War of Arrakia pt.2

      After the defeat at the capital city, Leton, Imperial forces were routed. The Imperial Guard company had lost itself a nearby desert due to negligence of the command staff. Nearly fifty miles away, the Space Marines were securing an already war-torn town. This puzzled the Astartes since the war had not yet reached this part of the planet.
      The Chapter Master of the Thunder Dragons, Varlen, and his newly fitted Terminator Armour was discussing possible options with Captain Lysander of the Imperial Fists. Lysander had come to this planet to try and bring back loyalty to the populace. When the chaos marines attacked, he had taken up arms with the band of  "Renegade" marines to act as their leader. Unable to agree on the best course of action, a new and experimental land speeder, the Fremen-pattern,  was sent into the centre of the battle-scarred town. Not long after it vanished over a line of buildings did gauss fire erupt from all directions. An explosion was heard and the last transmission was simple. "Unable to maintain altitude. Necron presence confirmed. Crash Landing imminent." With those three simple sentences, the battle for the town of Melange had begun.

 

 

Land Speeder Fremen crash site

 

      The advanced units of the Thunder Dragons crept up the streets without saying a word. All units stopped at the hand signal of the Lead marine. First and Second squad took up defensive positions along the side alleyways and waited patiently. A single voice broke through the silence. "Hostile Astartes spotted. Rhino approaching. Not responding to Communications." The Steel Nightmare Chapter had arrived and was in a battle formation. 

First and Second squad advancing by the numbers

      The Thunder Dragons advanced rapidly into combat positions. Assault Marines soared over the battlefield and landed behind the approaching Steel Nightmare Rhinos. A krak grenade was thrown at the Rhino to no effect. The lead scout summoned Chapter Master Varlen on the vox with an idea. Fire into the side of the Rhino and try to rend through the armour. It was a gambit. And it Worked.

Forward Scouts Spot the Oncoming Rhinos

The scouts' fire destroy the Rhino, Embarked unit evacuates

 

      The Marines from the Steel Nightmares were cut down without mercy. A librarian from the Nightmare's appeared not long after the destruction of the Rhino. As he began to summon a Vortex of  Doom, the perils of the Warp overtook him. He was torn limb from limb by the powers of the dark gods. The ground shook violently beneath the approaching Space Marine advance force.

The advance was going smoothly

 

All hell broke loose as the Necrons sprung up from the ground

 

      The ground roared as a Necron Monolith teleported onto the battlefield, bringing with it the death and destruction of Immortals and Warriors. Leading the Necron onslaught was Anrakyr the Traveler. He had come to Arrakia on the eve of the chaos invasion to reactivate a small tomb world that had laid buried far below the surface. Flying over the main force were a brutal-looking squad of Necron destroyers. Lysander ordered one of his renegade predators to open fire. At first, the autocannon only chipped away at the rugged chassis of the destroyers. But then, one by one, the destroyers crashed and burned from as the autocannon began to rip them apart. The victory was a small one, because soon after, the Monolith opened fire. The Renegade's Librarian saw an opportunity to push forward and try to carve a path through the Necron lines. They never made it to the front line. The Necron monolith fired its main weapon at the advancing Astartes.

 

And then there were none

 

 

      Seeing an opportunity to strike, Captain Lysander led a squad of Terminators against the enemy immortals. The assaulters charged against the Necron Immortals, losing only two brothers in the process. They struck the immortals like a hard tidal wave. However, from the rear of the Immortals, He appeared. Anrakyr the Traveler. He stood before captain Lysander. The challenge was made and accepted. Time seemed to slow as the two great warriors circled each other. Thunder cracked with each blow struck. The epic duel seemed to last a lifetime. Beside the two great warriors in their duel, The Terminators and Immortals were locked in vicious combat. But suddenly, as if the Emperor himself empowered Lysander, A killing blow was struck against Anrakyr. The Necron immortals seized the husk of their fallen leader and skulked back to wherever they had come from. A great cheer arose from the surviving battle-brothers.



