Get Ynn the Back of the Van: Custodes vs Ynnari

Fight night! 

Nampo is still out on campaign, desperately trying to catch up to his stolen command and get it back from the Alpha Legion. Having fallen foul of the Custodes as he tries to get off Drawbridge, he's got some apologising to do...

 "There is no reason for us to help you," the Custodian said. 

Nampo faced the towering immortal across the ship's bridge. Arched viewing portals made of three-foot-thick armoured glass surrounded them on three sides, the tiered consoles of the command decks receded into the dim vastness of the chamber on the fourth. A darkened holovid display stood between them, recessed floor lights sending feeble columns of blueish illumination upwards towards the distant ceiling. 

"I might suggest plenty. Traitors have taken my command into key Imperial supply worlds. We must locate them and stop them before they..."

"No." 

Even without his imposing black and silver armour, the Custodian was taller than Nampo by a full head. His face was a slab of angular muscle and taught jawline from which dauntless eyes glared fiercely. He was clearly in no mood to argue, and despite his own desperation, Nampo knew he couldn't push the warrior. 

"No, Captain, you must cede to me here. You assaulted our craft, you have depleted my forces. You have no idea the damage you have wrought, nor the essential nature of our task here."

"Please, enlighten me," the Mantis Warrior asked gently. "My quarrel is not with you, nor would I willingly have clashed with your command had necessity not forced me to the extremity. I knew I trespassed on this vessel, but not whom I trespassed against. If there is a possibility for forgiveness, I would willingly make amends."

"Ever apologising, I see," the Custodian grunted. "Mantis Warriors are famous for it. Perhaps if you thought about consequences more before acting, your reputation might be better." Nampo's politeness masked his deep fury at this jibe perfectly, or so he thought. The Custodian's eyes must have detected some tiny sign, even in the dim light, for he grimaced and looked down, before sighing. 

"Ach, strike that. You are not without honour, despite your recent actions. Very well - I acknowledge your explanation and accept your apology. I shall also accept your penance."

"Penance?" Nampo said. 

"Yes, marine. You will remain under my command until I deem you to have earned release. My mission here on Drawbridge has been compromised by the losses you inflicted. You can take their place. Or you can rot in a cell on this barge if you'd rather!" The Custodian, sensing Nampo's frustration again, cut past his protest before he could make it. "I am a Shadowkeeper. None leave our custody without permission. Serve, or you'll be with us for a long time."

Nampo swallowed his pride. "Very well. Tell me what you need."

The Custodian nodded slightly. "Wise." He stared sourly at Nampo a moment longer, then leaned forward and pressed a thumb against one of the holovid panels. Images flickered in the air between the two men as the machine juddered and wheezed to life. 

"Drawbridge, the northern continent. You are familiar with the Webway of the Aeldari, I assume? Well, there's a part of it here. I don't have time to explain how we know, but there will be a convoy of the slippery xenos moving between two gates tomorrow night. The convoy holds several of the most dangerous of their kind, entities who pose a vast threat to the Imperium. If we can capture or kill them in the few minutes they'll be on the planet, countless lives will be saved. 

"We have one chance at this. You'll join us in blockading the exit gate. My jetbikes will be moving in behind, giving them something to flee. Hopefully, they'll be moving too fast to spot our ambush. Take them out however you can, let nothing pass. Help us succeed, and I shall forget the damage you've done."

Nampo stared at the topographical map, the swift red blips that marked a group of grav-tanks. He'd seen them in action before. Could foot troops really stop them? Even such legendary ones as the Custodes? 

Forces

After painting all those Eldar tanks for Leofa, it seemed a shame not to try and beat them up before they left. A bunch of tanks and some vicious characters makes for a strange army list, but Arks of Omen is down with that. So 1300 points gets the space elves no less than five hulls, although no more than three of them can be on the table at once. There's a Fire Prism, a Night Spinner, two Falcons and a Wave Serpent all in all - fast and probably furious too.

Going into these are a buffed up Autarch and a Farseer, along with the Ynnari named characters (the Visarch and Yvraine). They're all running as Ynnari, which gives them Strength From Death, an army trait that makes them better at hitting units below half strength, as well as always going first in melee. 

Against them, I'm taking slightly fewer points. A fairly standard set of Custodes, mostly troops, backed by an Achillus Dreadnought, some Jetbikes and poor old Captain Nampo, tonight wearing his Gravis Armour so he doesn't look too small in front of the big chaps. A row of Prosecutors make up the numbers, plus hopefully stop the Aeldari witches hurting me too much.

Their Shield-Captain is in Allarus armour, and has a trait to make him angrier when wounded, the teleporting hilarity of the Praetorian Plate and the extra points spent to make him even better at duffing up characters. They're running as Shadowkeepers, who are better at that anyway. So although I'm not really tooled for shooting, and the fast tanks are quite capable of running past (or even through) me, if I do get into combat, they'll be sorry. And heaven help any of those characters I actually get to grips with!

Terrible photo, sorry!

Mission, Terrain and Deployment

Homebrew narrative here, and frosty ruins!

We're playing along the length of a 6x3' table. Leofa has to get at least two characters off the top end, I'm deployed in a thin line about two-thirds of the way along, split on either side of the big castle. 

No deep strikes allowed, but Leofa's replacement tanks (if I manage to get any) will be allowed to flank from the sides as long as it isn't within 9" of my lot. This might sound like it could be abused, but Leofa very sportingly put all his characters in the Wave Serpent and started it on the board, so there was no chance of goal hanging later on. 

