Imperial forces had lost control of swathes of the sector, and the sector capital Porcindon lay in ruins, without a single Imperial faction defending it throughout the campaign.  The Imperial forces came together to try and solidify their hold on the coreward side of the Sector, combining their forces to drive their enemies from the Garden system, throwing their most revered and deadly warmachines to try and halt the tide….

The Porcindon Sector Campaign drew to a halt with one final game, with the emphasis much more on fun than fairness!  There were super heavies in abundance, mostly triggered by the imbalance caused by Andrew’s truly evil triple Knight formation!

The game started well for the Imperial side, managing to Seize the Initiative on a double six!  They pulled out a two point lead in the first turn, despite the presence of a Void Shield Generator protecting the majority of their opponents.  In the second turn, the Imperial reinforcements arrived, including four units of Space Marine scouts who had all forgotten to infiltrate! Special kudos goes to Paul N’s Not-Dark Angel scouts who thought they could take out one of the Golden Sphinxes of Tzeentch with a melta bomb (they were wrong!), whilst on the other flank Neil’s forces put the ‘dire’ into Dire Avengers when their bladestorm failed magnificently.

However, in the centre, Andrew’s Knights performed a manoeuver worthy of the red arrows, pushing forward in the first turn, and then fanning out into the Imperial deployment zone.  They did so well in fact, that they seemingly forgot that they’d left their Icarus Lascannon and Void Shield Generator behind, which was promptly captured and utilised by Paul B’s Crimson Fists!  Despite this, the Imperials began to fall behind, as the Knights began to devastate their lines.

The third turn continued to confound the Imperials, with Luke’s Stompa proving almost impossible to remove, despite the arrival of a ‘traitorous’ Eldar Scorpion Super-Heavy Grav Tank to try and bolster the defences.  The Imperials did manage to take out one of the pesky Knights, and then a second one blew itself  in the explosion caused by destroying a Stormlord, also knocking off a hull point from the Stompa.  The building in the centre of the Imperial lines started off full of Rich’es Guardsmen, who spent the whole game sheltering from the apocalyptic explosions going off all around them!

The last turn arrived, with both sides trying to maximise their Victory Points, whilst denying their opponents’.  In the centre, Paul N’s Terminators were especially resilient, taking approx 50 terminator saves over a couple of turns from Pete’s Dark Eldar splinter rifles and only failing two!  In the end, after Linebreaker bonuses, the non-Imperial’s won by a single point, when one of Andrew’s Daemon Princes took out Paul B’s newly arrived Stormsword during the last combat of the game.  The final score was 22 to 21.

In the individual scoring part of the Campaign itself Paul B was named Emperor’s Champion, having scored the most conquest points for the Imperial forces.  Andrew received the Scourge of the Imperium award for having the most conquest points of the opposing factions.  In the Best General category, the top of the table was very close, with only a single point separating the top four players; all of whom were the only players who managed to attend every week, and no one could claim they’d performed flawlessly throughout, hopefully illustrating that the title was potentially open to anyone.  However, in the end, Neil managed to win the Best General title with his very sneaky Eldar, in addition to claiming the most systems from the Imperials.

Here are all the final standings for the Campaign, in their full statistical glory:

(The final map of System and Station control) 

And finally, my heartfelt thanks once again to everyone who attended the campaign; I have once again received some welcome praise for running the campaign this year, but without all the players, it wouldn’t have been any where near as good!

(After three years, I’m really looking forward to playing in the next one!)