The Falling Blade

The Dark Angels have obtained information on the location of the Falling Blade, a brotherhood of Fallen Dark Angels.  They must engage Eldar who have been collaborating with the Falling Blade.  It is hoped that further information on the whereabouts and activities of Cypher will be revealed to them should they be able to bring any of the Falling Blade to confession.


Player Brief

Dark Angels


The Falling Blade favor long range combat techniques and will be very hard to bring to confession.  Your mission is to prevent any of the Falling Blade from escaping the battle.  You may need to use every asset at your disposal to bring them down.  Consider well the notion of utilizing elements of the Ravenwing to aid your Deathwing in quickly coming to grips with this group of Fallen.

Alternate Win Condition:
All Fallen are slain (models lost to a failed Morale Check are not considered slain).  Killing the unit in Melee yields you a bonus to Command Point recovery at the end of the mission (+1 to your rolls).

Loss Condition:
If any Fallen are removed from the table to a failed Morale Check or if any are still on the table at the end of the mission, you will be considered to have lost the mission (only really applicable in the case of a draw).



Player Brief

Eldar

Humans would be amusing if they weren't so belligerent and persistent.  Recently a small group of their Space Marines has been shadowing your forces.  The Warlocks and Farseers have determined that they are intent on using your force as a shield against their enemies, but they've also determined that these beings will have a future impact on the Craftworld.  It is unclear if that impact will be good or bad and until that has been determined they are to be tolerated.

You will be commanding a single unit of Fallen in this combat.  For purposes of this mission they can be transported by your vehicles and can be targeted by psychic powers which (but they can't benefit from powers that are cast on other units like Guide and Doom).  You may begin the game with them embarked on a vehicle if you choose, but they must be on the table by no later than turn three.  Once deployed, they can't embark again.  Fallen models can hold objectives for your army in the same way that any Elite choice in Codex: Craftworlds is allowed to.  They do not benefit from your Craftworld trait.

Alternate Win Condition:
At least one Fallen is still on the table at the end of the game.

Alternate Loss Condition:
The Fallen are not deployed on the table by the end of the third game turn.

The Hunt For The Fallen Continues...

For the second session of the "Hunt For The Fallen", I decided to bring in Peter's Orks as a guest star.  I thought about the Fallen operating on Franke-7 and using the presence of the Orks as a shield against any enemies.

For this mission I created a set of alternate win conditions for each army.  These win conditions would allow them to claim a victory even if they lost the actual mission.

I wanted the win condition for the Dark Angels to be something related to intelligence gathering and I wanted the Orks to have one that seemed appropriate.  The Orks don't care about the Fallen at all, so their motivations were harder for me to explore.

Without further ado, here are the briefs.

Hunt for the Brothers of the Skull
  

Player Briefing for Dark Angels:

Inner Circle Eyes Only

-Intelligence gathered from captured Word Bearer Clabrus following actions against the Traitor Legion known as the Iron Warriors has led the Inner Circle to the contested Franke System.  There is now credible evidence that there are members of the Warrior Lodge known as “the Brothers of the Skull” present on Franke-7.  Pursuant to this, elements of the Ravenwing have been dispatched to monitor their presence.

Franke-7 has long been a contested world in Imperial space.  No longer rich in resources, the system itself offers little to the Imperium.  Orks have long infested the 7^th planet in the system.  It is unknown at this time why the Brothers of the Skull are present on the planet but The Fallen are never to be underestimated and no doubt are there for some nefarious purpose.

Other Space Marine Chapters have recently attempted to retake Franke-7.  Elements of both the Ultramarines and Crimson Fists chapters are still present on the surface.  The Inner Circle has decided to use this as cover for hunting down the Fallen on Franke-7.

Your task force will engage the Orks in the area where we know the Brothers of the Skull are currently located.  To the other chapters this will appear as nothing more than the efforts of the Unforgiven to engage the Orks so that our brother chapters may regroup and recover.

