What an awesome event!
As many of you know, this past Saturday was the "Kindred" 40K Doubles Tournament. It used a new format that makes the best ARMY the tournament winner, not the win/loss records of said army. While a Best General award was indeed given out, the Purity Seal ended up going to Azlan and me, with our "Necromunda Crusade" themed army. We went all out trying to make our army convincing, nice looking, and generally fun to play. I'll go over the finer points behind our entry, and then recap our experiences in the overall event.
The concept of the "Necromundan Crusade" started with Azlan's idea of making a "citizen's army" of gangers and ordinary towns folk of a typical Imperial Hive City. As I recall, the idea was born in the fires of the Arenxis Minoris campaign we were running at the time. Chaos was sacking and burning cities all over the place, and we chatted about how cool it would be to have an army or ordinary citizens defending their homes.
When Kindred came up, and we learned that each of us would need to make a 500 point list themed to work with each other, the "citizen army" seemed like a great starting point. At the time I was checking out Sisters of Battle as a potential future project, and we quickly came to the conclusion that a combo of angry gangers/citizens with a fiery Canoness of the Sisters of Battle would make for a great story. The project was born there with much excitement.
As part of our entry, we submitted a hard copy of an Astropathic communication between two Inquisitors as a way to let folks know what our army was about. I even added a real wax purity seal to the bottom of the document, with the "I" signet in the wax part. It looked really cool! I think someone else took a pic of the document, but here's the text we wrote up to describe our force:
My Lord Berossus,
In the name of the High Lords of Terra, I bid thee greetings. Long has it been since I enjoyed thy presence and counsel, and but for this dread affair with the bones of Korgon Lemintas (Terra curse his vile name!) I would have long since attended upon thee. I will not bore thee with the minutia of my status– it is all contained within the attached report. However, I must succinctly state the facts of this case in conjunction with my urgent request for aid.
As you know, the so called “Cult Epicurean” believes that with the Occulum Infernis they would be able to resurrect Korgon, provided they could retrieve his accursed corpse. Until last week, we of the Ordos Necromundus paid little heed to these goals, as we believed his body was incinerated during the Garvactus Pogrom of 324.M39. We contented ourselves to continuing our efforts to find and destroy the cult leadership as and when possible.
Last week 11 towers of Hive Primus rose up in open revolt, and even now we are in the midst of a purge with the assistance of the Flesh Tearers Adeptus Astartes and 17 district cells of the Adeptus Arbites. This exposed the leaders of the Cult Epicurean to retribution, and while we were content to destroy them, we also were concerned with the reasons behind the uprising. To our horror, we discovered that somehow the corpses of Korgan and another unknown heretic were somehow switched. The careful rituals and banishments we had performed so long ago were mistakenly done to a minor pawn in Korgon’s schemes.
Korgon, we discovered, has been hiding in plain sight. His corpse remains chained to Retribution Stake 11A-348, Tower 8, Ward 13H in Hive Primus. This hive is currently under the control of the Cult Epicurean, and it is only now that we realize our error. Ward 13H has been their goal all along. However, all is not lost. The Hand of the Emperor protects as Adeptus Sororitas and a conscripted force of gangers and Frateris Militia currently fight to defend two sacred plinths of the Order of Our Penitent Lady. These plinths are but a few dozen meters from Korgon’s stake, thus keeping him out of the hands of the Cult Epicurean.
My Esteemed Lord, our cause hangs by but a thread. If the Sisters and their allies fail, one of the direst and most unclean abominations in the galaxy could once again plague us. I urgently beseech thee to send what aid thy will. We must prevail, for the consequences of failure are far too terrible to contemplate…
Your Obedient Servant,
Desmond Eyrati
So, having our story in hand, we decided that an army defending Hive Primus on Necromunda needed some appropriate matching bases. So, I kit bashed some 25mm and a 60mm base master from plasticard, putty, and random bitz. I made a mold, cast them in resin, and then Azlan and I exclusively used these bases (with the same paint palette of course) for our entire army. I think the effect came out great- you can see for yourself in the pictures below.
