10K Apocalypse Showdown! Battle Report

So January comes along and we arranged an apocalypse game. As usual Chriss allowed us to use his fine office for the game. What a nice place it is too! Lots of space, clean and great for warhammer. It really makes it nicer to play larger games when this are well organised.

The Teams!

Team Eeeeevil!:
Rik - Necrons
Mons - Eldar
Jack - Dark Eldar & Imperial Guard

VS

Team Good guys!:
Rottimus - Black Scorpions (Blood angels)
Chriss - Ultramarines
Magnus - Imperial Guard and Deathwing!

Team Evil was comprised of a large varied force of Necrons. Everything from Triach stalkers, immortals, a monolith, destroyer lord etc. 4 nasty sentry pylons were also placed.
The Eldar came along with a Cobra Super Heavy Grav tank, a Revenant Titan, jet bikes, striking scorpions and Eldrad who was their Warmaster!
Jack had a horde of imperial guard, some tanks and 1500 points of stabby dark eldar.

Team Good guys was comprised of two very powerful deepstriking forces. 51 Deathwing terminators in a deathwing redemption force was present. These guys made Look out sirs impossible for the enemy and also gained victory points for slaying enemy warlords!
Chriss also had a whole bunch of terminators and drops pods. In fact his entire army was deepstriking.
I on the other hand took mostly artillery, tanks and a Mega Dread superheavy walker. A handful of deathcompany and some Vanguard also accompanied amongst other things. Stokahn Hammerhand (mephiston) would ride in on a stormraven as our Warmaster!

The table:

A nice, detailed battlefield. Good spread of terrain!

The evil forces deploy!

 We sectioned out the table. I.e Each player was allowed 1 third of the table to deploy. This was to allowed the game to progress quicker. It meant each player focussed on a small area for at least the first few turns. The evil forces deployed deep and conservatively, they were aware of the deep strike forces arrayed against them!

Necrons await the inevitable din of battle!

These misguided rebels joined the filthy xenos. Two Sentry pylons loom, ready to fire at incoming units.

Armour and bodies!, Would they hold the line?

The good guys dig in in the forest. An aegis autocannon stands ready- Several Leman russes and basilisks ready for action.

Linebreakers ready, a manticore is ready for action too. Magnus' Guard platoon hold the right flank

Coolness! One objective taken from the get go!

Here comes the boom!

Eldar sighted!

Turn 1

Turn one would be interesting. With 100% of Chriss' forces off the table and 90% of Magnus' as well. It was up to me to weather the storm of the first turn (The forces of evil went first!) Interestingly though, They had been conservative with their deployment and did not want to over extend due to the coming deep strike extravaganza about to begin. Good placement of units and a cunning Blind Barrage from me resulted in a nice 36 inch line which they could not see through, a vast swathe of my army was now untargetable save for barrage. Mons' Cobra fired it's scary D weapon at my basilisk. It scattered slightly killing a few troops and vapourising a basilisk as intended. My forces were quite spread out. With that, their turn was over. The Blind Barrage and the fact that the Revenant Titan was in reserve meant that their first turn was much lighter than I feared. I'd made it through!

It was our turn to go! Chriss' whipped out the stratagem that allowed for deepstriking without scatter. In came 71 terminators, 3 drop pods with tactical marines. A huge amount of terminators were concentrated in one place, right in front of the necrons' Aegis line. Shooting all over the line took place. Shooting was relatively ineffective unfortunately but we were in amongst them!, My artillery was effective, taking hull points here and there. My master of ordinance who was very effective struck down a triach stalker, immobilising it. Our flyers also came in, but 3 were shot out of the sky immediately by nasty sentry pylons. My manticore rolled for 3 missiles, but they scattered off the table. A sad moment. Two vanguard squad heriocally intervened but failed miserably to hit and wound and were cut down by striking scorpions. The vanguard were an epic failure! Chriss' Tacticals managed to take 4 hulls points off the cobra, just with shooting.

At this point we took our first break. We tallyed the score. We had taken 5 objectives, and the enemy 1. So it stood 5 to 1. A good start for the forces of good!

Turn 2

Turn 2 started with gasp. Our enemy were shocked. There lines were now chaos!, so many units up close demanding their attention. They conferred with each other and began their response. At this point Magnus' revealed a stroke of genius. A shield generator right in the middle of about 50 terminators meant they could not be targetted. Again the forces of evil were unable to shoot with about half their army due to lack of targets or range.

