Sharpe’s Duty - A 40k Narative Skirmish

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe 

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe of the 95th Praetorian Rifles, Imperial Guard, stood at attention in Major-General (Margrave) Chretzo Sigenandus’ command tent. The young lieutenant faced the old stern general seated at his desk, while Colonel Ackland stood casually off to the side interjecting from time to time with remarks that were more whimsical than of any strategical importance. Sharpe looked taken back on receiving his mission. “He specially requested me?” uttered Sharpe with genuine surprise. Ackland chuckled mostly to himself while twisting the end of his moustache “Yes my dear boy, Major Sutherland - you know, tall grumpy chap, big scar down the right cheek. He requested you lead the escort.”
“Aye sir, I know em” replied Sharpe, “It was me that gave em the scar!”
“Arrr yes” continued Ackland looking off thoughtfully, “And a dammed ungentlemanly blow too I must say. Well Sharpy, all I can say is if I were cut off 30 miles behind the line surrounded by angry Green Skins I’d want the dirtiest fighter in this man’s army to come rescue me too, ha ha!”

Major-General Sigenandus

The General shifted in his chair and grumbled, giving off the feeling that he wished he was somewhere else. “Hmmm errr, well Sharpe, you have your orders, if there are no questions you are dismissed.”
“Aye sir” the young Lieutenant saluted and about faced to leave when the general added “Oh and Sharpe remember I need the intelligence that Major Sutherland has so do not go starting any foolhardy duels on the trip back. Sutherland’s from the ‘old school’ and cannot be expected to mind his manners with a commoner raised from the ranks, so make sure you mind yours.” Sharpe stopped but did not turn to face the old general. “Don’t worry Sir,” he replied gruffly, “I’ll do my duty.” 

Lieutenant Sharpe exited the tent with such disquietude that he cannoned straight into a ‘tin belly’ cavalry officer who was about to enter. The large Brimlock heavy dragoon was an immovable object and Sharpe staggered clumsily to the side. “Wow, steady there… arr, Sharpe isn’t it?” The Brimlock officer queried. “Who’s asking” Sharpe replied finding his feet. The officer persisted, “I wonder if I might I give you some advice - lieutenant to lieutenant?” Before Sharpe could reply the officer continued shrewdly “Soap. By the Emperor’s holly name you stink horribly man - it is quite ungentlemanly.” Sharpe gave a half grin “Nar, don’t use it. The Green Skins can smell a rosy officer a mile off, me however; I have ta tap em on the shoulder before they know I’m coming. I’ll sleep in the dirt and stay alive.” The Brimlock officer looked appalled and then laughed shaking his cuirassier breastplate “I’d rather be dead, ho ho!” With that, the Brimlock officer past Sharpe and entered he command tent. “Be careful what you wish for tin man” Sharpe muttered to himself as he went to find his men.  Sharpe knew he had many failings as an officer and a gentleman, but he was good at leading his men and killing Orks and that was all his duty ever required.

Leman Russ Demolisher Finished -Tank 211 'Bumblebee'-

Gents, this one is a double blog post, so be sure to checkout the work in progress post for this tank here. As always, comments are always welcome. Seeing that the Preatorians were 'never' on campaign in the Orpheus Sector (thanks to the Ordo Redactus), it would be wise to check your security clearance before viewing these archives. -Tally ho lads, Colonel Ackland.

The Massacre of Omicron Peninsula and Preparations for the Battle of Iron Vale

+++The HD85512B Campaign+++

It is a dark time for the Imperial Forces on the isolated planet of HD85512B.

After The initial loss of the major Imperial outposts, Renegade Space Marines have driven the Imperial Guard from their defences and pursued them across the planet.

Evading the dreaded Marines, a ragtag party of survivors led by an unlikely partnership of Commissar-General Marwood and Primaris Azzopardi, have found refuge in the rough mountainous terrain of the Iron Rangers at Cape Sierra.

Little did they know that their prayers to the Holy Emperor for deliverance had been heard as the damaged Frigate Heidelberg limped into Praetorian space with news of the Marine attack. 

