(IGNS) – Yesterday (99873123.M41), self styled anti-environment terrorists attacked Imperial clean up crews, tasked with removing spilled fyceline from the B’tresh Pfyceline (BP) production facility. The “Red Ones Go Fasta” Faction (ROGOFF) coalition forces “unexpectedly” charged into the area, turning over waste containers, emptying storage tanks of recaptured fyceline, and assaulting the local PDF forces. An Imperial response team quickly established a comm center able to rapidly push remote observer comments to Imperial citizens on a continuous basis. Estimates on the cost of the clean up exceed 20B Imperial creds. Bolf Witzer, Imperial Galactic News Service So Anton and I got together last night to dust off my Epic skills and run the Elysians against Orks. My 3000 point list consisted of: 1 x Reg HQ, 1 x Sup Commander, 7 x Drop Troops, 2 x Support weapons 3 x Drop Troop Companies, 1 x Commander, 7 x Drop Troops, 2 x Veterans, 2 x Support Weapons 2 x Four unit Drop Sentinels 2 x Eight man Storm Trooper squads + 4 x Valkyries 2 x Four ship flight Vulture squadrons 1 x Two ship squadron of Lightning Strike Fighters 11 Activations Anton brought (roughly): 1 x Great Gargant 1 x Gargant 1 x 3 Stompa mob + 1 x Supa-Stompa 1 x 6 man Ork Stormboy formation 1 x 8 vehicle Scorcha squadron 2 x Boys Mobs consisting of 2 x Nobs, 6 x Boyz, 1 or 2 Big Shootas (in Battle Fortress mob) 1 x Battle fortress Mob, 2 x Battle wagons, 1 x Gun wagon, 2 x Flak wagons 7 Activations Pre-game Summary: So this was going to be one of your typical Yin/Yang battles. Note the symmetry between the Ork war machines and the Yang of the Elysians, where no titan killing weapons exist. About the best I could muster were the multi-melta armed Sentinels, but still, it sort of felt like I had set up a bunch of dominoes in front of a 2 year old. The Orks, unsurprisingly put the Gargants in the center, the Stompa mob on my right, and the Battle fortress formation on my left, supported by the Scorchas. The Stormboyz were in front of the Gargants holding some woods. So the rest of this story I will attempt to relate as best I can. Turn 1 Orks win Initiative The Stompa mob gets introduced to long range hellstrike missiles from a Vulture squadron, killing the three Stompas, breaking the mob, and the Supa-stompa moves off to my right some more to get some cover from a bunch of big rocks. Somewhere in there, the Storm Troopers double up to Remagen Bridge (centrally located on the board) and shoot at the Stormboyz. I double down on crazy and drive the other ST formation in to support them and I eventually kill all but one stand. Not bad,. The ST’s however, then look up over the forest to see two extremely large non-natural metal mountains moving their way. Not good. Surprisingly, casualties are very light from the Gargant return fire. On the left side of the board, the Battle fortress mob triples up to get within holding distance of the left Elysian objective. Not wishing to let any good deed go un-punished, the Lighting Strike fighters zoom in and strip off the flak wagons. Then the second Vulture squadron reaches out to touch someone, and pops the Gun wagon and places one hit on a battle fortress. We roll for a crit and it pops, blasting all but the two nob stands. <In hindsight, these two actions may have been reversed> Unfortunately for the Elysians, the formation did not break. The Scorchas zoom over to Remagen bridge and don’t hit much. Note: The Elysians had a bunch of stuff off table, so the Orks actually out activated the Elysians at this point. Rallies: All Elysian formations rally, removing BMs, the Battle fortress, Stormboyz stand, and Supa-Stompa do not rally. Orks are not pleased. Also, later in the game we realized that we mismanaged the rally roll for the Battle fortress mob because we didn’t include the Ork Mob rule. Neither of us were sure what was rolled, so we let it stand. Turn 2 Orks win initiative Elysians teleport RHQ, 2 x Drop Troop Companies (one by stompa), 2 x Drop Sentinels, all near the Remagen bridge Orks move the Gargant close to Remagen bridge and shoot. Not a good deal. There are body parts flying all over the place. The Elysian fighters strike at the Stompa and kick up a lot of dirt, but otherwise don’t do much. The Scorchas engage the STs (declaring them intermingled) and are destroyed. However, one ST squadron is all but wiped out (breaks back to Elysian Blitz objective), and the other receives 8 blast markers. Not wishing to tempt fate, the remaining ST squadron entrains and boogeys back to safer ground to get away from the Ork belly gun barrage weapons. The Gargant then fires on the Sentinels and hammers them pretty hard. They break and jump back behind a central hill for safety. The RHQ shoots at the remaining Stormboyz stand and wipes it out. The Drop Troop Co, assaults the Stompa, breaks it, but because of it’s reinforced armor and Fearless “qualities” nothing is accomplished. So it sits there and thumbs it’s nose at the Elysians. Rallies: All Elysian formations rally. No Ork formations rally. Orks are not happy. Turn 3 Elysians win initiative I neglected to teleport my last drop company on…grrrr Elysians call in a ground attack on the stompa and place a BM and two scratches. Gambling, the Elysians retain and engage the Stompa. The Elysians win and this time the Orks decide to withdraw to the Elysian right side objective. The Orks have some hard decisions to make as they only have two activations at this point. the Gargant doubles over to the Elysian left where a Vulture squadron and the Storm Troopers are catching their breath. The Ork belly gun fires and does massive damage, breaking the Vultures and adding more BMs to the STs. The lone Valk from the other ST squadron triple over to the Ork side to place itself within range of the rightmost Ork objective. The Great Gargant doubles over and fires on the Sentinels breaking the remainder of both squadrons. So they aren’t going to be able to help. The only upside is that the Orks can’t move anything else. The Elysian RHQ manages to spread out to cover both Ork objectives. A two unit Drop Co. survivor manages to triple over to grab the Ork Blitz. Elysians: 2 (Blitz, Take and Hold) Orks: 1 (Break Their Spirit) Summary: This was a pretty tough battle and could have gone either way. There were times when we were both rolling badly, so the game was very, very close. I think that if just one of the broken Ork formations had activated in the last turns, Anton would have been able to deny me the chance of getting the objectives. So, if you look at it from the perspective that the Orks were fighting most of the game with only two Gargants, I’d say they did real well. Anyway, the Elysian list is still based on IA3 Taros and I’ll be updating it to reflect the state of the list in IA8 Kastorel-Novem before too long. Great game Anton!
_________________ Remember Taros? We do.
- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment
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