Hold Please: Scions and Marines vs Tyranids

Part two of the year's narrative campaign, following on from the first (which you can find here). 

It's me, Kraken, along with Pootle. And we're cracking out a golden oldie for tonight's episode - Space Hulk!

"Why are you here?" Commissar Haart asked, staring at the space marine. 

They were standing in some sub-cellar of the shattered city that had somehow survived the orbital strike. Huge cracks ran through the on walls and displaced cables hung from holes in the ceiling. Fallen panels and dust littered the floor, all speaking to the enormous violence that had been done to the metroplex. The little light they had came from the shoulder-mounted lanterns that the Scions carried, sending long shadows reaching out into the darkness from each chunk of debris. They could have been standing on the surface of some desolate moon somewhere in the fringes of a forgotten system.

Despite the dingy gloom, the space marine seemed to glow. Even though his armour was broken and incomplete, his flawless complexion marred by gnarled ridges of scar tissue and his weaponry secured to his waist by crudely cut straps of grey-green leather, he still held himself with a calm poise that gave the basement room the feel of some grand briefing chamber, perhaps the arched bridge of a mighty battle barge. 

"I might ask you the same question. I did not expect to find an Imperial presence here," the marine answered politely. Captain Nampo, he called himself. But Captain Nampo was on board the Millstone of Guilt, fighting the Emperor's foes in another sector. Haart had seen him leave months ago. 

"You left. Your chapter left. You let us die and then walked away. You shouldn't be here!"

"Apologies, but I doubt I can resolve your uncertainty satisfactorily at this time," the Marine said, bowing his head slightly. "Perhaps we can concentrate on other matters? I have spent some time assembling a communication array, located not far from here, I was about to use it to contact a surviving group of my brothers I suspect are operating in the vicinity. When your battlegroup attacked the city, it somewhat riled the Tyranids. This long, I had evaded their attention, but in rescuing you, their attention will have been drawn. We do not have much time. Please, be so good as to follow me."

Nampo turned on his heel and strode off into a dark corridor, apparently undeterred by the lack of light. Haart watched him go, his anger robbing him of all speech. 

"Lord? What do we do?" asked one of the Scions. There were five of them, the two who'd survived the ambush with him and three others, broken remnants of other squads from the strike group who'd sought cover in the basement or been brought there by the marine. They were dirty, scraped, confused and trapped. They needed leadership. 

"Follow him," Haart snapped. 

Scenario

First edition Space Hulk for the game tonight, as we see if the Scions can trigger the communication array and then survive long enough for a rescue. 

Haven't played this in a long time, which is a shame - it's still one of the best games GW made, being quick, relatively simple and most importantly, a pretty decent recreation of the experience it's trying to emulate. We're using a few homebrew rules, some of which I found on the internet and some of which I've made up myself, but other than thanking Stephan Schutze (author of Advanced Space Hulk 1.0) and whoever compiled the Space Hulk 1st Ed Bible (both available online with a minimum of searching), I'll rely on your memory of how the game plays, o reader, rather than get bogged down in explaining mechanics. 

There were still some original paintjobs in the original boxes. Sterling work from thirty-odd years ago...

Basically, the five Scions handle more or less like power armoured marines. They're a bit faster (5APs) and more mobile on the turn. Their lasguns aren't as powerful as a storm bolter, but they also pack krak and frag grenades, and can, if they're next to each other, fire over a single friendly model as they kneel and fire. Don't expect them to achieve much in close combat, though! 

Haart, who has survived no less than four games of 40K in a row without dying, is mildly competent at combat, has a bolt pistol and power fist, and (if he can justify it to himself) can execute troopers within LOS to get extra command points. Captain Nampo has a power sword and plasma pistol, is ever so slightly better in combat again, but a bit slower than the Scions. 

Tonight, I've made up a scenario by borrowing a map from the old Campaigns book. 

The Imperials start on the left, need to get to the room marked Chapel (which tonight is a reactor shaft where the comms array has been built), activate it by spending 4 APs or CPs consecutively, then hold position and await rescue for as long as they can survive. 

I'm getting a pair of Ambush Blips as my starting forces, then one a turn as reinforcements. Initially, I've got a reduced set of blips to draw on - either single Genestealers or packs of Hormagaunts, who count as unarmed Hybrids but I always get to place as many as I can fit on when the blip is converted. 

