We played a nice big game of Epic at the weekend - 6,500 points per side. Space marines versus an ork horde, two players on each team. Thanks to the other players (Mephiston, Enri, McMullet) for a great game, I had a lot of fun.

As it was a big one-off battle, I wanted to do something a bit different to a normal tournament game. Add a bit of a theme and use some more unusual terrain. However, I wimped out of writing a scenario from scratch as it would be shame to get all the players together and then find that the scenario turned out to be rubbish.

So I came up with the following – heavily based on the tournament scenario to make sure we had an enjoyable game, but with a couple of twists to add a bit of spice.

The Battle of Vardan
It is the war for Armageddon. The orks have won a victory at Acheron hive and Ghazghkull rushes reinforcements towards the front line to capitalise on the position. The massive ork horde advances along a road which narrows to a single carriageway around the city of Vardan.

Vardan is a bottleneck and whoever holds it will control the route towards Acheron. Commissar Yarrick knows exactly what must be done. He must block up this bottleneck with the mother of all corks: a task force of the Adeptus Astartes.

Terrain
This game is played on an 8’ by 4’ table. The large city of Vardan is at the centre of the table. A road runs from north to south, through the middle of Vardan. At the centre of the city is a Temple of the Ecclesiarchy. All other terrain is placed in any pleasing manner.

Scenario
The game is played using the standard Tournament Scenario, deployment and victory conditions, with the following exceptions:

1) Neither side places a blitz objective. Instead, the Temple of the Ecclesiarchy at the centre of the table counts as the blitz objective for both sides when working out victory conditions. Other objectives are placed as normal.
2) Garrisons are set up as normal, but the Temple of the Ecclesiarchy cannot be garrisoned.

Forces
Each army is 6,500 points in total. As there are four players, this means that each player should bring 3,250 points. Forces should be selected from Epic UK army lists, with the following restrictions:

1) Each army (ie 6,500 points) can only have one Supreme Commander in total.
2) Each army (ie 6,500 points) must have at least one War Engine of Reaver Titan size or larger. If we’re going to play a big game, it’d be a shame not to have some huge stuff stomping about!



Here are a few shots of the table, before the game began.

The city of Vardan. At the centre is the Temple of the Ecclesiarchy that counts as the Blitz objective for both sides.



A wide river running through a canyon on the marine right flank.



The other flank, heavily wooded. And some big stone things.



A lovely cottage by the river. Pity about the titans stomping through the back garden.



One of the objectives we were fighting for. A marine captain makes a last stand by his wrecked landraider.



The whole battlefield



Right. Ready to go...

There were lots and lots of models on the table during this game. The armies lined up something like this...

The massive ork horde (commanded by me and McMullet)

Gargant
Another gargant (it’s not often you get to write that in an army list!)
Landa with a warband and an extra boy/grot
Landa with a warband and extra two boyz/grotz
Uge warband with three extra boyz/grotz and two supa-zzaps (BTS)
Big warband
Warband in battlefortress with powerfield and flak
Uge Kult of Speed with four extra buggies (yes, that’s 28 vehicles in total – it didn’t stop em getting massacred)
Five blitz brigades with flak and supa-zzaps. One of them also has a gunfortress.
Stompa mob with dreadnoughts
Three lots of stormboyz
Two lots of fighta bommerz (4 planes each)

The space marines (Blood Angels and Codex Marines, commanded by Enri and Mephiston)

I don’t have this list written down, but it was something like this...

Warlord titan
Two warhound titans
Spacecraft
Landing craft containing scouts and tactical marines
Devastators and tacticals in drop pods
Two formations of terminators
Death company
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk containing Blood Angel assault marines
Tactical formation
Scouts
Land speeders
Whirlwinds
Three squadrons of thunderbolts

We discussed the scenario before the game and made a couple of modifications. We decided that to claim Take and Hold you would need to hold both of the non-blitz objectives in your opponent’s half (ie the Temple couldn’t count as one of them). Also, to claim Defend the Flag you only needed to hold the two non-blitz objectives in your half. We felt that these changes would stop the Temple blitz objective being the only thing worth fighting for on the table.

I’m not going to do a full report of the battle, just some highlights and photos.

Deployment was very important to this game. When we were writing our list, McMullet and I expected the marines to take a Warlord, and for it to head straight up the middle of the table. We didn’t fancy the chances of one gargant against the Warlord, so we decided to take a gargant tag team and send them straight up the middle too. We were conscious that both of the gargants would be our BTS, which seemed a bad idea. So we upgraded an absolutely massive mob of orks to make them the BTS instead. Now our gargants could be even more gung ho in their approach to Warlord hunting.

It didn’t work out quite like that though. The marines deployed their warlord on their right flank, on the other side of the river. We were faced with a difficult choice (McMullet and I scampered off into the kitchen to whisper our secret plans). We could change our strategy and try to put enough stuff out on the flank to kill the Warlord, or we could take the “ignore it” option (often my favourite when facing Warlords). We opted for the latter – the gargants were placed in the centre and we prepared to seize the city with overwhelming force.

The gargant tag team, ready to crack some skulls...



Can you see that tiny speck in the far distance? That is the Warlord titan. Some might say it’s hiding. Ha!

