The scavvies who tried to steal Christmas

Up on the hill Sir Chuffingthorpe looked down into the ruins of Happitoon and wondered where his contact was. The jolly chap on the end of the Vox had said that he was in bound but that had been some time ago. He had all these lovely gifts waiting to be picked up and all he asked in return were some of the bits and bobs that had been left lying about in the ruins. He certainly wasn't going to waste any energy looking for the damned things when there were plenty of other idiots only too happy to go scrabbling around in the ruins. Besides he might bump into that hoighty-toity elf. Nothing worse than a bit of competition to ruin ones afternoon Gin session.

The scavvies had been particularly naughty this year and a curt letter from Santa had informed them, in no uncertain terms, that they weren't getting anything this Christmas. However, they had found out where Santa gets all his gifts from so had decided to cut out the middle man and steal them all for themselves.

Santa had got himself a whole new squad of merc....erm, helpers this year. The last bunch were just not cutting it. All he had to do was pick up the gems and coins and other tat that Sir Chuffingthorpe was too fat to pick up and he could exchange them all for nice new presents for all the deserving types in the area. Should be a walk in the park.

Inquisitor Grax was a cautious sort. He wasn't keen on a warband of individuals, far too much like free will and that sort of thing smacked of hippies. He'd rather go into battle with a squad of marines. They might be stark raving psychos but at least they did what they were told. He'd been tracking this 'Santa' character for months. Rumours of things being given away for free smacked of hippies. Grax didn't like hippies. He had also heard of another inquisitor in the area operating with a warband of hippies. There were some traders giving presents in exchange for baubles found in the ruins. That sounded like tax evasion to Grax. And you know who evades tax? Hippies!

Commisssar Dingle had forgotten to get anything for the regimental chrsitmas do. His commanding officer had put him in charge of the presents for the medical staff and he's been so busy executing deserters that it had completely slipped his mind. He'd grabbed the first squad he could find and marched them off to the nearest civilian supply depot (I think they might be called shops) and ordered his men to grab some supplied from the ruins that they could exchange for gifts.

Inquisitor Hellthron and his team were near the end of their 5 year mission. They just needed to make the link between the renegade called 'Santa' and his supply network and they would be able to take down a huge corrupt network that was exchanging 'gifts'. Hellthron knew this was code and he suspected it was something to do with the great enemy, these things always had something to do with the great enemy. He told his team that they would pose as legitimate consumers of these 'gifts' until they could spring the trap and pull the whole mess down in flames.

K'el de Beri, crossed his arms and sighed. Sir Chuffingthorpes shop always got more customers. It was at the top of the hill, you could see it for miles. K'el had been here longer and his merchandise was of much better quality but every cold season the clueless apes would run up the hill to the gin soaked old fart. Well no more! He was going to get business the year if it killed him!

Sir Chuffingthorpe let out a long, loud, smelly fart and let it waft down hill towards the snooty elf. 'Silly tit', he grumbled to himself and waited on the first customer of the day.

The Scavvies were the first to find some abandoned doo-hickies and cheer hoarsely as they decided to head straight to one of the shops and spend all their pennies immediately.

Inquisitor Grax wasn't too far behind. He paused for thought as he swore he heard one of the marines emit a childish giggle of excitement.

The marines fixed the scavvies in the ruins and after opening up with their devastating bolt guns, very few of the scavvies were left standing. The scavvies started to withdraw in the opposite direction in some haste!

The Scavvy prince urged the remains of his gang on, away from the emperors finest 'Run ya Fuckers!'

This led them to clash with Santa's helpers who were heading up the hill to the shop. Bullets and shot flew in all directions but no one could gain the upper hand.

Under orders from Grax, brother Cardigan sheepishly approached the Elf with his loot. The elf asked him to wait and returned with an armful of brightly wrapped packages. 'Wow! Hey guys look what I got!' whooped Cardigan as he returned to his brethren. After explaining the process all the marines suddenly became very agitated and stomped off into the ruins to look for more loot.

The guard advanced cautiously into the ruins, still unsure of what exactly they were supposed to be doing, but if a Commissar gives you and order....