Pootle often plays Space Hulk at home with his boys, but (and this may not be a surprise for those who know him well) without the timer for the marines. No such crutches for veterans here! So he's got 3.30 on the clock for each turn - that's the standard two minutes, plus thirty seconds each for the Commissar and Captain, and a final bonus 30s for playing over Skype. 

He also gets +2 bonus on his CPs whilst the Captain lives. So even if I'm not telling him the twists I've planned in advance (and this may not be a surprise to those who know me well) he should have all the tools he needs to win the mission! 

Turns 1-5: Your Call Will Be Monitored

Nampo walked calmly and deliberately through the tight corridors, moving broken pipework or wiring rat runs out of his way with one hand, until they reached a cramped room littered with tumbled lockers. Workers clothing lay crumpled in the dusk, and a sealed door blocked the way ahead, although other, open doorways revealed more claustrophobic passages leading away to either side. 

"The xenos may approach from either flank here. Perhaps your troopers might form a firing perimeter," Nampo said, bowing his head with polite deference to Haart. Haart stared back, still feeling off-kilter. Who was he, this captain? Surely not the same impassive giant who had ignored the official request to attend a court of inquiry into his chapter's actions in the war. But how like the Mantis Warriors Haart knew to send others into danger. 

"You cannot protect us from these monsters, then?" he said. 

"Regrettably, my sidearm is damaged and operating at reduced capacity," Nampo said, indicating the bulky plasma pistol strapped at his waist. "Your hotshot guns will be more effective here. Besides, I must instruct you in the operation of my comms array. It is somewhat makeshift."

One of the Scions suddenly loudly slapped his chestplate, then held up one fist. He held up one finger, pointed off to the left, then one finger again and pointed right. He was staring into his wrist-mounted auspex, the neon flare of the screen underlighting his face. 

Two contacts, one to either side. The xenos were already out there. They had to get moving.

The early turns went quickly, without much of a hitch. My initial two ambush markers were both false alarms, detected by quick forays from the Scions into the side corridors. Once they knew the coast was clear, three of them settled into a defensive line at the back as the Commissar, the Captain and the other two took point. 

Pootle hustled, using a bit of a run of high command point turns to get everyone up and in position as quickly as possible. Fairly plain sailing, in fact - a few hormagaunts showed their clawed faces, but those things don't take much to kill off, even with relatively tame guns, and the Scions make a good show of organised killing. 

Before too long, the advance party have the comms array operational, with overlapping fields of fire from all four of them covering the door into the reactor core from the other side of the gantry, whilst their comrades hold the back line with ease. 

Time, of course, for things to get worse - I now get triple the reinforcements each turn!

"Is the second slider aligned to the same polarity as indicated in the upper display panel?" asked Nampo, his gaze never shifting from the darkened archway on the other side of the ancient, creaking gantry. His dented plasma pistol covered the same doorway as unflinchingly, odd shades of violet and crimson rippling through the pure blue glow from the containment coils. 

"Yes, Lord," answered the Scion kneeling by the ramshackle device. 

"Then depress the activation node at the centre bottom," Nampo instructed. 

The Scion obeyed. Immediately, there was a loud, low burp of noise from the device. It seemed rather inadequate for a sub-sonic communication burst, but it still managed to shiver dust from the ceiling and rattle the rusted grating they stood on. Haart blinked and looked down, his eyes catching a single screw tumbling end over end as it fell into the malignant red light far under their feet. The heat from the geothermal plant was stifling, even this far away from it. 

"They are coming," Nampo said, his vigil unbroken.

"Who?" Haart asked, looking back up. "Your battle brothers? How can you be sure?"

"I am not sure at all," Nampo replied. "If any of my chapter are nearby and able to assist us, they will. I spoke, however, of the xenos, who will be attacking in greater numbers now we have alerted them."

"They could detect that signal?" Haart said, mouth dry in the close heat of the room. "Why.. why would you use a signal they could detect?"

"I do not fear them as you do," Nampo said. "I will fight them off until rescue arrives. Your aid is of course greatly appreciated in this matter."

The two Scions exchanged glances across the room. "Shit," one of them said. 

Turns 6-10: Your Call Is Important To Us

Lamprey Trooper Maddigan Tex squinted down the barrel of his hotshot gun, one eye tight shut, and squeezed the trigger. 

