Rogue Trader Battle Report: Rabble vs. Salvage Marines

When I finally realised that actually playing 40K was the worst part of 40K, I decided to just buy and paint miniatures that I liked the look of.  At the same time, my brother was really enjoying making new Space Marine vehicles out of lots of spare parts.

In order to give these miniatures life, we decided to start playing Rogue Trader.  It involved making up all the stats and talking things through to make sure we weren't just min-maxing them all.  Plus, we had to make up some house rules to clarify things (and more will follow, I'm sure).  But after all that, we had our first battle: The Rabble vs. Salvage Marines.

Salvage Marines (working title) are a lost chapter of Space Marines that get a lot of their equipment from finding old battlefields and strongholds, recovering and repairing all they need.  They have come to an ashen desert world in search of an abandoned Space Marine complex and found that the locals are far from friendly.

The Rabble are the inhabitants of this world, and they've got a good thing going salvaging all this Imperium tech, so they don't want to give it up without a fight.  Gorten Grundback (from Warmachine) is the engineer responsible for repairing and delivering this equipment to anyone who will pay.  Brun Cragback is Gorten's good friend, and will always bring Lug to a fight.  Then, in today's battle, a local cult of misguided Redemptionists also join the fray.

Deployment

A tiny battlefield (because that's all the scenery I've managed to make so far) consists of four 12x12 inch sections.  The rabble are all bunched in because there are so many of them.  The Salvage Marines are bunched in because of the house.

...but notice the sneaky little attack bike?

This is safe, right?

It's a lovely conversion into a quad bike.

Rabble Turn 1

It's a big ol' charge!  Except for the gunbots at the back who managed to take out a marine.  They have low expectations of themselves and would high-five each other if they had arms.

Marine Turn 1

The quad bike appears!  It fires its bolters...and misses.
Grundback's giant death bot takes a crack missile to the face, but he's still standing.

Rabble Turn 2

Some pathetic attempts at shooting marines, but also...
Lug will eat your face!

...except when he's in the mood for pat-a-cake.  No wounds on either side.

Marines Turn 2

More pat-a-cake with the bear, lumbering death-bot survives a crack missile whizzing past his head, and...

...that marine on the bike?  He's got a plasma gun, and the 'following fire' rule means those Redemptionists drop like flies!

Rabble Turn 3
Death bot destroys all but one of a marine squad, sending the lone survivor running for the cave.
Redemptionist melta gun shoots at the bike, but the shot goes wild.
...more pat-a-cake from the bear.

Marine Turn 3

That mother's gonna get my metal...

Lining up the decisive shot that spells the end of the lumbering death-bot.

Rabble Turn 4
The melta gun finds it mark.  Bang! And the bike is gone.

Cheese it!

Lug finally eats a couple of faces and an unlucky rout check sends the marines running for cover.

And with that, we call it a day...

Yeah, you'd better run!

Epilogue

I really enjoyed playing this.  Of course, it helped that I sent the marines running for the hills.  The lumbering death-bot and the bear finally won through for me, with the melta-gun eventually proving useful too.  Even after all those turns, the gunbots at the back were still whooping and chest-bumping at their one kill.

I think the marines were unlucky, but could've done with another heavy weapon.  A different roll would have send the lumbering death-bot to hell a lot sooner, and the battle could easily have swung the other way.

I had forgotten how damned expensive vehicles were in the Rogue Trader rules.  But that bike got the plasma gun into short range and it made short work of a load of Redemptionists.

So the next steps are probably making some more scenery for a longer battlefield and building/buying some suitable vehicles for the Rabble.