Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part Three

When we last left the Shadow War Campaign Final Mission, the Sisters of Battle had taken the lead having captured their primary objective and carried it off the table via their deployment zone.

Part one, covering the mission and deployment is here.

Part two is here.

When we left things in Part Three, the Sisters of Battle had just carried their Primary Objective off the table, securing them 3 victory points. As they were in second position on the leader board, that meant any other Kill Team than the Orks needed 4 Victory Points to beat them and win the campaign.

Enough Orks had recovered to try and drag their primary objective, the Doomsday Device, back towards the table edge.

But they were now coming under attack from Blood Angel Scouts and Tau, both of whom needed to go through the Orks to get their own objectives and both of whom needed to stop the Orks if they were going to win the campaign.

But despite the heavy attack, the Orks kept struggling on.

Meanwhile, having lost the Data Bank that was their primary objective, the Chaos Marines started moving towards the centre in the hope of claiming Victory Points elsewhere. And the Sisters were not resting on the laurels. Grabbing one more piece of Archeotech would cement their victory.

The Dark Eldar had broken away from the Tau and, with their high speed, were certain to make it to the table edge.

With their primary objective lost, the Tau turned their guns on the Orks. Their slim chance of a victory depended on securing all four remaining objectives. But just as they really started to focus, their shooting failed. A series of utterly appalling rolls meant that even it point blank range they missed, or if they didn't miss failed to wound or if they wounded the Orks made some truly ridiculous saving throws. The Orks were being pinned, but still dragging their objective inch by inch to the table edge.

On the far side, the Sisters of Battle Seraphim had seized a second objective, while the rest of the Kill Team tried to surpress the Chaos Marines with supporting fire.

But they had reckoned without the Dark Eldar. With their primary objective secure, the Succubus and Homunculus saw an opportunity to take another victory point and steal victory from the Sisters.

The Orks were inches from victory and the last few survivors desperately tried to fend off the Tau, whose shooting had not improved. At the same time, the Blood Angel Scouts were still trying to take their primary objective.

The Succubus charged the Seraphim, who had little chance against her in hand to hand combat. Meanwhile, the Chaos Space Marines were closing in on the surviving Sisters from behind.

But the Chaos Marines were not about to surrender a piece of archeotech to the Dark Eldar and they turned all their firepower on the Succubus.

But all this was, ultimately, a sideshow, because on the near side, Trukk the last Ork still standing, dragged the Doomsday Device over the line, giving the Orks 3 victory points. As they were at the top of the leader board, any other team needed 4 victory points to beat them.

The Blood Angels, Dark Eldar and Chaos Marines fought over the one of the remaining pieces of archeotech...

...and the Tau secured another piece of archeotech, which happened to be the Blood Angels primary objective.

The rest of the Tau positioned themselves to prevent the remaining scouts from trying to take it back.

Had they managed to take another piece of archeotech, the Dark Eldar could have won the campaign. But it was not to be. The Chaos Marines had taken one from the Succubus and the Tau took the last.

At this point, I brought the mission to an end. The Tau and Chaos Marines could have fought over the remaining objectives still on the table, but it would have been a fight for fourth place and Sunday evening was drawing in.

The scenario and the campaign had a winner. The Orks, Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar had managed to carry their primary objective off the table, each winning 3 Victory Points. With a three-way tie, the campaign was decided by the campaign leader board, which, at the end of round 5 stood as follows:

Kill Team	Data Caches	Wins	Losses	Team Rating
Orks	10	4	1	2064
Adeptus Sororitas	10	3	2	2154
Dark Eldar	10	2	3	1963
Space Marine Scouts	10	2	3	1785
Tau	8	2	3	1743
Chaos Space Marines	7	2	3	1881

All three teams were equal on data caches, but the Win-loss ratio was the clear decider. The Orks had secured a lucky victory, as they had throughout the campaign, but a lucky win was still a win and the victors took their place on the podium.

The Final Mission was over, the campaign complete. But I still have one last post planned. Come back soon for the Shadow War Campaign Debriefing.

Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part Two

Part Two of my report on the final mission of my Shadow War Campaign. Part One, covering the mission rules and deployment is here.

The Orks took the first turn and advanced quickly, swarming over the archeotech.

The Sisters of Battle advanced more cautiously, sending out a scout ahead while the rest followed on.

At the end of turn 1, the Dark Eldar and Blood Angels arrived, deploying on opposite sides on the far left and near right.

