not fall to the forces of Chaos. It was defended, at great cost I might add, by Eldar Dark Reapers led by Maugan Ra, backed up by the reliable firepower of the two Leman Russ tanks.

The defense of the TECHNOBRIDGE seemed to stiffen the spine for the Imperial and Eldar defenders, and they mounted a late surge against another objective located within a ruined multi-story building.

The timely arrival of some Imperial Guard Stormtroopers/Kasrkin/Tempestus Scions, backed up by the graceful shape of the Eldar Wraithlord, put the objective into serious jeopardy. There was only one solution – pulp those stormtroopers into a fine red paste by driving Daniel’s rockgrinder truck through the middle of the them! Yee-haw!

This action was followed up by a volley of fire from the Chaos Predator, which had been serving as effective fire support for most of the game.

With the endgame approaching, the Predator rumbled out of its fighting position and motored toward the central objective, located amid some puddles of toxic waste (dangerous terrain, in the parlance of Grimdark Future).

That bold advance was enough to seal the victory for the forces of Chaos. This was a very close fought game that definitely could have gone either way up until the final turn. Those are the best types of games – the ones where both sides are competitive until the very end.

So, this may prove to be the final game of The Cauldron, our grimdark/Inq28 campaign that has inspired a frenzy of painting and terrain building over the last 10 months. If you haven’t read through our past battle reports, do yourself a favor and take in the majesty of The Cauldron on Comrade’s Wargames. You’ll be glad you did.

Grimdark Future: Under the Gaze of St. Deneia

Posted by Comrade on July 31, 2023
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Earlier this month we played out the latest installment in The Cauldron, our 40k narrative campaign. This session took place on Ardent Maxima, a hive city located on the other side of planet Gamma Euphorion Prime.

Most of our battles so far have taken place in and around Hive Sacrament, with its pious pilgrimage district that masks the corruption bubbling up from the depths of the underhive.

By contrast, Ardent Maxima is the epicenter of a vast textile operation. Stadium-sized looms spin gargantuan bolts of fabric for use in Imperial Guard uniforms or embroidered draperies or even sailcloth for maritime vessels. Seam-serfs, with help from stitcher-servitors, churn out untold millions of finished products each year. Most of the inhabitants of Ardent Maxima work to support these textile operations in one way or another, overseen by the benevolent enforcers of the Adeptus Sororitas.

Rebel activity from heretical cults recently hit a fever pitch in Ardent Maxima when the monument to St. Veridegora Deneia was blown up by insurrectionists. Even before the dust settled, the enemies of the Imperium were already making their moves to further despoil the site of the once-proud statuary. The Sisters of Battle summoned urgent assistance from a nearby expeditionary regiment of Imperial Guard, newly arrived from the Glouroth Sub-Sector.

This game pitted Daniel’s Genestealer Cult and Jim’s Orks against Rian’s Sisters of Battle alongside a combined Imperial Guard detachment commanded by me and John. It was a classic xeno-vs-Imperium matchup, amid the ruins of the blown up monument!

The forces of the Imperium mustered their soldiers and armor at the perimeter of the plaza where the statue to St. Deneia and stood until recently. Two walkers and a main battle tank anchored their line, along with the rarefied warriors of the Sisters of Battle.

You can see the blasted sandstone chunks of what had once been the statue to St. Veridegora Deneia in the background. Who would dare desecrate such a holy bastion?

Oh. These guys would.

And probably these guys, too.

With a guttural howl, the combined forces of the Orks and Genestealer Cults surged forward, eager to reach the Imperial lines and deliver vengeance upon the miserable curs of the Corpse-Emperor.

Thankfully, the Emperor protects and reloads.

The Imperial battle line let loose with a cracking volley of fire, ripping apart several of the xeno transport vehicles and spilling their inhabitants. Undeterred, the bad guys cinched up their belts and began the long slog to the three objectives scattered around the table.

In the photo above, you can see the first completed tile from Daniel’s Realm of Battle board. He acquired a full set (enough for a 6×4 table) from Mindtaker Miniatures earlier this summer. He brought his one completed tile to this game, and it fit in beautifully alongside the rest of our hive city terrain!

The big ol’ tank in that photo is from Pig Iron Productions. It is a gigantic chunk of solid resin that has been in my collection for many years. This tank featured heavily into some my early games with the Chicago Skirmish Wargames club, such as this one: Operation Scrub Down! Nice to get it back onto the table 12 years later.

