Things that go bump in your face.

Back to the battle of the cults, and the 3rd Protocol have been on a recruitment drive picking up a scraggly techpriest named Colitis from a nearby sumpworks as well as Gastroenteritis, an unfinished electropriest found wandering the pipes- more importantly both brought with them Lasguns, reliable ranged support for the autogun heavy Nurgle worshippers.

The Nepotism Brotherhood had also been out recruiting, and added Ghrylls, a Neophyte with the most pimped out Lasgun you have ever seen- Hotshot pack, las-projector and telescopic sight giving him an accuracy only the boss could equal.

both gangs also had a few increases after the last game, Tetanus was the focus of a ritual and regained the point of Movement he lost to a leg injury a while back, whilst the hulking Mhogg-Rhyse gained a point of Toughness to make him a terrifying T5. The genestealer's were further enhanced when their patron back in hive secundus sent a specialist trainer out who gave them tuition in the finer points of gang warfare spreading some more increases out amongst the crew. The chaos elders finally decided it was worth spending some creds on the Protocol as they deigned to send a supply crate down, giving Tetanus frag grenades and giving everyone who needed one a backup autopistol or knife. 

We're going for another GW 3 scenario here Monster Hunt, one that luckily doesn't require us to force our morons to take intelligence tests for a change! This is not going to be my most accurate record because this game went crazy at several points, and the absolute carnage that followed disrupted note and photograph taking, so bear with me if not everything in the photo's and notes match up!

also yeah I forgot pre-game photos of my crew- mainly because the new guys aren't 100% painted yet..

Both cults had been briefed by their respective patrons of a large creature devouring imperial citizens in a slime reclamation plant down sump bottom, and whilst neither cared much for the victims the potential that it could be recruited to their cause if it was a potential ally or sold for a bounty if not was too much of a temptation for them to pass up. Once again the rival cults found themselves facing off, this time in the cramped confines of the zone mortalis slime tunnels beneath the plant.. 

Scenario- Monster hunt- Deployment

For deployment the compiler infiltrated purely to force the infiltrating acolytes backwards and deny them the centre room. The rest of the Nurgle skitarii deployed in three groups of three forming little Nurgle symbols on the board which was hopefully pleasing enough to the boss he’d give us a hand this time..  The Genestealer cult deployed second and chose to go heavy on their right flank, with only Hidlystrom and his heavy stubber holding the left. The acolytes predictably infiltrated fairly central behind a bulkhead door. 

Turn 1

t's all gone a bit quiet...

Nothing much happened in the first turn (unusually for one of our games, this could be down to the denser nature of Zone mortalis or maybe we were just getting cagey;) Lots of moving up and getting into position, Rotbringer summoned levitation and nipped forward whilst the rest of the cultists on both sides moved towards the centre. The central corridor was starting to look like a choke point and I wanted to get into a position where I could take advantage of that.  

Turn 2

Door based pop up attacks are both big and clever apparently

 It got heavy real fast in the second turn when Sepsis opened the heavy bulkhead in front of him and opened fire into the Acolytes, followed by Urban Decay and the mouth, who closed the bulkhead again with his last action.  This only pinned the abominable Spinsser and his nasty saw, but the combined fire did flesh wound Johrnson, summoning the first tentacle which Steve placed in the doorway by ventrot and sporeslinger to stop my crossfire getting into place, the tentacle took no time making it’s mark on the game, giving Sporeslinger a slap that seriously injured him, knocking him to the floor. This in turn allowed me to place another tentacle, this time right on top of the Acolytes. On the other flank a sporadic exchange of fire saw both Glodsmyth and Colitis take hits, with Colitis taking a flesh wound and bringing up another tentacle from the gaping chasm between the two.  The compler continued to move to safety whilst Gastroenteritis sprinted up behind the far wall to close down the tough Heavy Stubber of Hidlystorm. 

Turn 3

The first tentacles start causing havoc. 

