Necromunda Campaign Round 10 - Grand Finale

Sniper say's 'I can see you!'

So the big final of our Necromunda rolled around last week and of the original dozen or so starters, five had made it through the hive for the final showdown.

Doug and his Genestealer Cultists, Dave and his Goliath Mob, Andy with his Stunty Van Saar, my Redemptionist Fanatics and John and his all-conquering Eldar were the final few.

With the game being the last of the bunch, and to make things a bit more interesting for everybody, we decided on a all-together punch-up on a crowded table with no break point for anyone, just a time limit with 10:30 being the time to count the cost.

With the table duly set and the usual random deployment round the table starting with the Cultists at the head of the table, Eldar, Goliath's, Redemptionists and finally Van Saar with the un-occupied gap between them and the Cultists. Doug threw highest and the Cultists kicked off the evening's proceedings.

The Cultist's took their usual tactic of a pretty spread deployment and with Tunnels & Vents deployment occupied nearly a quarter of the table, though very spread and immediately started moving bods towards the Eldar and Van Saar.

The Eldar took their usual stance too and deployed their troops in a fairly tight cordon with snipers at the back on vantage points to over-watch the rest.

The Goliath's and the Redemptionists taking a completely racist outlook on thing's (and an attempt to even thing's up a bit) decided on a non-aggression pact and go for the Xeno's and Heretic's at the end of the table. We weren't too sure about the Van Saar, but gave them the benefit of the doubt. Keeping in cover the Goliath mob moved straight down the side of the table towards the Eldar. The Redemtionist's  who were two men, (well women Zealot's with Eviscerator's) down due to the multiple 'Old Battle Wounds' rule which half the gang had, began the trek through the ruin's weaving their way towards the Eldar in attempt to settle an old score, hatred of one of the Eldar Storm Guardian's.

The Van Saar also took to their now standard deployment with half close combat types deploying in a fairly tight group moving forward and the other half using Tunnels & Vent's rule took up some good position's on high to support the combat types.

Pretty quickly things down the other end of the table started to get interesting as the Cultist's and the Eldar almost immediately came to blow's with the Eldar launching into close combat with their Storm Guardian's and for several turn's they sniped and skirmished with each other and lobbed the odd grenade, vying for supremacy at that end of the table but neither commiting their full force to force the issue.

The other end of the table, the Goliath's and the Red's moved slowly towards the alien's keeping to cover and generally ignoring the Van Saar to not force a confrontation and distract them from the their target.

The Van Saar had a completely different agenda however and with their melee gangers moving to cover both the Cultist's in the south and the lesser threat from the Red's next to them, their shooter's in their vantage point's took advantage of an excellent position and took some interesting long shot's at anything that moved. Early on this meant some good attempt's at the Eldar and Cultist's having the angle to shoot at these longer range target's but though they pinned a fair few didn't really get the kill's, mainly due to some significant toughness stat's.

This however changed as the Goliath's quickly came into view as they headed south and the Van Saar couldn't resist the meaty target and popped a couple of shot's at the massed ganger's and downed one and took a pot-shot at the Red's but failed to contact. Dave wasn't happy about this and split off a couple of his pistol and grenade armed ganger's who circled round behind the Red's, ignoring them and headed off to seek revenge from the Van Saar. It was here that the game was up, as it was noted that they ignored the Red's they passed and various cries of 'foul' and 'not fair ref!' were cried.

While the tussle between the Cultist's continued, Doug sent a couple of his team, including a genestealer, on a fairly slow but safe route towards the Van Saar position's.

The Red's as they moved toward's the partial cover of the central Air Conditioning plant, their leader took a shot with his Melta gun and fried one of the Van Saar Tough's.




The table now decended into seperate north and south fights. As the Red's maneuvered through the terrain, the Van Saar rushed out of the ruin's they occupied and assaulted the passing Red's and being the CC fiend's that they were fairly easily downed the Red's leader taking him OoA and along with one of the Zealot's.

The Van Saar commanding vantage point

Now came the time of the grenade storm. The two Goliath's had circled round and started to lob grenade's over the intervening pipework into the midst of the Van Saar (and an unfortunate Redemptionist not downed earlier) and generally played havoc with the close combat types finally leaving only one of them alive but down. The lone survivor of this attack was duly taken out by one the Red's Deacon's on the next round in revenge for the loss of their leader.

The next part of the grenade storm was not far away as the only way to get to grips with the Eldar was going to be a rush as time was marching on and staying in cover the whole way would have taken till next Thursday (and been pretty dull too).

