The Battle for Mirum Ostentum #19

With the forces of chaos having earned a victory on the ground during this campaign we now need to see if the imperial war machine can rescue any of their ground based forces.

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Fleets

Imperial: total 3790 pts [Helix Tagmata ark has Leadership 9. The Star fort has a Ld 9 1 re-roll admiral on board, The undaunted warrior is Ld 9. Space marine ships get + 1 Ld added to their value.]

331st patrol group (2 sword frigates, [70pts] survivors of the first game)

Sanguinem Nuntius, Regrinus (space marine strike cruisers [320pts]), Helix Tagmata #17ZIP0D3W5 (adeptus mechanicus Ark [415pts]), Hurricanes Wrath (Space marine battlebarge [425pts]), Eagle squadron (3 hunter class destroyers [120pts]), Indicium Squadron (3 Gladius class frigates [135pts]), Redux squadron (3 Nova class frigates [150pts]), Transire Squadron (6 Falchion class destroyers [210pts]), Sacra Canis (Vengeance class grand cruiser [230pts], Telum Fortmintis (Ramilies class star fort [875 pts]), Imperatoris (Emperor class battleship [365pts])

Dark angels relic battlebarge The undaunted warrior [475pts]

Chaos: total 4000pts (Predetermined Leadership values.)

Caladaris Claw (Despoiler class battleship [450pts]), Caladaris Fate (Desolator class battleship mark of tzeentch [300pts]), Bloodshed (Slaughter class cruiser, mark of khorne [165pts]), Caladaris thunder (Hades class cruiser [200pts]), Caladaris Erath (Murder class cruiser , daemonic ship [170pts]), Caladaris Ruin (murder class cruiser [150pts]), Caladaris Nova (planet killer, mark of slaanesh [505pts]), Regalia of Sin (Despoiler class battleship, chaos marine crew [410pts]), Silence (Styx class cruiser [290pts]), Unbroken Chain (Murder class cruiser [150pts]), Unseen hand (2 iconoclast class destroyers [60pts])

(Leadership values to be determined)

Pustulant Boil (repulsive class grand cruiser, mark of nurgle [230pts]), Wyrd Fyre (Malediction Class Light Cruiser [120pts]), Abnegation squadron (3 infidel class riaders [120pts]), Consilia (Archeron class cruiser, mark of tzeentch [190pts]), Viam scitis (hades class cruiser, mark of tzeentch [200pts]), Inferna nuntius (styx class cruiser, mark of tzeentch [290pts])

The dark angel battlebarge will emerge onto the table a turn of the imperial players choice [cannot be turn 1] from the arrow (nebula). The ramelies star fort needs to be deployed 20cm away from table edges.

The objectives are simple. Chaos needs to destroy the Star fort while the imperial forces need to use the time it takes for chaos to do this to try to reach the planet and attempt to extract their forces from the ground.

Low orbit:

Attacking the planet (chaos) cruiser or larger must remain in low orbit to fire upon the apocalypse game. Ships cannot be carriers (cannot be styx class) and the Caladaris nova makes D3 orbital bombardments per turn if it is used in this manner. Ships cannot be placed on special orders or fight if they wish to make orbital strikes. (you get one per turn corresponding to the turn that the ship remains in orbit for.)

Conducting the rescue (Imperial). Requires a space marine ship (Undaunted warrior, hurricanes wrath, Sanguinem nuntius or regrinus) in low orbit. If the ship come under fire the recovery attempt suffers a –1 penalty for that turn. Like with the chaos ships above the imperial ships cannot fight or be placed under special orders while they are attempting to recover troops. A cruiser or larger ship can conduct orbital strikes as with the chaos forces above.

Story excerpt

Orbit – Caladaris nova – bridge

Galrauch was stirred from his reverie by the sensors detecting movement. A warp ripple deposited a fully armed and active ramelies star fortress a reasonable distance from the planet. An imperial fleet was a short distance behind powering towards the world.

“All ships bring all systems online.” Galrauch stated into the inter ship vox grid. “We have company.”

“Our ground forces have requested orbital bombardments and are sending coordinates.” One of the other ship captains replies.

“We shall leave the Consilia in low orbit to act on the coordinates.” Galrauch Snarls. “A decisive strike on the fortress will secure our hold over this system.”

“As you wish lord.”

————

Regrinus – bridge

“Sword brethren Jamal.” One of the chapter serfs states.

“Speak” Jamal replies.

“No contact from any of the forces we deployed to the surface.”

“Do not worry about that.” Jamal states. “The chaos jamming signals could be interfering we should move in closer and see what we can do.”

————

Helix Tagmata #17ZIP0D3W5

Magos Drak sighed as the tactical situation was projected into his cortex. Loading the nova cannon was a simple task and with a thought he used it to strike one of his foes.

