If you have been wondering where all the battle reports have gone, they have been posted on our gaming group's blog, Rabbit Hole Games. Ricalopia will still be showing projects and hosting the odd rant, but all the group-relevant stuff will be over there. Simple right?
-Black Legion, Wolframs. You had some very interesting allies, Seer.-
-It was unavoidable Autarch. Without intervention the maiden world would have fallen, we would have lost the webway gate in the Phasian cloud. As it is we only have a tenacious hold.-
-Did you at least get Dragger? I see, he didn't show, that is...disappointing. Your little 'hunt' cost us the dragons and the spears, what did it cost them?-
-They weathered the storm, as did we.- The Seer looked directly into the eyes of the Autarch, -the Phasian gate is held, that will be all that matters.-
Although Vet. Sgt. Huckish was smashing deamons left and right he was hard pressed to reach the Chosen holding the third objective. Their chimera was immobilized but did succeed in purging the last plague marine with its heavy flamer.
The center line was holding by a thread, lesser daemons had assaulted Crimson Command, and the platoon commander and his bodyguard died horribly. Skold then punished them, sending most of them back to the warp.
The left flank was advancing with the xeno support. The troupe master, Dyscathi, assaulted Dragger and his bodyguard under the fire-support of the dire avengers. The heretic teleported back to wherever he came from half a second before Dyscathi's blade went through him. With only one objective held, the download of information began to dwindle, and the chosen were forcing their way into one of the others. Phoboes set the objectives to self-destruct lamenting the loss of research.
With the vital information cut off, Dragger back on his barge, and warp activity increasing, both sides prepared a withdraw to conserve their forces. Neither side had achieved a greater victory over the other, both sides began planning the next confrontation.
Adept Majoris Phoboes stood behind his artillery and watched the heretics approach. Skold, the stormsword at his disposal, threw a massive shell into the chaos marines, the rest of the Imperial guns followed suit.
The ogryn servitors charged towards the enemy lines tearing at heretics while artillery rained overhead. Phoboes received a incoherent message about the fluctuations in the warp, but the arrival of a large chaos host would do that.
The walkers on the left flank were being held off by the lascannon-armed sentinels and the line seemed to be holding. As the ogryns threw berserkers around, the techpriest calculated his odds. As long as he had Skold, the ogryns, and that Artios could hold the Choir together, they stood a really good chance at surviving.
But the daemon prince known as Mr. Huggy repelled the ogryn assault, killing them all. To make things worse, Artios was reported to be on his knees vomiting. Then, looking up from his auspex, he noticed the jetbikes. The eldar were here to defend their ruins. He watched as a troupe of brightly colored eldar bounced off one of the chaos walkers, as each landed a weapon would hit the ground at the same time, within seconds it was an invalid.
Crimson II, one of the forward squads, was targeted by a handful of the hardest of the heretics. They were shot at by the quadraped and Mr. Spikey (a defiler), leaving only the commissar and sergeant alive after the smoke cleared.
Sgt. Owen was found wanting in the face of such trivial odds and executed moments before the commissar's evisceration.
Behind the front line a trio of obliterators teleported behind Skold and they threw everything they had at the super heavy tank. Without any other support, Phoboes prepared to discourage them strongly with his servitors.
The xenos allies were regaining the left flank along with the Imperials. Artios was ordering the 609th to avoid shooting the aliens, who were complying the best they could. The chaos forces were being bolstered by daemon princes and lesser beasts and even a greater daemon. The daemonic presence made the xenos almost encouraging. The Primaris said the farseer was in communication with him, and that they were here to assist the Imperial defense.
On the right flank, the Wolf Pack had engaged the greater daemon with plasma. Even with most of its body molten warp-goo, the creature still managed to assault the veterans, killing over half of them in hand to hand combat. Yelling his usual assortment of obscenities, Vet. Sgt. Huckish pounded the overgrown chaos spawn back to the warp.
The obliterators managed to stun the storrmsword, keeping the massive tank between them and the loyal servant of Mars a little longer. Te extra time they bought themselves won them nothing at all.
The quadraped was digging into the Imperial line, it was constantly shrugging off shells from the medusa and was assaulting the center line. On the left flank, the Wolf Pack was preparing to banish another daemon prince. Opposite from them, the farseer was leading an assault on Dragger himself.
To be continued....
Due to the increased activity of eldar forces south of Hive Tempestus, Adept Majoris Phoboes and Primaris Atrios are sent to investigate, and possibly shut down, the warp disturbances originating from the area. Deploying the 609th on a wide perimeter, they set to work.
The Choir was restless and complaining, worrying themselves about marines. Artois knew the chapter they spoke of, specifically their librarian Dragger. They were loyalists, but there were rumors of heresy, but with all the chaos traffic who could be sure? And there was the part about being surrounded by wraithbone, even he could feel it's energy. It felt as though it was alive and growing, thinking, around them.
As Phoboes tested the structures with the Mechanicus tech at is disposal, Artios sent him a warning regarding Dragger. The psyker knew that a librarian like Dragger would likely attempt to use the xenos structures, because that is what he would do in the marine's place.
