A Very Wyrd Grudge Match

Interrogator Pursuivant read the comm slate. Informant bx456R had sent an urgent message regarding clandestine groups getting their hands on a powerful artefact of alien origin. The group was known as The Broken Wheel and were using a large warehouse to hold their meetings. Stored there was the alien item. The data stated that the building should be lightly guarded but swift entry and retrieval would be essential before the entire gang arrives. As there were no new leads regarding the xenos weapon blueprints, this mission would be useful to refocus the warband into something they were good at - killing enemies of the Imperium. 

Another Battle Report

Pat and I had another hard fought game of Inquisimunda last week. This time Pat wanted to try out a Wyrd heavy list and was happy to oblige. I couldn't decide who to face them with so I brought all three of my gangs ; Jenna's Jokers (Inquisition), The Moon killers (Eldar Void Pirates), and current flavour of the month my Genestealer Cult. To add a further air of  randomness I thought I'd get Pat to roll a d3 and the higher the number the higher rated gang he would face. As fate decided a 6 was rolled and The Broken Wheel (Tzeentchien Chaos Cult) faced off against The Jokers. Another dice roll later and we were having a grudge match to add further spice to the preceedings. 

To give the game some sort of context within our campaign, I picked the Hoard scenario again, the plot being that one of Jenna Pursuivant's contacts has told them about a secretive group who have discovered something of value of alien origin. The Jokers, being Ordos Xenos are all over that like a rash. So below is Pat's Chaos Coven;

The Broken Wheel : Chaos Coven, Tzeentch

Kaldor : Magus, Musket, Level 2 Wyrd (Terrify, Ground Swell, Cloud Mind)
Giri : Rogue Psycher, Autopistol, Level 2 Wyrd (Freeze Time, Unerring Aim, Bend Shadow, Guide)
Taz : Rogue Psycher, Autopistol, Level 2 Wyrd (Fearful Aura, Riddle Me This, Molten Body)
Acid spittle : Daemonhost, Level 2 Wyrd (Stigmata, Cursed Luck, Preternatural Awareness)
Silent scream : Daemonhost, Level 2 Wyrd (Freeze Time, Distracting Sound, Psychic Weapon)
Grrah : Daemonhost, Level 2 Wyrd (Cursed Luck, Wall Walker, Destructor)
Plez : Cultist, Autopistol
Gasis : Cultist, Autopistol
Penta : Cultist, Autopistol
Mario : Cultist, Autopistol
Lotus : Cultist, Autopistol
Skag : Cultist, Scattergun.
Rask : Ratskin scout, Hunting rifle, Club, Blindsnake pouch

As you can see quite a varied selection of Wyrd powers, I had never faced Daemonhosts before either and they could prove problematic due to their immunity from pinning. The one plus side is that with all the psychic ability there wasn't room for much in the way of ranged weaponry. One thing that did amaze me was at the start of the game my gang rating was 1592 and Pat's (a starting gang) was barely 10 points lower. Now looking through all those powers, you may wonder how did one remember what was cast and when, well, one didn't remember, but some were utilised more than others. 

Jenna's Jokers

My gang is as follows;

Jenna Pursuivant (Interrogator): Sword Bolt Pistol, blindsnake pouch

Tefal (Acolyte, Level 2 Wyrd) Lasgun, Frag grenades, cursed Luck, Cast Glow, Dominate. shellshock.

Buxom (Acolyte); Autopistol, Shockmaul

Hellion (Acolyte); autopistol, 2 swords, Juggernaut, Sprint.

Bangs (Disciple); heavy stubber

Derric (Ad Mech); plasmagun, bionic eye,

Chubbs (Acolyte); Autopistol, knife, Catfall, Evade, sprint.

Spaz (Recruit); Laspistol, knife, Inventor,

Greylocks (Recruit); Stub gun, knife'

Clumsey McFearsome (Ratling Recruit); Autogun, knife.

