FWC Bootcamp 2012 - Sunday

On previous FWC Bootcamp's the Sunday game has been a big two-sided multi-player game which although fun has been a bit shambolic. This year I asked Gordon to come up with a multi-game scenario for "The Big Game" and he did.

His scenario synopsis was Space Marines  land on  Formahault-7, a desert world full of unfriendly natives, looking for a damaged pirate ship and some important hostages.  The hostages mean that WOMD are not available. The success of the mission will be influenced by the outcome of several recce missions.  Storyline credits go to ‘Star Wars ’ and ‘Black Hawk Down’.

This meant 3 2-player Recce missions in the morning where the Space Marines could gather Intel and a multi-player Assault in the afternoon using that Intel

The Recce missions were 2000 point affairs with the SMs deploying in the centre of the table and getting victory points for each table edge they reach, returning to the Drop Zone and then getting Evac'ed. On all 3 tables they were faced by Orks.

The first table was desert with "wild beasts". Steve lead the SMs and Mark took the Orks. The SMs found out to their cost that the "wild beasts" were huge Spiders. However they managed to get the full 12 VPs that were very influential in the Assault game.

On table 2 - mountains, valleys and a hydro plant - Gordon's SMs dropped in on Colin's Orks only to be delayed. Eventually they came away with 2 VPs

The last table - the Neptunium mines - was a bit of a blood bath between Paul's SMs and my Orks. The terrain looked great on this table as Gordon had learnt a few tips from Richard P at the recent CWC weekend.

From their DZ the Marines spread out only to start taking casualties from the advancing Orks.
However the Marine FAO started calling down Orbital Strikes which took out a large number of my troops. Even though I managed to kill enough SMs to make them start checking their Break Point they passed it every time and managed to get most of their troops evac'ed

But not all escaped....  Paul came away with 3 VPs for the Space Marine Intel.

The Intel results allowed the SMs to pin-point the location of the hostages and to discover that the "Hubcap" mining complex was in fact a hologram generated by the Pirates, who turned out to be Eldar-aarrr, in order to hide their ship repairs.

The ship was placed on the table and the table was extended to include the area where the hostages were held. Mark prepares to guard his "Manor"

Gordon once again putting out some lovely terrain and even doing an overnight paint job on the FWC Bootcamp 2012 Souvenir - the Shanty Town Watch Tower - made by Shaun at Dreamholme Scenics

The Eldar spaceship - actually a Revell Star Wars Republic Star Destroyer - acted as a very heavy command bunker. The Eldar had a 1000 points of Infantry defending it as well as some Anti-Tank turrets.

Helping them hold the town were Mark and Colin with the survivors of the Recce Missions.

The Space Marines had two objectives - rescue the hostages and capture the pirate ship.

The first they achieved without any loss but they declined to assault the Space-ship due to the number of casualties they were likely to take. No doubt they will wait until the ship leaves the planet.

Thanks to Gordon for organizing the day's gaming - it was interesting to fight the mini-campaign.

And thanks to everyone for turning up to take part. Before this weekend I was thinking of pulling the plug on future Bootcamps due to lack of interest. However I feel that this has been the best one yet and  I'll definitely be putting it on next year