The story so far Chaos 10 victory points, imperium 5 victory points.
Carrying on from the previous coverage of the apocalypse game we now have the outer wall destroyed completely, a flying circus above the chaos deployment zone and a load of chaos terminators amidst the imperial lines.
The vortex template continues to move around the table deleting a dead chimera.
The land raiders, brass scorpion and the seekers advance following the lord of change and Kairos fateweaver. A unit of daemonettes deep strike in as galrauch leads his terminators towards the heavy bolter heavy weapon teams.
Khorne berserkers jump from the land raider and move to attack the ravenwing. A daemon prince of slaanesh emerges from the portal to attack grey knight brother captain Lothar.
The possessed and deathshroud terminators move to engage the storm hawks that destroyed the deredeo. The forces of nurgle move to engage the ravenwing as a unit of cultists arrives to aid them. The Chaos lord Cornelius (terminator lord) with the basilisk he was manning destroyed moves to go loyalist hunting. The predator annihilator lambda moves to target the imperial fliers while the emperors children vindicator shifts back to target the storm hawks.
Typhus menaces the last surviving guardsman from his unit. Another squad of daemonettes drops in with their herald. The tzeentch terminators move towards the destroyer tank hunter as the nurgle terminators move to aid their lord.
A dark apostle leads a squad of cultists onto the table as a soul grinder, skull canon and burning chariot deep strike onto the table. Having destroyed one tower Agra (chaos lord T armour white robe) leads his squad to attack the gate. The justaerin move to attack the remaining wall. The oblitorators move into melta range of the command bastion.
The mutaliators move to engage the laser destroyer rapiers.
The psychic phase takes a hull point from the firestorm redoubt and a wound from the thanatar.
And a hull point from the vulture.
Four storm hawks are killed through the combined shooting of the deathshroud and vindicator. The cultists kill one ravenwing biker with their pistols.
The heavy bolter of the chosen squad kills two ravenwing bikers.
The plague marines take a wound from the attack bike.
The command bastion is blown apart. Cavros thawne and his unit pile out and take cover by the thanatar.
The cultist squad kills two snipers and wounds the primaris psycher.
Horus’s orbital bombardment destroys a bombard and the deathstrike launcher.
Cultist shooting kills five guardsmen and a primaris psycher.
Terminator shooting kills the heavy bolter squad.
The ravenwing squad are destroyed. The attack bike survives.
The land speeder is wrecked. While the ravenwing librarian fights the possessed.
Abaddon fails to harm commissar Schaefer his squad manage to kill some of the veterans. The Dthrister manages to cut down the repentia to 2 survivors while the greater brass scorpion finally kills the priest and the conscripts leaving it and the helbrute in close combat with chaplain cassius.
Grand master tarn loses a wound but takes one from the nurgle lord. The nurgle terminators fail to harm the armoured sentinel.
The thanatar detonates killing nork dedogg and five daemonettes. Thypus finishes off the guardsman.
The tzeentch terminators destroy the destroyer tank hunter.
The second tzeentch terminator squad is struggling against the myrmidons. Failing to do any harm (to the imperial guard psycher I might add)
The justearin destroy the wall while agra and his unit tear the gate apart.
The guardsman squad is wiped out by the cultists.
The mutilators kill the guardsmen rapier crew but the inquisitor survives.
The seekers fail to harm the thanatar callix while the black knight is killed and the gun emplacement is wrecked.
The priest survives the attacks from all the chaos terminators (Hymns again, re-rolling a 4+ invun stops a load of wounds) The tzeentch sorcerer has killed the lord commissar.
The daemonettes kill two of the paladins. The tech thrall manages to survive the possessed.
The khorne berserkers lost a model to overwatch and failed their charge.
Brother captain Lothar could not stand against the spine shiver blade of the daemon prince of slaanesh. The storm hawks are whittled down to two survivors. Wolf lord sigmar is now fighting the possessed while the last surviving standard marine is fighting the deathshroud.
Imperial turn 3
The vortex moves onto and then eats the seeker chariot with the herald.
The imperial flying circus continues their flyover of the chaos lines. The vultarax moves up to sit where the gun emplacement had been. Blood angels terminator squads deep strike in to aid the attack. A unit of ursurax also deep strike in.
The vulture gunship moves over some infantry and prepares to open fire before it leaves the table.
The ravenwing survivor is key in dropping in these terminator squads ready to hit the chaos backfield units.
The ursurax deep strike in ready to attack. (Both Wolf Lord Sigmar and chaplain cassius are in trouble.}
The knight atrapos can finally move and it does so making the possessed its targets. The blood angel terminators squad and their librarian have deep strikes into position to aid in the crush.
A domitar moves in to engage the nurgle terminators. The sniper taem and the missile teams of the imperial guard move to protect their commander. The tech priest enginseer and his servitor move to attack the tzeentch sorcerer.
A big unit of thallax and a magos prime move in to engage horus.
The imperial forces send in an Aquila lander to pick up cavros thawne and evacuate him.
A unit of three vorax, two units of two castellax and another magos move on as does the deathwatch biker. Yarrick leads the remnant squad he is joined to out into the fight. Magos auxhilla niils moves to repair the glaive.
Mr12 and a blood angels tactical squad move to engage the forces of chaos.
Haywire is a strong tool and the vultarax destroys a land raider forcing the khorne troops within to disembark. Skullshatterer leads this unit of berserkers towards the imperial lines. (One has already been blown up by imperial artillery.)
The justearin are gunned down to a single survivor by the castellax.
The burning chariot is deleted.
The cultist unit is wiped out but goes straight back into ongoing reserves due to the formation.
Horus loses two wounds from the mechanicum shooting.
The blood angels terminators detonate the basilisk.
The deathshroud kill their victim. The possessed lose their champion to sigmar while cassius and the ursurax are kill by the greater brass scorpion and the helbrute. The thunderbolt has shot the vindicator dead.
Abbadon takes a wound from his opponent and his terminators kill another guardsmen. The knight atrapos kills one possessed through its stomps and attacks.
Tarn loses another wound as the domitar kills a terminator.
Horus loses another wound but kills two thallax in return. The tzeentch terminators are wiped out by the myrmidon destructors.
The blood angels terminators and possessed failed to harm each other.
Chaos Turn 4
Double vortex (thanks atrapos) this turn a single seeker is eaten. (Note that thanatar caliix is still alive and it has killed its opponent)
More cultists inbound. A unit of harpies has been dropped in while the Dthirster has moved to be able to engage the knight atrapos. Kairos has move up and been joined by a decimator daemon engine.
More cultists arrive to help horus this time. Vincent murgle daemon prince of nurgle has deep striked between the imperial artillery. A unit of blood letters and two more daemon princes (dark lord [Sauron] and reaver [nightbringer]) have also arrived via deep strike and both have black maces. The remaining tzeentch terminators move to attack the tower.
Mortarion, the greater brass scropion and the helbrute move up to attack the blood angels terminators. (A leg has come free of the greater brass scorpion but this can be repaired after the game has finished.)
The ravenwing attack bike continues to exist so more plague marines are dispatched to eliminate him. The remaining troops move forwards towards the enemy lines.
The predator annihilator turns to face the dark talon.
An alpha legion deredeo arrives to aid with the flier infestation. (We had started removing dead vehicles to make more room. Also our emperors children player would not be present for the remainder of this game so he took his models, he will be back for the finale though. He is saving his troops for that.)
The combat between the blood angels terminators and the berserkers + kharne had been bloody. Kharne lost two wounds but won his challenge and turned into a daemon prince. (I used an appropriate model for this.) The slaanesh daemon prince from before had moved to engage the other unit of blood angel terminators while a keeper of secrets and another slaanesh daemon prince have arrived to help finish off the remaining enemies in this area.
The daemonettes move to engage mr 12 while the possessed take aim at the blood angels rhino. The brass scorpion moves to attack the knight mageara and another unit of seekers takes aim at the thanatar callix.
Cultists and a keeper of secrets move in to hold up the machanicum while the soul grinder moves to menace the vorax.
Lord Agra sets his sights on the final tower and with his terminators in tow moves towards it. The tzeentch terminators moving in to support him.
This armoured sentinel is shot dead by the autocannon of the archos tank.
The cultists kill the surviving autocannon teams.
The firestorm redoubt is reduced to one hull point.
Daemonettes charge the vindicare and take two wounds from him. The blood thirster takes 3 hull points from the green preator. Lord agra again takes down another tower. The keeper of secrets takes a wound from the castellax but suffers one in return. The cultists lose a few models to overwatch but are successful in holding up the mechanicum magos and her bodyguards.
Reaver failed to harm his target. The dark lord destroys the minotaur. Vincent murgle takes a hull point from the bombard while the blood letters kill one myrmidon and lose a model in return. Horus is down to two wounds but manages to kill one more thallax.
The domitar loses a wound but kills two nurgle terminators in return. Tarn and the nurgle lord continue to flail uselessly at each other.
