Fifth in an ongoing series
“PORTALS,” a gaming store, opened earlier this year on Kent Island, MD, a few minutes’ drive from my home, featuring “Tabletop Thursday” open play from 5:00 to 9:00 pm. This has given my neighbors Nate and Dylan, my brother-in-law Drew, Drew’s son Daniel, and me the perfect opportunity to get together, move minis, and roll dice, using the Grimdark Future rules from OPR Games.
(Why Grimdark Future? Because all of us agree that it is sooooo much easier and quicker to play than 10e Warhammer 40K. You can read my take on it here).
We had a bit of a slowdown over the summer. After playing a group mega-battle at Drew’s house (6000 points and two players per side), I took trips to Ireland and Wisconsin, and Drew entered the busy time at his job, where he basically didn’t have any days off during a three-week stretch.
Nate started a new job and a new 40K Crusade campaign with a friend. Dylan went to Alaska for a week, but not before he and I played a battle of my Robot Legions (aka Necrons) against his Human Defense Force (aka Astra Militarum) at his place. It, uh, did not go well for the humans. At all.
But once Drew was finally off work, and I was back from the wilds of Wisconsin, we met at Portals to see if he and Daniel could take down my “Killer Elite” list that had worked surprisingly well against Dylan.
Yblis’ Centurions
For my game against Drew and Daniel, I brought a smaller (2000 points) version of the 2500 points I had thrown at Dylan. Notably, the two Night Transports were gone, replaced by six Bot Swarms (Canoptek Scarabs, iffn you speak Necron). The rest of the army was made up of Annihilators, the Grimdark Future version of Lokhust Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers:
- Lucifer 2.1. Annihilator Lord w/ heavy gauss cannon (good for taking out tanks);
- Unit 4.0.1. Six Robot Swarms;
- Unit 4.1.1. Three Annihilators w/ gauss cannons (4 shots each);
- Unit 4.1.2. Three Annihilators w/ gauss cannons;
- Unit 4.1.3. Two Annihilators w/ gauss cannons, one Annihilator w/ heavy gauss cannon;
- Unit 4.2. Heavy Annihilator w/ heavy gauss cannon.
The Alien Alliance
Drew admitted to actually putting some thought (“About 45 seconds,” he estimated) into the combined list that he and Daniel fielded, a combination of his Orc Marauders and Daniel’s Alien Hives (aka Tyranids). As in, he would bring the “Big Gunz,” while his son fielded the “Little Bugs.” They brought:
- Orc Leader;
- Orc Bomber Plane (painted red, of course);
- Two Goblin Artillery Guns;
- Three Goblin Death Walkers; and
- Four broods of 20 Assault Grunts (aka Hormagaunts) each
Clearly, this was to be a battle of numbers vs. skill. Drew and Daniel would try to swamp me with sheer volume while I tried my best to blast them off the board.
The Game
I had set up the scenery and randomly determined that there would be four objectives for us to contend over. Drew put his Orc Leader, the Plane, and the Walkers on his right flank, and placed his Artillery Guns in the center and left flank. Daniel spaced his broods evenly across their deployment zone.
I kept my small cadre of Annihilators in the center, with the Scarabs on my right flank, in sight of an objective, to distract Daniel and divert at least one brood to deal with them. I knew that I could not deal with all the Bugs at once, so I needed to concentrate fire and wipe out one batch at a time.
As expected, the Alien Hives ran for the objectives, and I willingly sacrificed the Scarabs, delaying the opposing brood for about two turns. In the meantime, I whittled down the closest brood, whichever one it was at that time.
The heavy gauss cannons only have one shot each (which do a very impressive 6 wounds at a time), so instead of over-killing little bugs with them, I sniped Walkers before they could charge me. I also zapped one of the Artillery Guns (the other had no range, because Drew had deployed it too far away from my clump of Annihilators).
Drew’s Plane zipped back and forth, blasting its guns, as he attempted to maneuver it over my fire base so that its Heavy Bombs could put some hurting on my Evil Robotz (TM). For the most part, the Plane’s hits were minimal, so I mostly ignored it.
For the first three turns of the game, I was able to stave off Daniel’s Assault Grunts, while absorbing some hits. Annihilators have good armor saves (3+), and each have 3 Wounds; Lucifer and the Heavy Annihilator each have 6 Wounds.
Combined with Lucifer’s Regen-Protocol (ignoring wounds on a 5+) and the Robots’ Self-Repair ability (able to ignore wounds on a 6), the Aliens that survived the storm of gun fire that came their way ran face-first into an adamantium wall when they tried to charge my guys.
Alas for me, games of Grimdark Future have four turns, not three, and in the last round, the Aliens finally ground down most of Yblis’ Centurions, and held the majority of the objectives. The Plane finally dropped a Heavy Bomb on target, making a very impressive crater where one of my Robots used to be. A convincing and well-fought win for Drew and Daniel.
Post-Game Analysis
In the game against Dylan, the Night Transports had roamed his back line, destroying his battle tank, both artillery batteries, and his cavalry. Would that I had had those flyers–and their firepower–during this game!
Simply put, I did not have enough guns or shots to beat Drew and Daniel’s numbers. I was fighting a defensive battle the entire game, and could not take the fight to them the way I had against Dylan. Sometimes an elite force can take down an army that vastly outnumbers it, but not today. Hats off to them for a well-fought game.
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Kenton Kilgore writes books for kids, young adults, and adults who are still young. Follow Kenton on Facebook for frequent posts on sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. You can also catch him on Instagram.