One Page Rules Grimdark Future Battle Report: Deathwatch vs Tzeentch

 

Last weekend in the UK, our King got to put on the hat his Mum wore. I wasn't hugely interested in watching this, even if it doesn't happen all that often. So instead, I travelled over to a friend's house to play some Grimdark Future.

For our first game, we decided to start at 1,500 points. In One Page Rules, old Marines and Primaris Marines are different factions. As it was a friendly game, my opponent said it was OK if I took models from three factions rather than two so I could take an Inquisitor.

With four crates of Inquisitorial Secrets to recover, the infiltrators grabbed one, and shot a few Pink Horrors before being cut down by a hail of fire from the Rubric Marines.

The Hellblasters got cursed and then ripped apart by a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. The counter attack from the Assault Intercessors and Chaplain got him down to a single wound before they were cut down.

But elsewhere on the battlefield, the Vanguard Veterans had cut down the Rubric Marines and thinned out the horrors enough my surviving forces from elsewhere were able to shoot the last couple down. I'd lost a flank, but held all the objectives for the win!

The Greater Daemon made eye contact with the Inquisitor, as if to say "this isn't over", and phased back into the warp, the only survivor of his force...

One Page Rules: Grimdark Future Firefight Campaign Day 1

 

My friend I tried out Grimdark Future with a few months back set up a mini campaign day for three of us to play through. I brought my Deathwatch, my friend brought his Necrons, while our third player borrowed some of my friend's Eldar as she's not finished painting her Sisters up.

So, on this mysterious backwater planet, the Inquisition have noticed strange activity and possible Eldar, so the Deathwatch were sent to investigate.

The Deathwatch scouted into an Industrial area that had started to mysteriously collapse. As they took up positions, a strange ray gun flared and the squad's gunner fell to the ground. 

The close assault specialist ran up to support the kill team's scout, who was accessing a strange Xenos device to determine it's purpose. Out of the dark leapt a mechanical horror, draped in human skin.

Spotting a more ornate mechanical creature, the kill team's psyker Librarian Abelii charged in and engaged in a brutal duel. Neither were able to gain the upper hand, even with the Librarian unleashing a lightning storm on the powerful Necron.

Lieutenant Clypeus held off the horrific Xenos, and another of its allies that materialised into existence. He was badly injured, but held it together to stay standing.

Meanwhile the close assault specialist sprinted to try and retrieve the squad's servo skull that had been sent to scout ahead, but more mechanical Xenos had been tampering with it, and didn't fall to his desperate assault as darkness fell, and the two forces separated.

In the end, both forces had gained intelligence on the other's activity, but neither had managed to gain an edge...

Heading out into the wastes, the team hadn't got far before suddenly Eldar leapt out of the shadows to attack!

The squad's scout crept around the edge to take out the Eldar's fire support.

Meanwhile the Lieutenant desperately fights to hold off another one of the Eldar's infiltrating attackers.

However, as the Eldar's assault troops charge in, the Marine's armour holds true to protect them...

And the Marine counter attack brutally cuts down the aliens, leaving them in control of the battlefield so they can gather intelligence as to what the Xenos are up to . . .

Meanwhile, elsewhere the Eldar strike against the Necrons, striking out against their ancient foe.

With a suspicious run of luck, the Necrons are swiftly vanquished. Were they manipulating fate, or was it pure luck?

It was a day of games and catching up with friends. It's something I wasn't doing much even before the pandemic, and something I'm keen to do more of in the future...

One Page Rules: Grimdark Future - Deathwatch vs Genestealer Cult

 

For the second game of One Page Rules: Grimdark Future, I decided to try some more specialist units - I took a Librarian, Aggressors and Bikes to try out.

I had to deploy my units first, because the Genestealer Cult in Grimdark Future pretty much all get to deploy later and get a free move . . .

So the Deathwatch fanned out through the underhive, searching for the Xenos uprising . . .

The first sign of trouble was a (newly painted) Genestealer sniper, taking pot shots and the Hellblasters.

