It was all about the cultists. They had it coming, they knew they had it coming, the sad thing is they
still do. Of course back then they weren't known to be cultists, not by most anyway. Most people assumed
them to be an Escher gang, although looking back the turncoats from the other houses should have given
it away. They called themselves the Darkness of Light and had been the toughest gang in the dome for
a while.
It wasn't really our fight but Ho had asked us to help so we did. Ho was leader of the
Reconstituted Red Army Faction (Shining Path), technically they were a rival gang but we had similar
aims and tended to work together. Now the Faction had a major grudge against the cultists. What'd
happened was the Darkness had pulled a hit and the Faction's late leader Fidel. There was more history
even before that, hence why the Darkness pulled the hit in the first place, but it was the success of
this hit which made the Darkness stand out from the Factions many other grudges. Now we hadn't fought
the Darkness ourselves so it was news to me that they were really a genestealer cult. In fact at first
I didn't beleive Ho, there hadn't been a 'stealer sighting in ages. Stark put me straight on the nature
of these aliens and why they have their name.
It seems that these things don't breed in the same way
as us humans, instead they have to kinda borrow someone elses breeding process. The 'stealer will
implant his victim with some kind of egg or something and then when the victim breeds the offspring will
contain some of the 'stealer blood. Now these hybrids can somehow produce new 'stealers, Stark's not
exactly sure how. Now any sane person wouldn't breed if they knew they were infected by a 'stealer so
the 'stealers use some kind of mind control to enslave their victims.
So anyway, we decided to help
the Faction track down these monsters and eventually we manage to track a few of them down to the
settlement of Subway-Rock. Obviously me and the lads can't really go wondering straight into any old
settlement so the Faction went in alone to search for the enemy whilst we waited outside ready to move
in at the first sign of trouble. When we heard the gun-fire I checked my viewer and found not only had
a contingent of the Faction stumbled across the entire cult but some Cawdor Gang had decided to muscle
in on the action too.
As the passage above describes, this game was largely about the Reconstituted Red Army Faction (Shining Path) getting revenge on The Darkness of Light after the Faction's leader had been killed in the Hit scenario. As Scott (Darkness of Light) had known the Joe (Red Army Faction) had wanted revenge for a while we decided to start the scenario with a similar back-firing ambush to the Hunters Scenario. Two other players were involved, Me playing the Faction's allies, Gorg's Avenger's, and Andy using his Cawdor gang, The Disciples Of Our Painless Salvation By The Emporer's Eternal Sacrifice (or the Painless for short).
This is a scenario for four gangs, the Hunters, the Hunted, the hunters Allies and the Interlopers. The Hunted have grown tired of hiding and set a trap get the Hunters off thier backs. The Interlopers have noticed the two gangs facing off against each other and decide to take the opportunity to wipe out two of their enemies at once. The Allies rush to help the Hunters as soon as the fighting starts.
When we played the Darkness of Light were the Hunted, the Red Army Faction were the Hunters, Gorg's Avengers were the Allies and the Painless were the Interlopers.
Scenery:
The table should have a reasonably clear area in the centre and several reasonably solid buildings
(Space Marine Fire-Base, Space Marine Bastion, Imperial Bastion, Imperial Guard Command Tower,
Imperial Power Plant, etc.) intersperced with the Necromunda scenery around the outside. A 6ft by 4ft
table works well.
Setup:
D6 members of the Hunted should be selected to face off against D6 random members of the Hunters
(The Hunted can select who the bait for their trap would be where as the Hunters are
spread out throughout the settlement and so are selected randomly). The two groups should be setup 16
inches apart in the center of the table parallel to the long table edges. The rest of the Hunted
then setup in the buildings along one of the long edges. The Interlopers then select one of the buildings
along one of the other edges and setup in that building. None of the Allies are setup initially.
The Build-Up:
The models in the face off in the center move and roll for nerve as in the Shoot-out scenario, every
turn the Interlopers are allowed to move each of their models as they try to sneak into a better position
to take advantage of the situation, only models with the infiltration skill are allowed to run. When
one of the facing off gangs nerve goes a fast draw should be performed between these models. Each of the gangs
on table then roll D6 to determine order of play, the Allies turn is in the slot immediatly
before the Hunters (if the Hunters went first the Allies would go last, otherwise they
go immediately before the Hunters).
Reinforcements:
At the start of each of their turns the Hunters get D3 reinforcements as they rush in from
around the settlement. These turn up on a randomly determined edge, D6 was rolled, assuming the
Hunted's edge to be opposite, 1=the right hand edge, 2=the right third of the near edge, 3-4=the
centre third of the near edge, 5=the left third of the near edge, and 6=the left hand edge.
