Epic: Armageddon, Siegeline scenario, a bit over 4000 points, Imperial Guard (Death Korps of Krieg) vs. Legiones Astartes (Death Guard).
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Hive Ludeon, last surviving Imperial stronghold on Kennet Majoris. Last refuge of civilian life not carelessly bombed into oblivion by the reckless battlefleet above this wrecked, ruined land. Last hideout of cowards.
Gazing on its smoking spires made lord Styrix laugh, or at least gurgle in a manner interpretable as amusement. His men had encircled and besieged the massive mountain of buildings for months now, watching it die a slow death as their necrotic gifts worked their way into the life-sus systems of the city. But now, as their own fleet burned and fell into the planet's atmosphere as smoke-trailing showers of flame like beautiful, unnatural rain, they would need to capture it by force and dig deep under its void shields to fight on. They had hastily erected new earthworks and tainted the ground further back with deadly chemicals, expecting the Imperial dogs' imminent attempts at lifting the siege at the moment they'd gain orbital superiority. And lo, he did not have to wait long before the tell-tale palls of dust rose from the blasted horizon, signalling the arrival of the massed transports of the Imperial Guard closing on them.
The fools were attempting to force a hole in their siege ring. "Let them try", Styrix mused and voxed an order to all available response elements in the neighbouring sections of the line. His infantry would buy them enough time. Stepping out of his command bunker, he observed as the dour marines of his warband settled in their positions heedless of the slaves digging them further. No shouted orders or fussing was needed, every man of the XIV already set on their tasks. "The Unbroken Blades endure. Come, lapdogs of the Corpse-God, break yourselves against the Grandfather's bountiful splendour."
****
The field is set. A road once led from the wilder lands into the city's outskirts, now blown up and fortified by the Death Guard instead.
Lord Styrix's command post is swarming with activity as men and trench guns take positions.
By the mined road, more men and maddened dreadnoughts shuffle to take on the forthcoming assault.
Led by the rolling column of Gorgons and the stomping Reaver titan, the Death Korps advance towards the contact line.
Gorgons, heedless of the puny trees in their way, smash through the forest to avoid missile fire from the defenders.
Heavy Macharius-tanks take the hillside and let rip against the trench walls, but come under counterfire from the mortars and retreat back on the road.
The titan barrels forth, lasers and rockets smashing into the first dreadnought talon. Deadly turbolasers punch through their ceramite like wet tissue.
On the flank, the deathriders and grenadiers struggle to march and instead diddle under indecisive leadership as the Russes speed through the burning wreckage of the first Macharius.
While the Krieg artillery was settling their Bombards in position just outside counterbattery range, the Death Guard spotted a fatal opening: while the airspace was certainly contested by plentiful fighter cover, there wasn't much of air deterrence near the ground except for one flak battery. As the callsigns of two screaming Thunderhawks appeared on Styrix' command display, a quick command to the mortars saw the Krieg flak suppressed to hell and back before the first Hawk plunged to the ground hotly tailed by two Lightnings. Despite small fires and scratches here and there, the Thunderhawk made it to its target intact and spewed forth terminators who made short work of the Bombards (just! The terminators rolled the absolute worst and barely won the fight through inspiring leadership and numbers
).
As the Krieg line advanced, the Reaver swatting aside the other dreadnought group as well, their rear got increasingly strung out and more openings appeared another Hawk to slam down through the patrolling Lightnings.
At the trenches, the reserves started arriving as zipping Sicarians sped up the road and brrrted a storm of bolts against the grenadiers who had snuck against the buildings before Styrix's fresh men charged in and mopped them up.
As the grenadiers were slaughtered, behind them the Russes opened on the plague lord's retinue and the deathriders charged. Though their explosive lances tore marines apart in the blood-soaked craters, on their own their numbers could not press through the pale and deathly line of power armoured monsters. Broken, the bloodied remains of the deathrides fell back.
At the center line, the ground shook and bunkers flowed as liquid lava when an orbital bombardment struck down from the crying skies. The targeting was not exactly spot on, only vaporising the last of the dreadnoughts completely and causing significant casualties in the surrounding infantry and mortar formations but it did signal the charge for the nearby guardsmen. One of their Gorgons had just moments before been immobilised by a lucky mortar round in the engine compartment, but still the Kriegsmen poured out of their rides and surged into the trench. After a desperate exchange of shots and blows, the surviving scraps of the Death Guard infantry retreated towards the second prepared line in disarray while the heavily depleted guardsmen couldn't enjoy their prize for a long, being themselves driven back in confusion by a furious direct-fire barrage from what remained of the battered mortars nearby.
As the Hawks and Lightnings duelled above and more Death Guard tanks started pouring in by the road, it began to dawn on the Imperial commander that they could not attain a sustainable foothold in time with this force. Seeing the situation for what it was, the assault was called off and withdrew with what assets they could to try again another day. However, with most of the orbital transports destroyed, who knew what they could even get to reconstitute...
*****
Death Guard victory!
Playing the long table was a pretty brutal experiment with the Siegeline scenario that requires the attacker to constantly attain more of their objectives lest they lose the momentum. The road and mostly mechanised forces could help, but the Imperial commander realised a moment too late how aggressively they should have been pushing from the start. Didn't help that one of their flanks basically went "plbbbt" on the first round instead of marching forwards
