This is the Legendary Battle that ends the Phase I: The Ashes of Treachery for the
Campaign we are playing.
This is a very complicated battle for the Loyalists, with several special rules and particular deployment. I will try to summarize it.
Scenario
The Loyalists have 2,000 points and Traitors 3,000. The Traitors have the requirement that Angron must be included in their army.
Additionally, the whole Loyalist Army must be deployed on the field first, and then the Traitor decides how to deploy. The entire Traitor army either deploys via Deep Strike if able or moves onto the table in the Traitor's first turn. The Traitor automatically gets the first turn. The only advantage for the Loyalists is that they can set up the whole board, including their own Fortifications, without interference from the Traitors.
The Primary Objectives are 1 Victory point for each enemy unit completely destroyed, or falling back at the end of the game. Independent Characters and Dedicated Transports also give 1 VP. As Secondary Objective, destroying the Loyalist's Warlord grants and additional VP to the Traitor's, but killing Angron gives the Loyalist 4 VP.
There is one special rule for the mission that makes it even more difficult, Deadly Atmosphere, which reads, for the duration of the game, all armour saves of '6' must be re-rolled (invulnerable and cover saves are unaffected). Other saves are unaffected. In addition, Armour Penetration rolls of 1 must be re-rolled.
Here is a picture of the deployment zones. As you can see, to make things worse, the Loyalist need to deploy first in the middle of the board and then the Traitors can pick any side to enter. So it means you need to be able to defend from any side.
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| Deployment |
Traitor Army
The Traitor Army was composed of a single detachment, of 3,000 points.
- Angron
- 15 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Artificer Armour and Melta Bombs
- Khârn
- 12 Tactical Squad Marines
- Dreadclaw drop pod
- 5 Cataphractii terminators
- Storm Eagle
- 16 Tactical Squad Marines with bolt pistol and Chainaxes
- Sergeant with Artificer Armour and Melta Bombs
- 1 Praetor with Paragon Blade and Power Fist
- 5 Red butchers Cataphractii Terminators
- Dreadnought Talon
- 3 Contemptor Dreadnought with Kheres Assault Cannon
- Deredeo Dreadnought
I think the plan was straight forward, unleash all of these meat-grinders into combat as fast as possible, while providing supressing fire with the Dreadnoughts.
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| Traitor Army arranged for combat |
Loyalist Army
The Loyalist Army was composed of two detachments, the main one were the Sons of Horus with 1,135 points, the second one were Emperor's Sons with 665 points and then 200 points for Fortifications, which the Loyalist must include.
Sons of Horus
- Centurion with Power Fist, Jump Pack, Melta Bombs and Artificer Armour
- 15 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- Apothecary with augury scanner and Artificer Armour
- 15 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- Apothecary with augury scanner and Artificer Armour
- 15 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- Apothecary with augury scanner and Artificer Armour
- 10 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- 10 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
Emperor's Children
- Centurion with Power Fist, Jump Pack, Melta Bombs and Artificer Armour
- 10 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- 15 Tactical Squad Marines
- Sergeant with Melta Bombs
- Vexilla
- Apothecary with augury scanner and Artificer Armour
- 5 Heavy Support Squad with Autocannons
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| Loyalist Army deployed inside the ruins of the Fortress |
Our whole tactic was based on the fact that we wanted to have as many figures as possible to fight against the Traitors. We know we are going to be overwhelmed, so we want to make them go through two or more lines of marines regardless of the side from where they attack.
As you can see from the picture above, we placed the terrain with a bunker in the middle surrounded by an Aegis line, mostly. We put one squad behind each Aegis line, and the rest inside the ruins of the Fortification, the ones with Apothecaries, to benefit from the Feel no Pain. The idea was to react fast and concentrate massive amounts of fire by means of Fury of the Legion on any enemy. Of course we were aware of the fact that we had no Dreadnoughts and no Tanks, but they were simply too expensive to buy in a scenario like this.
Deployment
As you have seen above, the Loyalist start the scenario with all troops in the middle.
The Traitors decided to enter the table from the side defended by the Emperor's Children, which is the bottom side of the picture above.
Turn #1
On the first turn the complete Traitor Army entered the table.
There were two units making a Deep Strike attack, the first one was the Dreadclaw with the 5 Cataphractii inside that landed on the right side of the table, and the other one was the Storm Eagle, that came in from the right side as well, but next to the World Eaters Deployment Zone.
The Loyalists were able to destroy one weapon from the Storm Eagle and remove one Hull Point from the Dreadclaw, as a response to their arrival, but that had little effect on the game. In fact the landing of the Dreadclaw caused the first few loyalists to bite the dust.
The rest of the Army entered the table.
