Return of the Sparrow - Harakoni vs Renegades game 2

Yes! We were able to squeeze in another game today! This is the part I love most about once you get the hang of it, it's so easy to play. Sure, you have to remember what your guys are carrying and what skills they have, but at least the core rules flow perfectly fine after a couple of games. This is huge compared to, say, War of the Ring (another new game we've been trying), which is so peculiar it makes my head spin. Which is not to say it's not a cool game (it is, indeed)... but I digress! My point is: we played this game in just one hour! Perfect!

Last time the Harakoni forces on the lush world of Cepheus (I just thought that up, but we do have to come up with a suitable story!) were caught completely off-guard by the sudden revolt led my Major Sturmm. When the 11th Harakoni sent out a team to assassinate Sturmm (after having shot his transport skimmer from the sky), they were repulsed and badly blooded.

Now, further action saw Sturmm trying to take control of a key area in one of the planet's overgrown ruined cities (which remain strategic locations). The Harakoni goal: to eliminate the renegade scouting parties, convincing Sturmm there was no way he'd be able to go up against the might of the loyalist forces.

Harakoni game 6
Renegades game 2

Scenario: Occupy (capture D3+2 buildings: in our case 3). The game would last a maximum of 8 turns.

Small disclaimer: after the asswhooping I received in my opening game with Sturmm, this report will indeed be very much one sided. Just so you know, I'm rooting for me.

Initial setup

Table overview. Objective buildings were the 'church' to the north, the 'fortress' to the southwest and the combi-building made out of two smaller pieces of terrain to the southeast.


Some of the terrain must be familiar to you now, but nevertheless you can see my attempts to remedy that! I'm planning on covering an entire 4' by 4' table with those terrain tiles you see there. That's still a long way off!

Sturmm rolled highest for setup and he chose the 'northern' board edge.




Captain Aetos and his men deployed south (this is just one of the two groups, I completely messed up a couple of pics).


Turn 1
In addition to setting up first, Sturmm also took the first turn (aiieeee more good dicerolling!) and spent it sending his men upfield. They immediately grabbed an objective building, but sacrificed their shooting to do it (needless to say, there was no one in range).

Captain Aetos had only one thing on his mind: VENGEANCE! for the thrashing Sturmm's team had given him last time 'round! I'm gonna get you, Austin Powers! The Harakoni moved up and took the other two buildings! Nothing to shoot here, either.

Ogryn 'Tiny' (even more aptly renamed 'Brevis') a trooper and the new Priest (rathead!) secure the church for the Renegades.


Overview after the first turn. Note the Harakoni in the southern buildings. Sturmm's men can be seen moving up the flanks.


Turn 2
Another turn was spent getting the men into position. The Renegades cracked off a few harmless shots. Indeed the Harakoni didn't do much better: though they were able to down some of the cannon fodder closing in on them, no actual kills were made.

The first wave of Renegades is about to hit the already entrenched Harakoni (I thought they were droptroopers, but they turned out to be fine Kriegsmen!):


Things are getting busy on the Harakoni left flank:


Turn 3
With pretty much everyone in range, Sturmm gives the order to fire and the Renegades let rip! Brevis draws first blood by pumping rounds into the freshly recruited Harakoni sergeant (the one holding the map, you remember him ). The rest of the Harakoni turn out to be, as mentioned, as resilient as the Death Korp: cover saves galore!

Captain Aetos, by now again fully equipped (but now with a chainsword instead of his powerfist!) roared a battlecry and ordered his men to return fire. Sniping from the ruined fortress, one Harakoni lieutenant instantly picked off a Renegade trooper with a shotgun. The rookie officer (having been promoted from recruit status two games back) gave proper covering fire to his CO and neatly downed Aetos' intended target. With far more pleasure than justified (considering it was just cannon fodder!) Aetos charged, swung down his chainsword and splattered the meathead's intrails into the fresh green grass (but dang did it feel good).

The situation just before the end of this turn on the left flank and Aetos' charge. Note the Renegade Priest near the left end of the tile.


A picture of the left flank, with the knocked down flamer still alive (but just for a few more seconds!):


Turn 4
The Renegade Priest hiding behind the fortress tower charged inside, where a recruit had been exchanging shots with Sturmm himself (who was giving 'covering fire' aaaall the way back from the church - like a truly hero! [/sarcasm]). Apparantly talk was the Priests' game, as he was unable to land even a single blow on the lowly recruit. Brevis, over at the other end of the battle, showed him how it was done by clubbing the Harakoni flamer to death (again... crap... not to mention he died in the post battle sequence... again).

By now I should probably mention I had sacrificed... something to the dice gods. Remember my abysmal rolling from last game? Weeell... it was gone and back where it belonged: Sturmm could not stop rolling 1's! Mwuahahaha!

So when the Harakoni opened fire again, Renegades fell like flies: Private Locke started the round by singlehandedly punching Brevis full of holes. Sure, the Ogryn'd lost a wound to the flamer two turns back, but that was nothing compared to Locke's FOUR wounds (two criticals, one exit wound and a master shot... BOOYAH!). Locke & Load, bitches. Then the resident rambo (look for him in the pics) sliced up another meathead, after which the crackshot Lieutenant from earlier deftly sliced the Priest into ratburgers in a countercharge.

The rathead Priest on the left, just before his final charge into faildom:


Rambo celebrating his kill:


Aetos consolidates his men in the fortress:


Turn 5
In a final attempt to get something done, Sturmm's men could hit virtually nothing, let alone dish out damage. The 1's, oh the 1's! The humanity! Needless to say, no Harakoni were harmed during the making of this turn.

