FUBAR 40K : Adepta Sororitas vs Necrons : Part 1

The Necrons learned of the presence of an Untouchable on an Imperial planet, Nilia 9C6, and dispatched a force there to find and retrieve him for research purposes. Hidden away by the Inquisition in the ruins of a town far from the any active settlement, the Untouchable is unaware of any danger. Cannoness Valoria has been ordered to retrieve the Untouchable or prevent him from falling into their hands, alive.

A drop ship deposited the Cannoness and two of her Battle Sisters squads just South of the town. 

Sister Caterina's squad is in the foreground, Sister Angelique is behind the wall in the back.

To the North, two squads of Necrons accompanied by three Canoptek Scarab Swarms fanned out to search for their quarry.

Necrons advance us

Table before the first moves (pictured above)

The Warriors sent the swarms ahead, their beating wings carrying them above any obstacle. In the shadow of a decrepit storage tank, one swarm found the prize.

Moments later, Necron Warrriors moved in to capture him.

With the enemy already in possession of the objective and retreating to their extraction point, Sister Angelique raced her squad across the ruins, hoping to gain a clear line of sight to the enemy, but swarms of robotic beetles hampered their advance. 

To the right of that fray, the Battle Sisters of Sister Caterina's squad, driven by holy zeal, stormed over the wall

If you look closely in the upper left, you'll see I've marked a swarm as suppressed (green bead). This was a mistake. There is no suppression in close combat. It should have been marked down (see special rules for Necrons below)

directly into the line of sight of an approaching Necron squad.

For a moment it looked like the Necrons would escape with their prisoner and extract a high price from the oncoming Adepta Sororitas. But the faith of the Sisters never wavered, knowing with certainty in their hearts, the Emperor protects.

As if in a state of confusion, both squads of Necron Warriors stopped in place - neither advancing to contact nor moving to extract their prisoner. 

A heretic might say the Necrons suffered glitches in their communication matrix due to atmospheric interference, common on Nilia 9C6, but the Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas knew it was the light of the Emperor's will that shone grace upon them.

The Necron Warriors with the prisoner failed their activation rule several turns in a row, as did the other squad. This allowed the Battle Sisters to stay in the fight.

The Sisters pressed forward, but clouds of flying, living metal swarmed on them, their metallic mandibles seeking any weakness in the Sororitas' Ceramite armor, buying the Necrons time to escape with their prize.

Or so it seemed.  Still the Necron Warriors stood in place.

Seizing the moment, Cannoness Valoria sprinted across the battlefield. Glowing green bolts of searing energy from Necron Gauss guns tore through the air exploding clods of earth at her heels as she sprang behind ruined walls. 

A short space of open ground separated her from her quarry.

The Necron with the green bead is suppressed, the one with the black triangle with the red X is actually down. I realized shortly after that I should in fact, lay the figure on its side, with the marker (to remind me they need to make a repair roll).

Stay tuned for Part 2!

***

Background:

This week, I decided I wanted to try out FUBAR take on Warhammer 40K. They are a supplement, rather than a variant of, the FUBAR wargame rules for modern/sci-fi small unit combat. Instead of presenting the rules entirely as the variants do, such as Medieval or VSF, they cover converting the Warhammer 40K units and weapons into FUBAR units and weapons.

The recommendation for balance is to use the points from 40K (I assume the 3rd Edition in the name of the one document refers to the 40K version, but it may refer to the FUBAR version it was meant to supplement). I am very interested in 2e 40K of late, and so I used those point values and found I have around equal points of Adepta Sororitas and Necrons. 

The scenario idea came from the 3rd ed.  Codex : Witch Hunters (can be found online - Adepta Sororitas had their own codex as the end of second edition, and they are included in Witch Hunters in 3rd. I share this because I only just learned this recently).

