Obolis Invasion: The Charadon Campaign

[Jye Nicolson]

Also after playing a bunch of KT today, David and I discovered there's no actual benefit to winning the game in campaign mode! It's likely if you won you'll do a bunch of stuff that gets you XP and Spec Ops progress but it's not obviously better than a draw or a close loss (or an absolute drubbing where you ignored the mission objectives to go do your Spec Ops stuff?). As a result for games in the Charadon Campaign we agreed a slight incentive to actually win was in order:

To the Victor: On winning a game of Kill Team with your Spec Ops force, after the casualty step, choose one of the following two options:

Battlefield Salvage: Add one piece of standard equipment to your stash, up to 3 points in value.

Marked for Greatness: Select one member of your Kill Team, who earns 3XP. Note this is affected by caps on XP from casualty rolls etc.


Phase 2 Standings - After Some Kill Team Games

Defenders: 26
Invaders: 24 + Bonus 5 = 29
Raiders: 21 + Bonus 5 = 29



Defender Points Contributed:

Jye: 8
Balloonacorn: 6
Dekana: 6
Jus: 3
Matt: 3

Raider Points Contributed:

Mattb: 12
Karantu: 2
Tyranii-chan: 4
Jye: 6

Invader Points Contributed:

Jye: 8
Dave: 10
Tallgeese: 6



Achievements Claimed:

The Taran Heresy (Jye): Secure at All Costs, Overrun
Hit Squad (Dekana): Tactical Masterclass



War Diary of Master Inquisitor Tara

Reginleif reported that her pack, on route to a rendevous with their sisters on Brezantius VI, encountered and were driven back by an unusually determined cadre of the Dusk Raiders. By coincidence I received her message - wisely relayed to me so as not to...distract...Wolf Lord Sangrior - while entertaining the newly arrived Twelve Yaskha of the Throne, Custodian Guard of my acquaintance who after the mutual service we rendered to each other on Kleidion were more than happy to do me the favour of relieving Reginleif's pack.

Master Kuvira reported the Dusk Raiders were thoroughly routed, and my intelligence indicated they were further harried by Drukhari raiders who drove them from the field and demolished their temporary base. By the end of the day I received yet another report (though long after the High Lord had first read it) that Sister Superior Tomoe had ambushed the Dusk Raider squad on the march, inflicting over half their number in casualties while only two escaped.

(many Sisters were injured, but to their disappointment, not martyred)

This is a matter of exceptional concern. While on balance the Dusk Raiders had very poor day from a tactical perspective, their fighting capacity does not seem to have been diminished in multiple skirmishes with elite forces, and I can only presume their strategic goal has advanced accordingly. I am unsure what I can ask my allies to do against such hateful resilience.

[Jye Nicolson]

Phase 2 Final Standings - After September Game Day

TLDR: Raiders win, it is the time of the Ork

(and the Tyranid, and the Drukhari and the...)

This phase was a bit tough with the delta wave hitting in force and various factors making in-person games rough for some folks (up to and including some malicious Tzeentchian plot substituting a box of Plague Marines for a box of Underworld figures and preventing Nurgle's children from taking the field!). The results of the games we did play ended up with a very even field, to the point where my own results on the last day would pick a winner wherever I allocated them. However I think it was clearly a great phase for the Raiders, with Matt's Orks busting out the highest individual contributing score, Tyranids, Orks and even Drukhari making great shows in Kill Team, and just generally capitalising on Chaos' misfortunes to eat some Imperial faces.

So victory to the Xenos!

That means everyone collects the following prizes:

Raiders (Xenos): 5 XP to distribute amongst your units
Defenders (Imperial) & Invaders (Chaos): 2 RP

You should feel free to take this even if circumstances meant you didn't manage a game during the phase at all, though I think most of us racked up at least one. Also remember there's an achievement for losing every game you played in the phase, 1 RP or 5XP.


This means the Raiders are on 2 Strategic Value points, the Defenders are on 1, and the Invaders are on 0.

The next phase will be worth 3 points, so it's anyone's game, but I will definitely make sure the points earned so far pay out at the end of the day.


