[Battle Report] The Vadinax Crusade, II | Ninth Edition | Crusade | Tempest of War | Night Lords vs. Adepta Sororitas & Genestealer Cults

Time and rural isolation got the better of me, as they do, and three weeks passed before I got to actually participate in the Vadinax endeavour, in a "fraternising bolter-wise" sense. I did give TTS a quick spin, but it was Battle Chronicler all over again - a lot of janky mouse-work to set up a fussy parody of an experience I relish because it's physical, tactile and face to face. Nothing against them what like that sort of thing, but it's not for me.

Anyway, it was off to the Black Planet, aka Birmingham (specifically Bad Kitty Games, now regrettably closed down) to make planetfall on Steadfast Repentance and liberate some goddamn prisoners.

At least, that was the plan...

The first engagement against MetzoPaino's Sororitas proved to be something of a struggle. The board was dissed by several passers by as lacking enough terrain and you know, that's fair. Part of me detests how modern 40K has fallen into standardised symmetrical layouts built around the needs of take-all-comers competitive play, and goodness knows I'm not rushing out to build a standard Open layout at home, but this one was definitely built for aesthetics rather than playability.

I lost that Helbrute on turn one to a krak barrage from the Exorcist
(those things hit just as hard as I remember, and hiding is no defence at all...)

Once my Raptors arrived I was able to touch some more points,
take an unsuccessful potshot at the Exorcist,
and even drive for the Canoness lurking in the back lines

Skallagrim, my Warlord, was designed to take on single hard targets with his
whocking great daemon hammer. Instead, he ended up bogged down fighting Repentia, bouncing off Feel No Pain saves for round after round.

Eventually, the Talon Sharply Curved managed to break through, pick up a few kills, and try for the equaliser with a last ditch shot at Assassinating the Canoness.

A much closer game than the score sheet might indicate. I had a solid second turn once the Raptors dropped in, and if I'd just been able to close kills on the Repentia or the one Sororitas Battle Squad I got stuck into, I'd have picked up another secondary and a draw. Bagging the Canoness as well would have been a win. Sadly, the tail end of this game settled into Metzo scoring secondary objectives and me not quite scoring secondary objectives, even as I eventually took control of the board.

In the Crusade Homework corner, Love Your Hate (my Chosen squad) picked up the "Fatigued" Battle Scar (not great, and I'd end up dissolving the unit to get rid of that one after my next game). The Talon Sharply Curved - the star of the show Raptors who'd picked up most of my Secondaries and, under Goonhammer's "Tempest of Crusade" rules, a corresponding bucket of experience, earned the "Bitter to the Bone" trait (making them much more efficient on the turn they dropped, with exploding sixes on their pistols and swords straight away) and their Mark of Khorne in short order.

Sadly, the next game, against Aurora's Genestealer Cult was... a debacle.

I'd never played against Genestealer Cults before. I had no idea how tricksy, fiddly, "walk on behind you and blast you repeatedly with Mortal Wounds" they were. I find tricksy, fiddly, puzzle-box rules frustrating at the best of times, and this was not the best of times: loud room, game fatigue already kicking in, and a Combat Patrol, so one bad turn was going to decide everything. To compound it all, and this is nothing against the guy, Aurora was very softly spoken, which is not what my hard-of-hearing self needs when trying to parse complicated rules in a noisy confined space. Add that all up and you had a dismal non-game which left me feeling out of my depth, and when I'm feeling out of my depth I become belligerent and spiteful. It's not a good vibe, and I conceded in the second round rather than make everyone feel worse. No game beats bad game.

I feel bad for them - it's a long way to come to play one round - but we chilled for a bit afterwards and talked about the order of operations in the Genestealer army, went through our Crusade homework together and tried to Forge The Narrative so we wouldn't go home feeling like total bum farts.

The Narrative was easy enough: clearly the Genestealers had co-opted the cult uprising on Steadfast Repentance, and were now clearing the Night Lords away so the real Star Children could take control. As for Crusade homework, well - I'd lost my Chaos Lord to a Kellermorph in the first round, and he came away with a Battle Scar. "Blind in One Eye" - which made it impossible to ever capitalise on the Warlord Trait I'd given him.

Having sunk three Requisition Points into gearing him up (I wanted to score big Khorne points by having him wreck big scary things and characters in combat, I'm a simple soul), I was reluctant to just throw the useless lump away. So instead, I concocted a plan. I'd sink all my Chaos brownie points into Dark God Glory, and let his Personal Glory collapse. At some point down the line, I'd play a Ritual scenario. If I won, he'd have his Battle Scar bought off. If I lost, I'd turn the git into a Chaos Spawn for free using the Dark God Glory bonuses. And if he died in a leadership challenge before then, well, sucks to be him...