The autopistol Trio behind the bulkhead repeated their pop-up attack from last turn but due to cover and the intervening flailing tentacle of death their shots went astray. Spinsser had more luck, allowing the shockingly lucky familiar to draw the tentacles lash out then carving it cleanly in half with his buzz saw before backing off and letting Mhogg –Rhise take the lead. The rest of the Genestealer cult gathered around the barricades that lined the crucial corridor and waited for an opportunity to strike. The other flank was dominated by a large exchange of fire at the lone tentacle in the centre, with both sides managing to wound the beast but neither being able to finish the job. Ventrot managed to wound the tentacle that had injured Sporeslinger with is Autogun, but it didn’t stop the beast lashing out at Rotbringer who luckily dodged the attack. 

Turn 4

wait- just how big is this thing? 

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this map sums up how mental this turn got pretty darn well… Genestealers won initiative for the first (and potentially only?) time of the game and sent the familiar in running past the tentacle in the doorway. The beast lashed out but missed, however if the familiar was to take a hit (or open the door next turn) the Chaos Skitarii using it as mobile cover would be left very exposed ad at risk to tentacle death.  I decided to seize the moment rather than letting the Xenos dominate the play, and opened the door with a tactics card before exploding out with my gangers. Firstly the Mouth heaved a frag grenade into Mhogg-Rhise before ducking to one side, this missed bloody spectacularly, scattering all the way down the corridor and landing in the heart of the alien scum! Ghrylls, Turnha and Caamrhone were all hit, with flesh wounds on both Neophytes summoning more Tentacles in the surrounding area, nice arm boss! Urban decay then charged the diminutive Familiar, smashing it to paste then ducking behind a wall, unfortunately the tentacle called by the mini-me’s blood appeared right next to Sepsis, who was smashed down and seriously injured by it before he could take part in the glorious charge into the mouth of hell. Johrnson activated next, but he was just within the furthest reach of one of the newly summoned tentacles which lashed out, crushing his ribs and sending him into recovery.  The witch and Ventrot hammered away at the tentacle before them, giving sporeslinger time to crawl away but having no effect on the monster itself. Even more fire poured from both sides into the tentacle in the central chamber, (including the Compilers long las, although he was actually aiming at Glodsmyth) with Hidlystorm moving into range the Xenos finally destroyed the beast- 2 down, 4 to go (tactics cards hijinks at this point meant Hidlystorm’s stubber went Click too…). Sporeslinger and Sepsis both succumbed to their injuries at the end of the turn (one day I’ll remember Nurgle’s blessing and re-roll one!) although only Sepsis injuries were grave enough to damage him permanently, the beasts acid melting part of his spine.

Turn 5

right, we've got this..

With a swathe of casualties starting to mount up on both sides it was time to start checking for bottling, but both sides held their nerve so far. The mouth opened things up with his last grenade, though it missed and scattered into nowhere so he hid round the corner before they returned fire. Mhogg-Rhise finally got his claws in and after Caamrhone tricked the tentacle into striking at him far at the end of his range the Aberrant charged into the it, gouging a great chunk out of it’s rotting hide with his pick. Spinsser revved his saw up again and Put urban decay down for the count, though again he was only knocked out (we both got hellish lucky with injury rolls for such a brutal game) in the other room Gastroenteritis decided to make his debut game a bit more interesting by popping round the corner and gunning down Hidlystorm at very close range, the Las rounds only pinned the Neophyte, but between pinning and lack of ammo he wasn’t a threat for one more turn at least. Small arms and scattered shots littered the rest of the table but the turn was a suspiciously quiet one after the initial carnage.. 

Turn 6

Hidlystorm facing ineffectual lasgun death. 

