May 28, 2008

Last Call for Sergeant Ibrahim

So we had ourselves a random encounter today at Asgaard Games and had agreed to play our own mad homebrew of Warhammer 40.000, using the Second Edition along with a lot of Thorbjørnian madness, schemes and random ideas from I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! and other such highly revered rulesets.

What follows here is a small battlereport of this - our first - documented Random Encounter

++++
Last Call for Sergeant Ibrahim
Or - Silence The Big Guns

During the pacification of the Jyllanix system, the war on Asgaard IV had raged for some months now. The White Star space marine chapter had launched a daring assault upon their arrival and already many of the beleagured Asgaardians had rallied to aid this assault. But scattered along the front line were isolated pockets of Ork artillery, pounding the great advance of the combined Imperial forces. A single squad of White Star Terminators were dispatched by teleporter to take out one such position. The Squad was led by Sergeant Ibrahim in what was to be his final victory, and this is their story...


Seen here is a simulated overview of the ork encampment, with the two guns pointed towards the front lines. Apparently Lord Baddawg was on duty this day as the Terminators started to deploy.


The Space Marine Survey-Servitor had established an approximation of the ork forces currently guarding this installation. The white areas represents higher levels of ork activity, and would thus either be Squigs or Orks - or both! The Inquisitional areas marked in white were the amounts of imperial activity as seen by the orks; apparently they lacked the highly advanced technology of the imperium, yet proved highly succesful in sniffing out the lumbering Terminators as they teleported in and started their advance towards their objectives.


Seen here is the brave Sgt. Ibrahims initial deployment alongside brother Coiteus. Their plan was according to Imperial doctrines and they established a good fire base in order to suppress the expected higher level of ork activity on the right flank, whilst Brothers Ferrox, Logan and Meiard would flank from the left in a sanctioned pincer move. However, the initial success relied heavily on the Orks not discovering the squad until at the very last moment.


The rest of the squad deployed in and around an outcropping of rocks but scared the local squigs, raising a furious ruccus and alerted the Ork compound of their arrival. Yet the superior Imperial Technology had only managed to secure a fix on a single Ork so far; Lord Baddawg himself:


Having lost the element of surprise, Brother Ferrox was quick to open up fire with his faithful Assault Cannon and braved the anger of the Machine Spirit as he scythed through three Orks in rapid succession. The strike had begun!


As Ferrox counted the possible targets for his secondary burst, he was slightly unnerved by the sudden appearance of a mob of Orks on his right as they jumped into the forest line and proceeded to yell a chilling warcry, guns blazing...


[Intercepted Vox Caster Signal]
"*crackle*... WAAAAGH! Take dat, grotty oomans!" *static and crackle; slight sizzling noise followed by a rasp laught from unknown origin*
"Wot the... FRAK! Gobsmut, 'u stoopid moron! Yuze used da wrong rokkit! Dey are not plants you son of a squig!" *sounds of squabble*
"Lemme show ya how it's done proper like!" *lound retort and crack, possible jam* "FRAK! Dere's dirt in me gun! Ooo dis ambuzh iz going nowhere fazt!"*crackle*

[End of Transmission]


As can be surmised from this intercepted transmission, it would appear that the Ork unit, known as Skwad Too launched a decidedly ineffective ambush against the Terminators; a foreshadowing of the ill fate bestowed on this squad as just moments later a stray artillery shell from the raging battle exploded in their vicinity and killed almost all of them. However, Brother Logan was set on fire - but autoextinguishers promptly put it out following its initial contact.


Meanwhile, on the right flank, Sgt. Ibrahim had finally established contact with Ork Skwad Tree as they attempted to advance into the nearby shrubbery and take up position there to pound on the section position there. They were surprised but started a vicious hail of fire which would become the end of both terminators.


The rokkit launcher ork proved his worth by remembering that Plasma Missile was for 'Eavy 'Oomans and Frag Missiles were for Soft Pinkies and fired away on Brother Coiteus who miraciously survived by sheer force of will. This did not phase the hapless orks as they poured volley after volley on the suppresed section and then...