The Dark Eldar quickly found themselves under heavy fire from the Orks.

While the Sisters broke off part of their forces to pursue this new threat.

The Orks had seized much of the archeotech, but were now under heavy fire from all sides.

And at the end of the turn the Chaos Space Marines and Tau arrived.

The Sisters poured fire on to the Chaos Marines, doing no damage but keeping them pinned.

Meanwhile, the Seraphim seized their primary objective.

Despite being delayed by the Sisters and Orks, the Dark Eldar continued their advance.

While on the left, the firefight between the Orks and Tau was developing in the Tau's favour.

 

The Dark Eldar started to push through to the centre.

The Orks still had much of the Archeotech, but struggle to move it under fire from the Tau, Blood Angels and Dark Eldar.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the field, both the Chaos Marines and Sisters of Battle were pursuing the same objective. Most of the Sisters Kill-Team provided covering fire, while the Seraphim handed off the Data Bank to Sister's Ursula and Beatrice. The Sisters had little luck overcoming the Chaos Marines high toughness and armour, but while they were all pinned they couldn't advance.

Enough Orks had been taken down or out of action that the Dark Eldar were able to seize their primary objective, the weapons cache, and start to make progress towards their deployment zone.

The Tau were in difficulty. Their primary objective was the same as the Dark Eldar and they needed to move at top speed to get it, but they had to go through the remnants of the Orks to get it.

I hadn't considered, when planning this scenario, that the Shadow War rules require you to shoot at the nearest target unless a more distant target is easier to hit. This meant the Tau couldn't prioritise the Dark Eldar over the nearer Orks, even though killing Orks didn't help them achieve their primary goal.

But by the end of turn 5, enough Orks had recovered to make a decent go at recovering the Doomsday Device. They might not be able to take the bulk of the archeotech as they had hoped, but they could still achieve their primary objective. The Blood Angels and Dark Eldar had also secure their primary objectives, but were struggling to move them under heavy fire.

But it was the Sisters of Battle who would take the lead, carrying their primary objective off the battlefield first. Because they were second on the leader board, this meant that any Kill Team other than the Orks would need 4 Victory Points to beat them and win the campaign.

And that seems as good a place as any to take a break. We'll see how the other teams got on trying to catch the Sisters in part 3.

Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part One

When I last posted about my Shadow War campaign it was December 2018, I had just completed round 5 and four of the six Kill Teams had gathered the 10 data caches I had decided was necessary to finish the campaign. Since then, I let things go quiet, partly because I got absorbed in my Blood Angels and Death Guard painting project and partly because I needed the time and space to bring the campaign to a suitably climactic end.

The original Necromunda Campaign rules, on which Shadow War's rules are based, had nothing to say about actually ending a campaign. You simply continued to play games and build up your gang until everyone died, got bored or grew out of wargaming entirely.

Shadow War improved on this by introducing victory conditions using its concept of Promethium Caches. Once one Kill Team collected 15 caches, if they won one more mission they would win the campaign. So far, so basic. For my campaign I changed the Promethium Caches to Data Caches and reduced the required number for victory to ten. But I never wanted to end the campaign or just another basic mission, I wanted something suitably climactic to round every thing off and provide a proper sense of closure. I wanted nothing less than a no-hold barred, all against all, six way Kill-Team mega fight.

But doing this was going to take time and space. As may have been apparent from previous mission reports, I usually played Shadow War on a 4' x 4' space that took up just over half of the table in my hobby room. This allowed me to clear enough space for a game by just pushing everything else to one end of the table. But for a six team fight I needed more room. That meant utilising the whole table. Also, if a normal game of Shadow War between two Kill Teams took me a couple of hours to play through a six team game was going to be a lot longer. So I also had to wait for a completely free weekend.

A six way finale needed its own special rules. Plus, I also needed to give some advantage to the currently winning Kill Teams or the rest of the campaign would have been pointless. With that in mind I devised a scenery in which six valuable pieces of archeotech would be placed near the centre of the table. I also allocated six deployment zones. The Orks and Sisters of Battle, as the two Kill Teams at the top of the leader board would deploy first, giving them first shot at collecting the archeotech. The Dark Eldar Wyches and Space Marine Scouts would arrive on turn 2 and the Chaos Space Marines and Tau on turn 3. When they deployed, each team would be randomly allocated a specific piece of archeotech to be their primary target, which would be worth 3 victory points and the rest would be worth 1 each. The goal of each team would be to get as much archeotech of the table through their deployment zone as possible and, because this was the final mission, no-one would bottle out.

