Pestilential Painting: Planetary Empires Campaign Day

 Welcome back to the Vectorium! Last weekend the mighty Death Guard participated in a narrative campaign day at First Founding; a loose coalition of Chaos and Xenos forces sought to invade the Hive Capital of an important Imperial World. Could the Imperial Defenders repulse the attack?

Nine players participated and were divided 4 and 5 between the Defenders and Attackers. Neil provided a Planetary Empires map; the Imperial Defenders initially held all the tiles but a successful Attacker game result would "flip" a tile to the invaders. If the Attackers could flip an inner defence tile then there was a chance to take the capital itself.

The initial round saw players face off in individual matches as the attackers moved across a broad front, but the later rounds would see forces link up.

I found myself drawn up against Dave's Ad Mech in a 1500 point Tempest of War Game:

Similar battles kicked off as Raven Guard, Custodes and Blood Angels attempted to repulse more Death Guard, Necrons and Tyranids.

Control of the central objective for two consecutive turns allowed the commanding player to send aid to an ally on another table! Over the course of the day command points would be shared, orbital bombardments delivered and troops teleported across tables.

The Attackers struck decisively winning 3 of the 4 first round games; the initial ring of Imperial defences fell!

Each player was allowed to take a take Crusade upgrade for their force to use in future games. Malignus Trudge was awarded a Chaos Boon of Clawed Feet and a sweet, sweet 3" movement upgrade. However I suspect he may be turning into a Spawn from the bottom up!

Round 2 saw forces started to link up as a pair of 1000 point doubles games were played. Given the odd number of players I tagged out, allowing Neil's Orks to Waaagh onto the table top.

That's not to say I didn't participate! I adjudicated the cross table effects, and put a particular theory to the test. I think I radiate bad dice luck. So I stepped near to various players to see if my presence would influence results; it did enough to cause certain of my allies to banish me away from their dice!

The Attackers pushed through the defences in this round and were able to make a final push on the Capital.

Round 3 saw all 9 players put 500 points each onto a single battle field; an advantage to the Attackers but we felt the game results so far represented this. Plus we didn't want anyone to be left out at this point.

The game was utterly chaotic and a lot of fun. No idea what really happened on the top end of the table but my Plagues Marines and supporting Characters saw off what felt like waves of Jump Marines. 

I do remember the Custodes were very shiny and bossed everyone about because they are all mini Emperors :P

At the end of the day the Attackers took the field and the Hive City fell. Victory to Malignus Trudge and his allies!

I had a lot of fun and the day was a great example of the broad church of 40K play. Not every game has to be 2000 point matched play tournament practice. 

I'd like to do more of this style of gaming in future, and I have an idea bubbling for a charity event; more on that in future!