But anyway, back to the game. Big things were happening. A xeno transport truck motored up the flank and deposited a squad of greenskins right on top of one of the objectives.

As you can imagine, this transgression would not stand, man, and the Sisters of Battle were in a position to do something about it. Rian’s newly painted Penitent Engine stomped right into the fray and began hewing swathes of orks in twain with its massive buzz saws.

The stained glass windows on this MDF terrain looks absolutely fantastic! It was a fitting backdrop for this utter devastation that was visited upon the orks.

With the destruction of the ork mob on the flank, the xenos’ advance was seriously threatened. All eyes turned to the rubble-strewn plaza where a Genestealer leader had brazenly planted a flag amid the ruins of St. Deneia’s monument. What a shocking, ghastly display of debauchery!

At the time, it seemed like the appropriate response was for John to drive an APC up and open fire on the squirrely cultist with its autocannon. I think St. Deneia would agree, don’t you?

While the plaza was getting chewed to pieces by high caliber rounds, a different sort of confrontation was taking place near the Technobridge in the center of the table. A small kill team led by Inquisitor Ash was closing in on an elite ork warband led by Jim’s mighty warboss! If they could dislodge the warboss and defeat the quad-wheeler camped out on the objective, they could secure a vital area of the battlefield.

At this point, the tide of the battle turned. Warp lighting arced across the battlefield as the forces of Chaos arrived, no doubt drawn by the carnage and slaughter of the ongoing battle!

In game terms, the xeno team had a third player (Lawrence) who had brought two mighty demons to the game, and both arrived via the ambush special rule (similar to Deep Strike in 40k). So the initial cakewalk that the Imperial Guard experience was just an illusion! The bloodthirsty demons swooped in and began carving up the rear lines. Check out these photos of their arrival.

Doom had come to the plaza of St. Deneia!

The arrival of the two gigantic (and beautifully painted) demons caused a cold sweat to break out on the collective brows of the defenders of the Imperium. How could they carry on in the face of such abject evil? Trusting in their faith in the Emperor, the heroes mustered their courage and stuck to the game plan.

The plaza had become a killing field, as Orks and cultists swarmed in for the final clash. On the perimeter, heavy weapon teams and the remaining walkers poured fire into the advancing mobs of bad guys – even as the demons rampaged in the backfield. Would it be enough?

Eventually the orks consolidated their hold on the central objective. It seemed clear that the game would be decided here. Based on the photo below, it sure looks like the Orks have this one in the bag.

However, zoom out a bit and you can see what was awaiting them as we entered the final turn of the game. Legions of steely-eyed Guardsmen, backed up by tanks and walkers, ready to pour on the fire and do their duty to the Emperor!

The two demons, for all their might, didn’t have enough offensive power to thwart the Imperial Guard’s game plan. The defenders of the Imperium succeeded in purging the filth from the plaza of St. Deneia, notching one important victory in the battle for Ardent Maxima.

This was a large and tremendously satisfying game of Grimdark Future. We had 3,000 points per side, divided up amongst the players on the two teams. This game marked the first outing for several newly painted miniatures, as well as a triumphant return for some, ah, legacy models from my collection.

This is the 7th session of our grimdark narrative campaign (The Cauldron). Check out all the previous battle reports over on our campaign page!

Grimdark Future: Tech Moon Rising

Posted by Comrade on June 25, 2023
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Today’s Grimdark Future battle report (the next installment in The Cauldron, our ongoing grimdark/Inq28 themed narrative campaign) took place far from the glittering spires of Hive Sacrament on Gamma Euphorion Prime. While the miserable defenders of the Imperium struggled to stem the dark tide surging up from the depths of the underhive, our factions were making a move on the nearby industrial moon Drusichtor.

The moon hangs like an overripe plum in the leaden skies of Gamma Euphorion Prime, swollen with mineral resources and riven with scars from centuries of careless extraction activity. In my head, Drusichtor is kind of like LV-426 crossed with the Australian outback. Lots of crumbling industrial facilities, isolated mineheads, abandoned strip mines, weather-worn hab blocks, windswept cliff faces, etc. Ripe for narrative gaming in our homebrew setting. In this game, the factions were converging on the Xenarite Interchange, one of several heavily fortified industrial mining facilities that dot the tortured, windswept landscape of Drusichtor.

