Dalin Worlds Liberation pt.2

   It has been a few months since we last played this campaign (other shiny projects and real life distracting us) but we decided to carry on where we left off.
   At the point we left off, my space marines - The Aurora Knights - had taken a pasting, losing 2 of the chapter's 4 strike cruisers and seeing the chapter's only battlebarge take enough damage to cripple it. The next 3 games went just as badly, with the remnants of my fleet being hounded around the system slowly losing escorts in every engagement without being able to do much more than scratch Dalin's defence fleet. It was not going well for humanity's finest.
   At this point there only seemed to be one thing to do - retreat for a tactical regroup - and it just so happens there is a scenario in the rulebook to do just that.

   All my ships had to do was break through the blockade Dalin's fleet had set up - easy, I thought. (See my ships deployment). At this point in the campaign, the only ships I had left were my last surviving Strike Cruiser from the first game, the Battlebarge (which was too damaged to play in this scenario) and a squadron of Firestorms.
   Knowing that if I lost this game the campaign would be over, I set up as far to the opposite side of the board from my opponent - the scenario had a random deployment generator for the blockading fleet which I used to full advantage - and decided to use the noble tactic of just flying as fast as I could in a straight line without stopping for anything. It didn't work out quite the way I planned (and I forgot to take anymore photos) as my small fleet were intercepted far quicker than I had envisioned.
   Although the game was technically a victory to me, my escorts having got off the table, the strike cruiser proved to be too much of a juicy target for my opponent to ignore and she didn't make it off the board. A handful of games in and my chapter had lost 3 whole battle companies, 3 strike cruisers and only had a disgraceful retreat to show for it. At least it couldn't get any worse, could it?

Thanks for reading.

Dalin Worlds Liberation pt.1

    My gaming time has gone from every Wednesday like clockwork to random games caught whenever I can get out of work at a sensible time but that doesn't mean I can't get games in. My normal game for the last year or so has been Bolt Action with a few other rulesets thrown in for a bit of variety. In the weird gap between pre-ordering the second edition and actually getting it, however, playing more of the first edition has just felt wrong? So my current regular opponent (Dan) and me, got chatting about what else we wanted to do and somehow stumbled upon doing a 40k campaign.

      One of my life goals (I promise the rest of my list is much more impressive and profound than this one) is to collect a whole space marine company, every single man of the 107 men. It's something I have wanted to do ever since I first got into the hobby and I finally decided to start this year, before I got distracted and the project was sidelined and it took a certain conversation about a campaign gave it a kick start again.

 We decided to play a couple of really small games to start with just to get our head around the rules, both of us being at least 2 editions behind the times. Dan used his Blood Angels as they were his only 40k army that was somewhere obvious enough to grab in short notice, while I played my home brew chapter - the Aurora Knights.*

*More about these another day

The Campaign Begins

     The Dalin worlds are made up of Dalin Prime and it's moon, Dalin Secundas, both are peaceful civilised worlds that have never given the Imperium any problems, but in recent years the annual tithe hasn't been paid and the Inquisition isn't taking this well. *Enter stage left - The Aurora Knights*

One of the things we decided to do with this campaign was to make it a mix of Battlefleet Gothic and 'normal' 40k, both would affect the other. 

The first game saw my Battlebarge being ambushed and having to flee until my reserves came on. I got my Battlebarge off the board but at a seriously high cost. First game in and my chapter had lost 2 Strike Cruisers, one had gone supernova and the other was a hulk drifting in the void, while my Battlebarge barely limped away.

We decided that the floating hulk would be a really valuable prize to any fleet ,so we played a game to simulate Dalin's troops boarding it to secure it, so it could be towed back to their shipyards. I went into this game really confident, Space Marines taking on small groups of Imperial Guard? Easy. 

At this point, I should mention that I've never seen Storm Troopers on the table before and it really showed. Storm Troopers are hard! I mean really hard! Their guns ignore power armour and their armour save works against bolters. This match up went really badly for me. It was all over by turn 4. Dan's troops had secured themselves a Strike Cruiser.

The objective was a computer terminal (the cream pillars in the photo below) but as he wiped my last squad off the board by the end of his 4th turn this was a moot point.

     The initial engagements of the campaign have not treated my chapter well, 2 of my chapter's 5 capital ships have been lost and 2 whole battle companies lost. A massive loss for any chapter, but really good fluff for a gamer to play with.

Thanks for reading