 

 

The Epic Duel

 

 



 

     Even though Anrakyr had fallen, the battle was far from other. The Monolith roared back into combat and continuously bombarded the marine positions. The Astartes had no choice but to take cover and go to ground to prevent being wiped out entirely. During the exchange of bolter fire and gauss fire a frantic transmission had been sent from the Thunder Dragon's Scouts. "Sir! The Fremen-pattern, they have it! The foul Necrons have secured the crashed speeder. No sign of the crew of the speeder, presumed dead."

 

 

        The Necrons had won. While the forces of Astartes were occupied fighting Necron diversionary forces, a Necron warrior squad was able to raid, secure, and capture the downed land speeder. This means that the experimental technology and computing systems of the Astartes can now be analyzed by Necron spies. Unfortunately the Friendly Fire incident with the Steel Nightmares Chapter has led to many casualties. In the coming battles, The allied forces numbers are significantly few. There are three companies of Astartes, a company of Arrakian PDF soldiers, and the soon arriving 44th Arrakian Light Infantry.

 

"We are reduced to fighting a running war. We must hit them every chance we have with whatever we have. I am currently organizing a retaliation force at Con-D'Ben. Bring your respective companies back to this line. Victory is soon to be ours, but first we must regroup to hit them right where it hurts. You have your orders. Carry on." -Field Marshall Peach

 

 





Tyranid Invasion: Part 1

In the hills and valleys of the planer Maracha, a small imperial outpost has been targeted by a massize Tyranid swarm. In response, segmentum command has deployed an entire army group. Two Space Marine chapters, the Fifth Founding and the Stalkers, along with the XII Vatarian Legion with elements of the VII Legion were all marching into battle side by side. A small force of Necrons had also awoken due to do the activity of the swarm, and were reanimating to do battle against this alien threat.

Not long after Necron reanimating, a warband of renegade space marines made planetfall soon after to do battle with the worthy Tyranid foe. This would be a battle of epic proportions.

This was a massive 3500 v 3500 point game. The foe would be a swarm that had an 'old one-eye' as an HQ unit. On the allied side, I had my Knight-Commander Zaros, The VII Vatarian had Knight-Commander Antoch, the Fifth Founding had a librarian, and the Stalkers had a Captain. The Chaos with Necron allies had a chaos lord as their HQ. Allied deployment looked something like this: 

Enemy deployment: 

Turn One -Enemy

Our opponent began his turn by burrowing the thing that can burrow. (little note here: I'm horrible with Tyranid units so I'm very sorry if I offend any Tyranid players with my lack of knowledge) he ran all of his units forward and took flight with a gargoyle (I think). This turn he focused on nothing but closing the distance between our forces.

The flying thing:

The burrowing thing:

Turn one -Allies

Our deployment plan was simple: Move up behind the armour and use it as mobile cover/fire support. My tanks and chimeras were to roll up in front of the main line with the Space Marine infantry and VII guard not far behind. The right flank was to be dominated by first and second platoon supported by bikes and land speeders from the Fifth Founding. A sniper team from the Stalkers chapter was holding the imperial bunker on our side of the field, and would use its superior line of sight to spot and eliminate targets in the valley below. The Necrons and Chaos marines were to move up on the centre and provide support to which ever flank needed it. 

Shooting Phase: Allies

To begin, the sniper team from the Stalkers fired a single Krak missle at the flying thing that was flying over the centre building. As if the emperor himself had willed it, the great beast fell and took another point of damage. With only one point remaining, I fired my demolisher's Lascannon along with the order Bring it Down at it and killed it with the second shot. The humour in it was that because it was flying, the rocket that took it down should've missed. The Tyranid player had intended to use it as a bullet sponge, and now he was forced to change his strategy. I fired my other tank's (at the time it was unnamed) Lascannon at Old one-eye and managed to score a wound. So far, the hammer of the emperor was doing its fair bit.

