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...and Part II due to posting limit...
TURN 3
The battle had not begun well. His untested tank crews had problems penetrating the enemy armour, one of his best tank commanders was horribly wounded and in all likelihood dying, and in a flash which even from a range blinded his auto-senses, glory-seeking Spearhead Six One had just got himself vaporized - exchanging three precious Land Speeders for just a single Leman Russ in the process. Brother Captain Niem was not angry to his subordinate for getting killed, for such is the fate of a warrior and the young lieutenant was probably already offering his explanations to the Gods of War, but the Captain did not like the win-loss ratio so far.
And report from Kargos on the west flank indicated that the second tank company was attacking their positions, though Kargos had sounded confident enough telling that he was going to stop them from flanking the beleaguered Marines. However, eight feet tall, muscular and an imposing sight even for a Marine, he was not a man to doubt himself or his battle-brothers, nor a man to give up no matter how hopeless a situation would seem. Even if they all were about to die today, at the very least they were still World Eaters and would take some of their enemies with them.
Armed with that thought, the aged veteran of countless campaigns under innumerable suns, one of the small number of original World Eaters who had followed the Emperor?s banner from the sacred Terra, one of the even more select few to receive their Valiant Service implants from the hand of the Warmaster himself, Brother-Captain Niem felt no fear - only a disturbing doubt, a depressing thought of the futility of it all, of the futility of dying on this unimportant world, fighting against mere men after a century of service combating foes too terrible to mention. Even though he felt his duty was to motivate his men and remind them of their duty with rousing speeches of sacrifice, he did not want to squander their lives fighting for lost causes.
It was not his voice which ordered his troops to prepare for an assault.
Won strategy roll again, surprise surprise. Captain Niem barks orders to the comm-net, and Alexandria and Cairo Detachments charge the Red Coy Leman Russes. Only four stands, not including the Captain, make it to base contact. Ensuing firefight wrecks two Russes, but at cost ? four Marine stands perish. The battle is a draw, and a second round of slaughter ensues. This time only two Marine stands get into contact, but otherwise the fight goes better and in exchange for three Marine units an equal number of Leman Russes get melta-bombed. Unfortunately, despite having overwhelming advantage in numbers and blast markers, the dice roll goes against the World Eaters, and the both Marine detachments break, losing a stand and a Rhino in the process ? but so breaks the Red Coy, making a frantic retreat move (even though they didn?t have to, being winners and all) towards their ?Big Brothers? aka Shadowswords!
(Note: We both made a number of mistakes here, both tactical and rules-wise. First, I shouldn?t have made the mistake of using the Land Speeders on the previous turn in a futile attack when they would have been much more useful in the firefight, secondly, I did not manage to get the Captain on base contact with the tanks, or more stands in base contact for that matter, and thirdly, before the assault I should have first fired at the Russ detachment with the Land Raiders since even one destroyed Russ would have made the difference. Ruleswise, we ignored that you throw two dice and pick the highest, which had a great impact since he rolled a 6 and I rolled 2, when my dice roll modifier was greater by two points! For the retreat, we used the ?They Shall Know No Fear?-rule as it was printed on the pdf rulebook, which is out of date as far as I know.
In addition, I should have moved the Rhinos to front when it was clear that I couldn?t get more Marines in base contact, since those units closest to the enemy are removed first ? now I ended up with more Rhinos than Marines, which clearly is not a way to go!)
After the debacle with Immortal Leman Russes, I retain the initiative and Kargos?s detachment sustains fire on the White Coy Russes trying to force their way around the edge of forest but still out of charge range. Kargos had obviously trained his Marines well, for his gunners take out the lead tank?but the remainder advance and fire - the aforementioned Rhino in exposed position, as well as one Marine stand, are not lucky this time and both buy the farm.
I?m somewhat hesitant to move the Land Raiders in pursuit of the Red Coy Leman Russes, as the Shadowswords would make short work of them, and instead I try to cleverly box the White Coy Russes with my remaining two Speeders by speeding them via Black Forest Highway towards west. VERY BAD IDEA, since now they are (again!) in view of the Shadowswords, which promptly dispose of both. At this point we start paying attention to the victory conditions, and notice that my opponent would have won by achieving the Blitzkrieg and Defend the Flag conditions, had he only stayed put with his White Coy - at the start of the turn they were well within 15cms of my objective?
At the end phase, every formation rallies.