For this game, a splinter warband of Death Guard commandos from the Maggot Magnates faction was pushing to seize the security station. Opposing them was a ragtag band of miners who, by pure happenstance, were swooning under the influence of a nefarious genestealer cult. A band of ork raiders lurking in the hills flipped a coin and decided to ally with the genestealer cultists during this raid.

Three security stations located within the perimeter of the Xenarite Interchange offered access to the base’s robotic sentinels. The faction that could seize and activate the security stations would be able to direct the robotic sentinels to swarm and destroy the opposing faction. Gulp!

Our game got underway with a general advance by the Plague Marines of the Death Guard. They had two sizable hordes of shambling Poxwalkers, and these they prodded toward the objectives in the center of the board.

The genestealer cultists responded by directing the fearsome flame weapons on their vehicles to mow down the poxwalkers as they advanced. Yikes, I was not expecting so many flamethrowers!

On the opposite flank, a Chaos Rhino delivered a squad of Plague Marines to another objective, located in a toxic spill zone. Before the game, we had designated this area as “dangerous terrain” per the Grimdark Future rules, which caused units to risk casualties if they moved into or through the terrain. Thus, this objective was objectively more hazardous to secure!

You can see in the photo above that Jim had a squad of Ork boyz waiting just behind the disabled vehicle, ready to pounce on my Plague Marines once they waded into the toxic soup near the objective.

Daniel had also prepared an ambush – his mutant cultists popped out of a tunnel and charged my Plague Marines as they closed in on the objective, resulting in a brutal close combat.

And of course, eagle-eyed readers probably noticed the three Killa Kans stomping around in this general area. They were armed to the teeth, but thankfully they weren’t too tough, and we were able to pop them one after another (while simultaneously dealing with the genestealer cultists and marauding orks).

The MVP for popping Killa Kans turned out to be the Chaos Rhino! I had equipped it with the spiked ram upgrade, which gave it Impact (9), and this turned out to be devastating. In Grimdark Future, vehicles have no way to fight back in close combat, so they have an ability called Impact (X) that acts as a sort of tank shock, dealing X automatic hits when they rumble into a squad. After that, they’re often sitting ducks, but Impact can really even the odds when employed correctly.

Dealing 9 auto-hits proved to be just the tonic I needed to carve up the Killa Kans and grease the Orks.

Back on the left flank, the poxwalkers staggered forward even as they were coated with flaming promethium. A few made it into combat with the big cultist truck, but they were too diminished to do much damage.

We had better luck with a lone Chaos Terminator who arrived via deep strike (aka Ambush, in the parlance of Grimdark Future) and charged into combat with the cultists who had just spilled out of the transport truck. The Terminator carved them up with frightening ferocity!

The final clash of the game took place on the right flank, where a mob of advancing poxwalkers inadvertently uncovered the source of the xeno cult – actual genestealers!!

They were punished terribly for discovering this forbidden truth. The survivors continued the advance, supplemented by a grisly Myphitic Blight Hauler, aka murder tricycle.

By this point, Jim’s fearsome Ork Warboss was entering the fray. He hewed and cleaved with his mighty choppa, but ultimately he succumbed to the Death Guard onslaught, which paved the way for the Plague Marines to seize the objective and wrap up the game.

The outcome of our narrative scenario meant that the Death Guard were able to activate the base’s remote sentry robots, which bounded forth on four legs and proceeded to lay waste to the surviving cultists and orks. This was a great excuse for John to bust out some newly painted robo-puppers that served to close out this game with style.

And so the cultists and their erstwhile allies (the Orks) were driven back, and the Death Guard consolidated their position at the Xenarite Interchange and prepared to probe deeper into Drusichtor’s desolate industrial facilities. Who can say what strange discoveries await?

I should note that this game was just one of two games that were running concurrently in John’s garage game room. The other game is documented with aplomb over at Orcs Illustrated, the blog headquarters of fellow club member John. Here’s a sneak peek at the action in the Pilgrimage District.