The 6th Turn is usually the end of our games to ensure they don’t go on forever, but as I was actually looking to at least draw for a change I was hanging on for more if we had time. Gastroenteritis started play with another pinning shot on Hidlystorm- no injuries were inflicted so unfortunately he’d be able to fire this turn… oops. The stealers continued to spread out, backing Ventrot and the Witch further into a corner after they failed to inflict any wounds with their firing. The mouth Inadvertently helped the Stealers with this when he and Colitis hammered fire in to the Aberrant’s back, giving Mhogg a flesh wound which then summoned a tentacle right in front of the two trapped skitarii… doh! Things got a little better when The compiler managed to pick off Glodsmyth who was sneaking round the back again, the resulting tentacle was out of the way even with a 6” range, and although it tried to swipe Glodsmyth it didn’t connect. Hidlystorms  time to return fire finally came and he unleashed an epic 5 shots into Gastroenteritis, and somehow missed him entirely! Tetanus saw his opportunity and quickly sprint up past the crevasses in the floor to give Gastro support next turn. 

Turn 7

the tentacles are starting to outnumber the cultists..

The skitarii inevitably did what they have become renowned for and failed their bottle test under mounting pressure, however for a nice change the filthy Xenos scum also decided it was a bit too hot down here for their liking. The Chaos amusement at this turn of events was only increased when Caamrhone himself promptly failed his cool check and did a runner, leaving the rest of his boys to fight the beast leaderless! That almost took the sting out of both Ventrot and Rotbringer (the most cowardly rogue psyker in history) also legging it, though based on the tentacle right in their face this was probably the right decision.   More impressively a fair number of the Chaos did decide to stick around for a change, (in retrospect not their greatest plan) so I was still in the game. The Stealers won the initiative now the dithering Caamrhone wasn’t about to complicate things and Spinsser opening proceedings by charging into both the Mouth and Colitis, seriously injuring the Mouth and cutting Colitis down so badly he’ll be out of action for a while with a gushing head wound. The tentacles this produced burst around the melee in the small room and they began flailing around, flesh wounding Spinsser for his temerity and mouth in the process. Ghrylls put a hot shot round squarely into the tentacle before him, but Redmayhne was in turn taken out by a grasping tendril of the beast. The compiler took pot shots at another pseudopod but failed to hit. Gastroenteritis finally managed to put a flesh wound on the super tough Hidlystorm but his jubilation was short lived when his skull was crushed by a tentacle appearing right behind him taking him out for at least the next skirmish. Finally Tetanus skipped round the back with the intention of ambushing the remaining Xenos from the rearand Glodsmyth bled out on the floor near him.  

Turns 8 and 9

Having rarely played to turn 8 before it was no surprise that both gangs were looking a trifle battered at this stage, and with only two fighters active and in play the Chaos gods were obviously happy enough to see a bit more carnage as they both decided to stick around for at least one more turn (though the Mouth fled the table at this point, escaping serious injury at the last second) . Reallising that the tentacles were the biggest threat to his gang Spinsser directed all their fire and melee attacks towards the tentacles round them, finally bringing down enough to summon the beast we had been hunting all along into play! It appeared within charge range of Spinsser unfortunately, and wasted no time taking revenge on the unfortunate acolyte before it was lightly wounded by the Compiler’s long-las. The ineffectiveness of his prized rifle was seemingly the last straw for the Compiler as turn 9 was  cut short when he called a full retreat, both tetanus and himself disappearing back into the shadows leaving the Xenos scum to deal with the problem they had brought to the surface. I gave Steve the option to finish out the duel with the beast but as it was past midnight and he wasn't exactly tooled for the job he declined. 

We're going to need a bigger... everything? 

Look at the carnage in the large corridor- just look at it!  It was an absolute slaughterhouse in there on both sides but we had an amazing game, and were both spectacularly lucky with injuries, I only had one in recovery (Gastro) and two proper injuries (Sepsis took a spinal injury and Colitis a head trauma), and Steve took a head wound on Glodsmyth with Jorhnson going into recovery. 

Not exactly a win, but as both gangs bottled, and the beast was still standing not a loss either- a draw for a change, could this be a turning point in my fortunes? This is a savage scenario, let alone in the close confines of the Zone Mortalis tiles, so I'd recommend not opening that particular trapdoor until you have some very tooled up individuals on board. 

This is your brain on Spook.

