5000 point Apocalypse Game (Chaos vs Guard) - A batrep told in 44 annotated images

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**wtnind**

Hi guys,

So last weekend we had a great game of apocalypse against a fully painted Imperial Guard army with my 3000 points of Death Guard and 1500 points of a friends daemons. We were both using our Baneblades for the first time which was very exciting. What follows is a batrep in my annoted picture style. If you like the style then you can look at some of the previous batreps I have done in the same style (links at the bottom). Appologies for some of the spotty spelling, it takes quite some time to edit all the images together into a narrative so sometimes the spelling suffers

if it offends you then you can turn it into a game 'count the spelling errors' - the winner get's my Warhound Titan... well maybe not.

Rules:
Each player placed 1 objective in their own deployment zone, one in their opponents deployment zone and one anywhere that is not a deployment zone. Objectives were scored at the end of the 2nd and 4th turns (1VP per objective controlled). Slay the warlord and Linebreaker were secondary objectives worth 1 VP each (but not First Blood). Finally 1VP was awarded for each 3 Hull Points taken off the opponents Baneblade.

Cast

Spoiler:

The Fluff (no pictures)

Spoiler:

The Battle of St. Isidore Parade.
The success of the crusade in its first two years was better than had been planned; by the end of 004.M42 no fewer than 12 worlds had been liberated, with the crusade forces facing only minimal opposition. Of the 12 worlds, only the Forge World of Kortis had posed any real problem. While the planet’s Tech-Lords appeared to welcome the Crusade fleet, agitators amongst the labour force directed a bloody resistance that that proved difficult to eradicate and lasted well into the second decade of the crusade. The only major engagement that occurred in the first two years also occurred on Kortis, where in early 003 a series of raids by a traitor astartes warband identified as the Sixth Sons served to disrupt production across much of the planet. With much of the Crusade leadership’s attention focused on Kortis and ensuring readiness for the second stage of the crusade, the events on Arabis IV came as somewhat of a surprise. An Agri-World with a population of just fewer than 1,000,000, Arabis IV had welcomed the arrival of the Crusade fleet in 002 by presenting 17 captured Psykers and 204 years of stockpiled tithe in the form of picked spinacia oleracea. Following a both a military and inquisitorial review, the planet was welcomed back into the imperial fold, its adeptus presence re-established and left with a garrison drawn from the Lectivitian 394th. With the crusade preparing to enter its second phase in the first weeks of 005, the first sign of a sizeable archenemy presence that had been rumoured phase manifested itself. A single Hellfire Class Heavy Cruiser identifying itself as the [REDACTED] accompanied by a small escort fleet arrived at the system’s Mandeville point and made its way for the Arabis IV, easily destroying the planetary picket and enforcing a landing. In the first days of the assault, it became clear that the archenemy forces outnumbered those of the Imperium many times over, estimates conducted after the invasion suggest that as many as 75,000 troops were landed in the first week alone. In charge of the 5,000 strong Lectivitian garrison and the planet’s small Planetarty Defence Force, Major Kaleb Bharata ordered the abandonment of outlying settlements and a withdrawal to the planetary capital of Landfall. With an astropathic distress call sent, Bharata set about entrenching his position, largely using materials sourced from Landfall’s now empty warehouse districts. Luckily for Bharata the archenemy attack was not swift, with the majority of their forces spending almost three terran weeks pillaging the planet’s other settlements and grasslands before converging on Landfall in force. During this time Arabis’ plight had been noted and forces that were heading to the new fronts further rimward were re-directed to Arabis, the estimated arrival time for these reinforcements ranged between two and four months. Bharata’s one stroke of luck however was the arrival of Stike Force Auriel, a detachment of the Scions of Destan’s 4th Company, led by the Lexicanum Titus Auriel. Having received the distress call, the Strike Force aboard the Strike Cruiser Trevelyan were able to enter the system undetected and deploy to Landfall scant days before the archenemy attack. The attack came on the 25th day of 005, waves of diseased mutants and zealots goaded to the attack and attempting to push the attack through sheer weight of numbers. On the third day it became clear that the archenemy forces consisted of more than hordes of the lost and damned, with the first sighting of traitor astartes acting both in leadership roles and as shock troops. On the seventh day, massed units of traitor astartes, observed to be of the [REDACTED] managed to establish a breach in Imperial lines, advancing in force along the St. Isidore Parade to assault Bharata’s command center.