War Diary of Master Inquisitor Tara

We have fought bravely and well, and achieved stunning victories over the Archfoe. Yet all we have won is a brace of troubles, many of disturbingly green hue.

Oddly this is in spite of frankly spectacular successes in espionage achieved by the forces of the enemy - I have not seen any evidence of the Alpha Legion since Chromyd, which naturally leads me to suspect we are up to our eyeballs in them. After yet another incident where faulty intelligence lead followers of my Inquisitorial colleagues to intervene against my forces, I asked Wolf Priest Sigrun why the noble Tarsonian Ashwalkers, indeed other Great Companies of the Vlka Fenryka would be so willing to thwart the goals of the Daughters of Russ.

"They hold us to fight for the best saga, not the wisest course. And they accuse us of consorting with an Inquisitor whose taste for the dramatic outweighs her taste for victory."

Such an assessment is hardly incorrect, so we have internal divisions that make us easy prey for such misdirection. Yet the very fact the enemy was forced to rely on such tactics even at such a strategically critical juncture as the struggle for Fathom is a sign of their own weakness. Where were the legions of Plague Marines when their ally the Rainbringer, summoned at such cost, needed their support? Where were the Sons of Magnus when the Daughters of Russ rampaged where they willed? None of the forces of the Archenemy have lost their taste for the eternal war, instead all evidence I can find points to internal sabotage crippling their ability to deploy forces to the decisive theatres, despite their saturation of the subsector as a whole. My analysis, contingent only on the possibility of yet further Alpha Legion deception, is that Lord Zeid of the Black Legion has turned upon Typhus of the Death Guard, and perhaps even his own master; the ripples of this betrayal buffet even independent warbands such as the Dusk Raiders.

We see this in the escalation of small unit warfare - kill teams, if you will - where increasingly attempts to stage breakthroughs in pitched battle have been abandoned. For some, strategic aims can be more easily achieved with a team assembled and deployed rapidly before an opportunity passes or significant opposition marshalled; for the Orks, Tyranids and Drukhari it is perhaps more that prey is omnipresent, and there is no need to amass forces to reap the harvest.

And indeed such predators have come to feast. We are awash in a green tide, with countless victorious but weakened garrisons overrun by the Ork as soon as they had seen off the Daemon. Lynchpin defensive systems have gone dark, with both defenders and invaders consumed by a hunger from beyond the stars. And I have received a gift of exquisite amsec from an Archon of Commoragh, apparently twin to one delivered to Typhus, thanking me in my role in providing such a delightful hunting ground for her followers. It would be heretical to accept such a gift; perhaps I should let the profoundly heretical Wolf Priest drink it for me.

The Imperium does well in the war, but I fear the cost of the battles with these opportunistic Xenos has been too great. If Typhus has a contingency plan, which he surely does, I have no faith that the gates will hold; Forge World Metalica may lay open to him in spite of his apparent strategic weakness.

And if that is so, surely the Orks will exult louder than any, for they want only war.

[The Other Dave]

What do you think about campaign rewards for spec ops kill teams that take part?

[Jye Nicolson]

What do you think about campaign rewards for spec ops kill teams that take part?

I reckon it's fine to allocate a reward to a Spec Ops team rather than a Crusade. So in your case I think you could only claim one Invader reward and have it go to either set of Dusk Raiders, but you could also separately claim the Raider reward for your Tyranid Kill Team.

RP and XP seem pretty interchangeable across the two systems, and both have an underdog bonus for less advanced teams that works pretty much the same way so I don't think it makes any difference.

[Jye Nicolson]

Phase Three - Metalica Breached

Typhus had a contingency plan.

Or perhaps he had only ever had one plan.

The shrine world St Bartolph's Throne, already weakened by the predations of Lelith Hersperax, had been captured by the Death Guard early in the war. Its desecration gnawed at the Imperial defenders, but even the Adepta Sororitas could not give it strategic priority over the defence of the Gates, and its recapture and purification was a cherished goal to follow the repulse of the enemy.

There is now nothing to recapture.

Typhus' dread rituals were of a scale none could anticipate. A plague was forged that not only consumed the flesh of the remaining inhabitants, but through their sacrifice empowered to consume the planet itself. A wound in reality was torn open that not only spewed forth the cursed warp energy of the Plaguefather but formed a tunnel opening at the very edge of the Metalica system.