#Direct hit#

#Damage to enemy vessel minimal#

#Enemy fleet will be in engagement range in three minutes#

#Omnissiah preserve us#

——-

Imperatoris – bridge.

Admiral Lucas sighed as he gained full results on the chaos fleets disposition. “Their tonnage far exceeds our own.”

“Sir we have launched fighters as ordered. Five carriers identified as part of the chaos fleet.”

“Good.”

The Game

Deployment

: The forces of chaos deploy in a line formation in front of the planet.

: Leaving one of the tzeentch ships back as an orbital bombardment mule.

: The imperial fleet has also taken up a line type deployment.

Turn 1

The imperium wins the roll off and choses to go first.

: Imperial Movement phase – the imperial ships move forwards seeking to break through the chaos lines and get to the planet. Shooting is limited to the nova cannon that manages to do two points of damage to the Caladaris nova (planet killer).

: Imperial Ordinance phase – The imperial carrier launch waves of fighters as they also fire a pre-emptive torpedo barrage. The space marine ships launch thunderhawks

: The ordinance templates form up and move to attempt to intercept any chaos ordinance.

: Chaos Movement phase – The chaos fleet advances moving to avoid the torpedeo salvos. The tzeencth ship starts the bombardment of the apocalypse game.

: Chaos shooting phase- having strayed too close three of the space marine escorts are blown apart. The hurricanes wrath battlebarge suffers a bridge smashed critical hit reducing its leadership to 6.

: Chaos ordinance phase- electing to not launch anything this turn the imperial ordinance continues to move forwards unopposed.

Turn 2

: Imperial movement phase – The imperial fleet advances forwards with the distance between the fleets narrowing rapidly.

: The undaunted warrior emerges from the nebula.

: Imperial shooting phase – The black templars strike cruiser reloads it ordinance as one of the chaos escorts is destroyed and the unbroken chain suffers for being too close to the enemy.

: One of the escorts had been reduced to an expanding cloud of debris.

: The Undaunted warrior causes nine hits on the tzeentch ship reducing it to one hull point remaining. It then launches thunderhawks to try and finish it off.

: Imperial ordinance phase – The unbroken chain fends off the thunderhawk attack while the other markers position themselves to strike at anything the chaos fleet launches.

: Chaos movement phase – The chaos light cruiser and the caladaris claw begin to turn to aid with the imperial ship now moving into low orbit. The tzeentch ship continues to orbit and provides another bombardment for the ground forces. The remaining chaos ships charge forwards towards the enemy.

: Debris are now being left in low orbit.

: Chaos shooting phase – five more space marine escorts are blown apart as well as two normal imperial navy escorts and the blood angels strike cruiser detonates doing damage to the ships around it.

: The alpha legion take out another two escort vessels.

: Chaos ordinance phase – The caladaris nova launches torpedoes doing more damage to the mechanicum ark.

Turn 3

Imperial movement phase – The sacra canis moves to bring its broadsides to bear, the black templars strike cruiser makes it through the chaos line while the battleships and escorts in the centre move to attack the chaos fleet.

: The imperial escort tires to ram the chaos escort. Both fail to do any damage.

: The imperial fleet open fire on the chaos fleet.

: Despite the fusillade only the unbroken chain is reduced to a drifting hulk.

: Chaos movement phase. Assume broadside position

: The tzeentch ship and the chaos light cruiser continue to move in low orbit. (The undaunted warrior had moved into low orbit last turn. I had forgotten to photograph it doing this.

: Chaos shooting phase. Chaos fleets have some truly disgusting attack values on their broadside batteries. With the sheer volume of shots being directed at the imperial fleet it was brutal. The mechanicum ark was blown apart while the hurricanes wrath battlebarge was pummelled into a drifting hulk. Two more imperial escorts are removed while minor damage is caused to the sacra canis and imperitoris.

: The plasma drive implosion of the ark mechanicus did more damage than the imperial fleet had with their shooting up to this point.

Turn 4

: Imperial movement phase – the imperial fleet presence was now drastically reduced but they would still try and get vengeance this turn.

: The undaunted warrior moves to attack the tzeentch ship Consilla. And would reduce it to a drifting hulk this turn.

: The Caladaris thunder is reduced to a burning hulk.

: The ramelies star fort reloads ordinance and launches bombers.

: The chaos fleet moves to engage the last remnants of the imperial fleet. The caladaris claw gets into range to attack the undaunted warrior. (Not the black templar strike cruiser has legged it towards the planet.

: The caldris claw moves away from the falcion escorts that are chasing it.

: The chaos execution squadron moves into a position to attack the star fort.

: The caladaris claw takes a hull point from the undaunted warrior.