Your mission:
It’s not enough to capture the Brothers of the Skull in combat.  Even now the intelligence gathered from the Heretic Clabrus is almost useless.  The Unforgiven need immediate intelligence that can be acted on by the Ravenwing in order to finally hunt down Cypher and bring him to justice.  Field Interromancy is required and any information gleaned from any Fallen is to be immediately relayed to the Ravenwing elements on standby so that it can be acted on without delay.

Secret Win condition:
Successfully manifest “Mind Worm” on a Fallen.  If this is done, then you will be considered to have won this mission even if the actual mission is failed.  Remember that in Narrative Play you are allowed to attempt the same Psychic Power more than once per turn.  Note down secretly if this has successfully been accomplished.

Secret Loss condition:
Fail to kill at least two Fallen.  If you fail to kill at least two Fallen, then you will be considered to have lost this mission UNLESS you win as detailed above or you win the actual mission.  This is essentially a tie breaker in the case of a draw on the actual mission itself.

And here is the player brief for the Ork Player:

Kill Da Humies

Player briefing for the Orks

Oi, ‘ere is duh mishun!  SMASH DEM.  SMASH DEM ALL!

Dis place has been owned by Orks forever and we like it here cos’ dis is a place where young ‘uns can come and learn how to kill humies.  Even da pointy eared ones are afraid to come down ‘ere now!  But a while back some humies, Black boyz we calls ‘em, showed up.  We was ready to fight them, too, but dey wanted to kill humies, too and dey had gifts for da warbosses.  We didn’t like that, but da warbosses liked it so now we don’t pay ‘em no mind.  That lot mostly just digs around in the dirt an’ ruins of dis place.  When we find other humies and the Black boyz is nearby, they help us kill the humies.

Lately the humies sent some Blue boyz to help out the Red Fist Boyz that had tried to take what belongs now to the Orks.  Most of that lot was sent packing back to their ships, but some ‘ave held out and they is good fighting for sure, Space Marines always fight harder when they is losing.  Every lad ‘ere knows that on Franke-7 they is always losing.

If these Green boyz save the Blue Boyz and the Red Fist boyz, then there will be no more fighting for a while and then the lads will get really sad.  Can’t have that, can we?

Your Mission:
The warbosses in charge of Franke-7 tolerate the presence of the Brothers of the Skull but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.  But then they did give you some nice gifts and the humies really seem to get really excited when they’re around and that makes it more fun for fighting them.  You’re pretty sure that there’s good loot around here and there’s nothing like treasure hunting while fighting!  But you need lads to help dig up the loot. 

Secret Win condition:
If you control an objective with both a character and a mob of boyz during either player’s turn, note that down secretly.  At the end of the game roll a die, if your roll is less than the number of objectives you controlled this way you will be considered to have won, even if you lose the actual mission.  This roll is made after the game has concluded, so it cannot be re-rolled by Command Points.

Secret Loss condition:
If the Fallen haven’t killed at least one enemy model, you lose this mission UNLESS you win as detailed above or you win the actual mission.  This is essentially a tiebreaker in the case of a draw for the actual mission.

The Brothers of the Skull

Hearkening back to the original version of Warhammer 40,000 I've decided to write up some player briefs for the missions which will feature "guest star" armies.

The first of these missions will feature Orks under command of their devoted commander, Peter Franke.  The Brothers of the Skull often hide their more nefarious schemes behind the actions of larger Xenos forces and the Orks in this sector are particularly truculent. 

Each player will be given a brief which contains a secret set of conditions that they must meet in order to win immediately while also adhering to the mission at hand: the rescue of stranded Space Marine forces on Franke-7.

I've done this once before in 8th edition and it went pretty well.  I enjoyed the game mastering aspect of it quite a bit and I look forward to giving the players their sealed orders.

The Five Brotherhoods, pillars of The Fallen

Recent endeavors by the Dark Angels have resulted in the capture of Clabrus, Dark Apostle of Chaos.  Herein are the discoveries made through interrogation of this individual.


