Campaign Update - Turn 5 and 100 posts

So according to my stats, this entry is the 100th article to be published as part of the Triple Helix Project.  While it is a relatively small milestone for many of the more established blogs such as Fresh Coast 40K, Miniature Tim and From the Warp, but it is a milestone nonetheless. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has visited this site and made this all possible.  You guys are epic and I look forward to hearing from more of you in the future.

With the festivities out of the way, it's time to move onto the main topic of the blog.  As my regular readers will know, I've been running a 40K campaign for my local gaming club.  For those who would like to refresh themselves on the previous turns, I've included links here and here.  Since my last report, the campaign has covered another 3 turns, two of them spanning a two week stretch due to the intervention of real life.  In that time, both sides of the conflict have made advances in stops and starts with special events assisting in the conquest of a number of sectors throughout the city.

As was touched upon in previous articles, it has become apparent to not only me as the campaign organiser, but also to the other players that in games that only involved a single faction as the attacker and the city acting as the defender, the City was proving to be more stalwart then we originally anticipated; racking up victory after victory and generally proving to be a pain in the ass.  In response, I created an event that ran for a 2 week period that awarded faction players a bonus for every victory they gained in each sector.  Essentially this meant that every victory they gained would count as two, while each loss only counted for one.  By doing so, this resulted in a 50% increase in the number of sectors actually captured by each faction, allowing both sides to push towards the centre of the city, bringing them ever closer to direct confrontation  with one another.

The second event I held was integrated into Turn 4 of the campaign and was dubbed  'Operation: Head-hunter'.  This was an event that rotated purely around the identification and destruction of character models as a means of disrupting the command structure of either side. For every 20 characters killed during campaign games, the faction commander would be able to attribute a win to any location currently being sought after by the faction as a whole. The Forces of Disorder performed exceptionally, racking up an impressive 35 heads while the Forces of Order only managed to collect 22. On the upside, both sides secured an extra sector for themselves, allowing each side to push deeper into the city, swiftly closing in on the front lines on the opposing faction.

Now, after 7 weeks of hard fighting, the opposing factions have finally made contact - clashing on the outskirts of the Spaceport and securing a victory for the Forces of Order.  In addition to the special events, a series of mega-battles have been played on a regular occurrence, always involving multiple generals commanding armies on the same table.  These multi-player battles have been always close-fought events, with each game hinging on one or two Victory Points.  I though I'd take the opportunity to show you a couple of shots from our latest Mega-battle, a 2 vs 1 game, where the Salamanders and Space Wolves stood against a mighty force of Chaos Space Marines, specifically the renegade contingent of Red Skulls that are currently leading the assault against the City of Vogen.

So at the beginning, our battle-lines looked were set up pretty defensively, with the objective being to capture as many buildings as possible.

The battlefield looked like this:

The deployment zone of the Forces of Order looked like this:

The Forces of Disorder deployment was as such:

Now for some of the highlights - The Daemon Prince took a very offensive position, swooping towards the main concentration of Loyalist forces on the northern flank.  Before he was able to make his assault however, he was engulfed by heavy fire, forcing him to return to land heavily in front of the fortified Hab-Block.

Here he was engaged in mortal combat with a mighty Wolf Lord, the appointed Warlord of the Space Wolf contingent present on Khai-Zhaan.  A mighty battle was fought, with both combatants taking many wounds before the Daemon Prince was banished back to the warp.

While both sides traded heavy fire the Wolf Lord continued on to engage not one but two Hellbrutes, armed with flailing power-scourges.  With titanic effort, he destroyed both, shattering their warp-forged hulls and banishing the evil contained within.

But not all was to go well for the Forces of Order.  The Red Skulls possessed enough heavy weaponry to dominate the field, systematically decimating tanks and Marines alike.  Not even the mighty Wolf Lord was to be spared as a Predator's Lascannon finally felled the mighty warrior.  While not slain outright, the Wolf Lord would play no further part in the battle that was to come.

For the Loyalists, the southern flank was not as strongly defended, with both Vindicators being destroyed before they could effectively suppress the renegades with their devastating (however limited) ordinance.  In a cruel twist of fate, the mighty Warlord of Khorne that led the sortie was rewarded time and time again for his prowess, indiscriminately ending the lives of enemy commanders and their Lieutenants with ease until he was unceremoniously transformed into a gibbering spawn-creature whose existence was ended in a hail of mass-reactive shells from numerous bolters.

As the dust settled, the points were tallied, and it was discovered that the Forces of Disorder had secured victory by a mere 2 VP's.  A tight game indeed!  Many thanks to Dan and Ryan for participating in the event, I cannot thank you guys enough.  Hope everyone enjoys reading about the game, I know it's not a full battle report, but I hope it was still fun to read.

Catch you all later,

Trev