The Forces:

Adepta Sororitas 

Cannoness Valoria: Elite, bolt pistol (2 FP), power armor (Save on 3+)

Battle Sister Squad 1 (Veteran, power armor (Save on 3+)):

• Sister Superior Angelique:bolt pistol (2 FP) 
• 4 Sisters with Bolt Rifles (3 FP each)
• 1 Sister with Melta (3 FP)
• 1 Sister with HMG (4 FP) 

 Battle Sister Squad 2 (Veteran, power armor (Save on 3+)):

• Sister Superior Caterina: Bolt  Pistol (2FP) 
• 4 Sisters with Bolt Rifles (3 FP each)
• 1 Sister with Flamer (3 FP)
• 1 Sister with Heavy Flamer (4 FP) 

 Necrons 

Squad 1

•  5 Necron Warriors: Veteran (1 FP, Save on 3+)

Squad 2 

•  5 Necron Warriors: Veteran (1 FP, Save on 3+)

Canoptek Scarab Swarms: 

• 3 Canoptek Swarms : Seasoned (0 FP, CC only, Save on 5+ , capable of a leap of 16" over intervening terrain). Each swarm acts independently.

The Necrons are not covered by the FUBAR supplements. No worries!

All Necrons have the following special rules (from "W40K 2nd Ed Battle Bible 1.7.2" - available online):

Self-Repair: "Necrons cannot be removed as casualties. Instead, mark them or place them on their side." At the start of each turn, before the automatic close combat round, for each Necron on its side, roll 1d6:

• 1 - destroyed, remove as casualty
• 2-5 still trying to repair
• 6 Repaired and immediately returned to fight. "

Isolation :  "A Necron warrior which repairs itself may find itself outside of normal coherency to the rest of its squad. Necrons in such a condition are said to be isolated. An isolated Necro cannot shoot, although it fights as normal in all other respects. It must move to join a unit of the same type."

Morale : "If the entire Necron force is reduced to 25% or less of its original number at the start of any Necron turn, then the whole army  will mysteriously vanish; the Necrons are assumed to have been driven away. Necrons which have fallen down but not yet removed can’t be counted as part of the remaining force, so a Necron army can be defeated if enough models are knocked down even if they are not permanently destroyed." 

The emphasis there is mine - I did not remember that when I was running the game and that played a part in the game's length for sure!

The Untouchable Rules

Untouchables are individuals immune to Pyskkers, or something like that. In any case, I had 3 blinds on the table one real, two dummies.

Swarms can check the blinds but cannot capture the Untouchable if found or escort him off the table. 

Once revealed, the Untouchable, Green with no armor, activates once per turn. And being Green, odds are high they'll fail their activation roll.

• If he is not currently captured or rescued and he activates successfully, he moves 1d6" in a random direction (roll 1d12, read like a clock direction). 
• Once captured or rescued, he becomes temporarily part of that unit and moves with them but still activates each turn in order to try and escape. 
• To escape (he doesn't want to be captured and in the confusion of the moment, doesn't want to be rescued either), he must attack his guard, and the guard must fail in their attack against him. If successful, the Untouchable immediately moves 1d6" in a random direction as above.

If the unit with the Untouchable is attacked, and there are any unsaved hits (using the unit's save value), the Untouchable is hit and killed on a 1 on a 1d6.

Once captured or rescued, the unit with the Untouchable can only move a max of 6" per turn.

As for FUBAR itself, there were some house rules added on the fly to address some grey areas, but more on that next time.

One Hour Skirmish Wargames in the Grim Dark Future

Sometimes an idea won't go away. So it was with my desire to capture the Grim Dark Future: Firefight experience in a system that I find infinitely more enjoyable as a solo venture.

Contemplating Alex's comment on that previous post, I realized I had gone too far in leaning into my attempt to 1:1 reproduce Kill Team / Grim Dark Future: Firefight vibes.

The better way to proceed would be to capture whatever it is that feels essential to me for that kind of game. 

At the top of that list is the power armor and handling those with and without, in a way that doesn't involve a million card draws. Related to this, it's important to me that my Sisters not have the same kind of power armor as Space Marines and similarly equipped factions.

This is followed by capturing the variety of weapons, again without over complicating.  And finally to allow room for "army traits".

FUBAR 40K pointed me in what I feel is the right direction here. 

