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It's a great report any which way and it looks like it was a ton of fun!

It was an epic battle, the kind of thing that explains WHY I still love Warhammer after all these years.

--Brian

Yeah, Warhammer just somehow pushes all the right buttons. Of course, having great people to play with/against really helps!

Here is some fluff for the next battle, hosted by Brian on Umia.... (This is a prequel, but should finish up the prequels and bring the storyline up to date). It is going to have some epic miniatures dreams realized.....

Shas’o Rymr blasted some sort of scuttling mechanical thing with his fusion blaster, then put two missiles through the door behind it for good measure. Distantly he could hear someone shouting.

Was it him? He was in a fugue state, his mind twisting in knots, the past death of his Etherial on Taros twinning with his present battling the Imperium and Mechanicus on the red planet of Umia. All that really mattered was the thing he had found within their fortress - the thing he kept clutched in his suit’s off hand as he fought.

He was shouting, shouting for carnage, but some else was too, calling over the command channel.

“Shas’o!” It was one of his underlings, Shas’el Yinvre. “Shas, the support party is cut off from the shuttle!”

Reluctantly he let go of the battle joy and and looked at Yinvre’s suit.

“We must leave them. We are needed on Taros. What I have found is needed on Taros.”

“Shas’o! That thing - it is Warp Tech. You know it is forbidden!”

“You are young, Yinvre, and the Greater Good is still a pure white light to you. To me it is a spectrum, the white light divided. Do you know why the Guela rule half the Galaxy despite the cruelty of their oppression, despite the lunacy of their technology, despite the lives of billions they throw away?”

Yinvre said nothing, simply staring at the commander’s blood spattered blue suit, draped with kroot fetishes and feather banners.

“Long have I pondered this. It is not in spite of their madness that they prosper, but because of it. We must become like them, and I will show the Rinn Va how to prosper in a universe more insane then we ever imagined. Your sept will unveil a new way to all the Tau through your victory on Taros.”

“Taros is at peace!”

“No longer. I go. Choose your path - join with me, or stay, fight, live or die. The thread of your life is yours to follow.”

“I will not abandon our own. And I will not die - Aun Mord Rinn must know of this!”

“Aun Mor knows more of this than you can imagine I suspect. Still, I wish you fortune.” Shas’o Ry’mr turned and leapt into the sky.

Rogue Tank Destroyer Crew! (I walker's figures)....

Nice project. Talos is my favorite of the Imperial Armour books

The next battle to be played on Taros.


Second battle of the Iracunda Isthmus


Two tank forces take advantage of a storm front to avoid enemy air attack when they collide. Both are under orders to move full speed to their objective, resulting in an unexpected armored clash.


Rules
Dust Storm:
All weapon ranges are halved for all purposes, including melta rules, etc.
Fast skimmers/flyers may not be used.
Any unit outside a vehicle moves and assaults a D6 inches.
Walkers move and assault as if as in difficult terrain.

Exploded Vehicles are left in play.

Forces
Initial Clash - 3000 Points a side.
Tau (Kestral) will be reinforced by the Valarian 4th Armored All Terrain Rangers who have turned traitor!
Imperial Guard (Insurgency Walker) will be allied with whatever Brian wants to bring (1500 points each).
Heavy support is doubled to 0-6, otherwise standard Force Org.
All infantry must be deployed in a transport.



The Night After
(Night Fighting in effect)
Infantry units remaining on the table + Immobilized Vehicles from the previous battle.
In addition each side has 4 Heroic Tank Crews (2 FW with Pulse Carbines, 3 IG with Lasguns, or 3 Ig laspistol and close combat weapon)
500 point recovery force (Fluffy, list to approved by I-Walker in advance)

Table
Open desert with some sand dunes and a few rocks.
4x8.

Deployment
Each side deploys within 36” of their table edge. However, deployment is divided into 6 zones, each 24” x 24”. Players secretly alocate their units to these deployment zones before the battle. Each zone must have at least one unit deployed in it, no zone may have three units deployed in it until all zones have two units in them.

No reserves, No Outflank, No Deepstrike, no reserves, no special deployment rules, Scout move only.

Roll off. The winner MUST deploy first, but will have first turn, no seizing the initiative.

Game Length - 10 Turns + Random Game Length

Victory Conditions -
Units moved off the opponents table edge earn VPs equal to the value of the unit.
Mobile vehicles still on the table at the end of the game and infantry that have a transport (does NOT have to be their dedicated transport, any transport counts for this purpose) score half VPs. Mobile Vehicles and walkers from the last game have gone on to their objective and are not left on the table.

Game Two.
Steel Rats.
Same Table, Vehicle wrecks are left in place. Immobilized vehicles are left in place. Infantry left behind are deployed alternately (high roller deploys first), using the infiltrate rules, though this is not Infiltrate for an other purpose. (12” out of sight, 18” in sight). High roll deploys unit first.

500 point force plus heroic tank crews are deployed within 12” of a random LONG table edge.
As per previous battle, only scout moves, no other special deployment abilities. Set up first, deploy first, no seizing the initiative.

Immobilized vehicles are abandoned, but can be reactivated by heroic Tank Crew, who must embark into them. It is still immobilized.

Heroic Tank crew are treated as independent characters though they must remain with the rest of their crew.

Any recovery vehicle can tow any vehicle. Each side chooses 3 vehicle wrecks not within 12” of any table edge or other objective (if possible). Enemy vehicles must be chosen first, but a wreck from either side can be an objective.

Victory Points:

1 VP per objective controlled by any unit, 2 VP per objective vehicle towed off the table or in own deployment zone.

Random Game Length

Quick overview of the last battle:

Part one: A fast train to Nowhere.

