Welcome back to the next instalment of our Warhammer 40k Urban Conquest Campaign, pitting the forces of the Imperial Guard, Space Marines and the Genestealer Cults as they battle it out for the fate of Divinius. Today, Chris Warrington takes us through the highlights of the second battle round and things are defiantly heating up. If you want to catch you with the previous articles in this series, you and see the first battle round right here. But lets not waste any more time, lets get to the action.
The battle for Divinius continues apace. Astartes, Militarum, and the Cult of the River Wyrm battle with increasing fervor for territory and influence in the confines of the grand city.
I think it’s fair to say that lessons were learnt in this round. The setup of this Urban Conquest city campaign is key – blocking line of sight, approaches, and mission requirements are incredibly varied, but one suboptimal or ill thought out setup and you are looking at quite a difficult run of things. But more on that in a moment.
Imperial Guard (Jim) REINFORCE vs GSC Cult of the River Wyrm (Chris) HOLD
RELIEF FORCE MISSION
Here’s an error we made, well it seemed like one from my point of view. Jim’s Imperial Guard were holding a central objective in a building. They needed to stop me from holding that at the end of the game in order to secure a win with most of his forces arriving as reinforcements. On the other hand I had to hold the position against said reinforcements to seal the win. I got a guaranteed first turn, but this meant that Jim would have final say in the game. That’s tough enough, but if your central building only has walls facing one way, it can be difficult to hold for an army if their troops are out in the open facing an advancing enemy! In the end, the weight of fire for the guardsmen was vital and there were scant GSC forces left by the end. A major victory for the brave boys of the Guard.
Imperial Guard – 3
GSC – 1
Space Marines (Jake) REINFORCE vs GSC Cult of the River Wyrm (Chris) ASSAULT
TOTAL DEVASTATION
Special Battlezone: Pollution
This mission promised to be incredibly thematic. The marines had to protect six objectives with one secretly named as the critical objective. The GSC had to take the secretly named objective and make the building ‘dangerous territory’ either by holding it and using the ‘Demolitions’ stratagem or by other means. The GSC used their special card to choose a ‘Pollution’ battle zone. This halves nearly all ranges and reduces the toughness of anything outside of a building by 1. My plan with my brave cultists was to use a 50% ambush army and try to press home a turn 2 pop up advantage. However a few things occurred. We forgot the orbital bombardment rule where I could have pinged some wounds off the marines. Jake had selected scouts that stop deep strike within 12” and he also had the key building stratagem which prevents deep strike within 18”. The GSC conceded on turn one, sparing them an 18” run across the board. Weak sauce from the cult.
Marines – 3
GSC – 0
Space Marines (Jake) ADVANCE vs Imperial Guard (Jim) REINFORCE
THE GAUNTLET MISSION
The Imperial Guard had to get their troops off the other side of the board. The Marines had to stop them. A series of inspired shooting turns from the guard made it look like this terrifically difficult mission might work in their favour as their tanks ground forward, rocking the marines with their accuracy. But the issue with Space Marines is that they are reliable and give enough of them lascannons and they are, over an increasing number of turns, likely to kill whatever you need them to.
Marines – 3
Imperial Guard – 1
Things aren’t looking good for the followers of the Star Emperor. Can the Genestealer Cult come back from these losses? We will find out when we follow up with the second strategy phase next time. If you don’t want to miss out on that, please make sure you like and subscribe to Master of Magics for all the content we provide. and if you want to support us more directly, why not donate to our Patreon. As little as a $1 a month would really go along way to helping out the site. Until next time though remember citizen, “In an hour of darkness a blind man is the best guide. In an age of insanity look to the madman to show the way”.
