For Sunday, 9 August, I’m thankful for Xenos Rampant, Scenario Lima: Last Stand.
When I was 13 I drove down to Origins Game Fair in San Mateo, California with a group of guys from Trumpeter. At the Con I played in a colonial game of Brits versus Zulus. I can’t remember which side I played on and I can’t remember who won. What does stick in my mind was it was the first game I’d ever experienced where as Zulu impis were eliminated by British gunfire, the models were simply rotated to the rear ranks of the buffalo and introduced as newly arrived follow-on units continuing to press the advance. It’s a concept that has stuck in my mind ever since. Over the years I’ve learned that it’s a thing used in many games involving hordes of warriors of all kinds.
Fast forward to a couple months ago. While reading through the scenarios toward the back of the Xenos Rampant rulebook I came across Scenario Lima: Last Stand. I was ecstatic! I determined to host a game of it at the club.
One problem. I don’t have hordes of anything. My collection is very much three or four of these guys and five or six of those guys. The only two or three dozens I have of anybody all have pumpkins for heads.
But wait! Luckily a buddy of mine has a veritable horde of 40K Space Orks. And he agreed to play the attackers.
That left me to set the table and muster the defenders.
I’m quite happy with how the battlespace turned out.
The same friend had — several months prior — given me one of this tower and two of this gate. When I realized they can be connected not just in-line but also on the square, my mind boggled. I spent the next few months tracking down five more pieces, and voila:
I was referee. On a 6’x6′ table instead of the recommended 4’x4′, and with a position just under 24″ square instead of the suggested 18″, I set the game at 30 points for each Detachment, increased from 24. So, slightly bigger by all metrics. I trusted those things would balance out.
For the defenders, I tapped Recovery Force Romeo:
I assigned them some Atts & Dets in the form of Tiny and the Gorillinators:
Tiny is a Fighting Vehicle Walker and you can just make out the Gorillinators in the deep background over the tower left-of-centre.
Another club member played the Gorillas.
For the Space Ork Waaagh!!, my friend — bless his heart — brought six units of basic Berserk Infantry (I don’t know how that could’ve been more perfect), one oldest of school Ork tin can Dreadnought as a Fighting Vehicle and an Elite Infantry unit of Storm Boyz (with Flying, natch):
Those Storm Boyz are outstanding, and rained murder!
For the game I stated that all four of the position’s gates were broken, with one door wide open and the other fully closed. That gave the Orks — along with the shattered corners — eight openings to exploit. The gates did end up being useful to the Greenskins, but also chokepoints, so in the end they balanced out.
I also ruled that the four shattered corners could be scaled to reach the ramparts, using cracks in concrete as handholds and exposed rebar as footholds. That had the same result as the broken gates.
I was relieved the gates and corners ended up allowing more things to happen in the game — a lot of shooting was fired back and forth through the doorways and breaches — and didn’t end up being a big advantage or disadvantage for either side. A gamble that paid off.
It was a close run thing that came down to a victory for the Gorillas of Force Romeo as time ran out at the ninth turn. If the game had lasted even one more turn it could have ended with an Ork win.
