I was on the end set of tables with Black Legion, allied with fellow Chaos generals E&C (Vraksians), and Tiny-Tim (Lost and the Damned) against the Imperial aggressors Kryt (Steel Legion), MikeT (Ulani Tank Rgt.), and Marcus (Marines) – with Tiny-Tim and Kryt moving to a different table set for the final game. Many tense changes lie ahead for anyone bored enough to read.
Game 1:The first game was 1v1 with the imperials at a points advantage attacking the industrial outskirts, attempting to take two building objectives on the table midline.
Black Legion 3000pts: 3 retinues (2 in rhinos), 2 chosen with rhinos, armoured coy. (2 pred./2LR), terminators, feral, feral, decimator, hellblades. Then a few upgrades and 5 lesser daemons to make up the missing points
Steel legion (Kryt) 4000pts, not sure on the exact list but it included: RHQ+fire support, Infantry coy, deathstrikes, manticores, a 2nd artillery battery? (bombards?), 2 sentinel squadrons, thunderbolts, marauder bombers, ‘an amount’ of leman russ and SHTs, and presumably some flack.
A slow but bloody game, Black Legion took heavy casualties with deathstrikes and shadowswords knocking out the chaos superheavies. Despite inflicting superior damage the Steel Legion struggled to take the building objectives as they only had two infantry formations (and the foot company had failed to activate on turn 1). The game ended in a draw on our table.
Game 2:3v3 on 3 partially instanced tables with indirect fire allowed between the tables and formations moving across table boundaries falling under the control of that table’s allied general. Imperial forces continued their advance, attempting to take control of two gates on the central tables with additional objectives on the flanking tables. For me this meant trying to prevent the Ulani from holding an airfield and then moving across to aid the Vraksians holding eastern gate.
Black Legion 4000pts: 3 terminator formations upgraded with obliterators, DP, pact, focus, and extra terminators. (The reason for this excess was that teleports could be made onto any of the three tables, so I was essentially taking terminators for all 3 chaos players.)
3 retinues, chosen, armoured coy., feral, feral, decimator, deathwheel, hellblades, 10 lesser deamons.
Ulani Tank Rgt. (MikeT): RHQ, 2 tank coy., +additional leman russ formations that I forget the details of? , tank hunters, hydra battery, griffons, basilisks, 2 salamander formations, 2 shadowswords, baneblade, thunderbolts
Each side got some free toys as part of the campaign: Black Legion were gifted a decimator and 4 land raider armoured coy., while Ulani took control of an additional leman russ formation and another SHT.
With the airfield near the Ulani deployment and just across from the inner table edge (the one adjoining the table with the gate objectives) both players set up heavily on the inner edge to give the option of moving supporting units across to aide the central board later in the game. The Ulani advanced slowly in the first turn, setting up obscured tank destroyers in the centre of the table protected by a scout screen to prevent a chaos breakthrough towards their armoured gun line. Black Legion moved forwards in cover, both sides taking some casualties with the advantage to Ulani.
The terminator formations came in at the start of turn 2, one formation teleporting near the steel legion’s reaver titan to support the Vraksians and the remaining formations appearing next to Ulani Russ formations. The LaTD were in a weak position against the Steel Legion on the far table and it was decided not to commit further troop to the board, later in the game LaTD formations broke through onto the central board, helping to contest the gates against the marine assault. Retaining across all three boards the reaver was heavily damaged and broken while both russ formations met a similar fate. The Ulani had some truly awful activation rolls from this point on in the game, undermining their counter attack following the terminator assault. Overwatch tank hunters held the centre of the board while overwatch chaos marines covered the outer flank of the battle. With the two large Ulani formations out of action the war engines on each side exchanged shots and DC while the smaller chaos units stripped away the imperial scout screen. Both players moved two formations across to the central ‘gate’ table, a BL decimator and retinue attacking the marines contesting the nearest gate and Ulani tanks moving over to aggress those same BL formations.
In the following turns the terminators broke additional small Ulani formations while retinues moved up to take the airfield. The BL deathweel took heavy damage from a stormblade while the decimator on the central table fell to a single shadowsword shot, while its companion war engine on the airfield table was reduced to 1DC. With the scouts broken or destroyed the ferals rushed through to the centre of the Ulani army, flailing ineffectually at two SHTs but preventing most of the broken tank formations from rallying at the end of the turn.
A draw was achieved across the three table: Vraksians and Marines contested the gates on the central table, the LaTD had fallen to the Steel Legion on the far table, while the Ulani lost the airfield to Black Legion. MikeT was extremely sporting and gave me a lot of help in positioning assaults against his own tanks, as well as assorted extra tactical and rules advice.
