Friday 14 December-Saturday 15 December, 2007: Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse

Back again with another cracking report. Read on for the thrilling account of our first Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse game.

The points limit was 5000 per side. I had a 5000 point Chaos Space Marines army facing off against 1250 points of Orks, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Tau. I will do my best to remember the army lists but with no notes and such huge forces I apologise if I’ve left anything out.

Chaos Space Marines: 2 units of 3 obliterators, 2 units of 7 raptors, Abaddon, Kharn, Typhus, Chaos lord with jump pack, 4 terminators, 4 units of 12 Chaos space marines, 3 units of 10 Khorne berserkers in rhinos, 2 predators, 2 land raiders, dreadnought, 7 havocs, 14 plague marines. My strategic assets were: jammers, the barrage which attacks characters and vehicles, flank march and disrupter beacon.

Dark Angels: unit of veterans, unit of devastators in a rhino, 2 tactical squads with one in a razorback, Command squad, chaplain, librarian, scouts. Their strategic asset was the one which attacks characters and vehicles before the game.

Space Wolves: Logan Grimnar with wolf guard retinue, blood claws in rhino, grey hunters, long fangs, blood claw bikers. Their strategic asset was a vortex grenade.

Orks: big mech with shock attack gun, huge slugga boys mob, Grotsnik (or whatever the special character is called), weird boy, pain boss with a meganobs retinue in a truck, looted wagon, looters. Their strategic asset was strategic redeployment.

Tau: Commander Shadowsun, 2 hammerheads, stealth team and 3 battle suit teams organised into a datasheet formation. Their strategic asset was a blind barrage.

The Chaos army won the bid for deployment so began feverishly setting up. Although I got around 3 dozen marines and 4 tanks down I under estimated the time it actually takes to set up such a huge force. The chaos side looked rather bare when I removed a half finished squad of Plague Marines. As it happens, I was able to use my reserves to devastating effect (when the dice didn’t fail spectacularly) and so this state of affairs wasn’t so bad.

Despite their jammed communications, the Imperium were able to mobilise a rapid response. In their only marginally longer deployment time they arrayed a terrifying host against me. The only thing in my favour was that the rules said that you have to include setting up infiltrators and moving scouts in your deployment time. They weren’t able to do this as they ran out of time.

The pre-game assets were a mixed lot. My attacks proved fantastically effective with wounds being taken on the chaplain, librarian, big mech and one of Shadowsun’s drones. Luck was important there though as the Dark Angels retaliatory strikes did nothing.

The Tau’s blind barrage prevented Abaddon’s land raider from firing but also protected it and a large squad of Chaos marines from retalliation in his turn. A mixed blessing for both sides that one.

My first turn went badly. I immobilised a hammerhead (on top of a hill where its railgun could see practically everything anyway) – I think that even the plastic Tau were smiling. The rest of my shooting was not all that effective with tank-mounted lascannons doing little – especially with that bloody barrage in place.

The retalliation was swift and uncalled for. My anti-tank predator rolled over in a cloud of smoke as an ion cannon tore into it. Likewise Kharn’s personal land raider was destroyed by the smiling railgun crew. He tumbled from the wreckage confused but unharmed and lurked behind it menacingly in his entangled next turn. I think a couple of other marines were taken down by bolters from the rapidly closing Dark Angels. The narrower no-man’s-land of an Apocalypse game means that it is quite possible to get some units into assault in the first turn and so rapid fire bolter range is almos always likely to be achieved.

Turn 2 saw the clearing of the blind barrage and the arrival of the majority of the Chaos assault troop reserves. Raptors and a jump pack-equipped Chaos lord tore into the Chaplain and a nearby tactical squad while 3 squads of Khorne Berserkers rampaged on from all sides and swept the Long Fangs, big mech, Dark Angels Command Squad and devastaters before them. Shooting was not good however with only minor casualties. The terrifying success of the World Eaters made up for this though with the terrifying WS 5 berserkers utilising their Furious Charge skill to tear their targets to bits, even those in cover.

Reeling, I think almost quite literally, from that ambush, the Imperials brought their reserves on. Some scout snipers came on to the board opposite Abaddon’s land raider and completely failed to do anything. The orks and Blood Claw groups were getting close now though and it would soon start to hurt. The weird boy rolled a random power which caused him to teleport himself and the squad of 30 Ork boys he had joined to another point on the battlefield. Their appearance behind the Chaos lines caused quite a stir. I wished that I had not left my defilers at home when I saw that huge circle of squishy boys packed together in anticipation.