Fearing that the isolated planet would become a staging base for raids on the Praetorian transit routes to Bakka, Segmentum Command dispatched the 5^th Praetorian Battle Column with a modest Navel Patrol Fleet to retake the system…

The Defence of Complex 23

 

The Marine Commander swung his oversized Relic Blade up around his head and out in an attempt to decapitate Commissar-General Marwood. The old Commissar clumsily ducked and brought his Power Fist up to block the strike. There was a loud crack of energy discharge and the smell of ozone as the blade ricocheted off of his fist. In a fluid sweeping motion the Commander continued the flight of his blade around and down toward the Commissar. Marwood leaped backwards falling on his wrinkled rump and gasped as the sparking blade split the ground between his legs – narrowly avoiding a battlefield castration. Appearing from the blur of combat around them, Primaris Azzopardi swung his mighty Force Axe at the Commanders flank. In a display of mastery footwork and swordsmanship the Commander swiftly moved, parring the strike and followed with a series of quick slashes. As the Primaris defended with his large axe, Marwood was granted the few seconded that he needed. His hand disappeared into his coat pocket and reappeared grasping a glass vile of Fury. In a single well-practiced motion he thumbed off the cork stopper and drove the opening into the external stim port of his power fist. He instantly felt the strength, he felt the power, he felt the Fury. With agility thought to be long lost in his youth the old Commissar rolled to his feed. As the Commander swung his Relic Blade in a wide strike, Marwood, using his momentum stepped inside the swing. With unexpected speed, Marwood forcefully thrust his crackling power fist into the right side of the Commander’s back fracturing his elegant artificer armour. The Commander curled his torso like a school boy receiving his first kidney punch while his aslant continued the frenzied assault. With speed, Marwood punched high uppercutting the Commander’s helmeted chin, then across and down in a backfist, followed by an almighty forward punch square on his helmet fount. As the Commander’s head rebounded of the fist, Marwood saw parts of shattered eye lens and fragments of crushed vent explode outward from the blow. The commander’s body limply fell backwards collapsing into the dirt.

Report lost!

In 40k, astropathy is the only means of fast interstellar communication available to the Imperium. It’s a good service but increasingly messages are often distorted, delayed, or lost altogether in transmission. It’s just that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica isn’t training astropaths like they use to!

I wrote up a battle report for the first battle of the new campaign! Yey! But somehow I deleted (or saved over it) and it is lost. Noo! Rest assured I will have a serf come up with a new report soon.

In the meantime, two messages did make it across the warp! First, a list of those that fell in the Defence of Complex 23 arrived to be craved on a memorial wall. This is situated on the top left of my blog and will record the sacrifice of the Guardsmen undertaking the Campaign on Hotel Delta Eight Fifty Five Twelve B.

An extract from the Personal Journal of Commissar-General Marwood

The new campaign rules are sorted, a new army is built, but before we go to war it would be good to find out a bit about the heros that will lead the way...

A personal chronology of events leading up to the destruction of the Imperial Navy Frigates Hansa and Hahndorf, commencing the battle on Hotel Delta Eight Fifty Five Twelve B.

Day 31:

Sitting in my cabin on the Barbarossa – I managed a minute to myself.  Finally, this is the last leg of my trip. All I have to do now is rendezvous with the three frigates; the Hansa, Heidelberg and Hahndorf, as they prepare to leave the Reductus Sector, conduct one last DPPR whilst on board the Hansa, and then enjoy the ride to Praetoria. From there, it is a short jump back to Bakka, back to comfort, back to my glum desk – just the way I like it. This trip hasn’t been particularly rotten; I only had to administrate the ‘cleansing’ of two Psykers. Cleansing. After all these years I’m prepared to say it; I murder people. It’s my job. ‘Commissar-General’? What they really mean is ‘Chief Executioner’.

Revitalising my hobby: Part 1 Rules for a Campaign

The thing about having regular gaming buddies is that they requires you to game with them regularly.  It is very easy to keep putting other things first and continuously put games off. If you keep doing this eventually you find yourself with no gaming partners. Of course you can pop down to your local GW or club and try and get a game in, but A) there is no certainty that you will find someone and B) that someone may or may not be a person that will give you the sort of fun game that you are looking for. So I have decided that even though things are very busy right now, I will specifically put time aside to game and seek out other gamers like me who like fluffy battles and fun games rather then tournament uber-list building and two dimensional battles.

Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus

I finally got around to finishing a few more miniatures!  This is Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus and his body guards and staff. He is a Margrave from Praetoria who has brought a commission in the Imperial Guard. Some of his back story has been explored in a previous fluffy post.

Andy Hoare Writes For Victoria Lamb

I popped on to facebook this morning and saw that an hour ago Vic posted up some background fluff about her main regiments, written by (ex-GW) Andy Hoare!

Check these out:
Galaxy’s Finest by Andy Hoare.

The Tannenberg Fusiliers

The Highland Guard

The Victorian Guard

The Cthood

A message from The Lord Governor of Praetoria - New command is imminent

He placed the Dataslate on his desk and blankly looked off into the distance. His dead eyes were dry and scratchy from the lack of sleep. He imagined that any other man might sob given the tempest of feelings he had inside, but no - Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus had not been brought up to cry. Men of his breeding never cried, they were bread for action. 

