Sunday, 2 February 2025

Badaboom!

And so I took myself back down to Warhammer World for a second day of playing Combat Patrol as part of the Badab War narrative event run by Arbitor Ian's YouTube channel.

The war was heating up and things were about to explode...well the game sizes and turn lengths were, at any rate.


The second day saw me being involved in two four player games, essentially using the doubles format, with scenarios reflecting specific actions in the Badab War.

Despite liking the game so far, I'm not sure how well Combat Patrol doubles up in this way as we came across a few rules interactions which became a bit too powerful when applied to two armies at the same time.

However, fun was had nonetheless.

Game 4 - The Vyaniah Raids

The secessionist world of Vyaniah was a hub of shipping for the war efford, defended by the Astral Claws, and as such became the target of  raids by the loyalist forces. But the Astral Claws were not the only defenders, and the raids were hampered by the emergence of a new threat - the Tyrant’s Legion!


This game saw my Astral Claws defending the Vyaniah orbital defence batteries against a raiding force of my old nemeses the Minotaurs and the Howling Griffons.

To bolster the lines I was joined by the somewhat numerous Tyrant's Legion who had the benefit of a scenario rule that allowed their destroyed units come back on from reserve.


Therefore the defending forces under the command of myself and Clarkie were:

Astral Claws
Corpsetaker Apothecary and 2 Servitors
10 Tactical Marines
5 Devastator Marines
Dreadnought

Tyrant's Legion
Command Squad
10 Shock Troops
10 Shock Troops 
Field Ordnance Battery
Armoured Sentinel


However, intent on overrunning our positions were the somewhat familiar forces controlled by Andrew and Will, who I had played yesterday.

Minotaurs
Captain in Gravis Armour 
3 Bladeguard Veterans 
5 Helblasters
10 Intercessors

Howling Griffons
Captain in Terminator Armour
Librarian in Terminator Armour
5 Terminators 
5 Infernus Marines


The Loyalists had the first turn and advanced upon our lines and the Minotaurs' Helblasters somewhat predictably started to bully my Devastators as they had yesterday.

Return fire on our following turn did reduce their effectiveness, but I remain somewhat traumatised that across two games Andrew didn't fail a single hazardous check for his plasma guns.

On our right my Dreadnought and melee troops advanced towards a rematch with the Minotaurs' Bladeguard.


The second turn saw Clarkie use a strategem which slowed the enemy advanced and stopped them charging. This is the one that felt a bit too powerful in a larger game as it affected both enemy forces and benefitted me significantly in a way no other strategem could.

However, Will brought his Terminators in anyway, but these were in the mid-table area as we had used our numerical advantage to screen out our deployment zone.


Withe the enemy unable to charge, the Astral Claws took full advantage and the Dreadnought ploughed into a squad of Intercessors, obliterating them, whilst the Corpsetaker and his compatriots brought down the Minotaurs' Captain and braced for the counter charge from the Bladeguard.

However, when it came, the Dreadnought was able to use a heroic intervention to get into combat, but could not stop the Corpsetaker from being killed.


Meanwhile, on the other flank, a thin silver line of Tactical Marines took heavy casualties from the Infernus Marines, but served to hold up the advance towards our deployment zone.


Eventually, the Terminators were able to charge and drive back the Shock Troops, but could not capture the objective due to clever use of a flag.

Ultimately, the Loyalists couldn't close the gap that had been caused by the Tyrant's Legion (Astra Militarum) secondary objective which allowed us to score points for keeping the enemy out of our deployment zone.

Again, this felt a bit much as usually they would be holding the line with squishy humans rather than power armoured Space Marines, and so it felt like Will and Andrew had walked into a perfect storm.

Secessionists 51 - Loyalists 35

Game 5 - The Fall of Surngraad

The Raptors’ taking of the fortress of Surngraad was a stroke of tactical genius. Raptors forces were landed hundreds of km away from the 
fortress, and marchd through frozen blizzards to take the defenders unawares. The Astral Claws garrison was misdirected and confused, and 
once the Raptors took the citadel, their allies in the Salamanders could teleport heavy assault elements in to finish the job.


Once again on the defensive, I was joined by some Astral Claws veterans (in every sense of the word, there were some extremely old models in play) commanded by Nathan.