The rule rules I devised for the scenario are here.

This is the table layout. After Five rounds of cityscapes I wanted things to try a different battlefield look. And, with six teams to keep track off, plus assorted special operatives, I didn't want too much crazy terrain and certainly not any high vantage points that would allow any team to dominate the game with long range shooting.

This was the final table layout.

The Orks choose a deployment zone on the centre of the near side. This left them vulnerable to attack on two fronts, but also gave them the most direct route to the archeotech. This was a calculated risk, but the hope was that they would be able to use their superior numbers to defend each flank. Unfortunately, their primary objective was the doomsday device, which was on the far row of archeotech.

The Sisters took the deployment zone on the far right side, hoping to use the extra mobility of their Seraphim to seize their primary objective, the data bank.

Deployment was complete and battle was joined. We'll see how it went it part two.

Shadow War - Round Five

I've been very slack about updating the blog lately, but that isn't because I haven't been gaming. With the new year just round the corner, I thought I would rush to the end and summarise the whole of Round Five before the new year. Belt up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

My plan was for this to be the last normal round of the campaign. After this I only want to play one final fight which will involve all six teams and settle the overall winner of the campaign. But that's going to take a fair bit of time and planning, so probably won't happen for a little while yet. This round will be crucial though, as it will establish the final leader board, which will determine which teams have the advantage in the final fight.

Game 5a - Wyches vs Sisters of Battle

I rolled up the Ambush scenario with the Sisters as Defenders. The Sisters took up a defensive position on top of the Promethium Refinery. This gave them a good vantage point, but, unfortunately for them, all the Sisters had to deploy in the centre, with none of them able to deploy anywhere else on the table.

Thanks to their accompanying Haemunculus (and the fact that I remember the rules) the Wyches got two rolls on the combat drugs table giving them +1 to both Weapon Skill and Toughness. They relied on the toughness boost and their speed to avoid the worst of the bolter fire and get under the promethium refinery.

Despite this, they still suffered some casualties as Hexar and Syren Cyrix were both downed, Melris was flesh wounded and Selkis pinned.

Having weatherd the worst of the fire, the Wyches were able to scale the ladder and engage in hand to hand where they excelled. The Sisters held their own at first, but couldn't bring their fire power. It didn't help that Sister Superior Winnifred failed her fear test in the face of Hyldar's horrible scars, keeping her out of the fight for a turn.

Meanwhile, the Sister's attention was diverted by the Haemonculus taking pot shots at them from the walk way.

The Sisters held out in hand to hand as long as they could, but were overmatched by the Wyches.

Then Syren Cyrix recovered to flesh wound and joined the fight, the Sisters were not just outmatched, but outnumbered.

Soon it was all over and the Sisters bottled.

This was a confident win for the Dark Eldar, who gained 3 Data caches, putting them at the top of the table. The Sisters gained 1 Data cache but, tragically, Sister Hildegarde died, causing their Kill Team rating to drop. Rather than recruit a new Sister, the Sisters choose to recruit a Seraphim for the final round. The Dark Eldar had already paid to keep their Haemonculus for two games, so recruited a Succubus as well!

Game 5b - Blood Axe Orks vs Chaos Space Marines

I made a silly mistake setting up the scenery in this scenario. I left far too much open space in the centre of the table, allowing both side to take pot shots at each other from right across the other side of the board. This would have a nasty impact on the game. The scenario was a straight Kill-Team fight, chosen by the Plague Marines because it didn't give the Orks any additional numerical advantage.

Both Plague Marines and Orks set up sentries at key vantage points on opposite sides of the table.

Meanwhile, with the centre of the table exposed to fire, Sergeant Bogrot lead a flanking force to try and out sneak the Chaos Marines.

Meanwhile, the Orks and Chaos Marines took pot shots at each other from across the battlefield.

The Chaos Marine Champion Brother Corpulous lead a group down the centre of the table, relying on their sheer toughness to keep them safe. This worked up to a point, as a pattern emerged in which the Orks would hit and pin the Chaos Marines, but completely fail to wound them.

Sergeant Bogrot's flanking force were distracted shooting at Brother Corpulous' advance party in a bid to stop them advancing up the table. This worked, but lead to deadlock as neither side were able to actually hurt the other and their was no incentive for either side to do anything other than shoot each other and hope their luck changed.

