Fratris Salutem Debriefing

Librarian Angelus mused over the after action report of 5th Company, Blood Angels.  His forces had been requested to support the Ultramarines to defend a planet from a Chaos incursion.  In accordance with the battle plans, 5th Company began the fight on the ground, defeating an opposing force, then switching to an ambush plan in order to eliminate a enemy column - but the ambush instead became the location of a massive Chaos Marine drop pod landing, and 5th Company had to withdraw away.  In the end, as the 5th Company fought valiantly with the Ultramarines at the walls of a fortified city, word on the command net announced that a third faction - the much accursed Eldar, had breached the Citadel's archives and had spirited away what appeared to be the object of the incursion - and as quickly as it all began, the Chaos forces retreated to their ships and left the system - not without leaving behind massive amounts of casualties on all sides.  Angelus planned to meet with Tigurius in the next day, in order to have gaps in his knowledge addressed.  
  
The Fratris Salutem 2015 is complete!  Much thanks to Thor at Creative Twilight for pulling together a great event. Additional photos can be found on Crossroad Games' facebook page. Thor's wrapup is on the Creative Twilight Website. You may soon (or already) see more at the ThinYourPaint website, and maybe a few more.

The Fratris is a narrative event, where the scenarios follow along a storyline, and there are in-game callouts to add to the game stresses and fun.

Yes, Chaos won the day.  Most of that success is due to the last-second reassignment of a Blood Angels Player (Steve) to the Chaos side.  Steve's list was almost directly counter to what the missions called for (to some extent, breaking the hopeful narrative of the three missions).  I'm glad Chaos won, however, although in the end, it was the Eldar in the narrative, who stole away the object of their desire.  This keeps the narrative alive and vibrant for next year!

Here are my own annotated photographs:

Word Bearers Chaos Marines ready for the invasion

  Mark's Ultramarines (Tipsforbadpainters website):

More of his Ultras (between this guy and ShinyRhino all of Second Company must have been there):

Thor's Disciples of Twilight (on Standby, never left the battle barge):

Steve's "Traitor" Blood Angels:

I think these guys were run as Black Templars:

Berman's Dark Mechanicum (Skitaari):

Some Knights just deserve their own picture:

Nurgly Nurgle Guys:  

Just another shot of Nurgly-ness:

Shiny Rhino's Ultramarines (I almost felt he was not taking the event seriously from a Imperial vs Chaos standpoint, or maybe Sicarius had something else to do that day....):

Beautiful models though.  Whirlwind:

More of the Armored Column:

Top Shot:

White Scars Reaction Force:

Gotta love the work on this (Memorial Day Weekend and all):

Of course, the "Best Army" on the Imperial Side:

Melta bomb, anyone? (Oh, and I do notice that these guys all have their yellow assault squad kneepads on the wrong leg...that means their one step closer to grabbing the black paint? Or just being silly?:

Angelus sporting a grafted Force Sword, and his trusted Sanguinary Priest battle buddy:

Deployment shot - Game 1, vs Rodney's Necrons.  In this game, Chaos was to cross the table, earning buffs for Game 2 (an undisclosed benefit).  My goa was to keep Chaos bottled up on the table, which I did, and by Turn 3 was assaulting the Necron units.   No necrons left the table except by phasing out...The Necrons were in a Decurion, and fighting vs 3+/4+RP forces was tough!  You figure, nearly 80% of every necron casualty would just stand back up.  The only way I had to counter that was to be in assault with power weapons...

Game 2. Beginning of Chaos Turn 1...two pods homered in to the objectives, the third on would arrive w/o scatter in the lower left.  Chaos Blood Angels vs Blood Angels?  Chaos side not only had totally countered the intent of the mission, he had buffs from Game 1 that meant there was no way he'd lose.  The best part of this game was the Mountain Dew.  It was frustrating.  The mission theme was that the Chaos force would start along the center of the table, and that there were 4 objectives worth points, and more points for Chaos to be at the Chaos table edge.  Imperial players could start around the table boundary, go first (its an Ambush), and get points for objectives or for being on the Chaos table edge (in pursuit).  In this case, Steve's force was objective secured as a CAD, could start the game with only scouts on the table, and had everything else able to arrive by Pod or teleportation from reserves.  Couple that with the added benefit that each objective aced as a Beacon, and that he could recycle 6 units back onto the table (vs my three), you can feel my pain...kill a pod, see it come back the next turn to the same spot...objective secured...kill a unit, see it come back and shoot up your survivors...Overall, I appreciated the challenge. 

Game 3.  This had us fighting as pairs, in this case Ultramarines and Blood Angels vs Necrons and Nurgle.  However, each unit was reduced to half strength (including reduced special weapons), vehicles with hull points halved rounded down, and characters with wounds halved and rounded down.  The mission was simple kill points, scaled to a % score metric.  This game only went three turns (turn three was completed in 7 minutes due to time), and having all of our vehicles only at 1 HP each was the undoing for the Imperial side.  

As I said, the missions fit a narrative story line very well, and I think everyone had a great time. I was trying to think if any of my Marines earned any particular Battle Honors...so far, nothing spectacular comes to mind...as marines, they all just did their jobs...

Already looking ahead and forward to the Standish Standoff 2015 in the Fall...