Now, why not use FUBAR 40K? For one it's for a full-size game with multiple squads and vehicles per side, for another, I find FUBAR can take a long time with more than a few units per side- and if I treat each model as a unit, a game will take forever. I like my games to be done in 60 minutes or less.

FUBAR 40K relies on the FUBAR Core rules for armor - which is a 6-tier system (from none to battlesuit). Combining this with Defense values from Grim Dark Future: Firefight, I ended up with a 5-tier system:

• Unarmored humans (like Repentia) have Armor(0)
• Tyranid termagants (unarmored but have a chitinous shell) have Armor(1)
• Battle Sisters (power armor but not as big/bulky as Space Marines) and Necron warriors (living metal) sit in the middle with Armor(2)
• A typical Space Marine will have Armor(3)
• Space Marine Terminators (basically a battlesuit) have Armor(4) (this is the only one that gives me pause - that's a lot of cards).  

To keep it from getting crazy with card draws (which can greatly impact turn duration and thereby game duration), I am only drawing Armor cards against hits received, not for every shot received. So shooting and melee remain rules-as-written. Only if the target takes any hits do they draw their armor value to try to prevent the knock down. 

Essentially it's a saving throw.

Anyway, in OHSW format: 

Armor(X) - model draws X additional cards per hit received. Applies to both range and melee. In melee, if the hit is absorbed by armor, the model is pushed back 2"instead.

Each point of armor is 1 add'l point cost for the model. 

For weapons, rather than trying to convert stats from GDFF or KT into card draws, I decided to follow the FUBAR 40K approach and map them to existing weapons as much as possible. To keep things simple, armor penetration is ignored for everything except AP(4) (primarily plasma weapons, but not exclusively so). If armor penetration is 4, then I give it an AP(4) in OHSW - for use against vehicles. 

Each AP point is 1 add'l point for the model.

A terminator armed with energy fist and stormbolter is 11 points on its own (4 points for Armor(4), 2 points for the stormbolter-a 2 shot LMG, and 5 points for the energy fist - brute(1), AP(4)). So, a squad of five would be 55 points. For the same points, you'd get 14 termagants (they are 4 points based on how I stat them). That's pretty much the largest force I would field in OHSW.

For the first play-test, which took place last night, I fielded a squad of six Battle Sisters (including a squad leader) led by a Cannoness against nine termagants and two hive swarms. I should note, Battle Sisters have an army rule that I totally forgot to use, and the Tyranids do not ever have to check morale (that's their army rule).

The Sisters were trying to reach an abandoned radio station (middle of table) to call in a drop ship for extract. The Tyranids were just running rampant over the planet.  To successfully call in the drop ship, I borrowed the rules from the WWII scenario in the rulebook, a model could attempt to call the ship by spending an action. They draw one card, and and on a face-card, the call is successfully. A single model can try up to three times per turn, at a cost of 1, 3, and 5 points respectively.

Tyranids start up to 6" from their base line. Sisters start pretty much on their baseline (up to two bases deep).

The game was scheduled for six turns (I assumed there would be more deck churn than usual with the armor draws), but at the end of turn six I'd roll a die. On a six the game would end (either the drop ship would arrive if the call had been successful, or the Sisters would be overrun if not), otherwise the game would continue and I would check again after the next turn (a 5+ would end the game then, then a 4+, and so on, for a maximum of 11 turns).

 

In the event, the Sisters managed to successfully call for extract on turn 5, and at that point the had suffered no losses. That changed moments later and they were down 1. At the end of turn 6, the game continued, and then they were down 2, then 3, and then at the end of turn 7, they were down 4! Finally, at the end of turn 8 (mercifully short thanks to an early Joker), the two surviving Battle Sisters and the Cannoness were extracted. 

The rules worked well and I found the game quite enjoyable. It was much more to my liking than my previous attempt - it captured the vibe without a lot of overhead added to a relatively simple set of rules (unlike the previous iteration). 