TURN 4
Brother-Lieutenant Harren was at his element. Appointed as the Lieutenant of Detachment Cairo, he had always hated to be an instructor. Somewhere deep down, he knew he was doing an important job to further the cause of the Emperor, that his trainees would bring glory to the Legion, but that knowledge did not make him feel happy. Although ever obedient, for long months he had sorely missed the thrill of battle as the rage that boiled inside him - the lust for blood that was always gnawing at the bottom of his stomach - did not subside. He was happy only when he had an enemy ahead of him, a bolter kicking in one armoured fist, beating a rhythm to a chainsword screaming its song of death in the other. Some of his trainees had openly feared him; he hated those, too, as he hated weakness of any kind. After he had killed one particularly annoying weakling in assault training, the Captain himself had sternly warned him and arranged a transfer from training duties for several months. Although he had liked his other duties even less, he did not hate the Captain, as he respected leadership and strength, and the Captain had both in seemingly unlimited amounts. So, despite his requests of transfer, he had remained on the side of his Captain on this miserable world, incapable of even training proper Assault Marines as all of the rare and precious jump packs coming from factories were sent to their brethren in active war zones.
What he really hated on this planet were those puny humans who masqueraded as warriors, and this morning he had been very happy when the Captain had announced that they would have a chance to kill them. Traitors or no traitors, he would have liked to kill them anyway.
As the World Eaters charged down the road to the rebel tank formation, Brother Lieutenant was at the fore, screaming his battle cries to the horrified tank crews, a figure of Fear Incarnate, his chainsword whirring and his bolter thundering as he ran towards the nearest tank he could see, oblivious to the angry tracers and the clouds of dust they kicked from the ground, unaware of the punishing fire which reaped his comrades both left and right, the only conscious thought in his mind being an imperative urge to slay as many as he could. With a mighty roar, he jumped effortlessly on top of the nearest Leman Russ, its turret turning right and left, left and right in a desperate attempt to locate its tormentor, but for nought as Harren pulled a bundle of melta grenades from his belt and thrust them through the tank?s engine grille. Jumping clear and rolling on landing as the pressure wave from the tank-turned fireball hit him, he immediately pumped bolter rounds through the next tank?s driver vision slit. Having spent his few melta grenades, he ascended the second Leman Russ and started to rip the commander?s hatch open. With his superhuman strength enhanced by his frenzied state and his Mk6 armour, the hatch gave way and in an instant his bolter was alive again, its heavy rounds turning the tank?s commander into a mush. Ducking a las-bolt, he flung a couple of micro-grenades inside. Amidst the explosions he heard muffled shrieks and he felt happiness.
A movement caught his eye, and before he even consciously knew what he was doing, his instincts had turned him on top of the smoke-belching wreck and made him shred the fleeing sponson gunner with two well-placed shots. He was now alive; he did not pay attention to the bloody battle raging around him or the fortunes of war turning against his battle brothers, and even had he noticed it, he would not have cared about anything else except the ways to slake the thirst for blood. And so he did not neither know nor care when a questing flicker of a las-targeter beam intensified and solidified into a retina-searing flame of las-cannon, transferring megajoules of energy into his armour in microseconds, turning the proud Lieutenant into incandescent cloud of boiling molecules and his valued armour into unrecognizable pieces of white-hot shrapnel.
In the field and in the forest, in the countless other places throughout the Crimson Line, the Emperor?s terror troops known as the World Eaters killed, and killed, and died, and died. They did not give quarter nor did they ask for any; as was the tradition of their Legion, any who stood against them on the field of battle would die, either a Warrior?s death, or a Coward?s, that did not matter - to the hulking brutes clad in armour blue and white it was all the same, as long as they died.
Again a six on the strategy roll. The Land Raiders double moved to face the tanks of the White Coy; shooting had obviously improved, as they managed to knock one out. Kargos?s detachment advances in cover of the woods, joins the fray and, reliably, another Russ starts to burn, it?s running crew being cut down by bolter fire. On the Guard player?s turn, he retreats his remaining White Coy Russes with march move back to the road. The western attack being thwarted, the rest of the turn sees my remaining A and C detachment Marines taking hold of an objective near the hedgerows and the superheavies rumbling forward for better positions ? but failing to see any Marines.
A tie breaker roll is in order, and after some consultations with the rules, we find out that the rebel Guard has won a points victory ? 325 vs 525; 200 points from the destroyed Land Speeder squadron alone! Oh woe!
If only I had got one more Leman Russ from the White Coy (thus reducing it to half strength), or had the assault gone in my favour (another case where a single destroyed Russ would have made the difference)?a very, very close game, and extremely entertaining to boot.
AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSIONS:
Brother-Captain Niem did not see the pillars of black smoke rising from burning tanks. Neither did he notice the acrid smells of gunpowder, of ozone, and of burning plastic, rubber, and flesh. He only saw the all too familiar sight, a sight he had seen so many times. Amidst their fallen foes, amidst the smoke of the battlefield, the Marines were collecting their dead and administering to their wounded.
They had repulsed the enemy, but the lines of dead and wounded were long. There was Lieutenant Coyl, his torso from waist down a burned, mangled mass it had became when a Vanquisher?s armour piercing round had turned his Land Raider?s commander position into a raging inferno. Brother Hagor, silent in death, dragged here by his comrades after even his formidable physiology had failed. Novices Gramm and Julius, scythed down by a heavy bolter when trying to reach the tanks. There was an armless, blackened and distorted body of novice whose name Captain could not remember, the one who had held a melta-charge against tank?s hull until it had detonated. Of Lieutenant Harren they had only found his boot soles, still smoking, fused to the hull of the Leman Russ he had destroyed in his final battle. Somehow the Captain had found that sight disturbing, even after all his years as a Space Marine and a World Eater.
At the last count, his Company had lost thirty killed and forty-two seriously wounded. Two Land Raiders and a Rhino were wrecked yet perhaps salvageable, but of his five Land Speeders, biggest fragments found so far were half-molten pieces of metal the size of a child?s fist.
And the battle for Fulda Gap had only begun.
Even though the lightly-armed World Eaters suffered horrendous casualties in the initial engagements, they were able to slow down the advancing rebel army, giving time for other loyalist forces to mobilize. After a major, three-day running battle with the rebels on the approaches to the Brome Haven, the World Eater training garrisons were reduced to about 50% strength, and losses in heavy equipment were even higher. The lines, albeit stretched to a limit by the rebel offensive and with virtually no reserves to spare, did however hold the tide. Reinforced by hastily assembled units of the Adeptus Arbites, the Adeptus Ministorum and local militia, the Marines were able to hold the Brome Haven spaceport until the arrival of off-world reinforcements three weeks later, although the manufacturing centre of Sax did fall into enemy?s hands and was gutted with high-yield plasma devices to deny its facilities from the rebels.
With the arrival of the reinforcement fleet led by World Eater frigate Eisenstein, the Marines took to the offensive. Instead of attacking the enemy main forces, and under cover of relentless orbital bombardment, three companies of World Eater assault troops conducted a spaceborne assault to the Lord Commandant?s Palace in the rebel capital of Krov. In a ruthless battle, the World Eaters seized the remnants of the Palace and set out to slaughter anyone found inside the Palace grounds. After General Buhallin, his family and his aides had been captured and beheaded for their treachery, dropships were dispatched to lift the assault force to safety. As a reminder of the Emperor?s displeasure, frigate Eisenstein covered the departing Marine dropships with a two-hour barrage of Hellstorm missiles, wiping out large numbers of the rebel forces as well as most of the population centres on the eastern half of the continent. Leaderless and demoralized, facing the wrath of the World Eaters, majority of the surviving rebel troops surrendered within one week.
Well, what can I say? Except that Leman Russes are TOUGH, and the tank army IS forgiving to many mistakes, whereas my limited Marine force could ill afford any. My basic strategy was sound - I think ? but where I failed was the implementation. I almost played my enemy?s game by firefighting with the Russ Company, not a wise move at all although the Marine?s doggedness (not to mention their numbers) very nearly carried the day. For one thing, I would have needed bikes, or assault marines, or preferably both ? tactical marines are great non-specialists and few troops are their match in close combat, but against tank companies more mobile forces are needed. (In retrospect, I may have made the gravest blunder when I disembarked my Marines to fire at the tanks on the turn before the assault ? had they remained in their Rhinos, many more would have gotten into base contact and the assault would have had completely different results. I think I was unnecessarily afraid of them getting hit while embarked!)
Mobility, mobility, mobility is the key!
Another case in point calling for even more mobile forces are the war engines. In this game I deliberately avoided them; had I had any Assault Marines, however, I think they would have been my prime target. And in other kinds of terrain with less cover and better firing positions for the superheavies, those three Shadowswords might have been a real headache to engage with tactical marines only.
The game was smooth-running, intuitive, easy to learn, fast, had the ?feel? right and was great fun ? and in the process, I managed to get one Epic: Armageddon convert ? the following morning, my opponent went to the store and bought one of the old Epic 40,000 boxes to get started on an Ork army?
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-Janne Korhonen
ODERINT DUM METUANT
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