The scenario saw Ben's Raptors trying to capture an objective to allow Simon's Salamanders to teleport in and catch in a vice.


The Secessionist forces defending the citadel, and spread out as much as possible to prevent shenanigans, were as follows:

Astral Claws Garrison
Corpsetaker Apothecary and 2 Servitors
10 Tactical Marines
5 Devastator Marines
Dreadnought

Astral Claws Veterans
Captain in Terminator Armour
Librarian in Terminator Armour
5 Terminators 
5 Infernus Marines


Meanwhile the infiltrating enemy force that began the game consisted of:

Raptors Infiltrators
Captain in Terminator Armour
Librarian in Terminator Armour
5 Terminators 
5 Infernus Marines

However, the attack got of to a somewhat limp start as after lighting up the Dreadnought and dropping it to just two wounds, both the Terminators (with the Librarian) and the Terminator Captain failed to charge into contact, despite both units being able to reroll. The Terminators rolled snakeyes twice!


Needless to say l, this reprieve for the Dreadnought was about to be exploited as it and the Veteran Terminators charged the Raptors elites and cut them down to a man.


Meanwhile, the Corpsetaker's unit cane under metaphorical and literal fire as the Infernus Marines bathed them in flames causing significant casualties.

In return, half of the Raptors unit was cut down in close combat.


On the second turn, success on a different table saw reinforcements dropping in all over the board:

Salamanders
Captain in Terminator Armour
Librarian in Terminator Armour
5 Terminators 
5 Infernus Marines


Whilst the Terminator squad arrived on one flank, looking to avenge the Raptors, the Salamanders Captain sought out his opposite number in a duel that would ultimately see the Astral Claws commander come out on top.


The Infernus Market nes demonstrated the Salamanders' vaunted skill with flame when they beat the Devastators to the punch and used overwatch to kill half the unit.

Unfortunately, the return fire inflicted similar damage in them.


The second Terminator on Terminator clash was initiated and getting the charge was proven once again to be crucial as the Salamanders had the better of the exchange.


That was until the Dreadnought piled in, killing almost the entire squad across two rounds of combat and although the reverted hero ultimately succumbed, when the dust settled, only the two Librariand were left standing.


Targetted fire brought down the last of the Loyalist Infernus Marines, leaving just the Raptors Captain and the Salamanders Librarian in play.

Whilst battered, the remaining Astral Claws were more than enough to prevent the enemy from catching two of the three objectives, meaning that victory was assured and rendered the secondary objectives both sides had scored somewhat meaningless.

This game was defined by Ben's hideously bad luck with his charge rolls on his first turn, causing the Loyalists to lose a third of their forces without reply. Ben and Simon fought well to keep the game in doubt despite that.

Secessionists 58 - Loyalists 19

With a second victory complete, my tally for the event was 3 wins, 1 draw and a loss. I definitely feel the beneficiary of circumstances that were nothing to do with me for two of those results, but it's still a better ratio than I've had in most versions of 40k that I've played.

As my results were part of a larger campaign, I'm not going to reveal the overall result of the weekend. You'll need to watch Arbitor Ian's next Tale of Four Badab Gamers video to find out the fate of the sector.

As for me, well I set a resolution to get out more this year and this weekend proved why. I met some really nice people and played some really fun games. The next Badab War event will be sometime in the spring, so I'm going to see if I can make it.

Is Combat Patrol an enjoyable format? Yes, very much so. Does it work as a doubles game? I'm not sure, both games overran significantly. Am I now hooked on 40k 10th edition? The jury's out as I probably have to play a couple of larger games before I can commit to an answer.

Nevertheless, I've had a cracking good time, and that's what matters.

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Badabing!

Today I took myself and my Astral Claws down to Warhammer World to participate in the Tale of 4 Gamers Badab War campaign run by Arbitor Ian's YouTube channel.

This is actually the second event of the campaign (confusingly it's Phase III of the war); as there was a Kill Team event held in November that I was unable to attend.

As this is a Combat Patrol event, my force is using the rules for the OOP Dark Zealots (a Chaos Space Marine Combat Patrol). Given what fate waits for the Astral Claws after the war, this seems more than appropriate.

