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It's tough, trying to fit a third person into a game of 40k. And when there are only ever three, finding a way to do it properly and fairly becomes paramount.

We tried splitting the table up into three equal sized deployment zones with equal no man's land between each, but ultimately it didn't work out because one player pretty much got sandwiched, and all his scoring units were decimated.

There's always the trusty method of splitting one army into two, or taking two half-sized armies against a third--the latter is essentially what this scenario is, except we didn't really think any of the book missions worked very well for it.

In the end, our scenario turned out to be really fun for all three players, and no one ever felt at a distinct disadvantage (due to the rules, anyway... luck is another story). So here it is; I hope some of you try it out and refine it, make it better.

The game takes place on a standard 6x4 board. In the very center of the board is some kind of objective, and around it is a defensive perimeter of terrain--a bunker with some walls, a series of trenches, whatever. For our game we used the Downed Aquila Lander terrain, with the cockpit in the center as the objective. It counted as a building with AV 14 all around and 6 HP with a capacity of 5 models and one firepoint.

The game was 2500 points: 2500 Chaos vs 1250 each of AM and BT. The mission was thus: The Traitors have shot down an Imperial ship, whose catalogs contain important information about Chaos fleet positions and battle plans. The Traitor forces now must ensure the information's loss by destroying the ship's surviving cockpit. A nearby AM outpost sees the ship go down and sets up a defensive perimeter around the wreckage, awaiting the arrival of the Space Marines to collect the catalogs.

All 1250 points of AM start in the center of the board in an 18" circle around the cockpit. Half of the Chaos army's unit starts within 12" of either short table edge. All of the Space Marines start in reserve; half of the units come on automatically on the second turn, with the other half coming on with a 3+ as per usual, within 6" on either of the long edges.

The game uses Slay the Warlord and First Blood. The Primary Objective for Chaos is to destroy the cockpit. The Primary Objective for the Imperials is for a Space Marine character to grab the catalog (essentially a Relic) from the cockpit and walk off the board with it.

Because the other team had two Warlords, the second HQ in the Chaos army counted as a Victory Point as well, to keep the potential points per side equal.

That's the setup, and my phone is almost out of juice, so I'll post the actual battle a little later. Hope you've liked the premise so far.

Excellent idea

Its interesting to see this post.

I've spent the summer trying to grow a local group to play 40k (and save myself a fairly long drive) and right now have 2 other players. So, we've been doing a lot of 3 player games, which works because the two players are still learning the rules.

Many of our games are a similar style. One player starts on board vs me and the other player controls an army coming in from reserves: Usually Guard vs Orks with deep striking Space Marines.

Thanks, and good on you, Phydox, for undertaking the no doubt painstaking effort of developing a dedicated wargaming group. Getting people past the initial (monetary) threshold can be tough in these grim, dark times of GW.

I'm also happy to hear others have attempted similar scenarios with success. As I said, all three of us really enjoyed the game, and in the end I (playing Chaos) won by a single point after my remaining HQ held on by the skin of his teeth in the last turn.

I started with my most mobile units on the field: Three rhinos carrying two squads of Possessed (I was using Crimson Slaughter to take them as troops) and an assault CSM squad, along with a unit of Berserkers and my Warlord, a Fisticlaw Jump Pack Lord, in a Land Raider. I had deep striking terminators and obliterators in reserve.

The AM took the first turn and, despite having autocannons, lascannons, and missile launchers all through the debris field, only managed to immobilise one rhino and glance the other two. On my turn, my assaulty unit disembarked from their terrain while the rest of the armour moved up at full speed. My Land Raider had good line of sight with one of its sponsons to the cockpit and, even at BS 1, managed to glance it. One HP down, five to go.

The AM shot much better in the second turn; after deep striking a squad of nutty Tempestus Scions with melta weapons inches from my foremost rhino, the army's combined firepower blew both rhinos to smithereens, forcing my Possessed out into the open. The Chimaera that had been running up the flank to meet the rhinos spat out a full unit of veterans led by a commissar, ready to help the Scions meet my troops head on.

My second turn was disastrous for reinforcements. All that managed to get onto the board was a unit of cultists. But I soldiered on, running the Possessed as far up as they could go, getting well into charge range of the veterans and scions. The Land Raider moved up again before the Zerkers jumped out the assault hatch, ready to wreck some face. A nearby command squad looked pretty delicious. They shot them up nicely in preparation, then charged, as did the Possessed. The scions killed one Possessed in Overwatch; everyone else got stuck in. The Commissar accepted a challenge from a Possessed Champion, and thus ensued one of the most epic duels in the galaxy. We eventually arranged the other models in both units into a little circle around the characters.