Finally Brother Leprous took up a better firing position in an attempt to break the deadlock.

He was quickly taken out by Fragrap's flamer, but at least that put Fragrap in the firing line of Brother Pox and he was taken down along with Razan.

Most of the flanking force were now stuck, keeping the Chaos Marines pinned.

But Sergeant Bogrot continued his original plan single-handedly, sneaking his way around the rear of the enemy lines.

With the game having dragged on for nearly ten turns, the Orks tried something desperate as Korporal Frix and Dagroll broke cover to try and get into better firing positions.

Finally Sergeant Bogrot was in a position to spring his trap, just as Brother Pox was downed by Big Shoota fire from Snagrip.

Amazingly, both Brother's Scrofula and Buboes fled in fear from Sergeant Bogrot's horrible scars  (which he picked up all the way back in round 1) one after the other, and he was able to finish off Brother Pox before following up and taking out Brother Scrofula.

With Dagroll locked in combat with Brother Corpulous, but still holding his own and the Orks now having overwhelming numerical superiority, the Chaos Marines bottled.

This game dragged horrendously because of my silly mistake with the scenery. Both sides could see and shoot each other, but had no luck wounding, so most of the first six or seven turns were spent in futile dice rolling. I actually considered giving up on the game half way and treating it as a draw, but in the end I took a break for a day before carrying on afresh.

This was the Ork's fourth win, giving them a clear lead in simple victories. They found two data caches, putting them on 10, joint top of the leader board. The Chaos Marines were left on seven. The Orks recruited a freebooter for the final round, while the Chaos Marines kept their Terminator, not that he had been much use in this game.

Game 5c - Blood Angel Scouts vs Tau

After my chronic mistake in the last game, I set up the scenery to off no clear firing lines. The scenario was another ambush, with the Blood Angels defending and, with the Promethium Refinery in the centre. The Tau rolled "it's quiet" on the event table, while the Space Marines rolled "Fear and Confusion" which meant both sides would have to add one to their bottle rolls.

The Scouts mostly set up on the refinery, but placed a few at ground level, to stop the Tau sneaking underneath. They weren't going to make the same mistake as the Sisters, not that they knew anything about that.

Meanwhile, Novices Marco and Angelo were able to deploy behind the Tau lines. Though this was a high risk strategy, leaving them exposed to fire if they didn't win the first turn.

They didn't win the first turn.

Novice Marco was quickly taken out and Angelo pinned.

However, the Tau opening salvo was pretty blunted only Brother Niccolo took a wound and the Veteran was taken down by Ree'va's Rail Rifle.

Brother Sergeant Antonio and Brother Paolo used hip-shooting to run and shoot, while Brother Sebastiano advanced. Sebastiao took out Bry'ch and Brother Fillipo took out Tri'spa.

Shooting from on top of the Promethium refinery Brother Michael managed to miss on a 1 when he needed a 2, while Brother Raphael managed to hit and downed Gen'tu. With two fighters OOA and one down, the Tau managed to fail a bottle check, rolling an 8 which became 9 thanks to “Fear and Confusion.” The Space Marines won after only one turn!

If it hadn't been for the last game, I might have fudged the bottle roll and let the game continue, but, as it was, I was just relieved to not have to play for ten turns. The Blood Angels found 3 data caches, which put them on 10 as well, redeeming themselves after their recent run of failures. The Blood Angels retained the services of their veteran while the Tau recruited a Cadre Fireblade for the final round.

With round five at an end, the leader board looks like this:

Kill Team	Data Caches	Wins	Losses	Team Rating
Orks	10	4	1	2064
Adeptus Sororitas	10	3	2	2154
Dark Eldar	10	2	3	1963
Space Marine Scouts	10	2	3	1785
Tau	8	2	3	1743
Chaos Space Marines	7	2	3	1881

It's a surprisingly balanced result with four teams on an equal number of Data caches and every team having at least two wins. Only the Sisters and Orks have managed to pull slightly ahead, and, in the former case, this was as much luck as judgement.

The Dark Eldar have finally managed to pull themselves back up, now that I figured out how to use them, while the Tau's impressive fire power hasn't actually translated into wins in a lot of cases.

I'm taking a bit of a break from Shadow War while I work out the details of the final scenario and finish off some other painting, but hopefully I'll have something suitably epic for the new year as the Kill Teams finally uncover the archive or Inquisitor Rudolphus.