One of the nice things about Combat Patrol is that you don't need to worry about choosing your army, as it's selected for you. Therefore, my force consists of:

  • 1 Corpsetaker Apothecary (Dark Apostle) with 2 Servitors (Disciples)
  • 10 Tactical Marines (Chaos Legionaries)
  • 5 Devastator Marines (Havocs)
  • 1 Dreadnought (Hellbrute)

In preparing for the event, I did have a little painting that I needed to do.

Firstly I needed to paint up my final monopose Marine as I needed a Meltagun in my Tactical Squad. The gun itself was cobbled together from various bits, but looks the part.

As we were playing in Warhammer World, my Servitors weren't appropriate as they aren't Games Workshop miniatures. Therefore I painted up a second Goliath Juve so they could be used as stand-ins.

Finally, I wanted to distinguish my two Heavy Bolters, as one of them would be proxied as a Reaper Chaincannon. Without any alternate barrels knocking around I opted to go for putting a chain bayonet on one simply to make the difference clear.

With that all done, I made my way to Nottingham this morning to take part in the twenty-ish person event.

Game 1 - Bull by the Horns


My first opponent was Andrew with his Minotaurs force. He had opted to use the current Dark Angels Combat Patrol which consists of:

1 Captain in Gravis Armour
3 Bladeguard Veterans 
5 Hellblasters
10 Intercessors

The game would see the newly reinforced Loyalists conducting Sweeping Raids into Secessionist space following the stalemate in the Phase II Kill Team event.


I got the first turn but failed to make a telling impact as Andrew used the terrain to negate my ranger advantage.

On his turn he pushed his Hellblasters forward and obliterated my Devastators, leaving me no option but to try to get stuck in.


I pushed my close combat troops forwards to try to capture the mid-table objectives, but they were met by a Captain and some Bladeguard who were packing the most effective invulnerable saves I ever seen and despite the Bladeguard being cut down, they took the Dreadnought and most of my unit with them.


Meanwhile, my combat squad armed with bolters tried to take out the advancing Intercessors, but had to content themselves with simply holding my home objective.

Ultimately the battle came down to my Corpsetaker Apothecary against Andrew's Captain, a fight that was won by the Minotaur, but left him with a single wound.

With the game pretty much over, we called the result on turn 4 as nothing was going to change.

Minotaurs 70 - Astral Claws 43

Game 2: The Head of the Snake

Despite my loss, the Secessionists had won the first round and so now we were aiming to push back the Loyalists with a Display of Might.

I matched up against Jack's Sons of Medusa, which it turned out were also based on the Dark Angels Combat Patrol, and so also consisted of:

1 Captain in Gravis Armour
3 Bladeguard Veterans 
5 Hellblasters
10 Intercessors


The fates unkindly conspired against Jack in this game as not only had I already learned that the real threat was the Hellblasters, but he also proceeded to have absolutely horrendous luck when rolling saves throughout the game.

After I'd driven back his Hellblasters with my concentrated fire, my Dreadnought could advance with impunity and I had a significant advantage in firepower.


Unfortunately for Jack, the scenario required us to advance, and so he made a valiant push with his Bladeguard, but a failed charge saw them out up from all angles.

Ultimately, the Dreadnought strode unchallenged down my right flank; concentrated Bolter fire not enough to deter it, whilst the Gravis Captain was met and defeated by the Corpsetaker and his entourage, his gene-seed added to the Astral Claws' stockpiles.

Astral Claws 58 - Sons of Medusa 25

Game 3 - Howl You Doin'?


With the Secessionists winning the second round as well, we were now pushing out to capture the Loyalist Forward Outposts.

In this game I was matched against Will's Howling Griffons. Like many players at the event, he is using the standard Space Marine Combat Patrol which consists of:

1 Captain in Terminator Armour
1 Librarian in Terminator Armour 
5 Terminators
5 Infernus Marines


I really liked how this game fits so well into the narrative as my Astral Claws pushed into a built up area to find it apparently defended by only a small squad of Howling Griffons.

It looked and felt like a trap.


A trap which was sprung when a whole load of Terminators deep struck into my back line, capturing my home objective and almost obliterating the Corpsetaker's unit and leaving him alone.


Realising that I stood no chance against the Terminators with my units so spread out, I opted to push towards the enemy deployment zone, capturing objectives on the way, in an attempt to match the Howling Griffons build up of victory points.