The Gates did not fall, but they were bypassed.

At this Miasmic Magnifiers seeded throughout the warzone awoke, summoning a sickly fell energy in the unnumbered corpses littering every world. The Imperium's defenders, already worn down by the rampaging xenos, found themselves besieged by a limitless sea of their slain friends and fallen foes. There would be precious little aid for Metalica.

What seemed like a doubly failed offensive has become a perfect opportunity for all the forces of Nurgle, loyal Death Guard and renegade warbands alike. The Fabricator General cannot turn his Eradication Hulks on his own system, and is left begging for aid from allies he estranged from the start. And the Xenos raiders have the treasure of Charadon cracked open for them, if they can spirit it away before Typhus' claws close upon it.



Period:

Until the end of the December game day

War Zone Points earned per game:

Play any game: 1

Draw/Win Combat Patrol: 1/2

Draw/Win Incursion: 2/3

Draw/Win Strike Force: 3/4

Draw/Win Onslaught: 4/5


A maximum of 20 points towards any Alliance can be earned per player during the phase, plus any for Heroic Achievements.



Theatre of War: Ascendancy of Entropy

Both players get a bonus War Zone point if they agree to use the following Theatre of War rules during their game to represent the madness unleashed by Typhus:

Battlefield Twists

At the start of each battle round, the player who is taking the first turn rolls 3D6. If the result is 7, roll 1D6 on the following chart and apply the result for the remainder of the battle. If there is a double, the result corresponding to that double applies for the rest of the battle. If the roll is a triple 1, 3 or 5, all three odd results apply for the rest of the battle. If it is a triple 2, 4, 6, all three odd results apply for the rest of the battle.

1. Despair

Units always count as below half strength. If already below half strength, an additional model flees on a failed morale check.

2. Rust

The save characteristic of all models is reduced by 1

3. Rot

Subtract 1 from the Toughness of all models.

4. Decay

Subtract 1 from the strength characteristic of all models

5. Atrophy

Units do not count as having Objective Secured and cannot perform actions in a turn in which they made a Normal Move.

6. Blight

Hit rolls, wound rolls, damage rolls and rolls to determine number of attacks cannot be rerolled.





Special Mission: Desperation and Despair

The dead are everywhere; there are no lines of battle, only a vicious melee to save what we can.

You gain a bonus War Zone point the first time you play this mission in this phase.

This is a narrative mission recreating the insanity following Typhus' ritual and the emergence of the Miasmic Magnifiers and their poxwalker hordes.

Rather than try to reproduce the mission whole here, please grab me at a game day for access to the Book of Rust if you don't have it already to play the mission. Briefly though it is a simple objective control mission complicated by mixed up and adjacent deployment zones, no pregame moves or forward deployment, everyone gets Heroic Intervention and Morale is heavily penalised.




Strategic Value Points

The winning Alliance for the phase gains 3 Strategic Value points, and will thus win the campaign.



Crusade Rewards

Note: XP rewards can be distributed as you please between units on your Order of Battle

Winning Alliance: 5 XP

Second Place Alliance: 2RP

Losing Alliance: 2 RP




Achievements

If we die we die fighting so it don't count: 1 RP or 5 XP (your choice) if you lose every game for the phase

Vengeance for Nagoya: If you beat an opponent who defeated you earlier in the phase, you may choose an extra unit to be Marked for Greatness for that game

Weighed Down By Their Plunder: If you beat an opponent who is using a Xenos army, you may choose an extra unit to be Marked for Greatness for that game

Master of the 10th Company: 1 RP or 5 XP (your choice) for teaching someone to play 9th Edition 40K OR Kill Team

Khorne Welcomes You: 1 RP and 5 XP for playing your first Crusade game of 9th Edition OR Spec Op for Kill Team

[Jye Nicolson]

Standings after November Games Day:

Defenders: 17
Invaders: 8
Raiders: 7


Defender Points Contributed:

Matt: 12
Balloonacorn: 1
Dave: 4

Raider Points Contributed:

Tyranii-chan: 3
Matt: 4

Invader Points Contributed:

Jye: 7
K Bushi: 1



Thanks to outstanding performances from the Tarsonian Ashwalkers in particular the Defenders are currently running away with it. Could still be easily run down if the forces of Chaos and the Xenos can come out for 40K and Kill Team in December!

