Warhammer 40,000 Crusade - The Awakening - Part 1

 Campaign Background

The Ghoul Stars system sits on the eastern fringes of the galaxy.  A lost frontier region of space beyond most of the oversight of the Imperium at large and home to the Night Paladins chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.  These mysterious warriors patrol a lonely region of space in an effort to protect incursions from Xenos and Chaos forces alike.

Lord Commander Atrix Vexerius leads the 2nd Chamber of the Night Paladins into battle

Shortly after the Great Rift opened and sent psychic warp backlash across the entirety of the galaxy, a foe long forgotten rises from the ashes of the dead system; the Necrons of the Wanderokt Dynasty are rising.  These mysterious effigies of a a long lost race seek a relic long forgotten.  The Necron Lord Kubairokt will stop at nothing to retrieve it and stands to lay waste to the entire system if need be.  The only thing standing in his way are the noble Night Paladins Space Marines.

Lord Kubairokt leads a vanguard of the Wanderokt Dynasty

Mission 1: Combat Patrol - Sweep and Clear

Lord Commander Atrix Vexerius, Captain of the 2nd Chamber of the Night Paladins, The Wardens of the East, receives a strange signal coming from the dead world of Drazak.  Alien in nature and issuing forth some form of beacon.  The Lord Commander takes down a small force to patrol the area and investigate the strange call.

Sweep and Clear Mission 1 Combat Patrol Deployment

The Night Paladins discover the source of the strange beacon being an obelisk radiating ancient arcane energy.  But they are not alone. Quickly Lord Vexerius and his squad discover they are not alone. Setting up a defensive position to guard the obelisk the Necrons reveal themselves led by a powerful Necron Lord wielding an ancient blade of xenos power.  

The Necrons advance on the flanks

The Warriors and Lychguard bring themselves to bear as Vexerius and his Intercessors surround the obelisk to defend it. The Hellblasters take a high position on one of the strange cyclopean ruins and fire into the Lychguard killing 3 of them while the Intercessors pepper the Warriors with bolt rifle rounds.

Finally the Necrons make contact in the center with the Lychguard cutting down several marines from the 1st squad.  While Vexerius himself counters to finish off the ancient alien warriors.

The Lychguard assault to cut their way to the obelisk behind the marines

Finally in the end, with Necron force mostly neutralized, Lord Kubairokt and Lord Commander Vexerius lock blades in the center of the battlefield in a stalemate of combat.  Unable to take the Obelisk, the Necrons withdraw from the battle to rearm and resupply.

The two warlords meet in the center of the battlefield locking blades in battle

Game 1 Wrap-up:

This was my first Crusade battle against my friend Mike and his beautiful Necrons.  We both have been working to build these forces for a couple of months and have been really looking forward to getting them on the table finally. 

I've played Crusade before but this was Mike's first go round with the Crusade system.  We chose a pretty straight forward Combat Patrol mission being Sweep and Clear to dip our feet into it and it was a lot of fun!  The game ended in a 50-50 draw on the scoreboard. 

I chose for the Night Paladins the Reaper agenda, which was tough as the Necrons are so hard to kill. Ultimately I killed one Chronomancer and the Lychguard so I gave the extra XP to my Captain who, along with Marked for Greatness, was able to level up.  I took the Fleshbane weapon enhancement for his relic blade which will come in handy in those close combat duels surely to come. The Lord Commander will be ready when he meets Lord Kubairokt again in battle.

Mike chose an agenda from his codex which requires me to place an objective somewhere on the battlefield not in my deployment zone. He then needs to get within 3" of the objective I placed to perform an action and if he does so he could get a relic without having to spend Requisition Points! This is a high risk high reward agenda as if he doesn't get to the objective (the obelisk in this game) he can't complete his agenda and can't gain that precious treasure.  In the narrative this obelisk was the source of the strange alien signal which drew the attention of the Astartes. Certainly this must be important if the Necrons are trying to get it. So, the Astartes took to defense of this position in order to ascertain it's importance to the Necrons.

Commander Vexerius has taken the obelisk back to his strike cruiser to investigate further.  What could this mysterious object be?  Perhaps we will find out soon.