The Faustian Schism - Opening Battle - Space Marines vs Imperial Guard (traitor) 7000 pts

So, after the long and harrowing Faustian Campaign, which resulted in a rich tapestry of happenings, rivalries and revelations we move on to the next chapter of our story. The Faustian Schism - The aftermath and consequences of the original campaign. Ere' we go!


Forces 7000 pts

Thomas - Imperial Guard(Krieg traitors!)

Thomas brought a huge horde of guardsmen, 3 superheavies, a tank company, sentinels galore, 4 basilisks, stormtroopers etc etc. The list goes on. You can imagine the sheer number of models in 7000 points. A strong formation of superheavies along with other formations allowed him to bring a FEARSOME amount of firepower to the board. Time would tell. A point of interest was Chaplain Siobar and a Squad of Traitor Black Scorpions...so called loyalists that had defected to the Krieg, spewing lies about a corrupted parent chapter!

Rottimus - Black Scorpion Space marines with Allied Guard

My army featured a Gladius strike force, A 10th company scout force, an allied combined arms imperial guard detachment and small force of 'counts as' blood angels. A Cerastus Knight Atrapos would be my Lord of War. The alpha strik would be a sky hammer annihilation formation along with a librarius conclave. (I'd need some librarians to fend of the chaos tainted Krieg Army)

Thomas rolled for picking sides. He rolled a 1. Thomas is famous for rolling 1's. Would this be a sign of things to come?

A dire omen?

The Mission: The mission would be a standard maelstrom game (pick up to three cards each turn) along with some extra things. Due to the size of the game we decided to add some extra stuff to the proceedings. His home objective, and my home objective would be worth 3 victory points at the end of the game if one of us could steal it from the other! His home objective, an ancient grail, recently excavated. I would hold an injured krieg general, with vital intel. In addition we would have a relic in the middle, a strange sword of immense power! (using normal relic rules with some added campaign fluff for those interacting with it) 

Turn 1

Thomas won the roll of to go first and my seize the intiative failed. I winced and watched as the battle line to end all battle lines erupted in a thunderous barrage!

Thomas' forces marched out and onwards. A veritable HORDE of guardsmen in various forms strode forward into the fray. Thomas had deployed the 3 superheavies, a Baneblade, Shadowsword and Hellhammer together on the left flank. On the right, a sqaudron of Leman russes would be challenging the knight and pushing against the holy church I was holding.

The armour holds true!

The lines erupted. The superheavies went to work. With such a sheer amount of firepower I was expected to be blown half to hell. Thomas removed about 18 hull points in total from almost all my vehicles. Many shaken, stunned and damaged. He wrecked a razorback and killed a handful of guardsmen and space marines. On his left flank his tanks opened up, the razorbacks and rhinos proved suprisingly resilient. Lots of penetrating hits but poor rolling on the damage table, stunning of shaking most of them. My linebreaker squadron took a ton of hits removing hull points and shaking them. No big blast from them next turn.

Sally Forth!

 With the shooting turn over I realised I'd fared fairly well. All my razorbacks were essentially out of action but their precious cargo was safe. My vehicles were now all left mostly with 1 hull point left. I moved forward and tried to push the flank round behind the Arbites Bastion/Precinct.

My drop pods came howling down as per usual. The audible groan from Thomas was salty indeed.
The skyhammer formation came down along with the librarius conclave. The Hellhammer fires a stg10 ap1 huge blast that ignores cover. My techmarine boosted cover would be negated by it. It had to die!!

The psychic phase started. A primaris, an astropath, two libarians, tigurius and mephiston, 10 warp charges! I cast santuary, giving my 3+ storm shield command squad a 2+ instead (+1 to saves), Thomas, with his single warp charge... DENIES IT! I the cast subvert machine, which fails. I then cast warp armour giving my squad +1 toughness... the last power? Vortex of DOOM. It works and takes 3 hull points off the Hellhammer.

Multi meltas, and artillery stripped further hull points, enough to destroy it. The explosion scatters away not damaging anything.

The Vortex of Hammerhand!

 Further down the line, the 2nd devastator squad with multi meltas stripped a ton of hull points off the shadowsword. With 3 left, the last function vanquisher took aim, fired, HIT, and rolled a 6 on the damage table causing a catastrophic meltdown, a titanic explosion erupted killing a swathe of guardsmen. So far the blow had been harsh but the battle line was ready to strike back!