Game three of our Mini-campaign between steve and myself took place last night, this time we decided to go get ourselves some spook from the old domes down the bottom of the hive. My leader 'The Mouth', Witch 'Rotbringer' and Helot cultist 'Sepsis' were all in Recovery, taking me down to a bare 4 members, so I thought I'd get me some reinforcements first.

The 3rd Protocol gained a fair bit of experience last game, and The Mouth had enough to upgrade something shiny, but being in recovery meant I'd have to wait till next game. I moved straight on to my income and did pretty well, earning enough to purchase a replacement for Bitterboil, as well as a long-las for my accountant 'The Compiler of Miseries' so he can actually take part whilst staying as far from an actual enemy as possible! This still left me with creds in the stash but I sat on them for now. The injured Tetanus was going to be too slow to make use of his combat set-up, so I gave him the unfortunate Bitterboil's shotgun, and shuffled the combat gear to the new cultist, named 'Urban Decay' (we are allowing weapon swaps in our campaign as we don't mind models being changed around)

Steve's Genestealer's had done very well in the post game, earning enough to hire a new Neophyte equipped with a grenade launcher to give the cult a good deal more punch at range AND replacing the mining saw Acolyte he lost in Game one. The heavy stubber wielding Hidlystorm had got the magical 6 EXP and increased his Toughness by 1 point, oof. Finally the aberrant Mhogg-Rhise got enough to purchase an upgrade, but chose to hang on until he could up his Toughness too.

Before the game both cults decided it would be worth calling on their patrons for a bit of help, and whilst the Chaos powers in the Hive declined to give any aid to the paltry techno-cult, the Patriarch back in Hive Secundus rewarded The Brotherhood with a crate containing two shiny hand flamers. Each Acolyte took a flamer as a back up weapon and prepared to move in. A new dome full of Spook had been found nearby, and the chances of the Stealers getting it without a fight were pretty slim.

My available gang-   Sporeslinger, Tetanus, Bilebeetle, The Compiler,  Urban Decay. 

Scenario and Deployment.

The Genestealers deploy wide, taking advantage of their numbers.

Th Chaos cult focused around the low bridge on the right 

We followed the Spook Harvest scenario, and both gangs spread out fairly evenly across their table edges, whilst both The Compiler and the new Acolyte 'Spinsser' used their infiltrate abilities to drop on a spook counter each. 

Turn one. 

 Closely matched so far, the next turn will be crucial. 

As the temporary leader of his grubby mandroids, the Compiler kicked the game off by grabbing initiative and harvesting a spook counter straight of the bat. He took the opportunity for some quality control product testing while he was at it and gained the 'slow time' psychic power, which he was clearly never going to use as time is money, and he isn't about to go throwing it away. Spinsser followed suit by scraping up the Spook he was stood on, but accidentally got a face full of the stuff- luckily his hybrid metabolism shrugged it off. the usual early skirmish shuffling shenanigans took place, with Bilebeetle and Urban running for the next Spook sets and the genestealer's swarming into two groups either side of the raised road to present a solid front against the outnumbered chaos skitarii.

A spectacular amount of 6's saves the day.... 

The turn ended by Sporeslinger attempting to copy his last games snapshot against an acolyte by riddling Spinsser with bullets, miraculously the acolyte's Hazard suit saved every single shot, so he was only pinned, dammit! 

 Turn two. 

Bilebeetle is on the Spook, but way too exposed for my liking.. 

Chaos took the initiative for the second turn, and without solid lines of sight they continued to consolidate their positions, with two Neophyte's including the heavy stubber armed Hidlystrom preparing to pin down the currently hiding Bilebeetle. Glodsmyth was up to his old tricks again and sprinted far up the table, trying to cut off Urban Decay who had reached another Spook stash. The compiler legged it back to safety with his precious load, and Spinsser stayed put behind his pillar until someone dealt with Sporeslinger. Speaking of which, the new grenade launcher armed neophtye Tuhrna stepped up and attempted to drop a frag grenade on the wall Sporeslinger was hiding behind, but ended up sending the shell far into the distance, exploding somewhere in the ruins.

