Barring any unforeseen events, this should be my last battle report from the False Hope Campaign run by D-Company since this year's big game. Good buddy J (
Apostles of Contagion) came over for a quick 2500 point game. I know, I know. But we tend to get these things done quickly, this 2500 point game lasted only about 5 hours, if you don't count my dicking around with the computer trying to get it to play music, or other distractions. Anyways it was a fine game. Well played. His force was Iron Warrior Legion 30k, I was playing Marines Errant 40k. His forces consisted of Perturabo with six terminators (the look so tiny next to him), three units of marines - one of them being twenty strong, two predators, a few rhinos, and two basilisks and two dreadnaughts to round out the firing support.
I was fielding a full company, six tactical squads (one of them only 5-strong), two devastator squads, and a dreadnaught. Two razorbacks and two rhinos carried the tacticals and a captain and a chaplain to the front lines. They were supported with an Armored Task force, a techmarine with servitors following four predators, one of them with tank-ace Chronus.
We played the "Lies" mission from 30k, where the objectives are worth variable (and even possibly negative) victory points. Also, points were awarded for Slay the Warlord and Kill Points.
As seen in the previous post this was the board set-up. I had recently scored these buildings from Todd H (Grimlock) and am very happy with them. I'll work on them some more in the future. They've got good bones.
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| The Marines Errant line up in their strange wedge-shaped deployment zone. Chronos in the Annihilator Predator is on the bottom, the rest of the Armored Task Force is at the top, the three other Predator Tanks. |
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| The Techmarine Master of the Forge, accompanied by his near-brainless servitors. Above them, a devastator squad takes perch upon the dictator's platform. |
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| The Iron Warriors Deployment in their pizza-wedge. Predators and Rhinos at the top, large legion-sized marine squad on the bottom. Basilisks in the rear. |
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| Another shot of deployment. |
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| Turn one, the Marines jet forward. I decided upon an aggressive stance with my tanks, everything tried to go flat out if it could. The rear Predator became immobilized on some debris. |
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| And a drop-pod with ten tacticals drops in to try to mess up the soft-flank's advance. Sgt. Thad Allen commands his tacticals to divide into combat squads. |
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| Thad Allen's Reactionary Combat Squads. |
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| View of the Predators advancing up the center of the board turn one, from the Iron Warriors' perspective. |
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| While Thad and his men would cause a distraction, they didn't end up accomplishing much except for drawing fire. Here, Thad stands alone against the oncoming fusillade of fire at the end of turn one. |
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| Turn Two the Errants drive further into the ruins. Another Predator becomes immobilized. The rear Predator had been set free from being stuck by the Techmarine. |
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| Thad Allen dashes back to hide behind the corner of the cathedral while a speeder dives into the scene. |
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| It is quickly neutralized in a hail of bolter fire. |
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| Thad Allen is summarily assaulted by ten Chaos Marines. Fiend! Fight me alone! He challenges the Champion but is quickly cut down before he can ready his power fist. |
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| On the other flank, Iron Warriors tramp forward across Drop Zone 9. |
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| The Charge Stalls. Front Predator is damaged and immobilized, rear two predators immobilize themselves on difficult terrain. The rhino in front is slowed by fire. |
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| The second speeder arrives in the backfield of the Iron Warriors and tries in vain to destroy the second basilisk. |
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| Perturabo and six terminators arrive by teleporting into the Marines Errant backfield. Chronus, pictured at the bottom of the photo, has been expecting them for the past two turns. |
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| Perturabo. |
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| Devastators surrounding the terminators open fire. |
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| Vehicles start to suffer under sustained Iron Warrior firepower. However, the Errants have reached two of the three objectives. They begin to "set up camp," in a way. |
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| Iron Warriors advance along the flank (bottom of the pic) to threaten one of the objectives. |
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| Lascannons open fire on the terminators. Only two of them fall despite sustained fire. |
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| Iron Warriors advancing toward the objective on the flank. |
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| Perturabo charges Chronus' Annihilator tank. He easily pounds the tank into next week. Chronus dashes out from a side hatch and makes his escape. |
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| Marines open fire with their Tactical Doctrine on twenty Iron Warrior Legion marines. |
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| Lascannons continue to pound on the termintors, without results. |
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| Despite the techmarine's best efforts, the predators just remained stuck where they were. Eventually he dashed forward onto the rocks began advancing toward the objective. A devastator squad decides they're the only ones left to claim the objective in the center of the cathedral. |
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| The twenty-strong Iron Warrior squad has been whittled down to nine, but their Master can really pack a wallop in assualt. Here some marines fight somewhat bravely against them. Two Errants will fall back at the end of this combat and become pivotal players in the endgame. |
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| Errants start disembarking from their transports. Here a squad of ten moves in to flank the unit that just defeated their brethren in assault. You can see the defeated Marines "running back" to the objective behind them. That objective is surrounded by a five-man combat squad and the Captain. |
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| A predator, released from immobilization drives forward to block the Iron Warriors from the objective. They plant krak grenades and easily destroy it. |
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| In retaliation Chronus joins with the Chaplain and the Captain to dive into assault with the Warpmaster and his remaining champion and men. A bloody combat ensues, ending with the felling of the Warpmaster and the Captain. Chronus ends up using his servo harness, bolstered by the Chaplain, to kill the Warpmaster outright. Never seen that happen before... |
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| Another shot of the victorious Chronus. |
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| Hey, remember these two guys that ran away? They end up taking this objective, since this 30k army doesn't have Objective Secured, but I do. |
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| Some Marines preparing to face the wrath of the Iron Warriors Dreadnaught. |
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| The Techmarine sneaks into the building but also within 3' of the objective and holds onto it by fending off an assault. |
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| The board at the end of the game. |
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While I held every objective at the end of the game, the Iron Warriors won the battle 16-10. They scored sixteen victory points off me just from Kill Points! I had only scored six before the mysterious objectives were rolled. The objectives gave me four more points.
Despite the loss I had a great time playing my full company. This was the first time doing so, it was fun to have all of the doctrines to toss about. I was disappointed that my tanks immobilized themselves so much on the terrain. If they had been able to move and get their hulls into better positions I'm sure I could have stalled his advance and even gained a few more kills. I'm not quite sure if he even has more than 8 units left on the board at the end of this game.
This really shows how MSU can hurt you-- each speeder and rhino was a kill point waiting for him to take. Twenty-strong marine units took seemingly years to dismantle.