The flying thing being removed from play:

Allied forces advancing: 

From his position in the rocks, Zaros caught glimpse of a monstrous beast flailing toward the ground. On the Vox, he heard that a Marine scout team had scored an incredibly lucky hit against the monster, and that it was crippled on the ground. "Knight-Commander to Armour, do you have a firing solution on that grounded beast?" There was a short delay followed by an incredibly hoarse voice. "Commander this is Sergeant Zale of the Tora. We only have a solution with the hull mounted Lascannon. Orders to fire?" Zaros assessed the situation quickly. "Affirmative Zale, Bring. It. Down." A bright light filled the air followed quickly by another one. Zaros couldn't see the shooter or what it was shooting at, but he could tell by the great screeching roar that it had scored a hit. His Vox rang with an incoming message. "Zale here sir, the beast is dead."

Turn Two -Enemy

Our enemy was not very happy with the turn of events, he ran most of his units again, trying to get closer and closer. The unpleasantness started when he tried to deep strike gene stealers. However, they went off the board in a deep strike mishap. He then deep struck a doom of m-something. For people who do not know, it has a 3+ save, along with the ability to gain wounds by how many enemies it kills. So when it killed ten men from first platoon, it gained ten wounds. To make matters much much worse, he unleashed the borrowing thing right under the front of my armoured column. One of the tanks was damaged along with one of the chimeras. A third chimera was outright destroyed. The veterans inside of it escaped with only five of their ten man squad plus a priest. He tried firing a biovare thingy (the biological artillery for the bugs) at my tanks, but managed to hit his own burrowing thingy. That was very convenient for me. Although, truth be told I felt incredibly singled out because he was only firing on my men. (In hindsight, I did bring the most to the field...) 

The doom of m-thing beside the speeder:

The burrowing thing attacking me: 

Sergeant Zale was moving the Demolisher at cruising speed when everything began to shake violently. The Tora was thrown forward several feet and came to a grinding halt. "By the throne what was that?" From the rear view hatch, Zale could only see a plume of smoke and dust. The Vox crackled to life not long after. "We've taken rear damage, but otherwise okay." "Does anyone see the other chimera?" Zale peered hard through the huge cloud of debris and could only see one thing. A massive Tyranid borrower had come up right on top of the rear chimera. 

Turn Two -Allied

This point in the game things were hectic. The allied SM chapters were rushing to try and move up to the forward battle, and the chaos/Necron forces were a too far ahead to properly cover the Tyranids that had attacked from the rear. Fontaine and his men disembarked their chimera and were preparing to melta the burrowing beast. First platoon regrouped and got closer to the doom of m-thing. 

Shooting phase -Allied

I used FRFSRF on the first platoon. Fourty two Lasguns, three las pistols, two bolt pistols, a Krak missle, and two auto cannons were unleashed on the doom of M-thing. Only two hits managed to hit because of its blasted 3+ save. Fontaine and his vets fired their Lasguns and meltas at the borrower. Managed to score two hits as well. It was not going well. My allies fired their weapons in an attempt to stop the Tyranid monstrous creatures, but to no avail. My Demolisher tank fired at old one eye and managed to score a hit. My battle tank (earns the name 'stomper' after this battle) fires its main gun and kills thirteen bugs out of fourteen.

Fontaine and his squad preparing to fire:

First platoon firing on the doom of M-ting:

The unfortunate part

It was about midnight at this point, and we had to leave our local gaming store. (We got kicks out)

We rolled die to see who would win. The opponent rolled a six, we rolled a four. Even though we had more kill points, he won.

We are hopefully going to have a rematch this Thursday so be looking for a continuation of what was going on. I'm sad because it was such a short game, but with so many units each turn took a while. My lesson learned this time around was this: Work closely with your allies.