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To view the previous report in this series, click here. To view the next report in this series, click here. To view more battle reports in The Hand of the King series, click here.

To view the tactical overview for this report, click here.

***

The red-flavored gelatin wobbled slightly in its bowl as it was picked at with a spoon. Melchoir had been informed by a passing therapist that this was what "cherry" tasted like, or at least it was a close approximation thereof. It sort of reminded him of the krannic trees from his native land. There the small red fruit was dried, roasted, ground, and mixed into a bittersweet drink called chammas. He had never really cared for chammas.

He had been on the chiurgeon ship for a few days now, and was starting to feel a lot better. For the first time, he was allowed to leave his cramped steel cage with its bleach-smelling sheets and to walk around on his own volition. The drugs he was on were certainly doing their job. He was healing quickly. The one thing he couldn't do, though was to eat solid foods yet. Due to disruptions in supply lines, he had exactly two options for sustenance. The first was a dish made from boiled down brainborers from the death world of Corvaxus Prime. That you had to mix it with ketchup before it was safe to consume was rather disheartening to the officer. Only mildly more appealing was this so-called cherry gelatin. It came in tiny cubes. It wobbled when you poked it with a spoon.

Melchoir sighed and slowly stood up from the small metal table. He reluctantly took his bowl in tow as he walked over towards some stormtroopers. He had been keen to take the time out of his room to talk to other wounded soldiers. Not only did he get news from down below, but he also got to hear some pretty good stories, and some pretty gruesome ones.

The officer shuffled up to a Kingsguardsman just as he was starting to weave his tale.

"No, so there we were", he began "our bird was on fire in both engines, careening out of control. So my sarge says 'to hell with this' and pushes the M.O. to flip the hatch. Bastard gets up and clips on his rappelling line like he's just gonna jump right outta the thing. Then, get this, he tells the pilot to put the brakes on, you know, as if the bird isn't on fire or nothing.

Sure as slick, the thing stops, but it doesn't stop, like, STOP stop, right? It just kind of slows down its wobble. Then sarge tells us to go, and we go, just as the flames blow one of the engines out. And there we go, we just go flying everywhere as the thing starts spinning. I'm the last one out, right? And as I'm stepping out of the hatch, I hear the sound of the ejection seats going off.

So I figure I best get the hell out of there, right? And I go crashing out, BOOM, right into the ground like a he-retical bagga potatoes, right out the back. Flat on my ass.

So there we are, scattered over everywhere, and I've got no damn clue what's goin' on."



"All I know, is that there's guys in front of me that aren't Foleran, and that's good enough for me, so I just start unloading on the guys, bang bang with my hell gun," he said, making a shooting motion with his hands, "And then Max, he opens up with his flame thrower and just plasters the whole thing in front of us with fire everywhere.

And then they start panicking and start running around everywhere, and some of us start chasing them down and shooting 'em in the back, pow! pow! And you could see them running and shouting to whatever dark gods they think is gonna save them. But I tells ya, dark gods don't save you from no hellgun shootin' up your ass. It was pretty clear that these chumps had never seen a properly equipped, properly trained pro-fessional like myself here. There weren't a damn thing doing.

But that's what it means to be the Kingsguard, right? You jump outta a flaming transport careening outta control, and there you are, kicking ass before nobody know what's hitting 'em."

The other stormtroopers nodded their approval at yet another enemy hammered by Folera's finest.

"But anyways," the stormtrooper continued, "so we're all doing our thing. We're shooting up at them in the ruins, they're shooting down on us... POORLY! And just when we get things up, from outta nowhere comes this flying... thing, streaking right overhead."



"And this thing goes WOOSH right over us, and then it shoots some sort of flame thrower of its own at some other ruins nearby. I guess there was some of our boys holding an objective or something, but these guys don't stand a chance. They just get burned the hell alive without doing nothing in return."



"Shows you just what to expect when you're not as properly trained as us guys, am I right?"

The stormtrooper finished his story and took a long drink of something that was probably filled with vitamins and pain killers. The others at the table heard the story with grim satisfaction.

"Wait, what?" came the voice of someone from behind them, "No, I know you guys, you were there," he continued, coming up to the table. It was a Kingsguard cadet who had suffered some sort of horrible arm wound.

"Yeah, so?" one of the stormtroopers asked.

"Well, you're not telling it like it happened, that's 'so'", the cadet replied. "You tell the story like we were a bunch of guys huddled together in cover just waiting to be saved."



"Well, that's not what happened. Fact is, my unit was sweeping the area for the enemy. We were spread out, and we were advancing when we came across those cultists."



"We came into contact, and had just started shooting at each other, when out of nowhere, this valkyrie burst overhead, one of its engines on fire. I can see it clear as day, the back hatch opened, and all of them inside came tumbling out, scattering over everywhere, practically right on top of our enemy in the ruins.

The cultists in front of us turned around and started shooting at the Kingsguard at point blank range. It was close in with shooting everywhere, when suddenly an enemy flier showed up, but it didn't go after us, it went after the Kingsguard."



"It set them on fire as the combat devolved into an array of one on one melees, knives and hellguns. Once it got bored roasting them, only then did it come over towards us. It lit up our sarge pretty bad, but as it came swooping over for a second pass, my buddy next to me pulls out a krak grenade and throws it up at the thing, landing right in its gullet. The thing blew the flame thrower clear off it. It had no choice but to circle aimlessly as we strode across into the ruins and bailed out the Kingsguard, not the other way around."