My Jetbikes will turn up on round three from his starting edge, so he'd better make himself scarce... It's a long way to go in five short turns, so he can't hang back shooting very much. Which is a huge relief to me, because my guns are not tooled for anti-tank, and he'll have to fly past me to escape!

The roll-off goes to Leofa, so the Ynnari go first. 

Turn 1

All three tanks sweep forwards, and then open up with a fairly feisty selection of guns. Leofa is quite sensibly worried about the dreadnought, which gets struck by a terrifying selection of armour-eating lasers. 

But my luck is on point and his is definitely not! Despite the Autarch's help (a warlord trait that allows two command rerolls per phase rather than one), most of the lasers miss or bounce off my ward save, and I'm left standing and unharmed, much to his frustration. 

So my lines bound forward with one of the faster Katahs, peppering the tanks with small arms for a couple of light wounds here and there, but I'm nowhere near charge range. 

Turn 2

And so it stays, because Leofa keeps his tanks in place, opting for another round of shooting. This time, even though his luck stays lousy, the extra rerolls come in handy. The Dreadnought takes an absolute walloping from all three tanks, and collapses in bits, and there's even enough spare to take out a Sagittarum Guard. 

Zorch! Hell of a gun, that Fire Prism.

Well, I'm not having that. Capitalizing on the fact that they're standing still and the Rendax Katah for vehicle killing, I barrel in swiftly. Nampo can't make a long bomb against the Falcon, but the two Sagittarii grab the front end of the Fire Prism and start pulling bits off. It survives on four wounds, which isn't a bad start for two dudes with swords.

Turn 3

It's not great, though. The Wave Serpent is quite happy to drive straight past the incoming Prosectors, as well as mow half of them down with shuriken fire. The Falcon lances Nampo, and although his Iron Halo and a reroll just save him, the Bright Lance leaves him on a single wound. 

Opting to leave the Fire Prism in combat is a mistake, though. It misses all the shots into combat, then gets smashed apart by the two Custodians, who are then able to help Nampo sandwich the Falcon in the next turn and tear 11 of 12 wounds off it. 

Likewise, the Wave Serpent also takes a beating, although it's been given a Spirit Stone to help ignore bracketing. Sadly, the Silent Sisters cop a bit of overwatch, and only one makes it in. But she avenges her sisters by knocking a wound off with her rifle butt. 

It's alive and only slightly slower as a result, and I'm very sorry I didn't use the Praetorian Plate to zip my Shield-Captain in to help - that would probably have done it, but I'm still hoping to keep him for a last-minute intervention. My Jetbikes have also arrived, but they're way behind the action and unlikely to help much.

Turn 4

The Wave Serpent flees combat (I do try to stop it with the next Katah, the Kaptaris one, but it doesn't work. Which is lucky, because I spot later that it doesn't work on vehicles anyway!), but it spits out the Visarch and the Autarch behind it. Good! Now I can kill them!

However, a Night Spinner also appears on that flank, the reinforcements for the broken Prism. It immediately puts a slight dent in the Custodian team, then the Autarch rolls well for his smaller spinner gun and kills the rest of them several times over. Uh-oh...

Then the Visarch and the Autarch tag team my Shield-Captain. It doesn't go terribly well for them, they just annoy him with a couple of wounds, but he whiffs his counter-attack and is now tied up where he can't go and sort out the Wave Serpent next turn. Dammit!

My turn consists of feebly attempting to catch up with these nippy Eldar. The Jetbikes are still way off, my lone remaining Prosecutor can't make it in and the other flank is still fighting the Falcon. Which goes well, in a sense. They kill it, but it explodes! So Nampo, on his last wound, gets lodged under it as it crashes. That's not going to work off his debt to the community. 

Showing him how it's done, the Shield-Captain takes a couple more wounds from the Visarch (whose sword is pretty good at ignoring armour and invulns), but then utterly floors the alien bodyguard with a nice bit of axe-work. One down, three to go. 

Turn 5

It's already the last turn, to Leofa's dismay. That turn of shooting has cost him, as has the damage to his engines. He's in range of an escape, but only just - it's going to take a full advance roll. 

The maths says that the Farseer and her flying relic can jump out of the front and flee the board on an advance of three or more (3" disembark, 12" move plus 3 on the advance makes the 18" she'd need, you can see her on display for measuring purposes in the photo). But one escapee alone won't cut it, so Leofa decides she'll stay on board and risk it. 

His first roll is low, so it's command point reroll time - will this final roll decide the battle?

It certainly will! A big six, and they're out of there!

Ynnari Victory!

Locker Room

That was a cheerful romp and no mistake! And the balance worked out well. Even though my lines had totally failed to stop the tanks, it was sheer luck that they managed to get out at the last moment. But a dramatic final deciding roll always feels like a good game to me!

Ynnari warrant further investigation, I'd say. Always hitting first in combat is a powerful ability, and being able to hose off wounded units isn't bad either. Yes, I missed a trick with the Praetorian Plate, but it wouldn't have been a sure-fire thing - Wave Serpents have an invuln save, so even with the Shield-Captain in combat there were no guarantees. 

All the same, I couldn't help but feel exhausted after all the rules. Explaining a new army to Leofa, then trying to keep my head round Katahs, traits, relics and so on - it's too much. Roll on 10th Ed, I say, the previews have my attention. 

And Nampo? Well, I guess his hapless quest will continue, but he's not making it easy on himself!