The Ruins of Medusa V: The Issue of Inquisitor Sasppenny.

Prologue

The situation was tense. Fifty of the Emperors beloved Blood Angel Space Marines surrounded the mixed Praetorian Guard force. Neither side had moved as they waited. Fifteen, twenty, then thirty minutes passed. The two ranking officers, Major Holtman and Colonel Ackland, exchanged knowing glances. Finally Ackland offered, 

“I say, this is getting rather ridiculous. Hmm, Stand fast old boy, I’ll see to it.”

With that, Ackland marched out to a Blood Angel shielded in gleaming gold armour. After saluting he said 

“My Lord Captain, Do you have orders?” 

The Blood Angel Captain blankly stared down at the Colonel from his ornate battle mask. There was silence for a moment, then in a booming yet softly rounded voice the golden marine spoke, 

“We are here, as are you, at the bidding of Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny. We await His holy orders.”

“Yes Lord, but may I respectfully point out that the storm will soon descend on the planet again. If the Inquisitor has been waylaid we cannot stay here indefinitely. We engaged a traitor force on our journey here; it would be unfortunate if some ill fate had befallen the Inquisitor.”

There was silence, until finally the Blood Angel spoke again, 

“Noted.”

Ackland tuned to march back to his fellow Praetorians, a sea of scarlet girt by blood red. He whispered to himself

“Sorry my good chap, but old Sasppenny won’t be giving out any execution orders today.”

 Inquisitor Virgil Sasppenny, Missing In Action on Medusa V, presumed dead.
Search attempts withdrawn due to warp storms. 

The Macharian Thunder Guard

The Macharian Thunder Guard
A cavalry division that was established in 400.M41during the Macharian Heresy. After Imperial order was regained on Macharia, many of the veteran ex-crusade regiments that maintained their loyalty to the Imperium were hastily formed up into battle groups to bolster the segmentum’s Imperial Guard. As was typical of cavalry divisions, they were issued a name instead of a number, taking their name from their planet of origin and the nickname of their senior regiment - the 12th Praetorian Hussar - ‘The Thunder Guard’. The 12th Hussar themselves had received the nickname in reference to the breed of their mounts- ‘Storm Greys’.

Reforming my Imperial Guard (part 1)

Still, I have been away from my modelling desk yet to get back to all my awaiting projects. As devastating as that is, on the plus side the space away from my models has allowed me to rethink what I want to do with them and how I would like their fluff to work.

Also the space has made me realise that, essentially I can do whatever I want with my miniatures. It is nice to have fluff that doesn't contradict the established universe, but even if mine did, nothing would happen. At the worst, someone would say, "hay, that doesn’t work!" to which I would reply with a shrug "so?". This freedom was what I really enjoyed about modelling in the 40k universe (opposed to historical modelling) when I started out. You can do whatever you want with your colour schemes or be utterly ridiculous about the planet you say they are from. As it turns out it wasn't too hard to make my fluff fit (and I don't think my colour schemes are all that ridiculous), but knowing that I could do anything was very freeing.

So, in a grand reorganising of my miniature forces I have broken my Guard up into distinct elements which I will post about separately. First off, I have my Macharian Thunder Guard, my blogs name sake, and a group of minis that I suspect will take up a lot of my future modelling time. I decided this would work best as a division rather than a regiment. What I wanted was a division of several different regiments, which would allow me free rein to come up with whatever cavalry units I wanted. Like I said, it’s all about feeling free to do whatever I want. :)

Praetorian Sailors? Yes, I think there is such a thing!

Ahoy! With the anniversary of the sinking of the titanic on the weekend this post has gone slightly nautical.
In light of ‘The Pacification of Montar VII’ big-game that has been proposed for Jan 2013, I have decided to temporarily rename my regiment. Well, not so much a new name but re-issuing their old name. You see originally I called the regiment “The 1^st Expeditionary regiment of foot”. They weren’t a standard line regiment but a Praetorian fleet based regiment sooo that somehow justified why they weren’t red.

The thing is however, all Imperial guard regiments leave their home world and travel with a fleet finding war where war is needed. On realising this (and the massively frustrating point that Praetoria doesn’t exist on 40k star charts) I renamed them so they weren’t from Praetoria.  

Now I do want them to be from Praetoria once again, at least for a while, so they can take part in the Montar campaign – provided I can get to the other side of the galaxy in time. Also I do still like the original feel of a non ‘army’ regiment from the Navy or Airforce, like our Ausy Airfield defence guard (equivalent to UK’s Air Force regiment) or navy marine style forces.