The Shrieving of Parnassus - A Narrative Campaign

Kicking off our group Narrative campaign is the Shrieving of Parnassus. The backstory of this campaign stems from the Victory is Vengeance campaign our gaming group ran last year. Our Kill Team heroes have escaped or left the Istvaan system and are either looking for revenge against the traitors or to looking to purge the Loyalists further before they could regroup an form a counter resistance to the Warmaster's diabolical plans.

There will be separate posts on the Loyalist and Traitor forces coming shortly, there you will meet our Characters (Be they Heroes or Villians).

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Location

The Parnassan system occupies a particularly stable part of the warp close to the Istvaan system. For many of the loyalist forces this was their first return to active duty after escaping the Istvaan massacre, and they burned with the desire to avenge themselves on the traitors. Other loyalists were fighting their first conflicts against their former brothers, having answered emergency calls to assist them in taking this system. 

For the traitor part, the majority of the traitor forces had moved through this system already onto other warzones, leaving a motley collection of different legions forced to fight a bloody rearguard and ensure that the loyalist did not seize control of this system and thus cut off traitor communications. 

Parnassus Prime is a notorious death world, which is colonised as of necessity due to its proximity to the Parnassan warp gate. The overwhelming majority of the population is concentrated in a single hive city, Parnassus Sigma. There are rumours, like those surrounding Caliban, that the forests of Parnassus are tainted in some way. Its tainted enough to warrant a Primarch to investigate it, in the hope to uncover more fell secrets about the Warp.

As the bulk of the traitor forces passed through the system, Mortarion ordered a light atomic bombardment of Parnassus Sigma, concentrated on the dock area, to break the resistance of the local garrison. Festering in this area of nuclear annhilation is a strategic point needed for a beachead onto the World.

The Armies:

Loyalist Forces

The Loyalist forces are scattered, broken and without solid leadership. Horus dealt them a huge blow at Isstvan and the shockwaves of that atrocity were felt for lights years around. Our forces are facing a tough test, cut off from their Legion, Primarch and Imperium they must rally together and claim the Parnassan System in the name of the Emperor.

The Loyalist forces represented are:

Salamanders - Spirits of Neikea

Ultramarines - XLII Company 

Imperial Firsts (or Raven Guard)

Raven Guard

Vkla Fenryka

Luna Wolves (Shattered Legion)

Imperial Militia w. Ultramarines

Solar Auxilia - The Dune Lions

Blackshields - Dolarhyde's Dudes

Talons of the Emperor

Warmaster's Forces

Fresh from crushing their fellow legion brothers at Isstvan V, most if not all have had a taste of Astartes blood. Ordered onward to conquer Worlds in the Warmaster's name the forces of Horus Lupercal spread out into the Galaxy. The resistance that these Warbands met on Parnassus is fierecer than first expected, they now must push on and claim this World and system for the Warmaster's campaign.

The Warmaster's Forces represented are:

Death Guard

Militia Army Cults

Thousand Sons

Word Bearers

Thousand Sons

World Beaters (Khorne Butchers)

Iron Warriors

Death Guard

Alpha Legion

Scenarios

Our campaign is split into four phases roughly lasting 2 week each, starting on Sunday 23 April 2017.  At the end of the campaign we will be fighting a large apocalypse battle (or battles depending on the number interested) at Bristol Independant Gaming (BIG). This will be on the last day of the campaign Sunday 18th June at 2pm, (Its Father’s day so we may get away with it) 

We will be using the missions in the Shadow War ruleset from Book VI- Retribution. 

In the first phase the following Stragegic Objectives will be fought over:

Strategic Objective 1: Rad wastes (former docks).

These are the former dockyards of Parnassus Sigma. The atomic bombardment here was particularly fierce and so the Rad Wastes special rule applies to all battles fought here. The scenery should be ruins, pools of toxic waste, craters and glassy black plains.

Strategic Objective 2: Parnassus Sigma hive city outskirts.

This city was heavily damaged by the atomantic bombardment, and its people are struggling to survive and rebuild. The space marines, as usual, rather than helping, are fighting bloody skirmishes throughout the city sprawl. No special rules apply to this battlefield, but the scenery should be ruins, walkways, and gantries.

  

Strategic Objective 3: Death world guerrillas.

The majority of Parnassus is covered with the famously deadly Parnassan fauna. However, inevitably, it is chock full of valuable chemicals and artefacts, and therefore well worth fighting over. Spending too much time in the woods sends space marines a bit odd (ordinary folks just tend to die before they go insane.

Thanks for  reading so far, hopefully we'll have an update on our campaign as the week's progress!

Stay Tuned!

Happy Shrieving!

40k Brawl Eggsterminartus

Hi all,

I recently attended my first event this year, it was a Horus Heresy one (yay I hear you cry), well there was no yay but definitely crying!



The event was eggsterminatus, one of many run by 40k brawl. I managed to get a reserve spot to the event and felt lucky; it was touted as a team event and I was all over it. A nice quirk to list submissions was that the first game match up would be listed on the facebook event page with all the lists to follow the next day. This is cool and lets you think ahead of the game how you might play it. It can also upset you if you find out your playing the thousand sons and Magnus……

I had to take my iron warriors as the space wolves wouldn't be ready in time, its fine, i'm happy with the list(it’s the same one I used at Hate Vs Vanguard 2016) its capable and fluffy; exactly what you want in a heresy event.

Off my list went through the magic of the internet and I sat back and eagerly waited for my pairing; Sons of Horus! Ok, not bad, however, roll on 24 hours and all the lists were published, it was only then I realised I’d made a mistake by taking a fluffy army.

