I managed to get back over to Robb’s for some games. There were fewer games than I wanted to play due to unforeseen circumstances, but sometimes this happens.
Robb’s daughter is apparently a Settlers of Cattan fan, and she asked us if we’d play a game with her. I’d never played before, so it was something of a trial by fire. This was especially so because the game board was randomized, and not set as the booklet suggests for newer players. Still, I managed to get a win after a long and grueling game. I found I was begging for sheep most of the game, and trying to avoid the phrase “and 8, we all get wood”. It’s pretty cool, overall, but I’ve never been a big fan of “monopoly” style trading in games. Never played the Succubus Club, if you know what I mean.
And I think you do.
After that, Robb had to go fix a flat tire. When he got back with Alayna we played mission six from the New Space Hulk Mission Book.
Mission VI: Alarm Call
I’d looked at the mission prior to going to Robb’s, and was surprised at a lot of the details. It is, in effect, a rescue mission. The librarian (psychic powerhouse) marine and the lightning claws marine start at the entry point awake and ready to rock. Sergeant Lorenzo and his squad of marines (Sarge, 3 basic marines and Brother Zael of the heavy Flamer) are dispersed throughout the rooms of the hulk, unconscious. The win condition for the marines is that they must awaken at least three other marines, and then the librarian and two other marines must escape at the exit point at the far end of the hulk.
That’s tough. I was thinking that the librarian must be a real badass if he can handle that kind of pressure. Even worse, the Genestealer player takes turns placing the unconscious marines, so when Robb placed Lorenzo nearest to the active marines, I placed Zael at the farthest end of the hulk, near the exit. So the heavy Flamer was effectively neutralized most of the game. To top it all off, I started with two blips and then two reinforcement blips, so 4-12 bugs move onto the board on the Genestealer player’s first turn. It’s an uphill fight for the marines.
The librarian is known as Lexicanium Calistarius. He plays differently than any other marine. He’s got a storm bolter, so he can do anything a vanilla marine can do. He also has a force axe for close assaults. He’s a combat veteran, so he’s plus one on his d6 for close assaults, but he can also spend X psi points to increase his close assault by X after the dice are rolled. So as long as he has psi points he kills any Genestealer who rushes him. He can also use psi points to do one psychic power per marine turn: for 1 psi point he can gain a command point, although there are stipulations to this. For 2 psi points he can drop a psychic force barrier on a square within 12 squares of himself, no line of sight needed. This barrier prohibits movement and firing through the square until the start of the next marine turn, when it goes away. For 3 psi points he can psychic storm a foe or a section within 6 squares of himself, no line of sight needed. If there is only a single target, it dies on a roll of 2 or more on a d6. If there are multiple targets in a section, he rolls a die for each and kills on a 4+. Marines are not affected by the storm. Calistarius only has 20 psi points to spend as he will during the course of the game. When he’s out, he’s out.
The lightning claws marine isn’t nearly as good as I thought he was. Brother Claudio only gets 2d6+1 to his highest die roll. I thought (and it used to be) that he got 2d6+2 to his highest die. It’s rough. Dude is nuts to go toe-to-toe with Genestealers.
Robb immediately made a break for Lorenzo, because it’s great to have a Sergeant to redraw command points once per turn. We screwed up the rules a bit, and Robb might have gotten an extra edge early on when we forgot that one of the nearby doors is jammed, and Robb opened it normally, and then later closed it to stem the tide of bugs. Ah well, turns out he needed the help.
I drew poorly from the Genestealer stack early on, only getting 1’s and 2’s for my opening blips the first 2 turns (six blips but only nine bugs). I decided to flood the opening corridors as best I could and hope I could kack a marine before they could wake up a bunch of reinforcements. I had to play crafty to avoid the librarian’s psychic storm, so I revealed many of my blips early so that I could spread the bugs out over multiple sections.
Robb managed to draw a ton of command points, and combined with the mistake we made with the jammed door, he managed to wake up Lorenzo by the end of the second turn, which was nuts quick. After that Robb had great command points due to redraws several times, and it really helped his game. I pushed a ton of bugs in the surrounding corridors, and several of them fell to Calistarius’ storm bolter, but Robb was in full doubles-rollin’ gun-jam mode, so I got a lot of bugs in little corridors nearby, ready to spring at the first sign of weakness.
