Horus Heresy Battle Report 7: The Extraction

"What of honor? What of glory? The only glory is victory; the only dishonor, defeat. Honor without victory is worthless. The methods of war matter not, only that my foes are dead while I yet fight."

 - Sergeant Albrecht, leader of Kill Team Ritter,
Death Guard Legion

Campaign To Date:

The planet of Xhorik Prime is engulfed in civil war as two rival blocs of nations, only united during the Great Crusade, now align themselves with opposing sides in the Horus Heresy. Falling directly in the path of Horus' long march to Terra, an advance force of Death Guard has been tasked with bringing the Xhorik System into compliance so that the main war host can safely resupply and move on quickly. Standing in the way to control of the main planet is a small garrison of White Scars and their Kozar military allies, their sworn brothers.

The early stages of the conflict centered around the Battle for Bielyr, a major city on the border between the two sides. After a long, hard-fought struggle through the ruined streets, the Death Guard were able to drive the loyalists north out of the now-destroyed city. Once they had lost the city, the White Scars fell back before the Death Guard advance and lured their forward forces into a trap. Thanks to some unexpected assistance from a small band of Imperial Fists, they cut off the traitor vanguard and captured their commander, Praetor Wolfgang.

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Korab squinted into the setting sun, but with the dust, the glare and the fading light, it was as useless as peering into thick fog. As the sun sank below the horizon, he could feel the temperature dropping, seemingly by the minute. For hours he had endured the blazing heat and now he only had a moment to enjoy the coolness before the wind started to chill him through his sweat-soaked uniform. But that was life on Second Duty: sweat for hours and then freeze until Third Duty relieved him. Korab gave up staring into the setting sun as his comm link blinked, notifying him that he was due to report. 

"Patrol oh-six checking in. Western perimeter clear. Over." 

'As if I had any idea what's more than 50 feet in front of my face...', he thought. 

He knew they had the auto-sensor perimeter nodes lined up around the entire outpost. 'So what is the point of all this endless partolling around out here in the damned wind all damn day like this?' He looked around at his patrol;  Jori and Orik were trying to stand downwind of one of the storage tanks of the processing facility they had re-purposed as a makeshift outpost. Korab gave the hand signal to move on and started toward the pumping station. When the wind picked up at dusk like this, he knew he would either have to shout to be heard or use the comm link, which needed to stay clear for official reports only, so they had gotten used to communicating non-verbally.

"Patrol oh-one checking in. Northern perimeter clear. Weather conditions just beee-autiful," came a voice over the comm link, slightly broken up by static. Korab grinned at Tomor's sarcasm even as he shivered; the temperature was dropping fast now that the sun was all but gone. All that remained was a reddish glow reflected by the clouds of dust. 

Korab turned his head to the left as we walked. He noticed a large shape materializing out of the darkening swirling dust. Panic gripped him as he reached for the comm link button. The shape moved at unexpected speed. As he reached the button, a large blade was driven straight through his throat. Korab tried to scream, but all that came out was a wheeze as his hand fell away from the comm unit and he collapsed in the dust. 

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PRE-GAME AND MISSION:

To represent a small team of Death Guard sneaking into the Loyalist outpost, we decided to use the Kill Team rules from Horus Heresy Book Six, but we used the original set from the 40k 4th Edition Rulebook where the defender had Brute squads to make it easier to manage the large number of infantry. For anyone not familiar, the sentries start unaware with only a random chance for the Defender to control them, but as the Attacker makes noise, Klaxon counters are accrued and the sentries are increasingly likely to investigate. We also made a slight change that if the attacker charged from outside the sentries' spotting distance and wiped out the Brute squad in the first round, they were considered to have been killed before they could shout out or raise the alarm, so the Defender would not accrue a Klaxon counter.


BATTLE:

View of the Loyalist outpost from the west. 

As an industrial facility without many options for securing prisoners, Wolfgang was housed in the empty processing chamber on the upper level.  

View of the loyalist outpost from the south

Teams of Kozar Army Grenadiers patrol the base alongside the basic infantry sentries. 

"Patrol 02 checking in. All quiet at the pumping station."

"Patrol 06 checking in. Western perimeter clear. Over."

"Scout 1 checking in. Sensors reading negative. But I'm picking up a lot of static. Must be from this weather."

"Patrol unit 05 checking in. Observing increasing wind and dust at our position. Visibility deteriorating. Over."

"Patrol 03 checking in. Northern perimeter secure. Weather conditions worsening. Visibility now 20 meters. Repeat: visibility 20 meters and falling."

After disabling the perimeter alarms, the Death Guard kill team creeps into the Loyalist outpost under the cover of failing light and billowing dust.

Their target is the processing chamber converted to a jail cell on the upper level. But several Kozar Army units patrol the area.

Sergeant Albrecht (with power fist) leads the critical rescue mission to extract Praetor Wolfgang.

Without warning, the Death Guard marines suddenly appear out of the dusky gloom and attack the Loyalist patrols.

Patrol 06 is ambushed and cut down by Apothecary Wilhelm and his men before they can raise the alarm.

Albrecht and his men spring from the darkness to assault the sentinel, Scout 1.

The elite marines quickly incapacitate the walker using their combat blades and superhuman strength.

The smoke from the destroyed sentinel mixes with the black dust blowing across the outpost from the east.

After disabling the sentinel, Albrecht leads his men in an ambush of another patrol. 

One of the sentries is able to get a strangled cry into his radio before he is silenced by the Death Guard kill team.

Scout 2 hears a strange call in the radio. But unsure of the unit that made the call, the pilot heads in the wrong direction to investigate.

