Pontiff, Captain Jack and myself had time for an impromptu game the other day, so here’s a quick battle report.
We used our regular Necromunda/Rogue Trader hybrid rules (which exist only in our collective imaginations, but work for us…) I was hosting and GMing the game so provided the scenery and the tea. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell Pontiff he’d need to bring any miniatures (to anyone who started gaming after about 1990 this probably seems like someone turning up without their pants, but back in the day the GM had to provide everything, sometimes even the pants…)
Anyway, as the game was to be a matter of scavenging pirates attacking an outland mining operation, Pontiff choose a bunch of appropriate models from my collection and knocked up some profiles and gear using the Rogue Trader rules. Captain Jack brought his ‘Confector Pirates’, which are Heresy gangers and who he counts as Delaques in the Necromunda rules. Once everyone was happy that both sides looked about right, we set up.
The battlefield, with the outland scav-dig in the centre.
Captain Jack's pirate gang
The story is pretty basic, but served us well enough. The miners have found something valuable in their outland scav-dig, which the dig boss has on him. The pirates know about the ‘something’, and their mission (known only to Captain Jack) was to take the boss down in close combat and then bug out.
The miners, busy doin' nothin'
The battlefield would also feature a few environmental nasties, if for no other reason than to keep the GM entertained. These were six of Heresy’s demonic slug things, which would use the rules for Sunworms from the Rogue Trader rulebook. The other was one of Heresy’s Waspquitos, which would use the Rogue Trader rules for Pycuinens. In the event, the profiles of these things proved extremely nasty, but that just added to the fun. I had a special rule for the wasp (I’m not going to keep trying to spell what they’re called in the RT rulebook…) but as it didn’t come into play I’ll use it in a future game and it’ll still be a surprise.
The local wildlife
The players also used two randomly drawn Necromunda Event Cards each. Pontiff played ‘Shakedown’ before the game began, which caused three of Jack’s gangers to get pulled over by the fuzz on the way to the battle and turn up late (they arrived in turn three in the end).
Miners, erm, mining
The game started out with one of the miners flaming a nearby Sunworm. This was actually a bad idea, as it only made it angry and go chasing after the miner. I had it in mind that the Sunworms would only attack models that came within their charge range (2”) or who attacked them, but as Pontiff said, the miner was paid to clear the dig site of vermin, so was just ‘doing his job’.
One of the miners decides to flame a perfectly innocent Sunworm
The pirates infiltrated from the east (GM’s vantage point), and a fire fight developed between them and a Squat bodyguard who’d been performing a ‘spade recce’ behind a tree nearby (both Captain Jack and Pontiff have served in the British Army, so I spend a lot of our gaming time deciphering such slang but manage to keep up most of the time…)
The pirates close on the dig site (their target is one of the guys on the ground, who was pinned at the moment this pict was taken)
Meanwhile, the wasp moved towards the nearest model, which was one of Pontiff’s miners. It survived a shotgun blast and a boltgun shot, which just made it angrier. The resulting close combat did for the miner, and the bolter-armed bodyguard dived into the vehicle to use its heavy stubber. The bodyguard checked the vehicle’s status, but found he couldn’t start it as it had a flat battery. The only option was to utilise the electrical charge of a nearby Sunworm to jump-start the vehicle, but Pontiff didn’t fancy that as the beasties were proving pretty nasty…
The wasp attacks a miner
Meanwhile, the main group of pirates closed in on the dig site, and the ganger’s who’d been delayed turned up on the northern board edge, adding their fire to the battle.
As the wasp couldn’t get at the miner bodyguard, who was inside the vehicle, it made for the dig boss. The pirates started to shoot the wasp. Pontiff didn’t know at the time why his leader was being saved, but it was of course so that the leader could be taken down by the pirates and his body looted.
As the pirates closed on the dig site the fight escalated, with the power-armoured ‘Ironbonce the Squat’ making good use of his mining laser (meltagun). The gangers who had turned up on the northern edge found themselves outclassed, and they thought they had Ironbonce when his meltagun ran out of ammo, only for Pontiff to play the Event Card that gave him a free reload.
Eventually, the pirates’ leader and one of his gang made it into close combat with the miners’ boss. The ganger went in first and the miner boss took him down, only for the pirate boss to charge in and take him out (looting his body in the process).
The two bosses clash
At this point, the pirate gang failed its Bottle Test, but we have a house rule that says this doesn’t end the game right away and instead the gang has to make a fighting withdrawal. A couple of the pirates whose weapons were dry withdrew, while the wasp closed on the pirate leader. If it had got into combat with him it would have ripped him a new one, but fortunately it wasn’t quite quick enough, getting a face full of lead as it chased the pirates off.
Having got what he came for, the pirate boss legs it
Then the Squat Engineer blundered into another Sunworm (which Pontiff missed hidden in amongst the wreckage of a crashed shuttle). The Squat survived one round of close combat, but decided to try to break in the next. The Sunworm got a free hack and blatted the Squat into the dirt.
The Squat Engineer treads on something nasty
At the last, the pirates made off with their loot with an angry monster-wasp on their tail, and that was that. A victory for the pirates, and a messy health and safety claim for the miners…
The pirates depart, closely followed by the angry wasp