Grimdark Future escalation campaign: conflict above, conflict below

We had a total of 10 players squeezed into the garage – a record, I believe, for our little game club. This game was also a bit of an “east meets west” event, as it featured a visit from Karl, my friend and co-founder of Chicago Skirmish Wargames (my old game club). So it was a real treat to set up a couple games with Karl and give him a chance to meet the guys in my group.

All in all, it was a glorious sight to behold. Fully painted miniatures, gorgeously crafted terrain and scenery, and an engrossing narrative campaign. Truly, this represents the zenith of what anyone seeks out when they gaze at the cover art of any ol’ box of miniatures.

Grimdark Future: The Bridge of Faith

Posted by Comrade on June 2, 2023
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After a couple of large, multiplayer sessions in our grimdark sci-fi campaign (The Cauldron), it was a nice to downshift a little bit and try a smaller, more intimate affair for this most recent game. We crafted a custom scenario centered on THE TECHNOBRIDGE, a terrain creation that you can read about at the link.

(Spoiler: It’s a big bridge.)

We had three players: Rian commanding his beautiful Adeptus Sororitas warband, and Josh and I splitting duties with my heretical Dark Mechanicum warband. The cultists, if you recall, were victorious in our previous session after they routed the defenders of the Imperium.

For this game, we set up a custom, somewhat assymetric scenario that saw Rian’s Battle Sisters assaulting the heretics’ fortified hideout. The Sororitas had three objectives that they had to complete in sequence: lower the bridge, enter the bunker on the far side to retrieve the corrupted data cores, and then escape into the sewer pipe.

The heretics had more forces (500 points compared to 400 points for Rian) but they arrived in piecemeal fashion over several turns. It was an interesting custom scenario that forced some do-or-die decisions on Rian as he advanced across the Bridge of Faith!

The game began with the Bridge of Faith raised (i.e. not present on the table, as you can see in the photo above). The small control station on the far side of the chasm operated the bridge. Rian would need to seize the control station in order to lower the bridge.

The sandbagged area represents the heretics’ fortified hideout. They also had an armored bunker and some other emplacements under their control – a potentially tough nut to crack, except that they had a limited number of warriors on the table at the start of the game.

Rian’s Sister of Battle deployed near their side of the bridge. They intended to seize the control panel as early as possible, to effect an assault across the relatively open bridge.

The game began with the Battle Sisters laying down covering fire from elevated ruins near Rian’s deployment zone.

The fast-moving Sisters Repentia, unarmored and wielding gigantic chainswords, raced ahead under withering fire and captured the control panel. The bridgehead was under the Imperium’s control!

I realized at this point that I didn’t get too many shots of my own miniatures. I didn’t have a ton of guys on the table at the start of the game, and my figures mostly lurked in their fortified hideouts taking potshots at his advancing soldiers. Interestingly, both Rian and I chose purple accent colors for our respective factions.

Now, most of the Adeptus Sororitas chose to advance up and over the bridge…except for Rian’s badass newly painted biker! She spent the game motoring around the lower level of the battlefield, engaging my warriors at range and generally creating havoc in my backfield.

The first clash came as the Battle Sisters consolidated their position aroud the bridgehead. The first wave of heretic reinforcements arrived, and Josh sent one of his cyborg brawlers charging headlong into combat with the Sororitas.

The clash was brutal and short-lived – the Battle Sisters mobbed the cyborg and dispatched him with ruthless efficiency. With that little threat out of the way, they advanced at a cautious, implacable pace.

Unfortunately, a “cautious” pace wasn’t going to cut it for our scenario! The two remaining locations that the Sisters of Battle had to visit (the bunker and the sewer pipe) were still fairly far away, and the clock was ticking. For Rian to succeed, he would need to abandon his cautious approach and light a fire under his nuns’ collective rear ends.

We quickly realized that the Adeptus Sororitas would have to take a “leap of faith” from the platform at the end of the bridge, onto the roof of the bunker, in order to secure the corrupted data core and escape through the sewer pipe by the end of the game.

Thankfully, Grimdark Future: Firefight has simple rules for jumping. Just roll some dice and hope for high results. If you fall, you’re pinned. Can’t be that hard, right? Wellllll…..

As you can see from the photo above, the Sisters’ attempts at jumping across to the bunker left a lot to be desired. Three nuns flubbed their rolls and fell flat, one after the other. The execution was so abysmal that we suddenly wondered whether the Sisters of Battle were going to be slaughtered outright. My Dark Mechanicum leader (Rho-Terak, the Enslaver of Logic) rushed into the fray, killing the Sororitas leader as she lay prone on the groud. Big yikes!