The Corpsetaker charged into the remaining Infernus Marines whilst the Havoks and remaining Tactical Marines positioned themselves on the mid-table objectives knowing that the Terminators were coming.


The Dreadnought moved to help the Tactical Marines, who found themselves overmatched by the Terminator Captain, and helped them hold onto the objective for an extra turn, until the main squad of Terminators arrived and cut them all to pieces.

Meanwhile, the Corpsetaker ran hell for leather into to enemy deployment zone to grab their valuable objective, putting pressure on the Howling Griffons.

On their final turn, the scores were close, but the Astral Claws would win if they still held two objectives at the end of the game.

However, the Terminators made a long charge (after judicious use of a Command Point) to reach the hiding Devastators and destroy them in hand to hand combat.

Astral Claws 56 - Howling Griffons 52

I ended the day with a loss, a win and a draw. However I don't yet know how the round went for the Secessionists.

The day has been really fun. I've met some excellent people and enjoyed playing games against opponents who have the same limited exposure to 10th edition as me, and so we've been learning together.

So far, I like the Combat Patrol format as it's going ven us time to get our heads around the rules.

The best bit?

I get to go back again tomorrow.

Acquired: -26
Painted: 31
Lead Mountain: 600

Sunday, 26 January 2025

The Return Visit

As you will no doubt be aware, a few weeks ago I painted up some key figures from the LA resistance in the 1980s cult classic V.

This combined with the fact that I've just watched a battle report on the Peachy Tips YouTube channel which pit the Visitors against a range of 80s action heroes (Rambo, TJ Hooker, etc.) has made me want to get nosy off the last few unpainted Visitors I currently have.

Here they are...

...well, almost. I still have another model to do who is a duplicate of one I already own, but I want to see if I can do a suitable head swap to keep some variety, but I need to see I have a female head that's the right scale, ideally with a cap or sunglasses.

We'll see.

As pointed out five years ago, when I painted the last lot, I've gone with orange rather than red for the uniforms.

When you trawl the internet for images, it seems that there has been some colour enhancement going on with images that has convinced many folk that the Visitors wore red. However, only their flags and iconography were red, the uniforms were dark orange.

In an attempt to achieve this effect and match a paint job firm half a decade ago, Ive actually been quite sloppy compared to a lot of my more recent work.

Simply basing in Ryza Rust...yes, I know it's a dry paint but mine dried up too much, so I added some water to it and now have an orange paint I can actually use...adding the black, flesh, gold and hair before an all over wash.

I did pick out the gold again as a highlight, but overall not my best work.


These troopers with the gold helmets first appear in the second miniseries, V: The Final Battle, and seem to be security guards rather than more active soldiers like the ones in black armour.

I get the feeling that the decision to introduce them might have been cost induced as adding gold trim some of the spare uniforms from the first series and making what look like much cheaper helmets would have strained the budget less for the larger battle scenes in the second miniseries.


I did have to do a little bit of repair work on this model as his baton was missing a section, so I needed to trim it off and add a small length of plastic rod. Not the hardest job, or done with great finesse, but good enough.

His pistol is also missing the bottom bar of the hand grip, but it's a small detail and not particularly of the profile of the model, so I'm going to see if it annoys me enough to try to fix it.


And there we have them. I think they fit in quite well with only a slight difference in the orange. In fact a more noticeable issue is the asphalt flock on the base. I've no idea whether I've used a different type or the colour has faded, but I might need to address that.

So I still have another model to do and then I need to get round to sorting out the shuttlecraft that I've lost the landing gear for. After that, I may finally pick up some Visitor keeps to complete my collection.

Acquired: -29
Painted: 29
Lead Mountain: 601

Sunday, 19 January 2025

Path of Damnation: Fallen Heroes

The latest additions to my unit of Chaos Marauders all have two things in common. 

Firstly, they're all barbarians, a category of character in the Warhammer world that was long ago subsumed into Norsca and the tribes of the Chaos Wastes.

Secondly, they were once heroes with names that were known far and wide.

Now, they walk the path of the damned.


Due to what happened later to the concept of barbarians in Warhammer, these four models from the mid-eighties fit well into a Chaos force.

Three of them were originally part of the Dungeonquest boardgame and its expansion, and until I started looking up their names today, I was convinced the other one was too.

Apparently not.


