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Hello everyone. Welcome to my Apocalypse Battle Report. In two days our game will be played out and the fate of Inquisitor Wissen Gronk will be determined. The schedule has been made and the army lists have been submitted. Today and tomorrow people will be arriving and deploying their armies. I'm going to be adding pictures of all the pre-battle business in the mean time.

So far the the table has been set. The scenario has been set. Six objectives have been placed. In the very center is Inquisitor Wissen Gronk which will be one of the objectives for the game.

The points for both sides are around 11,000. The battle is a Final Assault. The Imperials are the defenders (typical I know). Here is the deployment of the Ice Angels and Space Wolves.



Left Flank - 2 objectives are seen. One in the very foreground right, the other is by the back end of the vindicator.

Close up of Left Flank


Right Flank - There is one objective here behind the crater.


Center - There are three objectives in the center. In this picture you can see two of them. One on the hill by the devastators the other is the Inquisitor front left. He is in gold. The final objective is in our enemies deployment zone.




Ice Angel Reserves

As you can tell this consist of three assault squads, which includes priests, and librarians. The black rage which includes Astorath, Lemartes, and the Death Company dreadnoughts. The Raven is carrying a furiouso dreadnought (Frakkatazulli), Captain Razzik, a priest, and a full vanguard squad which consists of a large group of guest marines that I swapped over the years from the Great Marine Swap thread.

Can't wait to see how the Marine Swap squad behaves !

On a side note : your icy battlefield looks as stunning as ever...

Nice scenery.

Yggdrasil wrote:Can't wait to see how the Marine Swap squad behaves !

On a side note : your icy battlefield looks as stunning as ever...

Mr Nobody wrote:Nice scenery.

Thanks guys! My icy terrain has certainly improved over the years. If only I could paint them like Ygg's does. Then my board would be spectacular.

@Ygg's - There will be some focus on the marine swap squad. We shall see how they fair. They are certainly an expensive squad. I equipped them WYSIWYG. For some reason people liked sending me plasma pistols so we'll see how many of them kill themselves, lol.

Something that I forgot to mention about the Imperial team. There is another important piece not pictured above. I pictured my reserves but not my teammates. Moonpie, has 40 wolfen that will be entering through outflank in the near future. Hopefully they'll be able to take care of some business for us.

<to all Imperial shi……….gency evac>
<…………..ity of the Emperor’s…..>
<….rground ork ….ctory…….>
<orks w…………. anid hive……>

“Any ideas?” Commander Seluku absentmindedly asked to her senior officers as she stared at the string of broken sentences on her retinal display.
“The servitors are still trying to decode the signal,” Ensign Budrow responded as the quiet bridge focused on the incoming signal.

“Source?” Seluku asked from her black and blue throne, the winged ice shard symbol of the Ice Angels sat behind her. A full head of silver dreadlocks dangled from her head, many of which were plugged into the throne.

“It’s coming from a source, that according to all files we have doesn’t exist,” Budrow responded after switching his focus to another monitor.

The upper doors to the bridge slid open and naval guards snapped to attention. Captain Razzik quickly strode onto the bridge. His presence filled the room. He wore a simple dark grey robe with no iconography. Service studs pierced his brow and his bald head was scarred and lined with a crown of data ports that would connect with his helm.

“Status on the code Commander?” Razzik casually asked.

“We should have it decoded in just a moment Captain. It is from an unknown source though with an outdated clearance,” Seluku responded.

Razzik stood next to a monitor that ringed the command throne. Ensign Budrow and other ranking officers surrounded the throne in lower chambers.

“Ah, got it. Putting it up,” Budrow spat with a flurry of motion from his fingers.

<This is Inquisitor Wissen Gronk.>
<To all Imperial ships, we need an emergency evacuation.>
<By the authority of the Emperor’s Holiest Inquisition, respond.>
<We’re hiding in an underground ork stompa factory on Jikalvec Secondus.”
><The orks woke a dormant tyranid hive trying to find us.>
<We need an emergency evac.>
<We’re being over run.>

Within the split second it took Razzik to read the file he was striding back towards the door he entered from. In a calming tone he gave a simple command.

“Find them and get us there Seluku. I’ll alert my company.”

Oooh and there is fluff to go with it as well!

Looking awesome Ice, the table is looking ace and the army is looking plentiful!

