Not finishing the game in one post?!
Underhand!! You tease!!
Although I'm not above the occasional flirty cliff hanger, in this case it was just a word count issue. Thank you for dropping in with a quick reply.
Turn 3Jonah passed his morale check and with his plasma guns fully charged was ready to wreak vengeance on the Delaque for the loss of his Vent team.
Jonah moved His Heavy Stubber(laspistol) guy to stand in front of his plasma gunners who both unloaded with onto the Delaque along with all his lasgunners. One Delaque Shotgunner from Smiling Sam's team was taken down (a couple of plasma hits will do that) and another wounded and pinned along with 2 others.
Another Van Saar went on Overwatch to protect against Shady Shamus, and that was it for the Van Saar.
With no Van Saar on Overwatch, Gannicus seized the advantage. Two of his shotgunners recovered from pinning and he moved his forward teams within 18"-14" of the Van Saar.
Back at the Delaque end of the table, Bolter Bill stayed down, but Machinegun Max rotated 90 degrees and set his sights on the Van Saar castle.
Pistol Pete dropped down one level and ran along a gangplank towards the Van Saar castle. Fast Pat targetted the downed Van Saar vent team and descended two levels and used Catfall to drop the last level to get to the floor unscathed.
To the left (on the Van Saar right flank), the Van Saar close combat specialist Steely Sam dropped to the ground floor and ran into heavy cover.
In the Delaque shooting phase, Machine Gun Max opened up on the Van Saar castle wounding the Heavy Laspistol guy and pinning a plasma gunner.
Smiling Sam had better luck, taking down a lasgunner on the second level and pinning the Van Saar leader.
Then Gannicus opened up with his shotgunners. And this was when Gannicus's Van Saar strategy came into play.
Jonah has a 24" gang. Apart from a couple of marksmen and his heavy stubber and his vent team and flamer guys, everyone shoots at 24" and has a +1 bonus if shooting at a target under 12". His tactics are to castle in his deployment zone, outshoot the other side at long range and deploy his vent team to pick off any targets of opportunity. He has 2 flamers waiting for anyone who gets close.
Gannicus knows this and has spent the last couple of turns rearming his gang with shotguns. Gannicus has 15 guys and 9 of them have shotguns. Shotguns have a maximum range of 18" which obviously gives the first couple of turns to Jonah. But after that, the advantage switches. Shotguns can load up with several different types of ammunition, one of which is cattershot, which comes standard, and ignores penalties for targets in cover (albeit with a -1 for targets at greater than 4").
Given that Jonah keeps most of his guys in heavy cover, this means that in any firefight taking place between 12" and 18", The Black Coats will have a +1 to hit advantage over the Second Stringers.
So in Gannicus's shooting phase, his shotgunners were able to pin pin both flamer guys and a lasgunner and wound the Van Saar leader, taking him down.
Turn 3: Up/Down/Out
Second Stringers : 9/3/2
Black Coats: 11/2/2
Turn 4Jonah passed his bottle check.
Jonah didn't move his gang and just opened up on the Delaques, but with half his gang pinned and his heavy stubber and plasma gunners unable to shoot, there wasn't much he could do. He pinned a couple of shotgunners and Smiling Sam.
Gannicus passed his bottle check.
Smiling Sam and one of the shotgunners recovered from pinning. The close combat Specialist sprinted into charge range of a downed Van Saar Lasgunner. Smiling Sam and a couple of Shotgunners threaded their way through cover towards the pinned Van Saar flamer guys. On the left Flaming Moe did the same.
Pistol Pete clambered up to the second story of the tower with the downed Van Saar Vent Team. Fast Pat ran up behind a tower in the middle of the table, within shotgun range, but outside line of sight of the Van Saar.
In the shooting phase, Gannicus had 4 shotgunners and his leader able to shoot at the Van Saar, and that's what he had them do, 6 shots pinning 4 Van Saar, but causing no casualties.
Machine Gun Max made up for that though, taking six shots at the top level of the Van Saar, taking down a plasma gunner, pinning the other one and missing the Heavy Laspistol guy.
Turn 2: Up/Down/Out
Second Stringers : 8/4/2
Black Coats: 11/2/2
Turn 5Jonah passed his bottle check. His plasma gunner went out of action.
A couple of lasgunners recovered from pinning, and they shot at the Delaques, but they were shooting at targets in cover, and Gannicus had been sure to have the gang members who still had wounds to spare at the front, but they still took down one guy.
Gannicus passed his morale check.
Steely Stan, the Delaque close Combat Specialist charged into close combat with a Van Sarr Lasgunner.
Smiling Sam charged into CC with a flamer guy.
Pistol Pete made it to the top of the tower which housed the Van Saar Vent team, and made it into base to base contact with Fredeerick.
The Infiltrator out to the left took a shot at the Van Saar Heavy and took him down.
Machinegun Max took another shot at the Van Saar castle and pinned the lasgunner and the remaining plama gunner, but went out of ammo.
The remaining Van Saar shotgunners spent their turn shooting at the remaining Van Saar lasgunners and flamer guy. The remaining flamer guy eventually went out of action after taking 2 shotgun hits and a blast of promoethium from Flaming Moe.
In the close combat phase, Steely Stan auto removed the Delaque lasgunner. Pistol Pete also auto removed Fredeerick.
The only proper combat was between the Van Saar Flamer guy (who had only just graduated from being a Juve) and Smiling Sam, and there was nearly a 300pt experience gap between the two of them. So that went the only way it was going to go.
Turn 5: Up/Down/Out
Second Stringers : 4/4/6
Black Coats: 10/3/2Turn 6Jonah passed his morale check, but with only a single guy who could shoot that turn, and several Delaque within charge/auto remove range of his gang members, including his Leader, he took the smart option and voluntarily bottled out, and Gannicus took his Workshop.