Grimdark Future: Red Corsairs vs a Knight

Just some photos of our latest game- we pulled out all the stops to have a big battle, that lasted several hours. The main drawcard was the intimidating knight! I was torn between trying to bring it down or ignoring it, and pathetically chose a terrible mixture of the two. I did a lot of damage, but couldn't bring it to its armour-plated knees. There are optional rules for accumulating damage, which I may consider in the future- otherwise a warmachine with one wound left operates at full strength, but a platoon with one guy left is pretty useless.

Stompy robot! With hand-painted markings.

Hordes of cultists. The movement bases are a real time-saver.

The lascannons did a lot of damage.

My elite close combat squad flubbed their moment and got taken out.

The wolves ripped the cultists apart.

The spider chased the wolf up the side of the building.

The spider charged the knight but got squished underfoot.

My commanders scaled the building to attack the knight, but couldn't kill it.

This was our biggest battle yet, and it was a bit of a drain in the evening. But we played it to a satisfying conclusion, and got some big toys out.

Grimdark Future: Chaos vs. Marines

They do not know why they are here- all they know is they must fight.

My Red Corsairs face off against the Dextra Manus Marines again. We fought in June but it was a very one-sided affair, with my cultists being swept off the board and I didn't take photos. But I've been selling my soul for dark gifts, and my Legionaries are reinforced with some stronger hitting power... We played a 2000 point game of Grimdark Future, jostling for possession of the objectives marked with corpses.

The foes face off again.

The Dextra Manus have come with strong armoured support in the form of a Redemptor Dreadnought and a Gladiator Lancer hovertank.

The Gladiator attacks my Havoc heavy weapon
specialists, its main threat.

The lascannons return fire, but the tank soaks up the hits.

I, too, have armoured support:

Venomcrawler!

The Venomcrawler daemon engine scuttles forwards on my left...

... but is overtaken by the terrifying Possessed marines.

Behind the loyalists, the warp rips open
and Obliterators teleport into action!

Obliterators!

Their weapons tear the marines apart.

The Possessed rip apart a squad of assault marines
and their captain.

In turn, they fall to the cyberwolf cavalry...

... who are trampled beneath the metal legs of the Venomcrawler.

The Gladiator and the Havocs exchange fire.

The Havocs succumb to the armoured might of the tank.

My Commander uses his psychic might to finally silence the tank.

The sole survivor, the Dreadnought,
impotently fires at the Venomcrawler and withdraws.

A 4-3 victory to the ruinous powers. I had some lucky dice rolls, and it was a characteristically fast and brutal game.

I'll be showing off my latest recruits over the next few weeks.

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.

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...