The Cleansing of Priestus Hive

A few months back, we played some Necromunda and had some spare time in the evening. We decided to throw a bunch of Genestealers into the hive (the results can be found here).

We had a great time and decided we should follow up the game with another scenario where Space Marine Terminators are sent in to flush out the hive. Unfortunately, not everyone could make our last games day so instead we send in some poor Imperial Guard and a handful of Marines to deal with the Genestealer Cult that had caused the infestation.

They met heavy resistance from cultists and purestrain genestealers

However, a single Guardsman and a Marine Captain were able to make it to a beleaguered Adeptus Arbites fort in the centre of the hive.

In our most recent game, the Terminators finally arrived to fend off the Genestealers and escort the Arbites, that surviving soldier and a Colonel out of the city. A secondary objective was to investigate a cryo-pod which had been left in the hive when the infestation escalated.

The Arbites, Colonel, soldier and Ultramarines Captain.

A squad of Ultramarines Terminators teleport in, locking onto their Captain's homer. They start taking out the purestrains attacking the fort.

They are quickly overwhelmed as aliens ascend to higher platforms. 

With his back up depleted, the Captain orders the Colonel and other humans to jump to a nearby platform rather than leaving the fort at ground level. Two Arbites slip and fall their deaths.

Fortunately, Termniators from two more Chapters (the Blood Angels and Dark Angels) arrive.

The Blood Angels appear right by a comms bunker allowing future squads to teleport in wherever they want.

This allows the Hawk Lords to lock on to the bridge next to the fort which was lost to the aliens. They succeed in taking back the bridge. 

Even so, stealers have hopped onto the fort from another walkway and leap again to catch up with the fleeing Colonel. He fights them off with help from the Hawk Lords and Judges.

At ground level, Angels Dark and Bloody team up to to clear the way for the POI to descend. Leaving at the higher level was probably a good idea as genestealers are still active around the fort... 

...including a brood lord.

While the Angels are busy dying on the ground, the Space Wolves make a surprise appearance. They find a Squat engineer in the cryo-pod and (slowly) help him to the exit. 

Elsewhere, purestrains mass up near the exit. One of the last Dark Angels unleashes a salvo from his cyclone and takes many of them out. This thins down the escape route at the base level.

Meanwhile, stealers have over run the fort and look to follow on the heals of the Colonel. The Hawk Lords, who have supplied much needed covering fire from above, bar their way.

The Colonel has now made it to the ground and his cyclone ally (the last of the Angels) fight through the much thinned ranks of stealers and cultists. Unfortunately, at this point, the Space Wolves and Squat are eliminated after a valiant fight. The Hawk Lords above are now gone.

But the fighting prowess of the Colonel and Ultramarines Captain ensures that the Colonel makes it to safety. The hive is still overrun and Exterminatus is ordered a while later to destroy all life on the hive world.

We used 40k 2nd Edition rules to play this out. The quirks of that edition's close combat rules meant that the Colonel was able to hold his own even against genestealers. We joked at one point that he could probably have walked out on his own without having 25 Terminators killed.

Even so, it's a good set of rules where different races seem distinct without special rules for each and overwatch mitigates the old-fashioned Igo Ugo turn sequence.

Oh...and there was a fleeting bromance between a Dark Angel and a Blood Angel.