The daemonettes send the blue command squad running (one survivor). Their herald loses a wound to overwatch and then fails to kill any guardsmen. They fail to hurt him in return though. Abbaddon and his terminators finally deal with the veterans. The firstorm redoubt is destroyed by the charge of the decimator daemon engine.
The Dthirster and knight Atrapos had it out. The knight missed with its D weapon but then stomped on the Thirster rolling one stomp then a 6 and removing him. The Dthirster however also strikes at I 1 and subsequently rolled three sixes on the D table removing both from the table. The resulting blast scattered off the table. Despite the charge of the greater brass scorpion and helbrute only three blood angel terminators fall.
The attack biker finally succumbs to the predations of the plague marines. Wolf lord sigmar has finally been killed by the possessed.
Kharne and the slaanesh daemon prince have finished off the blood angels terminators while the deathwatch blood angel was killed by the keeper of secrets. The second snake like daemon prince of slaanesh guts some of the blood angel terminators but manages to survive unscathed from their return attacks. (Chaos models get +1 to their invun while within 12” of the portal.)
The thanatar takes one wound and kills one seeker. The greater brass scorpion takes a hull point from the mageara for no damage in return. Mr 12 is reduced to one wound by the daemonettes.
One of the grey knight paladins are downed by the other unit of daemonettes.
Imperial Turn 4
At this stage, we had a little chat and decided that the imperium would pull back from this field as the city was all but lost. They could leave via any table edge that is within the city walls. Vehicles and characters regain 1 wound. (Eternal warrior characters are returned to full wounds if they have survived and escaped) Super heavy vehicles get 1 HP back for every three they started with (representing emergency repairs undertaken by the mechanicum.)
These escaped units can be used in the extraction mission. Unused stratagems are also retained but no further stratagems are generated. (So the emperors children still have flank march for instance as it was not used.)
The Vortexes continue to move. One eating the seekers that had been in combat with the thanatar but leaving it untouched (rolled a 1 on the D table for the vortex)
The thanatar callix now stares down the brass scorpion after it finished off the imperial knight.
The cultists cause a single wound to a thallax, horus goes back down to two while the malagra magos tanks every hit on his 3+ invulnerable save. The combat between the myrmidon destructors, ordinator magos and bloodletters continues.
The combat between tarn and the nurgle lord continues with neither managing to hurt the other. The domitar fails to kill the final nurgle terminator who subsequently takes a hull point from the armoured sentinel. The cultists continue to be useless. Typhus is charged by an imperial command squad killing three but the guardsmen hold fast.
The daemonettes finish off the vindicare assassin.
The keeper of secrets fails to wound but takes one in return from the castellax. The second unit of castellax starts whittling away at the zealot cultists. (They were chucked into combat to try and slow the castellax down.)
The inquisitor still manages to survive the attentions of the mutilators.
MR 12 kills a daemonette and passes all the saves he was called upon to make.
Two daemonettes are lost to cause one would on the paladins. The daemons pass their instability test.
1 possessed and three terminators perish as the greater brass scorpion continues to struggle with hitting its foes.
The daemon prince of slaanesh takes a wound from the thunder hammer storm shield blood angles captain and loses a wound from the power fists of the terminator squad.
The aquila missile silo fires and destroyed the chaos portal with a 6 on the D table. The alpha legion deredeo suffers a single hull point of damage.
The oblitorators are gunned down by the vorax while the soul grinder is destroyed. The vendetta took 1 hp, the storm eagle 2 and the final one was removed by the fellblade. The psycher and ratlings have pulled back.
Along with a possessed and the black helbrute.
Moving forwards the glaive fires killing two terminators.
The imperial artillery pulls back from the chaos daemon princes.
Yarick resurrects and runs for the table edge.
Seeing the state of the failing battleline the blood angels take their rhino and run. The thanatar callix moves to engage the brass scorpion.
The empty chimera leaves the table as sergeant harker and his squad of veterans also move to pull out of the deathzone.
Chaos turn 5
(The focus was on moving units that could get into close combat.)
The vortex templates shift around each other but do no further damage this turn.
Mortarion and the possessed move in to help remove the final few blood angel terminators
The whirlwind pulls back from the ravenwing biker, Kharne (the daemon prince of khorne) moves to help the slaanesh Daemon prince with the blood angel terminators.
Kiaros fateweaver (something on his base was absorbing and then distributing moisture back onto the table) moves to target the last remaining bunker while Mr 12 is surrounded by khorne berserkers and possessed.
The decimator daemon engine and the sorcerer move onto the wrecked firestorm redoubt.
The dark apostle heads towards the bunker ready to melta bomb it.
