Excreedius' Bad Head Day

Magus Excreedius' plans were coming to fruition, a simple tip off to the Inquisitor Cell regarding a bothersome Chaos Cult down in the bowels of the hive should give his warband enough time to attack and implant a member or two of the Rogue Trader vessel that had just landed in one of the remote loading bays in Sector 16. A swift strike on the unsuspecting humans will not only prove good experience for some of the younger members of the brood, but if some, or all of the crew can be infected then wherever the ship goes, so does the doom of the Imperium! 

The Cult Strikes Back!

This weeks report is a game had with Stuart, long time Warhammer protagonist. My last game was against Pat's Chaos Cult Wyrdfest, this one was Stuart's virgin Rogue Trader ensemble. The warband's name is The Crew of The Folkvangr (there is an accent over the o but I can't find it at the minute). 

They comprise of;

A leader, navigator,techpriest, arch militant, 3 gangers and a rating (juve). All female models from Raging Heroes I think. Here they are.

The All Female Rogue Trader Crew

As you can see a rather nicely painted group of ladies whom my dice rolling will be trying to harm in an imaginary way.

Currently having work done is my Genestealer cult. Their last outing was a bit of a fiasco, but fun nonetheless. At present my warband is seriously struggling to achieve planetary dominance as they can't make any money. The main reason for this is my 5 Brood Brothers are being particularly uncooperative in the advancing to fully fledged ganger status, thus allowing them to collect income and not be sponging cash from the Hybrids for cigarettes and alcahol.

So here are the antiheroes of the game;

The Venerable Family Of Father Olifarch.

Magus Excreedius ; level 2 Wyrd; Impending Doom, Mind War, Deux Ex Machina, Embolden, autogun. 

Uncle Ick, Purestrain Genestealer.

Cruddix, 1st Generation Hybrid, sword.

Bethselemin, 3rd Generation Hybrid, heavy stubber. 

Gorazk, 4th Generation Hybrid, autogun,  level 1 Wyrd; Deux Ex Machina.

Aothanp, 4th Generation Hybrid, autogun, level 1 Wyrd; Beastmaster.

Antwoord, Brood brother, stub gun.

Deekon, Brood brother, stub gun.
Farg, Brood brother, stub gun.
Qualid, Brood brother, stub gun.
Blug, Brood brother, stub gun.

They haven't improved overmuch from their last outing and I'm still struggling financially to make ends meet, so not much in the way of equipment is getting purchased.

A Brand New Venue (for Inquisimunda anyway)!

As previously mentioned, this game was against Stuart at his house so some as yet unseen scenery and gaming mat! The picture below is the battlefield sans warbands to get and idea of the layout.

The table before set up.

Stuart has this brilliant billboard that I'm going to have to copy. 

Moral Dilemma

So some dices were rolled and I chose this table edge. My plan was to advance up through the middle with my heavy stubber on the left covering that side while my Surveillance Officer (that's vents to Necromunda players) allows me to place 3 geezers on the top level of buildings over 8" from any of Stu's crew. Also a Hybrid had infiltration so I would be putting him all up the crew of The Folkvangr's business from the start. My Purestrain also has that ability but as it's Stu's warband is just starting out I thought it would be a bit WAAC to deploy 9" away with a 12" charge so I got all noble and left him in my own deployment zone.

From left to right, heavy stubber Hybrid, worthless Brood Brother, Purestrain, another worthless Brood Brother, Hybrid beastmaster (still can't afford beasts), Magus Excreedius, and yet another worthless Brood Brother.

Stu's ladies all ready for action.

A couple more to the right of the group, one of these is a his Ad Mech - Marietta "Clanky" Kurst. The Dr Octopus type. Nice model but incredibly easy to see due to the metal tentacles lifting her up.

At the end of my first turn the 'stealer has legged it up to the centre and my infiltrators arrive to take note of the billboard and hopefully further the Cult's aims by capturing those well armed  - but by Genestealer Hybrid standards  -supermodels. You can almost hear them salivating all over the top of that platform!

Stuart also has this brilliant gallows and my magus and a couple of his mates go over to inspect it's construction.

