[Epic] Battle Report: the Meat

From: Eugene Earnshaw-Whyte <eug_at_...>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 01:54:49 -0800

Here's the report itself; it shouldn't be nearly
as long as the other one I did.
The battle was escalating engagement.


The Midnight Hammer forces were approaching from
the southwest, through a large apartment complex;
Chaos advanced through the ruined outskirts and
rough vegetation to the northeast.

In the first couple of turns, luck was very much
in favour of the Marines, as most of their forces
arrived promptly. A veritable wave of infantry
advanced through the tightly clustered buildings
on the left (west), while the massive Imperial war
engines took possession of the wide fields of fire
in the centre. A small group of IG infantry
advanced to the far east of the line.

First blood was definitely chaos's, as the
Firelords wreaked horrible destruction on the
Tactical Marines speeding forward in their rhinos.
The first chaos troops onto the board were the
greater Daemon detachments, who with their
incredible speed soon engaged the advancing
imperial infantry, attacking and withdrawing only
to attack again. First the roughrider detachment
was viciously mauled, then two of the IG infantry
detachments were seriously depleted. The Daemons
suffered severe casualties from this last assault,
however, as many were surrounded and destroyed by
assault marines, Land Raiders, and the remnants of
the Rough Rider detachment (who cut off their
retreat) in a deadly firefight. They pulled back
to form a line in front of the newly arrived Ork
Nobz Mob.

In the center, meanwhile, vortex missiles were
being lobbed back and forth between the opposing
war machines. Several Ork battlewagons and chaos
cultists were killed by the Ordinatus, before it
found itself confronted by the Chaos Warlord Titan
'Malevolent'. It's own missile and the missile of
the Deathstrike knocked down all the Malevolent's
shields, before the Malevolent's own Vortex
missile detonated on top of the Ordinatus,
triggering explosion after explosion and leaving
the huge machine a crumpled, useless hulk.

On the far eastern flank, the chaos cultists and
their assortment of heavy platform weapons were
making their way towards the cover of the
Generator Vulcanis when reports came in of
Marauder fighter bombers on an approach run. The
available interceptors were scrambled, only to be
bounced by Thunderbolt fighters. In the wild
dogfight that ensued, the Doomwings managed to
shoot down or drive off half of the Marauders, but
at exceedingly heavy cost. Fully two-thirds of the
chaos interceptors were shot down by the imperial
planes, leaving the chaotic air superiority
shattered. No thunderbolts were damaged.
The remaining marauders pressed home their bombing
run, causing moderate casualties. The surviving
cultists settled in to face the advancing Imperial
infantry, and the devastators that followed them.

The intensity of the battle definitely heated up
at this point, as two thirds of the Chaos Force
found themselves heavily engaged with virtually
the entire Imperial army. Sorely missed were the
Mega-Gargant and the Noise Marine Terminators, who
were only now arriving.

After Action Report: Codicier Mordant

The first truly large conflict of the engagement
occured against the Orks, supported by the Daemon
remnants (estimated 50% of original strength), and
enemy unit 'Malevolent'. Engaging were entirity of
Marine force less devastator detachment Hason. The
Abominations from the Warp formed a covering
screen in front of the Orks, but were heavily
depleted by fire from the attached Land Raiders. A
preemptive strike was nonetheless launched by
these fiends against assault force Fabius, who
were forced to retire, suffering light casualties.
With our close-engagement force in disarray, we
were forced to engage in a straightforward
long-range overwatch procedure, assisted in a
timely fashion by Heavy Artillery group A-72. The
Orks could not match our firepower, and suffered
heavy casualties. A final assault was eventually
organized by remnants of the 22nd cavalry platoon
and by Fabius, which succeeded in sweeping the
Orks from the field. By this point, overall
battlefield situation dictated a disengagement,
which was succesfully accomplished, in the teeth
of pursuit by the enemy War Machines.
End Transmission


Meanwhile, on the eastern flank, the Imperial war
Machines found themselves facing first the Traitor
Titan and the Chaos cultists, and later the
Mega-Gargant and the Noise Marine Terminators as
well. One of the Shadow Swords was destroyed by
the Plasma Blastgun on the Malevolent, and when
the Land Raiders and Traitor Terminators arrived
on the field, it looked as if the SHTanks would be
annihilated under the masses of firepower
available. However, Heavy Artillery group A-72
offered very timely assistance in the form of a
devastating fussilade which destroyed 4 out of the
five chaos Land Raiders and several more of the
Noise Marines. The Mega Gargant also proved to be
just out of range with many of its weapons.

The furious tempo of the battle began to wind down
in the last few turns. Several more strafes from
firelords broke some of the IG infantry
detachments, and the Marauders broke the Noise
Marines. The Cannons of Khorne killed lots of
Assault Marines (but not enough to save the Orks),
ands the Chaos Cultists were wiped out by the
Annihilation and the SM Devastators. As the battle
ended, the remnants of the Noise Marine
Terminators and the two War Engines were advancing
after the disengaging imperial infantry, but aside
from that chaos didn't have an army... final
morale totals were both positive, but the
Imperial's was 19 points higher, so the Imperium
came out ahead. The difference was mostly due to
blast markers; both the Orks and the Cultists had
had a lot on them when they went down. All in all,
a lot of fun. After it ended, we ran the fight
between the Annihilation and the Mega-Gargant
(both had CC weapons), and the Annihilation won!
Princeps Belvedere has two Mega-Gargants and a
Warlock Titan stenciled on the hull of his Titan!

Heros of the Day: the Imperial Gaurd Tactical
Infantry, who sacrificed themselves that others
might live. Honestly, it takes courage to be
charged repeatedly by Greater Daemons. Imagine if
those daemons had engaged our Land Raiders... or
our Artillery... <shudder>
By standing firm and being ripped into tiny pieces
by Bloodthirsters and Lords of Change, those
infantry did the Imperium proud. I'm sure they got
lots of posthumous medals, and the bits of them
that were left were cremated with much pomp and
circumstance.

Dog of the Match: the Ordinatus Mars. Cheezy to
begin with, it killed some orks and knocked some
void shields of the Malevolent before it got the
comeuppance it richly deserved. I didn't miss it
much. Several hundred points that accomplished
virtually nothing.

Other comments: the game was, I think, never a
foregone conclusion, but the odds were tilted
heavily in our favour by the Chaos forces coming
at us as fast as they could get there. Given that
their units entered the board more slowly than
ours, they should have tried to delay us until
they could gather together sufficient force to
meet us on equal terms. Basically, I think they
should have waited to commit the Orks, rather than
flinging them into the fray immediately; I think
the Daemons would have delayed us fine by
themselves.

Also, the battle for air superiority was
interesting. I was very careful to commit my
thunderbolts when the situation was favourable.
Unfortunately, I couldn't take advantage of it
because when I finally intercepted some firelords,
I couldn't freaking hit a thing. Ah, well; it's
only fair after how the doomwings did (although I
was actually even unluckier; they were 3 for 9,
whereas I was 1 for 7.) We were actually pretty
unlucky on both sides, at pretty much everything;
it kind of ended up balancing out, as in the Land
raiders vs. Greater Daemons thing. We couldn't hit
them very often, but when we did, they _never_
saved.

Hope you enjoyed reading this,

Eugene
Received on Sun Oct 26 1997 - 09:54:49 UTC