Battle Report- Imperial vs Iron Warriors over 12000 point battle (Picture Heavy)

The mighty forces of the Ultramarines, Imperial Guard and Knights clashed against an Iron Warrior force over a wrecked Imperial World- both forces looking to claim one of the mightiest spoils of war- a Warlord Class Titan. Marneus Calgar looked to claim the Warlord and return it to Mars- Whilst the Iron Warriors and Abbadon looked to claim the Titan and add it to the unholy crusade.
We both wanted to try out some new units, which aren't naturally available for our forces. The6thdegree had included a Fire Raptor, as well as 'borrowed' a Typhon from me to add a Lord of War to his Force. I was keen to use my new Kharybdis Assault Claw- These are not technically allowed in our respect lists, however we decided to allow this slight deviation of the rules.. [T6D – there are actually Forgeworld rules for Fire Raptor and Perturabo created the Typhon so I feel slightly justified…)

We had 6110 points a side for this huge 'old school floor battle'. (I was quite relieved that my Wife was happy to spend the day away from home having a Spa day... )

Lord Halfpenny's List included

• Calgar and Tigurius
• Master of the Forge on a (jet)bike and conversion beamer
• 3 Knights
• a Fell blade
• 2 Assassins Vindicare and Eversor
• Fire Raptor and StormTalon
• Drop podding Sternguard
• alleied IG (AM) 3 squads, a unit of 50 conscripts and command squad with Yarrick
• Sicaran
• Scopios
• Centurions
• Tactical marines
• Scouts
• Contemptor Dreadnoughts
• Dreadnought with Autocannons

The6thdegree's force included

• Typhon Siege Tank
• Abaddon
• Warpsmith
• Sorceror (Lvl 3)
• Daemon Prince (Lvl 3)
• 4 x 10 CSMs (in Rhinos)
• 2 x 20 Cultists
• 9 Chosen
• 7 Terminators
• 3 Helbrutes
• 2 Decimators
• 3 x Heldrakes
• Fire Raptor
• 2 x 3 Obliterators
• Vindicator
• Havoc Squad
• Land Raider
• Forgefiend

Deployment

Imperial Turn 1

•  Drop Pod arrives on point, with the Sternguard in position to unleash their Melta combi weapons
• The Kharybdis Drop pod with the Terminators and Calgar scatters slightly- but still in position to attack 6^th’s flank
• Fellblade opens fire on the Obilterators- scoring snake eyes to wound- (it might be one of those days..)
• IW Land Raider destroyed by combined fire of the Sternguard and Knight Paladin
• Vindicator destroyed by the second combat squad of Sternguard
• Hellbrute killed by the Fellblade
• 19 cultist killed by the Eversor in combat and the Kharybdis fire
• 6 Cultists killed by the Scopius
• Imperial Knight kills 4 Havocs with Battle cannon fire

Iron Warriors Turn 1

• Knight Paladin taken out with fire from Havoks, lascannons and a hunter killer missile
• 2 HP taken off another Knight (green)
• A Sternguard, and a Storm Shield terminator are taken out by fire from the squad disembarked from the destroyed Land Raider and a Rhino respectfully
• Close Combat- Chosen and Warpsmith charged into the 2 Sternguard Combat squad and killed them all - using superior (power) weapons.
• Decimator and Hellbrute charge into combat with the Eversor and the Cultists. The Eversor takes out the Decimator with a Melta bomb- The Hellbrute in-return wounds the assassin three times - but all are saved due to the amazing reflexes (and dice rolling) of the Eversor [T6D – I weep over the rolling this turn…)

Imperial Turn 2

• StormTalon and Fire Raptor arrive from Reserve, the drop pod roll was successful, but I opted to re-roll with Tigurius and the reserve roll was failed. 
• Fire Raptor is hit by the Icarus- Stunning the crew
• Fellblade destroyed the Rhino with Choas Marines disembarking, with further shooting killing the Warpsmith and several marines
• Obilterators were taken out by combined fire of the StormTalon and Fire Raptor- with the Raptor scoring several 'snap fire' shots
• Sicaran takes a HP of the Decimator
• Knight (green) charged the Forgefiend- killing the machine of Chaos
• Marneus and the Terminators charged the CSM that had disembarked the Rhino- killing them all
• Eversor assassin saving more hits from the Hellbrute

 Iron Warriors Turn 2

• 2 Helldrakes, Fire Raptor, Deamon Prince and Abbadon (and Termi retinue) arrive via Reserves
• The Contemptor takes out one of the Helldrakes with Interceptor fire [T6D – booo!!!]
• Abbadon and the Termis are deployed with Calgar in his sights.
• Knight Paladin (green) is destroyed by Obilterators in the Bastion, and Lascannon fire from the CSM in the rhino, with the final HP wound been taken by the Fire Raptor ReaperAutocannons
• The Knight Errant was also taken out by fire from both the Fire Raptor (spilt fire) and the Typhon
• UM Fire Raptor destroyed by the Icarus Cannon- which scattered off the board
• Chaos Terminators killed 3 Terminators from Calgar's squad with their shooting on arrival
• Eversor takes a HP off the Hellbrute with meltabomb
• Psychic phase saw a Pink Horror Herald arrive via a Sacrifice of a cultist. [T6D – not a bad T2!)