Name: Pulin Clabrus
Legion of Origin: Word Bearers
Known associations, pre-Heresy:
-Iron Warriors of the IV Legion
-Iron Hands of the X Legion
-Blood Angels of the XI Legion
-Sons of Horus of the XVI Legion
-Space Wolves of the VI Legion
-Dark Angels of the I Legion


Clabrus has traveled extensively within the Eye of Terror following the retreat of the Word Bearers.  He has allied himself with other Traitor Legions in the centuries following the Horus Heresy.  Initially it was believed that Clabrus was none other than Pensival Clavrus, known to the Inner Circle as one of The Fallen.  While this turned out to not be the case, Clabrus himself has had many dealings with The Fallen including Cypher himself.

Most recently Clabrus was joined to a warband of Iron Warriors conducting raids near the Franke System.  This system is within Imperial Space but is currently contested by several factions including Orks, who nominally control Franke-7; The Aeldari, who nominally control an ancient artificial satellite of Franke-6; as well as various servants of the Imperium.  In the past Space Marine chapters such as the Ultramarines and the Crimson Fists have attempted to sweep the Orks from Franke-7 but have failed at that task.  The Inner Circle must therefore take care as there are undoubtedly still elements of these chapters still in the system.

It is believed that during the Great Crusade Clabrus was part of forces deployed alongside loyalist legions and may have been placed there as a way to evaluate those legions for future corruption.  Clabrus, under torture both physical and psychic, admitted to first encountering The Fallen in the Eye of Terror while the Scouring was still being prosecuted.  He described shock at seeing those of the I Legion in the Eye of Terror but soon discovered their secrets.

Recent actions have shown a higher degree of organization among the remaining Fallen and Clabrus was able to confirm some of that.  He described having personal knowledge of several separate Warrior Lodges among The Fallen.  They are dedicated to protecting the remaining Fallen and operate mostly outside of the Eye of Terror. 

He gave names to five of these Warrior Lodges and disclosed that they refer to themselves as Brotherhoods.  He expired before revealing any other Brotherhoods but it can be assumed that there may be more.  He also gave coordinates where these Brotherhoods have been operating most recently.  The Inner Circle is advised to act on this intelligence quickly.

The five Brotherhoods:

The Brothers of the Skull

All of the five brotherhoods are known for openly wearing the Dark Angels Chapter Livery and Heraldry, but the Brothers of the Skull proudly bear a skull on their armor as well.

The Brotherhood of the Falling Blade

The Brotherhood of the Falling Blade take pleasure in slaying their opponents from afar, then fading away.

The Brotherhood of the White Shroud

The White Shroud are enigmatic even among the warrior lodges of The Fallen but appear to prefer close quarters engagements.

The Brothers of the Crimson Sky

Their symbol is the Dark Angels winged blade on a dark red sky.  It's whispered among some that their heraldry is a harbinger of what is to come for the Dark Angels.

The Circle of Iron

Little is known of the Circle of Iron other than their tally of victories.  Few have faced them and survived.

Hunt Down And Destroy The Fallen

Gonna play a set of linked Narrative Play games with my friend Jeremy.  Using this space to organize the campaign.  Jeremy is playing Dark Angels and I will be playing various armies, some featuring Fallen Dark Angels in their ranks.

First mission will be the one featured in the September 2019 issue of White Dwarf.   The outcome of that game will be scaled as follows:

Attacker Wins (controls the Fallen objective or has captured Fallen objective)
-Attacker rolls 1d6 for each spent Command Point during the battle (not pre-battle) on a 4+ they are refunded and added to CP for next game.  Defender rolls as well and gets refunded on a roll of 6+
Additionally, I will give him choice of two possible opponents for next mission

Draw
Attacker rolls 1d6 for each spent CP on a 6+ they are refunded, as does Defender.  Attacker has choice of first or second turn in next mission.

Defender Wins
Attacker rolls 1d6 per each spent CP, refunded on a 6+, Defender rolls and is refunded on a 4+.
Defender has choice of first or second turn in next mission.