Okay, deployment has been completed. It is a very target rich environment to say the least. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. I honestly don't know how we'll survive this one.


Complete Battlefield


Xenos Right Flank


Xenos Center - from their perspective


Ooops. I need to upload a couple more. Be right back


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Xenos Left Flank



Sorry for the bad lighting on these next two.

Here are the Tyranid Reserves


Here are the Ork's in vehicles. Only the Stormboyz are in reserves



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As you can see, lots of things going on. The ork lootas are in the Stompa, he has his mega nobz in the battle wagon and his burnas in the truck.

The Tyranids on the other hand have a nasty group of reserves waiting in the wings. 18 raveners, trygon, mawloc, 35 genestealers, 12 more warriors, and all of the gants that will be spawning from the Tervigon.

The games will roll with their heads

Great looking board! Should be a fun game.

Your side of the board looks more sparsely manned... Good luck, mate...

The tyranid colour scheme looks striking, btw !

Ice! Great Looking Board! And yes the Ice Angels and Space Wolves sure seem to have their work cut out for them!

Thanks guys for all the great comments. The battle has been finished, more or less. We got through four turns before we ran out of time. It was a blast. At the end we held four objectives giving us a big point lead BUT had we played another two turns it would have been very different to keep them. I think next time we need either more people, fewer points, or more time in order to fully play the game like it needs to be played. It will certainly help having this game under our belts. The apocalypse rules are great but they really add a lot of things that you need to remember in addition to all the normal junk you're trying to keep track of.

I'm sorry I don't have the time to post the full battle report tonight but I'll get too it over the course of the next few days. I have GenCon to attend to.

Long live the Emperor !!

And yeah... Apocalypse battles are REALLY time-consuming... Though your idea of deploying probably helped a lot ?

impatiently waiting...





Still waiting....




and still waiting...

TURN 1

We fail to steal the initiative and the xenos begin their first turn.

Charge! The ork commander shouts as tyranids and orks alike surge forward. Before they get to the assaults though they have some great shooting. I loose a vindicator to the heirodule. The stompa, which is full of lootas, unloads on space wolves killing many before the killkannon goes off. It scatters wildly and ends up on top of my lascannon devastators. I loose the entire squad. The assault phase was rather disappointing for them, only their little guys could manage a charge. The one exception was on our right flank. A large horde of termigants and a carnifex charged a large unit of wolf guard terminators. 80% of the gants died and the carnifex went to one wound but the strategy to tie up that unit succeeded. On our left flank their killer kans and deff dread charged but they were all killed by wolf guard terminators with powerfists.


Before our shooting phase could begin the ork player used one of his strategic assets. He picked to points on the board 36 inches away from each other and then rolled to scatter. Once that was done NOTHING had line of sight through that line, which meant nothing we had could target his stompa or battlewagon on the center hill.

In response we shot everything else we could see. We didn't have a lot of units to fire but what we did took a heavy toll on the nids and advances orks. The whirlwinds took massive casualties. Space wolf bolters did some serious damage. In the assault phase that majority of the space wolves charged. On our left flank Arjac began a long drawn out battle with a Swarmlord.


Many wounds were exchanged but they stayed in combat along with a rune priest and several other wolf guard.

At the end of turn one, here was the pile of dead.


Then we began turn two.

I'm glad your Whirlwind did some damage : I love Whirlwinds !!

Nice asset for the Evil part, too !! Can't wait to see the rest !

(Oh, and the Stompa Gatling Cannon is just "cheating" against Marines... )

I forgot to mention, both rivers where calm and boring. Half of the objectives ended up being nothing. On our right flank, I had a devastator squad in some ruins with a techmarine. The objective they were next to gave those ruins a +1 cover save giving those ruins a 3+ save in total. That proved to be super useful, up until a swarmlord got in there, but more on that later.

Could you sum up the rules for the rivers, quickly ?

Certainly Yggs. The two rivers are "mysterious" rivers. They count as difficult terrain, but the first time someone enters them we roll on the mysterious river chart in the 40k rule book. Both rivers rolled calm and boring, so there wasn't any other rules to go along with the rivers.


