Shadow War: Armageddon! 1st Game!

I got the chance last weekend to play my first Shadow War: Armageddon game!

In case you aren't aware, Shadow War Armageddon is a miniature skirmish game set on the planet Armageddon during the 3rd War for Armageddon when the Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thrakka invaded the Imperial-held world of Armageddon for the second time.

The idea is that you form a warband of usually between 7 and 20 minis (Grey Knights being towards 7 and Orks being more towards 20 and everyone one else somewhere in the middle for warband size) and then you fight a series of small skirmish games over Promethium stashes.

The main rule book has rules for Orks, Astra Millitarum, and Space Marines.  It also has rules for various sub-factions such as Blood Angels and Bad Moons.

The main rule book also has the main skirmish ruleset along with the campaign system and scenarios to play in that system.

If you want additional army lists then GW has them available as a free pdf download from their website.  The only factions they don't have currently are Sisters of Battle and Inquisition.  GW has said they will soon release rules for them as well.

At the moment the main rule set is not available because it was only included in the limited edition box set which included 10 space marines scouts and 20 orks and some terrain and markers and its now sold out.

The soon to be released all-in-one book.

Soon, this Saturday April 22nd in fact, GW will have the new rule book available to pre-order which will last several weeks to make sure they have enough for the demand and it will include all of the factions including Sisters and Inquisition and the rules and scenarios.  I intend to pre-order this.

Now, I don't currently have the rules but my friend Derling does, so he came over and me and Xtine and Derling played a 3-player game with a scenario we just made up.

The old Necromunda rulebook.

The basic rules are the skirmish rules from Necromunda.  There are some differences in that there are only the two standard size blast templates and the one flamer template which are the same ones used in current 40k.  As far as other rules changes I am really not sure.  Its basically 2nd Ed 40k with a special Campaign system designed just for this setting.

This will hopefully be just the first in a series of posts about this game.

The game we played was on my underground tunnels board.  We placed 6 objectives around the board which could be picked up and then ran off the board with models carrying them.  They counted for d3 objective points when the game was over.  I played Iron Warriors (or Chaos Marines becasue they don't have legion-specific rules), Derling played Tau and Xtine played Dark Eldar Wyches.

We each picked a corner and then moved our entire force on from that corner and that was our deployment.  We then rolled for first turn and turn order and began.

The underground mines.

I deployed my force which consisted of 3 marines and 4 cultists in a corner with a nice observation deck that contained an objective.

Xtine then deployed her Wyches who promptly ran onto the board straight towards 2 objectives.

Derling's Tau deployed in the corner opposite of me.  He had some special drone models he bought from a 3rd party model maker, and I have to say they are quite cool looking!

Right away the Wyches start getting shot up both by the Tau and by the Chaos Cultists.

Dropping like flies.

Cultists take aim!

The drones open up!

The game lasted a long time because in Necromunda, er I mean Shadow War: Armageddon, there are no turn limits, you play until someone bottles (Usually this means when a warband has taken 25% casualties the model with the highest leadership has to take a test and if they fail the whole warband runs away,  sometimes the percentage is different based on the scenario.).

My Warband began to split up with my two hand-to-hand marines running at the Tau and my cultists sprinting to an objective while my heavy bolter marine lays down covering fire.

Splitting up.

The Tau perspective.

 Cultists heading towards a ladder.

 My Marines are getting close!

A cultists guns down a Dark Eldar Wych!

I got so close to the Tau but he would never let me charge!  I kept getting pinned.

 Sooo close!

 The cultists make it to the top of the ladder and find an objective!

A sneaky Wych tries to out flank the Iron Warriors.

One of the Wyches assaults my Chaos Marine who is armed with a chainsword and bolt pistol.  On the charge the Wych should have easily dispatched the marine but this combat would end up lasting a very looong time!  My marine eventually won but only because at one point I rolled 4 5+ saves!

The combat that wouldn't end! 

My heavy bolter marine shoots down the Tau leader who is at the top of that ladder. 

My cultists who just grabbed the objective tries to shoot down a tau at long range.

The Dark Eldar were able to secure 3 objectives which they grabbed and ran off the table with!  I took 2 objectives and Derling ended with one.

The end of the battle.

At the end we rolled d3 for each objective and Xtine won with 7, I had 3 and Derling had 1 point.

Overall it was quite fun and I want to play some more.  We were all having a great time with it!  I think the best part of this new game is that GW now has rules for all of the current factions for Necromunda.  Whether anyone uses the included campaign rules or not at least now we have viable rules for something that is not a gang of humans!

Anyways.  Thanks for reading and I will keep this blog up to date with future games of Shadow War: Armageddon!

Until next time...