Good V’s Bad!

Tuesday the 17th of March saw the combined forces of Imperial Guard and Ultramarines come together to do battle against the vile forces of the Chaos Iron Warriors. The game was to be 16,000 per side, but with the Imperial forces grabbing the defense of the city we decided that it was a good idea to allow 2,000 points for defenses, so it ended up being Emperors forces: 14,000 V’s Chaos:16,000.

Heres a breakdown of the armies:

IG @10K

• Regemental HQ with support squad
• Artillery Co. #1 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Artillery Co. #2 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Artillery Co. #3 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Superheavy tank Co. (2 shadowswords & 1 Baneblade) with 3 Russ support
• Tank Co. with 3 Russ support
• Inf Co. #1 with support squad & Snipers
• Inf Co. #2 with support squad & Snipers and 3 Griffons
• Stormtrooper Platoon #1 in Valkyries
• Stormtrooper Platoon #2 in Valkyries
• Hydra Flak Battery #1
• Hydra Flak Battery #2
• Hydra Flak Battery #3
• Hydra Flak Battery #4
• Rough Riders
• Deathstrike missile Battery #1
• Deathstrike missile Battery #2
• 2 Warhounds
• Warlord #1
• Warlord #2
• Thunderbolt fighters (2 squads)
• Marauder Bombers (2 squads)

Ultramarines @ 4K (I think this is right….)

• Tactical squad with Force commander in Razorbacks and a Hunter
• Tactical squad with Rhino’s and a Hunter
• Whirlwinds with Hunter
• Scouts on foot
• Devastator formation #1 in Rhino’s with a Hunter
• Devastator formation #2 in Rhino’s with a Hunter
• Assault Formation
• Teleporting Termies with a Librarian
• Land Raiders Formation
• Warlord

Chaos @ 16K

Ground Forces
• Chaos Marine Retinue #1 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Chaos Marine Retinue #2 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Chaos Marine Retinue #3 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Havoc Retinue #1 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Havoc Retinue #2 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Armoured Company of Predators #1
• Armoured Company of Predators #2
• Armoured Company of Predators #3
• Armoured Company of Land Raider #1
• Armoured Company of Land Raider #2
• Assault Artillery Company of Vindicators
• Assault Company of Decemators
• Artillery Company #1
• Artillery Company #2
• Forlorn Hope #1
• Forlorn Hope #2
Strike Team
• Devastation Class Cruiser
• Chosen Retinue #1 with Lord, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chosen Retinue #2 with Lord, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chaos Marine Retinue #1 with Lord, Havocs, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chaos Marine Retinue #2 with Lord, Havocs, Champion, & Dreadclaws
Titan Legion
• Abominatus Imperator Titan
• Banelord Titan #1
• Banelord Titan #2
• Reaver Titan with Plasma Blastgun, Vulcan Megabolter & Wrecker
• Reaver Titan with Vulcan Megabolter, Missile Launcher & Claw
Chaos Navy
• Helltalons #1
• Helltalons #2
• Hellblades #1
• Hellblades#2

Turn 1

The Board was set up and the defenders were deployed into the safe places behind their defensive lines. The three main IG Infantry units taking the main dug out line just shy of the halfway mark on the board at the southern end, with Snaps Ultra’s taking the defenses at the Northern.

_________________
Check out the Nationwide Aussie Epic Campaign:

http://epiccampaign.proboards80.com/index.cgi

Then the Hoarde of metal came, the Iron Warriors!





It was basically a Gentlemen’s game, so we agreed the Attacker should go first (I knew this was a bad idea…) and so Cal decided to use the biggest and nastiest weapon in his arsenal, The Imperator. He opened fire on poor innocent IG defenders, they took this in their stride as the defenses gave them a huge amount of cover from these weapons. The IG Artillery replied and sent one of the IW’s Artillery Co’s running for cover, which received a reply from the 2nd IW Artillery, and so began a game of Artillery hammering the board, the 3 IG Artillery Co’s were to be quite pivotal in the breaking up of the lines of the IW’s, but the strength and the re-rolls of all the large units of Chaos Land raiders (carrying troops) made them almost impossible to stop this way.

The Highlight of the day for the Chaos came with the 2 IG Deathstrike batteries hitting the Imperator and both of them rolling snake eyes for damage!!!! It was almost enough to cry about, but the game had to go on and the Shadowlords did a few more hits on the void shields. On the other side of the board we saw the two Warhounds hit the Decemator formation and do some serious Blast marking and wounding, while on the other side the UM’s Warlord moved foreward to hit one of the Banelords and it was supported by the Land Raiders hitting a Predator formation and doing some damage to it.

The one thing to remember about this first turn was that this was a game of 1’s. 1’s were rolled for hits, 1’s were rolled for saves and most importantly 1’s were rolled for initiative. About half of Cals forces suffered this problem, my Death strikes as I mentioned suffered from this and also my Marauders, who were busy in the officers club drinking Iced tea when the call came up to go onto CAP. The Thunderbolts did as they were told and when Cal’s first set of bombers came, the thunderbolts jumped into action, this however lead to Cal’s fighters hitting them and my fighters then hitting him from a 2nd squad of fighters. At the end of it I lost 2 thunderbolt squads and had a broken stormtrooper formation, while Cal had lost a single fighter formation and one other fighter from the 2nd formation.

The end of turn one saw the  centre of the city was still quite strong with the 3 Artillery Co’s and 5 Flak Batteries, the front line holding its own against the heavy pounding that the Chaos were hitting it with and the Ultramarines moving into position for the enemy that was coming from the front. But both Snap and I knew that this would not be the case by the end of turn two with so much still not on the board, meanwhile Cal’s mischievous smile just continued to stay there while he listened to the crazy ramblings of two beginner Commanders.