The Zerkers chopped through the command squad easily, leaving an open path to the cockpit. But now it was the BT's first turn, and he managed to get every unit he had but one onto the field, including a Vindicator, a whirlwind, a full bike squad with multi-melta, and a Land Speeder Typhoon. He shot up my Land Raider pretty well and annihilated the foot-slogging assault unit. I was hurting bad, but not in the worst shape. I wasn't really in risk of being tabled by the AM next round.

I'll fill in the rest later!

this is a really good idea thanks for sharing it can't wait to see the battle

Alright, let's finish this report!

Really, my saving grace happened in that first Black Templar turn: the two HQs, a decked-out Marshall (Chapter Master) and a Chaplain, led an eight-man Crusader squad in a drop pod, and rather than trying to land right in front of the cockpit to snatch up the datalog, they decided to come in a little ways up in order to carve through the units that had the best chance of stopping them from getting off the board with it. Not necessarily a bad idea, but on my coming turn I managed to get them into combat and keep them bogged down.

The Astra Militarum began the third round by tactically repositioning some of their troops (read: hiding from my fighty guys) but generally staying put. The Berserkers, tragically, were mostly wasted by flashlights thanks to a strong First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire, but, thankfully, the guardsmen's heavy weapons failed to cause any real harm.

The Possessed unit fighting the Scions carved those puny humans up real nice, and I'm glad it happened on the AM turn because that meant they could assault the trio of Sentinels coming up behind the Scions before the walkers could load them with autocannon shells.

The epic duel between the Commissar and the Possessed Champion continued, with neither managing to strike a killing blow against the other. Really, the reason it continued like that was due to the blasted priest in the veteran unit, passing his war hymn leadership check every single bloody turn (against a 7, even) for The Emperor Protects. That bloody cossak would have been ground beef from the very start otherwise.

My turn rolled around next, and yet again I rolled terribly for reserves, but I did manage to get my Terminator lord and his retinue into play. They decided to Deep Strike from the opposite flank as my main force in an attempt to throw the AM off balance, but a full 12 inch scatter in the complete opposite direction basically ensured the entire unit's uselessness for the remainder of the game.

Overall the turn was a mixed bag of awfulness and awesomeness. The Berserkers missed all their bolt pistol shots and my Land Raider failed to even glance the cockpit, but the single remaining Traitor in the assault squad killed a member of the BT Chapter Master's retinue with a well-placed plasma shot, after my Warlord hopped out the front of the Land Raider with his sights set on that cockpit.

The assault phase, again, was a mixed bag that, overall, I think favoured me. The newly freed Possessed charged the Sentinels who failed to cause any damage in Overwatch. The lone Aspiring Champion charged the Chapter Master, surviving a supreme hail of plasma and bolter fire only to succumb to the absolute onslaught of the CM's Relic Blade.

The Warlord used his jump pack to get up close and personal with the cockpit, planting a melta bomb and boring a hole right through it. For damage, we had decided to ignore all results on the Building Damage Table, but on a role of 7 the structure takes an additional HP. The well-placed charge melted a full two points off the hull, bringing it down to 3.

The Possessed Champion and the Commissar traded blows for yet another round, the latter cheered on by his unit of veterans and protected by the ever-present hymn of the Emperor.

The Imperials were shaken during the next round, keeping my Land Raider pinned down with stunning glances but still unable to take it down. The Astra Militarum pumped everything they had into my Warlord and reduced him to slag. He freely offered up his Victory Point, knowing he had done his duty. My Terminator lord lost every man in his squad but one to sniper fire, very nearly giving a second point this turn. Overall, that left the Imperials with two points to my none (with First Blood and Slay the Warlord). But my fourth turn was coming, and that meant a trio of Nurgle-marked Obliterators were Deep Striking alongside a second unit of Terminators loaded with Combi-meltas.

Being down two points, my only chance to win was to destroy the cockpit and keep my Terminator lord alive for one more turn, relying on a lucky roll to end the game at that point. With that in mind, I made two extremely dangerous Deep Strikes. A few inches in the wrong direction would spell disaster. The Terminators arrived right on point, while the Obliteraters scattered half a dozen inches farther from the cockpit than I wanted. It could have been much worse, but that meant they were out of 12" Multi-melta range for the turn.

The Terminators failed to cause any damage with their Combis, but the Obliterators managed a glancing hit with their Lascannons, bringing the cockpit down to 2 HP.

For their part, the AM and BT did everything they could to bring down the Obliterators from afar while the Chapter Master and his squad charged the Terminators to keep their Power Fists occupied. The Marshall accepted the Champion's challenge and the two went at it, deadlocked. That problem was solved, but the Obliterators powered through the massed heavy weapon, sniper, and small arms fire with just a single wound. They marched forward, putting themselves just inside a foot of range, and brought the full force of their Multi-meltas to bear. Two missed entirely, but the last penetrated the hull and found a weak spot, finally blowing the cockpit to smithereens. My objective was complete, and the score now sat 3 to 2.

The Black Templars took the final turn in the fifth round, driving every missile, shell, and shot they could muster into my Terminator lord, desperately trying to bring him down. He took one wound, then a second, but avoided the final one with his invulnerable save.

With hesitance, my opponents tossed the die for a sixth turn. After an impressive and agonisingly lenghty spin on its corner, it settled on a single pip, ending the game right then and there with a Chaos victory.

It's worth noting that the Commissar and the Possessed Champion were still fighting at this point, and just for gaks and giggles we played out the next three rounds of combat between them. Then we gave up trying to conclude the duel.

But it was very nearly a draw, and in the end, good times were had by all.

How do you handle psychic phase?

Actually we're still playing 6th edition. None of us really want to buy the new BRB, and none of us are interested in Space Wolves or Orks so the new starter set is not a good investment.

But I've read the 7th rules and, all things considered, I prefer 6th.

Priests are indeed worth there points.

Epic stuff! That sounds awesome and I'm definitely going to try set a game up like this with my buddies.

Awesome to see Chaos pull through even with so much of your nice stuff getting blown to pieces. Being the bad guys is fun, isn't it?
Any tips or tricks as to how you played or how you'd play differently next time?

And a quick question as to the setup of the game. With the Space Marines who arrive from reserves, presumably they had to declare which units would be arriving for sure before the match started? Also, when you say "within 6" of the long table edge" do you mean they came in from the long edge as though they were walk-on reserves, or ???

And the CSM setup: half of your army starting on each of the short edge deployment zones, or half of your army starting on the table and half in reserve?

Sorry for the confusion just trying to figure out your wording 'cause it sounds like it worked for you guys!

No worries, I'll clarify everything!

First, I'll just put this diagram I've quickly done in Paint. Forgive the most-likely awful proportions.



The orange zone is for Chaos/Attacker deployment; the green zone is for Black Templar/Support deployment; the blue zone is for Astra Militarum/Defender deployment.

Half of the Attacker's units (rounded up) begin the game in reserve, and use all the normal rules for reserves (including Deep Striking, Outflanking, etc.). The half that is beginning the game on the board can be deployed in either of the zones; either all on one side or split between them. When walk-on reserves enter the board, they can enter in either deployment zone.

I chose to put all of my tanks (three Rhinos and a Land Raider) and a unit of shooty cultists on a single board edge as my first-turn presence, leaving two units of Terminators, one unit of Obliterators, one unit of assaulty cultists, and one unit of shooty marines in reserve. My plan from the start was to get the other players to focus on that side of the board, potentially opening up some weaknesses on the other side to exploit. It ended up working fairly well because the Chimaera, Sentinels, Tempestus Scions, and Veterans (basically all of his most dangerous units) were well occupied on one side while my Deep Strikers had a lot of freedom on the other side to come down without heavy risk of interference. I did get some pretty terrible scatter rolls, but I never had to roll on the mishap table thanks to that. Looking back on it, I'm happy with the decision about where to start; on the other hand, I would have left both units of cultists in reserve and started with my double-plasma gun unit on the field instead. Actually, I would have not taken cultists at all, scrapping both units of 10 men for some marines with a metlagun. When there aren't back-field objectives to hold on to, cultists really do not perform.

Depending on the army, however, I can see beginning the game split between both fronts could be just as devastating. Forcing the opponents to split their attention can cause them to make mistakes in target priority or in positioning.

As for the Support army, we didn't ask him to decide on his auto-reserves before the game. We are extremely casual in the way we play and it didn't even cross our minds at the time. However, if your plan is to have a really serious game with this scenario, it might be a good idea to figure that out from the get-go.