The xeno took the blast squarely in the forehead, its ridged skull bursting apart in a hot red flash of energy. The creature's bladed forelimbs thrashed spasmodically against the floor, flickering out impotently as though it tried to avenge its own death, but he'd taken it down at a decent distance this time. The last two had managed to get much nearer. 

"Kill confirmed," he said. Trooper Spoteman swore in Hagan by way of response. 

"Three to me, none to you," Tex said. "Catch up, Graif, or you'll owe me more than a rack of flamaconda ribs when we get back."

Spoteman was kneeling just in front of him, gun resting against a length of fallen girder so he could keep an eye on the auspex. The xenos weren't trying anything clever, just flinging themselves down the tight corridor in packs, relying on their natural speed to get them past the covering fire. It wasn't exactly shooting ratrantulas off a rope bridge, as they used to do during slow patrols in the Crown Mountains, the beasts were far bigger and harder to kill. But neither was it the killing field they'd only just escaped in the city above, and Tex was starting to feel like he was in his element. 

Spoteman's fist shot up again. Two fingers, right side - flankers. 

"I know," Tex said, already shifting right. Even as he did, he saw what was triggering the scanner - a pair of sleek grey critters. Tunnel rats, as omnipresent on this world as any the Imperium owned. 

Another blade-armed killer started its screeching approach from ahead of them. Tex swung his gun back and scorched the creature's legs from under it before Spoteman's shot finished it off. 

"Counts as mine," Tex said. "And calibrate your damn auspex if you get a moment, we can't afford more false alarms like that."

The pressure swiftly builds. Three blips a turn lets me pour hormagaunts, as well as the odd genestealer, against the Scions' defensive lines, which are pretty tight! Pootle has set up well away from the corners, so even if I can advance through the overwatch, I can't reach the troopers in a single turn. So anything that survives the hail of lasfire gets picked apart during his turns. 

I can't lurk round corners too close, or the frag grenades can get me. If I get close enough, krak grenades are more effective. A lone hotshot gun isn't a great defence, but in paired teams, the Scions do great work in keeping the swarm at bay. 

What I do discover is how naff plasma pistols were in the old rules. No overheating, but only a single shot every two turns! Pootle quickly stops putting it into overwatch (I can waste the shot with a single 'gaunt easily enough) and tries to save command points for key shots where he can afford it. 

But it's looking nice and tight, in all honesty. 

Until I start using ambush blips to hit the Scion rearguard from the side...

Spoteman's fist was up again. One finger, right hand... no, his hand was suddenly open and shaking back and forth, a frantic cancel signal. Another rat scan. 

"Come on, dammit, recalibrate!" Tex hissed through clenched teeth. But there wasn't time, there were too many of the damn bugs rushing down the corridor. He primed another grenade and flung it. "Bang out!" he shouted, looked down at the floor long enough to shield his face from the blast, then looked back up, ready to shoot anything that made it through. 

He almost missed the blur of movement from the right. A larger xenos, bigger and more spidery, pounced out of the tunnel they'd originally come from. He swore, firing wildly, but the damn thing was too fast. Spoteman didn't stand a chance on the floor, the thing grabbed his neck with one clawed hand and ripped his side open with the other three. Tex nailed it as it crouched, tearing, over his squadmate, a single close-range blast through the chest. 

"Man down!" he yelled, jaw clenching and heart hammering hard. 

Turns 11-14: To Speak To An Operator, Press 3

As Pootle wisely observes, Space Hulk is a game where the Marines usually start with the upper hand. Longer range trumps melee prowess, and defensive positions usually hold out. Until some lucky bastard sneaks past and disrupts your carefully arranged fields of fire, and then things often go South fast. 

So as the first Scion dies, two more things happen to ramp up the heat. First, I run out of blip tokens. So I get to recycle them, but I'm now going to use the full deck instead of the reduced selection I started with. Lots more Purestrains, that means, which the Scions don't find nearly as easy to take down. 

Second, the phone rings. 

"What the hell is that noise?" Haart yelled. The reactor shaft was seething with cloudy light. Nothing had made it through the door and lived for more than a second, and whenever the creatures tried to hang back, they checked their auspices for lurking contacts, threw their grenades in and hoped. But all those blasts were shaking a lot more dust loose, and it was getting harder to see. Now something was making a shrill, rattling whine. Had they damaged something down there in the reactor?

"Scion on my right," Nampo said with his infuriating polite calm. "Would you be so kind as to advance to the communications device and adjust it to relay an incoming call?"

