Victory is Vengeance Campaign!

Two weekends ago I played my first game of Tactical Strike!  It was the first game in a new Victory is Vengeance campaign that will pit my 30K Iron Warriors against my friend Seti's 30K Night Lords.

The Victory is Vengeance Campaign along with the Tactical Strike rules are located in Forgeworld's Horus Heresy Book 3: Extermination.  The campaign is focused around the loyalist survivors on Istvaan V and their attempts to survive and strike back at the traitors versus the traitor kill teams sent out to destroy them.

I have wanted to try these rules out for several years now and I was super excited when Seti suggested we try it!

Check out his blog at: Eye of Isha


Our first game was mainly a learning experience.  We wanted to get the basic rules down for Tactical Strike since there are a number of changes from the base 40k rules.

We decided instead of one of us being on the Survivor side and one being an Exterminator we would start the first game on an even footing and in the future we would change roles depending on the situation.

Since we wanted to start off on an equal footing we each set our Resources to "Plentiful".
Setting all of our resources to Plentiful meant that we each started with 300 points to spend on our Personnel (rank and file), our Armour was unaffected by any special rules and our Ammo Roll was on a 3+.

Ammo Rolls are used when a squad rolls a 1 to hit.  After that 1 is rolled then that squad must make an ammo roll or be out of ammo the following turn, meaning they can only fire snap shots.

In addition to the 300 points we are allowed 150 points to make one Hero character and up to two Leader characters.

My Tactical Strike Force

Thyrsis, Karapos and Peleus

My Tactical Strike force was as follows:

HERO - Vigilator Consul Karapos Lemnus
      Extra Wargear - None
      Role - Marksman

LEADER - Destroyer Sergeant Peleus
      Extra Wargear - None

LEADER - Tactical Sergeant Thyrsis
      Extra Wargear - Combi-Flamer and Heavy Chainsword

RANK AND FILE

7 Tactical Marines

1 Rhino with Extra Armour and Dozer Blade

2 Tactical Support Marines with Flamers

2 Tactical Support Marines with Plasma Guns

1 Cataphracti Terminator with Power Fist

1 Veteran with Missile Launcher and Machine Killer (+1 armour penetration)

1 Veteran with Power Sword and Weapon Master (+1 WS)

NOTE: After this past weekend and going to Adepticon we talked to the guys at Miniwargaming.com and I found out that my list was illegal.  You can only buy upgrades for models if you have the minimum number of models in the unit to purchase that item.
Basically I would have had to have 4 other veterans with Machine Killer before I could have bought the veteran with the missile launcher because you can only buy one missile launcher per 5 veteran marines.
My single veteran with the Power Sword was ok because any veteran can purchase a power weapon.

Our first mission was also one of our devising.

We had 4 objectives; each one is a, Emperor's Children Marine.  They would essentially become our captive after the battle.  Each once was worth d3 victory points and d3 x 10 supply points.

We set up in the "Stand-off" deployment, essentially right across from each other on a 4x4 board.

 He has 2 ad-hoc squads which start on the ground and 2 missile launcher vets 

which start on the upper levels of a couple of ruins.

I form 2 ad-hoc units as well.  One unit is deployed inside the rhino and the other is in 

the ruins on the left.  My Hero Karapos, scouts ahead into the center ruins.

 My Terminator lines up behind the tank traps.

The first turn is fairly uneventful and the second turn is when things get interesting; 

his land speeder flies in from reserve.

Our units move closer and Karapos Lemnus moves to the second floor.

Karapos is assaulted by his veteran-filled ad-hoc unit. 

 I break off 3 models to form a new ad-hoc unit while the terminator (who would soon die to Reaction fire) and the tactical marines prepare for some close-in action.

Karapos is down for the count and will have to roll on the Consequences and 

the Redemption & Atonement tables after the battle.

The land speeder just can't seem to kill my rhino. 

Eventually with help from his missile launcher vet, my rhino is destroyed and my ad-hoc squad led by Destroyer Sergeant Peleus jumps out ready to engage his ad-hoc unit. 

My other leader, Tactical Sergeant Thyrsis moves forward around some rubble to try and get a shot off at his missile vet while my few remaining tacticals try to fight off his veterans. 

I would eventually win this hand to hand fight and claim one objective. 

We played 5 turns and it took about 2 hours.  In the future games will be faster now that we have some idea of how the new rules work.

He ended up winning this game; claiming 3 objectives to my one.

We rolled for victory points and supply points.  I would end up with 2 victory points and 20 supply points while he had 7 victory points and 70 supply points.

Karapos Lemnus rolled "Blinded" on the Consequence table and "Martial Dominance" on the Redemption & Atonement table.
Being blinded means that I must reroll and successful shots over 12" and if i get it a second time then
I must reroll all successful shots.
Martial Dominance means that to eliminate my blinded consequence in the next battle I must remove more models in close combat than any other Hero.

Unfortunately Thyrsis was also killed so he won't be back, only Heros can return.

Overall it was a very fun game and I look forward to the next battle!

Until next time....