The aberrant 'drops in' on Urban Decay. (the last shot the pict-skull grabbed before failing)

Mhogg-Rhiss crawled under the bridge and dropped to the floor right next to Urban Decay, pinning himself but preparing to bring the pain when he recovered. The Familiar and Bilebeetle both reached the remaining Spook stashes and now had to weather a turn harvesting it under potential enemy fire.

Turn three

The Chaos cult regained the initiative this turn, and Bilebeetle started by harvesting the Spook next to him, this left him in visible to a lot of enemies unfortunately and a barrage of heavy stubber fire flesh wounded him and even more importantly knocked him off the ledge and out of cover, allowing Caamrhone to finish the job with his boltgun, taking Bilebeetle out of action and giving him a head injury to boot. Sporeslinger tried to support the beleaguered Urban decay by hitting Glodsmyth in the back, but his aim was way off. Glodsmyth didn't need to be warned twice, and blazed into Urban Decay, pinning him and denying him the spook (this turn at least). The Compiler encouraged Tetanus to drop the grenade launcher before it could do any more damage, but Tetanus completely ignored him and blasted a solid shot into Glodsmyth instead, pinning him in cover and blasting him back. Turnha did not miss twice in a row, and the grenade seriously injured Sporeslinger, who hilariously rolled down the stairs one at a time after being hit to lie in a heap on the ground. Urban decay rose to his feet and desperately emptied his pistol into the abberant beside him and somehow managed to wound the beast, though this did not stop it lurching to its feet ready for next turn. Snorting Spook is not for those of a delicate constitution, and whilst the familiar easily scraped the substance up, the dose he got for his trouble caused him to go a bit wild, sprinting into the open. The Compiler moved up to see if he could recover the day, but as soon as he crested the wall he could see the jig was probably up..

Turn four. 

Chaos inevitably failed their bottle check, but this wasn't over yet.. To turn the game in the Chaos favour the Compiler just needed to

1. Not have anyone fail any cool checks.
2. Win initiative. 
3. Take the familiar out of action or seriously injure it with one shot from his long-las. 
4. Activate Tetanus with him, and have Tetanus at least pin the Aberrant, in hard cover, at long range.
5. Have Urban decay harvest the spook,and survive a round of shooting. 
6. Bottle next turn to take the win. 

Seemed a bit implausible, but to hell with it, he'd give it a go. The chaos cult elected not to voluntarily bottle despite the odds against them.

Every surviving Chaos cultist then proceeded to spectacularly fail their cool checks and leg it anyway like the spineless wind-up pieces of rusty junk they are.  The only upside to this was Sporeslinger avoided a serious injury and at least they had one Spook spore to the Genestealers 2, so it wasn't a total whitewash.  

Again dammit!  next time you weirdly limbed monstrosities! 

Archeotech vaults and grudges to settle.

As our formal big everyone gets involved campaign is taking a while to get started, Steve and Myself decided to carry on our vendetta in a two player mini-campaign until it does. Here is the second battle, finding the respective cults deep in the oldest parts of the hive, searching for archeotech when they spy the familiar shadows of their foe in the distance.

We are playing the Archeotech Hoard mission from Gang war 3, and the only house rule we are using at this point is D3 XP for taking part in a game rather than just 1.

The terrain is Terraclips sets we quickly built on the day, , as all my actual terrain is stuck at the club!

The Third Protocol

Left to right, Sepsis, Rotbringer, Bilebeetle, the Mouth of Rust and Bile, The Compiler of Miseries and Sporeslinger. 

After our first game (which you can find here) I took one straight out casualty when Bitterboil got lanced by a rocksaw, and 2 other cultists got stuck in recovery, leaving me with a much smaller warband. I didn't get enough experience last game to increase anybody, but I did earn enough to spend in the trading post. The compiler went along with the cheque book and bought himself Mesh armour with an armoured undersuit (he knows he going to have to take part in the next game, so he's prepping) and some frag grenades for the Mouth, plus a bit left over to hopefully replace Bitterboil after the next game. My Yaktribe roster is here and is nice and up to date:- 

I managed to pull off a ritual before the game too, calling on Grandfather Nurgle to get my back, though I didn't dedicate it to anyone in particular, as I'd rather not lose another model just yet! 