Just a cool pic above. Iron Hand Straken and the Master of Ordnance direct the battle from the bombed out ruins of the tavern. The revenant titan entered the fray and zapped a vindicator and several terminator squads.

 Above is a pic of the battlefield at the very start of turn 2, in the middle you can see the massive collection of terminators awaiting their chance to strike.  At this point the diabolical evil plan was revealed. The necrons played the stratagem that removes the armour save from ALL enemy units within 3d6 of the necron lord. Rik rolled a respectable 9'' covering about 40 terminators. They kept their 5+ and 3+ invulnerable saves but all of a sudden, they seemed much more vulnerable. It was only the shield generator that saved them from certain destruction!

 War walkers out flank to our right side, challenging Magnus' position there.

The forces of evil still had some units to move with, a jet fighter struck down a stormtalon. Jet bikes moved out towards my lines killing some men. The monolith deepstriked and failed to do any damage to my tanks. Many tactical marines in their deployment began to fall, Chriss' terminators failed to make it into close combat (snake eyes! for his assault roll) Chriss's forces were being pummeled by the combined fire of several Dire Avengers squads and jet bikes. His marines held but suffered a fair amount of casualies.

The horde surges forward!

Monolith in our lines!

Our turn 2 was when things went both wrong and right. The now armour-less terminators in the middle surged forward, they would still make a mess of the necrons in close combat due to better wargear and initiative.

I had to deal with these fuckers somehow. 

The terminators moved forward, a super heavy and two dreadnoughts reinforced my rear where dark eldar had just appeared.

A mortis and a furioso appear along with a megadread!

The dark eldar quickly fell to heavy flamers and the fearsome mega dreadnought. More accurate bombardment from me reaped a terrible toll in their back lines. My manticore again fired 3 missiles, all landing squarely amongst the Necrons. I wiped out an entire squad of warriors, a Lord, a triach stalker was wrecked and the Necron Lord's Catacomb command barge was also ruined. It was an epic series of bombardments. 3 leman russes. 2 basilisks, a master of ordnance and 3 str 10 blasts from the manticore thundered amongst their lines. 1 Basilisk shot landed square on the top of 10 triach pretorians and the destroyer lord taking out 6 of the elite warriors. Our tactics of being right in their face with terminators allowed my artillery free reign to wreak havok as their forces were either engaged or too busy trying to clear their own lines to worry about tanks and basilisks on the other side of the board.

Close combat resulted in the destruction of the Cobra! 1 victory point for killing a super-heavy. This battle had opened brutally. We had caused firm casualites but taken many in return. Terminators died in droves due to no armour saves. Chriss' assault was floundering due to poor rolls and bad luck but they were holding, keeping Mons and the evil side's right flank occupied.

Orders received, Targetting the Titan!

Magnus's Terminators killed the Necron Warlord scoring another important victory point (their formation gave them points for killing enemy warlords and warmasters). Concentrated shooting from the Stormraven and other squads took the Revenant down to 5 hull points. An assault from Deathwing terminators removed another 4 hull points. 1 left!!!

Assault cannon, Bloodstrike Missiles and Typhoon krak pummel the rear of the titan!

We called a lunch break and tallied the score again. We still controlled 5 objectives and 1 was now contested. The score was 18 vs 2! (I can't remember but I think they gained one more for stopping a 'Finest Hour') Things were looking grim for the forces of evil. They were whittling us down, inflicting serious casualties but only from the brave (some might say foolish) terminators and stuff in their lines. The objectives were, however, firmly in our control. The score does not reflect the casualties inflicted or the flow of the battle. We were being hammered, but in all the wrong places.

Turn 3

This turn, The forces of evil would need to do something drastic. They were being held in their own lines and were struggling to move forward into ours. Dark Eldar Scourges and the destroyer lord with his traich pretorians which had dropped in on the previous round were trying to boost the effort. As most of our army was in close combat shooting options were limited but some strikes hit home. Another vindicator exploded and my leman russes sufferes some hull point losses from the Monolith.

Jet bikes surged into my lines (near the forest at the back) my guard squad survived the onslaught! and even bested them in close combat. (numbers FTW!)

The ill-fated hammernators were surrounded on all sides but still alive, and still fighting!

The tacticals were firmly in control of their sector, shrugging of a hail of fire.

These brave mortar squads survived the whole game, effective too, pinning and annoying various units.

The Avatar stalks the battlefield.

Epic photo!

 The close combat phase ensued and the Revenant was smashed by the terminators. It went critical! Exploded with a mega blast! killing the terminators than slayed him and several other men surrounded it. Huge blast!