I haven't played with the joker's for a few games and although I've had some nice advances +1 WS for Buxom and +1 BS for Tefal, their gang rating isn't overly high - thanks, in the main by losing Shawty & Ensign in this battle report. So the dice rolling began and Pat once again got 5 gang members guarding the artefact! what is it these people and looking after their stuff properly? This sort of thing doesn't happen in the movies, it's usually one inept guard, not 2 Wyrds and 3 Daemonhosts!

The Field of battle (not to be confused with last week's one).

Team Pusuivant! From left to right Tefal (Wyrd), Clumsey McFearsome, Hellion, Bangs, Greylocks, Buxom, Jenna, Derric (Ad Mech) and Spaz.

Tefal, Bangs, Greylocks and Jenna make up the right sided upper flanking force that should be able to kill many cultists. Barely visible to their right, Hellion, Buxom and Chubbs form the ground assault team. Clumsey McFearsome took up a position on the left and Derric & Spaz decided a left sided ground assault was required. The attacker goes first in this scenario, so without further ado, I started the business of killing heretics.

Tefal took a shot at the Covens leader hitting him and taking him down. Sadly his lasgun powerpack went dead (he mustn't have charged it up the night before) so he would have to rely on grenades, mind wizardry and as a last resort his trusty knife.

Kaldor the Covens head bloke lies on his back nurturing lasgun burns. The rest of the gang stand there aroused (probably). The model with the multicoloured spear at the front is Taz 1 . He had the power Molten Body. It's is a terrifying power that makes him a hideous combat monster, he would give me a lot of tactical considerations during the game. 

Buxom, Hellion & Chubbs, as you can see Chubbs is already out of ammo. I had forgotten to use one of my Weaponsmith territory abilities. But to be honest his job was to run forward and stop the other two getting shot.

Meanwhile 3" further up vertically Greylocks & Jenna move towards the bad guys.

It is around this time that Silent Scream (Daemonhost) on the left, finds out that Derric is in fact armed with a plasmagun so he moves back towards the centre, whilst Acid Spittle (also a Daemonhost) on the right lurks furtively to unleash Destructor on my poor innocent Xenos murderers. Taz watches impassively (as most static models do).

At the top of the picture Derric & Spaz head towards the large building hoping to pour down the Emperors fiery death upon the followers of the Ruinous Powers. Clumsey spends so time taking pot shots at the Daemonhost Silent Scream. A toughness 4 unpinnable model makes it a rather arduous task.

Bangs provides some sort of covering fire deterrent while Greylocks, Jenna and Tefal move up to hurt some of Pat's gang.

The Ratskin Rask gets pinged by Clumsey McFearsome and Taz avec Grrah consider helping him, eating him or violating him, that's chaos for ya! Such are the tribulations of being a hired gun in the underhive. 

A slightly different view of the striken Rask.By this time turn 3 the reinforcements hadn't arrived and the fearless Chaos Coven were shuffling away from the Hoard of Chaos artifacts (or whatever was in the box).

Clumsey smirks as Rask rolls around in pain.

Clumsey stops smirking as some horrible chaos Dillhole fiddles about with his brain Cloud Mind style.

Some heretic actually shoots and wounds Hellion as Buxom also runs out of ammo! Hellion would not play much more of a part in this game.

The Wyrds skulking around the containers were running out of negative modifiers to hit.

Derric & Spaz 2 Make their way to the roof of the building that now gives them some really good fields of fire.

Turn 4 and the depraved cavalry arrive. They waste no time trying to kill Derric, luckily all they get for two failed ammo rolls is a pinned Ad Mech. 

Some more bad guys arrive on the other side of the table, luckily most of my troops are on high levels giving me at least another turn or two before they can reach me.

At this point I accidentally switch to square photographs. Also Derric and Spaz have fun shooting the Tzeentchians. 

Jennas Jokers have the high moral ground. Pat was having a bit of trouble casting certain powers, Destructor only got off once (taking Chubbs down in the process). Molten Body and Stigmata seemed to be all the rage however. Then there was a bit of a stand off on ground level, Buxom having a WS4 was quite keen to have a chat with the Daemonhosts and Cultists but Taz was the most competent Wyrd casting The Molten Body with horrible regularity. 

