This is the latest in an ongoing series of battles between myself and
Yorkright making up a campaign that started between his Blood Angels and my Mantis Warriors. Over the months since we've begun, the story has naturally morphed to include other armies that we own. We talk about the story and battles ahead of time and go so far as to share army lists in an attempt to assure competitive, interesting battles. It's been incredibly fun. Probably the best series of games I've played in my 25 years of
40k.
The story to date:
Inquisitor Jaxeena is convinced that the Mantis Warriors are hiding a taint of chaos in there gene seed and is determined to obtained a sample for her own uses. The Mantis Warriors of course refuse to comply, so Jaxxena enlists the aid of the Blood Angels and mounts a series of attacks against a relatively isolated
MW task force on the fringe of
MW controlled space. After several bloody conflicts where no clear winner emerges, a captain of the Mantis Warriors is captured and placed into stasis. Before Jaxeena can evac her prize however, a Mantis Warrior scout force, with the aid of some Skitarii scout units mount a counter attack on the Imperial Guard base where their captain is being held. The attack liberates the captain from the stasis cube, but another occupant of the cube... a herald of Slaanesh is also released. The herald is slain and Jaxeena is captured and placed into her own stasis cube by the victorious Mantis Warriors. They believe she has been corrupted by the dark powers as the methods she has employed are not within the morn for an Imperial Inquisitor.
The Skitarii are here to provide protection for an Adeptis Mechanicus excavation of an archeological site thought to contain ancient technology. With the cooperation they received from the Mantis Warrior affiliated governor of the planet and their natural distrust of the Inquisition, it's not surprising that they provided aid to the astartes chapter.
This is where our current story begins....
Yorkright wrote: Skittari have been searching for relics in an abandoned city several hundred kilometers from Typhon Tower. Recently recovered data slates on a forgeworld have pointed to possible relics or
STC's there, Mars has given orders that any "interesting " finds will be kept secret from local government and the Mantis Warriors. So far nothing of note has been found, a engineseer from the local PDF has been snooping around but no information has been shared. He was not there long before he had to report to a nearby imperial outpost.
A unit of Mantis Warriors scouts, led by a rather gruff chaplain had asked for 2 units of rangers to accompany them on maneuvers. The head princep had no choice but to say yes though it would slow down the search.
A hazy humid day has the crews searching a new site, servitors digging has scared up clouds of insects that buzz about. A group of Rangers note a small column of armored warriors heading towards the site, perhaps the Mantis Warriors have returned...
Gitsplitta wrote:An alpha of the Skitarii rangers crouches upon a low rise, scanning the horizon and processing various wavelengths of data. As he sits motionless, scanning, processing, scanning, processing... a ranger approaches from the lee of the small hill.
"01000001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001 00101100 00100000 01011010 00110110 00110001 00110011 00101101 01100010 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01101111 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01110101 01101101 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101111 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101110 00100000 00100000 01001000 01100101 01100001 01110110 01101001 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100001 01110010 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101110 "
"01001000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 01111001?" asked the alpha.
"00110001 00111000 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01101111 01101001 01100100 01110011 00101100 00100000 00110011 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 01110011"
This gave the alpha pause. The numerical and force projection disadvantages were overwhelming. They would have to abandon the dig site unless reserves could be summoned. But what could possibly get here quickly enough and with sufficient firepower to aid them?
"01010011 01110101 01101101 01101101 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001011 01101110 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 01110011" The alpha new there would be a cost for this summons... the households were readily available but demanded a price for their services.
"01011001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001!" the ranger replied before wheeling and heading off to the communications array.
Unfortunately, I packed up my army this morning before photographing it. That is real binary above. You can plug it into a translator and you'll see the details of the story.
And two knights.... Before you pop a cork, the knights were part of "the plan", I would never take 2 knights in a 1250 point battle normally.
The Game:
1250 points
Night Fight
5 mysterious objectives worth 3 ea at the end of the game
STW, LB,
FB
MW go first, both knights start in reserve as they had to be summoned.
Deployment:
Both forces deploy across the battlefield fairly evenly, the red arrows indicate the positions of the objective markers.