The Genestealer cultists (still no pics, he's working on it, but you can find his gang and the actual names he has on his roster rather than the ones I made up here) also got a fair bit of cash last game, so they bought their leader a shiny boltgun, he had enough XP to increase something, and after a while decided to up his leaders BS to 2+, a terrifying prospect with a boltgun. (hilariously he's utterly inept with it this game, but as a long term investment it's going to hurt someone pretty bad.)

You will also notice some other changes where eqipment has been swapped, or sold between games. And after this you'll also notice  the genestealer adept losing infiltrate as he doesn't actually get a starting skill and we made a mistake in the first two games... (my roster says I have overseer, but that was a mistake I knew about, I just can't erase the damn thing!)

Deployment

Chaos Deployment- pay attention to the compiler, as he is not moving from that spot. 

Genestealer deployment- yes we now know his leader can't start with infiltrate... 

Overall board view- terraclips ahoy! 

Both the Adept and the Acolyte infiltrated near the automata in the centre of the table, whilst both bands spread out across their table edges- the Compiler declined to infiltrate as there were few places better to hide than the tall ruin right in his deployment zone. he is literally only here due to random gang selection. 

Turn 1

Sporeslingers sniper shot. 

Winning the initiative (for a change!) the Mouth of Rust and Bile led his small fireteam of corrupt Skitarii up the stairs in front of him, he tried a speculative shot at Jorhnson on the bridge ahead but missed wildly. Sporeslinger more than made up for this though by shooting Johrnson from the foot of the stairs, a clean hitting straight between his filthy Xenos eyes taking him out of the skirmish straight off the bat. It can only go down hill from here. (Johrnson awoke after the battle ended and went on quite the adventure getting back to the cult’s turf, surviving against the odds). With no-one in a position to return fire the Stealer’s went for the objective, and the Adept moved to the ancient automata, just about finding the on switch with his limited knowledge of machinery (doesn't matter how smart his stats say he is, he almost fluffed it every time- not a machine head). Whilst he was mucking around in the mechanisms his familiar scampered up through the ruins eager to reach it’s master, and the remaining fighters from both teams advanced (Rotbringer once again summoned the levitation power to aid her advance, whereas the Compiler used the take cover action to hide exactly where he started). 

Caamrhone gets the automata going. 

Finally the Automata itself activated, it’s rusted joints screeching as it powered up and began moving toward the bulkhead door. Old and crotchety the machine may be, but it’s welding beam was certainly in working order as it turned and blasted Sepsis clean off the stairs and into recovery in a single shot. (the other Skitarii just shrugged and carried on in a remarkable display of not giving a crap) One casualty each and the Chaos worshippers were playing catch up on the objective. 

Turn 2

Grenades are big and clever. 

Already both Cults were checking to see if it was time to run, but both stuck around for the time being. The Stealer’s won initiative, and elected to activate Caamrhone, who had been left in the open after the Automata moved. He jogged to the automata and again narrowly succeeded in manipulating it’s arcane controls (seriously, the guy is an idiot) whilst his familiar finally caught up with him.   Their reunion was to be short-lived however, as The Mouth moved within range and threw one of his newly purchased Frag grenades into the Adept, the Automata and the familiar. The adept was knocked from his feet and wounded by the blast, and the automata shrugged the tiny explosion off. The familiar was not so lucky however, as it was knocked clear from the bridge (catfall don't matter if you're already dead!) and down to the ground beneath, taken out of the game by both the blast and the fall (no worries, he'll get a new one, they're like guinea pigs...). 

Next turn is going to get sticky, one way or another. 

The remaining Stealer’s gave up on shooting and pressed home their objective advantage by moving forward as quickly as possible, as did Bilebeetle and the flying Rotbringer. Seeing the Chaos champions closing up Caamrhone decided to get on with the mission rather than melting stuff (as amusing as that was), and commanded the automata to head toward the door as fast as it could, which was admittedly not that fast. The compiler was still happily hidden where he deployed, and was not about to change that status any time soon. 

