Retro late 1980's Era Gaming Session: Space Crusade

Three small tactical squads of Space Marines from the Ultra Marines, Blood Angels and Imperial Fists Chapters take on a Chaos Renegade (me) sitting in a Space Hulk recently emerged from the "warp" and brimming with deviant chaos creatures! Classic stuff, there is beer and pretzels too, what more could a man want for on a Friday night?

The "Good Guys" deploy into the Space Hulk and are immediately surrounded by a disconcerting sea of blips on their movement scanners. An early 'Random Alien' event turns out to be very useful to The Blood Angels player, revealing all my blips for miniatures on his game board. My cunning Chaos Space Marine "trap in waiting" was blown open so I decided in the best fashion of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to "rush 'em"! [Note: Space Crusade has no concept of an 'over-watch' so you can rush in and hopefully fire off a devastating volley] (see below):

Note: Tau substitute in for Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids for Orcs (who would never survive in space IMHO) and scavenger Necron robots for Getchins.

The Blood Angel's perimeter defense (see above) is smothered in a hail of (what I hoped to be devastating) fire, but in true billboard Space Marine recruitment-poster fashion I scored "no" telling hits. Damn those dice! The inevitable returning fire from The Blood Angels (tooled up with three heavy weapons against my advice) was devastating (no more Chaos Space Marines). I gained a new found sense of respect for Space Marines "heavy weaponry". I was also now without my centerpiece defensive asset. Not a good start, luckily the "rookie" Space Marines didn't realize how compromised (and how totally out of ideas) I was. The Imperial Fists and Ultra Marines meanwhile cleaned up in their respective sectors. I had put a screen of dummies, Gretchins and Orcs out trying to wear the Space Marines down as they cautiously advanced. My sniping screen managed to pick off one 'unlucky' Ultra Marine taken out by a Gretchin, or rather armed 'cleaning droid' (see below):

As the Imperial Fists and Ultra Marines were dragging their heels I saw another fleeting opportunity to isolate and take out some Blood Angels head-to-head, so I unleashed my Android and Dreadnought [aka a Tyranid Warrior figure] in a "kitchen sink" attack with some soak off Orcs and Gretchin tagging along for the ride (see below):

I had quality and numbers. "May he who rolls the better dice win" and I just rolled plain bad. Everything bar the Dreadnought is lost to those accursed Blood Angels (to whom I was deepening my healthy respect of, have I mentioned the "heavy weapons" yet . As in, "Do you know where can I get some?"). 

Time to run away and stage an Alamo and go down fighting. The Blood Angels take chunks out of the Dreadnought but it's the Imperial Fists (in Yellow) who wade in to steal the show and take out the "primary objective" (claiming 30 points). It is not going the way of Chaos (see below):

Strange things can happen in a game of Space Crusade as a random Alien Event (I was hoping for a Genestealer attack but one never materialized) caused the Ultra Marines to inadvertently trigger a Booby-trap (resulting in the most deadly Chaos attack of the game) taking out two Space Marine troopers and wounding their Space Marine Commander (see below, the indignity of it all, tee-hee, never give in is the Chaos motto):

Despite this small victory there is nothing to stop the last brave Chaos Orc being hunted down like the dog it is, falling in the end to an Imperial Fist heavy weapon despite the Ultra Marines playing "catch the pigeon" (see below, we nick named the last Orc/lizard as "Charlie" with respect to the infamous pigeon song):

With that there was the undignified scramble back to the respective docking ports as the victorious Space Marines "bugged out". A damn fine game, despite the kicking "Chaos" received. A good use of miniatures I had been eclectically hoarding for the past ten years or so and time spent in very pleasant company to boot. The relative final score rakings were :

• The Blood Angels [taking no casualties], promoted one rank and two honour badges
• The Imperial Fists [taking no casualties], two honour badges
• The Chaos Renegade (me) missing out by the difference of just one more Space Marine from an acceptable performance, I am turned into Chaos Spawn as punishment [new Chaos Renegade Character required]
• The Ultra Marines, disgraced for taking too many casulties [three marines lost] and not killing enough baddies [new Sargent Character required]

Another game at some point in the future is definitely on the cards :)