Jericho Falls

"It was in the final years of the 41st Millennium that the Jericho Reach, an unimportant area at the edge of the Nephilim Sector, became a pitched battleground. A combination two of Adeptus Mechanicum factions vying over Blackstone deposits awakening sleeping Necron forces and the sudden arrival of a splinter of Hive Fleet Kraken exacerbated the existing problems of Drukhari raiders and Tau incursions. The populace of the Reach were powerless to intervene and had to watch as their hitherto peaceful section of the galaxy was ripped apart."

-from Forgotten Wars: the Border Skirmishes of Segmentum Obscuris, Magos Skol, University of Mars Press

As our Shadow Wars campaign at the school club comes to an end, the members have a hankering for some full blooded 40K. I tried to sell them on some fantasy Skirmish, but no, they want the big toys on the table.

So I developed a simple tile based campaign system. I thought I'd stick it up here in case anyone wanted to use it or a variation at some point.

The map above is designed to be printed out on A3; if blogger compresses it nastily, the original can be downloaded here.

The rules pack can be downloaded here.

Note you can change the length of the campaign by changing the total number of victory points required or the number of forces participating.

Hope someone finds this useful!

Raiders of the Lost Hive

+++++TRANSINTERCEPT+++++
"--aise the Omnissiah!"
"Hold your station!"
"Engines to full, bring us into the shadow of the planet-"
"--vity well will pull--"
"Follow your orders, damn you! We have to outrun the wavefront!"
"--oomed, we're all doo--"
"--achine spirits have forsaken us! We can't break free!"
"We're spiralling in!"
"You've killed us all, you meatbag fool!"
+++++ENDTRANS+++++

=I= INQUISITORIAL REPORT EYES ONLY =I=

My retinue and I were aboard the last ship to leave the Atreus system; all the others were consumed by the Warp Storm that erupted from the Caliban Cascade. The loss of the manufactoria and forges of Hive Karhonnen was certainly a blow to the Padisha Sector but we have slowly recovered. To this date I have been unable to determine whether the storm was as natural an occurance as anything to do with the Warp can be, or if it was summoned by some activity of the Great Enemy. The details of my investigation are contained in CASEFILE SYCORAX but I suspect that the Ruinous Powers were caught as much by suprise as the sudden swallowing of the entire planet Leto as we were.

Given this, if the planet has re-emerged then there is a good chance it has been lost in the Warp and not colonised by the powers of Chaos. If this is so, then all the equipment resources and research contained in Hive Karhonnen should still be intact: and if, as I suspect, the Adeptus Mechanicus Research Vessel Rakkis crashed on the surface, then its cargo of [REDACTED] should be secured immediately.

I would recommend that strike teams small enough to infiltrate whatever is left of the Hive but large enough to deal with any possible interference be inserted. Astartes are the obvious choice but given that the Atreus system lies close to the border of many Xeno races, you may find it prudent to send some Guard Units and possibly even an Inquisitorial retinue if one can be found.

I remain, sir, your most obedient servant,

Inquisitor [REDACTED]

=I= ---------------------- =I=

His breath rasping in his mask, Georgiou looked up from the red ochre dust that caked his boots. It was still there. Vast. Impossible.

"Seriously, Sarge," he said again. "Where are we going?"

The Sergeant slowly raised his arms and pointed. "There, Guardsman. There."

Before them was a Hive, like a thousand others on a thousand other worlds. A spire, tens of kilometres high, a man-made mountain that would have once housed millions. Now, however, it was an impossibility. A vast spacecraft was embedded in the side of it, melded and fused into the very fabric of the Hive by some warpcraft Georgiou couldn't comprehend. 

"Ok, Sarge," he said. With a sigh he continued to march towards Hive Karhonnen. 

********                                       **********

With the games club at work doing very well, it seems like the time is right to kick the Shadow Wars Armageddon league up a notch. The idea is very simple -  a narrative campaign baseda round a number of different Kill Teams attempting to infiltrate an abandoned Hive.

At the start, each team will say secretly where they are attempting to enter the Hive - from the Underhive, from the Lower Levels, from the MidHive where the Rakkis crashed or the Upper Hive.

That will determine who meets who in the first matches. Underhive games will be tunnel fighting using the Necromunda Boards. Lower levels and the Upper Spires will be on traditional Necromunda/SWA multi-level scenery (although there will be some interesting enviromental effects). The mid Hive is the most dangerous area because of the structural damage caused by the Rakkis.

The final round for each team will be fought in the corridors of the Rakkis.

Each team has a secret objective - either a macguffin to acquire or another team they need to take out - and there will be a movement system for teams to move around the Hive.

The teams that will be starting the campaign are:

• Necrons
• Space Wolves
• Orks
• Space MArines
• Valhallans IG
• Plague Marines
• Inquisition
• Stalkers IG (this is my team but I think I'll be passing these over to one of the students who's joined late as I'll probably be busy umpiring and running some the other forces that have colonised the ruined Hive...)

We'll be using the scenery we've created at work, so we'll be all good to go over the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. 

Actually playing games

The school wargames club has taken off rather well. Every night of the week sees the following games in action:

• Pandemic
• Memoir 44
• X Wing 
• Blood Bowl 
• Age of Sigmar Skirmish
• And WFRP on a Tuesday

But by far the most popular is Shadow War Armageddon. For those people unsure about this it's the old Necromunda rulesset repurposed to allow you to field killl teams of almost 40K faction.

Basically anyone can buy one box of figures and they're good to go.

We have a campaign and there's a league match every evening; the kids are scouring ebay for bargains and coming in at lunchtime to spend points to upgrade weapons and work out skill upgrades for their experienced troopers. I've not seen a game take off that well in a long time.

We currently have
3 Space Marine scouts kill teams
1 Ork boyz
1 necron
1 inquisition
1 Imperial Guard - that's me with my Stalkers
1 Tyranids

I also got the Technology bods to make us our own scenery.

I feel quite righteous about this, as it was a history teacher at my school who introduced me to D&D, back in the early 80s. So Mr Bruen, whatever happened to you - this one's for you.

Let the games begin!

Posts will get a little slow until the start of the summer holidays due to a variety of factors at work (we are going into special measures - again! - and my job is changing - again! - and the timetable is changing before the end of the year - again!) However, one bright spot is that I finally got around to starting up a wargames club at work again.

We've attracted a good spread of ages and genders. Interestingly, of all the games so far the girls have proved to be far and away the best commanders.

So far we have had a couple of games of Iron Cross which went down very well.

And then this last week we started a Wars of the Roses Lion Rampant campaign using the miniatures I put together waaaay back at the start of this blog.

Everything is going rather swimmingly; it also turns out that most the students play Bloodbowl, so it looks like we'll be getting a league up and running.

Overall. it's good to have come full circle. After all, it was a history teacher at my old school who got me into this habit lo those many moons ago!