It takes a couple of rounds for anyone to actually pick up - they're a little busy in there! The newly-arrived packs of Genestealers are immediately testing the killing field, and I get a lucky turn where three of them make a pretty spirited attempt to rush the gantry. This in turn results in blocked lines of sight, partly from the alien bodies but also from the smoke clouds a frag grenade leaves behind, and that means I'm able to shift a bunch more Hormagaunts forward under cover. 

Pootle is up to the task, keeping extremely focussed in his turns and bringing each one down to the wire on the timer. But he gets the job done, once more using his array of grenades and the bonuses from sustained fire to good effect. It gets close, though! 

"Done, Lord!" Trooper Berlc shouted, flinging himself backwards as the advancing Tyranid leapt over the reactor shaft and skidded along the metal decking. 

"Excellently done, Scion. You are a credit to your training," Nampo said. His pistol was held out and to one side, the damaged coils pulsing in a weary indigo as they struggled to rebuild charge. He pressed one finger to his ear, and cocked his head slightly, listening intently, although keeping his keen eyes on the xenos as it scuttled towards the desperately backing trooper. "This is Captain Nampo of the Mantis Warriors," he said. "To whom am I speaking?"

"Holy Fucking Throne of Fucking Terra!" screamed Berlc, kicking at the xeno's back as it tried to get upright. "Die, fucking xenos fucking shit!"

His squadmate stood helpless on the far side of the gantry, pouring lasfire into the doorway as more Tyranids poured through, some dying, some knocking their kin into the shaft in their hurry, some leaping adroitly back to avoid the deadly energy bolts. 

"I see," said Nampo. "Then we shall meet shortly, brother, Emperor willing." 

His plasma pistol chimed, and he instantly straightened his arm and fired, vaporising the scuttling xenos above Berlc just as it finally managed to find its feet and rear up for a killing strike. 

"Commissar! We need to advance. A small band of my brothers are nearby, but we have to move to their position. If you would be so good as to give the order?"

"You heard him!" Haart snapped, firing wildly at the flickering shapes he could barely see down the corridor in front of him. "Move it!"

Turns 15-20: You Are Being Held In A Queue

Yes, with grim inevitability, I have once more switched the goalposts. Ain't I a stinker?

 Now, Pootle has to get at least one of the characters off the board via the exit point on the far right. I do, however, drop back to a single reinforcement blip per turn as the incoming rescue team manage to manipulate a few blast doors by way of help. 

However, it's not looking great. Firstly, the two troopers who were holding the rear have ended up somewhat out of position, off the main corridor with a mass of genestealers ahead of them. I can't really reach them where they are, but nor are they going to be able to advance very easily. 

Similarly, the centre is holding perfectly well. But if there's another great law of Space Hulk, it's that trying to move across the board is much harder than holding still, and there's the very devil of a crossroads between the Imperials and their escape route. I even managed to sneak a lone 'stealer down into the room where the exit is, under cover of frag blasts. 

Obviously, I stop throwing genestealers into the guns at this point, and sit and wait. Pootle is left with a dilemma - there's a nasty run for freedom to make, but the longer he waits, the more reinforcements are going to be lurking there. 

"Come on, keep moving!" Tex snapped. Skelton was making some headway, but was being too cautious. "They're coming in behind us, we'll get trapped if we don't move now!"

"Wait!" Skelton snapped back. "There's one of them just inside the doorway. I can take it out from here, just stop crowding me!"

"Take the shot!" Tex hissed. His auspex chimed. A quick glance showed him movement behind, but nothing to worry him further. After Haart had ordered them to move forward, the xenos had stopped rushing the corridor. He'd taken advantage of the momentary calm to adjust his scanner for mass as well as movement, there was no immediate danger. "Come on, shoot it! It's right there!" 

It was, too, scaled head peering round the door's edge and leaking drool as it stared evilly at them. Its claws scraped the steel frame, raising sparks. 

Tex's auspex chimed again, more urgently. He glanced and froze. Not a rat after all. He must have miscalibrated. 

The next moment of horror comes as I get lucky on another ambush blip. Worth the gamble of a whole turn's reinforcements, this one - poor old trooper Tex gets ganked from behind! This leaves his squadmate alone and in a bad place. 