: The imperiatoris is blown apart its plasma drive overloading and hitting the ships around it. The sacra canis is reduced to a blazing hulk. (The exploding imperial ship cripples the postulant boil. The nurgle grand cruiser.)

: Fire from the chaos ships starts to damage the fortress.

Turn 5

Imperial movement phase – The undaunted warrior moves around the planet in low orbit as the black templar ship uses all ahead full to reach it. The escorts move to try to block the caladaris claw.

: The escorts reload ordinance as the sacra canis explodes when its plasma drives go critical.

: Chaos movement phase – the caladaris claw moves into close range where it can bring its lances to bear on the undaunted warrior.

: The fires blazing within the hulk of the thunder go out and it continues to drift

: The rest of the chaos fleet converge on the fortress.

: The fortress braces for impact on one quadrant before a failed leadership check stops all further orders.

: Chaos shooting phase – red quadrant of the fortress is wrecked while the two other quadrants that the chaos fleet can reach come under direct attack (and suffer damage as part of the first portion being destroyed.

: The caladaris claw removes another hull point from the undaunted warrior.

: Chaos ordinance phase – the caladaris claw launches eight dreadclaws. Destroying the escorts but being repulsed by the guns of the undaunted warrior.

Turn 6

: Imperial movement phase – The undaunted warrior and black templar strike cruiser move around the planet in low orbit. Continuing to try and extract forces from the world below.

: Chaos movement phase – The chaos fleet converges on the fortress.

: The Caladaris claw and light cruiser move to try and disrupt the space marine ships in low orbit.

: At point blank range the caladaris nova rolls 16 dice to attack the fortress destroying another quadrant. The fallout heavily damages the two remaining quadrants. The caladaris fate and its escorting tzeentch cruiser destroy the opposite quadrant. This leaves one more quadrant. (now surrounded by fighters.)

Turn 7

: Imperial movement phase – The undaunted warrior and black templar vessel continue to move in low orbit.

: The chaos fleet moves to attack the final quadrant.

: Which they then destroy.

: Meanwhile the caladaris claw strips four hull points from the black templar strike cruiser.

With the chaos forces having completed their objective and the Caladaris claw closing in on the undaunted warrior. (Next turn the claw would have a full close-range broadside and nine lances to target the imperial ship. (Chaos still has two fleet re-rolls which would have been used to try to get the LD6 ship to obey the lock on command.)

Story excerpt

Galrauch watched with interest as the ramlies starfort was reduced to a floating ball of scrap. He turned his attention back towards the planet.

“All ships. There is still meat on the bone.” He snarled, barely managing to maintain control over the daemonic dragon he shared his body and soul with. “Let us go hunting”

As one the entire fleet began to turn back towards the planet.

——

Sword Brethren Jamal was about to give the order to engage the enemy vessel when it unleashed its weapons in the direction of his strike cruiser.

The barrage did horrendous damage to the structure of the vessel as the Claw unloaded its lance batteries ignoring the strike cruisers hardened armour.

“Jamal. Get out of there now. The enemy fleet is turning. We have a window that will slam shut if we do not move now.” The dark angels chapter serf states over the vox.

“Do not squander the lives you have saved by fighting a battle you cannot win.”

Jamal slumped into the command throne. “Head for the warp point. Wring every ounce of speed you can from this ship.”

Conclusion

We now have the maximum length of our final apocalypse game of this campaign. Seven turns.

I do not know how this continues to happen when we play battlefleet gothic as the imperial fleets consistently get annihilated by the forces of chaos. But when you break down the way the gunnery works in battlefleet gothic, chaos has an advantage in speed (to allow them to close the distance) and this allows them to get behind and in between the imperial units. Lets look at the gunnery table and an example.

In our example above we have two similarily priced ships.

The chaos ships braodsides are linked into a full firepower 10 range 45cm batteries. While the imperial ships batteries are split 4/6 firepower with ranges 45 and 30. So at under range 30 both ships have the same broadside values.

The other difference is common Torpedoes on the imperial ship and range 60cm lances on the chaos ship. The chaos ship also has 5cm more speed. This would enable the chaos ship to outpace and outgun the imperial ship. While you normally roll to hit vs the enemies armour (6+ on the front of the imperial ship) lances bypass this and always hit on a 4+ and they also ignore the gunnery table alwys rolling a number of dice equal to their firepower value while torpedoes get launched and head forwards rolling a number of dice equal to their firepower but still vs the enemies lowest armour value if they pass over a ships base (these can cause freindly fire incidents). {Note according to the battlefleet gothic rulebook you could also take chaos ships in an imperial fleet and imperial ships in a chaos fleet.}

For fun, I may just grab everything and do a big fleetpocalypse game of imperium vs chaos to see just how much the forces of chaos can take on.