Under the passing eclipse, while everyone was out watching, the Genestealer Cult executed their move that was years in the planning on Valour Prime! Under the cover of temporary darkness, they insidiously moved through their tunnels to get into position. The Twisted Helix brought a full unit of Aberrants roamed them, led by an Abominant, Magus, Acolyte Iconward, Kelemorph, and a Biophagus. Further accompanying them was a Clamavus from their allies, the Pauper Princes. This was the hammer that would deliver their lethal blow for the Cause!
Two small units of Twisted Helix Acolyte Hybrids prowled the tunnels as well, searching for opportunistic targets. Following them from the Pauper Princes’ local PDF unit that was tainted were four units of Brood Brothers and a small unit of Atalan Jackals. All ready to seek out priority targets and strategic objectives.
The Twisted Helix Patriarch took his throne to the highest floor of the abandoned tower to oversee the battle. We do not have a Primarch on Throne model, so this was proxied. He was accompanied by a retinue of Brood Brothers from the Pauper Princes to protect him.
On the southern flank, the Pauper Princes Tank Commander carefully probed forward in a recon action.
On the northern flank the Pauper Princes Rogal Dorn did likewise.
The enemy location was sparsely protected. Seven Emergence Holes had been planned for possible use during this operation. A maintenance shaft in the watch wall, the air duct on the second floor of the abandoned munitorum, the sewer of the old barracks, a carefully mined shaft underneath the guard post gate, the sewer access under the old administratum, another hidden mine shaft in the grove of evergreens, and the secondary fort maintenance shaft, just in case the overran them. Emergency tunnel exits were also applied along their Deployment Zones in case things went sideways.
Unsuspecting of the attack, two Custode Guards idled around their posts. The Captain rested on his Dawneagle bike, checking out the Eclipse. Nothing else interesting was happening after all. They had two Aquilon Terminators, a Warden, and a Blade Champion on standby if things got interesting. Unbeknownst to them, a Chaos force was waiting in low orbit and the warp. The Genestealers had unearthed one of their artifacts, and they wanted to get it back.
Lord Invocatus had a powerful contingency of Blood Crushers accompanying him into battle. Two units of Jackhals also awaited his command. Some Eightbound waited in the warp along with a unit of two Skull Cannons of Khorne.
As the sun darkened for a few minutes and hit its darkest peak, the Custodes Captain was hit by a Vanquisher shell! It flipped him into the air over his bike as the spotlight high beamed him! Heavy Bolters and Heavy Stubber rounds tore through his armour as his Storm Shield fell just out of reach! The Guard on the northern flank was struck with an Oppressor shell and was injured! His armour and energy shields held out against the Multimelta, Autocannon, Heavy Stubber, and Onslaught rounds though!
Seriously, those 2+ Armour Saves do not matter if you roll all 1s.
In response, the Captain grabbed his shield and bike, putting two Missiles through the front of the Tank Commander! One struck the cowling and knocked the Coaxial Stormbolter offline, and the other broke the ammo feed on the left sponson Heavy Bolter. Out of range, the two Guards hunkered down.
As the Eclipse cleared and daylight returned, the Rogal Dorn and Tank Commander each flanked hard, striking the Captain once each with their main cannons! Heavy machine gun fire and melta rounds were not able to harm him further this go around.
A unit of Brood Guard showed up in the old munitorum and took control of it as part of their master plan and another took the old headquarters.
Vengefully, both Aquilons dopped near the Rogal Dorn to box it in. Sealing off its escape, a unit of Jackhals raced in front of it, coming over the ridge on a bridge of fire!
In the Genestealer back lines, the Skull Cannons of Khorne raced across on another bridge of fire with the second unit of Jackhals. They fired their cannons at the Patriarch, but he heaved two of the Guardsmen out of the window with one hand each, detonating the rounds prematurely before they reached the building.
The Tank Commander found himself in eminent danger when Lord Invocatus rode with his unit over a fiery bridge as well, appearing right next to his tank! Behind him the unit of Eightbound warped in, accidently Pinning themselves against the wall!
Quickly, he pulled his tank back back and fired into the Blood Crushers, killing one of them. The lethal strike force of Aberrants exploded out of the hatch to protect him, flooding the area with mutant goodness.
In order to counter the aggressive assault, the emergency exits were used and all remaining forces except the Atalans were committed!
Jordan rolled an Irresistible Force. Just wanted to point that out. The Patriarch bogged the Blood Crushers down with toxic sludge he conjured, making it difficult for them to Charge!
The Pauper Princes’ Magus did the same to the Skull Cannons. His unit fired on them but did no damage with their light weight weaponry.
The remaining fire arms that appeared were used to eradicate the Jackhals violently. Their Champion was torn to shreds by the blessed ones. The second unit engaged the Skull Cannons, but was ended tragically after doing light damage to them.
The Aberrants swarmed the Eightbound thanks to the Kelemorph’s ability, cutting them down where they stood! A confused Champion (who had just been Mind Controlled a moment earlier to slash up his demented brethren) was able to harm the Abominant before being cut down in turn.
The Aberrants fanned out, trying to avoid the most assured barrage that was going to follow!
