Sixth in an ongoing series
THE GAMING STORE “PORTALS” 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. Since then, my brother-in-law Drew, Drew’s son Daniel, my neighbor Dylan, and I have often used this opportunity to get together and play using the Grimdark Future rules from OPR Games.
Autumn has had a lot going on, so we only managed to play at Portals twice since my previous batrep. In one game, I tied against Drew’s Orcs, and the only memorable part was my Kurindan Space Lizardmen (which I’ll tell you about some other time) going up against a souped-up version of Ghazghkull Thraka.
In the other game at Portals, I tied vs Daniel’s Alien Hives (aka Tyranids). The notable part about that game was that it was the Grimdark Future debut of my spinoff Space Marine army, the Sabretooth Tigers of Veda.
As I mentioned in my 2025 “State of the Jungle” post, I’ve split my massive collection of stripey Space Marines into three chunks. All of the mustard-yellow and brown Marines are now a separate army (officially, a successor chapter to my Fighting Tigers), which use the rules for “Blood (Battle) Brothers” (aka Blood Angels) in Grimdark Future (which, if you aren’t playing, you really ought to instead of 40K: here’s why).
This past week, Drew and I were both available, so to celebrate my recent birthday (#59!), we returned to Portals for Sabretooths vs Orc Marauders, 2500 pts each.
Sabretooth Tigers of Veda
I’m a huge fan of basic troops, so I build every list around lots of regular guys. I also had some units I wanted to try out just for fun, so I included them, hoping that they would get a chance to shine. I brought:
- Kshatriya (Captain) Sudra Patel. Blood Master Brother w/ Ebon Blade (counts as heavy chainsaw sword) & Squad Indra 2: six Veteran Blood Battle Brothers w/ 1 heavy rifle (aka bolt gun), 1 flamer, 1 heavy flamer, 1 gravity rifle, and 2 plasma rifles. One Veteran is an Apothecary who provides Regeneration (ignore wounds on a 5+ die roll) to members of the unit
- Squad Rudra 1. Ten Blood Brothers (aka Blood Angel Tactical Marines), w/ 2 heavy machine guns (aka heavy bolters)
- Squad Rudra 2. Ten Blood Brothers w/ 2 fusion rifles (aka melta guns)
- Squad Rudra 3. Ten Blood Brothers w/ 1 fusion rifle and 1 plasma rifle
- Squad Puchan. Ten Blood Pathfinders (aka Blood Angel Scouts) w/ 9 heavy rifles (bolt guns) and 1 heavy machine gun
- Tiger Shark. Blood Attack Speeder (aka Land Speeder) w/ minigun (aka assault cannon) and heavy machine gun
- Shrendi Vashtar. Blood Combat Walker (aka Dreadnought) w/ walker fist + heavy flamer, and super-heavy fusion rifle (aka multi-melta).
I was particularly keen to unleash Squad Indra, with all those special weapons, on Drew’s Boyz, and to see what kind of damage Vashtar could do, assuming he survived the battle (he has Tough 12, which is like having 12 Wounds in 40K).
Da Waaaagh!shingdun Kommanderz
Drew’s longtime Orc army takes its name from a certain American football team, and its win-loss record is comparable. Drew doesn’t mind: he’s just in it for the fun of moving minis and rolling dice. He brought:
- Orc Leader w/ shotgun & Specialists: six Orcs w/ flamers
- 4 mobz of 20 Orc Warriors each, w/ pistols and close combat weapons
- 1 mob of 5 Veterans (aka Nobz)
- Great Battle Truck (aka Battlewagon) w/ heavy machine gun, basic cannon, and rapid rocket launcher; carries up to 22 passengers
So, nothing fancy, just lots of Boyz who were certain to come running to my side of the board, which was fine with me, as “Blood Brothers” do well in close combat.
Setting Up
I arrived early to the store, set up the scenery, and randomly determined that there would be three objectives for us to fight for. When Drew arrived, he decided which side he wanted. We rolled to see who would deploy and go first, which was me.
I put Sudra Patel and Squad Indra in the middle of my deployment zone, along with Shrendi Vashtar, so that they could make a beeline to the objective in the middle of the board. I also had a squad of Tactical Marines nearby to back them up.
On my left flank, I had another squad of Tac guys, along with the Tiger Shark, to go after an objective several inches away. On my right flank, I placed the Scouts atop a building, in cover, and the last Tactical Squad on the first floor of the same building, so that they could run out and get the last objective.