Agra, his three terminators, reaver and the blood thirster move to attack the aquila strongpoint. The lord of change has moved up to target the structure with psychic attacks.
The tzeentch terminators head towards the fellblade as Vincent murgle eyes up the myrmidon destructors.
The daemonettes move to engage the domitar.
The decimator fires its heavy flamers and removes all of the guardsmen in front of it and wounds the lord commissar.
The tzeentch terminators strip three hull points from the fellblade while Vincent annihilates the myrmidons and leaves the magos on 1 wound. Horus beats down 2 thallax but takes a wound in return.
Reaver and the blood thirster take four hull points from the medium bunker part of the aquila strongpoint.
The daemonettes overwhelm the domitar.
One blood angel terminator remains standing
The combined attacks of the slaanesh daemon prince and Kharne reduce the terminator captain to one wound. The slaanesh daemon prince does however lose another wound.
The keeper of secrets finishes off the ravenwing.
The lord of khorne defeats Mr12 in a challenge. The combat in the centre between the grey knights, dameonettes and possessed lord ends with Anslem (possessed lord) losing a wound, a paladin being killed and two daemonettes being banished.
Bad rolling from both sides sees the thanatar callix lose a wound but take two hull points from the brass scorpion
The castellax and magos continue to chew through the cultists while the castellax fighting the keeper of secrets lose two wounds from the daemons attacks.
Imperial turn 5
The vortex’s move taking the dead land raider from the table.
The aquila lander takes off.
And escapes the table taking cavros thawne and what remains of his command squad to safety.
The glaive, fellblade, vorax, earthsaker carriage, storm eagle, secutarri and vendetta evacuate the area.
Magos auxhilla niils and his two servo automata also leave the table.
Horus is killed off by the malagra magos. The castellax and female magos kill off the last few cultists and flee the table.
Chaos Turn 6
The vortex templates continue to orbit in the chaos deployment zone. (The blood angel terminators have now been wiped out)
The chaos vehicles attempt to flee the vortex template zone. (The mutilators are now free having finally killed the inquisitor) The brass socprion and the thanatar continued to fail to kill each other.
Destroying the aquila strongpoint exploded the vortex missiles within. This stripped two wounds from reaver.
The ordinator magos is brought down by the blood letters, grey knight grand master tarn is killed by the nurgle lord (who gains a nifty poisoned boon on his power axe). The armoured sentinel is punched to death by the nurgle terminator.
Imperial Turn 6
The vortex template lands on anslem taking a wound from him. The herald is now all alone against the grey knight brotherhood champion.
The combat in the centre of the table is drawn. (The keeper of secrets vs castellax fight also ended in zero wounds caused.) The brass scorpion finally downs the thanatar [The first time all game I had rolled more than 1 hit for its close combat weapons. I then caused five wounds and the thanatar failed its invulnerable save and detonated. This caused no damage]
Two cultists are killed by the malagra magos.
Chaos turn 7
One vortex template finally peters out (rolls a double for scatter) leaving one active vortex sweeping the table
The final (and falling back) vox caster guardsmen is surrounded and then subjected to the skull cannon.
The lord of change and daemonette squad moves in to aid the keep of secrets with the castellax.
The tzeentch terminators move to engage the thallax and malagra magos.
Possessed swarm forwards to aid with grey knight clearing.
Anslem kills his foe in the challenge and is blessed with the gift of stubborn and a 2+ save. The grey knight brotherhood champion is also killed.
The castellax are final brought down through weight of numbers. (21 attacks from the daemonttes, 6 from the keeper of secrets and the handful from the lord of change managed to cause enough wounds and with enough invulnerable saves being failed spelled the end for the unit.)
The tzeentch terminators and cultists combined only manage to take two wounds from a thallax.
Imperial turn 7
The vortex continues to roam.
Two tzeentch terminators and one cultist are destroyed. We then allowed the magos and his unit a chance to escape via the sweeping advance rule. Rolling vs the cultists I and the magos I values. The magos rolled a 2 and the cultist a 1. The mechanicum priest and his construct were able to escape.
Final table flyover
The chaos portal was destroyed by ta lucky hit from the aquila missile silo. All the chaos artillery bar the hell cannon have been destroyed.
The luckiest scorpion ever (1Hp remaining) and 3 of the ten surviving daemonettes from the formation.
Note the soul grinder and destroyer tank hunter are long dead.
The daemon princes lament the escaped imperial artillery.
No structures now stand within the city as the forces of chaos simply blitzkrieg’d the imperial defenders.
