Firebase 342 is a strategic defence point and the Tyranids are massing to destroy it. The Inquisitor has sent out the call for Galactic Mercinaries (Known universally as Galactic Scum) to defend the base. Tyranid Players: bring One Force Allocation Chart of Tyranids. Galactic Scum: bring up to two Troops choices and one of either HQ, Elite, Fast attack, or Heavy Support. So Dave built this massive scenery piece of an Imperial Firebase for an in-store event at Odd2K and asked for volunteers to come over on Wednesday night to playtest the scenario. In attendance that night were: (The Bugs) Geoff, Elinor, Rob, Mike, Todd, and (the Galactic Mercenary Scum) Eric, Dylan, Dave and Lawrence. What happenned that night will live forever in the scarred minds of those poor souls that survived. The First Defence of Firebase 342: They came they saw they ate everything... "There's thousands of them!" "Stand fast men, the Emperor will steel your hearts." "That might be fine, but what about steeling our heads?" Panic from the wall manned by humans was interspeced with gutteral growls of Ork Mercinaries arguing with the Inquisitor for better pay and more ammunition. Alien Eldar stood silently as their psykers drew divinatons of doom and the overall noise almost drowned out the cries of the watchmen as the call went out. The great devourer was here. "Sir! Conatact with aliens!" "Make ready the autocannons!" "oi! We'z got some of dem big bug thingies er' too!" "Well then shoot them!" Screams and curses almost overwhelmed the sound of metal tearing apart as the first bio-projectiles impacted on the ferrocrete. Great holes were rent in the wall as supersonic missiles tore through and then exploded farther into the compound. The walls protecting the Ork mercinaries came under bombardment from emplosive spores. Dozens died before the bombardment was lifted and the first wave of clawed and chitinous fiends reached the breaches. Completely unlike any other foe, the Tyrands fight without the cries and screams of other races, nowhere is there any hint of fear or care for the personal injury that concerns another race. Kill a Tyranid and it will be flung back to wards its own lines by a frenzied kin to be torn up in the mad hacking frenzy. "Theres too many of them!" "It's game over man! Fraggin' game over!" Here and there the cries of triumph are heard as the defenders cause another breach to be sealed and the foes repulsed or another bio-construct destroyed. These cries are short-lived, however, because soon the main swarm reacts to the weaknessess caused and soon seige bio-constructs like the beetled Carnifex and the horrifing Tyrants themselves are battering the walls down. Smaller creatures swarm around them, flitting away to consume whole units in orgies of destruction. "Eh!? Whots that?" "Thems the small thingies that shoot." "Shoot dem first!" "Wait, theres more of them!" "Waaagh!" The natural ferocity of the Orks hold their foe beyond the walls as the human's firepower avails them not at all as tehy are overrun by genestealers and the mightly screamer killers. Eldar appear and dissappear, leaving a trail of steaming corpses in their wake. Seldom is there a safe place to hide though and all are found and killed. "For every one we kill, five take its place!" "Then Shoot five times faster!" The long night is setting. The few survivors have been left to contemplate the burning wreck they were hired to defend. The remains of the hive swarm has moved on to other lines of defence. The remenents of the defence force watches a cloud of beast appearing on the horizon. Slowly the realization hits that thy just survived an attack by a scouting swarm of a thousand or so creatures. Ten billion alien eyes see the smoke on the horizion and as one twenty billion legs uncoil and leap to the attack... "'Ere we go....eh! Dats not a gun, thats me leg!" And so it went. The game went until about 11:15 or so and then people ran out of there like their pants were on fire. I guess most of them had lives to get back to or something like that. But at the end of the night, the base was still standing. Mostly. "You think you can hurt me! ha! hey...stay out of the wiring!" I have more shots that I will post when they are ready, as well as a short piece of fiction that goes into more background fluff about how the Firebase and the Inquisitor got into this pickle in the first place. Keep checking to see these things when they come out. Magnus Opus - Pt.1 Magnus Opus - Pt.2 Magnus Opus - Pt.3 contributors, Dave, Geoff and Dylan - April 23, 2001