In Grimdark Future, you alternate deploying units, so as I was setting up, Drew was plopping big mobz of Boyz here and there along his front line, also intent on running forward to grab objectives. Notably, he placed his Boss and the Burna Boyz in the Great Battle Truck and put that on his right/my left, directly across from the Tac Squad + Land Speeder combo I had. This was soon to become crucially important.
The Game
On the first turn, my Speeder moved up and shot at a mess of Boyz, inflicting some casualties. Drew advanced his Truck, firing to little effect. I moved up Rudra Squad 2, which was packing two fusion rifles (aka melta guns), and fired, damaging the Truck. Things were looking good.
Then Drew popped the Boss & Burna Boyz out of the Truck and dropped 18(!) flamer hits on Rudra Squad 2, incinerating 9 out of 10 of them. The Boss’ shotgun kakked the last guy. Before going into this fight, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that I’d lose a full squad of Marines to a single round of ORC SHOOTING, but it was what it was.
There was going to be no way that the Sabretooths would be able get that objective back from the Orcs, so I retreated the Speeder (firing as it went), and focused on the other two objectives. Squad Indra, Rudra 3, and Shrendi Vashtar waited for two mobz of Boyz to tramp to the center of the board, then jumped first one, then the other.
Despite numbering only 6 guys, Squad Indra impressively burned up/gunned down quite a few Greenskins, with the flamer, heavy flamer, and gravity rifle inflicting 9 hits each round. With Drew’s permission, I used the “Assault” action from the advanced Grimdark Future rules to shoot first, then charge, albeit with -1 to hit each time (under the basic rules, units can either shoot or charge, not both).
Once I had claimed the center objective, I pivoted my guys to deal with another fat unit of Orcs, who had jumped my retreating Speeder. The Speeder was down 4 out of 6 Wounds from the Burna Boyz scorching it on Turn 2. Fortunately for me, the Speeder made its armor saves against the hits that the charging Orcs put on it.
On my right flank, the Scouts and Rudra 1 traded shots with the 20-strong mob and the Nobz. Once the latter were gone and the former were worn down, the Tactical Marines advanced to finish off the last of the Boyz, and to claim the objective.
Rather than press his advantage on my left, Drew hunkered down his Boyz and Truck. Once my Land Speeder extricated itself from the scrap with the Boyz*, it shot dead the six Boyz of the Burna Krew. Meanwhile, Vashtar and Squads Indra and Rudra 2 mopped up the Orcs in the middle, with the Greenies failing Morale tests, able to do naught but cower.
*Under the Grimdark Future rules, units in close combat are not stuck there, and can move away on their next turn.
On Turn 3, Shrendi Vashtar took it on himself to face the Truck, hoping to blow it up with his super-heavy fusion rifle (aka multi-melta). Unfortunately, he missed, and I thought that surely was the end of him.
Drew then took advantage of the Assault action maneuver, firing on my Walker and then ramming it. Vashtar lost a Wound (now down 3 out of 12), but was able to fight back with 8 attacks, damaging the Truck and forcing the crew to check Morale, which they failed. Because the Truck was so heavily damaged (less than half its starting Wounds), it was out of the fight.
On Turn 4, the final one of the game, Drew had his Orc Boss charge Shrendi Vashtar, which did not go well for Team Green (SPLAT!). The Tiger Shark advanced, firing on the last Orc mob, killing enough of them that they failed a Morale check and lost control of the objective they had seized.
The game ended with the Sabretooth Tigers holding two objectives, while the Orcs held none. A solid win for Team Stripeypants!
Post-Game Analysis
Drew started off strong, totally running roughshod over one side of the table with that combo of the Burna Boyz and the tank. I was seriously sweating what was going to happen after that.
Where Drew went wrong is that he then played it safe and kept the Truck, the Boss + Burnas mob, and 20 Ladz on that side of the table in an attempt to anchor down that objective. That allowed me to focus my efforts on the center, tossing three units (the Captain + Indra, Shrendi Vashtar, and Rudra 2) at two Orc mobz, wearing them down and taking the middle objective.*
*The outcome of the shootout on the right flank, between the Scouts + Rudra 1 vs Boyz + Nobz, was never in doubt.
Drew realized afterwards that he should have been much more aggressive with the Truck, loading the Burna Boyz back into it and driving into the middle of the board to face the bulk of my forces. Had he done that, I think he would have taken the center objective (or at least contested it), and I would not have been able to dislodge his grip on the objective he took at the start of the game.
Drew would have been quite likely to win, and at the very worse, he would have tied. I’m sure there will be a rematch soon!
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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.