Ulv Grimhand is the original plastic barbarian character from the Dungeonquest boardgame. He's a chunky boy and not particularly well sculpted or proportioned, especially his mahoosive hands.

Fortunately, odd scales and proportions don't look out of place in a Chaos army, and so this hulking giant has clearly begun to mutate.

He's actually the first model I've converted in any way for this project, but not in any major way. The horns on his helmet were broken after thirty years of misuse and so it was a simple bit of surgery to add some new horns from a Chaos banner.


Siegfried Goldenhair (yes, his hair's actually black) comes from the Heroes for Dungeonquest, a box that contained 12 additional and I could swear he had a different name on the Citadel Combat Cards.

I'm a bit sad that I haven't taken a picture of the back as I've done a pretty good job of getting a dirty effect on the lower part of his cloak with Typhus Corrosion. However, I've always liked this model and he makes a more than suitable unit champion.


Helena the Swift, also from Heroes for Dungeonquest, is a strange on. All the images I can find online have this model having wings on her helmet rather than horns. I've no idea why this one is different but it does make her a better fit as a Chaos Marauder, albeit one with no trousers.

She is the model I'm least happy with from the four. Mainly this is because of the skin on her legs being so mottled. However, I also think that cleaner legs would look weird given the basing I've done, so I'm just going always look at her from three feet away from now on.


Osamund Doomspinner is the model I'd misremembered as being from the Heroes for Dungeonquest box. In fact he was released as a simple Berzerker (spelled with a Z on the original flyer) in the C01 Fighters range, and later given his somewhat overblown moniker when they were re-advertised in the Citadel Journal.

His two hand weapons throw an extra bit of variation into the great weapon or shield (or both in Ulv's case) dynamic that the unit have going on.


In fact, I can actually call them a unit because 10 Chaos Marauders armed with great weapons and light armour (which is the current majority loadout), led by a unit champion are a legal unit in Warhammer: the Old World.

Not a very good unit, and only 97 points, but still, it's a very small milestone.

I am a little conscious that they all have viscera smeared across their weapons but not anywhere else. However, I'm not sure I want to splatter blood all over them yet. I might get to that in time, but I'll probably want to experiment first.

Having exhausted the humans I have available that aren't more suited the Chaos Warriors, do my next additions to this units are going to be either pre-big hat Chaos Dwarfs or Beastmen, both of which will bring more than a touch of mutation to proceedings.

Acquired: -29
Painted: 26
Lead Mountain: 604

Ambush at Larsa II

Sergeant Messaro grimaced. So far, his mission to the mining world of Larsa II has been a success, but now it was crunchy time.

The arrival of two dozen Blood Angels had lit a flame of rebellion amongst the Planetary Defence Forces stationed to protect the mineral wealth of the system. Unwilling to risk the ire of the forces that had taken the Pale Stars in the name of the Arch-Traitor, Messaro's assurance that more significant aid was inbound had turned all but the elite armoured brigade of the Silver Guard back to the service of the Emperor.

The embattled Planetary Governor had called for reinforcement and now Messaro's stalwart allies were confronted with the heavy armour of the Silver Guard, Astartes of the Alpha Legion and Titans from the Forge World of Mirdath.

Messaro smiled. The Blood Angels had learned quickly from their early tussels with the twentieth legion, and, as the enemy advanced, a trap was about to be sprung.

Our big Christmas game this year was planned to be an Apocalypse game using the 5th edition of the 40k rules, pitting my Blood Angels and Matt's Imperial Guard against Pete's Alpha Legion supported by Traitor Guard armour, under the command of Wes, and a Warhound Titan.

I'd already decided to weave this game into my Pale Stars campaign (this is an ad hoc narrative woven around games we play and requires zero book keeping) as most of the Marines on the table were wearing armour appropriate to Horus Heresy and having already mentioned the Blood Angels finding a stash of experimental armour on Crow's World, I could justify some Mark VII being present.

The only massive anachronism was the presence the Death Company, but the short story Lost Sons by James Swallow has a group of suicidal Blood Angels painting their armour black with red crosses well before the death of Sanguinius - so there's some sort of precedent.

Deployment


Due to the vagaries of how Apocalypse games handle deployment, we ended up with slightly uneven diagonal deployment zones.