Game 32v2 on two fully combined tables joined short edge on. Black legion and Vraksians deployed back to back down at the table join, with 6k of imperials attacking from both short edges (12k total imperials). Each imperial army had to get more than half way across the table opposite the one on which each had deployed, having to smash through the chaos forces and cross over in the middle. This report mostly relates to the BL vs Marines on the table half that Markus and I had deployed on.
Vraksians and Black legion: Chaos had plenty of buildings in which to deploy infantry. The Vraksians facing off against the Ulani provided a flack bubble for the chaos forces as their traitor reaver titan towered over the defensive positions and their large infantry formations filled the ruins and woods. Black Legion deployed against the marines, pigging out on four decimators to lurk behind buildings, waiting for the imperial advance …
Marines and Ulani: The Ulani presented a sea of armour (I think around 70 hulls, all types), with heavy flack cover and some artillery support. Marines split their forces into three: 1) a ground force anchored around a reaver and warhound deployed on table to meet up with 2) three drop-podding devastator formations and 3) two thunderhawks (air assault) carrying assault and tactical marines.
The first turn was reasonably uneventful save for the imperial reaver being knocked down to 1DC by deathstrikes – massed imperial marching on both sides, a few shots exchanged, chaos overwatch the chaos reaver striding out of its wooded cover with guns blazing as it moved out of range of the approaching shadowswords – until the marine drop towards the end of the turn. The orbital barrage had little effect, having been plotted in the very centre of the chaos deployment which was mostly empty. 2 stands of retinue were destroyed and a few blast markers inflicted. Three devastator formations dropped into the buildings just in front of the chaos lines. Presented with such close targets the BL decimators rolled (or, in the case of my chaos squat proxies, waddled) out from cover and belched out MW barrages onto the three formations, reducing each to a single, broken, stand.
While the drop assault had been blunted and the imperial reaver broken, the remaining Marines on board had marched behind and to the side of a small hill ~45cm away from the nearest chaos units, with woods and buildings in the intervening gap. With so many marine formations bottlenecked into such a small space this looked like an ideal target for a forlorn hope chaos terminator assault, with the plan to summon up infiltrating chaos beasts on arrival and pull in a whirlwind, predator, scout and warhound formation. That was the plan. So of course Chaos lost activation and the terminators got shot in the face, falling back broken into the buildings that the devastators had just vacated. The Vraksian artillery had better luck, three minotaurs managing to cover the same target marine formations plus some more devastators with their blast templates, causing casualties and a good spread of blast markers. From this point on I think Markus and I both had a pretty frustrating turn 2. With their SC off board in the thunderhawk the marines failed 3 activations in a row and mostly remained in their bunched up position by the hill. For my part the Black Legion made their activations but were unable to kill anything, even with MW barrages – the only meaningful activations for BL coming on the other half of the table against the Ulani who lost their thunderbolts to hellblades and took casualties from a decimator and chaos armoured company on the flank. The Ulani continued a blanket advance against the Vraksians with light artillery support, both sides exchanged casualties. BL ended the turn with more than half their formations broken against the Marines (despite the poor Marine activation rolls the whirlwinds had found their targets) but rallied well with decimators in a threatening positions to sustain on the bunched up Marines in the 3rd turn.
Marines teleported in their terminators, just across from two decimators which had been left intermingled. Fortunately Chaos won the initiative – one decimator moved out of intermingledness and put blast markers onto the terminators, followed by a retain and assault by a retinue, braking the marines with the aid of supporting fire from both of the decimators. It seemed neither side was to have much luck with terminators this game. The marines assaulted the decimator nearest their position, but it shrugged off the attack and sustained, catching three formations under a single template but causing few casualties. Across the board the Ulani, despite damaging the Vraksains, had slowed in their advance and taken casualties as they met resistance from Chaos armour and infantry formations, with most of the salamanders being destroyed and/or broken. Towards the end of the turn the thunderhawks made their move, aiming for the BL front line (the Vraksian reaver had been screened off as a potential target by BL scouts). The supreme commander and his tacticals spearheaded the assault, only to be promptly blown out of the sky by CAPing hellblades. The second Thawk flew through three instances of flack and disgorged assault marines, who won their assault resoundingly and consolidated into buildings. As the Thawk flew off it was shot down by Vraksian AA, meaning that all of the marine troops were now on the table.
In turn 4 the Chaos forces began to struggle for activations. Having been stalled for three turns the rallied Marines managed to clear the decimators from the road, causing most of the damage with assault marines and warhound plasma shots. On the Ulani side the Chaos forces had knocked out a good number of tanks, but not enough, and now found the guard heavy armour sitting very close to formations which had been taking a beating throughout the game. A few activations into turn 4 all players agreed to declare a draw – if played for longer the Imperials would inevitably have outnumbered and destroyed the Chaos forces, but at the same time neither Imperial force had managed to get to the mid point of the table, let alone half way across the opposite board.
It was great to meet everyone, and thanks for putting up with my incompetence with regards to the rules
