Game 1: Intercepted in the Warp!

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## Game Size and Special Rules

2500 pts, onslaught-sized game played on a strike-sized table, any number of detachments, 18 starting CP each

No models with the Vehicle keyword except helbrutes and dreadnoughts. No bikers. Helbrutes and Dreadnoughts in tight hallways block LOS past them in both directions.

Models with FLY can move through friendly and enemy models as if they weren't there, but cannot move through or over the walls, or ignore terrain.

No deepstrike reinforcements or vanguard deployments or strategic reserves, except for units deployed into the teleportarium or the warp or equivalents.

## Board Setup, Deployment Zones, and Objectives

Both players arrange the spacehulk hallways on the table, creating two equivalent sides, roughly "hammer and anvil" style. There should be a 12" gap in the middle (between the two "ships", connecting the two long sides of the table), bridged by two "boarding tunnels". There should be ample galleries on both sides.

The Imperium player chooses which side will be his, and the Chaos player takes the other side. Each player's deployment zone runs up exactly to the middle-line of the table, halfway through each of the "boarding tunnels".

Each player places a Superior Objective and an Inferior Objective, each in separate galleries on their own ship side, and at least 18 inches apart.

Chaos player deploys their entire army first, and then Imperium player deploys their entire army.

Chaos takes the first turn.

#### Objectives

Each objective is treated as a single-model unit in the army of the ship containing it. Objectives can be charged, and can be targeted by both ranged and melee attacks. They cannot move, or attack, in any way, or for any reason.

While they are on the table, they can be targeted by spells (including smite), and can be healed by friendly Techmarines or Warpsmiths (as if they had the VEHICLE keyword). Once they are destroyed, they are removed from the table.

Each objective (superior and inferior are identical, except in terms of scoring) has the following defensive profile:

T5, 4+ Sv, 6 Wounds

## Special Stratagems

This scenario allows both sides the use of three special stratagems:

### "Save the ship" Hustle - 1 CP

Use during your movement phase when an infantry unit chooses to advance: That infantry unit may add +8" to it's movement, instead of rolling the normal +d6" for advancing, provided all models in the unit are wholly within your own "ship" at both the beginning AND end of their special advance move.

### Repair the Reactor! - 1 CP

Use during your command phase: An infantry unit you control within 1" of a friendly objective starts performing an action to repair the nearby objective that has lost at least 1 wound. The action is complete at the end of your turn, at which time the objective heals up to 1d3 lost wounds. The action fails if the unit moves in any way, manifests or denies a psychic power, makes attacks of any kind (it can choose not to activate in the fight phase, even if eligible), or is destroyed. It can lose models during your turn without causing the action to fail, so long as at least one model is still within 1" of the objective at the end of your turn.

### Heavy Fire Support - 2 CP

Use during your command phase: Place a small dice anywhere within 12" of the center line where the two deployment zones meet. Roll a dice for each unit within 3" of the dice (friendly and enemy), and the unit suffers 1d3 mortal wounds on a 3+, units containing only a single character model instead take 1d3 mortal wounds on a 5+.

## How the Game Ends and Scoring

The game runs until the end of round 6, or ends immediately if either player's superior objective is destroyed. The player who destroys their opponents superior objective immediately wins a major victory, as their enemy's ship is forced to immediately make an emergency translation out of the Warp and back into real space.

If round 6 ends, without either player's superior objective having been destroyed, then:

If only one player has lost their inferior objective, the other player wins a minor victory.

If all 4 objectives are intact (or both players have lost their inferior objective), then the battle is a draw.

 Prelude Lore

The Lamenters of the Fifth Company, commanded by Captain Newland Reeves had successfully defended the Imperial Colony world of Inzao near Prospero from an unknown Thrall-Band of the Thousand Sons I don't know Alex's name for his TSons> and a raiding party from the Cabal of the Skin Thieves.

Having saved the world, the 5th Company began warp transit to rejoin the majority of the Chapter. Unexpected warp interference prevented the Strike Cruiser, The Daughter of Tides, and her two support ships The Silent Sister, a Nova-class Frigate, and the Humilitatem, a Gladius-class Frigate from arriving at the rally point. From within warp transit, the Company Librarians and Astropaths sensed a "scream" echoing through the warp.