The Battle Sisters were at high-risk in close combat (the squad leader and Canonness have swords that give a bonus in CC) and were better off staying back and shooting, whereas the Tyranids had their best chance by closing in, either to get their 2 shots with their bio borers (OHSW submachine guns) and to use their Brute(1) bonus for their talons - in melee, which felt right.

The points (from the book with my addition for armor) gave a reasonable balance at least between these two factions despite a difference in force size.  

Definitely something I'll be playing again. 

July in Review

I spent most of July away from home but yet I managed a good bit of gaming.

The month kicked off with my One Hour Wargames modification for fantasy gaming before I headed out on the road:

Skeletons, giant and ordinary, held up the orc advance.

While I tried a variety of other rules, I kept coming back to these and for now, they'll be used when I finally get around to kicking off a fantasy campaign.

I spent a week working in Florida, but brought figures and some low-effort cardstock terrain for One Page Rules Grimdark Future: Firefight:

The game was played in a VERY small area - around 18" a side if I recall. Definitely fun to be had in small spaces. The figures are all 15mm from Khurasan purchased in the early 2010s.

Everything needed for the games (I played several times) fit into but a portion of my pack:

And just for giggles, here's the view from the balcony of the condo we stayed in:

We came home for a day and then my son and I drove to Western New York to visit family and friends. On this trip, I brought my Games Workshop figures and the full size terrain:

I only had a chance to play once while there, using my mom's kitchen table. We also had a family round of Life, which admittedly, isn't particularly deep, but there was a lot of laughter which is pretty much what I hope for from a family game night.

Once back, I got it in my head to play a tournament of sorts using Grimdark Future: Firefight. The playing space I decided on was 36" x 24".

Game 1 and 2 ...

Alien Hive/Robot Legions vs Plague Brothers. It was a close game  but the Plague Brothers won on the last turn

Battle Brothers vs Blessed Sisters. The Battle Brothers crushed the Sisters, outscoring on objectives and eliminating all but one of them!

Game 3 featured Alien Hive/Robot Legions vs Blessed Sisters:

One of my favorite moments form the game. The game was a draw.

Game 4 - the title bout if you will - was a battle between Battle Brothers and Plague Brothers:

Battle Bros. deploy their squad on the left.

Plague Bros. deploy on the right.

A view from the Plague Bros. end. They won the roll to deploy first and were able to claim multiple objectives and take a defensive posture in turn 1.

End of Turn 1. The Battle Bros. have covered a lot of ground, in part due to their leader having Advanced Tactics which lets him move three units 6" if they are within 12" of him at the start of his activation.

End of turn 2. Both sides hold one objective. The third (upper right) is moved to "contested" status with the Battle Bros within the 3" distance to lay claim to it.

Turn 3. The Battle Bros. concentrate on hurling themselves at the contested objective - not without cost.

Turn 4 ended with the last objective still contested. Each side captured one objective and the game ended in a draw. In terms of losses, the Battle Brothers lost more units, but that's not how scoring is done in the basic rules.

Painting was sacrificed in July - I didn't want to bring paints with me.

Still, I did manage to complete the first four Saurian Starhost figures when I was home:

I will make three more as close combat specialists, but I need to buy more oat milk. Trust me, it makes sense!

August will see a return to gaming with others - this coming weekend hopefully will be either Firefight or maybe the Age of Fantasy: Skirmish rules at a local-ish game store. Then in two weeks, our family and friends BFRPG campaign is slated to continue with and admin session and short adventure.

With any luck, I might even get some paint applied to figures.

See you next month!

Blessed Sisters of the Grim Dark Future

Saturday night, I needed a break from painting figures the holiday game, so I returned to my Blessed Sisters.  

I have wanted a force of sci-fi nuns-with-guns since I first heard they existed, and I'm thrilled to have finished "stage 1".

I can now field a force for Grim Dark Future : Firefight of 300 points, give or take depending on which upgrades I take. FWIW, you can play GD:FF with more points but I find it takes way too long, since most units consist of a single figure, and units activate individually.

Canoness Veridyan (left) commands a detachment of Blessed Sisters

I still have five of the Battle Sisters to build and paint, but that's "stage 2" and a 2025 project. 