My Hybrid with his 20 year old paintjob and a stubber that looks like a chaos rocket launcher goes on overwatch. The Brood Brother next to him has been told to stand "just a little bit in front of me" for "emergencies".

Stuart's terrain is so civilised, it has staircases!

Some of Stu's models make themselves 'available' the overwatching Hybrid shoots prematurely and no one was harmed.

The warband advance with Uncle Ick desperate to get at those Rogue Traders.

In this picture the Stealer gang finish reading the sign and decide to start shooting at girls. Or at least get in a position to start shooting at them.

Uncle Ick makes use of the storage containers to stealthily creep up on the fertile er, enemy fighters. This is not the same Uncle Ick model that started the fight, Stuart lent me a 'stealer that doesn't have such sticking out arms. Line of sight don't ya know.

Next turn, Uncle Ick pounces! Swiftly taking out a sword armed ganger, he uses his follow up move to nom nom on the warbands heavy.You can almost see his throbbing Ovipositor!

Another ganger watches helplessly at the fracas, or does she?

With my heavy stubber regularly pinning (but not wounding) Stuart's heavy, my Hybrids with associated hangers on make their way to their enemies. 

The aforementioned Hybrid and a superfluous Brood Brother. it is at this point Bethselmin tells him more human looking companion to 'go get some!'. 

In a surprise move, Stu charges two gangers into Uncle Ick, sealing their fate! Sadly this didn't turn out to be the case as Uncle Ick took out Inga Danzigg but couldn't finish her off. The next opponent drew with Uncle Ick, failing to wound but the real insult was the heavy Lagertha beat his head in with the blunt end of her heavy bolter.

Excreedius gets pinned but not wounded, the rest of my warband continue their advance. If nothing else, Uncle Ick had distracted nearly half the Rogue Trader crew, leaving my fighters largely unmolested.  

Escaping from pinning Excreedius casts Mind War onthe unsuspecting rating. with a +2 leadership advantage what could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot actually, the rating is obviously a Space Marine Librarian in disguise! Excreedius has the shit mentally kicked out of him and goes out of action!

In revenge for beating up poor Uncle Ick Gorazk the hybrid guns down another crew member! This takes the bodycount up to 2 for Stuart, 3 for me. In actual game terms I'm worse off with my most potent fighter and my leader taken out. 

The advance continues, if with somewhat less enthusiasm now Excreedius' last mental message to his flock was "Christ my head hurts! Get me some Solpadeine."

The crew of the Folkvangr fail their bottle test and leave the field of battle. Having given my 'stealers a bloody nose in the process. Had I taken another casualty, I would have been on very thin ice with my two highest leadership toting models gone. Now on to the injury rolls.......

The Aftermath......

Both Excreedius and Uncle Ick were out of action at the end of the game so I had injury rolls to make. My magus got off pretty lightly with Impressive Scars. For those who don't know this gives a +1 Leadership bonus so that's very useful. Uncle Ick received an Old Battle Wound, this is irritating as statistically he will miss 1 in 6 games but in my experience rolling a 1 for your most important fighter to attend a battle happens a lot more regularly than that. On the plus side, all my Hybrids capable of collecting income stay fit and well so much cash was collected (about 45 TG). Cruddix my 1st generation Hybrid advanced and got the Dive skill, and Aothanp likewise got the Specialist  skill. A quick inspection of the special weapons saw that I could afford a Longlas. I was particularly happy with this as I got a longer ranged weapon with a 2+ ammo roll. As that hybrid is the only one with a decent BS he can now take up the position of cult sniper. I didn't make a note of Stuart's advances, but as far as I'm aware he didn't get very many as his gangers didn't roll high on their exp at the end of the game. I'm pretty certain Emmie, the juve who defeated Excreedius in a battle of wits got a roll or two, but I can't be sure what they were.  EDIT: she got the Impetuous skill. I'm sure I will find out next game.

Excreedius was stunned. How could such a seemingly frail girl defeat him in mental combat? It was inconceivable! The Rogue Trader crew were on full hostile environment protocol and were not easily overrun. What was worse was Uncle Ick had been severely hurt during the battle and may be a long time healing. One thing was certain though, the crew of the Folkvangr were not all they seemed.

Thanks for reading.