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| Enter the World Eaters! |
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| From the top of the Bunker the Emperor's Children oversee the arrival of Angron |
The Deredeo targets the only unit that could make any significant damage to the Storm Eagle and manages to wipe all of them out, there are no more Heavy Weapons in the Loyalist Army!
Then there was the time for hand to hand combat. Even though we were behind the Aegis Line, all squads that tried to reach the combat managed to do so thanks to either Fleet, Move through Cover or both!
On the left side the Red Butchers managed to wipe out a 15-man squad and did not suffer any single casualty in return. Angron himself managed to wipe out the unit in the middle and Khârn did not need to fight at all. All units reform and consolidate towards the next enemy.
At the end of the traitor turn 1, all Emperor's Children units were destroyed save for Centurion with Jump Pack, that was running away from the combat!
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| End of traitor turn #1: a third of the Army is gone! |
In our turn, we put all of our hopes into the shooting phase.
All units that were now on the front line maintained the position to unleash a Fury of the Legion. The unit on the bunker on the back of the table rearranged itself to go to higher grounds and have more people available for shooting in the next phase.
On the right, the accumulated firepower of two units at very close range is enough to wipe out the whole unit including Khârn!
On the center of the table, despite all the bolter fire, Angron just gets a couple of wounds and a few marines are dead, but they are still standing.
In the hand to hand phase, the Centurion with Jump Pack and the last unit charged the Drop Pod and they managed to destroy it, without affecting the Terminators inside it, which are thrown out and get ready for their next turn.
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| Khârn is dead! |
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| Angron is still standing, and he is not pleased with all of these shootings! |
Turn #2
During the second turn of the Traitors, Angron charges the unit in the middle of the field while on the right side the Praetor with all the squad inside the Storm Eagle disembarks and get ready to charge.
One of the Dreadnoughts target the Consul with Jump Pack that was running away from the previous turn, and kills him, thus ending the participation of the Emperor's Children in this battle.
Again, all World Eaters units managed to reach their targets, and since most of the units could not fire as they did a Fury of the Legion in the previous turn, there are badly outnumbered.
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| All units engaged in hand to hand! |
As expected, Angron and the Red Butchers wipe out their unit and advance towards the next one. The Praetor does the same on the right side of the battlefield, while the Terminators on the south managed to clean out their area as well.
At the end of the traitor turn #2 only one consul and about 16 loyalist marines are left.
During the loyalist second turn, all bolters are fired against Angron who is now with only one Wound left!
The Consul with Jump Pack and the last unit charged against the Cataphractii Terminators, managing to kill all of them.
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| Angron is alone in the middle of the Battlefield, with just one Wound left |
Turn #3
During the shooting phase the Centurion with Jump Pack is killed, along with the remaining marine that survived the previous combat.
Having just one wound left, Angron decides that it is wise
not to fire his Plasma pistol.
Then it is the turn to hand to hand combat, Angron and the Red Butchers charge against the last surviving unit and they wipe it out, whilst on the right flank, the last three loyalist marines are killed as well.
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| Last combat of the game |
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| The last loyalists are killed |
It was not possible to play a turn #3 for the loyalist side as everybody was dead, therefore the battle ended.
Result
It was a clear victory for the Traitors, and absolute Massacre. I guess the scenario is designed exactly like that, to make you feel hopeless and that the destiny of all of the loyalist is to die... well in that case, well done! You really feel like that, we simply had no chance to survive!
Nevertheless I found it fun to play. It is quite all right to have some crazy scenarios like this from to time, unbalanced and with weird rules.
Campaign results
Victory for the Traitors on the first phase!
Emperor's Children (Loyalists) vs World Eaters (Traitors)
Scenario: Blood Feud
Result: Traitors 6, Loyalists 16
Emperor's Children (Loyalist) vs Emperor's Children (Traitors)
Scenario: Onslaught
Result: Traitors 10, Loyalists 1
Emperor's Children (Loyalist) vs Emperor's Children (Traitors)
Scenario: Shatter Strike
Result: Traitors 0, Loyalists 6
Sons of Horus (Loyalist) vs World Eaters (Traitors)
Scenario: Blood Feud
Result: Traitors 18, Loyalists 9
Emperor's Children (Loyalist) vs World Eaters (Traitors)
Scenario: Zone Mortalis
Result: Traitors 0, Loyalists 3
Iron Warriors (Loyalist) vs World Eaters (Traitors)
Scenario: Shatter Strike
Result: Traitors 1, Loyalists 2
Sons of Horus (Loyalist) and Emperor's Children (Loyalist) vs World Eaters (Traitors)
Scenario: Cometh the Red Angel
Result: Traitors 11, Loyalist 6