Looking to secure their fast becoming evident victory, Aetos moved two troopers downfield towards the second building, in case Sturmm decided for a final push. More useful in this game than he was in all his previous games combined, Aetos himself performed another coup-de-grace on a downed meathead and then self-confidently lit a sigar to celebrate.

The Harakoni fan out to support their right flank:


Feeling very full of himself, Aetos poses for the camera:


Turn 5
Having lost over half his squad, Sturmm weighed his options, but decided there was no way to win this battle. Not wasting more troops on a possible draw, he routed his squad!

Victory to the Sparrows!

Post battle sequence
Oh boy. Now I was almost starting to feel sorry for dear Sturmm (almost... mwuahaha). As he rolled to see which troopers would die and which would live, he rolled more 1's! I think he lost four recruits and sergeant Bilko tumbled down a sewer entrance!

The Harakoni did far better, earning a lot of credits and without any casualtis.... BUT of course it wasn't all good: the freshly recruited sergeant was CAPTURED by the renegades! That is... until I remembered afterwards I hadn't used my medic re-roll (my medic SURVIVED! omg!). So Sturmmy and I will have to sort that out. I fear it will end with me being the punching bag during our next training, hehe...

Besides my hideous bias and overwhelming need to win (must... redeem... honor!) this was a fun game for me, but a frustrating 1-fest for Sturmm. But I think he had fun anyway.

Thanks for reading, guys! Hope you enjoyed (I did... too much). Mord, you can expect more data in the appropriate thread, soon. (:

Ah well, yes ... ehm ... It did hurt. Oh yes. I was really as "good" as ever on the dice rolls. Men, this sucks! Curses!
But! It was a fun game anyway. Still drunk of bloodlust as a result of my first game and victory I guess I was over confident. The biggest mistake apart from bad dice rolling has to be the fact that I tried to take on all three buildings at once. What I should have done I think, was to capture the Church with one group; dig in with shooters and let Aetos come to me! The other group should attack just one of the other buildings and save the ***beep*** day.
I thought I had captured me a sergeant, but Aetos starts whining. I hate it when he does that. Be a man! Always another trick up his sleeve the little bugger. But I made him an offer he should not refuse (Tuesday! Tuesday! Tueeeesday!); something to ease my pain and bad temper.
Right! Back to bootcamp for training and the depot for some serious shit and then plot my unavoidable and sure to be revenge ...

I'll be back! Major Sturmm

Awesome pics and battle report.

Great pics and report as always!

The Harakoni are back! (Sorry Sturmm but its gotta be IG for me!).

Superb job

Laney

I am considering my old tactics in my younger days with a game like Stratego (know it?). Worked for me all the time! We'll see how it works out now ... Somebody should come up with a rule that maximises the amount of 1's you are allowed to roll especially when you don't need them! AAAARGHHHH!
And yes, I'm not dark enough I'm afraid. I returned my Preacher's bitch to Arachas so he can re-roll for him. I'm becoming soft. Old age I guess ...

Sturmm

You sexy young thing, you!

Some observations:

• Giving my Lieutenants longer ranged weaponry was a good move. Their BS4, previously wasted on pistols, now allowed them to walk around and pick off targets. Standing still they were even better, obviously. The thing that counted here was enabling them to fire twice at short range with the lasguns. That made a huge difference, compared to their puny single shot pistols (assuming they moved, of course). Bottom line: enemies were dropping like flies, where they were usually left standing.
  
• Then there's their WS4 (WS5 on one of them!) that made them deadly in the countercharge. In fact, that tactic worked pretty well this time 'round: I took a position, fired away and as soon as the many Renegades moved in, I countered with my own swordfighters.
  
• Naturally I rolled way better than last game, so that does matter, too.
  
• Sturmm is right: he should have concentrated on one building. That would have forced me to move more troops earlier (who now had time to pick off targets at a longer range.

Genau!

Arachas wrote:

Small disclaimer: after the asswhooping I received in my opening game with Sturmm, this report will indeed be very much one sided. Just so you know, I'm rooting for me.

I almost peed my pants! Hahaha... FANTASTIC!

Did my eyes deceived me... but you have TLRB in an iPad? AWESOME! You guys are too cool for me... can I be YOUR friend? The terrain is looking awesome! Keep it up! hehehe. I'm glad you guys are discovering how to use your Squads... part of the fun. When you change Squads (eventually), it will be VERY different! Hehehe.

Last... I think you guys need to see this thread. I think we have a Snake Abuser... hehehehe!

Great game... glad to see you guys are having fun forging adversarial contests! MORE!

Mordheimer wrote:

Did my eyes deceived me... but you have TLRB in an iPad? AWESOME! You guys are too cool for me... can I be YOUR friend? The terrain is looking awesome! Keep it up! hehehe. I'm glad you guys are discovering how to use your Squads... part of the fun. When you change Squads (eventually), it will be VERY different! Hehehe.

Last... I think you guys need to see this thread. I think we have a Snake Abuser... hehehehe!

Great game... glad to see you guys are having fun forging adversarial contests! MORE!

ROFL! Yes, Sturmm has robbed many a snake of its eyes. Then again, so have I.

And don't you DARE presume I have anything to do with those sharks at Apple. What you see in the picture is a Samsung Galaxy S! I have one, Prius has one... and it runs on ANDROID! Which = win. But yes, I check the rules on it. Which is admittedly quite awesome.