[Jye Nicolson]

Standings after December Games Day:

Defenders: 23
Invaders: 18
Raiders: 17




Defender Points Contributed:

Matt: 17
Balloonacorn: 1
Dave: 5

Invader Points Contributed:

Tallgeese: 4
Jye: 12
K Bushi: 1
Karantu: 1

Raider Points Contributed:

Tyranii-chan: 3
Matt: 4
Jye: 5
Dave: 5



And victory goes to the Defenders, and almost entirely thanks to the efforts of the doughty Tarsonian Ashwalkers - say what you like about the state of the Guard Codex, Matt consistently bringing his army out racked up plenty of wins, and really quite a lot of vengeance for Cadia


For the end of the phase, everyone gets the following prizes:

Defenders (Imperium): 5XP to distribute amongst your roster
Raiders (Xenos) & Invaders (Chaos): 2 RP


For the end of the campaign, the Defenders have 4 Strategic Value points and the Raiders have 2.

- You may spend 1 Strategic Value point to increase any Crusade or Spec Ops tally you are tracking - for example Living Saint progress, or Charadon Achievements tally, or missions of a particular kind won.
- You may spend 2 Strategic Value points to purchase a requistion worth 1 RP and waive its normal requirements (eg you might grant a relic to a character inbetween level ups, or a Saga to a Space Wolf character without needing to activate it in battle). You might want to avoid this if it makes some crucial Requistion feel too easy (for example I'd probably avoid "redeeming" a Sisters Repentia squad I'd barely used just to get the free strats for some Sacresants), but it's a good way to get a story element for a unit that's been with you in the campaign but the stars didn't align for.
- You may spend 2 Strategic Value points to grant a Battle Honour to a unit (remembering units have a maximum of six Battle Honours regardless of source)


For the Invaders, who missed out on Strategic Value points largely due to difficulty making games rather than any lack of performance on the table, there is a consolation prize of 1 RP or 5XP to spread on your roster.


War Diary of Master Inquisitor Tara

I am very pleased to report that my goals have absolutely been accomplished; I can only speculate how little consolation that offers the Fabricator General.

We did not rush to the aid of Metalica. The Fabricator General's tireless efforts to demonstrate how little he cared for any part of the Imperium that he was not literally sitting upon at the time bore plentiful fruit; I found very few of my fellow commanders inclined to save him, and I myself little inclined to persuade them. We have a duty to the imperium and its people, but we can be just as selective as to how to prosecute it as he.

We instead surged outwards, with fire and fury, to secure the Charadon sector itself. And what a tale we made - countless worlds pulled back from the precipice of utter destruction at the last moment as we charged gloriously from the skies. Legio Solaria and House Naga's mighty war engines rendered timely aid, turning back the tide of the enemy's corrupted machines and their unliving crews. The Tarsonian Ashwalkers, utterly tireless, pushed unstinting through victory and defeat alike to turn back the ravenous Tyranid and sorcerous traitor in turn. The people of Charadon have seen that heroes arise and salvation comes when we triumph over despair - and they have begun to hope again.

Thus has a double siege been established - Typhus has assaulted Metalica itself, yet we have ringed him in with reclaimed Imperium worlds. The Fabricator General will no doubt take issue with a strategy that comes at such cost to his Forge World, but the traitors and heretics have no path to victory, and precious few will escape our wrath.

But the deed is not yet done, and I have concerns yet unaddressed - we have seen precious little of the Orks, for all their numbers here. Nor can we assume a Tyranid raid forestalled is one discouraged - both are like to return in greater fury. And Typhus, though a madman, is not a fool. He has had both contingencies and allies in reserve at every step, every reversal somehow feeding in to his next triumph. The apparent disunity of the traitor forces is exploitable on the tactical level but never seems strategically fatal...what fresh horrors will emerge from the warp, jealous of the opportunities for slaughter and glory opened in the plague lord's wake?