Attack on Silo D-12/zz

(Hit and Run scenario, using Necromunda Event Cards deck.)

Sergeant Grey's Iridian Rangers, led by the mysterious xenos psyker.

Patrol Drake, accompanied by psykana operative Aeon Gayle.

Following psykana reports detecting an abhorrent presence in Zone D-12, I dispatched Patrol Drake, accompanied by psykana operative Aeon Gayle to investigate. Upon arrival in the zone, Gayle immediately reported a psychic spore closing in on Defence Silo D-12/zz, and Drake ordered those troopers in the immediate vicinity to take up a defensive posture at the silo’s control station while the remainder of his patrol were recalled. Strangely, three of the patrol did not return until long after the coming battle, and appear unable to account for their actions during that time. Commissariat and psykana interrogation pending.

After an hour, the enemy arrived. It was the same traitors of the Iridian 9th, the Swamp Tigers, led once more by the mysterious individual with prodigious psychic powers. Though they had prepared well, taking commanding positions atop the control station, Drake’s men were initially taken by surprise as the enemy worked around the left flank. The opening salvo felled Trooper Zain, who later proved to have died from his injuries, and wounded Specialist Falk.

The enemy pressed the left flank, the NCO believed to be called Sergeant Grey leading them. As Grey and another his men paused in the lee of an outhouse, Aeon Gayle unleashed a psychic attack on them. Grey was temporarily sent mad, spinning around and shouting, and actually shooting the man next to him. As more Swamp Tigers arrived on the scene to press the attack, chaos broke out. A native life form referred to by the garrison as a ‘mousehound’ burst from the stinking outhouse and attacked Sergeant Grey before disappearing once more. One of the Iridians closed on the control station, only to find Drake himself waiting for him. Drake cut the man down with ease and slammed the traitor’s body in to the power feed to the outhouse, which erupted in sparks, killing the Swamp Tiger dead. Unfortunately, Drake’s prised power sword was destroyed in the brief fight.

Meanwhile, the Iridians’ grenade launcher was walking krak grenade shells towards the silo’s master control panel, the destruction of which would have rendered the silo unusable. Worse still, more enemy, including the psyker-leader had appeared on the scene, and were barely held at bay by Lance Corporal Kash and Specialist Kiri, who kept up a steady barrage of smoke grenades. Kash gunned down an enemy trooper at close range, moments before he would have been assaulted.

Back at the control silo, Aeon Gayle unleashed another mental assault on Grey, sending him into a mad rage. He then engaged Drake in all-in combat, knocking him out before moving on to assault the master control panel, which he wrecked in a furious attack. At the last, the remainder of Patrol Drake arrived and opened fire on Grey. Realising he was surrounded, the traitor dove for Aeon Gayle, grabbing her from her hiding place. He then used her body as a human shield, backing away from the approaching troops. The Aeon’s powers deserted her, and Grey escaped, throwing the Aeon to the ground as he made good his escape.

It appears the enemy were guided in their flanking move by turncoat Betheljinn tribesmen, and that a more general uprising is imminent. All garrison units standing by for widespread uprising.

The Emperor Protects.

Colonel Kane, Jeriko Reach garrison battle group.

The Iridian attackers close in.

Trooper Zain and Specialist Falk atop the silo command building.

Grey and Drake clash, again!

Grey withdraws having destroyed the master control, using the Aeon as a human shield!

Iridian Rangers - Unit History

9^th Regiment Iridian Rangers – ‘Swamp Tigers’

A garrison regiment securing Jeriko Reachs lowland provinces.

The Iridian Rangers 9^th were posted to Jeriko Reach a few years back as a ‘quiet’ posting and a reward for their long and hard fought service on the deathworld of Hang Sung during the Shikani Uprising.

The regiment, natives of a lush& verdant feral jungle world, had been originally sent to Hang Sung to put down a genestealer uprising.

Suffering initial heavy losses the regiment soon learnt to excel in jungle and night fighting and successfully destroyed the outbreak.

In one action the much decorated Cpt. Coppola led the regiments 3^rd company in a viscous guerrilla action in the Chaing Hai methane swamps of the Tsai Chi province and earned the third company the nickname ‘Swamp Tigers’ due to their savagery in the fetid waters of the delta.