Between now and Christmas, I'll be churning out figures for the Christmas Day game. I'll share some progress on that in the next post. I know that I'm dragging my feet on the painting because making my own figures for the monsters seems a little intimidating but also because I now have multiple ideas for the adversaries - option paralysis as they say.

Sister Act IV: There is Only War

 The first three Adepta Sororitas battle sisters are complete!

Looks like I missed a spot with the matte varnish on back left figure. I'm also going to redo the decals so they are all on the same corner of the cape.

I'm not 100% satisfied with my brushwork - but I am rather pleased with the way their capes came out: 

Close-up photos are the bane of a sloppy painters existence, and I can see lots of things that need attention, and I may go back and fix those things, but for now they are tabletop ready (once I fix the decals).

Although I've managed to stat out a 200 point Grimdark Future : Firefight force with these three figures, by applying various upgrades, and will get them on the table sooner rather than later, I will be starting on three more figures (two battle sisters and one canoness) shortly, in order to field a full 300 point force.

Ten battle sisters (a full squad) works as an Ecclessiarchy team in Kill Team, although I don't have the rules for that, and there is a weekly Kill Team meetup at the FLGS which is something I might consider in the coming year.     

Titus and (more) Tyranids

Well, even though I was taking my time, the paint-by-numbers approach for 40K figures meant Lt. Titus was completed early Friday evening.

So, while my son was busy with his friend online,  I clipped assembled and primed the next four Tyranids. And by Monday evening, they were done.

I leave for Western New York this weekend to visit family and friends, and with this week already fast passing by, it seems unlikely I'll assemble the last four Tyranids (not counting the two swarms), before I go, let alone finish them.

But it's a possibility.

Once the Tyranids are done, that is all of my 40K figures acquired for Christmas. If my son wants me to finish his remaining two Infernus, I'll do those. Otherwise, it's time to decide which Order (color scheme) I will paint my Sisters of Battle (or Blessed Sisters in One Page Rules-speak). 

There will undoubtedly be an expense related to paints involved.

Plague Marines Finished!

Well, "finished" as in the seven I have.

I admit, if I were going to play Grimdark Future (as opposed to Firefight) or play 40K (not happening), I'd build up a full Death Guard force. The aesthetic is great, and best of all, they are easy to paint. 

As it is, I feel like this group could use a few more heavy weapons. Maybe support from a unit of Plaguewalkers ...

But I'll stop here for now!

The fellow in the front row, far right, was the final figure to be painted.

I used Tesseract Glow on the bases (the green bits). I was hoping for something like toxic waste  seeping up through, or spilled on, the ground. 

Not quite the end result I imagined but it's good enough to call done.

Also finished, but not pictured, was Reaper Bones orc that I started late 2023.

The last two of the five Blood Raven intercessors are on the paint table - the red base coat and highlight is done. My goal is to start assembling the Necrons this weekend.

First Figures of 2024 (sort of)

I started in on my goal of painting everything I got for Christmas with the Plague Marines.

They came assembled and primed and I had all the colors I needed already, so they were the obvious place to start.

I used the dry brush + Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade final wash method that I used with my Nurgle Rotters and that I learned from Commander Cheapskate on YouTube.

The majority of the paints used here were craft brands. 

The bright green is provided by my new favorite paint color, Lime Sherbet (from Apple Barrel) which I used for the Rotters previously. It was dry brushed over a Russian Uniform Green base (Vallejo) which more or less disappeared between the dry brushing and the wash, but it's there. 

That's as much a note for my future self as anything - I have four more to paint.

I tried a rust effect - orange paint over gun metal on the chain mail, vents on the legs, and other bits - visible on the leftmost figure. I like how it looks.

I'm pretty happy with the overall result. I think they qualify as "Battle Ready" (that's like a GW term or something). They obviously need their bases finished but I haven't decided how I'm going to do the bases for this project.

I can't decide if I want each team's basing to be unique, or if they will all be uniform - like I do for my other collections, other than Blitz Bowl.

I need to think on that, so the paint queue will keep moving on.