Airborne Siege

 

The invading Imperials needed to root out and destroy the surviving defenders at any cost.

The young men tasked with this mission had been training for this exact scenario ever since

they first arrived at the Schola Progenium as orphans of war. Those that return will be

Veteran soldiers indeed.

The final game in Jamie and I’s narrative campaign was called “Airborne Siege”. This

mission, like the previous one, tasked the Imperials with liberating the two conjoining

strongholds deep in enemy territory from the traitors. This might seem like an overwhelming

advantage for the Defense team but the Blooded don’t really like staying in their own half.

Staple strategy ploys like “Reckless Aspirant” had zero value to me because it was not in

my best interest to venture outside the relative safety the strongholds provided. To win I

had to kill all of Jamie's operatives or make sure he had none alive in my half. For Jamie to

win he needed to have more of his guys inside the strongholds at the end of turning point 4

and beyond. This meant for the most part we activated and passed, waiting for the other

to make a mistake. The first of these mistakes came early for Jamie as he positioned his

Tempestor in charge range of my Flenser in turning point one. The charge was on and the

fight ensued but the Tempestor would not go down easily and managed to survive the

attack with two wounds remaining by blocking two of my normal hits. This was my first

mistake as my Flenser rolled three normal hits and one critical hit against the Tempestors

two normal hits. If I resolve my crit last, Jamie can’t block it. But I didn’t. I push through the

crit first leaving an important kill on the table in the first turning point. This blunder would

cost me “Gaze of the gods” next turn.

The highlight for me came on turning point three when my already injured Brimstone

Grenadier hiffed his Diabolyk bomb at an Aquilon Gunfighter who promptly returned fire

back. Both operatives survived with one wound each. If I had to guess I would say the

highlight for Jamie was on turning point two when his Servo-sentry lobbed two frag

grenades up into the stronghold killing my Butcher and Enforcer. 

The game went to turning point seven with only two models left on the board.Jamies

Melta Gunner facing down a drugged up Ogryn. Winning initiative wins the game and so

the Blooded win the campaign 2-1.

Drop and Engage

With the anti-air guns silenced the traitors knew it wouldn’t be long before reinforcements

arrived. Teams falling back regrouped at key locations. Hastily shoring up defensible

positions along the sub-routes the traitors dug in and waited. If the Imperials wanted to

push forwards they would have to go through hell.

 

Mission two in this campaign was called “Drop and engage”. This mission required the

Offence(Jamie) the momentous task of flushing out the Traitors from the strongholds on

each of the flanks. It's been two weeks since we played this game and all I remember is

my Melta gunner and Jamies Precursor having a shoot off point blank range at the end.

Its worth noting that Jamie had the option to charge and fight but chose a more honorable

approach, not leveraging his superior advantage against his opponent. After multiple

failures the Melta gunner finally hit his mark. Victory for the traitors.

Thursday Night Kill Team

 

The traitors had crudely constructed 90mm long range cannons in concealed pits amongst the ruins of the

city. Repurposed fortification weapons hastily welded into anti-air defenses. The archenemy had revealed

their makeshift firepower all at once in the sector as Imperial landers attempted to abort drop insertion in

the neighboring sector. Many troops lives were saved thanks to quick reactions from escort fighter but not

all landers made it back to orbit. Now understanding the archenemies forces had never actually retreated

from the sector like intelligence had believed, plans were quickly made to disable enemy air defenses.

Jamie and I agreed to play a narrative Kill Team campaign using the Airborne Assault mission pack from

the Hivestorm book. The first mission saw his Tempestus Aquilions drop from up high with one goal,

destroy the traitors anti-air guns. I am using my Blooded and it was my job to disable any bombs that

were planted at any of two locations in the mid-field. 

Turning point 1 saw both the Aquilions and Blooded set up forward positions. At the end of turning point

1 and start of turning point 2 saw Jamie's Aquilions make great use of smoke grenades to obscure troopers

that had less than ideal cover from the traitors positioned up on vantage. With both teams trading well in

combat, victory would only be awarded to the Aquilions if they managed to set a bomb. And before the

end of turning point 2 they did just that, setting a timer on the traitors to diffuse the rapidly escalating

situation. At the start of turning point 3 the timer was set to 9 activations, 5 for Jamie and 4 for me. During

Turning point 3 I saw an opportunity to charge my Flenser into combat with two Aquilion, this was a

misplay and didn’t further my goal of diffusing the bomb but didn’t actually cost me the game. Jamie's

clever use of the Drop and Secure strategy ploy as well as bringing his Grenadier forward to reinforce the

bomb location sealed his victory. This game was an absolute blast in more ways than one!