I think it was around this time when Abaddon and Shadowsun joined combat. Olly’s dice shone however and she only lost her drones to his daemon weapons. Similarly, the small terminator squad assigned to Abaddon turned from their Lord to eliminate a threat to his Land Raider. They wiped out the whole fusion-toting stealth team with one heavy flamer. It was also in turn 3 when the rest of the Chaos reserves arrived. Havocs, a dreadnought, typhus and the plague marines streamed on to the board with a squad of obliterators on each side to support them. The shooting was decidedly more telling this time with Abaddon’s land raider sending laser and steel into the scouts. The last few left the field, demoralised. The obliterators on the Chaos board edge fired 3 flamers at the Packed Orks and killed 14. Kharn’s plasma pistol incinerated another boy. Both units then waded into the rapidly diminishing horde as bolter shots tore into them from the other side from a large Chaos marine squad. The Obliterators fired twin-linked meltaguns into the looted wagon and reduced it to smoking scrap. The dreadnought’s heavy flamer roasted 6 of the looters with its lascannon vaporising another. The last three broke cover and ran back directly into charge range of the dreadnought where they were soon minced in his massive claws. Cheered by his success, he turned his lascannon in his next turn and blew up one of the rhinos belonging to the berserkers. The havocs destroyed the ion cannon hammerhead but the anti-tank raptor squad failed spectacularly with their meltagun missing, plasma pistol failing to damage and plasma gun killing its wielder. The tau in the railgun hammerhead once more smiled as their gun slowly turned to find its next target.

In turn 3 the rest of the Imperial reenforcements arrived. There is no scarier sight than 9 crisis battle suits popping into existence around your prized units. Luckily, I was winning and so had the units to counter this. The highlights of this were when Abaddon took 4 wounds from plasma rifles and made 4 invulnerable saves. Although his land raider was blown up the plague marines soaked up the damage of 3 burst cannons, 3 missile pods and 6 flamers and only lost 3 models. Logan Grimnar lost all of his wolf guard to rapid fire plasma from the obliterators but they then learned about his vortex grenade. Unfortunately, they learned too slowly and 3 obliterators – yes, that’s right, 3 of them were just removed from the board because they were clipped by the smallest of the templates. Don’t mess with a vortex grenade, ever!

I’m afraid that memory fails me as to the exact order of events in the following turns. Highlights include abaddon finishing off shadowsun, the librarian and the three battle suits who shot at him. Kharn and the obliterators finally chopped their way through the remaining ork boys and weird boy unit but the damage was beginning to tell on the obliterators, curse the new toughness 4 and nobs with power claws. The last obliterator and Kharn fired at a truly terrifying unit of nobs in megaarmour with a pain boss. Their truck had been destroyed by Chaos marines but they trudged on implacably. This small private battle could only go one way for although Kharn fought bravely and the Obliterator did its best they were hopelessly out-power weaponed and fell. This unit had also torn Typhus limb from limb due to some incredibly rebellious daemons in his Manreaper. He did not do well in this game.

Logan Grimnar then tore the dreadnought apart and turned back to the rest of the battlefield. He didn’t move far from his starting point but he made his points. He and Abaddon began moving towards one another menacingly but Logan was so fixated on his duel with the hated leader of the Black Legion that he didn’t heed the unit of raptors with their jump pack lord leaping in behind him. Although he fought bravely, he was unable to stand against the lightning claws and the lord slew him. Abaddon, who was also doing well and wanted the duel for himself probably broke the lord later. The Imperial army didn’t manage it. He did well for his first time out: a chaplain, one or two marines and Logan Grimnar.

As callous as it sounds, there was just mopping up for the last few turns. The Imperial forces survived just long enough for Chaos infantry to claim 5 of the 6 objectives and ended the game with just something like 5 models left: a couple of marines and a fleeing ork I think.

The battle was amazing – I would say that, I won. The field afterwards looked a sight with nearly a dozen wrecked vehicles strewn about and I think at least 4 more removed due to explosions. The violence was incredible but it was a struggle for the Black Legion, even with the apparent advantages they had. I recommend everyone should play it. We have scheduled another game in for the end of January – one which should include a traitor baneblade (it’s mine so why not?) and a brass scorpeon of Khorne. That should be 6000 points a side of unadulterated carnage!

This week end also saw the first half of another game which was a fvariation of the Take and Hold mission from the 40K rulebook. We adapted it for 3 2000 point armies on an 8 by 4 board – which actually worked quite well. Unfortunately, the fact that we had been playing until nearly 5 the previous morning and had risen early to continue the apocalypse game meant that we had to abandon that game. It was rather fun though with a rather whimsical selection of armies and a truly terrifying number of terminators on most sides. I did learn about giving Chaos terminators the mark of Nurgle which grants them a toughness of 5 and the Feel no Pain ability. Truly terrifying you might think? Well on paper you would be right except that in the apocalypse game where I only had 4 terminators I didn’t lose a single one. Out of the 10 terminators in my 2000 point army I lost 6. The vagueries of war or some crap dice? I also had the misfortune to use 2 Chaos vindicators. They were so fun and violent that I am now compelled to buy some. That is both a curse and a hint for Christmas…

This battle also saw the truly horrifying arrival of a unit of 17 ork storm boys who have a move of between 13 and 18 inches per turn with an assault move of 6 more. This would be fine if Johnny didn’t have so many of them. They were responsible for the destruction of most of the Nurgle terminators. The Dark Angels player tried out a death wing army whose heavy flamer obliterated a unit of fire warriors in one go. More blood claws from the Space Wolves and a crossfire of ion cannon fire from the Tau made that board a bad place to be. Still, we were quite drunk so it seemed like a laugh.

Well I’ll go now but our next report will be a 2000 point a side warhammer game this Wednesday with Dwarves fighting against an allied army of wood elves and either chaos or orks & goblins. Not good story line but an interesting mix. Check back for details.

Commander Portman.