This was my first game with the Death Korps, I think my first game with Imperial Guard in EpicA in general, at least since I got back into gaming after a 4-5 year gap (I played maybe a dozen or so games with a friend around when EpicA was first out, plus loads and loads of historical SM/TL gaming between when I was around ten to fifteen or so).

For this, our second game of the day, Ryan set up the scenery while I was off cooking, so I got to choose table sides. With both of Ryan’s objectives in the centre middle on the roads it was clear the direction he intended to advance in, likely using the road some too for extra speed I thought and so I garrisoned my two fortified infantry formations each side of the central road with the objective on, fairly close to the horizontal road and the other objective. The idea was to form a castle like fortified position and sit tight for the most part while he came to me, with then certain units like the Death Riders, the Warhound and, albeit slowly, the Machariuses on the far right acting as counter-attackers as appropriate.  

137th Krieg Regiment
Regimental HQ + Quad Guns + Trenches + Commissar
Infantry Company + Fire Support  + Commissar
Death Riders Company  + Commissar
Death Rider Scouts
Basilisk gun-carriages
Basilisk gun-carriages
AA guns - 1 hydra, 2 heavy AA
Medusa gun-carriages + gun emplacements
Deathstrike Silo
Machariuses with Vanquisher Command
Thunderbolts
Warhound Titan

Ork Warhorde of Kent
Big Warband
Warband + Battlefort
Warband + Battlefort
Warband + 2 Boyz +2 Grots
6 Stormboyz
KoS (6 Skorcha 2 Buggy)
Big Blitz Brigade +2 Oddboyz
Stompa mob + Supa Stompa
Big gunz + Oddboy
3 Fighta Bommerz
Landa

Objectives: electrical substation generator as my blitz, a Krieg Commissar statue atop a pillar and a small church.

I was proxying gun platforms for this battle as my Saltshakers and Spuds hadn’t arrived then; they must have captured some from their Vraksian opponents or something. I didn’t have anything really to proxy as a Gorgon and so left those for another game. Manticore platforms are also proxying as heavy AA guns since FW are out of stock of these and have been for some time.  

I forgot about Commissars at first and quickly grabbed some to add to the infantry and the Death Rider company. Clearly I had 3 more too and I did declare which units these were in, but I didn’t mark individual models and think I forget about them during the game, ah well.

I don't have Ryan's army list but hopefully he'll either post it up or message it to me so I can add it in here.

Krieg set-up:


Ork Fighta Bommerz shriek through the sky blasting out a hail of innacurate orky firepower and putting a blast marker on the left Basilisk gun-carriages.


With a cloud of smoke and a roar a giant missile roared out of the ground, soared through the air and crashed into the Super-Stompa with a huge explosion. When the dust had settled it's power fields were no more and it had taken a point of damage (in retrospect I should probably have stripped shields with something else, or maybe shot up a fortress instead).


Basilisk Platforms open fire on one of the fortress mobs at the back and do exceptionally well with their rolls; killing 4 ork infantry and doing a point of damage to the Gun Fortress.

The garrisoned Ork warband moves out and has a few long range shots at the AA guns, killing one and breaking them. As they moved out they were overwatched in return by heavy stubber fire from the infantry company on the other side of the road. The regimental HQ thought about overwatch firing too, but then realised their quad guns were only indirect firing when sustaining.


We played that bunkers blocked line of sight up to their height but you could see as normal over trenches. Movement-wise we said vehicles needed to take a difficult terrain test to cross a trench, though the Warhound could step over with no penalty. Is this what most people do?

Thunderbolts go on Combat Air Patrol to protect their comrades on the ground.


With a thunderous roar of afterburners the huge bulk of the Ork Landa comes screeching out of the sky to ground assault the Regimental HQ. The AA guns were out of action but the Thunderbolt pilots do their best to stop it, managing to do a point of damage even, but the all important critical dice does not got their way and it lands safely.

The Regimental HQ wait till the last second to unleash their overwatch with their Quad Guns and the Supreme Commander even manages to score a hit with the regiment's single 6+ heavy stubber. Casualties  leave the Orks with 3 blast markers to the regimental HQ's one.



The resulting combat was particularly bloody and one-sided however despite that; with 10 stands of Krieg and 1 nearby Quad Gun killed for the loss of 3 stands of Grots. The very few survivors huddled in their bunkers fearing for their lives and a unit of stormboyz swooped forwards landing in a line theateningly nearby.



Incensed that the filthy greenskins had breached their trenchlines and slaughtered their beloved commander and so many of their men the Death Rider company charged forth, full of righteous anger and smote the greenskins. 3 Deathriders were killed in the battle but they won considerably and both warband and landa were wiped out.

