Grimdark Future Fight Club! Game 1 – Crimson Fists Battle Brothers v The People’s Front of Hazzard Rebel Guerillas

Despite lockdowns worryingly close by, our little corner of Leicestershire is still open for business, and we’ve decided on a little mini-tournament/ league type thing. Using 1000 point armies and the excellent One Page Rules’ Grimdark Future games system, we’ve set up our own little Fight Club!

Right now it’s just GDF, but we will be using this for Future Force Warrior to tidy and develop that system a little, and I dare say 9th and/ or 2nd Ed 40k will be making an appearance. League standings will be posted on the homepage and quite possibly we’ll be doing a Fantasy version – Age Of Fantasy, Age Of Sigmar, and Hyperian Wars.

Back to our first game though – the first rule of Fight Club is “don’t talk about Fight Club”, but the second rule is “everyone who is new, fights”. Seeing as the Crimson Fists were still on the table from The Battle At The Farm the other day, I took them and their papercraft Rhino to make a 1000pt force, and Dan rolled out with the People’s Front Of Hazzard 237th Freedom Brigade.

Dan won the roll off and opted for the wooded side of the table – quite thematic, the rebel scum lurking in the forests – while my Battle Brothers deployed as I planned to use them, one squad in the ruins with the missile launcher (the Brothers’ only heavy weapon) while the main body of the force deployed in their Rhino transport ready to punch forward and engage the puny guerillas in melee, led by Commander Pedro Cantor with his jump pack and power fist.

The battlefield

Battle brothers missile launcher squad positioned to cover as much board as possible – in GDF you alternate deployment, and Dan, the clever bastard, made use of his numerical superiority to make sure I’d put these guys down BEFORE he deployed his tank… well played, sir 😉

Rebels lurk in the woods, Dan shielding his close combat Strikers and HQ with the more disposable Rebels

Snipers positioned on the bluffs on the Rebel extreme right

Since we didn’t have objective markers as such, we used civilians – rather thematic in a way, these could be scientists fleeing the Imperium, or rushing to flee from a corrupted Rebellion!

The Colonel hiself, hiding out in the ruins of a Hazzard KFC franchise..

With the objectives all placed, it was time to rock & roll! Under GDF rules, whoever finished deploying first also got the option of going first or second (although with an alternating activation mechanic, this is not such a big deal).

The Battle Brothers rushed forward, intending to overwhelm the poorer quality rebel infantry in close combat and trusting to their hardy power armour (represented by good Defence rolls) and went aggressive – while one squad (the one armed with the missile launcher) stayed in cover (kinda – more on that in a minute) deploying the two combat squads out from their APC, while the jump-pack equipped Commander got ready to put the rebels to the sword!

But things didn’t quite pan out that way. Rebel snipers took down my missile launcher which I’d left more exposed than I realised and from there it went downhill as Dan handled the Rebels like a pro, keeping his distance and ensuring my Battle Brothers died the death of a thousand cuts, whittled away at by Rebel fire… and of course, with my sole heavy weapon cut down in the first turn without even firing a shot I had no answer to the Rebel tank with it’s lethal main weapon easily able to vapourise my poor Brothers.

We got our licks in where we could, but on turn 4 the Rebels counter attacked, having saved their Striker close combat elites to overwhelm my Commander and what Brothers had managed to make it into combat. The Rebels died to a man, but so did the Brothers and the Commander was wounded, making him easy meat for the Rebel commander and his Simian Champion… the Simian’s mighty fists beat through the weary and wounded Commander’s defences, and the last thing he saw was the face of his hated Rebel foe administering the coup de grace with his pistol at point blank range!

Right, pics:

Battle Brother support squad comes under fire early in turn one – bye bye, missile launcher..

Return fire! 3+ to hit, you say?

Battle Brothers debus from their APC to engage the foe

Farmhouse objective secured

Commander secures another objective in the church ruins

Having whittled the Brothers’ numbers down, the Rebels strike back, advancing on the farmhouse..

Rebel tank….

…and consequences!

In one of the few instances of being useful, one of the Rebel psychics conjures up a firestorm that immolates two Brothers

In desperation, the APC crew open up on the Rebel sorcerers hiding in the woods!

Sole surviving Battle Brother in the farmhouse prepares to sell his life dearly…

Beset on all sides, the Brothers’ commander is wounded…

.. and falls under the deluge of gun butts, Simian fists and power sword!

Pretty much sums up my dice rolling with that game!

So that’s 1 win to the Hazzard People’s Front (People’s Front Of Hazzard?), and a big fat loss to the Battle Brothers! I could lament my appalling dice rolls but the simple fact is my plan sucked and my execution was poor, leaving my sole heavy weapon stupidly exposed and trying to spread my forces too thin. Dan, on the other hand realised that it doesn’t matter how many objectives you hold on turn 1, it’s how many you hold when the game ends, so he suckered me in to get my forces chopped up while hoarding his best troops to unleash on me when my guys had been whittled away! Very cunning, my worthy foe…

So – winner stays on, and next up will be the Hazzard 1977th PDF to face the Rebels.. can the Guard win where the Marines failed? We’ll see!

Stay safe out there and stay thifty, see you soon!