At my FLGS we decided to run a large Crusade of Fire campaign. On Wednesday night we had a total of 21 players attend which we broke out into the three teams. I’m playing Disciples of Twilight, my Chaos Marines. Seeing as my warband’s fluff is still in-the-making, I figured this would be a good chance to get some fluff established. So, I’m going to try and get some narrative style battle reports up, starting with this one.
I’ll very likely comb through this some more and clean it up but it’s a presentable draft at least. This one is admittedly not one of my best but I wanted to get this out here while the battle was still fresh in my mind.
Crusade of Fire: Beginnings in Blood
The forces of Chaos had established a strong presence on the planet X but the Imperium, as well as the Xenos, were looking to weaken that hold. Chaos had landed in force on the planet and quickly overwhelmed the defenders. Chaos Lord Soulgore, force leader for the Disciples of Twilight, had taken a hive city during the initial assault on the planet. The hive city served as their base of operations. Word was received that Dark Angels were enrouching upon the city in force. Lord Soulgore, never one content with defending, opted to take the fight to the Dark Angels. With his strike force selected, and leaving behind a large contingent of defenders, the Disciples of Twilight made for the east.
The Disciples of Twilight were coming upon a forested area where they knew Dark Angels were entrenched and awaiting their arrival. Ambushing Dark Angels was a feat that few could manage.
Lord Soulgore called for a halt of the strike force just out of range of the Dark Angels heavy weapons. A moment later members of the Ravenwing burst from the trees and advanced upon them. It wasn’t the threat of the bikes that concerned Soulgore, it was what he knew was about to come. With a flash and the smell of burning ozone the Deathwing appeared before the Ravenwing and they wasted no time in taking the offensive.
Round after round from the Deathwing and Ravenwing poured into the Disciples of Twilight’s ranks as plasma cannon shots came in from the forested Marines. The unit of Spawn being led by Soulgore took the brunt of the punishment and half his unit was disintegrated in moments.
Without pause, Lord Soulgore said, “All units, bloody stream advance, now!”
Disciples of Twilight broke formation and split into two halves and began advancing around the 1st and 2nd company of Dark Angels. The moving formation fired upon the Dark Angels amongst them and the Ravenwing paid a heavy toll for their delivery. With a primal roar Lord Soulgore spurred his juggernaut forward and the Spawn followed, always ready to leap at any enemy in a moments notice. A Terminator Sergeant stepped forward to meet the charge of Soulgore and his head was removed before he could raise his weapon. The Spawn pounced on the slow and bulky Terminators, sending most to the ground dead or wounded, their poisoned attacks making even the Astartes physiology work hard at maintaining life.
“No!” yelled Lord Soulgore; his body mutating and shifting in and out of reality. With a final scream of anger Soulgore had become like those he was leading, a Spawn. Surely the Chaos gods were full of humor.
The Black Knights of the Deathwing quickly came to the aid of the remaining Terminator engaged with the Spawn and swept aside what remained. Seeing the plan of the enemy clearly they began a withdrawal back towards the forest in pursuit of the Chaos Marines. One of the Chaos Rhinos exploded under a hail of plasma fire and the occupants climbed from the smoldering ruin of their transport.
As the Deathwing and Ravenwing gave chase, the Bikers of the Chaos force harried them constantly with a unrelnting stream of bolter shots and the super-heated discharge of meltaguns. The left flank was being led by another Rhino of Chaos Marines with a Maulerfiend clearing the way. The Marines from the exploded Rhino dove onto the Tactical Marines in the forest before them, letting their hatred lead their blows.
The few remaining Ravenwing Bikers caught up to the Rhino on the left flank and stopped it with bolter and heavy bolter fire, their shots aimed at critical points on the vehicle. As the occupants disembarked from their useless vehicle they were met by a charge from the Ravenwing. The Deathwing joined the combat against the Chaos Marines in the forest and destroyed the unit entirely.
To the pleasure of the Disciples of Twilight, the battle would be won or lost in close quarters by chainsword and strength of arm. Chaos Bikers assaulted the Marines in the forest and the Maulerfiend rampaged its way into combat on the left flank. The Dark Angels did not fall easy but fall they did. As the last Marine had succumbed to his vital wounds the Disciples of Twilight let out a cheer of victory. The Dark Angels were utterly destroyed.
Disciples of Twilight
I love painting miniatures and teaching people how to paint. I also really love blogging, so I've combined those two passions here.
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enjoyable read, thank you.
Thank you.
First congratulations on the win- even better when you realize the Deathwing have preferred enemy Chaos Space Marines.
Second, the Dark Angels have marked the Disciples of Twilight for Vengeance. Master Belial will be looking for Lord Soulgore next week!
Third, funny all the people who all of a sudden love the Dark Angels. Our LGS went from one Dark Angel player (me) to two about two months ago, and now their are 4-6.
After having faced your pure Deathwing I took away a few lessons that helped me a lot in this particular game.
Eh, typical really. We have a fair amount of bandwagoners, whether they are willing to admit it or not. Every new codex sees an influx like that but if it lacks the excepted power, IE: Chaos which is fairly balanced, then they jump back to what they played prior or move on to the next.
Welcome to the New Codex Bandwagon Club! You are a lot like a Colonial citizen who has British troops being barracked in his house. You lived there first, don’t want them there, but are labeled as a Tory out of association!
It’ll die down when the French (new codex, especially power armored) arrive!
Sounds like a good match. Congrats on the win!
A true work of fiction if I’ve ever seen one: Everyone knows that the Disciples of Twilight don’t win battles!
This made for a good read. My favorite part was the description of the challenge, and the irony of your model turning into a spawn. I found myself wondering what the battle actually looked like, so perhaps photos would have helped? Then again, it might detract from the narrative you’ve set forth.
Still, I enjoyed reading it. An interesting take on battle reports…
I won that challenge, obviously, and then made my boon roll. As I was reading the entry I must have had a look on my face because my opponent, really cool guy, said, “What is it?” with concern. To which I told him my result and he said, “Damn, sorry man,” and I promptly pouted. But hey, it is amusing considering, just wasn’t at the time :P That was my first time trying a crazy jugger Lord and that happens his first combat.
Maybe this is the Emporer telling you that you’ll do better without a tooled up character? After all, you did finally win a game…
I won my game prior to that as well and that was with two Princes each running 245 points each :P By comparison this is far from a tooled up HQ choice ;)
And he has 15 extra wounds!
I think it is a great list, what are you planning on adding as the campaign escalates?
More Oblits, Heldrake and scoring bodies.
More Oblits are never a bad thing. If you’re in keeping with an assault based theme, they’re great as single suicide Oblits. Deep Strike and wreak havoc!