I also tried to murder Claudio and his lightning claws, but it turns out he does okay, even without Robb putting him on guard for a reroll during close assault.
Robb didn’t use any psi points early on. I thought this was actually strong play. I would have been tempted to shoot my wad and try to mug Genestealers with the storm early, but it didn’t go down like that.
After getting Lorenzo good and rescued, the board was ugly for the marines. I had moved a bug to within a square of the Sarge, and there were several in adjacent hallways menacing the librarian from around corners. Also, Claudio was facing a rush of two or three bugs from the other side of the hulk. The marines were surrounded on three sides.
Robb marshaled his guys and finally started using the psychic friends network. Calistarius shot his way through a few bugs in the hallway and pushed his way into the next room with an unconscious marine. Then he put a barrier in the hallway outside, keeping my reinforcement bugs from coming in at his back (and because of the layout, Lorenzo’s and Claudio’s back as well). That was a good call. Lorenzo turned and ran down the hallway just out of range of a Genestealer rush. Claudio managed to claw his way through a few more Genestealers I had on his side of the hulk.
I had my work cut out for me, but now I was only drawing 3-Genestealer blips, so my reinforcements were coming in droves. I started moving blips in on the lower entrances, away from the entry points I had used in the early game. My plan was to flood the exit corridor and mid-to-late game areas with bugs, making any hope of escape difficult at best. I also still had a few bugs ready to charge in near the front entrances. I pushed two Genestealers down toward Lorenzo, but he was just out of reach. I put one right on his back so that he would have to do something about it, and then hid another just around a corner.
Robb decided to make a break for it. Lorenzo turned and shot that bug to bits, and then backed down the hall and went on overwatch to cover himself. Calistarius woke up the next marine and then kept on moving to the next entrance. Claudio went to kill a bug I had hiding in a side-corridor, and he did so. His side was facing the next wave, however, which meant I had an extra close assault against him. Calistarius put a force barrier up to keep a nearby blip from rushing out at him from a side entrance near the long end game corridor.
However, in so doing he did not nuke that blip. Maybe I bluffed him by not revealing it, but if he’d decided to psychic storm that particular blip instead of block it I would have lost (well, over an 80% chance for me to lose them) three Genestealers who later all become fodder, but who made Robb waste marine actions to kill them. The noblest of self-sacrificing four-armed mutant death machines, really.
I rushed a pile of bugs at Lorenzo, but he kacked them all, including slicing the one I got into close assault range with his power sword. Clutch roll for the Sarge. Claudio and is lightning claws had run out of luck, however. There were two bugs in range of him, and while the first was eviscerated, the second managed to maul him. This meant that I had open corridors in the back through which to funnel more bugs at Lorenzo.
Lorenzo turned and woke up yet another marine in the middle, fulfilling part of Robb’s victory conditions: wake up three marines. Now for the “get the librarian and two other guys out of here” subroutine. In light of this, Calistarius and his newly awakened marine escort did something I thought they wouldn’t: they went to rescue the final two unconscious marines. To do this they had to charge past a hallway quickly filling with Genestealers from both ends. Robb used another force barrier to keep the same group at bay (I’d revealed them and spread them out a bit by this point), but I’d put something like 6 Genestealers and another 3-blip in the very end of the hallway near the exit.
I used my turn to strategically move that ridiculous pile of bugs all over the exit-corridor, making sure to space them out so that Calistarius wouldn’t wreck my eventual advance. I moved some bugs into the area around Lorenzo’s back, forcing Robb to do something about them.
Lorenzo turned around and shot up one of the Genestealers, but he was going to get close assaulted again. Robb then ran Lorenzo’s newly awakened marine escort across the hall to wake up Zael of the Flamer. Meanwhile, Calistarius and the other marine woke up the last, then the librarian turned around, shut the door to the room, and went on overwatch. I had three bugs able to reach him that turn. Shit was getting ugly. Robb placed a force barrier counter to protect Lorenzo’s back, but as he did so I noticed that the marine timer stopwatch app on my iphone was at 3:52, which is much longer than the marines are allowed.