Games will score Victory points as normal for:
Slay The Warlord (1 VP)
First Strike (first to destroy a unit in the first battle round)
Line Breaker (end game with unit in enemy's Deployment Zone)
1 VP for each unit destroyed (including units left in reserve at the end of the game)
1 VP for each Fallen Unit destroyed (except during "The Hunt")


Additional stratagems for the Campaign:

Attacker:

Call Out Cypher
9 CP (-1 CP for each game played to a minimum of 5 CP, cannot be played during "The Hunt")
Spent after a match, this forces the Defender to field Cypher as their Warlord in the next match.  Cypher's special 2+ ability is ignored as it is in "The Hunt" scenario.

Peerless Hunters
3 CP (cannot be played during "The Hunt")
Deploy (for free) one Ravenwing unit at the start of any Battle Round after the first round.  Must deploy more than 9" from the enemy. Roll a die at the beginning of the next Battle Round, if the die is equal to or higher than the current turn, remove the unit from play.  If it was in Close Combat, it counts as destroyed for VP purposes.  This Stratagem may only be played once per game.

Redemption Through Superior Firepower
3 CP (cannot be played during "The Hunt")
Deploy (for free) one 5 man unit of Deathwing Terminators or one 10 man unit of Deathwing Veterans (non-terminators of the Deathwing) at the start of any Battle Round after the first round.  Must deploy more than 9" from the enemy, but other Stratagems may modify this distance.  Roll a die at the beginning of the next Battle Round, if the die is equal to or higher than the current turn, remove the unit from play.  If it was in Close Combat, it counts as destroyed for VP purposes.  This Stratagem may only be played once per game.

Defender:

Lying In Wait
3CP (Cannot be played during "The Hunt")
Deploy one unit of five Fallen at the start of any Battle Round after the first round.  Must deploy more than 9" from the enemy.  This Stratagem may only be played once per game.

The (Dis)Loyal Opposition

Decided today that I'm going to build a Word Bearers and an Alpha Legion army to oppose my Raven Guard and Ultramarines armies.

I like the idea of having a few different Opposing Forces and I am keen to paint up some Alpha Legion for sure.  The Wordbearers will be harder for me as they're the original Traitors.  I really, really hate Erebus and Lorgar, but the modern day worship of the Emperor by the Black Templars has tempered my dislike of the Wordbearers quite a bit, honestly.

I'm not enthused about painting any of the modern looking Chaos stuff, I don't like the aesthetic.  Most of these models will be like the Iron Warriors and look pretty 30K rather than 40K.

In which I recover and rebuild a 2nd edition Space Marine Predator for my Iron Warriors.

I got this tank a couple weeks ago.  It was surprisingly easy to disassemble.  The original builder used minimal contacts for his superglue so it came apart very easily.  

The turret and sponsons, however, would not budge so I put them in the container on top, to weigh down the plastic parts.  If you haven't worked with Citri-Strip before, I highly recommend it for many recovery projects.  It is not compatible with Games Workshop resin, however.  I would test any plastic you intend to recover first.

Citri-Strip is very good at removing paint from models, cutting through sealer and varnish. It's particularly good on pewter.

The tank was soaked for about 15 hours or so.  You can see how well the paint came off most of the model with minimal staining.  It does tend to make super glue bonds weak, but it doesn't always dissolve them.  I use a small kitchen strainer to recover smaller parts that may separate during the time it's soaking.

At this point I ran into my first real problem.  The upper deck was covered in superglue and it made fitting the pewter deck plates very difficult.  Luckily the original Rhino kit is reversible. I flipped the central hull which was in much better shape.

I sanded the bottom of the tank, using old "Pirates of the Caribbean" coins to cover the old hatch openings. 

The hatch cover was sealed with plasticard from a "For Sale" sign.  Those things are a great source of Plasticard and very inexpensive.

The grates on the front and rear of the out hulls didn't come quite as clean as I'd like and since I wanted to give the tank more of an armored appearance, I used more stuff from my old "Pirates of the Caribbean" game to kill two birds with one stone.  

The center and outer hulls are reunited!  When working on these tanks it's important at this step to make sure both outer hulls are level with each other or the tank will rock back and forth.