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As turn two went on, Moonpie and I quickly realized how badly we were being mauled in close combat and with the sheer quantity of fire power our enemies had. Several of our power units were tied up and bogged down while many of our good firing units had been obliterated or were about to be. The continued to push forward on our right flank. Rippers ran down the river, his swarm lord, gants, warriors, and a huge mob of boys pushed forward. On the left flank they continued on, running past the tied up combat with Arjac Rockfist and a Swarmlord. In the shooting phase they still couldn't shoot through the temperorary barrier in front of the main hill but that didn't keep them from firing else where. I lost one whirlwind to the LiftaDroppa. My other whirlwind took a hull point from the Hierodule before it shot its other weapon at my devastator unit. Despite my awesome cover save, I loose my Techmarine Philosir and a lot of the unit from the fire. In the middle warriors and devourgants push through the unseen barrier to fire lots of nasties at the space wolves. The warriors do nothing the gants kill many. In close combat Arjac continues to defeat the Swarmlord but the Swarmlord makes all his saves.

This pictures really has no relevence at the moment, but I wanted to show off my buddies grot tanks. They were stuck in the corner and couldn't get past the Arjac Combat so they sat there shooting at an odd angle trying to hit other things until the combat was over.


On our turn the firing was minimal but my remaining whirlwind continued to pound xenos out of existence. My vindicator on the other side lands in a field of tyranids and kills everyone one of them, to bad it scattered and hit mostly termigants. My plasmas cannons take out an annoying venomthrope. Moonpies long fangs nearly take out a swarmlord from concentrated fire and my other heavy bolter devastators rip through several rows of ork boys. In the center Moonpie charges the warriors and devourgants. He kills many but they stay tied up in combat waiting for the xenos counter charge.


Here is what still remained on our right flank. It was not pretty.

After turn 2 we took our first break. We were already about an hour behind our schedule so we kept this one very short. We grabbed some jalapeno poppers, brats, and beers and continued on.

Turn three! On turn three the reinforcements came in full tilt! They had a Trygon Prime, 9 raveners, 15 storm boyz, two huge mobs of genestealers and two units of warriors along with a flying tyrant enter the battlefield. It was nasty and scary all at the same time! As for where they all ended up. The genestealers outflanked, one on each side. The trygon, raveners, and stormboyz dropped into our deployment. The warrios and Flying Tyrant came in on their own board edge.

Thankfully the shooting, combat, and general running around wasn't to bad. I did loose my last whirlwind from the Heirodule, my devastators in the ruins were shot down to two men. OH, I almost forgot. In the center the ork player finally unloaded his mega nobs and assaulted the space wolf mob in the middle. That didn't go well for the Space Wolves. On the left flank, Arjac Rockfist finally fell to the Swarmlord leaving his unit down to just a ruin priest and a wolf guard terminator in combat. In the center, Moonpie had some unsettling rolls and his warlord got bogged down with the ork warboss.


These genestealers outflanked and immediately ate my entire devastator unit, HOWEVER, the sergeant did cap one of them in the head in overwatch. That made me feel slightly better about it.

Now, our turn. This was the moment we had been waiting for all GAME! I revealed my strategic asset which was that all of my dudes can assault the turn the deep strike. My teammate then revealed his asset which gave everybody hatred. BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! Here is a group of pictures showing where I landed. You may also notice that Moonpies 40 wolfen entered from our side of the battlefield as well. We desperately needed to wolf power in the center in order to hold the two more vulnerable objectives that we had.



My death company deep strikes deep in their territory, one unit mishaps and is put back into reserves. They prepare to assault the heirodule and a unit of nobs. My two dreadnoughts land where needed. One flames and meltas a lot of genestealers. The other tanks out the battlewagon with a well placed melta shot. My three assault squads land on our left flank to try and keep the nids away from reaching the only objective over there. In the center my storm raven flies onto the field staring right at the Stompa. This was a big gamble but I needed to get them to the center and it was my best shot.

Shooting this turn was effective. The Raven unloaded what it could on the Mek Stompa and took out all of its shields and one hull point. My deathwind launcher took out a lot of boys. I had two only a few devastator marines left on the board firing away at their nearest foes. My vindicator, took out a zoanthrope and more gants. My outflanking Predator took out all of the genestealers except one with flames of glory!