In the wake of the "scream," the Astropaths immediately picked up distress messages from the Astheneia System. Reports of potential Chaos activity attacking Adeptus Mechanicus Archaeo-tech Dig Sites and a full-scale uprising in the Hive cities of Genestealer Cultists. Captain Newland ordered that his Company address this uprising immediately. In his mind, he would not have those under his command be found to have not done their duty for the Imperium. If and when they returned to the Chapter.

Meanwhile, on the far side of subsector Hades....

On the former Imperium world of Koteal, the servants of Slaanesh rejoiced at their victory over the mightiest warriors of the False Emperor! The blessings and delights of the Dark Prince were shared with the surviving mortals and heretic astartes who had provided the distraction while the daemonette legion of Cetabel the Herald had surprised and butchered the company of space marines.

The apocalyptic world-wide party on Koteal was interrupted when the Glorious Cry for Explanation and Aid came through the warp, and all the psy-sensitive astartes and daemons abruptly left their debauchery for a hastily-arranged war council. Zelamine says that she will take The Crusade of Endless Joy and make all possible speed to the Astheneia system. Cetabel and her daemonette legion, and a few garrison forces of the Crusade, will stay on Koteal to help the Slaanesh Revolutionary Government consolidate their grip on power, and will follow Zelamine to Astheneia in a few weeks, once Koteal is secure in it's service to Slaanesh.

Later, in the Warp...

The Endless Joy had spent aeons sailing the Warp, and had grown into a dark creature and fierce predator of the Empyrean sea. It was now as at home in the flow of pure Chaos as it had once been in its original habitat of the void. Evolved and twisted by the Warp and Chaos, it had keener senses in it's new preferred environment of the Empyrean Sea, and could move faster by sensing and aligning itself with the tiniest changes in the currents and flows as it swam through the capricious immaterium.

The Endless Joy was now crewed mostly by daemons, who protected its mortal and astartes passengers, so there was no need for them to currently project the offensive vulgarity of a Gellar field, but the ship still retained the Gellar Field Generator it had been built with in Heresy Times, now evolved and adapted by the Warp to better suit it's new circumstances, the Endless Joy's Gellar field had been tuned to keep only Khorne and Nurgle Warp Entities specifically outside the field, from the days when they regularly embarked Ephevzrial's Thousand Sons Brothers and occasionally Tzeentch daemons during the Tournament Wars millennia ago, sometimes following Ahriman's leads and schemes, usually to great success at destroying Imperial Knights and myriad other servants of the Corpse Emperor for the Glory of Slaanesh!

The Endless Joy sensed it was getting close to its quarry, as it could taste the fresher wake it followed mingling with the larger stale wake of the shipping lane. It matched course and speed with the astartes vessel, and closed the distance as it's masters had requested...enduring the sharp discomfort as its hull passed into the Gellar field generated by the Daughter of Tides, but also felt the joy of a predator about to sink teeth into long pursued and thoroughly smelled prey.

The distance between the voidships shrank in the tiny real space bubble of the Daughter of Tides' Gellar field. On the bridge of the Lamenter vessel, sensors delivered strange, seemingly impossible readings, but only servitors were watching the displays because while warp travel is perilous, boarding actions in the warp are a nearly unheard of peril, and sensors are known to report nonsense while traveling through the warp.

Boarding bridges were extended from the Endless Joy, and alarms finally sounded on the Daughter of Tides as the boarding bridges crashed into the hull and disgorged their heretic Astartes cargo onto the engineering deck of the Daughter of Tides.

Just before the alarms sounded, the rail guns and bombardment cannons of the Endless Joy opened fire across the tiny bubble of real space, and Captain Newland Reeves ordered his crew to battle stations and to prepare to repel boarders! The rare interception of the loyalist vessel while travelling through the Warp had secured the advantage of surprise for the Crusade of Endless Joy, but even surprised and stricken, a Strike Cruiser full of angry Lamenters is a fearsome and dangerous target...

Not knowing what to expect, and wanting to remain in full command of the situation, both warlords stayed on their command bridges, while their lieutenants followed their orders in the battle brewing on the lower decks.