Turn 3

Not the face! The Mouth goes down for the count. 

Neither cult bottled it turn 3, and the Stealer’s kept the initiative.  Glodsmyth noticed The Mouth’s lack of cover and engulfed him with Autogun rounds, shredding the cultist demagogue and leaving him seriously injured on the ground. Rotbringer attempted to reciprocate by summoning warpfire to blast the already wounded Adept, but the shadow in the warp must have been blocking her connection to papa Nurgle as she couldn’t gain the power, (alternatively Rotbringer knew she hadn't actually taken that power as a skill yet so couldn't actually manifest it, keeping me from cheating..) settling instead for pinning the adept with a poorly executed autopistol shot. In return he stood and made a giant hole in a nearby pillar with a Boltgun shot that may go down in history as a spectacular miss.  

This mission was literally the worst one we could pick- cultists are not bright. 

On the east flank both Hidlystrom and Mhogg-Rhise moved to the automata, attempting to get it right up to the door for next turn. Despite the fact that neither of the two were particularly bright, by some miracle Hidlystrom actually managed to power the machine up, (he's been fiddling with stuff again apparently) and it was soon striding towards the objective. Bilebeetle climbed to the top of  the building near the objective, with the aim of getting into the vault as soon as the enemy opened it. At the rear the Compiler was sitting calculating the current value of his Catallus Corporation shares, despite Sporeslinger encouraging him to get involved as he ran up the stairs firing an inaccurate volley toward Hidlystrom.  No sooner had Sporeslinger got within sight of his demagogue however, than the Nurgle leader passed out, unconscious and out of play (for the next game at least, Nurgles blessing kept all my injuries down to just recoveries thankfully).) 

Turn 4

And there goes Rotbringer.. not her finest hour. 

Whilst both cults were still holding their nerve it was getting touch and go for team Nurgle. They managed to snatch the initiative though (it's becoming a habit!) and Rotbringer once again tried to summon forth witchfire to burn the enemy leader, but the warp was still evading her and she ended up spraying autopistol rounds into the stonework instead. (Still keeping me honest by accident there.) Glodsmyth was determined to get his mutant of the match medal, and stepping to the corner casually hosed Rotbringer down with another burst of precision autogun fire, stripping both wounds and seriously injuring the rogue psyker. Caamrhone failed spectacularly to do anything useful with his shiny Boltgun. Again. (New toy syndrome is well and truly screwing him this game.) 

If Sporeslinger can make this shot, I have a chance... 

Mhogg-Rhise ran toward the isolated Bilebeetle, but was thwarted when Bilebeetle leapt the gap and landed right beside the automaton! This move caught Hidlystorm off guard too, and he could only wound the bloated Disciple with a burst of heavy stubber fire. Trying to stay in the game Sporeslinger took aim at Hidlystrom’s back, but despite acing a sniper shot that hit multiple times he failed to penetrate the neophytes tough hide. Rotbringer decided she wanted to be part of the bleeding out squad and succumbed to her injuries too. not looking great for me at this stage.  

Turn 5

they think its all over? well it is actually. Damn Xenos. 

At this point The Compiler stuck his head round the wall and using mathematical wizardry decided the odds were not in Nurgle's favour today, and promptly called a retreat. The chaos forces bottled leaving the Xenos horrors the vault, though the automata could only hold the door open for a limited time before it came crashing down, forever sealing what the Stealer’s left behind in it’s adamantium depths. (we made an arbitrator ruling that as two of the Genestealer cult’s model could have moved into the vault this turn, we would count them as being in the vault for victory conditions- otherwise I would have caused a draw by bottling, which is not the spirit of the game) The game was pretty close, but turn 4 was a conclusive one for the Genestealers as they turned in another victory over their rusty nemesis. 

We've got game three coming up, and we've both got enough credits to replace a casualty or two- I will get a win against these alien scumbags one day!