The Goliath's trusting to numbers moved out into the open and started to run towards the Eldar position's followed by half of the Red's who had significantly more cover to start with.

The Eldar/Cultist fight had continued meanwhile with both sides backward and forwarding with both sides pretty even and OoA's being two apiece but the Eldar with another down.

Down but not out, several Cultist's and Eldar lay low or seek cover
while the Van Saar take shot's and the Red's and Goliath's advance

Now, as the Goliath's advanced the Eldar snipers opened up on the crowd and dropped a couple and a plasma grenade dropped another couple, the surviving ganger's started to lob grenade's at the Xeno's, that is to say, all the surviving ganger's started to lob grenade's with hilarious result's. Yup, Dave actually managed to blow himself up with his own grenade, not once, not twice, not even three times but four, over the course of the next couple of turn's, the strategy of having cheap replacement's didn't really work out although it did drop a couple of Eldar but didn't manage to take any out, well maybe one.

Unfortunately, the Goliath's paid a hefty price and at the end of this attack, most of the Goliath's were down or out. 

The Genestealer eviscerates a couple of Van Saar in bloody ruin

The Van Saar were the next to feel the wrath of the weird ones with the Cultist's finally reaching their target and the Genestealer rushed into contact after dodging sewveral shot's as it closed, and it promptly shredded a Van Saar or two as it passed and on into the rest of the gang. This was followed up by a couple of more normal cultist's into the fight. The Genestealer then circled round now reaching the opposite end of the table as it moved to come behind the Red's and Goliath's.

The Goliath's all take a lie down while the Red's move

With the clock moving in it's inevitable way, it was time to try and get a move on. A couple of the Red's had moved toward's the Van Saar as they had realised they were never going to reach the Eldar in time anyway and with a bit of a tussle another Van Saar went OoA but a couple of the Red's were down below the sniper tower. The rest of the Redemptionist's moved as quickly as possible toward's the Eldar who in turn moved out to meet them with now no worry of fire from the Goliath's most of whom were taking a bit of a nap.

The Red's and Goliath's get chewed up bad out in the open
as they rush in to get to grip

Not wanting dwell on this bit very much as it is pretty painful, but enough to say that five of my Redemptionist's weren't even a speed bump to the Eldar Storm Guardian and Farseer who easily one each combat and then into the next. Don't think any of my guy's even got to wave their sword's much. Sniff.

Now with the clock ticking on the last round and a few desultory skirmishes as a couple of Red's and Goliath's were put out their misery and a Van Saar was dismembered. Doug went first and finished of his Van Saar dinner and checking had 7 of his original 10 standing. John's Eldar were sitting at 6 still standing but one down but checking at the end of his round he checked and managed to roll a 1 so he ended up with 7 out of 10, you can see where this is going.

Much quieter street's
right at the end.

Dave next, and checking for downed troops didn't manage to revive any so ended up with 7 bodies still on the field but only 2 standing out of his original 13. The Red's next and after a bit of a tussle and much swearing I managed to get my Deacon back on his feet leaving me with four bodies out of my original 10 still on the field but 2 standing sneaking me into third place.



And the final throws of the dice for the game and the campaign went to Andy's Van Saar who were looking very worse for ware having been the brunt of several attacks and literally with the last dice roll scored a critical from on high with his heavy bolter (the heavy bolter getting his eye in at last) on the Genestealer passing below and shredded it in it's turn, meaning Doug was down to 6 bods standing and John's lucky recovery roll getting his downed Eldar back on his feet meant that Doug was pipped at the post for first place by the Eldar.






Boss game for the last game of the campaign and we all agreed the best of the campaign, with much amusement from Dave's grenade antic's, Doug's Genestealer eating Stunties for tea and my inability to hit anything except with a flamethrower, it was a great way to end thing's.

We all agreed, including John, that the Eldar had proved to be too strong for anyone to beat one to one, so would be avoided next time. The Van Saar and the Cultist's proved to be pretty good by the end and get honourable mentions. The Goliath's were plagued by several unlucky casualty roll's so had to constantly replace people and the Redemptionist's ended up in worse nick than they started with so many battle wounds, lost eyes and chest wounds most were more a liabilty than anything, certainly not as good as their band rating would suggest.

After this foray into the realm's of Sci-Fi, our next skirmish campaign will be the next Season of Mordheim and the continuing story of the fight against Allek the Necromancer and the hunt for the Great Treasure. Probably interspaced with a likely Frostgrave campaign. Watch this space for how these work out.