Coppola earned himself an Amethyst Aquila when he led the company’s ‘green men’ (so called because of their camouflage painted bodies) into the heart of a stealer tunnel complex to assassinate its Patriarch. Coppola is believed to have been the only survivor.

On return from the campaign all members of the regiment were screened and tested for genetic abnormalities (resulting in a 12 per cent cull of infected personnel) and declared fit for further active service.

One can only wonder if screening processes and summary cull were not stringent enough, did some of Coppola's men bring in an infection? Furthermore Imperial scholars question Coppola's hazy recollection of his return to Imperial lines, he was found delirious with mara-fly fever some distance from the tunnel complex which he had destroyed with melta bombs.

see file: HC5029b/Shikani/Methdelta/Coppola


Hero of the Chaing Hai pacification Cpt Jarl. Coppola

Betrayal!

Having regrouped at Garrison HQ, Corporal Drake’s patrol was sent out into the Alkatine Groves to conduct a sweep of the many small settlements skirting the death zones. What he encountered has far reaching and disturbing consequences for the garrison, and potentially for Imperial rule on the Reach.

Whilst approaching a tumbledown shack known to be occupied by an unstable old squat engineer, Patrol Drake encountered another garrison unit, a patrol under Sergeant Grey of the 9th Iridian Rangers (The Swamp Tigers), another unit of the Jeriko Reach Garrison, that had been billeted in a number of settlements thereabouts.

Before he could approach Grey, Drake’s patrol was fired upon. Clearly, we have lost Grey and his men. The traitors were led by the same leader we have observed in the past, an individual of prodigious psychic potential. It was fortunate then that Drake was accompanied by an Adept of the Telepathica, Gramatrix Apphia, to provide some psionic punch.

Upon contact a firefight soon developed. Drake positioned his missile and grenade launcher along with a sniper and the Gramatrix to his left flank in order to fix the bulk of the enemy, and led a flanking party in a wide sweep to the right. This took him right past the old shack, and the party found itself fired upon by the irascible occupant. Trooper Kleve was winged but not wounded by the shot, and the troopers did very well to restrain themselves and not fire back.

A moment later Swamp Tiger fire set off a pocket of previously undetected Nauka gas, enveloping three of the the traitor troopers in an explosion, though none were injured.

Meanwhile, Trooper Falk’s missile launcher misfired and the sniper, Trooper Zain was wounded, and out of the fight. The Gramatrix inflicted a psionic attack upon a traitor before she herself was put down. Falk later reported that Apphia displayed very poor fieldcraft, and it has been noted that future battlefield attachments from the Psykana must be better trained and prepared.

On the right flank, the flanking party found themselves under sustained psionic attack by the enemy leader, who appeared to be attempting to take control of the minds of Drake’s men. Fortunately he was not successful, though his attacks were a constant drain. Trooper Kleve was once more winged, this time by a poorly, even negligently aimed shot from Trooper Serik, who is on report as we speak. Trooper Tyrik was wounded by Swamp Tiger fire, but was attended by Medic Reko and was soon back in the fight. At the last, Drake’s party assaulted the enemy position from the lee of the shack. The attack descended into a hand-to-hand affair in which Drake was wounded in combat with Sergeant Grey.

After Drake went down, Trooper Kash took control, leading the troopers in a final push which saw off the traitors. Kash has received a field brevet of Lance Corporal for his efforts. After the action, Jawar Rajiv, a native defence volunteer attached to the patrol was found incapacitated. Though he recovered, he appears mentally scarred by some experience he will not, or cannot relate.

It appears an uprising is beginning on Jeriko Reach, and units of the Garrison have turned coat. All units are now on full alert.

Terrain WIP

Just spent a few hours working on a second native dwelling. This one's larger than the first and includes elements of the Cities of Death kits, to give it a more 40k look. The panels are used inside-out to give them a different feel to the 'stock' kits. I plan to render the flat areas of the plastic panels in the same plaster effect as the main part of the building, in order to pull it all together.