The Allies put more planning into their arrival as they are assumed to be together when they here about
the fight (on the news or in our case via the Viewer piece of archeotech). At the
start of each of their turns a group of one or more models may attempt to enter the board, roll D6,
if the roll is equal to or greater than the number of models in the group then they may be brought on at
any one of the sections listed for the Hunters, rather than determining this randomly.
Bottle Checks:
As they are determined to do as much damage to each other as possible the Hunters and the Hunted do
not need to take bottle checks until they have 50% of they're number down/out as long as the other gang
is still on the table. Other than that all bottle checks are taken at the usual 25% down/out.
Rep and Underdog bonuses:
As the benefits/disadvantages of each gang in this scenario depended very much on the behavior of the
other gangs the usual methods for calculating Rep and Underdog bonus are ignored. Instead these can be
decided by the other players before or after the game depending on whether you know think you know
the attitudes of the various gangs before the game.
Note: There is nothing to stop the Allies and the Hunters attacking each other if the alliance is not
very strong.
I sent Stark and Pietro round the flank, told Blake, Vance and Clint to go after the Cawdor gang whilst
Mr. Fixit and myself took the quickest route to get at the cultists. When I arrived with Mr. Fixit we
found Faction reinforcements already arriving, the Faction members in the open were already on the floor
bleeding, the Cawdor gang (whom I now know were the Painless) seemed to be concentrating most of thier
firepower on the Cultists but the Faction weren't taking any chances and had already attacked the
religious wackos. As we advanced on the cultists the Faction members advanced with us and the cultists
withdrew into a defensive formation in one of the buildings. The openground in between us and the
cultists had been turned into a shooting gallery and several of the Faction (who seemed to be getting a
nice steady stream of reinforcements whilst the rest of my men had failed to arrive) had been shot down.
Fixit and myself decided to try and work our way around the edge of the openground, a tactic which some
of the Faction had started to employ too, although Ho himself charged straight towards the cult.
Meanwhile the Painless were starting to suffer casualties from the Faction's shooting but continued to
target the cultists. The cultists themselves hadn't suffered a single casualty. The cult leader had
been shot at accurately several times but the shots had stopped a couple of feet ahead of her (or,
according to Stark, it, apprently the humunoid leader of a genestealer cult is an androgenous being
called a Magus) as if she had some kind of protective forcefield. Ho finally managed to get the first
cultist by charging it in hand to hand. I managed to lay a second cultist out with a shot from my
bolt pistol. The Cawdor's finally grew tired of being attacked by the faction and started shooting back.
And so the firefight continued, I still hadn't seen any sign of the other 'Vengers. The exchange of fire
between the Painless and the Faction was taking a toll on both sides whilst the Darkness seemed well
dug in and were also taking a toll on the Factions numbers and even managed to put Fixit down. To top it
off the cultist I'd put down struggled to his feet again. The attack on the cultists was generally not
going well. Feeling that something needed to be done to stem the fire pouring into the ranks of the
Faction I stepped into the open and challenged the cultists to kill me if the could and so a lot
of cultists firepower was diverted to me including the magus who seemed to be able to take the junk from
the floor and throw a storm of it at me. As I stood there with bullets and garbage bouncing off metal
and flesh I noticed Fixit recover, and Stark and Pietro arrive. The Faction and the Painless continued
thier shoot-out with heavy casualties on both sides, the Faction were able to make more progress on the
open ground now that some of the cultists firepower was coming my way but they had already taken too
many casualties. Blake, Vance and Clint finally turned up and assisted the Faction attacking the
Cawdor's. Stark and Pietro continued their flanking manouver whilst I was still pinned by enemy fire.
Fixit and the Faction continued to try and advance on the cultists but were unable to cover the final
distance without being shot at. In the battle with the Cawdor's one of the religous freak boys managed
to fumble one of his grenades causing a minor hive quake so that rumble started to fall from above. As
Stark and Pietro approached on the flank Fixit fell again as the central attack was all but halted, this
left Stark and Pietro with more attention from the cultists than I'd anticipated. As we continued our
attack on the Painless, Clint fell along with some faction members. When the cultists attack Stark and
Pietro, Pietro went down quick but Stark held his own in the bitter struggle. As Vance and the cultists
heavy were both hit by falling rubble and knocked unconcious the Painless and the Faction both turned
and ran leaving us against the cultists. When mine and Stark's armour plating finally failled us Blake
knew that it was time to go. So the cultists managed to defend themselves.
The only good thing to come
out of this conflict was that the cult was finally exposed when the Painless reported them. Though I
hear rumours of both the Arbitrators and the Inquistion taking a new intrest in our dome.