Let the game begin...

One of our gargants saw a sneaky opportunity. It doubled straight up the road into the city (sprinting along with the extra 5cm per move!) and took a pot shot at the Death Company. Anyone who has shot with a gargant on the double will know that it is depressing business. Not today! McMullet rolled a beautiful handful of sixes and pretty much eliminated the Death Company as an effective fighting force. Nice.



My massive warband quickly moved forward into the buildings (they were frightened of being caught in the open, with the orbital barrage still to arrive). They were still not safe there, however. Enri’s whirlwinds enjoyed the rare pleasure for Whirlwinds of being a) alive and b) in range. They pounded the BTS badly, destroying loads of stands over the course of the game. Plenty more where they came from though!



Some stormboyz find a nice picnic spot in the woods.



Uncharacteristically for orks, the fighta-bommerz keep their distance, carefully skirting round the flak umbrella to pick off some scout Rhinos on the edge of the woods with their longer ranged rokkits.

The balance of power shifts dramatically. The space marine landing craft planetfalls on the wooded flank and deploys its marines.



Some drop pods join them, just for good measure, ripping into the surrounding orks on the way down. This lot looked like it would be tough to shift.



The orks decide to fight fire with fire. A landa descends from the sky, catching the landing craft and all its cargo in an intermingled assault. The battered kult of speed offers support.



The orks win the combat and the marines break. At this point, things were looking pretty rosy for the orks. But that was about to change.

Blood Angel assault troops deploy from a Thunderhawk, wreaking a bloody revenge on the kult of speed. After this, my mighty 28 unit kult of speed was forced to slink off to the corner of the table and do nothing for the rest of the game.



On the ork left flank, the Warlord titan advanced. He breakfasted on a stompa mob directly opposite him, ripping it to pieces in a single round of shooting and (I imagine) licking his lips.

The orks then sent some stormboyz in to do an annoying little dance around the Warlord. We were hoping that they might force the Warlord to waste a turn swatting them rather than doing something more useful.



The plan didn’t work. A Warhound snuck over the ford behind the canyon and dug his big brother out of trouble with mega-bolter fire, breaking the stormboyz.

Back on the right flank, orks and space marine scouts fought viciously through the trees, desperate to seize the watchtower (take and hold objective).



YEAH! Grab that objective!



Oh...



Frankly, these orky dudes stand no chance (particularly as that marsh doesn’t block line of sight). The left flank is lost to us.


The charming streets of Vardan



We’re now up to about the end of turn two and things are finely poised. The orks are looking very strong in the centre and hold the Temple of the Ecclesiarchy, but the marines have lots of troops left in the woods on the flank, and two virtually unopposed titans over the river.

I’ve run out of steam today ... to be continued ...

Wonderful report, scenery and figs! Thanks for posting!

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Fantastic report! And a fully painted/modelled board as well with two gargants, a warlord and warhounds!

Awesome stuff.

Great battle. I have not played a large weekend battle in ages. Thanks for sharing,

/Fredmans

Looking good, nice terrain

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

looking forward to the rest! Glad to see lots of sneakiness being used, underhand is often the best way

Same here - want to find out what happened.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

As turn three begins, the orks consolidate their grip on the city of Vardan. It looks as if it will be difficult for the space marines to wrestle the Temple of the Ecclesiarchy away from them.



The gargant rumbles through the streets and beats the Blood Angels in an engagement, forcing them out of the city (we were removing buildings when each area was occupied, for ease of play).



With the flank beyond the river (including a take and hold objective) firmly under Imperial control, the Warlord redeploys towards the centre to bring his mighty weaponry to bear.

Here he is, crossing the ford. Looking cool and taking names.

Turn three was drawing to a close and it was looking as if it was going to be difficult for either side to secure a decisive victory.

The score was 1-1. The orks had a tight grip over the blitz objective in the city (though there was still a thunderhawk full of terminators hovering, and nothing is ever certain when they’re about).

The marines controlled the two take and hold objectives in the ork half and didn’t look like giving them up any time soon.

The orks had just won control of one objective in the marine half, the watchtower over in the woods – the red gargant just about secured it, though he ended up on fire.

So if the orks could capture the other objective in the marine half, they would earn the take and hold goal and seize a 2-1 victory.

Unfortunately, that other objective looked something like this...



There was no realistic way we could get hold of that any time soon. But it’s always worth a try. An ork mob charged at the Warlord, guns blazing. Given that the titan wasn’t yet damaged, they were really hoping for a hugely lucky critical hit to bring him down.



They didn’t get it. Retribution was swift. The terminators in their thunderhawk swooped down in an air assault. Blood was spilled on both sides. The battlefortress got flipped over and killed a couple more orks, which was satisfying for everyone concerned, even (especially?) the orks. The Warlord weighed in with its mighty support fire.



When the smoke cleared, this is all that was left...



With that, we called it a day. A hard fought, bloody and very enjoyable 1-1 tie.

The orks have secured the city of Vardan and the important road running through it. However, with strong Imperial forces controlling the ground to the east and west, the orks cannot hope to move their forces on towards Acheron hive without getting horribly ambushed and harassed on the way. Honours even.

Thanks a lot to all the players for making it a great battle and a fun day.