The Loyalist bid the lowest amount of time for deployment, and so set up first and would have the first turn. This was massive as the wall of big guns facing us would make a massive dent in our army if they had been allowed to unleash a full volley.


We managed to get deployed in the 13 minutes we'd allowed ourselves, even though we had significantly larger numbers of infantry to deploy because Matt is a masochist.

One thing that significantly helped with this task was me keeping all but a few Combat Squads of Blood Angels off the board as we had a fiendish plan.

There was no real intent behind the rest of our deployment other than spreading out infantry to cover most places where the objectives might go and interspersing armour across the from line to bolster the defences.


Conversely, the Traitors seemed to have a much more ordered approach, with the Traitor Guard armour, led by a Baneblade, largely on one flank with the Alpha Legion, backed by a Warhound Titan, largely on the other.


They seemed to deploy a little way back from the centre line, potentially to give space for their heavy guns to unleash barrage templates with impunity.

Although death from above was a concern for Matt's lightly armoured cannon fodder, it did mean that he would have to worry about Alpha Legion ploughing into his lines for at least a turn.

Objectives were then placed. The Imperial Guard revealed the General Staff strategem, bolstering their morale, whilst the Alpha Legion announced that they would Hold At All Costs, both sides declaring their intent to actually play the mission. and battle was ready to commence.

Loyalist Turn 1


The rush to deploy without knowing where the enemy would be meant that some of Matt's tanks had to do a bit of shuffling to get line of sight, reducing their initial firepower.

However, the line lit up and the Traitors started taking casualties.


This fusillade was joined by the rumble of tracks and clanking stomps of mechanical feets as the Blood Angels arrived from a totally unexpected direction.

Painting up the Librarian Furioso Dreadnought had allowed me to field an Ancients Assault Force formation, granting me a bonus Flank March strategem. Combined with the Careful Planning strategem that I had chosen, meaning half my reserves could arrive on turn one, I was able to bring my shorter range and less powerful guns into the rear of the enemy lines.


This meant that even units that believed they were hidden, perhaps sitting on objectives, were vulnerable to the sudden arrival of red armoured warriors as a Land Raider Spartan, three Dreadnought and a Baal Predator arrived in their rear and opened up.


Accompanying them were several Combat Squads of Me armies packing a Meltagun each and a squad of Terminators were disgorged from the Spartan into the enemy lines.

The initial assault combined with the Guard bombardment was surprising if not devastating, taking out a couple of Leman Russ tanks, immobilising a few more and murdering a smattering of infantry.


It was the assault phase where the real damage was done, as the Terminators and one of the Dreadnought killed a squad of Marines each, whilst a sergeant with a power fist ended a Leman Russ.

The biggest infliction of pain was done by the Librarian Dreadnought, which cut open the Baneblade, taking it out of the fight before it had fired a shot with it's many, many guns.

New model syndrome had struck hard, and I suspected that the Librarian Dreadnought was now not long for this world.

Traitor Turn 1


Bloodied but unbroken, the Traitors prepared to fight back.

The Alpha Legion pushed forward whilst the Guard armour turned to face the Blood Angels and, to put it bluntly, deleted them.


This happened so quickly, thanks in part to the Precision Strike strategem, that I didn't actually manage to get any pictures as the Spartan, two Dreadnought, two Combat Squads and a Techmarine were all demolished in short order.

Explosions abounded and all that was left were smoking craters.


Meanwhile the Titan unveiled an unfeasibly large blast template and a gun Matt dubbed the 'tank deleter' making us very conscious that the game wasn't over as the Imperial Guard lines were thinned.

Loyalist Turn 2


The second turn saw more reinforcements arrive as the Imperial Guard lines were bolstered with units we'd not been able to deploy initially.


Simultaneously the second wave of Blood Angels arrived in the rear of the Alpha Legion, Multi-Meltas ripping through the back of the enemy Spartan, disgorging some Berserkers who were summarily pounced upon and despatched by Assault Marines.


The Death Company arrived in force and carved up a squad of Legionaries that had been stealthily encroaching on the Loyalist lines.

This second wave of Blood Angels had collapsed the Alpha Legion flank and threatened to plough into the rest of their infantry.


Led by an Inquisitor, the Imperial Guard pushed forward, engaging in the actual mission of securing and denying objectives.

The tanks opened up, this time with their full firepower and hit the exposed rears of the Traitor tanks that had turned to deal with the Blood Angels.