The table Melchoir was facing was starting to grow heated as a third soldier piped in with corrections to the story to reflect how "it really happened", including an interesting bit where he blew the cultist leader into a million pieces with a meltagun and then nearly single-handedly finished off the rest of them with his combat knife. Some versions had the enemy flier, and some versions didn't. One of them didn't even have the valkyrie that the stormtroopers showed up in.

Soon, the tale became muddled and confused, and tempers were starting to flare. The officer felt it was his time to leave when one of the stormtroopers asserted that the only way that it would be known for sure what actually happened was through a game of strip poker. Someone got out a pack of cards, while another intoned for the great God-Emperor to grant victory to the one whose story was correct, and nudity to those who spoke falsehoods.

The officer left as a priest was called in to anoint the deck. He was feeling a little dizzy anyways. He probably should have gone back to his room and laid down for awhile.

Melchoir decided to do just that, wobbling bowl of gelatin in hand.


***

Hm. Those aren't cultists...

Sounds like a fun pair of games, but I really don't care for your opponent's army list or counts-as. Taking a Heldrake in a 250 point game is silly, and using Necron models for all of it is pretty lame. Your narrative was fun though, and I totally get what you mean about Stomrtroopers at that points level. There's not as much out there at that point level that will just horribly maim them, so they actually are elite badasses like they are in the fluff.

I was waiting with baited breath for the next installment of hand of the king and you have not dissapointed! great batrep. Nice to have the story tld from the fighting mans perspective. Keep up the great work!

I know what you mean about small games. Some of my most interesting games have been at the 500 point level (I've never done 250, though). It almost seems like the rules were designed for that level, but because people like playing with lots of stuff and GW likes making money both sides pretend the game is designed for bigger armies. You get a lot more tactical decisions with a lot of area to move in. It feels more in line with the scale of models in the game, small platoon-sized forces fighting small battles.

Then again, maybe it's also because of Guard, and this is the level where each of your guys can get attention and matter. Maybe everyone else feels like this at higher points levels.

I love these small games, they so much fun and I wish 40k would a skirmish rule book, like a reverse apocalypse book, would be fun.

Uses a helldrake in a 250 point game
Uses necrons to proxy everything

Son...

Right when I saw that list and laughed and knew you were going to win since this guy obviously had no idea what he was doing. I played a game a lot like this last week, except that instead of cultists I used a 10-strong unit of Nurgle Space Marines with upgrades out the butt and it was a 200 point game. That would have actually been a challenge for you since stormtroopers would wound on a 6 (granted I wouldn't get armor but still, in this low points it's not super likely).

That being said, I love small point games. In the 200 point kill team I did, 3 models on each side got access to a single special rule of your choice. It feels almost truly "tactical", where you have to weigh and measure your choices as opposed to just running around rolling dice. Also Heavy Bolters with "shred" literally shred everything.

Good work!

I am please you have been able to experience low-point 40K. I feel that this level (My personal all-time favorite are the combat patrol rules) is particularly suited to the 40K ruleset.

Congrats on a pair of wins!

Love the report. Good job weaving the two battles together.

So, I don't really begrudge my opponent for his minis this game. There are three things to his credit here. Firstly, at least his stuff was painted. I don't know if having grey cultists would have necessarily been much better than painted necron. Secondly, the new codex DID just come out recently, and DV for that matter, so it's not like I'm going to be able to expect a bunch of painted cultists anyways. Thirdly, this person DOES, in fact, have a CSM army, it's just that it's an army that contains zero cultists, so it would be proxying anyways.

Of course, taking a flier at this points level, well...

... at least it ate up a lot of points and wasn't scoring.

Biophysical wrote:Then again, maybe it's also because of Guard, and this is the level where each of your guys can get attention and matter. Maybe everyone else feels like this at higher points levels.

This is EXACTLY what I was wondering as I left the game store that night.

GW has always gently pushed people towards herohammer, and 6th ed made this push pretty explicit. I wonder if there aren't more subtle things woven into the game in order to make it more awesome for low-model-count armies.

Perhaps the "bad guys" in 40k are really horde armies. Like the point is sort of like a kung-fu movie, or like dynasty warriors or something, where the "hero" of the story is the couple of super-elite guys standing up against a giant pulsing throng of redshirts.

 Ailaros wrote:
a giant pulsing throng of redshirts.

unpleasant mental image there, thanks Ailaros.

But I agree with the above, the most fun games I've had have been themed low-level points games with lots of space. Where FRF! really counts for something, stormtroopers are elite, and every marine is a serious threat. There's various fan-made rulesets that are made for this level, including the one with special rules for three of your dudes - I've got the ruleset somewhere, is it called 40k killzone or something like that?

But threading little games like this together into a narrative, that's the really fun bit. Like having my mate's space marine captain fight his way single-handedly across a board covered in my mooks (up to an equivalent point value). Or a stealth-assault mission to try and break your marbo-proxy out of jail so you can use him in later, bigger games. Just fun like that!

How's the Orks Ailaros?

I seem to have missed a good half dozen or more of your games. Need to go back and read them all now. Thanks for the link to the blog.