About a week ago we had the idea to have a 'big game' as our local store was closing. This past saturday, it all came together. What I had originally thought to be a simple (in some terms, anyway) 2v2 apocalypse match quickly turned into a 4v4, 18,000 points per side match. Averages at 4,500 points per person. Also, pictures were taken on my phone so sorry for the assuredly blurry shots.
On one side we had the
FORCES OF THE IMPERIUM , namely two Grey Knights players, a blood angels and an Imperial Guard player. The only super heavy vehicle was on this side, namely a baneblade. They squared off against the
FOUL XENOS -- two Ork hordes, a Tau sept and a gigantic Tyranid brood. Yeah, sorry--I don't have the lists for all the players, so for now it'll just be a nice report with lots of pretty pictures. There were others that took a good amount of photos, so more is better...hopefully they post them. The table was set up in thirds, 12x4 foot long. Easily done, each 4x4 square of terrain was designated for deployment space and a no-man's land.
With two hordes (mine of the Green Tide variant), setup would be key. Templates from orbital bombardments and the baneblade could annihilate my forces before they could make their journey across the board. So we bid low. Abysmally low. Whereas the imperium bid 15 minutes for their deployment, we bid five. It start with a crash--I literally threw a box of 140 ork boyz onto the table, and began to furiously set them up (with help, of course). After five minutes, the Xenos side was ready to go. Not pictured are a few tyranid units below the edge of the picture. The trukks behind my Tide are Loota Wreckin' Crews. Unfortunately in my haste I didn't deploy them properly (namely in front of the blob), and as such they weren't entirely effective this game. Ah well, it happens.
5 MINUTES BOOYAH
Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the
IoM's deployment--you'll see it a little ways down the thread mid turn 1. They had frontline armor poised to fire into our ranks, with a soft, nougaty center of guardsman blobs around one objective. Near the edge of their deployment was a few chapter masters and marines holding the farthest (for the xenos) objective. The Imperium deployed and the game began.
XENOS TURN ONE
Naturally the Tide surged forward, running headlong at the wall of guardsman tanks as Tau Icefire warheads tried to neutralize enemy armor. As I declined to use my stategic asset, the other Ork player took Flank March and Careful Planning.
Tankbustas in the back, Nobz and Killa Kans on the front line.
Now, due to me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I don't quite remember what the Tyranids did this turn. Either turn 1 or 2 they arrived on scene in the backfield, causing untold amounts of mayhem for the Grey Knights. However, shooting from some Stealth Suits did have results. A dreadnought formation arrived on our left side, and they did their best mitigate their numbers. One imperium asset was revealed--the box of red dice on the table were a minefield that my tide would have to walk through.
One down, half a dozen to go.
Assaults saw a basilisk(?) being taken down and some Leman Russes being damaged/wrecked.
IMPERIUM TURN ONE
Blood Angels pods come in, releasing a Librarian Dreadnought right next to a convoy of Looted Wagons. The dreadnought formation walks up and OH NOOOO a dormant Ymgarl brood awakens around them.
Spoiler: the bugs went splat.
Seeking to eliminate troops on a friendly objective, an orbital bombardment comes from the sky and splats nearly an entire squad of fire warriors.
A few stealth suits suck a muzzle flash and are squibbed by various amounts of fire from the dreadnoughts.
Fire from the wall of tanks in their face starts to take its toll on the Nobz. Not helping things was a strict rule on timing, which really screwed assaults over for all parties involved. As I recall, they didn't last much longer. Thankfully another squad of stealth suits was close behind to mop up the remaining Russes.
XENOS TURN TWO
More boyz come on scene, aiming to take out a few dreadnoughts. Zagstruk and his ladz pop in close to the Mawloc (?) and some crisis suits (not yet pictured). The tide inches forward to the middle objectives, and Icefire rounds fail to deal any long lasting damage. Lootas don't really damage anything (cover saves upheld the Librarian Dreadnought). Zogwart has NOTHING to squig (and had nothing the entire game, which sucks). Other big 'nids arrive in the back and start their business with the Grey Knights, pulling quite a few into the backfield. Shooting wasn't effective enough for me to remember verbatem, with one notable moment--Kroot guns manage to kill off half of one squad of
GK. Much lulz were had. Zagstruk and his crew deepstrike in and assault an
IG blob, killing over half but taking serious wounds in the process. Combat continues with his squad. Dreadnaughts on the left are damaged slightly, but nothing is wrecked by powerklaws. Lastly, the nobz and crew manage to break through the armor line, exposing the
IG blobs to more fire in subsequent turns.
IMPERIUM TURN 2
Ruh ro, Scooby, the gak has hit the fan. Paladins pop out of their METAL BAWKSES and
BA Terminators walk on scene to engage the ork boyz in the backfield. Another dreadnaught lands near an objective in the dead man's zone, and does not manage to hurt the nearby battlewagon. The Dreadnought Libbby tries a few psychic attacks but fails miserably, content to stare at the Looted Wagons for a bit. Combined shooting from guard platoons kills of Ghazzy. Orbital strike on the Green Tide takes minimal losses--only 31.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? GOOD!
Burning happens.