Genestealers started rushing towards the Intercessor squad, which was quite a worry... 

Swarms of Genestealer squads were starting to show up now . . .

A squad of hybrids led by the Magus advanced, although their mining laser shot wide of their target. The Aggressors moved forward and the unlucky squad simply vanished in a wall of flame, including the Magus . . .

The Genestealers charged into the Intercessor squad, causing absolute carnage.

The Kelermorph gunslinger who was slinking around taking pot shots at opportunistic targets decided that maybe it was best to avoid the Aggressors and snuck away to a different corner of the battlefield . . .

The shotgun armed hybrids moved down a walkway to pepper the Hellblaster squad with shots. With few armoured targets on the Genestealer side the Hellblasters didn't have much of value to shoot at . . .

The Aggressors stomped up to the central hybrid squad, and once more, in a wall of flame, the Genestealer centre just vanished.

The surviving Purestrains, having wiped out the Intercessors, sought revenge of the Hellblasters, but weren't able to cause much damage before the end of the game. This time, the field was in the control of the Deathwatch.

With two games of One Page Rules - Grimdark Future under out belts, what were our thoughts? We both had fun, and the alternating activations helped a lot with making sure that there weren't any horrible "shot off the board before you get to do anything" experiences.

The elite powerful units certainly felt that way, and there's clearly units that are better at dealing with tougher units than others. There's probably quite a bit of tactics here, but we've not learned enough just yet to know what they are.

It was good to get back to some in person gaming, although it does still feel a little strange to do. I definitely want to go back again and get some more games in, as it was an enjoyable time and well worth the trip. Thanks to my opponent for a really fun weekend!

One Page Rules: Grimdark Future - Deathwatch vs Word Bearers

 

This weekend, I managed to dodge the storms to cross London and visit a friend to get some in person gaming in. We decided to try out One Page Rules, a miniatures agnostic set of wargaming rules. We were playing Grimdark Future, a game that is well suited to using existing Warhammer 40,000 units in it.

First up, we chose to play a 1,000 point game pitting my Deathwatch against the vile forces of the Word Bearers. I started off by having my Infiltrators deploy on the right flank and advance up to claim an objective opposite some cultists.

One Page Rules uses alternating activations, so early on I moved my Hellblasters forward to shoot at the Helbrute. They managed to get a couple of wounds off it, but I was worried about the counter attack.

Meanwhile, a Chaos Marine squad advanced towards the Intercessors on my left flank.

The Chaos Cultists charged into the Infiltrators to try and take them out.

Meanwhile, the Reivers, led by the Chaplain, charged into the Helbrute with an obscene number of attacks. However, with the level of its armour and the number of hits it could take, it was still going!

The Chaos Marine squad, named the "Havoc Brothers" by default in One Page Rules, charged into the Intercessor squad. We decided they were clearly in the style of a 90s heel tag team, facing the Prime Brothers face team.

The fight went back and forth, with the Prime Brothers taking some early casualties. They nobly fought back and took out a handful of the Havoc Brothers, before falling to the overwhelming attacks. The upgraded weapons in the Havoc Brothers squad in particular gave them a solid edge.

The Helbrute ripped the Reiver squad apart, and I managed to fail the morale check for the Chaplain, meaning he was captured and removed from play. We felt he was pushed to the floor and ground into the dirt, unable to escape with his armour broken and locked up.

The Helbrute then charged over to the surviving Hellblasters and cut them down.

With the rest of the battle lost, the Infiltrators managed to cut the cultists down, holding a single objective.

The Chaos champion charges into the Infiltrators, but neither side is able to get an edge. With the rest of the battlefield in the hands of Chaos, we called the game there.

We had a chat and felt that One Page Rules looks really promising. The Helbrute was an absolute beast, and would need some serious firepower to remove. The elite units felt worth taking and were able to do quite a lot.

It also didn't take very long at all to play, so after a quick break, we settled in for a second game . . .