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IGT 2009 Battle Report: Game 1, Table 1

Started by MarcoSkoll, January 19, 2010, 09:29:07 AM

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MarcoSkoll

IGT 2009, Game 1.
Table: Table #1 - Basilica
GM: Robmeister
Players:
-   Marco Skoll (Inquisitor Lyra Rhodes, Sgt. Kai Gillmore, Renatus Neuvler)
-   Kaled (Techpriestess Orla Riall, Calculus-Logi Zurek Nabokov, "The Pariah")
-   Precinct Omega (Inquisitor Ingo Cleops, Marech Val)

Notes: Reverend Warden Maximillian Faust sounds EXACTLY like Brian Blessed. That is all.

~~~~~

The basilica had seen much better days. Much of the masonry was either rife with bullet holes, or missing all together. Based on what could be seen of the far end of the building through the gloom of the evening, heavy artillery had probably been involved.
This was to say nothing of the lack of ceiling, which Lyra Rhodes guessed probably now existed as much of the rubble that was strewn about her feet. Her decades as an Inquisitor had shown her worse, but few of those buildings were still being pressed into service.

Evidence of life within the building was offered by the half dozen dour-robed pilgrims basking in the presence of the shrine of Saint Theodoric, set within the midst of all the war-torn chapel.
Around the other side of the grey stone altar stood the Reverend Warden Maximillian Faust. While clad in much the same clothing as his flock, he was immediately distinguished from them by the confidence he displayed in the presence of the resting place of the Saint's holy sword.

At this time, Lyra had more pressing affairs than the Ecclesiarchy, but Cardinal Gandolfo Malatesta was utterly convinced of a plot to remove the blade from the shrine, and had insisted on her help. With no need for enemies within such an important Imperial organization, she had been left with little choice but to respond.

In the moment before she crossed the threshold of the surprisingly intact stone arch that made up the entrance, she glanced over her shoulder to check her companions were still there.
To her left stood Kai Gillmore, a former Kasrkin sergeant who now acted in the role of her trusted bodyguard, and on her right, Renatus Neuvler, a psyker who she afforded rather less confidence - his way was deception and trickery, but his results left little to be denied.

"Let's go."

Their arrival had already been noticed, given away by Kai's heavily armoured form. Already expecting them, the Reverend Warden picked up his hammer and prepared himself for the offering of a formal welcome to his guests.

~~~~~

Behind all of this, at the far side of the chapel, Techpriestess Orla Riall advanced over another of the piles of scattered masonry that made up much of the floor. Followed by Zurek Nabokov and "The Pariah", she moved forwards towards the shrine.

She had already done the calculations, and she knew her best chance of success in stealing the Sword of Saint Theodoric was to put its protectors off-guard.
With this in mind, she moved to the head of the stairs behind the Reverend, loudly announcing herself in a less than entirely human voice:

"I am present."

Instantly, she had the attention of all who stood below her. Quickly analysing the ten figures before her, she dismissed six as unarmed pilgrims, likely to scatter when she put her plan into action. Of the other four, she immediately identified the Reverend Warden.
The other three were unexpected - one was clearly an elite trooper of the Imperial Guard. The other two, a male and a female, appeared to be moderately armed, and she detected readings that were indicative of a reactive energy shield.

With the female moving forward from behind the pilgrims, there was there was no time to change the plan - unexpected elements were to be expected.

   "Identify yourself!", the Reverend boomed, "What are you doing!"
Orla moved down the stairs towards the Warden, coming to stand before him. Fixing him in her vision, she spoke again:
   "I am here to pay my respects to a great hero of the Imperium."

~~~~~

Outside the shrine, Inquisitor Ingo Cleops glanced over it. He inwardly cursed - he was at the wrong end of the building. Breaking into a run, he started to make his way to the main entrance, leaving Marech Val to make his way up yet another pile of the rubble strewn across the place.

