Monday 20 August 2012

Right as I remember it here is the report of the battle. Curtis's radical Inquisitor is convinced that the hive mind can be countered in a less direct method than all out war and has arranged a meeting with zoat envoys (and their human assistants) on an arid research station world. Unbeknown to him his nemesis 'Inquisitor Hand' is hot on his trail and arrives on Fergus's World shortly afterwards. Curtis' warband consists of his Inquisitor (i never got his name), a squad of marines with a medic, a psyker and a few combat servitors. Andy's force consists of Inq hand, a death watch kill team, a rogue Trader and his displacer field wearing Jokaero assistant and an 'observer' from the Adeptus Mechanicus... a power armoured squat. Army leaders are all Major heros, inidvidual character heros and unit leaders champions. Servitors are just that.. servitors.
Both warbands advance as the local populace tries to flee. Curtis persuades the farmer that he is on Imperial business and tries to press gang him into service. This is less than successful and later a casualty occurs when the livestock stampede.
Curtis Inquisitor makes a psychic link with the Zoat emmisary and the magus, at around this time Hands men uncover the Zoats hiding place and the Zoat engages them in hand to hand combat as the magus, eventually convinced that Curtis is genuine makes a run for it. Curtis' marines make a stand in the temple building and a firefight ensues as Hands warband attempt to kill the xenos emmisaries and arrest Curtis's radical. Each turn however karnak floaters have been drifting across the battlefield... if they are hit they tend to explode. for most the game this is uneventful until an agri tractor with some fleeing lcoals on is hit by one causing it to career out of control, running over one of Curtis's marines (he survives) and then coming to a halt still on fire.
Hand's men come of worse in the firefight depsite the Rogue trader's judicious use of indirectly fired stasis bombs (one manages to clip curtis's radical and hold him for a short while) and the plucky Jokaero who stays in the fight despite being on fire and wildy displacing around the table. With most of his men dead or dying Hand authorises 'exterminatus' and the Squat unleashes a virus bomb to make sure *nobody* leaves the planet alive. Here we improvised some rules and increased the effectiveness of a virus grenade to 3d6 spread per turn rather than 1d6. We also allowed it to spread without dead bodies... Curtis now was against the clock, or the dice, as he had to leg it with the xenos magus (the only character not in a sealed suit at this poinst) before the virus caught up. Each turn he ran towards the table edge (and safety of a shuttle)as the virus killed citezens and livestock in its wake... in a great moment of tension it looks like the magus was about to clear the board, the virus spread was approximately 18 inches away (or so it seemed) and unless Andy was very lucky and got a maximum spread he was scott free. Andy rolled for the final spread and got an incredible three 6's and a full 18 inch spread.. the magus seemed doomed but we measured it out and incredibly he was 18 and half inches away! So escaping by the skin of his teeth the magus linked up with Curtis's radical to enter talks with the Imperium. Whether he succeeds in seducing this tainted Inquisitor or whether the radical sees the error of his ways is yet to be seen.
All in all a cracking (if somewhat weird) game of Rogue Trader and my only regret is that with Curtis moving away for a while it might be some time before we have a rematch.

9 comments:

  1. I always liked that green, flat-top helmet Inquisitor model. Looks like a fun game, looking forward to the writeup to find out what happened to the truck and those floating critter/spore thingies!

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    1. It also featured a Jokearo set alight by a flamer, but equipped with a Displacer Field, so we had a flaming monkey phasing in and out all over the place!

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  2. Love your old school yoghurt pot space houses!

    I am going to have to make some of those!

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  3. Like an episode of Lost in Space but with Space Marines and las guns. Awesome. Looking forward to that write up to make sense of all this madness!

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  4. Nicely done :-) I'd add that the reason the Grox stampeded is that one of my Deathwatch Marines deliberately shot one in order to disrupt Curtis' plans!

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  5. Ah yes your heavy bolter brother. wasn't that the only thing he hit all game?

    Another highlight is pictured on one of the end scans... the radical and hand faced off in a point blank range firefight. Did they enter close combat?

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  6. A further addition i've just recalled.

    we used the tyranid scenery from one of the starter sets as floater warrens, every turn there was a 50 per cent chance of d3 'plopping' out of the holes.

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  7. My inquisitor is named Patrick Picard, as his attitude is based on "What would Picard do". He would try to convince the 'Nids that humanity was "worth a damn", not just try to out shoot the buggers!

    Was a great game. I think the dice were against Andy to be honest. His heavy bolter was in a great firing position, but only managed to cause havock rather than damage! Bad luck old chap.

    I really enjoyed being able to use my random psychic power: Telepathy. I think that majorly helped me to win, as I could send secret messages to the GM (Gadge)

    What a great ending, with 1" giving me the win instead of a draw. Brilliant.

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  8. My inquisitor is named Patrick Picard, as his attitude is based on "What would Picard do". He would try to convince the 'Nids that humanity was "worth a damn", not just try to out shoot the buggers!

    Was a great game. I think the dice were against Andy to be honest. His heavy bolter was in a great firing position, but only managed to cause havock rather than damage! Bad luck old chap.

    I really enjoyed being able to use my random psychic power: Telepathy. I think that majorly helped me to win, as I could send secret messages to the GM (Gadge)

    What a great ending, with 1" giving me the win instead of a draw. Brilliant.

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