Meltdown! Vapourised with extreme effects!

Our turn 3 was effective again. Terminators tried their best to do some damage. Chriss' Honour guard and Marneus Calgar dropped into the fray, trying to assassinate Eldrad and Slay the Warmaster.

My Stormraven hovered and unleashed Hammerhand (mephiston), who would charge into the pretorians and destroyer lord soon. He activated his finest hour and gained triple base attacks!!! 12 base attacks!

On the far right the eldar were losing ground to the Ultramarines. Despite Chriss' bad luck and rolling he had maintained a constant presence in the enemy lines and was proving to be unmovable. He ended fulfilling a vital roll for us, occupying the Eldar for 3 full turns.

My Artillery was again effective as it was never under threat. Master of ordnance, a Manticore, Battle cannons and basilisks rained shots onto the Rebel Guard. A leman russ was ganked, another lost 2 hull points and about 20 men were mulched by the force of the ordnance. I have to say, it was fun getting to shoot so much!

Hammerhand (Mephiston) annihilated the destroyer lord in close combat despite the lord having a 2+ save.  His bodyguard of pretorians could only watch as the challenge played out. 

Things were looking grim for the forces of evil. We moved into turn 4 to fight to the death

Turn 4

The forces of evil spent 1 victory point to bring back a new Revenant Titan!. It entered the fray and promptly killed to dread noughts and several men in my forested right flank. It also annhilated a terminator squad effectively.

Again their turn was relatively quick. It consisted mostly of post shots and a steady whittling down of our forces. We again took moderate to heavy casualties but from units in their lines, who were not contesting or threatening objectives.

Close combat was a quick brutal affair. Hammerhand slayed all 4 triach pretorians and was free to move in out next turn. They brought down my storm raven but it was hovering, so only sank to the ground.

Our turn began and we were sure of victory. The titan look many hull points, more Rebel guard were slain but another final artillery bombardment!.

The lord of death closes in!

Who dares challenge me?

Mephiston totally annhilated the guardsmen squad in a show of overwhelming overkill. He killed 5 and ran the rest down when they fled his wrath. With that move, along with a new terminator squad deepstriking we made our final moves to claim objectives before the time was up:

Chriss claims Objective 1 'The necrontyr remains'

Iron Hand Straken claims objective 2 'The mysterious hatch'

The Death company (who did nothing all game) claims objective 3 'The buried holy relic'

Stokahn Hammerhand, (meph) claims objective 4 'More necron remains'

Objective 5 ' The escape pod ' is claimed by the vindicator and the dark angel terminator

 A 6th objective, the comms array was claimed by the Honour Guard Squad next to Marneus Calgar.
The final score? A whopping 34 to the good guys and 1 to the forces of darkness/evil.

Conclusion

Above is the battlefield after the game was finished. On the lower right, my forces held firm in the forest & tavern. Lower left, chriss' forces also held firm. The precinct building was also held by us. As you can see, not much is left in terms of actual units. The top right was dominated by the death company and some remaining guard.

This was a brutal game. Lots of death and destruction as is the norm with apocalypse. The game was agreed to be fun and good natured! The points level was much more appropriate this time. It took about 9 hours to complete with included breaks. A great game with lots of cinematic, cool and fun events and battles. The objective score does NOT reflect the actual game.

Why did we win so heavily score-wise?

Our tactics just worked. The forces of evil were anticipating a heavy deep strike and bunkered up and prepared. My army was heavily shooty and was allowed to fire without interference as the terminators and other units simply swamped their lines. The use of the blind barrage, THEN the shield generator effectively nullified their shooting for two turns. We took full advantage of this and pressed hard. We focussed our forces on taking objectives from the beginning and made sure we had the forces to keep them. The forces of evil on the other hand dealt out a huge amount of punishment but were unable to break the deepstrike stranglehold we had on their lines.

The use of the entropic plague (the thing that removes armour saves) was a stroke of pure douchebaggery ( in a fun, apocalypse way). Us bunching our terminators up to make sure as many as possible were within the protective range served only to provide a PERFECT oppurtunity for Rik to unleash his entropic plague. It was only the simultaneous use of our shield generator that saved us from total annihilation.

It was a great game, with great opponents. Good fun all around.

Thanks so much to Chriss' for letting us use his office and arranging it! Thanks to me for making badass scenery! and thanks to all the players for making it a good day.

Unit of the match?

Mephiston, he came in, slew a destroyer lord, triarch pretorians, 10 guardsmen and claimed an objective. Hero stuff all round!