Thankfully, the Sororitas champion on the bike was still present as a threat on my flank. She kept up the pressure just long enough for one of the Battle Sisters to successfully make the leap over to the bunker. Hurray – Rian was two-thirds of the way to victory!

Beyond this point, I did not capture photos of the final moments of the game. The last wave of heretic reinforcements showed up – two small fire teams of three models each – but alas, Josh and I didn’t place them particularly well, and the new arrivals were unable to interdict the Adeptus Sororitas as they raced from the bunker to the sewer pipe to make their escape.

So it was a major victory for Rian and the Sisters of Battle – but only just! If he had dithered, or if the heretics had been able to stall his advance even for one turn, the outcome would have been dramatically different.

This was a fun game with a nifty scenario that featured creative input from all the players. Oh, and we got to use THE TECHNOBRIDGE. So that was a win all around.

Stay tuned for more games set in The Cauldron!

Nightwatch: Twilight in the Embermoon Forest

Posted by Comrade on May 23, 2023
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It’s been a while since we checked in on our Nightwatch campaign. I’ve actually had these photos on my phone for a couple months, just haven’t gotten around to doing the writeup.

Anyway, we gathered a few months back to play the fifth (5th) session of our Nightwatch campaign. A proper, by-the-book Nightwatch campaign is a carefully scripted affair, with seven sessions that slowly increase the intensity and danger, culminating with an epic “boss battle” in the final session.

So by that metric, you can see we’re quite advanced by this point in our campaign. Our characters are proficient and deadly, and they’re outfitted with all manner of deadly weapons, artifacts, and gear.

We’ve played a variety of objective-based scenarios up to this point in our campaign. For our fifth session, we decided to try a seemingly simple game mode – survive for seven turns. That’s it! Nothing more complicated than that.

It seemed easy, but the players barely escaped from this game with their hides intact. The danger started early and often, as terrifying beastmen began emerging from the depths of the Embermoon Forest on turn 1.

From there, the danger just increased expontentially. The slower characters, like Jim’s knight Sir Joshua, got bogged down in grinding melee combat just a few inches beyond the heroes’ deployment zone.

This meant that the more mobile characters, like Vincent’s alchemist, had to stay somewhat nearby to protect their slower comrades, and couldn’t race ahead to engage the beastmen reinforcements that were arriving every. single. turn.

This game featured repeated appearances of Terrors – those horrid, panic-inducing monstrosities that represented the near-pinnacle of the Nightwatch bestiary.

Terrors were nearly as powerful as the players’ characters, capable of dealing out fearsome amous of damage, and they arrived with frightening regularity as the game wore on.

It was, as evidenced by these photos, an absolute bloodbath in the Embermoon Forest. The beautiful autumnal foliage was splashed with ichor and gore, the branches blackened by explosive grenades and errant mage bolts. The entire valley was hazy with smoke as the battle wore on. Who would emerge victorious?

Heroes fell in the chaos, then gained their feet, only to fall again. A well-placed magical wall of vapor managed to block a rampaging mob of beastmen reinforcements, gaining precious time for the heroes to organize their defense and gain the upper hand over the savage interlopers.

The beastmen attacked with exceptional savagery, and their onslaught prevented the heroes from moving … anywhere, really. Let’s take a moment and be thankful that this wasn’t a scenario where the heroes had to race around the battlefield and visit different locations. If that had been the case, they would have been doomed!

The heroes spent the final turns in a desperate huddle, hacking at the hordes and using every tactic in their playbook to stay alive until the conclusion of the seventh turn.

These two photos offer a glimpse at the utterly relentless attack that they withstood in the final turns of the game.

And then, as quickly as they had come, the beastmen withdrew into the night, sounding horns and loosing arrows to cover their escape. Who can say what signal caused them to retreat? Perhaps they were called back to their villainous master to serve some darker purpose? Whatever the reason, they fell back in haste, leaving their dead and wounded to moulder in the wilderness of the Embermoon Forest.

And thus concluded our most frenetic, brutal game of Nightwatch yet! We have one more “regular” session ahead of us, followed by an encounter with the savage chieftain of the beastmen … stay tuned for more!