On the chaos far right, a forge field takes up position in a ruin.
Center right, a large group of Emperor's Children prepare to advance on the thin Skitarii forces.
In the center, a predator backs up the Lord and spawn, while on the far left a rhino loaded with
CSM sits on an objective. There is a unit of 3 obliterators in reserve.
On the Skitarii right, a unit of 5 scouts hold on objective in a cooling pond.
The infiltrators hold up in ruin in the center of the board, able to quickly move to wherever they're needed.
The second ranger unit hold an objective high in a building ruin.
Turn 1:
The Skitarii stand pat, waiting for their reserves to arrive. Firing from the rangers on the right flank takes a single hull point off of the rhino across from them.
The chaos Lord and escort fearlessly move out towards the dig site (crater in the center of the table).
At turn's end, the chaos forces had made significant' progress in the center. The flanks decided to stand pat.
Turn 2:
The first knight arrives right on time! The infiltrators decide to re-deploy away from the Lord and his unit towards the left flank. Shooting ensues, not much happens as a result.
The obliterators deep strike right in front of the rangers on my right flank and eliminate them.
The Lord and company investigate the dig site.
The Emperor's Children move into a ruin into the center of the table.
... and shoot the crap out of the rangers on my left flank.
Turn 3:
The knight on my left flank moves up, shoots uselessly at a variety of units and then fails his charge vs. the infantry.
The second knight arrives and also shoots uselessly at the oblits. I figure if I can clear this objective, I can hold it the rest of the game while still providing fire support for the rest of the army.
The remaining two rangers consolidate on the objective in the building & the infiltrators continue to move forward and left.
The Lord and his gribbleys make a dash for the now nearly unprotected objective on my left flank.
The knight starts taking a pounding from plasmas, meltas and the like.
The other knight gets chewed on as well.
Here's how things stand at turn's end.
Turn 4:
The infiltrators finally make their move, and with the aid of some good dice rolls, assault the Emperor's Children.
The alpha challenges the
EC sergeant to a duel.
Thanks to the careful application of the +3
WS, -2
BS bonus... it's a pretty one-sided battle.
On the right flank, the knight charges the oblits, is killed and goes nuclear... taking the traitors with it.
The knight on my left moves forward for some useless shooting. Here's where things stood at the end of the turn.
Three things of importance happen during the bottom of 4. My remaining knight gets brought down to 3 hull points by the forge field and the predator, the Chaos Lord makes his way to the ruin where my last two scouts are doing their best to be elusive. I lose one to shooting, only the alpha remains. Lastly the rhino that's been hiding in the far ruins on the left drops off it's marines to sit on one objective and makes a cross-table dash for a second objective.
Turn 5:
Up until this point (with the notable exception of the infiltrators) it's pretty much all been bad news for me. That's about to change. My wounded knight who to this point hasn't really hit anything with his guns... gives me something to cheer about.
The other thing of significance is that I believe the infiltrators managed to take out the last of the Emperor's Children.
In return, the predator manages to peel two additional hull points off of my remaining knight.. leaving me at 1. The Lord and retinue close in on my last remaining skitarii alpha.
The Lord challenges the Alpha with predictable results...
However... then something unpredictable happens... Oh joy.
Here's how things stood at the end of 5. We roll and the game goes on.
Turn 6:
My knight dashes across the backfield and assaults the predator that has been a literal pain in his behind.
... and yeah... as you'd expect.
Here's the view at the end of my turn.
The newly minted demon prince swoops down out of the tower to assault my infiltrators holding an objective.
The infiltrators fight valiantly but there isn't a lot they can do against such might. The alpha is killed & as the only figure in the unit with an invulnerable save, the conclusion is foregone.
The game ended at this point. A major victory for the Dark Forces.
The skitarii had been all but swept from the field. The lone knight retreated to his Household base to report the disastrous loss of his brother and the strength of the Chaos incursion. As he left he made the mistake of leaving the comm channel open, and was treated to the metallic screams of the infiltrators and they were ripped apart by the demon prince.