Rescue attempt

Rescue Attempt

++CONTACT REPORT++

Corporal Drake’s long-range patrol has been stood down following a failed attempt to rescue a trooper captured by Eldar pirates north of the mining enclave ‘Augustine’s Regret’.

Following the firefight in the enclave and the Eldars’ capture of Trooper Noll, Drake’s section tracked the xenos to an abandoned settlement some forty kilometres north. They located the prisoner, who was being held on the upper story of a native building. A number of Eldar were seen to be patrolling the area, with two attending to their prisoner.

Drake positioned his missile launcher and grenade launcher as a fire support group with a good field of fire on the building, and formed the remainder of his section into an assault group, led by himself. This group infiltrated right up to the building, before the aliens’ leader rounded the corner and spotted Drake’s party. Drake and several of his men opened fire on the pirate, while two more of the assault party climbed the building’s ladder to affect a rescue of their compatriot.

Drake’s fire caused the alien leader to withdraw, so the corporal joined the assault up the ladder.

What happened next appears uncertain. Upon reaching the roof, a brief and very close ranged firefight ensued, and one Eldar, armed with some manner of projectile launcher discharged its weapon at extreme close range, either deliberately, or negligently. The blast, some form plasma effect, caught both the firer, and the captive, and blew Corporal Drake from the roof.



Believing the captured Trooper Noll dead in the plasma blast, and seeing that more Eldar were closing around the building, Drake had little choice but to affect a fighting withdrawal. Drake and two of his men fell back to the cover of an apparently abandoned crawler, only to find the vehicle overrun with some form of toxic growth, the fumes from which all but incapacitated Drake and Trooper Kleve. Fortunately however, the assault party was able to disengage and rendezvous with the fire support group, before escaping.

Drake’s patrol section sustained a number of light wounds, but, apart from Trooper Noll, suffered no fatalities in the assault.

Drake’s section has been exfiltrated back to head quarters for debriefing and recuperation. Initial reports suggest their sweep of the area north of the Asakhim Valley and around the Augustine’s Regret mining enclave was not in vain. Apart from the Eldar contact, the patrol reported a number of suspicious activities amongst the locals, including a large amount of seditious, anti-Imperium graffiti daubed on outlying buildings, including the one in which the Eldar housed their captive.

Aggressive patrolling of native settlements is to commence as soon as practicable. The Eldar pirates are merely a hindrance, and I will not allow my forces to be diverted chasing after them any more. I aim to flush out the real enemy, whoever, wherever, and whatever they are.

The Emperor Proects

Colonel Kane
OC, Jeriko Reach Imperial Guard Garrison

Native Dwelling terrain

Here's a building I made last week, and we used it in a game a couple of days ago (battle report to be submitted as soon as).

It's my first go at a native dwelling, made in a vaguely middle-eastern style but 40k'd up with bits from GW's Cities of Death building kits. The basic structure is just foam card, and the next one I do will be a more complicated shape. I plan to make a load more so we can set some games out in the native areas, as most of our games so far have been set in the mining enclaves of the Imperial Mining Concern.

Front

Rear (note suspicious graffiti as noted on recent patrols and reported to garrison HQ).

Characters of the Reach

Here're a few of the odd characters that populate Jeriko Reach and will be making an appearance in the campaign at some point. We have a bunch more to come, including some civilians from West Wind Productions 'Chaos in Cairo' range to populate the native settlements, and more Rogue Trader era bits and bobs for the games in the Mining Enclaves etc.






A team of inspectors from the Imperial Mining Concern. (Heresy Miniatures 'Sci-fi Tax Inspectors').



An Officio Munitorum Field Notary attached to the Imperial Guard garrison. He'll be keeping a close eye on the garrison's ammo expenditure, and may even demand to accompany Corporal Drake and his section on a mission in the near future...


A Psykana Operative, attached to the garrison. She may be taking to the field soon too, as the garrison will be needing all the psychic support it can get against the uprising's mysterious leaders. (in-game we may count her as a Wyrd for hire). (Aberrant Games Dravani Human Form).


A freelance chirogeon.



A freelance Squat engineer and his bodyguard, no doubt come to Jeriko Reach in search of valuable scrap left over from the last war.