I got objective 1 and Thomas got first blood

1-1

Danger in the lines!

a smoking crater!

 Turn 2

Turn 2 saw thomas' reinforcments arrive in the form of a vendetta and a hellhound. The movement phase saw him push further out toward the relic. The vortex of doom still swirling moved back towards my libarians. Libarian Hestius was sucked into the warp! No!

Moving out!

 Thomas opened fire and destroyed about 3-4 transports, revealing more marines. The casualties began to mount. My brave guardsmen suffered at the hands of suprisingly effective mortars. about 15 space marines were cut down. A vindicator blown sky high. The worst blow was my tank commander and squadron mate were wrecked by the baneblade and other combined fire. The hellhound roasted about 7 scouts. 5 assault marines were gunned down by massed lasgun fire.

The Vindicare assassin Thomas had somehow bribed into fighting for him took aim and sniped a librarian, a brave command squad shield leaped in the way of the danger saving him.

All in all an effective round of shooting. A fair amount of damage done, blunting my attack. If I didn't make an adjustment I would see myself running out of troops.

The knight moves out!

I moved out with my knight, sending him out to try and harry Thomas' flank. My scouts and and remaining marines down by the precinct pushed out. I had a pincer move going to try and take the Chalice (thomas home objective, worth 3 points at the end of the game).

Charge forward!

The knight opened up and roasted a demolisher leman russ.  My lines shot back and guardsmen fell by the bucket load. A combined force of sternguard, multimeltas, thunderfires and an newly arrived stormraven pummeled the Baneblade. The explosion rocked the battlefield killing a command squad marine and some heavy weapon teams.

Zaitus peered out of the small crack in the wall. The battlefield a violent scene of explosions, shouting and beams of death streaking back and forth. The librarians ahead were embroiled in a fierce battle. Energies and strange magicks boiled around them. 'Hammerhand can handle himself' thought Zaitus. He saw a streak of fire zip across and strike the shield of marine guarding Hammerhand. An Assassin! In the distance in a tall tower, Meks' eagle eye sight caught the figure crouching in the dark window. The barrel of the sniper's gun was visible... an exitus rifle. Unmistakable!. Zaitus took aim and snapped a shot into the window. The figure reeled backwards and the rifle rose up and clattered off the window frame. Whoever had been in there had been hit, and hit badly. Zaitus rolled away instantly and searched for another position.

Zaitus Wraithsbane took aim and sliced a wound off the vindicare in an epic sniper battle. The conclave demolished a squad of guardsmen recently (foolishly) disembarked from a chimera.

I scored secure objective 3 and blood and guts for 2 points. Thomas scored 1 for 'fix bayonets' (charge something)

3-2

The Conclave strikes back!

Pushing around the back

The Baneblade explodes

Turn 3

Thomas turn saw his scout sentinels outflank me and arrive right in the corner of my back line. Thomas forces were badly mauled but so were mine. I focussed so heavily on his super heavies that tons of his forces were still in the fight!

He promptly blew up my manticore. He killed more marines and destroyed my remaining two vindicators. My pressure on his right flank was now blunted. Only the knight remained. His scout sentinels were also suddenly in my back lines!

Flank attack is halted!

Sneaky bastards!

Thomas' own artillery took destroyed more razorbacks, my army was now transportless and marines were exposed all over the place. Thomas drew difficult cards and scored no objectives this turn. 

As you can see from the pictures above my lines were beginning to be sparse with vehicles. The heavy weapons of the Krieg taking their toll. I would need to capitalise here to eliminate the things still threatening me. The psychic phase started.

Stokahn Hammerhand saw him across the smokey battlefield. Chaplain Siobar! That filthy traitor! Haughty and arrogant. He believed he knew the true path, he believed we had strayed from his own dogmatic ignorance. It was time to end it... and end it now! Stokahn stretched his arms out wide. His mind delved into the etherium, his eyes glowing with a fearsome power...He summoned all his strength and with a swing of his arms he brought down a blue swirling maelstrom of pure energy upon Chaplain Siobar's head! The chaplain screamed as his was torn apart by the fearsome energies. The guardsmen of the Krieg cowered at the sight of the horned figure of Hammerhand.

A vortex of doom did it's work. Chaplain Siobar is no more! We began to run out of time and rushed through the next few round of shooting. We focussed on the objectives. I eliminated more threats, like the basilisks and remaining tanks! My quad cannons cycled round and promply annhiliated the scout sentinels in my rear. I brought the Vendetta down getting scour the skies. My terminators moved out and secured the relic, forgoing any shooting to inspect the strange sword! In the assault phase they charged the 3 sentinels, smashing them to pieces!