21/60 possessed survived the battle, as did abbadon and 14/42 terminators
Depleted but alive the plague marines helped fight off the ravenwing. The deathshroud terminators lost a single model
Story excerpt
Cavros Thawne knew the city was now lost. The aquila lander had arrived to ferry him clear of the site and he had given the fall-back order. The forces of chaos had conducted a devastating blitzkrieg attack on the sector and with a breach now present more of the vile creatures were now pouring into the city.
Sporadic fire buffets the aircraft as it leaves the area. “Sir, we are being rerouted to the excavation site. Magos Driel has deployed his ordinatus and Warhound to provide cover for the retreating forces. Local PDF are refusing to retreat. ”
“Any signs of pursuit.”
“Negative”
“And the inquisitor”
“No word”
“Proceed with all haste we need to reach the site and set up the defences before they do pursue us.”
“Acknowledged”
—
The changeling led his retinue from the structure. He shrugged off the visage of the inquisitor as Susurri walks into view.
“You did well daemon.” Susurri rasps.
“why thank you” The changeling replies. A shadow falls over him and he looks up at Lord Vulcan Bloodfang. Morrs penna stood on the top of the building he had just exited from while Solomon gyre was leaning against the wall.
“Where have they gone?” Vulcan asks.
“The evacuation site.” The changeling replies.
Vulcan taps the fingers of his lightning claw against the blade of his manreaper as he digests this news. “They will attempt to break through our fleet in orbit to get into range for their attempts. We will remove their hope and kill them all.” He then turns to the alpha legionnaire. “where is this site?”
“Seventy miles north of this location. A high gain orbital relay is situated within the mountains. The evacuation site will be there.” Susurri rasps. “Beyond our orbital scans the area is unmapped.”
“All forces” Vulcan states activating his vox. “We march north”
Conclusion.
Victory points:
Chaos total 31 victory points
Imperial total 11 victory points
With this result the forces of chaos have won the campaign. We move now into the endgame/epilogue missions. For this portion we have four linked missions. We have a flyer based mission that will determine which fliers can be used in the final game and which turn they will arrive on. A kill team mission to retrieve a prisoner and game of a battlefleet gothic. These all link into a final last stand apocalypse game where we will see just what the imperium can retrieve from the planet.
Campaign Statistics
Dead models:
Imperial: 373 Chaos: 251
This brings the total death tolls so far in the campaign to 1156 for the imperium and 844 for chaos. Giving us a total of 2000 dead models.
On average (we have played 16 missions) 125 models have died in each mission. This translates to 52.75 (chaos) and 72.25 (imperial) casualties per mission
The kill ratio is 13/7
So, for every 13 models chaos kill they lose 7, or for the imperium for every 7 models they kill they lose 13.
Nice work. Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I like the storyline that’s accompanying this. It’s my favorite part of campaigns, creating an actual story.
Thanks Thor. I have only been adding in excerpts from the story. (Our gaming group has pooled together to write up the missions and with key points from our games being represented in the story) At the last count the story (in a word document) is 60 pages long and contains 29377 words!
Thanks Rory.
My philosophy was photograph everything that happens that way I can normally find a picture to show what has occurred. (And my camera can take 9000+ pictures on its highest setting before the SD card is full so that helps.)
While chaos has won the planet the story will continue for a few more missions. (We have a kill team mission [played], a flier only game [played], a 4000pts a side battlefleet gothic game [next to be played] and a final extraction apocalypse mission (featuring everything that has yet to be destroyed or killed. so titans (imperial warhound, chaos reaver) an ordinatus ulator, 4 chaos baneblades amoungst other things.))
Nice work. Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I like the storyline that’s accompanying this. It’s my favorite part of campaigns, creating an actual story.
Thanks Thor. I have only been adding in excerpts from the story. (Our gaming group has pooled together to write up the missions and with key points from our games being represented in the story) At the last count the story (in a word document) is 60 pages long and contains 29377 words!
Jesus, man. You guys are all-in with games and story.
Just an epic report, with a slew of pictures!
Like Thor I am a fan of the story components as well.
Thanks Rory.
My philosophy was photograph everything that happens that way I can normally find a picture to show what has occurred. (And my camera can take 9000+ pictures on its highest setting before the SD card is full so that helps.)
While chaos has won the planet the story will continue for a few more missions. (We have a kill team mission [played], a flier only game [played], a 4000pts a side battlefleet gothic game [next to be played] and a final extraction apocalypse mission (featuring everything that has yet to be destroyed or killed. so titans (imperial warhound, chaos reaver) an ordinatus ulator, 4 chaos baneblades amoungst other things.))