Deathwatch

Unfortunately, due to a member of the team being ill this week, there is no session this week. So instead, I shall bring readers up to speed on the events of the first two sessions.

Our squad is :-
A Black Templar Sergeant,
A Space Wolves Assault Marine,
A Blood Angels Assault Marine,
A Dark Angels Devastator Marine,
A Dark Angels Apothercary,
and An Imperial Fists Librarian; Brother Absalom (played by yours truly)

We've been sequestered to the Deathwatch,  a branch of the Inquisition. They take the best Space Marines availablefrom all chapters and train them specifically to deal with Aliens. As time goes by, they specialise in defeating Xenos menaces, until they either die or their time is up and they return to their home chapters.

Our squad has been briefed that on a nearby planet, an Inquisitor has been investigating a suspected Genestealer infestation. Contact has been lost, and a civil war has broken out. We are going in to rescue the Inquisitor, quell the war and eradicate the Xenos.

The ship taking us to the system jumps in, only to be ambushed by scouts for a Tyranid fleet. They blew up our ship, but not before we jumped into a Drop Pod and made planetfall.

Crashing into a church, the squad deploy and run into a small PDF unit being assaulted by rebels. The Assault Marines grab the leader of the PDF to help ascertain which side is corrupted. "He" turns out to be a Callidus Assassin who quickly explains the situation. The Inquisitor has gone missing, and the Xenos have nearly won. Also a nearby Hive Fleet is incoming.

We rapidly wipe out the cultists, and move on through the city. Finding the spaceport, we are equally adept at clearing out the cultists there and providing relief for the PDF. There ended the first session, only minor injuries despite a couple of Genestealers being hidden umongst the cultists at the spaceport.

Session two started great for our Apothecary. He rapidly sorted out all the wounds,  though he did fail to effect the Devastator who had only lost one hit point. This single point of damage refused to heal. Could it prove to be his undoing? Only time will tell.

The pendulum swung against him though. Moving on to the armory building, we decided to opt for a little stealth. I started sneaking along, as I have some how managed all game. Despite being an 8 foot tall combat machine in large, clanking, powered armour, I am able to pass any stealth rolls I want. Luck of the dice so far, don't really want to push that given what happened next.

Our Apothecary decided to also go on a scouting trip. However, his dice roll was so appalling he essentially decided to attach tank treads to his boots and a rocket pack to his back. His sneaking amounted to double timing down the middle of the street yelling marching songs.

This led to our joint discovery of cultist weapon positions about to launch an assault on a PDF defensive position. While I noticed siege weapons preparing to open fire on the defensive wall, the Apothecary got noticed by the cultists. This led to the nearest group opening fire on him, which would have been ok if they hadn't been packing heavy weapons.

In tabletop, the ubiquitous Heavy Stubber is the heavy weapon for those who can't afford better. An analog for the Heavy Machine-gun, it's stats aren't that impressive, being only slightly more poweful than a Lasgun and only having a slightly larger rate of fire than a Boltgun. Turns out here though, that a large group of them is dangerous, even fired by untrained cultists.

Our Apothecary dropped like a stone and actually nearly died. Actually nearly died. The short round of firing has left him in a position where, even after trying to sort out his on wounds post-combat, getting into a serious fight will probably finish him off. This is a precarious position for anyone, but he is the team medic. Losing him could rapidly be followed by losing the rest of the team, especially as we currently have no way of contacting back up nor getting off planet.

It took some effort, but we managed to shift the cultists and stop the seige weapons. Making sure the PDF were ok, we moved on to the next objective, which would unfold next session...