The Rogal Dorn pivoted to face its greater threats. Its right Multimelta went wide. Its left Multimelta blew away a Cultist. The forward Meltaguns, Onslaught, Heavy Stubber, Autocannon, and Oppressor hammered into the Aquilon! He lived, but only barely.
The Shield Captain, tired of getting shot with Lasguns on full auto (even though they did not hurt him this entire time), decided it was time to end the Brood Guard in his back line tragically. One Sergeant survived, forcing him to chase him down and kill him later.
The Skull Cannons fired into the horde! Damage was sustained, but various Characters took the hit to keep them in the fight! They charged in, but whiffed their special impact hits. Multiple characters were injured, but the Skull Cannons were destroyed!
The Aberrants consolidated towards the Blood Crushers that had become bogged down thanks to the shenanigans of the Patriarch. Them not getting the charge was going to cost them dearly!
The Warden and Blade Champion paired up to hunt some traitor guard.
As expected, the Guard did not fair well, once again leaving just the Sergeant on the run with some very angry golden giants chasing him down to finish him off later.
The Rogal Dorn had a bad day, but survived because it should have been a much worse day. With some astounding rolls made by Alex, he who defies the laws of chance with 1 in 3.6 million chances in Pathfinder, failed to do as much damage on the sides of the tank as the Jackhals did! The Rogal Dorn was still shredded and left with 6 out of 18 wounds, but it survived! It in turn began to retreat at the best possible speed of 1″ because the driver had been rattled around so many times by the Powerfists. In this process, he nearly killed the severely injured Aquilon and accidently ran over most of the Cultists. Unsurprisingly, everyone caught the tank that wanted to, but the Aquilons restrained so they could charge a weaker facing. The familiar was there for moral support in case anyone is confused. He is the captain now.
The Aberrants closed in on the Blood Crushers! Another jolt from the Biophagus gave them A+1 in addition to the T+1 they already had. It was looking particularly grim for Invocatus now!
The Tank Commander rumbled around the corner, searching for his prize. The Captain was trying to keep his bike stable in the air. He had been all shot up with anti titan grade rounds and was having a bad day. Another Vanquisher round and a volley of heavy machine gun fire blasted him and his bike into oblivion!
At some point my Atalans showed up, grabbed an Objective, and then died a horrible death. I can’t find the order this one went to. When I uploaded them to my google drive it jumbled all of these. Straightening them out has been a huge chore.
The Rogal Dorn battled onwards, firing all weapons facing the right way (so everything but one Multimelta) at the injured Aquilon. Somehow, it survived just barely! Its right side Multimelta failed to kill the Cultist with some kind of power failure in its munition feed. The Melee was ineffective on both sides and the fight continued.
The Aberrants hit like a ton of bricks! Their initial impact killed three of the Juggernaut riders right off the bat! Their retaliation was painful, but manageable by sacrificing characters who were no longer needed like the Biophagus. The Clamavus kept Lord Invocatus locked down by shutting down his Reroll 1s To Hit Aura, which helped tremendously.
The Aquilons charged the Rogal Dorn and smashed it to pieces! They began moving towards the fighting on the South Flank to snipe characters.
The battle continued, with the massively point boosted Aberrants cutting down more of the Blood Crushers slowly but surely.
After the Aquilons completely failed to snipe my Magus, my Magus thought it was a great idea. So he politely convinced the painted Aquilon to shoot is buddy. And by politely I mean he was forcibly Mind Controlled. Turns out I roll better with Alex’s units than Alex does. The last turn I once again borrowed his Aquilon and shot up his Jackhals, after the Aquilon somehow managed to only lightly wound my Magus.
The fight with Invocatus ended pretty violently and suddenly. A lot of Independent Characters were heavily injured, but the unit powered on!
This was the roll for extreme sports rock throwing that killed Invocatus for a “shooting” Objective. Their accuracy with their rocks all game was astounding!
This die roll was really impactful so I took a picture of it. I don’t remember why I did now.
This was Alex’s To Hit roll with his Aquilons vs my Rogal Dorn. Good thing they hit on 2+ right?
This was one of his To Penetrate rolls he made.
Custodes and World Eaters win 19 to 8 is an astoundingly powerful victory! This was probably the biggest win margin we have ever had. The Custode player and the WE player had a good strategy that allowed them to maximize their Victory Point possibilities and shut down our strategy. We had placed most of our Objectives on their side of the field, planning on being hyper aggressive. When the WE player did not take the bait, and instead came after our immobile Patriarch, we had to counter it with everything we had. This let the Custodes run unopposed on the Objectives and were hard to kill because of how unconcentrated our forces were on that portion of the battlefield.
This was a fun final test for the Genestealer Cult. We brought arguably the nastiest death missile like unit and loaded it up with characters, but it did not break the game. While it was capable of extreme destruction and absorbing tons of damage, it scored only 1 VP the whole game by “shooting” Lord Invocatus to death with rocks. We like to stress tests our Codexes before publishing them. With all of the utility that the GSC can access, they are ready for tournaments in a classic guerilla style warfare!
Alternate 40k Rules 