Imperial Turn 3

• Fellblade took 2 HP off the Typhon, and destroyed the Hellbrute with Lascannons with split fire shooting
• Contemptor took a HP off the Fire Raptor
• other shooting was ineffective
• Eversor destroyed the Hellbrute - resulting in all the remaining Cultists having rage
• Calgar and the Terminators charged in to Abbadon and his retinue- 5 CSM terminators were killed, with all 3 UM terminators dying in response. Calgar and Abbadon are locked in combat with 2 other CSM terminators as backup

Iron Warriors Turn 3

• Helldrake arrives from reserve and instantly takes out 4 assault marines with its flamer
• Relic Contemptor is immobilised by fire from the Fire Raptor
• Typhon damages the Fellblade- reducing it to 11 HP [LHP- the look on 6th face when I said it had 12 HP was a picture..]
• Another Helldrake destroyed the Imperial Guard Deathstrike [T6D – that thing had me worried all game…]
• StormTalon losses a HP to combined fire
• Calgar and Abbadon continue the combat with both losing a wound a piece- 6th rolled a '1' for his daemon weapon [LHP- Oops..]
• Eversor kills the last remaining Cultist - and moves into position to take Abbadon out [T6D – that’s called denial]

Imperial Turn 4

• Shooting was ineffective 
• Drop Pod arrived- with the tactical marines in position to cover any move towards the objective claimed by the scouts
• Hunter and Contemptor killed the Helldrake
• 6 CSM removed with shooting
• Daemon Prince loses a wound
• Calgar and the Eversor are obliterated by Abbadon and his mates in combat

Iron Warriors Turn 4

• Daemon Prince flies over the large building- landing behind the Imperial Guard unit- killing 2 troopers with warp flame
• 2nd Contmptor gets destoryed by the Helldrake's autocannon
• Pink Horrors that had been previously summoned kills 6 tactical marines with Flames of Tzeentch
• Typhon takes another HP off the Fellblade
• Obilterators take a further 3 HP off the Fellblade

Imperial  Turn 5

• Kharybdis takes out a Rhino and Cultists with split fire
• Scout with Heavy Bolter killed further Cultists
• Marine with the Missile Launcher destroyed the Helldrake with Flakk fire
• Scopios killed 7 CSM's that had disembarked the wrecked Rhino
• Fellblade and Centurions destroyed the Typhon
• Sicaran and Contemptor finally blew the Fire Raptor out of the skies
• The Master of the Forge killed the remaining Obilterator (with 6th rolling a '1' with only a 2 up required..)
• Final part of the turn saw the Imperial Guard force - with both orders 'first rank fire, second rank fire,' and the Priest with 'The Righteousness of the Emperor' gave me 250 shots - which resulted in the 3 wounds required - plus a lot more to kill the Daemon Prince [T6D – ok…so not much left of my army now…a very harsh turn!]

Iron Warriors Turn 5

• Scouts killed by Cultists
• Shooting from the Obilterators killed the Scopios
• CSM fired upon the Centurions with Plasma and Autocannon- killing one and wounding another
• Charging from the Pink Horror saw the Daemon getting overwatched to death - Cultists couldn't reach with their charge.

We rolled off to see if there would be a turn 6.. and it was a 1- so no further turns.

As the dust settles over the battle grounds, victory points are checked- a 4-3 victory for the Imperium


Lord Halfpenny

Wow- what a battle, which was only 5 turns took a whole day to do. Battling over such a huge area was fun, it makes the battle more tactical as you know that units on one side of the deployment zone will not be able to help out the other side- simply down to the distances. I was really happy with how the Fellblade turned out - dominating the centre of the board. The Knights weren't as effective as I hoped - with them dying relatively quickly. I had planned for them to slowly work their way through the chaos forces - however this didn't happen at all with only the Forgefiend dying in combat. The Eversor was a beast - and I was really impressed with the new rules - The Vindicare similarly would have been good - if i wasn't for me forgetting that he was there... he blended into the Warlord too well... and on the Warlord front- I really enjoyed the look of the board (floor) the titan is massive- and was fun to use as a Line of Sight blocker.

Really enjoyable battle- here is to the next one!!!

The6thDegree

A crazy battle – probably the biggest army I have controlled in a game before! General tactics for target prioritisation went out of the window fairly early-on after I found out that the Fellblade had 12HPs… Targeting the Knights first off was a must though – their high S, low AP blasts make a mess of my army and I had nothing that could stand up to them in combat – luckily though, their large base size meant that they kept getting hung up on terrain and Lord H couldn’t make use of their speed.

My weakest point was putting together a balanced Troop-heavy list. We had talked about using Tactical Objectives – and knowing that I can’t out-toy Lord H on the battlefield (you should see his geek-den – he has literally everything!) I hoped I would be able to use my Troops to claim objectives each turn. We forgot about Tactical Objectives though and Troops really aren’t that useful in a slugfest with super-heavies. Still, I was really happy that my (largely 40k-legal) army held up in an Apoc game. It’s a shame the Decimators and Helbrutes never really got stuck in – but maybe next time.

In the end though, the Golden Daemon stayed down south, which means we’ll have to schedule a rematch in the near future. And I think I might have some (much larger) toys of my own by then…