Chicago Skirmish Wargames

The more experience we gain with One Page Rules' "Grimdark Future" rules, the bigger battles we're able to have. Last Monday we tried our biggest battle yet. Coming in at 12k points this battle had my Dark Angels (6k) vs. James' Orks (3k) and Mattias's Quar (3k).

Even though we were playing a pretty standard 4-turn, 5-objective game, every battle should have a narrative. For this battle, the Quar Homeworld is under attack by Dark Angels from the elite Ravenwing and Deathwing companies. Knowing the Imperium's unfriendly stances towards aliens and mutants, the Quar have every incentive to resist. Fans of 40k lore (where we set most of  our games) will know that Orks have a long history of working as mercenaries. Thus the Quar have hired Ork mercenaries to help defend their planet, promising them payment, loot and a good fight.

Below is the layout for the Battle. An 8x4 table:

Seen here from the Imperial and Quar (respectively) sides of the table, I've added red Jewels to indicate the locations of the Supply Caches that were the game's objectives.

The Mining Quarter:

The Main Settlement:

The Quar Forces laid out. Mattias's Quar forces are quite unlike any others, featuring hand painted banners, a scratchbuilt Machinen-Krieger-inspired hover tank and Walkers built from heavily converted Votoms models. For stats, Mattias used the "Feudal Guard" list and pulled from Space Marine dreadnaught stats for the walkers.

James Orks featured an array of both official GW models and some inspired old-school scratch builds, including a Rogue-Trader-inspired deodorant bottle truck!

The Dark Angels arrayed for battle. Having to manage a 6000 point force was made easier by having all points-heavy units: Terminators, Bikes, a Land Raider and a Dreadnaught. I was only able to field about 2/3 of the massive Dark Angel army that I acquired from Josh some years ago:

Early Moves on the Ork Flank:

The 'Copters eagerly shot forward, but would be quickly shot down:

Early Advances on the Quar Front:

The battle is Joined!!

As is typical in a Grimdark Game, by turn 2, the forces are well engaged.

The Quar had more ranged punch than the Dark Angels expected and definitely provided the tougher opponents for the attackers.

Tanks and Dreadnaughts slugged it out on the far edge of the Quar front, battling over the supply Cache (motor on a skid behind the Dreadnaught):

Despite a table relatively densely packed with terrain, a canyon running diagonally across much of the table did provide some long shooting lanes.

Below a Quar infantry unit is seen turning and advancing to take on a deep-striking Dark Angel unit that arrived in the 3rd turn.

A head-on contest between the largest of the Dark Angel and Ork vehicles resulted in a Dark Angel domination and left behind a pile of green goo:

In the Third turn, the Ork forces managed to take over the objective at the mine entry point

On the far Ork Flank however, the lone Ork Dreadnaught was quickly stunned. We used Mattias's wonderful foam smoke markers to note stunned units.

At the top of the 4th turn the Quar and Orks cooperated in the center of the table to hold the central objective.

Unsurprisingly, we were so engrossed in the game that we forgot to photograph the last turn.

Game end:

As a reminder, here's where the Objectives were,  the foreground was the Dark Angel deployment and the Orks and Quar were coming from the left and right (respectively) sides of the far edge:

Despite a strong gains in turn 3, the Ork Flank collapsed on turn 4. The Dark Angels had already taken the crates on the far edge of the table and the Ravenwing speeders were able to shoot the Orks off of the objective at the mine head.

In center, the Orks and Quar had cooperated most effectively and were able to hold both Equpment Drops in the canyon and next to the scrap disposal building.

However, on the right flank, the Dark Angels were most concentrated and kept the Dark Angels away from the Engine objective next to the Quar longhouse. This resulted in a 3-2 narrow victory for the Dark Angels.

After Thoughts

Grimdark Future continues to satisfy. Upping the battle to 12,000 points was a last minute decision based on one member finding out they could attend shortly before game time. Still, I was able to increase my force (OPR's "Army Forge" free army building program is fantastic) and expand the table in a very short time. Even at 12k points, the battle was finished in around 3.5 hours. At this point, I find the Grimdark rules are starting to feel like a favorite pair of jeans. 12,000 points went so well, that I think perhaps 3000 points-per-player may be the new standard I suggest when putting together future games.

The simple objective scenario was a good choice for first try at such a large points value, but I think I'm just about at the end of playing simple-objectives with long-edge deployments.  I'm definitely ready to start incorporating some of the more interesting deployment and scenario options from the Grimdark Future "Full" rulebook and I think this should result in more interesting games.

Good Day and Happy Gaming!

Karl