“The Contract”

A Warhammer 40K Game

Two players, one controlling a small force of space marines and the other a force of mercenaries (using imperial guard figures). The mercenaries had to kill a VIP who was being protected by the space marines, who in turn had to escort the VIP the length of the game table to reach the mercenary deployment zone. Whoever was first successful won the game.

The marine force consisted of the VIP (represented by an imperial commissar figure), 10 marines (with flamer and las cannon support) which were split into two five man squads, a marine bike, a marine attack bike armed with a heavy bolter and a dreadnought, which was armed with a multi melta, storm bolter and a power glove.

The mercenary force consisted of 20 guard figures (with flamer, grenade launcher, heavy bolter and las cannon support) which were split into two ten man squads, a sentinel armed with a multi melta and a combat robot which was armed with a las cannon, missile launcher and a power glove.

The table terrain consisted of two ruined buildings, three hills, some boulders and undergrowth representing both hard and soft cover.

The players were myself, Paul Thornley, and Paul (who I’ve forgotten his surname, sorry!) Paul chose to be the Marines and I was the mercenaries. We rolled 1d6 to determine who set up first, and Paul had the honours.

The first couple of turns consisted mainly of double movement, the marines eating up the distance whilst my mercs gaining cover within some boulders and a ruin. My las cannon armed trooper tried to reduce the dreadnought to a burning wreck at distance, but couldn’t hit the side of a barn. The marine bikes moved forward at combat speed and the dreadnought at double rate to close in with my troops. My robot failed to so much as dent the dreadnought but luckily for me and my forces Paul kept rolling ones for the dreadnought when he only needed a two or more to hit. My sentinel moved forward and managed to reduce both marine bikes to burning wrecks with a lucky shot from its multi melta.

The VIP was out of range and line of sight for any of my forces to hit him. The rapidly approaching dreadnought had a charmed life as hit after hit pinged off its armour. My sentinel somehow managed to survive hits which should have vaporised it and managed to take out a marine at long range. It’s greatest success has a direct hit on the dreadnought which blew off both it’s arms, caused massive internal damage and reduced it to a crawl, but it was still operating!

Paul’s marines had by now moved within bolter range and demonstrated why they are humanities finest by using their rapid fire skill to slaughter one of my troop squads, causing the survivors to run away screaming for their mothers. My sentinel was caught by a flamer at extreme range and its operator was duly carbonised, and the robot was struck by a las cannon to stop it dead in its tracks, a second hit causing it to explode impressively.

Although my broken squad rallied, and my second squad took revenge on one squad of marines by wiping four of them out with some very lucky dice rolling, the lumbering dreadnought meant that I had to target it rather than the VIP and Paul’s second squad of marines. This squad charged my troops and cut them to pieces in hand to hand combat, even with the benefit of hard cover. The few surviving mercs unsurprisingly broke and ran to the hills. Paul had won, but it was a very close game.