~~~~~

Lyra was watching with suspicion as the Techpriestess came down the stairs and spoke with the Warden. This felt wrong, in more ways than one - the Techpriestess' actions didn't sum up, but there didn't seem to be a reason why not.
In the absence of a solid answer, her eyes flitted about the room, looking for clues . Some form of servitor was following the Priestess, and another figure was remaining atop the stairs, equipped with some form of long range rifle. He didn't much look the part of a soldier however, although he did seem to be intently studying the room himself.

Kai elected to take some initiative. Gesturing at Renatus to move closer to the Inquisitor, he shifted across the room into the cover of a heavy stone pillar. He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't like it - if it went wrong, he wasn't going to be caught out by it.

~~~~~

Orla moved past the Warden, coming to a kneel immediately before the shrine, using it as a ruse to closer examine the wards and seals that adorned the shrine.

She had barely had the time to begin before the female posed a question:
   "Tell me Priestess, why did you enter from the far end of the shrine?"

A brief stab of rage came across Orla's emotions at the upstart's impudence. Who was this to be asking questions of a Priest of the Machine God! Putting that aside, she gave a reply:
   "The far corner has some interesting architecture of great interest."

The woman glanced over to the corner - there was little of the corner left, certainly nothing to study. Stepping closer, her hand strayed to the pistol holstered on her hip:
   "In the name of His Inquisition, you will identify yourself."

The Inquisition. That changed everything. Surging from her kneel, she activated her Sollex-Aegis Energy Blade and screamed a kill order at the Pariah.

~~~~~

With the sudden glare of the plasma blade, Kai's hand snapped to his hellpistol, his thoughts only on protecting the Inquisitor. Snatching the weapon from his belt, he brought it up and fired for the Techpriestess.
Catastrophically missing, his shot ploughed into the back of the head of the pilgrim in front of him, who immediately slumped to the floor dead.*

Seeing the shot, Calculus-Logi Zurek Nabokov immediately calculated that it was intended for his mistress. With his shot to the attacker blocked, he took the next best option, and brought his rifle to his shoulder, and took aim for the Inquisitor. The trajectory was good, and he pulled the trigger.
However, the Reverend Warden shifted away from the blade of the Techpriestess, and by pure fluke, placed himself immediately in the path of the shot, and it cut into his thigh instead.**

To add to his misfortunes, the Servitor, driven by a violent cocktail of drugs, lunged forwards at him.
It swung its bionic arm wildly for him, but he hefted his greathammer, forcing it to dodge the blow. Bringing it back again, his second attack glanced off its leg. Not a dramatic hit, but it would it would leave a nasty bruise.

Renatus reached to the warp. Inhaling deep of the aethyr, it was an instant before he choked on a hateful nothingness - the Servitor was a damned Pariah! He lunged out, forcing the energies out a microsecond before he lost control, saving his mind from being ravaged. ***
The flash cast aggressively bright light to both ends of the cathedral, temporarily blinding several of the onlookers, and sending the pilgrims scattering in raw panic.

Throwing her arm up in the way of the bright light, Lyra quickly recovered. Reaching for her shock maul and power knife, she lunged forwards, striking out with the maul at the Techpriestess.
Orla brought up her plasma blade to parry, and its powerful energies proved too much for the shock weapon, which was shorn in two.

Forced to leap back to avoid the vicious counter-attack from the deadly energy weapon, she stepped back, then took the chance to retreat further. Backing up against the nearby wall, she dropped the useless haft of her former shock-maul as the Techpriestess struck out at the Reverend Warden.
His leg completely severed with one swing, Maximillian Faust sank into unconsciousness.

With the Inquisitor out of his line of sight, and the Reverend Warden down, Zurek Nabokov lowered the rifle from his shoulder and ran for the altar. Pushing up on the lid, his bionic strength allowed him to start to lift it, but there was more than weight sealing this casket - he felt an intense pain in his mind, and it took extreme strength of will to continue.
Pushing the lid partway off, he was interrupted by a hellpistol shot that blasted a large chunk of stone out of the altar, which was quickly followed by a second that buried into his bionic arm, sending sparks flying and his aiming staff from his hand.

Through a haze of rage and fear, Renatus pulled his needle pistol from its holster, and fired two poorly aimed shots at the blinded Pariah, which flew off into the darkness to explode with dull cracks.
Stood next to him, Lyra similarly unholstered her revolver, and brought it to eye-level before opening fire on the Techpriestess.