Apothecary Wilhelm leads his men to the ladder under the cover of darkness. Sergeant Albrecht and his men regroup after eliminating their targets.

The Death Guard move quickly and quietly toward their target: the makeshift prison cell of Praetor Wolfgang.

Several Kozar Army patrols converge on the prison area and finally spot the intruders. Alarms are raised across the outpost. 

The Death Guard tactical marines charge into the approaching grenadiers to give Wilhelm time to free his lord, Wolfgang.

The Death Guard easily dispatch the grenadiers but more patrols are now converging. The Kozar Army units unleash a hail of point-blank lasgun fire, but the mighty Death Guard shrug off the hits without serious injury.

Seeing that the time for stealth is over, the Death Guard call for extraction and their rhino races into the base perimeter. The heavy weapons trooper provides covering fire with a frag missile into the sentries on the tower.

The frag missile finds it's mark and kills a few sentries. The tactical marines hold back the sentries while Wilhelm and Wolfgang escape down the ladder.

The Praetor and Apothecary meet up with Albrecht and his men. They are peppered with lasgun fire, but well-protected by their power armor.

Kozar infantry and a Tauros race through the smoke to stop the Death Guard from escaping with their prize.

As the kill team approaches their rhino, the Tauros scores a hit on the transport with a krak grenade. The damage is minor with only the loss of the twin-linked bolter. All engine systems are still go. 

Multilaser fire from the Kozar sentinel fails to harm the rhino as Wolfgang and his rescuers pile in to their escape vehicle.

The rhino turns and races away into the dust storm. A few Death Guard infantry are left to fight their way out on their own, willing to give their lives if necessary to provide cover for the escape of their master, Praetor Wolfgang along with Apothecary Wilhelm and Sergeant Albrecht.

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Praetor Wolfgang's mind raced as the rhino sped through the darkness, away from the Loyalist outpost. The entrance of the Imperial Fists into the war for Xhorik Prime changed things considerably. The rest of his army was unaware of the arrival of these new foes and they would be caught off guard if he didn't get back to his lines to make adjustments. With the Fists' fearsome reputation for teleportation strikes, Wolfgang knew he had to re-purpose some ground and air scanners as teleport scanners and jammers or risk any part of his force being struck by surprise at any time. He still didn't understand how their ship had entered the system unnoticed. The Death Guard fleet had control of the void; the White Scars' ships were hidden somewhere on the ground, unable to take-off without being overwhelmed and destroyed. 

He had only a few moments to observe the enemy outpost after being freed from his cell, but he had seen enough to know the White Scars marines were not there or the escape would have been much more difficult. He knew they must be making a move, probably with their new allies, and he contemplated all of the options. Working through the undeniable logic of warfare, he determined their most likely course of action.

"Brother Dietrich," he told the driver, "change of course. Take us to position Yott-Zwei." The rhino's engines roared above the relentless wind as Wolfgang rode in silence. 'I will have vengeance, if this whole world has to burn. The slaves of the False Emperor must be cleansed away so that humanity can reach the greatness that Horus and Mortarion will bring.'

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POST-GAME:

Loyalist Post-Game Analysis:

Phil: This was the first time in all these years that we played a game using these old Kill Team rules with sentries and klaxon counters. This kind of game is all about the fun and the flavor and the story and isn't meant to be tactically balanced. It made for a really cool experience. Along with the improving quality of our terrain, models and photos, this game had an epic movie-like feel to it. The best moment was when Pete decided to break from stealth mode and the Death Guard heavy weapons trooper lit up the guardsmen in the tower with a frag missile at the same time that the rhino came roaring into the base. It was fun to picture the chaos and surprise on the part of the defenders when they realized they were under attack and Wolfgang was already free and on the run! I also enjoyed the moment at the end when the defenders fired everything at the rhino to stop the escape, but the tough little bugger survived without becoming immobilized so that (most of) the Death Guard could flee.

These missions are made to favor the attacker (because that makes a more cinematic experience!), but in hindsight, we probably unbalanced the rules a bit too much by allowing the attacker to silently kill sentries in melee and we should have implemented some trade-offs to balance it. As it was, Pete was able to complete his mission a little too easily. For one thing, we need to make it so that if you want to try to kill silently, you can only use a close combat weapon (no bolt pistols or chain swords, etc.) and instead of being automatic, maybe make it require an initiative check or opposed initiative rolls. And of course we should give some corresponding advantage to the defender. But it was a lot of fun for our first time playing this way and one of the best parts about tabletop games is to be able to customize the game however we want.

That was a fun break from the regular style of game and we will definitely mix in more Kill Team games going forward.



Traitor Post-Game Analysis:

Pete: I agree – not a balanced game, but a hell of a lot of fun. Sneaking up on unaware sentries and snuffing them out as we creep forward to break free our imprisoned leader… what’s not to love? And I liked seeing what space marines could do against regular guardsmen. It’s a chance to highlight how powerful marines are in comparison to their lesser brethren. I can’t wait to mix it up and try some more narrative style of games as we continue to grow our available armies, units and terrain. And I too highly enjoyed the missile strike on the top of the guard tower! So satisfying!

It’s great to see a narrative taking shape and a campaign forming for control of Xhorik Prime. Nameless, faceless infantry from regular games are growing into notable individuals with back stories, heroic deeds, and histories of battles won and lost. I could see us escalating and expanding this conflict for many more games with an overall winner and loser that helps shape the narrative of the Horus Heresy as we strive to make this a pivotal battleground of the time. Other worlds and warzones will hopefully have their time in the sun too – with the final prize being grand old Terra herself. Maybe in 5 years!?! Ha.