The Medusas sent their lethals shells arching high into the air to land on the same Ork Fortress Warband that had been targetted earlier, killing two more and breaking them.


The mighty Warhound Titan 'Lupus Prime' strode forth and unleashed a hail of firepower which killed a Stormboy. The Death Rider Scouts then assaulted the Stormboyz with supporting fire from the Titan, two Death Riders died but it was a solid win to the imperials with the few surviving orks sent running for their lives.




The Kult of Speed race towards the Krieg lines, maxing their engines and managing to just about make it into range to turn a send a stand of Death Riders to a flamey death.




Machariuses rumbled forward and unleash a hail of shots at the Kult of Speed.

My memory of the latter half of the game is rather patchy and I took less photos so stuff won't fully be described and it's quite possible I may mis-remember things. May try to take better notes next time.

The Death Rider Company was wiped out and the Kult of Speed reduced to a single broken survivor (may well have been an assault, but I forget the specifics). Lupus Prime was broken (think by oddboyz fire) and fled away to hide behind some buildings.



Thunderbolts flyover ground attacking the orks that have taken up hold of the bunkers on the right.



Fighta-Bommerz again strike the Basilisk platforms on the left, this time killing one and breaking them. The gunz mob at the rear doubled forward and blasted apart the final survivor of the Regimental HQ, who had been cowering in a ruined building at the back.

The Machariuses are shot up by the Super-Stompa mob. I think return fire took out the Super Stompas after this though scoring me the BTS (likely the deathstrike silo).



In the end phase of turn 2 flak killed one of the Thunderbolts.



Continued a few posts down...

Interesting deployment ; I don't tend to be quite so spread-out with my trenchlines.

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I tend to be forced into 2 clumps by my opponent with siegers.

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Krieg can find it difficult to react to the enemy if they spread out too much, as their formations are so large.

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Whose trenchlines are you using?  Being a rookie to the whole 6mm genre, I am buying up terrain and models MUCH faster than my bank account (and wife) can keep up with...but I still need to know >

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Chroma from the forums makes and sells some excellent trenchlines and bunkers that are well regarded and a good price.

Fortunately Lupus Prime rallies in the end phase and strides back into action guns blazing the next turn...



...unfortunately for Lupus the greenskin was waiting for him and they unleashed its terrible super zzap guns on him, rupturing his adamantium hide and causing his plasma reactor to go critical.


While wanting to kill things, tactically that may not have been the best move for me, as when Ryan moved his Gun Fortress to that objective and moved his ork warband on the farside to control the little church he now held two objectives in my half. There wasn’t really anything I had left that I could use to do much about it.

Endgame:


It was an Orky victory, 3-1 if I’m remembering it right:

Orks – Break their Spirit, Defend the Flag, They Shall Not Pass
Krieg – Break their Spirit

It was a great game and felt really epic with the terrain, siege lines and titan Next time I’ll try to take a bit more AA as the airdrop onto my regimental hq was a blow, though enough to be able to seriously threaten a Landa would have to be a lot of AA, perhaps too much. I like the list and it's plays well and how it should. Krieg heavy stubber firing really is poor, but their artillery makes up for it and the massed cavalry charges of the Death Riders are nice.

Thoughts and comments on the game and/or reporting?

Excellent report, I really enjoyed it.

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Thinking about it since, another anti-air option could be to accept the Landa will land but stick something very shooty with good lines of fire to overwatch it when it does – something like a formation of Medusas, Leman Russes or Machariuses (though being WE these would block each other’s line of sight).

With the more recent list update the Artillery Company may be especially good for this, as with movement 0 the 9 strong formation can start the game on overwatch and put out a lot of hurt.

The only places they wouldn’t be able to see over are the Bunkers – assuming we were playing those correctly as blocking line of sight (arguably there are little gaps between each one too but trying to work out lines of fire from each model seeing through one or not may be fiddly).

Any comment my question above about how to play the bunkers and trenchlines re: lines of sight and movement E&C? Couldn’t seem to find rules for it in Siege, though maybe I’ve missed it.

According to the rules from Swordwind, bunkers and trenches do not technically block LOS.

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Ah ok, seems a little odd to me that a great big bunker doesn't block line of sight to stuff, but I guess, perhaps like the trenches, whilst the models are often on the surface, in reality they could be partly buried and so lower to the ground. I'll play it that way in future then; makes lines of fire for air assault free and easy.

Are those rules re-printed in Siege btw? If not they really should be - can't expect everyone to own Swordwind, nor to have to carry it with them when going to games.

The standard trench/bunker rules appear in Siege, yes.

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