The first shots went wide, and Orla paid no heed to them, casually turning and using her strength to finally throw the lid from the altar, exposing the sword within. Seeing the psyker's aim wavering over the Pariah, who was now wildly thrashing at the corpse of the pilgrim it had just killed, Lyra shouted at him:
   "Renatus, you moron! Shoot her!"

Sense making it through his shattered thoughts, Renatus turned and fired for the Techpriestess, his two shots miraculously hitting home. The first shot punched clean through Orla's chest armour, detonating deep within her flesh, although the second merely shattered against the plates adorning her leg.

Immediately afterwards, another magnum revolver round whistled past, but the next smashed home into the Techpriestess' wounded chest, leaving her to collapse as the pain overloaded her system.

In amongst the confusion, Ingo Cleops was barely noticed as he ran through the main doors.
Drawing his stubber, he raised it and fired for the nearest pilgrim. Blasting him to the floor with the first shot, he turned and shot down a second in as many seconds.
Looking over the scene, he was satisfied with the havoc he saw before him.  Seeing Marech shoot down another pilgrim in the distance, he allowed a smile. This was perfect!

Out of the shadows, Kai lowered his hellpisol and stepped forwards to swing at Zurek, who had just lifted a clearly blasphemous blade from within the shrine. His first attack was dodged, but the second cut deep into his opponent's leg.
The Calculus-Logi immediately fled, but in the instant before the Kasrkin could pursue, the Pariah servitor charged in, swinging at Kai. Stepping back, the soldier clipped his pistol back to his belt and took up his sword in his strong hand, striking out at the endlessly moving servitor.

Seeing the fleeing Zurek, Lyra emptied the two remaining rounds from her revolver at him, both flying wide. Cursing, and vowing to spend more time on the range, she thrust the pistol back into its holster, and ran at him with her power knife. By some luck, she severed something in his bionic arm, and the blade clattered from his hand to the floor. ****

He continued to run, but she wasn't bothered. She could hear the Arbitrators around the site, and she knew that they'd recover him.
Looking around, she could see that Renatus had collapsed, probably due to mental strain, and that Kai was in the process of dealing with the Servitor.

Reaching into the inside pocket of her jacket for her seal, she carefully stepped around the fallen blade. This was no holy relic - it was clearly corrupted by the Ruinous Powers.
Distracted by the arrival of the Arbitrators at the main steps, she shouted at them, holding the seal aloft:
   "Emperor's Inquisition! Hold your fire."

It took them a brief moment to check her seal before they continued under her instruction. Doing her best to ensure that all the witnesses had been rounded up, a foul scream came from the foot of the stairs at the head of the chapel.

One of the Arbitrators had lifted the corrupted blade.
   "Oh... shaft me", the Inquisitor mouthed.

With a feral roar, Kai surged forwards...

+++++

* This was a case of EPIC fail. Kai's hit roll was a resounding 99, and there was a pilgrim right in front of him...
**In this case, Lyra has an ability called Pure Luck. Amongst a couple of minor other effects, enemies are at -10% for any attempts to hit her. In this case, this was the difference between being hit and being missed - and based on my description of the ability, Rob at this point decided that the shot had hit the Warden instead.
***In contrast to Kai's failure, Renatus unbelievably pulled off a Blinding Flash when confronted by a Pariah. Needing a 26 with all the combined penalties, the two dice came down as exactly that.
**** This is the actual end of game-play. All remaining text is based on the Carthaxian Conclave thread, to give you a slightly more interesting wrap-up to the scenario.


Marco's Notes:
Some events have been slightly reordered to make the story telling a little smoother. Nothing major, but given the way the game plays, describing things a couple of actions at a time would make it read pretty schizophrenic. That's probably obvious, but just saying it anyway.

I've also added a certain amount of my interpretation of the characters and events, to try and tell a little more of a story.