_________________
Check out the Nationwide Aussie Epic Campaign:

http://epiccampaign.proboards80.com/index.cgi

_________________
Check out the Nationwide Aussie Epic Campaign:

http://epiccampaign.proboards80.com/index.cgi

Turn 2

Turn two began at about 1:30 with Snap having to leave at 2!!!! So to get him into the game and with the good guys gaining control of the Initiative he decided to deep strike behind the lines of  one of the Artillery Co’s, this had a terribly devastating effect on the Artillery who were there one minute and then gone the next. The retention of initiative led him to hit the Predators with his Land Raiders and they ran away. Cal replied by annihilating the Super heavy Tank company and then the sky’s then opened up with the Orbital bombardment coming down onto the IG front lines where the super heavies had been, with only limited effect.

The Ultramarines Titan tried to take the stage and opened fire, trying to take down the nearest opposing banelord, without too much success. Then the pain came next…

Three Dreadclaws landed in the Ultramarines quadrant, opened fire on everything within 15cm’s and then 2 Retinues and a Chosen formation appeared. The words that Snap wanted to say are not allowed to be published here but went something along the lines of Moley Fire truck! However luckily for the Marines most of them had taken cover in fortifications and most of the damage that they received was vehicular damage and not Infantry. But a retention of initiative saw a retinue formation charge Snaps command formation, it was a fairly close combat (from what I can remember, as it went very quickly so that we could Keep snap as long as possible), but in the end it saw Snaps command running from the scene and the formation taking control of an objective (1 out of 4 attained).


At this point Snap had to leave and we had a quick bite to eat, then the pain commenced. With my turn being next I decided to repay the favor and hit three of the dreadclaw units with Artillery, and this was where my rolls came into their own, I hit 12 out of 17 guys that were in cover and 6 of 10 that were in the open, not enough to break anything but enough to get the ball rolling, I retained initiative and then hit the same 3 units with a stormtrooper formation, the missile pods that are disrupt caused two units to panic and the third were chosen and so they didn’t run, but they were in serious problems.


Cal began the hard push into Snaps titan hitting him with a Predator detachment, a land raider detachment and a Banelord over the next 2 activations, he took some serious wounds, but was still standing which Im sure would have brought a smile to Snaps face. Meanwhile over the same two activations one of my Warlords hit the Decemators and made them run and the warhounds and a Marauder squad hit a Predator formation, breaking them as well. But the Land Raiders were still just coming…

_________________
Check out the Nationwide Aussie Epic Campaign:

http://epiccampaign.proboards80.com/index.cgi

A few more turns of  Rever punishment for the IG infantry saw them come out pretty much only with more blast markers that they were to later marshal, the front line of IG still held. The final actions that we both did were for my 2nd Warlord to hit a Reaver with a few shots and Cal replied with a Land raider formation coming up on the 1st Warlord and doing a wound that was to cause a critical and made the reactor unstable.

We called it at about 4:30 as we both needed to end it here, we called it a draw as neither side had scored any of the EA objectives that they could, but seriously, there was no real chance of the IG/SM being able to take down the Imperator, let alone the rest of those huge formations.







A big thanks goes to Cal for the organization of the day and also a special thanks to Snap for running late to work on account of the biggest game of Epic that either of us has ever seen.

I definitely want to do this again sometime soon. Bring on the pain!

_________________
Check out the Nationwide Aussie Epic Campaign:

http://epiccampaign.proboards80.com/index.cgi

Awesome.Epic.Win!

This is what it's all about. Some friends tried playing 30k of Apocalypse over a weekend and I'm sure it was nothing compared to this sight! How much manoeuvre room do you have on a 6' deep board when you only have 24" between armies? With Epic there is a real sense of scale and ability to move vast distances to help defenders / exploit holes.

Well done!

D.

_________________
Epic:Armageddon... Like Apocalypse but for grown-ups.

[b]Bearded Dice[/b]: [url]http://bearded-dice.co.uk[/url]

Thanks for posting. I love big battles.  I've always felt the Imperator (and others of its ilk) needed to be upgunned but a lot more points so they would dominate the board both in power and cost.  However this game looks like it did that just fine with the lower stats...  Sheesh!  That thing is a monster!

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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

I am eventually going to have to get involved in one of these insane games with you guys.

If only travelling accross Australia didn't involve over 4000 km of driving .

_________________
Epic- A version of the game with even smaller models that is often dominated by titans which are vehicles the size of a large building and have the ability to pwn...everything. There is also infantry, whose only function in Epic is to provide valuable traction to Titans walking across snowy paths.

Looks great!

How big was that table?

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Yeah, this is what Epic is all about.    

_________________
"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

That was a really EPIC game!
Thanks for that Battle Report!
Now I want to have such a game as well. The Chaos player has an Imperator Titan at our club and I estimate he could field easily at least 8000 points. Then the other players combined... yep, that could get big, even if not as big as yours.

Woowee, that's great, thanks for the Rep.

Daemonkin, think we can rustle up enough space, time and minis for a like game?

_________________
I'm involved in Nunnery Practice
My latest Blog http://www.players.tacticalwargames.net ... p?blogId=8

J, I think our missuses would have something to say about that!

I say yeah!

D.

_________________
Epic:Armageddon... Like Apocalypse but for grown-ups.

[b]Bearded Dice[/b]: [url]http://bearded-dice.co.uk[/url]

Well done guys.
It's really good to see the Iron Warrior's in action.

Steve.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

Great Report and it looks like an amazing battle. Thanks for sharing.

_________________
_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion