Between The Rock And A Dark Place

A Warhammer 40,000 Custom Scenario by Timothy James Kaye.

This mission is designed for forces of 1500-1850 points. The mission requires each side to aggressively attempt to capture and secure prisoners for either interrogation by Dark Angel Interrogator Chaplains or use in the ever-hungry slave arenas of the Dark Eldar.

MISSION OVERVIEW
The Emperor’s loyal Dark Angels have located the base of operations of one of their most hated enemies: one of the ‘fallen’ from the time of the destruction of Caliban and the ensuing massacre. Not only this, the people of this world have turned to Chaos and are also harbouring that worst of rivals. There is no more hated foe than this. The Dark Angels have vowed to find and slay this turncoat and free this world of the Chaos taint. The Chaos cultists on this world surely know the whereabouts of the fallen. In a twist of fate, the Astartes strike cruiser has arrived in-system at the exact same time as a raiding force of the Kabal of the Tragic Kingdom, Archon T’im-a-t’ron is negotiating a potentially lucrative alliance with the Cult of the Infinite Sadness and will fight tooth and nail to drag these Mon-keigh slaves back to Commoragh. The phantasm bombardment of the Tragic Kingdom fleet has left the inhabitants in a dazed and confused state, ripe for capture by whoever can secure them earliest.

THE ARMIES
This mission is suggested for one loyalist force of Dark Angels and one force of Dark Eldar chosen from the appropriate Codex of equal points values. Allies may be used but only if they are Battle Brothers on the allies matrix and no more that 50% of the overall points cost may be spent on the secondary detachment.

THE BATTLEFIELD
This mission is played on a standard 6’X4’ board, set up with plenty of LOS blocking terrain to represent the ruins of an Imperial city fallen to the depravations of Chaos.

DEPLOYMENT
Before deployment, players should roll first for their Warlord Traits. The players roll-off and the winner chooses to deploy first or second. The mission uses the 5th Edition ‘Dawn of War’ deployment rules, with the alteration that dedicated transports do NOT count towards the limitations for first turn arrivals, and any units moving onto their table edge in turn one MAY launch an assault if they are able.


FIRST TURN
The player who won the roll-off to deploy first goes first, unless their opponent can seize the initiative.

GAME LENGTH
This mission uses variable game length.(p122)



VICTORY CONDITIONS
At the end of the game, the player who has scored the most Victory Points wins the game. If players have the same number of Victory Points, the game is a draw.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
There will be 6 cultists, set up as described under ‘Cultists’ in the mission special rules.At the end of the game the player who has captured the most cultists will win the primary mission. Each cultist held by any scoring or denial unit is worth 3 Victory Points.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES
Slay the Warlord, First Blood,

MISSION SPECIAL RULES
Night Fighting (automatic) ,Reserves,Mysterious Terrain
Cultists: Starting with the player who won the roll-off for first turn, each player alternates placing 6 cultists on the table. Each player must place one cultist within 12” of their own table-edge, one within 12” of their opponent’s table-edge and one within 6” of the long centre line of the table. Cultists follow the rules for ‘The Relic’ to be captured, with the exceptions that there is no limit to movement distance whilst holding a captured cultist and you can run. Cultists may be held by any model from a scoring or denial unit and more than one member of each unit may hold a captive, but only one cultist may be captured per unit in each game turn. At the end of any game turn in which they are not captured ,each cultist is moved D3+3” in a random direction (use small arrows on scatter die). In every other respect the cultists are treated as the ‘relic’.