A ridiculous scenario my friends and I thought of. The General scenario is a siege/survival game based around an Endless Tyranid Swarm and a group of suspicious allies. Pardon the atrocious writing, I did this in half an hour without much care for good writing. I'm sure it's all been done before, but any feedback would be appreciated!
Defense of PDF Station 337
The world of N’Dras has for nearly two hundred years been considered a place of untrustworthy, ill-tempered Tau. Normally, Tau of other worlds tend to avoid it and it’s populace for this very reason, finding any kind of disrupting of social equilibrium to be upsetting. However, when an unknown and upstart Ork Waaaagh lands on N’Dras, a group of Fire Caste arrive in timely manner to combat the Greenskin Tide.
After months of grueling combat, tragedy begets tragedy as a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Gorgon appears above N’Dras. The casualties of the beleaguered Tau and Greenskins is horrific as they are attacked from behind and above by a rain of claws and chitin. A desperate plan comes into the minds of both the Shas’O and the Ork Big Mek. N’Dras was formerly an Imperial world, before it was taken by the Tau for their Greater Good. Deep in the northern polar ice caps lies an old PDF station with a powerful orbital defense cannon.
Both forces arrive at the same time, with Tyranid Swarms hot on their heels. Despite this, they nearly come to blows outside of the PDF’s Compound. As heated words are exchanged and weapons are drawn, despite the urgency of the situation, a flash of light on the compound’s ramparts draws their attention. Tall, lithe figures that move with an unnatural grace appear, and begin readying a defense of the main gate.
From here a Farseer and accompanying retinue approach, and begin discussing a plan for a joint-defense of the complex. Passing furtive, suspicious glances between one another, the three forces agree and make ready, as on the horizon a dark mass that can only be the Tyranid Swarm, draws near.
Experimental Rules:
The joint-forces within the compound must hold the array for six-turns. Imperial Technology isn’t known for its speed, so the cannon must find it’s target and prepare the deadly payload within. This means that the Eldar, Tau, and Orkz, must sit tight and uncomfortably close to one another as it readies, and face down the Tyranid swarm as well.
Tyranid Swarm:
- Two Tervigons power the charge that aims to kill off the squishy, tasty treats walking the ramparts. Having fed on much of the planet’s bio-mass, they Tervigons are empowered. Instead of spawning once per turn, they spawn twice! Once at the beginning, and once at the end of the Tyranid turn.
- Hormagaunts and Termagaunts use their own scores for leadership and morale tests. However, they never fully flee the battlefield. A failed morale test causes one of two things. On a roll of 1-3, the squad goes to ground. On a roll of 4-6, the squad falls back 12 inches.
- What happens if a Tyranid squad joins a pinned squad? Both squads become one, and is unpinned.
Defending Force:
No one said teamwork was easy! Here comes the experimental rules for the defending forces.
Fighting Together:
Shooting the same target as an enemy is easy enough, but what about where it really matters, the close combat nitty-gritty?
- Shooting into Close Combat
Shooting into friendly units doesn’t always sit right with those firing the guns, nor the ones being shot at. Thank goodness we aren’t friends, right? However, as allies they do hold some value.. I guess.
- After taking a normal ballistics skill test, take a second! On a roll of 1-2, your bullet will mark an allied unit in close combat. On a roll of 3, your bullet soars in through one side of the melee, and out the other. On a roll of 4-6, your bullets mark an enemy!
- It’s Not That Easy
- Just because you don’t like your allies, doesn’t mean you care! Take a leadership before shooting into Close Combat (Fearless and Mob rulez do NOT apply). If you fail, you can still choose to shoot on a ratio of 1-3 equals an ally struck, and 4-6 equals an enemy shot. Or you can still back out, I knew you would feel bad.. You big softy.
- Joining Close Combat, (Multi-Unit assault)
- Treat as two armies, with the allies striking clearly at their enemies. Treat as normal combat.
- Psychic Test
- The Farseer is a powerful commander with blades in hand, in their own right. But they truly come into play when they unleash their minds upon both friend and foe alike. In short, a Farseer can attempt to buff an allied unit. After taking a normal Psychic test..
- Roll a single
D6, to find the effect.
- Oi, I jus remembered Ol’ Grotty. Why’d da ‘umie’s ‘ave to take ‘im? What’d ‘e eva do to dem?! OR I’ve got a strange buzzing in my comm’s, switching channels. On a roll of 1-3, the Psychic effect hits but seems to fizzle a little bit.. The unit acts as normal, albeit with a few tears in their eyes as psychic interference might bring about odd side effects like recalling some unpleasant memories.. And the Psychic Power is wasted.
- “Da pointy-eared one is right boyz! Shoot at da one wif da teef and da weird eyes! Dakka dakka dakka!” “Uh, boss. Iz ya feelin’ okay?” OR “Sound advice, Eldar. We will fire on your target.” The Farseer’s Psychic powers take effect as they would on any higher being such as an Eldar Warrior. Maybe the upstart races aren’t as stunted as we thought…
The Cannon (Side-note: This is Important..)
The Cannon is of course, the main objective. In 6 turns, it can be brought to bear on the enemy! Unless of course something goes wrong, but the Imperials surely knew what they were doing when they constructed and then programmed it… Right?
Turn 1- I hate computers!
Take a leadership roll for the cannon’s Cogitator system. on a value of 8
LD, if failed guess who just got some Adware and froze the start-up process? Way to go, Vista Security.. The cannon will thus start up NEXT turn, and the game will be forced to proceed to turn 7. If passed, it starts normally. Obviously.
Turn 6 (Ideally) – Fire! Fire with everything you’ve go- Did the cannon just go “Fzzzt”?
Take another leadership roll with the cannon’s
LD value of 8. If failed, we clearly gave Imperial Technology too much credit in the department of firing in a timely manner. This is ridiculous! The cannon will fire NEXT turn, without need of a Leadership test.
Attacking the Array
If the Tyranid swarm should be able to bring claw or bio-weapon to bear against the Array, it counts as a vehicle with 10 armor all around. On a glancing hit (Since that’s all the Tyranid army can manage against Armor Value 10), roll a vehicle damage test.
On a 1-3, the modifier takes effect and the cannon, while looking a little less impressive, proceeds as normal.
On a 4-6, the cannon’s system is damaged. “Did this thing really just freeze up?” The cannon takes ANOTHER turn in it’s firing process.
Determining a Winner:
If in the number of turns it takes for the cannon to fire, the allied forces are completely killed off, the Tyranid Swarm wins.
If all three commanders are killed, the allied armies within fall to infighting before being shredded to ribbons by the hungry Tyranids.
If the cannon fires, it puts a humongous payload into the heart of the Tyranid Bio-Ship and destroys it. Every tyranid life form on the planet below dies from the Synaptic Whiplash. You were lucky this time, life forms! But we’ll be back..
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh and as far as the scenario, I know it's well beyond the realm of probability considering the fluff. Please ignore any kind of backstory, because it's probably got some lore buff crying. It was just for fun, for the gorup I game with.