We also made custom objectives themed to the story and armies. First I made the hanging, incinerated bones of Korgan Lemintas, still crucified on an Inquisition-themed "retribution stake". Here's a quick pic I took of it:
The other two objectives represented the sacred plinths that my Order of Our Penitent Lady were defending. They're curtain rod end caps that I found in a home boutique store ha ha ha...
For painting, we both agreed to a common color palette of bone, red, and black with gold purity seals. We also used the infamous "Minwax dip" to a lesser or greater extent for our models. Speaking for myself, I sprayed my models white, gave them the "Provincial" Minwax dip, matte varnish, and then painted the rest normally from there. Considering I painted the entire army in two days, I'm actually pretty pleased with the results. I really should have managed my time better, but with a house move and resultinf hobby chaos, the last minute rush is what ended up happening! Here's my half of the "Necromundan Crusade"...
Kindred Recap
First off, let me say that it was a real thrill to actually participate in an event instead of being the organizer. I enjoy event/tournament running, but you end up having to do more work and dealing with more headaches then the players do. Just ask Khairul and Arzmi- they got their own dose with Kindred.
The tournament was well organized, well run, and immensely raised the standards of Legio tournaments. I can safely say that their tournament is one of the best Legio has ever run, if not THE best. Everyone got awards of some sort, which is something I never did in my tournaments. Kudos guys, nicely done.
As per Legio tournament rules, this one was a standard three round, Swiss style competition. For Round 1, we were randomly paired with a combined Ork/Eldar force that featured a frightening amount of Orks and War Walker firepower. Here's our initial deployment- we tried to make a fairly narrow front to mutually support our units:
Here's a tighter shot showing my Penitent Engines rumbling off towards the central objective early game. You can just make out the immense horde of Ork Shoota Boyz across the table...
We only managed to get two and a half turn played in this game within the time constraints. Unfortunately our opponents didn't get a second half of Turn 3, and that may have changed the tide for them. I felt a bit bad about it, but in the end we got a narrow victory. That set us up for our next match against the powerhouse of Orks and Khorne Berzerkers commanded by Alvin and Joe respectively.
We ended up deploying in wide open terrain, firmly under the guns of Alvin's Lootas. Here's our initial deployment:
Here's what we were up against:
Due to our deployment circumstances, the clearest course of action for my penitents was to CHARGE!
Somehow, my Sisters managed to kill the Khorne Demon Prince. After reducing him to 1 wound through shooting, my Sisters squad killed it in close combat thanks mainly to an Act of Faith increasing my squad's Strength to 5 and reducing Initiative to 1. Since the DP was faster than me anyway, it was definitely the right move. I lost half the squad to the rampaging beast, but we killed it! Really cool...
Azlan's detachment took the full brunt of Khorne Berzerkers and an Ork Warboss, all delivered into battle with a Wartrukk. Here's a pic I took of "Mad" Donna's final stand against the tide of evil...
The Crimson Medallion was given (postumously) to the Command Squad Standard Bearer, who killed THREE Berzerkers in ONE ROUND OF COMBAT. No power weapon/fist or anything like that- just a knife and some guts!
This game, which we almost got TA'd, was absolutely the most fun we had in the three games. Kudos to Alvin and Joe for a nice looking combined force with a tough list to beat. We both had fun!
The final game went against Wong and Redeye's combined Inquisition (?) and Space Marine force. As I recall, they each had one squad of five scouts, and then fielded Captain Lysander, Chaplain Cassius, an Inquisitor in a Chimera, and three Predator tanks with HB sponsons and autocannon turrets. Here's our initial rush to claim the center of the table in this "kill point" oriented match:
My Penitent Engines and Sisters Repentia managed to get all the way across the table thanks to some good Holy Rage rolls and Run rolls:
However, in the end we just didn't have enough long range firepower to deal with their intriguing combination of characters and firepower. Wong and Redeye won the match.
Fortune smiled on us, as we were chosen as the overall winner of Kindred. I got my very first Purity Seal, which is great! There were many winners in all sorts of cool categories, which I'll leave Khairul and Arzmi to recap.
Many thanks to Azlan, my good friend and Kindred partner. Thanks for getting your army done, and looking great. I had a blast, and would love to do something like this again with you.
Finally, one final congrats to Khairul and Arzmi for running a top-notch tourney. You two rocked the house!
Until next time...