In assault, dreadnaughts kill off the squad of boyz in front of them. The boyz in back are hit hard and are wiped. Such is the life of an ork. Dreadnaught shooting into the nearby stealth suit team is done, but all to-wound rolls are
. Ah well.
GK termies pop out of a land raider and assault the hive tyrant and his guard, killing off one guard and losing one or two of their own. Combat continues. I know for a fact that there were goings on in the backfield, however I wasn't paying attention to it--while the 'Nid player took care of that, I commandeered his codex and ran the aforementioned assault to speed things up.
XENOS TURN THREE
MegaNobs in the battlewagon hop out and run at the nearby dreadnought, intent to assault. The wagon does its deff rolla thang and pops a venerable dread. Subsequent shooting at the ratlings in the building to its right do nothing. By this time the tide has made it to one middle objective, and has its sights on the other. Unfortunately due to some miscommunication on my part, Tau shooting hits, pens, and explodes the dread. Thankfully Zogwart rolled a Waagh for his power, so they run at the nearby terminators and get into assault. All wounds are sent to the tyranids, killing most of the tyrant guard off.
MANz powerklaws and upgraded tyranids reduce their number to one
GK in assault. An absolute crapload of 'nids arrive through tunnels on the right hand side of no man's land. The only notable shooting from the loota wreckin' crew immobilizes and takes off the main gun of an obscured Leman Russ.
IMPERIUM TURN THREE
Guardsman find themselves running forward at the enemy, preparing for one last push at the end of the game. While shooting here and there certainly whittled them down, they're still a credible threat.
Gotta say I saw it coming. As a result, 23 more ork boyz die. In assault, the final grey knight terminator succumbs to his wounds, and the
MANz consolidate towards juicy, juicy armor. The 'nids nearby move out to rhinos and other armor, hoping to assault next turn. I'm woefully sketchy this turn, so if my counterparts could correct these deficiencies, I'd appreciate it.
XENOS TURN 4
The
MANz run around a land raider, at the baneblade. Ruining the day of that baneblade is their mission in life, now. The battlewagon rolls forward, hopefully crushing through two or three dreads and the camo painted land raider. They successfully assault the baneblade and land raider, wrecking the
LR and taking one structure point off the baneblade. It's main gun, demolisher cannon and one lasgun turret no longer work. The nearby nids assault the rhino and...whiff. They whiff hard. As in, in all of their rolls only two were 4's. They needed 6's. At this point, almost all of the xenos in the backfield are gone. They harried everything they could, and took down a good number of enemies. But their job is over, now. At least for a few weeks, and then it's round two. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so whatever.
IMPERIUM TURN 4
Grey Knights hop out of the untouched rhino and shoot up the
MANz, killing off most of them. What were left were killed off in assault. The techmarine comes over from the dreadnaught formation and fixes up the baneblade, allowing it to fire next turn. Combined shots from the dreadnaughts and anything else possible fail to penetrate the battlewagon's side and frontal armor, allowing it to contest the objective. Again, fuzzy on the details of this turn.
XENOS TURN 5
The tide gets further into cover, with most of what was left in terrain. You may have noticed one half of the formation was painted, and the other was not--in the Apocalypse Reloaded book it had what looked like two squads of 50 boyz in the formation. So, earlier I had split them off to assault the guard. Unfortunately I hadn't known that to all infantry units (key word being ALL), the lava pit was impassible terrain. So, as a result Zogwart and a Nob with 40ish boyz moved north and tried to get stuck in. They didn't, and were all together useless. Tau shooting finally removes the Librarian dreadnaught, preventing it from contesting our objective.
IMPERIUM TURN 5
This is it. This is the end of the game. Firing from purifiers and honor guard kill off the
MANz nearby, and have nothing else to do for the game. More shots at the battlewagon fail to eradicate it, making it contest the objective. The fixed main gun on the baneblade opens fire on the tide, hurting them. Wounds are taken from the front, and sadly the warboss has to die because of it. It's okay, though--24 orks were hit in the 10' blast, and of that only 7 failed their cover saves. Anything else that can, fires at the Tide formation. And then, Marbo arrives on scene. With the Warboss gone, he hits close combat, pulling them off the objective.
Let's play 'Spot the Marbo'. Can you see him, kids?
Marbo charges the squad of boyz and assaults, rightfully pulling them off the objective. If they don't consolidate enough, the game is a draw. The boyz lose three of their number and consolidate...
FOUR INCHES! As such they roll back onto the objective, claiming both it and the victory for the enemies of the Imperium.
Winner: XENOS!!
Now, there were a few things that were mangled at the start--not all players had either played Apocalypse before, and the Imperium side did not take their strategems at the start. It was mostly a flub on my part, but it worked out well in the end. That, and the points for this game got more inflated than...meh, screw the tongue in cheek finance joke. Suffice to say, the points skyrocketed at the end. At one point the Xenos side were roughly 10,000 over the
IoM, then 5 minutes later they were down by 1,600. Whatever, it was all in good fun. That, and one week's notice wasn't enough lead time. Hopefully we can do this again in two or three week's time. When's the next tourney at the Hobby Chest? Can't double-book it, for lack of a better term.
-7k 
- 10k 