However, I've done my best to actually recreate the events fairly accurately and in-depth, and avoid this just being a "loose retelling" of the game's events.

~~~~~

As far as my original objectives, this game was pretty bad. I'd been supposed to a) prevent the theft of the sword and keep the seals on the Shrine from being broken and b) protect the pilgrims.

At best, I can only claim partial success on the first objective. The sword was not stolen (although, only by virtue of Lyra rolling all her actions on the final game turn), but the seals were definitely broken.

The second objective... well, only one of the original six pilgrims made it to the end of the game - and the very first of the dead was at the hands of my own characters.

Combined with the fact that the Reverend Warden sustained major injuries, Cardinal Malatesta wouldn't have been particularly happy with me, had I not been otherwise busy executing him for the heresy of harbouring daemonic artefacts.

Aside from that, this game was the beginning of the proof that Lyra's BS of 59 apparently has no bearing on her actual hit chance, as only one of the six shots she fired actually hit, in spite of the fact all of them had been aimed with at least an even chance to hit.

As far as the games of the IGT, this was easily the most immersive of the ones I played. Rob had put insane effort into preparing this game, with my particular mission briefing being given out on wax-sealed heavy parchment - and the dead pilgrim models only added to that.
With regards to sheer attention to scenario materials, it sets a level I'm hoping to be able to work towards next IGT.

This game was also host to two of the best quotes of the IGT, both from Precinct Omega:
"Chomp Chomp Chomp Chomp Chomp Om nom nom nom nom" and "Yes! People still play Inquisitor!".

...and some Monty Python references, but those are to be expected.

The reports from the other three games will be coming at some point in the future, including the quote "You hear a faint gingle-gingle noise" and the first recorded case of child abuse in Inquisitor.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Adlan


Myriad

I concur.  Good write up.

Rob bringing dead pilgrim models for the scenario certainly gets full marks for effort.
I had better point out, that some of the clubs I represent are of a military bent.

You know what you are?  A plywood shark!

MarcoSkoll

Thanks.

I have to apologise for the delay in actually starting to get these down into text. I told myself I'd get them all done much sooner, but it turned out to take more time than I originally thought it would, and they got put off for a while.

But, in spite of that, I think I should be doing them - until I actually go mad, I'll keep trying to provide the battle reports for any games I play/run at Conclave meets, even if they are a little slow in coming.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

enigma

A good game but what of the sword? it was picked up so will the battle continue

MarcoSkoll

The whole issue with the arbitrator and the sword was something that later cropped up in the Carthaxian Conclave thread as something that Kaled said...

Quote+++ Personal Log: Riall, Orla - SOL/4423/riao +++
The Inquisitrix explained that the blade contained a bound 'daemon', and it was this being whose powers caused that Arbitrator to react the way he did...

... it wasn't ever anything that came up as an idea on the day, where the actual gameplay ended with Lyra managing to stop Zurek escaping with the blade.
(Okay, not quite - the last character to go was Renatus, but as I knew it was already the last turn and whatever he did would be pretty moot, I decided he'd use his actions to pass out.)

Anyway, I ran with Kaled's idea when I posted extracts from Lyra's log - making mention of Kai having proven his mettle in assisting with the situation - but it's one of those things that sort of needs to be left unsaid.
Stuff like the way the Mark of Chaos opening cinematic cuts out just before the Warrior Priest and Bloodthirster actually start duking it out.

What eventually happened to the sword... admittedly, I took a little bit of a liberty in making the decision, but I decided that Lyra had the sword transferred to an Inquisition vault, and to quote Lyra's log: "its place in the shrine has been taken by a suitably ornate replacement, if one of no consequence."
It seemed appropriate - after all, the defined role of her Order is to keep Imperial secrets (and the Ecclesiarchy holding daemon weapons - that's something that needs to be a secret). Cover-ups are standard fare for the Inquisitors of the Order Perditus.

So, no - there won't be any continuation of that, I'm afraid. You can pick up a few more surrounding details from Lyra's log, and I'll be continuing with the next report in the sequence soon - what happened when Lyra's warband fought Father Christmas the daemon Slaanesh Nic'lash.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

wargame_insomniac

Stunning report. Loved the narrative and the link to various combatants.

Thanks

James