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.