A lucky stray hit, either from the fragmentation of the missile launched or one of the boltpistol hits managed to hit the firing mechanism on the Cyclone Missile Launcher and...

... It promptly fired all 12 krak missiles directly ahead, unguided and highly volatile. They all exploded near 'Eavy Gun Wun and made the Orks halt their advance and admire the grand fireworks.

Seizing the near miss of the Cyclone launcher as an oppurtune moment, Lord Baddawg calls for a WAAAAAAAAAAGH on Brother Logan as his Stormbolter had jammed. However, his boyz had apparently struck a deal with Kapten Gorog and the Bigboss foudn himself charing a terminator all by himself. The fight was short and brutal; Brother Logan's Chainfist cut Baddawg in two from groin to scalp and splattered his white armour with green blood.

Realising that the Assault Cannon was of grave danger to them, and still active, made the remains of Skwad II seek as much shelter from the dreaded weapon behind a large rock, screaming and yelling for Kapten Gorog to show himself and help them clear out this mess!

[Intercepted Vox Caster Transmission]
*static*"By the EMPEROR! Ferrox, behind you! It's an ORK ON A HORSE!"
*crackle*"Surely you jest Brother Logan, Orks ride.. FOR THE LOVE OF THE EMPERO..!"*static*

[Transmission Ends]

Kapten Gorog, and his faithful horse Boar charged the Terminator in an effort to rally the suppressed mob near the rock, and they followed suit soon after, halting the advance of Brother Logan and Brother Meiard as they came dangerously close to destroy Da Uvver Gun. In a flurry of powerclaws, powerfists and hoofs only one combatant remained standing - unfortunately for the brave Orks it was Brother Ferrox who stood to tell the tale of being charged by an Ork Nob. On a horse.

As the brave and sneaky Kapten Gorog sounded the charge, Skawd Tree had blasted all they had on Sgt. Ibrahim. But it was the lone rokkit boy who, in a stroke of genius, produced a missiled labelled "This side towards enemy" and promptly fired it. Sgt. Ibrahim realised only too late that it was indeed a Super Krak Missile and his faithful terminator suit shorted as the round pierced through his upper torso, leaving nothing but an empty shell were he had stood.

The failed charge of Kapten Gorog however made the orks realise that this fight was not theirs today, so following their victory over Sgt. Ibrahim they ran towards the front lines to engage the more softer enemies there. It was a victory for the Imperial forces, but came at a high cost.

Post Battle Thoughts and Rule Bickering
Well, there you go. A long battle report on this little incident. As I started, then we played this battle using a heavily modified version of Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition. We first of all did away with the turn sequence and instead used a card activation system similar to I Ain't Been Shot, Mum where - when a units card is drawn - they get to rally, move shoot and use psychich shenanigans as well as charge. However, the actual Close Combat is not resolved until the Smoking break card is drawn. All "Start/End of turn" effects were also handled at this point as well.

I personally found it very exciting. The WH40k engine works just fine for WH40k, and with this small alteration it actually made the game REALLY interesting. Terminators are though, and they each had their own card, allowing them to gain the initiative more often than the Orks which had aid in the form of a Gunz Blazing card, allowing any unit to fire with 1d6 troops in addition to their normal fire.
Also, to make the game more fun, each time the orks fired a d6 was rolled following the to hit roll. This d6 showed which of the six standard missiles were fired! Which is why the Anti Plant missile was fired at the Terminator during the ambush.

All in all, I've already begun working on my own scenario for this system. It's called Land Raider Down and will have a squad or two of Marines, attempting to salvage a Land Raider with waves of rebellious Guardsmen closing in on their position!

Anyway - comments are more than welcome, as always, and I just can't wait to get another game in!

3 comments:

Louise said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr. The Viking said...

Lovely write-up!

Impressing what you can cram into a few late night hours!

Especially love the "transmissions".. haha that got me!

Can't wait for "land raider down!"

jaenz said...

You guys are nutters and it looks like you had an awesome time. I loved the mod'ed pictures and the very entertaining flavortexts.