More Grimdark Future

We played another game of Grimdark Future, Marines (Dextra Manus) vs Chaos Marines (Red Corsairs). We rolled up a random setup and mission, which gave us only one objective- to be the last man standing in the centre! Clearly vital intelligence was on the body in the crater.

Red Corsairs approach the objective, but there are
lurking loyalists...

Both sides hastened to the objective, abandoning some degree of caution in the rush. I knew that the Dextra Manus Invictor Warsuit would be a tough nut to crack, and had craftily added a lascannon to my traitor squad with a clear view over the battlefield.

Mutual exchange of fire between marines...

Lascannon keeps trying to blast the Invictor Warsuit

What I hadn't expected was... cyberwolves!

No-one expects cyberwolves.

After they tore up one mob of cultists, the lascannon accurately blasted a hole in one. My Sorcerer flamed a second, and the third gloriously charged my daemonically possessed marines. After a tough fight, they took the wolf down.

Lascannon kills one wolf.

Sorcerer kills another

The last wolf has a glorious charge into the Possessed.

I then kept missing with the lascannon, and my possessed were gunned down by the Warsuit. Victory to the loyalists.

Deja vu as the Invictor guns down the Possessed.

I will need to build up a reliable anti-armour capability for this campaign, and maybe look into some mobility.

The wolves have to be shot; fighting them in hand-to-hand is a losing proposition.

40K Red Corsairs: Greater Possessed

As I said last year, the Greater Possessed are Chaos Space Marines who have made a pact with a daemon to possess them, in exchange for unholy power. This will certainly not backfire in any way. They are unnaturally large and daemonically mutated, their armour and backpacks fusing with their flesh and sprouting ectopic teeth, eyes and horns.

Greater Possessed

So I've finally painted up the remaining five of these Greater Possessed. They had been sitting around, mostly done, for about six months. The sheer festoonery of detail on each very individual model was a bit overwhelming, but I knuckled down and am happy to be finished with the painting. The impetus to get them done was their impressive performance against Space Marines in my recent OPR Grimdark Future game.

I've put pictures of the front and back of each model because they're worth a look IMNSHO.

This first chap could be the leader, poised on a tactical rock. Are his thighs armour or flesh? He's got a spike erupting from his left hand and I love his techno-skeletal backpack.

The next chap stand triumphantly over a defeated loyalist- who of course is a Lamenter. This Possessed has big eye stalks on his fleshy backpack.

I really like the power pose of this next guy, as well as the flames on his backpack. His left arm has become some sort of edged weapon, but I wasn't sure if I should paint any of it metallic. The struggle is real trying to parse which bits are bone, teeth, claws, etc.

The next chap's got a daemon sword which I've painted in a cool tone. You can't really see in the picture, but he's got an abdominal tentacle- mirrored by his tongue- which is reaching across his waist to draw a knife from its scabbard. Stabby!

The last bloke's really sprinting with his unnaturally long legs. I wasn't sure if I should pick out the veins on his limbs more, and am glad I left them alone.

So here's the five of them with the two I painted last year, and the Master of Possession.

Skull-o-meter™: 26 (plus 18 from the earlier trio)

Grimdark Future: Chaos vs Marines

I've started to dabble with Grimdark Future. This is a ruleset by One Page Rules, and is available for free here*. GF is a very light alternative for 40K (or other similar games of around platoon- company size). It achieves this by removing nearly all the strategems, rerolls, auras, exceptions, shenanigans, errata, updates, and other special rules that really bog 40K down and prevent it being a casual game. GF remains tense with competition for objectives, and interesting with alternating activations. There are buckets of dice, and units getting destroyed/ routed frequently makes for a quick game! Not to forget it isn't spread across multiple books, and is free.

I lined up my Red Corsairs against my opponent's Space Marines, the Right Hands. The Right Hands all had hand-painted markings on them- respect! We played on a 6'x4' table with three objectives. We chose 1000 points as a smaller game as it was our first with these rules.

Red Corsairs:

• 2x squads of Chaos Marines
• 2x mobs of Cultists
• 1x pack of Possessed Marines

Right Hands:

• 1x Assault Squad
• 1x Infernus (flamethrower) Squad
• 1x Tactical Squad
• 1x Invictor Warsuit

Right Hands Invictor Warsuit

The Right Hands advance on the refinery facilities.
Chaos taint is suspected.

The Warsuit and Assault Squad cover the Marine right.

Here's an overview of what happened. I advanced over a broad front, and my Possessed Marines went loping around from my right. The Right Hands tried to stop them, and did a similar sweep with their Assault Marines on my left.

The Battle. Objectives are numbered.

Right Hands Tactical Squad holds Objective 3

My traitors try to gun them down.

My terrifyingly fast Possessed rip the Right Hands apart.

On my left, cultists face off against Assault Marines...

...and the melee unsurprisingly goes the way of the Astartes.

The Possessed leap onto the Warsuit, and
damage it but cannot take it entirely out.

Final result was a 2:1 win to the Red Corsairs. The cultists were weak and the Warsuit was strong, but the number of bodies gave me an edge. I am going to need to up my anti-armour capabilities...

We're going to try this as a light campaign**, with experience, wounds, and a slow trickle of reinforcements.

The objective markers are Wargames Atlantic Zombies with the bases cut off and limbs reposed. I can see myself making more with era-specific weapons and accoutrements as required. They're on 40mm MDF bases.

*An expanded and still free version of the rules can be found here, and the excellent army builder is here.

** Campaign rules here. They're free as well...

Last War 2. Rescue the medics.

Before:

Mission 0. The Pals- Roll call

Mission 1. Only the dead...

Now...

The Pals are trying to improve their lot in this miserable existence. Hiram's gammy leg is responding to treatment from the Aid Post, but the resident stretcher-bearers went out yesterday and haven't returned...

The Aid Post sister is relieved to have one of her stretcher bearers back, and the menacing sniper cleared from this sector. They focus their efforts on Mr Sing, whose psyche has been affected by this endless war even more than most.

The Pals replenish their precious ammunition. The Quartermaster shares a secret- the engineers are on the verge of getting a tank up and running. Will this be their ticket out of this hellscape?

Another successful stunt! AD Specific was very lucky not to be killed by the sniper. Then Hiram rolled a natural 20 and did some significant damage to the German, following up with another great shot that obviated the need for Private West to batter the sniper to death with a shovel.

'O.P.' really struggled against the rats- they were doing critical hits on him and forcing him to take morale tests. He couldn't wound them back, and they kept stopping him from breaking contact. I think one must have run up his trouser leg!

The corpse markers are the same boardgame pieces I used for mud ghouls in Mission 1, with the bases chopped off and pressed into a muddy 20mm washer. I would have liked to add some helmets, rifles, webbing etc. but I think they fill the part adequately.

15mm corpse markers

The trench rats are 3D prints at 50%.

15mm trench rats

Last War 1. Only the dead have seen the end of war...

Before:

Mission 0. The Pals- Roll-call.

Now...

A heavy fog blanketed no-mans' land, cutting down on ranges. The Germans were completely taken by surprise. I had a few lucky rolls and my concerns about the viability of 15mm for skirmish were assuaged. I'll have to decide what to do with my loot and XP.

The Mud Ghouls were made from some tiny boardgame zombies I had lying around, slopped liberally with mud texture paint. The crates are HO/OO railway scenery.

Mud Ghouls

To be continued!