In close combat we took care of business. 7 raveners fell to the sons of Fenris. The entire unit of stormboys ceased to exist. Sadly one of my dreads fell to the hands of a lucky genestealer who managed a single piercing hit which resulted in his explosion. At least in his death more genestealers died. A trio of space wolves assaulted a huge mob of grots in the center to contest the center objective. My other Ice Angels took out an entire unit of nobs, wounded the Heirodule down to 1 wound, two units of gants died and a unit of warriors disappeared. It was gratifying to see our plan fall in place. At this point turn 3 was done and we knew we were running far behind. We were going to get one more turn in, perhaps two. There was still a lot of xenos on the board though. Sadly, they still had more reinforcements as well.


TURN 4

The last trygon, remaining raveners, and a lone unit of warriors entered the battlefield. The nids scurried over to objectives and into charge range. The orks, which were now rather sparse took up firing positions or charge positions. The flying tyrant flew passed my storm raven in order to do a vector strike. He took a lone hull point. In the shooting phase the Stompa shot everything it had at the storm raven. Missiles, lifta droppa, and lootas all missed or didn't damage. I breathed a sigh of relief. With the Stompa's remaining death kannon he took out a large group of wolfen to make him feel better. They also took advantage of the scenario which allowed them to drop this..........


The old template isn't big enough so we added some hands to give you an idea how much area that thing covers. Thankfully the Emperor Protects and we took light losses. Only the inner circle was AP low enough to get through power armor.

I forgot to mention that the big shootas on the stompa shot at my unengaged unit of death company. Because they were hit, their initiative was halved for this turn. That wasn't very nice because a huge mob of boys was about to attack. In other shooting the orks stunned my baal predator which I then discovered I didn't take extra armor for. Oops.

The xenos assault phase went well for them. I lost a lot of death company, in fact nearly all of them. It took a lot of effort by the enemy but they got rid of everyone but Astorath and Lemartes and a lone death company guy. In the center, an ork boy mob charged into the space wolf mess adding to the chaos. The stompa assaulted my dreadnought. I scored a hull point before being stomped, literally. My dreadnought then exploded and took out some grots and boys. Their swarmlord took out the last two devastators in the fortified ruins.



The bottom of the fourth turn we went all out where ever we could BUT, knowing that we were low on time we didn't actually play all of it out. We weren't going to be able to play another turn so we took all of our shots but only did the close combats that mattered.

As for movement, my raven moved forward and unloaded the guest marines and Frank into the center. My death company deep striked into the center as well to shoot at stuff. The wolfen claimed objectives and shot at raveners and trygons where ever they could.

In the shooting phase we did minimal damage. In the assault phase, like I said, we only fought a couple of the battles. We cleared out the left flank objective to claim it with an assault squad. The guest marines helped the space wolves to kill every single grot and herder in the unit. The two warlords in the center CONTINUED to duke it out.

Here are some shots of end of turn four.

Awesome looking battle Ice, Loved the use of the two assets to really wreck some face

Wow, so the Marine Swap squad killed... Grots ? Great !!!

Nice report, hopefully you had a lot of fun !!

Your vehicles look really great on such a board...

Also, you mentioned "beers" ? I thought alcohol was out of the question ??

Wicked battle rep!

So how many of the guest Marines died horrible searing deaths by plasma?

Alcohol is never out of the question, getting out of hand with alcohol is out of the question.

I'm glad you guys liked the report. I need to fix my tanks actually. I have repainted some of them but more needs to be done.

As for the guest marines, only one died and it was from a runtherd. Nefas fell before the orks were wiped out by the units powerfists.

Awesome! Looked like a lot of fun.

did you have any reinforcements on either side waiting to enter the game? Curious how you played the reinforcments.

Thanks Arakasi. It was a blast. I can't wait to play again. Next time will be even better. We collectively learned a lot from this game.

Solar, please refer to my first post, last picture. That pictures shows all of my reinforcements. They all came in after the first break, which was turn 3.

Nice game Ice! it looked cold.

Super cool scenery and terrain! I'm inspired by your work!

@cormadepanda - Thanks man, it was a lot of fun. A bit hectic, but fun.

@MadDokMathWych - I hope I inspire many great pieces of terrain. Something I will say though, if you decide to make a river, do it last. It'll rarely get used and when it does it will affect your game more then any other piece of terrain. Despite it looking AWESOME! That and its rather difficult to store. AND you'll always want more river pieces. Jeez, that makes it sound really bad. It's not that bad.