The lists https://www.dropbox.com/s/uojwdqipomn05kw/Egg%27sterminatus%20List%20docv1.pdf?dl=0 are not what I would have expected from a Heresy Event. It wasn't touted as a ‘I’m going to shaft you six ways from Sunday event so be prepared’ and I was shocked at some of the lists. The worst by far was the Magnus list; luckily the player was on my team so I didn't play it (I did however share the table next to the last guy that did and he wasn't enjoying any of it!)

So, mildly apprehensive I set off on a lovely Saturday morning for a 1hr 30min drive to a scout hut in Salisbury. I was pleasantly surprised with the place, it had a maximum capacity of 18, had good parking and toilets, quite open and very light.

Simon (or SJ as he's known) was running the event and he was a nice guy. We had a chat about competitiveness and how different places approach gaming. It’s clear that the Salisbury lot are into ultra-competitive games and that when we compare Bristol Vanguard to them, we are a lot fluffier and our ideas of a good game are totally different.

The first thing I noticed was that the players were very familiar with each other (as in they played together very often and were good friends). Try as I might I couldn't get any purchase into the banter and it felt a bit isolating; it’s very different from Vanguards approach.

Another  difference (and one ive come to expect now) was that coming from Bristol Vanguard and playing on their tables has shown me how lucky we are to have the terrain guru Paul. Bristol Vanguard has the best terrain I have ever played on, no doubt about it; So, I know now that going to other events I should expect less from them, however, the terrain at this event was non-existent. I saw about three pieces of area terrain and the ‘buildings’ were the  MDF ones with no line of sight blocking. Nothing apart from two or three pieces over all 9 tables had anything that could be classed as line of sight blocking and there was only about 5 pieces total on most of the boards. This ruined the immersion straight away and from a more practicable stance, a deep striking army wasn't going to be able to use cover to its advantage (i.e. they were screwed!).

GAME 1 – Sons of Horus
This turned out to be the best game of the day (and who got my vote for most sporting). He was a nice guy with a strong list but nothing I wasn't expecting from a Sons of Horus player. His list was pretty elite like mine and we'd pretty much agreed to get the primarchs fighting in the middle of the board. I had three iron circle and Perty, he had 8 terminators with chainfists, a librarian with telepathy (what else would people be using…) and Horus. He managed to win the combat, but only because I kept reminding him of his will not die roll which he made all 4 turns (last time I help anyone out!). He took two iron circle down with instant death and every time I hit him with anything he'd make his 4++. It was a close game, so much so that we drew (I actually won then realised I wasn't scoring when Perturabo died which brought it back to a draw). I didn't realise this till 10 minutes after the game so I went and fessed up!

Game 2 – Son of Horus (again)
I get the impression this guy was spoilt, I didn't really get a good vibe from the start and it only got worse from there. He was running, wait for it…………….VETS! Yay, vets, the first of the cheese course was served. He had 4 vet squads (2 x flamers and 2 x meltas), Maloghurst, knight (sword version), 10 x raiders??? and a 10 man plasma squad both in anvilluis drop pods.

The knight was my concern (not for long) and I dropped everything around it to take it down which I did, however to ensure I would be able to get a charge I split perty from the iron circle. This was a major mistake. The knight blew, scattered onto my terminators and promptly wiped five out. His plasma squad came in, put 18 wounds on Perty and then flamed my iron circle with all the vets in the world (seriously I don’t think any vets could have been anywhere else on planet earth they were all in Salisbury on table 2!)

Sniper and outflank are very powerful in any army. To be able to wound primarchs and MCs on4+ is stupid, and to be able to outflank to position better is too much of a good thing. I wasn’t tabled dispute him bragging to his mate (I had two iron circle left) we did all 5 turns in a record 35 minutes. I lost this in case you hadn't guessed!

Game 3 - Thousand Sons
Yes, the rumours are as bad as we feared. No Magnus;  however, 15 physic terminators in two squads (10 power fists & 5 Chain fists) in a Spartan and phobos respectively. 20 vets (yay more vets) two thudd guns (or where they rapiers), a deradeo dread, and a praetor.

I'll start off by saying that if you’re going to an event ‘assemble and paint your F&*%^£G armies’. Seriously, the Spartan was partly base coated and didn’t have any tracks, when I asked if the phobos had armoured ceramite he replied ‘whats a phobos?’  WTF!

His thudd guns were in fact rapier models, but he didn’t know the difference when he brought them (read the f'ing description) and his whole army bar 5 terminators were only base coated!

I didn’t care anymore, I cared even less when he said he had 20 psychic dice and started to roll on powers. 10 mins later we were ready to go. I shot a load of stuff killed a few things and then he had his turn.

He moved two landraiders, spent 10 minutes casting powers and started to remove my models. 10 terminators went down to two vet squads who had divination and aether shells. To be clear, that was re-rolling hits and shred; dirty and boring as f&^k.

At one point I had 2 physic dice, and he had >20. He rolled five dice needed 3+ to manifest some shitty telepathy spell and got all 5, he then asked if I wanted to dispel!!!!!
Anyway, he won, by a few points; I didn’t care I wanted to go home and enjoy the sun!

Summary
I won the lemon (last place), the Magnus list came 6th I think (which was awesome as he was a tit), I congratulated best painted (he was up his own arse a bit as well) and I left! I did help pack up unlike some of the others there though!

In short, if you take anything from this. SJ is a nice guy, terrain wasn’t any good, very competitive over in Salisbury and some very unsavoury personalities! Enter at your own risk!