Assassin's were also unleashed across the line to varied effect. The Vindicare missed, the Callidus slaughtered a squad of Legionaries that had been sat on an objective and the Eversor failed to neurally shred a damaged Dreadnought.

Traitor Turn 2


Having had both flanks collapse, the Traitors were grateful to finally receive reinforcement in the ominous shape of a Storm Eagle gunship bristling with firepower and carrying a full complement of Terminators.

With the Warhound largely unscathed, there was still plenty of firepower available to turn the tide and a barrage was unleashed from the Titan that removed an entire platoon of Imperial Guard reinforcements.


The Storm Eagle disgorged its cargo and proceeded to light up and Blood Angels in range, effectively nullifying the second wave save for a Tactical Squad in a Rhino tucked behind a building.


For their part the Terminators dismantled the Blood Angels Assault Squad, their Captain and Sanguinary Priest in short order.

Loyalist & Traitor Turn 3

With the Traitor Guard all but gone, the Blood Angels flank forces in disarray and the Alpha Legion assault blunted, turns were speeding up. However, we were running out of time and so we decided that this would be the last round of the game.


The Death Company had no option but to charge the closest enemy, which were the Alpha Legion Terminators. Although this was a suicide mission, I tried to aid them by pointing every gun I could attack the enemy elites, whistling them down.

Although the Death Company gave a good account of themselves, they were ultimately defeated across two turns of fighting, but they did tie up and neutralise the Terminators.


The last of the Loyalist reserves arrived in the form of a squad of Rough Riders who launch an ultimately unsuccessful charge against the damaged Dreadnought that had already swatted an assassin.

A Valkyrie gunship also arrived and along with the humble and forgotten Baal Predator took the Warhound perilously close to destruction by sneakily firing from inside its void shields and repeatedly rolling sixes on the super heavy damage table.


Knowing that they couldn't now win the battle, the Traitors set about reducing the deficit by moving to contest objectives.

A small squad of Imperial Guard heavy weapons were literally kicked down the stairs of the Planetary Governor's palace, whilst the Storm Eagle turned it's guns on the Tactical Marines in the back field.

In an act of pure spite, the Warhound turned it's turbo-plasma-destructor-doom-cannon on the little Baal Predator that could and reduced it to slag.

Despite the counter assault, the Loyalist lines were still largely intact and the weary Dreadnoughts were now facing it alone and the Titan had lost a weapon and its void shields and had a only single structure point remaining.

The Alpha Legion reserves had been spent and while the Storm Eagle could still cause plenty of damage, it couldn't win an objective based battle by itself and would have to finish off the Blood Angels in the back field before it tried to tackle anything else.

The Imperial Guard still held two objectives and had some capability to try to capture more. Larsa II had been recaptured for the Emperor.

***

I've never played a game of Apocalypse before and I have to admit that it was more fun than I've ever thought it looked in articles. The objective based mission prevent it from being just a tedious shooting match and the strategems add an element of surprise.

The combination of Careful Planning and Flank March was vicious and although I ended up losing most of my army I was able to get my short range Meltas into play and significantly reduced the amount of firepower that was turned in the objective holding and battle winning Guard Squads.

I don't think I'll ever be able to pull the same trick again as Pete, Wes and Matt now know all about the Ambush strategem which is a hard counter to the Flank March.

This was Wes' first ever game of 40k and I think it was a bit of a baptism of fire as we weren't holding back. I'm not sure whether it has peaked his interest or put him off.

Pete and Matt both got to put there big models on the table. I feel a little guilty about immediately removing the Baneblade, but it was funny. I barely mentioned Matt's Malcador which provided sterling service in the the centre of the Imperial line and was still fully functional at the end of the game.

For me it was nice to get almost my entire Blood Angels army on the table and of all the versions of 40k I've played I feel 5th edition is the one that does them most justice in terms of the army playing how the army is written. However, this might be because my Horus Heresy army lacks fast moving Assault Marines.

I'm not sure if and when we'll play another Apocalypse game. I suspect Matt and Pete, who've both bought all the books, will get a few smaller games in, but at the moment I'd be limited to 3000 points.

I'm quite enjoying using a campaign as a framing device as it is something that will develop organically with any games that use the participants of this theatre of war bring woven in.