A lot of Pat's gang had been herded into this area mainly due to a plasmagun on a high level or more accurately an Ad Mech armed with a plasmagun. Derrick did manage to pick off a  Daemonhost with a full power shot putting an end to Stigmata for  the rest of the game.  

There's a party on the roof and no Chaos worshippers are invited.

Due to their high positions Bangs & Clumsey severely hamper the cultists movements whilst the rest of the war band advance around the sides.

Tefal oversees stuff whilst Buxom finally charges a Daemon host.  Armed with a shockmaul she beats the Belarus3 out of it. Buxom is then in the awkward position of getting charged by Taz, who will cause an automatic ST6 hit on her because of The Molten Bloody Body! 

Derric & Spaz happily shoot cultists for a living. Not sure what they get paid but I'm sure there is free medical insurance and hefty saving the Imperium bonus.

Tefal & Jenna casually talk about their plans for the weekend whilst killing heretics. In Pat's turn Taz does indeed charge Buxom. He then rolls a 1 for the automatic hit and then Buxom beats the Lithuania out of him. This was rather flukey as it was a 2+ to wound so The Emperor certainly protected that time. This was, if not pivotal, a crucial result as Buxom now had the chance to get into some more weaker cultists as the main threat was gone. 

Derrick blows away a Daemonhost with a full powered plasma gun shot, then has to wait around for it to cool down. I should probably give him a spare gun for him to play with during these tedious  plasmagun buffering events.

The last picture of the game is pretty mediocre. The Broken Wheel bottle it and I get myself a big box of bad guys stuff. There was probably some chaos chocolate in there as well.


So that went well for my warband. totalling up, there was 10 wounding hits for my gang (although some were just flesh wounds) so my gang rating increased by well over 100. I picked up some cool advances, mainly Buxom (who has now been awarded the title Hostbane) has gotten +1 WS & BS making her pretty nasty, Tefal got +1 WS so he's both good at shooting and hand to hand as well now. Other advances of note are Derric now has a BS of 5 and Clumsey McFearsome has a BS of 4. Both Spaz and Clumsey are now Acolytes so they can collect TG for the cause as well. on the negative side Chubbs now has a head wound so his behavior will certainly become a lot more erratic.

On the subject of a gang with such a large number of Wyrds, it seems to be a bit of a nightmare in bookkeeping regarding all the powers. As dice rolling games are fickle as a rule it may be a bit simplistic to say his psychic powers let him down a fair bit, and therefore lost him the game - but it didn't help. One thing that was a feature of the game was there were a few psychicly induced brainfarts as Cloud Mind did its thing a lot. Once again Pat proved to be a very cagey opponent, but getting into good firing positions was essential to my plan, and the eventual victory.





As Interrogator Pursuivant looked through the crate she found, amongst the hideous depraved statues, fetishes and sacrificial items an orb of obvious alien origin. These will all be shipped uphive to the containment facility where a thorough examination will take place. Jenna was however, troubled. how did the informant know about such items so well guarded and hidden. The whole thing smacked of a set up. With a shrug, the Interrogator gathers her group and leaves with the items. Unknown and unseen by the warband, a lone figure hunched and wiry leaves the shadows in the warehouse and makes a circuitous route back to another dilapidated building  with thick walls and some rather alert juves with intense stares and grim expressions. Inside, the figure goes down into the cellar and enters a series of tunnels with a large cavern where dozens of genestealer hybrids and their human brethren congregate. 
"It is done. The Coven is smashed and the humans have the Orb".
A hissing sound is heard that is the creatures equivalent to laughter, a tall dome headed human bearing a six limbed figure at the top of his staff murmurs "You have done well Aothanp. The plan is progressing. Soon we will start to take control of this place". This time the the hissing is much louder.

Thanks for reading.  

1. Not to be mistaken for the cartoon character of the same name.
2. I think I will have to recruit a Klive to accompany Derric.
3. I originally typed Bejasus but autocorrect thinks I'm incapable of knowing what I want to type, so it has coined the phrase "beating the Belarus out of something".