Army Lists (5000 points)
Imperial (no pictures)

Spoiler:

Forces of Chaos (no pictures)

Spoiler:

Deployment

Spoiler:

Turn 1

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Turn 2

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Results at end of turn 2

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Turn 3

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Turn 4

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Results at end of turn 4

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Turn 5

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Final Results

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Post game analysis

Spoiler:

Previous games reported in the same style:
Guard vs Tyranids
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/577154.page
Chaos vs Chaos vs Tau
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/552546.page
Chaos vs Chaos vs Eldar
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/549366.page

**Ratius**

Really enjoyed that dude, great stuff! Good humour too.
Does it take long to annotate and compile?

**Warhams-77**

I really enjoyed your batrep wtnind, the tension was there until the end due to your well done battle shots and the witty comments

When I opened the last spoilers I wasnt sure how it would end and that's a good thing. Building a combined chaos space marines + demons force currently (about the same size as shown here) I am interested in reading reports about how they feel in Apocalypse. I think CSM lack quite some flexibilty in what units can perform well enough but it seems to get better in larger games with daemons added. For now about a month I have been updating my Khorne forces in the hope to get a well-performing Khorne CD+CSM Supplement book as rumored to come end of march after End Times V. At lower points - normal 40k games - such combined forces end in even more 'cherry-picking' than CSM alone but larger ones seem to offer more niches to operate in and overall a larger unit variety. I think the Mayem pack has worked quite well as a distraction unit in combination with the advancing forces and put some much needed pressure onto the Imperials which could have otherwise continued the duck-shooting. Touch of rust seems to be quite helpful in the end. It reminds me of people who only have to touch an electric device and it falls apart Mr. Bean style

**wtnind**

Ratius wrote:Really enjoyed that dude, great stuff! Good humour too.
Does it take long to annotate and compile?

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. It does take a while to edit all the images together, I did about 4 hours one evening picking the pictures I wanted and cropping, layering and adding text etc then spent another evening (around 3 hours) taking some more close ups of some of my models against a white background (for the easier background removal in the Cast shots). But I would say it is worth the effort since it gives a good record to remember the game by for all the players and it is quite fun to do.

Warhams-77 wrote:I really enjoyed your batrep wtnind, the tension was there until the end due to your well done battle shots and the witty comments When I opened the last spoilers I wasnt sure how it would end and that's a good thing. Building a combined chaos space marines + demons force currently (about the same size as shown here) I am interested in reading reports about how they feel in Apocalypse. I think CSM lack quite some flexibilty in what units can perform well enough but it seems to get better in larger games with daemons added. For now about a month I have been updating my Khorne forces in the hope to get a well-performing Khorne CD+CSM Supplement book as rumored to come end of march after End Times V. At lower points - normal 40k games - such combined forces end in even more 'cherry-picking' than CSM alone but larger ones seem to offer more niches to operate in and overall a larger unit variety. I think the Mayem pack has worked quite well as a distraction unit in combination with the advancing forces and put some much needed pressure onto the Imperials which could have otherwise continued the duck-shooting. Touch of rust seems to be quite helpful in the end. It reminds me of people who only have to touch an electric device and it falls apart Mr. Bean style

I definetly think that daemons help out CSM a lot, with summoning, good cover saves and fast threats (as well as arguably better princes). There is definetly an impulse to cherry pick in smaller games, it can be hard to see past nurgle spawn, biker lords and cultists but I think Apocalypse definetly gives you a chance to sprinkle in some of the less powerful units and still have a good balanced game. Apocalypse is definetly best when both players have an unwritten rule to have fun and bring fluffy armies that will be a good match for one another. The Imperial Guard player definetly had quite a lot of fluffy units like the assault marines, sentinels and sternguard (only 1 melta!) but I think the forces balanced out quite well with one another in the end.

That said I didn't bring any mutilators or defilers (but I have a couple of unassembled mutilators so maybe next time!)

**MrFlutterPie**

Absolutely stunning and most importantly entertaining batrep

**the_Armyman**

Very nice batrep and a fun read. Well-done picture batreps are few and far between, because they are a lot of work both during and after the game. Great job and thanks for all the effort

**Talon of Anathrax**

Great stuff!
Well written, and more importantly, very funny

I love the "Burn", "Manreaper'ed" and the thing with Be'lakor

The CSM models are awesome! I love the Maulerfiends, and the Heldrake with the Daemon on it: very cool!