It's a Trap!

Necromunda! General Rapid and I had nothing better to do on a Monday night. Because there is nothing better to do on Monday nights.

Since their first outing, the chaos cultists of Omega Dawn had been waiting for a chance to redeem themselves. As is the case with many untrained militias, their first glimpse of action wasn't perhaps the unveiling of a heretofore unseen and undreamt of power. More a sort of involuntary base jumping course, complete with self-immolation. This time, of course, the true might of the cult cell will reveal itself. 

For my part, I've been assembling a few bits of scenery, and was keen to see how they handle. They're not painted yet, so pardon the photos. Playing over Skype, I also decided not to use most of my hive tunnel walls - they make it much harder to see what's going on, and if I was going down the unpainted scenery route, I may as well embrace it. 

We rolled for a random mission - Trap! So my novice Delaque team, the New Knights, would be stumbling through the underhive, oblivious to the fact they'd walked into a cult ambush. 

Cult in a Trap

I set up in the middle of a crossroads, which just so happened to be a new tile I'd stuck together with an electrical forcefield. You'd have to turn it off to move through safely, although when the Spawn set up on the other side of the field, I instantly reconsidered that. Rapid sent a cult handler with the Spawn, who'd rolled fairly poorly for its stats and wasn't the tank it had been last time, so there was a chance he could turn the field off to unleash the beast. 

The early turns, as you'd expect from a pair of novice gangs, weren't all that decisive. My lot sprinted off sideways, leaving about half the gang to hold the door as the others raced to counter-ambush the cult. This got off to a poor start - my juve didn't get as far as I'd hoped, and the cult Witch shot him down with a laspistol. Panic immediately gripped my team, and one of the senior gangers legged it, further off and out of the action. 

Run for the shadows! Hug them!

As we closed in on each other, we took it in turns to roll some pretty splendid sets of whiffs. My counter ambush worked a treat, in the end, with my gang leader heading a well-coordinated charge into the incoming Witch. Even though I'd weakened them with flash grenades and barrages of pistol fire, it did nothing at all, other than expose my sniper champion to a round of heavy weapon fire that took him out of the game. 

Lesson learned - don't stand in front of all the enemy firepower and trust in your leather coat to save you.

On the plus side, my guys were holding the gate pretty well. The Spawn's handler got mummified by a web pistol, which was great, but I also ran out of web juice for the rest of the game. Spidey would be proud. That left the Spawn stuck behind the field, and it went off as an early casualty, picked off by poisoned dart fire from Delaque flechette pistols. 

In revenge, the cult smashed through an intervening door and flooded my position with frag grenades. Although my team got thrown about a lot, so my defence was pretty confused and ineffectual, I was thanking my lucky stars for flak armour. It gets better against blasts and templates, and the extra pip kept pulling my fat from the fire. 

Delaque's the Way (uhuh uhuh) I Like It

Rapid's luck slowly turned - he was getting hit after hit in, but my guys kept getting up with flesh wounds. The Witch got smacked down by the Delaque leader's shock stave, that flank collapsed, and I could pull gangers back to help hold the gate. 

That didn't help much - the sly cult Demagogue rallied her troops and put new pressure on the collapsed side, whilst the others rained grenades through the electrical field, leaving me in disarray. My one attempt to buy time and reorganise, a smoke grenade to block their lines of sight, went badly wrong, the grenadier throwing the bomb backwards over his shoulder and further stuffing up my lines of sight. 

Throw the round bit, not the pin!

But the cult's casualties were piling up. Unable to get through the field and running low on ammo, the Demagogue's attempt to retake the flank got off to a poor start as her brave cultist took a stave beating from my leader. Could their nerve hold long enough to break my gang?

Field Save

Not quite, was the answer. 

My team now outnumbered the cultists on the other side of the gate, so I was desperately trying to turn the field off so I could flood through and put my short-ranged pistol firepower to work. Nobody had read the manual, though, so I spent some time flicking switches as the cult's champions bounced grenades into our midst. 

Then their nerve finally failed! The mission's terms said that as soon as one gang bottled, there was a fifty-fifty chance that this was the final turn, and so it proved. 

There! A face in the window!

With a final chance to turn this around, Rapid's leader charged mine and took him out in a barrage of chainsword hits. At the same time, the fight across the gate switched back and forth. Two of my guys went down as the heavy stubber started pouring crossfire through a barricade, but then I finally turned the field off and charged through, taking out the cult's other Disciple with poisoned knives. 

And then the cult were gone, darting back into the shadows before I could consolidate. Who had won?

The Doctor is In

Well, it hadn't been a particularly decisive fight, more a ragged and desperate scrap on both sides. Omega Dawn had lost more guys, but the game was scored on victory points, and valuable team members were worth more. By kitting my leader out with some fine new scars, the cult had pulled it up to a draw. Nobody won!

Taking what meagre spoils we could, we went through the post-battle sequence. Both of us sported some nice new injuries (a humiliated Witch and a brain-damaged Delaque), plus people who needed critical care from a hive Doc. Luckily, the doctor was feeling cheap today, and we both kept our wounded minions alive for a handful of credits. 

Nobody had learnt enough from their experience to improve themselves yet, so off to the shops. A scrap shield for the Cultists, giving a bit of extra armour in close combat, and a telescopic gunsight for the Delaque that I gave to the sniper, along with a new pistol to put it on. Nothing game breaking, but all handy. 

The Cult then performed a nice little ritual, and managed to attract the favour of the Architect of Fate. Tzeentchian cultists! And a handy one-off bonus for next time, allowing a single shot to ignore all penalties to hit. 

Good battle, too, plenty of very Necromundan moments. I'm looking forward to getting more of the scenery done, and playing more against whoever fancies it!