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I wanted to give this tank a more menacing silhouette so I modified a third edition Rhino brush bar to give it the impression of teeth.  I also decided to paint the teeth in the black and yellow Warning Stripe that is part of the Iron Warriors look

The upper deck plates are two pieces: the rear part and the turret ring.  I had to do a fair amount of work to get the turret to traverse the full 360 degrees.  I did some work here to remove rivets off the upper deck assembly.  

There were still some issues with the tank.  I decided to strip the sponsons a second time after gently prying them apart.  I discovered that the turret was caved in to a large degree and the rear upper deck plate was not flat.  After some consideration I used a hammer to fix them, which is the first time I'd every done anything like that.  I then went back and used the hammer to get the deck plates to sit more flush with the upper deck of the tank (seen in the picture above this one).

The sponsons were missing the rear cover that the kit originally came with.  I used more bits from my "Pirates of the Caribbean" game to cover the backs of the sponsons.  This added even more of an armored look to the tank.  I actually like the way these sponsons look better than the original style.  I also removed more rivets here.

Sponsons attached!  Due to a defect on the left cannon, I had to glue it in place.  I chose to do that to the right sponson as well.  It does help with storage though.

The tank is all done!  Just needs priming and it's ready to paint!  The barrel of the turret was also damaged so I had to shorten it a bit, but I think it makes the gun look more menacing.

The tank was primed in Chaos Black Spray then hit with Leadbelcher Spray.  I forgot to add the replacement exhausts so I sanded down the top of the manifolds and cut some plastic tubes and glued them in place.

I think the 'teeth' and the barrel of the cannon make this tank look mean.

All finished and ready to mete out death to the followers of the False Emperor!  This project took me about four or five hours on a Saturday afternoon (not counting the time soaking the parts in Citri-Strip).  Painting Iron Warriors models for me is a very quick and easy thing to do.  I spent about an hour on the paint job itself, including details.  I paint fast.  I used mostly GW paint for this model with some P3 Bloodstone as my weathering/rust effects.

XIX Legion: The Raven Guard, sons of Corax

This army is more for modern era of play but was no less fun to collect and paint.

My current army as of late January, 2020.  It's a mix of different eras of Space Marines and home to some of my favorite modern era conversions.

This started out as a Sternguard Veteran that I picked up at a convention in a used models bin.  I had an old metal backpack from the 2nd edition Marneus Calgar lying around and I thought it'd make a good Captain or Lieutenant model.

Pretty happy with how he turned out.  Very simple conversion.

I love the Primaris Captain in Phobos Armor model, but it's pretty distinct.  I wanted one for my Raven Guard but I wanted it to look a lot different from the one in my Ultramarines army.  I did some looking around and this is what I came up with.

The original sculpt has a helmet hanging on his belt, so I removed that very carefully and used some packs from the Infiltrators/Incursors kit.  I used one of the Mk VI "Beaky" helmets from the Raven Guard Upgrade Pack after removing the original head.

The suppressed Bolt Pistol comes from the Eliminators kit.  I liked it's look for his sidearm.

I had a push-fit right arm from a Reiver kit and I used that to replace the right arm of the original model after carefully removing the Instigator Bolt Rifle.

Here he is all painted up.  

The Redemptor Dreadnought feels a little out of place in this army. Currently it's the only vehicle I have for the Raven Guard.

Chapter Master Shrike.  I like the new sculpt, dislike the scenic base which is a pain when it comes to storing the model.

The Intercessors and the two squads of scouts were the original nucleus of this army.  I really love the 3rd edition metal Scout sculpts.

I was torn about how to build these Eliminators.  I ended up going with Las-Fusils because the army doesn't have a lot of high strength weapons.  I've been pretty happy with them so far.

Incursors are another surprisingly good unit, very flexible.

Reivers were also part of the original build in the army, I don't use them often and I don't know if they're good or not.

I wanted a jump pack equipped unit to go into battle with Shrike and the Jump Pack Lieutenant.  I wanted them to be tough, too, and so I went with Vanguard Veterans with Chainswords and Storm Shields.  The Sergeant has a Plasma Pistol and Relic Blade.  They can deal with larger, lightly armored units pretty well while Shrike, the Sergeant, and the Lieutenant can take on heavier targets in melee.