Robb made a case that he’d meant to do it earlier and such, but I told him that in the interests of sometime Genestealer victory we had decided to adhere strictly to the time limit. No barrier. Bad shit happened after that. There was a Genestealer in the final corridor close enough to get to the marine who’d woken up Zael, and it managed to kill him. Lorenzo managed to fend off several close assaults, but at the end of the turn he was standing with a Genestealer both in front of and behind him, and more were closing on both sides. Worse, Calistarius jammed on his first or second overwatch shot, so I got two bugs into close assault with him. Robb rolled terribly, which in game terms means I made him spend a _lot_ of his psi points (four per assault) to kill the Genestealers and stay alive. That was a huge blow to Robb’s game, because losing nearly half of his supply of psi points meant that Calistarius was rapidly becoming another guy with a Storm Bolter, which isn’t good with bugs filling the halls. He still had six or so left, but he was getting low.
Lorenzo somehow saved himself from the mess he’d found himself in by turning around and shooting the bugs I had coming in behind him. The two marines with Calistarius shot through all the doors and killed the Genestealer in the adjacent room with Zael. Zael moved up and torched the endgame hallway, killing a Genestealer. Robb had Calistarius put up another psychic barrier to protect Lorenzo from one angle, and cleared the jam and closed the door again, shooting a Genestealer down the hall in the process. Things were nasty by this point.
I counted the models I had on the board around this time. There were five marines left alive, but there were no less than 15 Genestealer models and 3 blips on the board, and they were all over the hulk. In his effort to protect Lorenzo, Robb had left some space for me to get at Calistarius again, and I made him use another 2 psi points just to tie in a close assault with one of my bugs. I then filled the corridors behind Zael and Lorenzo (and in front of Calistarius) with bugs. Zael was looking at a big pile of bugs waiting to rush him as soon as the first fire burst died down.
Robb actually made a break for it with Calistarius around this time. His two support marines had moved into the room where Zael had been asleep, closest the exit. Robb used all his command points to run the librarian to join them and get out of Genestealer reach. Zael torched a hallway again and Lorenzo fought for his life still in the room.
When the dust settled Robb and I looked at the board and there were something like 3 bugs able to get at Zael and Lorenzo from behind. Robb had been doing well in close assault to this point, but his luck ran out. Zael and Lorenzo went down, and with only three marines left and Calistarius out of psi points Robb conceded the game. There were a ridiculous amount of Genestealers in the exit hallway section by now. I think I outnumbered the marines 6 or 7 to one at the time of concession. Most of the 22 Genestealer models were in play.
Tough mission for the marines. Robb and I have been texting back and forth about strategy. He’s convinced that a few stupid mistakes cost him a whole lot of trouble. I tend to agree. The marines can win, but they have to be played rather precisely or they don’t stand a chance. Originally I felt that not using psi points early was a wise move, but then when things got hairy Calistarius had to use half of them in close assaults (it didn’t help that Robb was rolling 1’s and 2’s for close assaults on the librarian). Going for the last two marines was almost certainly folly. Of course, the Genestealer player starts with a crapload of Genestealers compared to other missions.
In previous missions, the Genestealer player might get two blips per turn, but he doesn’t also start with any. Further, the marines often had two squads when the Genestealer player did get a lot of blips, or had relatively simple win conditions. The more complex the mission objectives, the more likely the bugs will overrun the marines.
I played the bugs quite conservatively this mission. Instead of filling corridors I spent a lot of time moving them just of their own rush range, but nearly totally out of harm’s way, and in directions which the marines would find inconvenient to deal with (marines can only fire forward in a 90 degree arc, so directly right or left isn’t good for them). If I’ve got a Genestealer down a hallway lurking a bit, the marines had to turn to kill it, and then turn back. If Robb wasn’t getting results on his shots he was getting mugged.
Marines player rating: 3.0 Genestealer rating: 3.5 lots of bugs and lots of ways to go about this mission.
We played some Duffin Draft and double Duffin Draft with Alayna after the game, but it still felt meh with only 3 players, and Robb and I kept mugging each other and then Alayna would win. It was sorta lame.
Robb got two Heart of the Cheater in those 9 packs (only five 3rd Ed, too), but that card isn't so good in Duffin draft.
-Merlin out
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