Everything was going swimmingly until a power armoured figure stepped out of a doorway and reduced Trooper Smith to a couple smoking stumps.

An even scarier apparition appeared at a ruined door way and the trooper panicked and started blasting everything in sight. There ability to hit anything was abysmal but they lit up the ruins very prettily.

The marines were racing each other to capture loot that they could exchange for pretty packages. whoops of delight and unearthly screaming emanated from the ruins as they raced back and forth to the elf to get more sparkly boxes (the ones with bows seemed to be especially popular). Grax stared open mouthed in dis-belief.

Hellthron's warband moved through the ruins, pushing the guard ahead of them.

The scavvies dealt with the Helpers and started to close on Santa himself. 'Bollocks to that!' shouted Santa as he declared his bad-ass-ness with volley after volley from his cracker-gun.

The surefooted fire of the few remaining troopers finally took down Hellthron who ended up face down in front of troopers Vegas and Norris.

The remaining troopers withdrew with some loot pilfered from one of Helthrons warband and headed to the shop.

Seeing their chance some of the servitors for Helthrons warband charged the rear guard and beat him to a pulp with a power spanner.

While the rest of the warband moved to outflank the guard position on the hill, carrying their own loot to exchange, they'd finish the inquisitor's work for him.

Santa, meanwhile, managed to get himself in a tussle with one of the guardsmen. A combat worthy of the finest hong-kong movie then ensued for some time.

Commissar Dingle finally made it to Sir Chuffingthorpe and gained is first armful of tacky, seasonal souvenir's. He smiled a nice a smile as Commissar of the guard could manage and.....

Was swiftly charged by the remaining Scaly. The battle was short and violent. Dingle wasn't going to give up his gifts for any body! One hard slap around the back of the head with his power fist and the Scaly went down like a bag of sprouts.

The Magos from Helthron's war band charged up the hill, waving his axe-wrench above his head screaming in binary. He made straight for the Scavvy Prince who side stepped the axe wing and downed the mags with embarrassing ease.

Another of Helthron's acolytes made for the back entrance to the shop but was seen off in a nasty duel by the, by now, thoroughly hacked off Dingle.

Trooper H. Umbug finally got the better of Santa and knocked the old duffer on his back. Santa swore  impressively as expired and declared with his last breath "I see when your sleeping!"

The three remaining scavvies dug in behind the sandbags and let rip into the buildings taking out one of the marines that was humming a jolly tune and scrabbling around for loot.

Trooper Norris continued to eschew any cover and gunned down the remaining few members of Helthron's warband. No one fucked with Trooper Norris. He was just too cool.  SO after dealing with the servitors he simply turned round and dealt with the Scavvies. The Ogryn charged Dingle with a roar, Dingle didn't even blink and parried the swing of the big abhuman's ripper gun.

Dingles superior fencing skills meant that he bested the big lumbering bodyguard and Trooper Norris and Umbug saw off the final Scavvies leaving them in sole possession of the hill.

Meanwhile, whooping with childish delight the marines continued to gather gifts from the happy elf's xmas shoppe. They were left with the biggest pile of presents and a rather befuddled inquisitor.


This was originally going to be just a three way game but with the arrival of two more players at the last minute I threw together the two inquisitorial forces and we set to it. We played each round in random order on the turn of the card giving the game a nice level of tension. The general idea is that there were various piles of loot around the ruins and for each pile a player could take a token that they could exchange at one of the two shops for a pile of 5 presents. After securing one corner of the board with the Elf shoppe, the marines gleefully ferried tokens back to the Elf and scored the biggest pile of presents. Everybody else concentrated on Sir Chuffingthorpes shop which meant they all ended having to fight each other and after a shaky start due to that dastardly plasma gun, they managed to whittle down Hellthron's war band and then dealt with the remnants of the scavvies and poor old Santa. Much fun was had, a truly silly game for silly reasons. It has be said that the poor quality of dice rolling had a huge effect on the game. Quote of the day "these dice are like extra thick condoms, they are only good for prolonging the inevitable!"

Cheers!