Broken Alliance

This is the first game of 40K I have ever played with more than one opponent. We had three people wanting to play, and a full size table available, so we decided to look up a three-player mission, and found one from an earlier edition of the game, called Broken Alliance. The scenario is that three armies are meeting to agree to a truce, with three leaders in the center of the map meeting at an objective point, and each army at a base camp around the edge of the board, spaced out away from each other and the center objective. 

Something goes wrong at the meeting of leaders, and it comes to blows, and the battle is on! Each force must maintain control of its base camp and try to control the middle objective to win at the end of five battle rounds. Players roll off, and the winner deploys their whole army, followed by the second highest roller, and then last. Then, to determine turn order, players roll off again, and play proceeds in that same order. But, starting with the second battle round, the player who went first last round goes last, and the other two roll off for which player goes first. So, this allows for players to have back to back turns if they end up going last one round and get first in the next, which happend twice in this game, actually. 

There are a few other rules, like close combat can only ever be between two of the forces, while the third can then shoot into that combat, since they don't really care who they hit! When the third force fires into combat of the other two, they choose the target unit, but for every successful hit you then roll a D6, and on a 4+ the target unit is hit, but otherwise other enemy force's unit is hit! 

My opponents were another Astra Militarum player heavy on Militarum Tempestus and with a couple of Leman Russ tanks, and my usual opponent who plays Blood Angels. Here's what deployment looked like:

I had Yarrick out in the middle as my Warlord. He was joined there by the Blood Angels' Smash Captain, and a Tempestor Prime.

I got to go first, and so moved most of my stuff up to get firing angles on the other forces, keeping a tank on my base camp, which is the piece of ruins terrain in the bottom right here. Yarrick moved way from the objective back toward the rest of the army.

I tried Smite, but it didn't go off, even with a Command Re-roll. I also did some shooting with all my stuff, killing a couple of Blood Angels Scouts with that. I forgot to issue any orders with my Commander or Yarrick on this first turn.

Next it was the other Guard force's turn. He did some movement, and also engaged some scouts that the Blood Angels had in forward cover.

Then, on the Blood Angels turn, The smash Captain  charged into this large mass of stuff. He can't be fired upon in Overwatch, due to a relic he is carrying.

The Blood Angels Biker Smash Captain also charged my Cadians. I could fire Overwatch here, but I don't think it did anything. Maybe one wound at most.

The Blood Angels' Phobos Librarian also moved to engage the other Guard force.

In Fighting, the Blood Angels chose to fight the Bike Captain first, so I played Counter-Offensive to jump the line and fight with Yarrick before the Jump Pack Smash Captain could fight him. Yarrick Did a couple of wounds on him using his trusty Power Klaw. The Captain would fight back, taking Yarrick down to 1 wound, then fight again with Honour the Chapter, to finally kill Yarrick.

The Biker Smasher could only kill so many guys, because he only had so many swings. I should note here I'm not losing much of anything to morale, because my army is all using the Valhallan regimental doctrine, where they halve the number added to the morale role (guys lost that turn). Also, they're close to the Commissar, who can lend them his 9 Ld characteristic.

Blood Angels roll well and get back-to-back turns, so they go again. Scouts move up a little.

Other scouts move up a little, and Terminator Cpt deep-strikes in. Both are at 9" intending to charge.

The Phobos Librarian charges into some storm troopers.

The next pic is a bit later on, after my white tank has been charged and dealt a couple of wounds, and I've been able to fall back with it. My Cadians are all gone now, and my Valhallans have also fallen back away from the Jump Pack Cpt.

Another POV

Action on the far side of the table. He has moved up his Leman Russ tanks to fire on both me and the Blood Angels

By this point my white tank has taken out the Biker Cpt. with the combined 40 Punisher Assault Cannon shots, two heavy bolters, and its lascannon. After that round, the Blood Angels had to leave the battlefield for pizza on their battle barge, so it came down to just my regiment and the Miltarum Tempestus across the table.

I began to move my Vostroyans up toward the point, casting Psychic Barrier on my white tank, because it would likely be a target for his two tanks, and also buffing it's ability to hit, rerolling 1s via an order from my Company Commander.

The opposing Guard did some shooting at me, and I lost a couple of my Vostroyans heading up to the objective.

Another POV.

My Vostoryans made it to the objective, and my tanks remained in range to deal as much damage as they could to his units.

At this point, the traitor Guard conceded the field to me. 

This was a really fun way to play. I neglected to get photos of some of the stuff in the middle, but it was a pretty relaxed game, with the Blood Angels splitting their attacks between the two of us others, and the other Guard force mostly concentrating on fighting them, like I was, until they quit the field and left us two Guard forces roughly equally battered, to fight each other.

As I mentioned before, both other players ended up with back-to-back turns, which can really swing an armies fate, whether it's them that get it, or its them that is on the receiving end of back-to-back shooting phases. This mission was really easy to adapt to 8th edition rules, even though it was originally published for Fifth, by what I was reading. I found a link to it on Reddit. I'll have to have a look through all my other books for more multi-player missions. I know Kill Team has a couple, at least.