And yes, they come on as walk-on reserves from either side of the table using all the standard reserves rules, excepting that half of the units come on without the need for a roll. Like the Attacker force, they can come on split between the two sides as the controller sees fit. I should mention that Drop Pods (and, by the same token, other such units that change how they enter the board in Deep Strike, such as Deathwing Terminators using their special rule) are treated differently as well. In these cases, the "first turn" is actually in the second round of the game.

So, of course, units with more than a 6" movement will come in where they are supposed to, but just in case it mattered we designated an actual deployment zone that was roughly proportionally equal to the Attacker's zone.

The middle zone was originally supposed to have a 24" diameter, but when we were drawing it out, using two crossed Red Sticks (which are 18" long), we thought that was enough. Based on the actual number of models you can fit in that 1250 and based on the amount and size of terrain you're using, you may have to expand it out some more. The objective is dead-centre and this scenario does not use Linebreaker, so really it doesn't matter too much how big you make the zone, as long as all players agree about it at the beginning. You don't want everything clustered too close together (lest a stray Demolisher round kill all your dudes at once), but neither do you want to put the Attacker at a distinct disadvantage by starting with all your Rapid Fire and assault units right up in his face from turn one. You could even change it to a square or some kind of oblong shape; whatever you need to do to make a fair deployment zone for your army.

Well, my tactics. In terms of how I played the game, I'm not sure what I would have done differently. I'm not exactly an experienced player (I have maybe a dozen games under my belt, each with a different army list). I might have, rather than shooting at the cockpit with my Land Raider, just run it through the AM zone, tank-shocking all his guys and generally causing havoc, perhaps allowing my Warlord to get more Melta bomb attacks on the objective. At the least it would have been more fun than using the tank as a stationary weapons platform once it delivered the Zerks. And speaking of the Zerks, seeing as how the Champ had his own bombs, I should have ignored the AM infantry and made a break for the cockpit, with my Warlord still in the unit, potentially allowing the extra power armour to soak up the massive amount of fire that he eventually ate for supper. But, I had given him a shiny new Jump Pack in the form of a pair of awesome bat-wings, so I wanted him to stand out.

Mainly I would change how I built the army. I always hear how badly Possessed suck, but I'd never actually tested them for myself, so a nice, fat army of 2500 points seemed like an okay place to do so. They definitely did what they were designed to do and hacked up a bunch of guys (Commissar notwithstanding) but they really, really did not earn their massive points investment. I would definitely replace them with ordinary assaulty marines. For the price of 8 Possessed with the MoK, you can take 13 marines with two flamers and the MoK and a Power Sword and Melta bombs on the Champ. Or ten (so they fit in the Rhino) with 39 extra points to dump into cool stuff for your characters.

Speaking of characters, I definitely would change my Warlord's kit. The guy I have is really cool-looking (the Dark Vengeance Chosen with two lightning claws, one of which is filed down into a power fist, and giant bat-wings) and so I tend to like to bring him along at the helm of any Crimson Slaughter army, packing Slaughterer's Horns and Daemonheart. However, for this scenario, I would have rather had a combi-melta than the second melee weapon. I could even have marked him as Tzeentch instead of Khorne, giving him a 3++ (with a Sigil, of course). Having the Zerks as Elites instead of Troops would have made no difference. In the round he died, all my failed invul saves were a roll of 3.

Overall, I felt I didn't have enough firepower to take out AV14. A unit of Havocs or Chosen with Meltaguns and Power Fists could have made a huge difference.

My best tip would be to keep the objective in mind and, regardless of what units you've brought to the table, figure out which one(s) are best capable of accomplishing that objective, and give them the clearest path to it at any cost. It's fun to send a unit of Zerks into a command squad and hack them to figurative bitz, but when the Skull Champ has Melta bombs and the cockpit is only a few more inches away, it's not the correct decision to risk getting them stuck in combat for many turns, especially when it means your other Melta-bomb guy will be doing that task alone in the middle of a Vindicator-Whirlwind-Lascannon-Missile Launcher crossfire. And in your first two turns, be mindful of how you position your forces, understanding that your second opponent's army could be coming on from either or both table edges, and you don't know beforehand which edge each unit will come from (although you may know which units are coming on at all).

But any way the cookie crumbles, it's so very good to be bad.

Funny thing, in my playing group we are three people too and we play 6th edition for the same reason as you guys.

I think we are going to give this scenario a try. especially as it sounds like more fun than the standard missions in 6th.

I'll be excited to hear how it went for you. Post your results, and any alterations or additions to the rules!