I've signed up for a Crusade campaign at my club, Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts. We were slightly distracted by our usual venue, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, being closed for some renovations. So, my opponent and I booked a table at The Arcanist's Tavern.
The Arcanist's Tavern is a new venue that has a few wargaming tables, a few D&D tables, and some tables for board games. They serve food and drink and I will definitely be going again.
I'm continuing the narrative of my old Astra Militarum, as the Tallarn XVI, fed up of constant victimisation by dubious Inquisitors, went to hide out on a Necron held planet. To avoid consequences, they've drawn an extra I onto the unit insignia to masquerade as the Tallarn XVII. Hiding among the mind shackled Guard, they found themselves under attack by another Guard regiment believing them working for the Necrons.
My force has quite a lot of tanks for its size, and my opponent was running a massive wave of infantry guard. The mission narrative was that we were fighting under horrible Necron pylons, so you had to try and hold territory and pass battleshock tests near the objectives.
The infantry advanced towards the Tallarn lines using the buildings and ruins as cover. Their lasguns started off outranged as artillery and tank shells took some pretty heavy chunks out of of their lines, but there were still a huge number closing in...
A large Cadian squad turned the corner to advance on the objective I was guarding with a Hellhound...
And a savvy Inferno Cannon gunner pulled off an overwatch shot to absolutely ruin the day of the squad in question...
That absolutely terrified the infantry guard and they poured all their fire into the Hellhound, desperately trying to take it out. It ended up holding together on a single wound due to a round of very lucky armour save.
Even a charge into the Hellhound didn't manage to take it out!
The Hellhound burned the attacking infantry to a crisp, but left a single officer alive. My nearby infantry squad charged in and cut him down. In turn, the Hellhound was finally taken out, while the infantry were badly shot up.
I needed to pass a Battleshock test to score . . . and completely failed to. I'd three different sources of rerolls, but could only use one, and just rolled absolute garbage. I could have auto-passed, but thought I'd be fine with the reroll and wanted to save my command point... The Commissar could end the Battleshock by shooting a surviving Guardsman, but that didn't count for the purposes of scoring . . . oh well.
Meanwhile, my Manticore and Leman Russ Executioner smushed a guard squad to a fine paste. The Enginseer survived and ducked behind a building to start looting Blackstone shards. With experience for kills, and narratively, wanting to please the local Necrons who were tolerating our existence, I lobbed a barrage of Storm Eagle rockets onto the poor Enginseer.
Meanwhile, a tide of Catachan crashed into my other infantry squad.
The Demolisher drove off to get blown up elsewhere, but the psyker stayed alive, cutting down Catachan left and right, but ending the fight in a bloody stalemate.
The Executioner got charged, but there just wasn't quite enough violence to take it out before the battle was over - but the loyal Guard had taken the field, winning the game overall 45-5...
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