The knight moved forward and D'ed the Vindicare to death!

The conclave of libarians charged into the command squad! Preacher hopkins sang his hyms saving the command squad from some devastating close combat. (he gave them re-roll invul saves!) Stokahn Hammerhand (meph) challenged the preacher to a challenge!

Hammerhand leapt over the sandbags, the command squad was ready and counter charged. Hammerhand shoulder barged a guardsman into the wall and ended up in front of the preacher like a predator. He stared deeply into the preachers eyes, tasting his very soul. The priest soiled himself as he stood still in fear. Hammerhand leapt upon him digging his hands into his neck, ripping out his throat. He then clasped his hands round the preachers gurgling head and wrenched forcefully, tearing his head off is gorey splash. 

The rest of the command squad fared well and avoided damage. Taking only a wound in addition to the the priest dieing horribly. Thomas made most of his 5+ re-rollable invul saves.

I scored scour the skies and objective 2

5-2

Turn 4

In an epic last ditch attempt to rescue the general in my custody Thomas dropped in 30 scions. They landed squarely in the church in a brave vainglourious attemt to secure the general! It was not to be. His hot shot lasguns downed a fair amount of marines in the church, taking them by surprise but the squad of ogryns were unharmed, shrugging off the small arms fire! They would be angry! Thomas began to see the end coming. He had few objectives he could achieve so he bravely fought on like only a Krieg Commander can. More marines fell but in the wrong places!

The Scions arrive!

Rescue the VIP

The command squad was finally torn apart. The priests hymns could no longer save them. Slay the Warlord!

The Terminators sally forth as the tacticals inspect the sword relic

Things looked grim for Thomas. By now we were WAY over time and decided to fight the last close combats. I had some objective cards that were very good. Purity through bloodshed, kill stuff in close combat! Hungry for glory - issue challenges! and Kingslayer!

I automatically got king slayer for 2 points. I killed about 7 tiny remnants in close combat getting 3+D3 for Purity through bloodshed, and I managed to issue 3 challenges meaning another D3.

The scions in the church were over run by the angry ogryns!

The church clear of scions! OGRYNS BLEAAHHHHH!

I had taken Thomas' home objective, the holy Grail, I had also taken the relic meaning turn 4 resulted in wholly 15 victory points.

RESULT:  20-2 Black Scorpion Victory

A sparse battlefield!

a costly victory!

Conclusion

Pro victoria etiam tenebrarum dominis aka Totally not Heresy

First off, it was impossible to cover all the things that happened in a 7000 pt game. I tried to include the good bits. Being hungover doesn't help either :)

An EPIC game. That term is sometimes thrown around too lightly but this was great. Superheavies and rivalries! The traitorous chaplain met a fitting end being destroyed by warp vortex! The command squad of the Krieg cut down by those they hated most, the warp-tainted conclave was tasty. The brave last stand/rescue of the kidnapped general by the scions was something out of a michael bay movie. Their end was sad tho, smashed to pieces by club wielding ogryns!

The game was intense! The opening turns were devastating. It was by no means the crushing victory the points seem to suggest. It was tit for tat battle all the way until the end. The last turn was simply a back-breaker. Thomas had so many remnants that I could pick and chose to get the most from my cards (which were lucky draws) I basically, very cynically charged into 3 guardsmen here, and 5 guardsmen there, and that chimera with 1 hull point left and so on.

I have to say, I'm happy with my tactics. I pressed both flanks pretty hard. Supported by relentless artillery and decent targetting I managed to get in close. Thomas decimated my Gladius strike force taking out about 60 marines, 8 razorbacks, 2 leman russes, 3 vindicators and 2 landspeeders and a manticore. That being said, taking out the superheavies early was a harsh blow but it had to be done, there were just too dangerous.

The librarius conclave is OP. With Tigurius being allowed to re-roll failed psychic tests, harness warp charges at 2+ and also being allowed to re-roll what powers he gets, you can almost guarantee results in a game where nothing is supposed to be guaranteed.

MASSIVE thanks to Thomas for being probably the best sport the game has ever seen.

BONUS: Thomas LOVES plasma, Thomas also rolls 1's like a champion. This time he did quite well and managed to make his armour save a lot. The days plasma overheating casualties: