Crusade Campaign Context

I probably should provide some context behind the stories of the current Crusade campaign. A few games have been played so far. My friend's Imperial Guard army against another friend's Dark Eldar, which ended in a win for the Dark Eldar on the first week...and apparently, the Dark Eldar friend accidentally took one of my young friend's Krieger - a guardsman armed with a plasma gun - and brought him home. He brought the poor guy the next week and forgot to return him, packing him with his Dark Eldar models, and then forgot to bring the entire collection the following week. Finally, he brought the Krieger back last week, and the guardsman was finally reunited with his regiment. Heh.

That's how the previous story about Trooper 451 came about. It was kind of funny, and the whole situation inspired me to conceive how the poor Krieg guardsman was abducted and trapped in Commorragh for three weeks before my friend finally returned him to the other friend. It was very fitting, because the Krieger was put right in the same box as the Drukhari models, so...yeah, Commorragh. Heh. And we all know what happens when you're abducted by the Drukhari. You get brought to Commorragh to serve as a slave or a gladiator. Given that the Krieger eventually made his way back to his owner, I thought a gladiator was more fitting for him, especially since he was wielding a plasma gun. He would have a higher chance of escaping as a gladiator, anyway. I was also tempted to name the Kroot Groot, but...yeah, that wasn't a good idea, and so I shaved off the last two letters and changed his name to Grove instead. Not original, I know.

Shortly after returning to his regiment, my friend played a second game of Imperial Guard against the other friend's Drukhari, and...yeah, he brought a Baneblade. Hence the Baneblade showing up at the end of the story. Their match was cut short, similar to the reason why we had a sudden blackout in my other story about Imperial Guard versus Chaos Space Marines. You remember that the Imperial Guard was winning with their armored might before the surviving Chaos Space Marines - after butchering the mortal infantry - withdrew in the cover of total darkness?

That happened because, heh, there was a power outage in the neighborhood. It affected the friendly local gaming store we were at, the store closed up early. We finished the game early, and as you saw in the previous post, the last couple of photos were taken in darkness, using light from my friend's smartphone. I thought of incorporating that into the narrative of our games.

Now, while it was fun to write out the battles of our Crusade matches in prose form, the disadvantage is that - much as Sandy Mitchell did with his Ciaphas Cain series, and Dan Abnett with his Gaunt's Ghosts series - there really isn't much of a context to consolidate the gains or clearly express the flow of the overall campaign. As such, I would have to write "appendix" chapters like both those awesome novelists did to provide the larger strategic picture.

In addition to the two matches of Imperial Guard versus Drukhari, where the Dark Eldar won one decisively and the other was cut short (probably counted as their win because they destroyed the Baneblade), there were four other matches played. More astute readers can figure out what they were. Imperial Knights versus Chaos Space Marines twice, where...let's just say it was a bit one-sided, even after the nerfs to Knights in the balance dataslate. Knights are tough. I fielded my own Imperial Guard after that because it was kind of...you know, rough for my opponents if I continued playing Imperial Knights in what was supposed to be a casual narrative campaign, and my Draconian Defenders won the first game against Dark Eldar by the skin of their teeth, the heroic Commissar Lucius rolling a 6 for his invulnerable save against a dark lance from a Raider to score me the objective on the Spawning Ground mission (I was defender for some reason, so I had the idea that the Imperial Guard were trying to "spawn" void shields for the next match, which was an assault from Chaos Space Marines) by bringing it up to 6 Gestation Tally on the last turn, despite the Dark Eldar slaughtering all the other infantry and destroying my Rogal Dorn tank.

The Draconian Defenders then repelled an assault from the Chaos Space Marine warband featuring Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines, relying on an overwhelming barrage of plasma against the mainly infantry force that were running (or shambling) toward them in the open.

What does this mean for the greater strategic picture? Well, the Knights have conquered a new world in the newly explored subsector, christened it Inari, and colonies fleeing the Fourth Tyrannic War in Segmentum Pacificus have settled down in Inari, an agri-world. The subsequent victories by the Imperial Guard and four victories by the Imperium mean we have at least three worlds under our command - Inari, an agri-world. Tetsu, a mining world. Guntai, a garrison world (or hive world).

Dark Eldar had struck at Tetsu and abducted miners and Guardsmen from the reinforcing Argent Armor and Krieg regiments there - hence the story of Trooper 451. The Chaos warbands are not united, launching scattered attacks, and have been repelled thrice, lacking an overall leader and cohesion. For now.

So that's about it, and as we play more games, I'll come up with more overall strategic pictures and context. Till then!