But Pootle comes up with an excellent plan - using a whole slew of command points, the trooper runs forward, gunning a hormagaunt out of the way en route, makes it all the way to the entry point ahead of him and closes it! One flank is suddenly that little bit more secure, and if I want to reinforce it, it's going to be a long scuttle round the board. 

The trooper is toast, of course, he can't even turn to face the genestealer that ate Tex. What a noble sacrifice, though!

But the Imperials aren't out of the woods. I still have a couple of genestealers left on that side, and plenty more coming from the other. Pootle still has to risk running the gauntlet if he wants to escape, and the longer he waits, the less of a window of opportunity he'll have. It's now or never, so he makes his move...

Alas, the dice gods aren't kind. He gets a lower than average lot of CPs, enough for his heroic scions to move up and form a sort of perimeter. But no overwatch, no grenades, and those genestealers are looking waaaay too close. 

Not so close that there isn't hope, of course. 

"Come on, you toothy freak," trooper Purdet snarled, tossing her combat knife from hand to hand. Her hotshot gun was useless, torn from its power cable and smashed to pieces against the wall by the first creature's charge. She'd all but broken her knife driving it through the brute's carapace, but she'd done it. Wrenched it free, pushed the creature off her, managed to stand. 

The next one was standing over her, almost as though it was waiting for a proper fight. Well by the Throne, she'd give it one, sure as her name was Sue. 

Faster than thought, it lunged. 

Yeah, I can still lose to Scions in close combat when I put my mind to it. The other guy goes down easily enough, however, but I don't think it's worth running into the gap - Pootle has proved extremely adept at mowing the swarm down, and I know it's going to take him at least two turns to run to the exit, where there's still a lurking threat in wait. Let's see him take that on and still guard his rear...

Purdet was down. Haart snatched a krak grenade from his belt as he rounded the corner, flung it and followed up with a couple of shots from his pistol. The genestealer, still engaged in pulling the trooper apart, blew apart wetly as the grenade detonated. He'd wasted the bolts, but this was not a moment for caution. 

"Move!" he roared. Nampo hammered past him, booted feet thundering along the ruined floor. 

If it was Nampo. 

Who am I saving here? he asked himself. I could have run myself, left him to fight. Why am I sending him ahead? 

Because of what his doppleganger did, he realised. He remembered standing on that beach, watching the Tyranids crowd the sand. Seeing his comrades die, men he'd trained with for a whole lifetime. Knowing that the Mantis Warriors had let it happen, used them as bait for a trap. 

This Nampo wouldn't have done that. Even stripped of armour and weapons, he'd saved them from the swarm above. Tried to save them again, with a certainty of purpose and methodical calm under fire that Haart found quite unnerving. Would have saved them, too, if it wasn't for the equally horrific resolve of their mutual enemy. 

This one was a true Astartes, he would swear it. Which meant that the one claiming his name, the one leading their battle brethren out there, wherever they now were, was something else. Something he now realised he would have been ill-equipped to face, had he ever managed to confront it.

Genestealers sprinted towards him out of the smoky dark, armour rustling and eyes gleaming maliciously. 

"Lord Nampo!" he shouted, firing into the oncoming horde. "I shall hold them here. Go! Find the..."

The lead genestealer pounced, and his sentence went unfinished.

Result: It's a win for the Marine! He makes it, just, firing his plasma pistol into the genestealer as he legs it to safety. But it's a costly victory...

Locker Room

Not having played this in years, I found I really enjoyed it! The additional rules for the Scions seemed to work pretty well, the scenario produced a very tense and cinematic game, and we both had fun in the process. All good!

Absolutely, I had a great time! Always fun to play one of Kraken's custom narrative games - they so often end up being an awful lot more balanced than we thought they might be going into them. I did enjoy using the timer - it really added a sense of danger (I'm not planning to introduce this in my 40k games though...).

Apart from Commissar Haart, of course. That's a bit of a blow to the Hagans, he was starting to build quite the reputation. 

Yes, shame about him; for reasons that Kraken appreciates, I'm glad that he died on my watch though. His first outing was as a throwaway character in another fantastic narrative game that he ended up surviving (very much against the odds) and then he refused to die in several more games. Knowing Commissar Haart as I do, I'm pretty sure that he'd be pretty happy with the idea of the mission succeeding despite his own brave death.

Can Nampo reach the other Mantis survivors out there? Will they manage to make it back into the Imperium and track down the imposter? Well, you'll just have to keep tuning in!

I certainly will!