The Choir began to probe the wraithbone with their minds. It resisted, only showing them a single shard of the future, simply that chaos was approaching. As Artios ordered them to cease, contacts reports were beginning to come in from Zero and Recon Squadrons. Adept Phoboes called their defensive line tighter.
Mr. Huggy and some of his Black Legion had stumbled upon a infestation of tyranids from Hive Fester last Sunday. Squiggly-face began the long float from the far right corner along with Franky and the ankle-biters (aka rippers).
Mr. Huggy began with the termagaunts, killing them all. The Quadruped moved towards Franky, completely ignoring the ankle-biters who were much relieved.
While Franky and Qudruped traded blows, and the ankle-biters slithered towards the terminators, the Triplets floated forwards. Except for their initial warp lances at Quarduped, the marines continued to back off keeping themselves out of range, they were getting frustrated.
Once finished with the gaunts, Mr. Huggy set about ripping apart the warriors behind them. The Black Legion must have realized that this was not where they wanted to hang around, as the swarm slithered and skipped towards them they dug into what cover they could.
Franky had eviscerated the clawed chaos robot and wandered over to help out his little ripper buddies with the terminators. As terminators are wont to do, they were holding their line nicely until a monstrous death-beast arrived.
Franky was regenerating his wounds he got from the robot (shrapnel I guess) and tearing apart a couple of terminators, even those berserkers didn't worry him much. The problem was, Mr. Huggy had finished off the warriors and counter-attacked Franky, causing enough wounds for the skull-taker's powerfist to finish off the monster. The rippers went nuts, as Franky died the little buggers killed a terminator AND Mr.Huggy. Never trust a poisonous worm-thing.
The Triplets got in range to give the chaos marines large globs of warp energy. The three of them melting marines, and Fester approaching and spitting death, caused the chaos filth to change tactics slightly. They were on full defensive now.
Fester began pinning down the fire-support squad, while the Triplets blasted anything not in combat with ankle-biters. (Those little freaks lasted over three full turns of combat, with terminators....poisonous rippers are awesome.)
Sadly, the little ankle-biters couldn't get past the terminators and nibble on the other marines. The Black Legion still had enough numbers to seize a victory (or a tactical retreat as the case may be) and won the battle. Until next time crunchy chaos snacks!
Zaras' day wasn't quite over, the next battle at the bridge began with a spectacular explosion courtesy of a vindicator. Mr. Huggy took notice and attempted to smash the grav tank, to no avail.
So, Zaras picked up the dragons and headed towards the incoming dreadnought. Meanwhile, as berserkers and other such nasties came over the bridge, the deamon prince was gunned down.
Far from almost everyone, a squad of striking scorpions had finished off a squad of Black Legion, only to be assaulted (and killed) by the "quadraped".
Arriving with the terminators, the chaos sorceror turned one of the rangers into a spawn, life began to suck for them. Then they died.
But Zaras was headed off to the other fight that was brewing. The dire avangers were taking on the terminators, but the chaos dread' was still incoming. The aspect warriors managed quite a few wounds, with the terminators saving all of them. D'oh.
The dreadnought seemed indestructible, but not all too deadly against grav tanks.
Jetbikes were incoming, dealing with the deamons and berserkers behind the sorceror, Zaras deployed the dragons on the dreadnought. The two grav tanks gave cover fire as they destroyed it.
The sorceror killed the farseer and his dire avengers, with no terminators remaining, while the dread's explosion left the exarch alone. With no scoring units on either side the battle was a draw.
If you have been reading lately you might be familiar with Zaras. Today is his maiden battle, as well as the vyper and war walker from the last post. At the Rabbit Hole we were playing 1250 point matches, I decided to field a fast list.
The farseer deployed Zaras on the right flank during the first battle. The eldar were facing a marine force consisting of 42 loyalists, including sternguard and devastators.
The devastators were on the fire dragon's to do list, so into the mealstrom of heavy fire he happily flew. Many cover saves later, the dragons were deployed.
The mon-kieh responded with missile fire and an orbital bombardment. After also making many cover saves, their assault plan in tatters and the dragons fell back.
The right flank was bolstered by the timely arrival of the jetbike squadron (who wasted no time in assaulting them). Zaras ferried the remaining dragons to secure the rear objective. Now with both the devastators in combat, and the farseer and dire avengers dealing with the sternies, the focus was on the tactical squads.
The Master Captain and his marines were in Zaras' sights, but Chaplain Goldie was after the farseer. Storms of laser and shriuken fire strafed the building as the dragons secured the objective.
The farseer spent five rounds in combat with Goldie and his marines until the jetbikes arrived and he finally fell. The marines had been removed from the objectives, and the dragons held one.
The next skirmish was against Waagh! Sparky. Zaras quickly sped towards the deffdread, delivering its payload. As it flew to a safer distance the 'dread caught the pulse laser in one of its claws.
The orks attempted to rush the river, but with the dire avengers holding the landing pad/objective, and the roving skimmers, the eldar bank was secure. The fire dragons destroyed the 'dread with meltabombs, but were them killed by angry burnas.
The battle was a draw, on the seventh turn a warboss was tentatively holding the center objective, the dire avengers holding the other.