The Greater Good Needs that Train! So does the Inquistion, so they forge an uneasy alliance to escape off world and reveal the taint of chaos in Shas'o Rymr and the Mechanicus. The trainworkers and local arbites object.





If they can eliminate the defenders, the alliance can steal additional train cars, like this laser defense car!





Uh Oh... Powerloaders!



Shas'el Yin'vre advances with ablative drones - my new favorite combo.




Powerloaders wreck the rhino - while firewarriors bravely fight hand to hand allowing the imperials to escape.





Yin'vre takes out the enemy Arbites Rhino. How do we tell these Gue'la traffic officers apart?



The firewarriors keep the Loaders busy.



Drones Pin the Arbites.



Yin'vre fires a parting shot and ejects from the suit and hops into the Locomotive, with the inquisitor riding on the fender on the last turn.



They have the train (though no extra cars) but can they make it across... ...a Bridge Too far?

With the train running full speed down the tracks, Tau and Inquisitional forces try to clear a bridge so they can make their escape to an orbital shuttle. Arrayed against them is a mass of light and heavy mortars, backed by a Deathstrike Missile!





The objective is a control house that will lower the bridge.



Pathfinders occupy a building with good lines of sight to the battle.



Pirhanna makes a suicide run on the Deathstrike. Alas, too late! The fearsome missile fires on turn 2, vaporizing a large chunk of inquisitional armor. It was nice to see a Deathstrike actually work for once, even if it meant that the allies lost much of their firepower.



Devilfish charge the objective, desperately trying to get there before turn 5. It was, indeed a bridge very far!





Kroot Outflank to attack the mortars, hoping to roll up the flank - but they are too well defended. Not pictured - the Stealth team that tried the same thing, accidentally wiped out the unit they needed to assault by hitting and wounding with every single shot, then died.



Counts as Al Raheem shows up and assaults the Allied fire position, leading to a 3 turn melee with the Tau commander in the building. Alas, he can't quite hold out long enough. Kind of a theme for Tau commanders on Taros.



Firewarriors and Drones from destroyed devil fish have made it to the objective.



An accursed Psyker battle squad sends the Kroot running with their mind tricks! Or holy prayers, you decide.



To be continued....


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With a blast of steam and a squealing of steel, the train hurtles onto the board - but with a roar of turbines, so do the Vendettas!





The Engine is blown to bits!

A few valiant Tau manage to make it to the objective through the deluge of guard ordinance, but have no chance against the massed imperial/traitor forces. The inquisition fights valiantly to reveal the treachery on Umia, but to no avail, and they die at the side of the Xenos - a strange fate! It was, indeed, a bridge too far. Very thematic, lots of fun, great table - and AMAZING train.





This was a Triple header, so we followed up with a Battle Fleet Gothic Game - in which the tainted Shas'o R'myr aboard the Custodian class 'Thunderchild" ran the imperial blockade on Umia, completing his escape - and destroying the Inquisitional Cruiser to boot. No warning of Chaos' vile plans will reach either the Imperium or Tau on Taros. This neatly wraps up the "Prequel" games, and nicely sets the stage for the story. It also brings us up to date chronologically.

Those Rogue Tank Destroyer crew models look excellent. And that is quite an epic battle report. I love the unique and flavorful scenarios you guys come up with, and making good use of the concept of linked games across systems and rule sets. Good inspiration for own campaign.

Amazing game and fantastic terrian.

Tempted to make an all power loader amry now...

I would really like a construction battalion army personally. I need to make some Tau tank recovery gear, and I am kind of at a loss (and also running out of time). I may just declare as I Walker suggested that the Tau just use swarms of drones to life their wrecked tanks.


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Stormtroopers - painted with a light grey spray primer, nuln oil, followed by Space Wolf Grey and Nazdreg yellow contrast on some areas. The facemask is 2 layers of gloss nuln oil over the grey.

I really enjoyed these figures. I wish they'd made more variations, or done them in plastic. They have a unique, cool style in the 40K line that I really like.

Laser destroyer with temporary commander/hatch until a replacement can arrive after a dog mishap. I walker's work, I just painted it.



And it lights up!

What started out as a complex maneuver under the cover of inclement weather turned into a brutal knife fight between the opposing armies during a storm that became known as the second battle of the Iracunda Isthmus


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During the first battle the Titans of Mars overwhelmed the Tau defense.

During the second, it was the heavy tanks of the 114th Guard Regiment.

Laser Destroyer looks great and that light-up hatch is a really nice touch! You need to get some in-game pictures with night fighting where you darken the room and use the lights on the tanks for some epic battle photos.

I'm bummed that FW dropped the kit. That one hadn't properly cured so sat in my basement for a few years. Kestral is hoping to do some photoshopping on the pictures he took to get a sand storm look so a battle report with photos could be a ways off. Night fight with low light, good idea. Kestral has some light up smoke effects for wreckage, it would be very atmospheric. Alas, these last two scenario took place at a game store where reducing the lightning would have been disruptive to others. Still it's bucket list item.

A start on the pics. I do wish I'd had access to sand, but it was the game store and I don't think they'd have liked that. : )














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Experimenting with sepia and blurriness....

Looking good so far!

Awesome stuff!

I do wish I'd had access to sand, but it was the game store and I don't think they'd have liked that. : )

I don't like sand, it's coarse and gets into everything.

More flock for the base?

Anyway, here's the best of the rest of the pics....

























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And a few more without effects.











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Quick Summary of the Mayhem....

With the fortress and beanstalk of Dawnwater's edge firmly in their possession, the Imperium moved swiftly to begin the invasion in earnest. Heavy armored units moved down the cable from orbit, brushing aside early Tau attempts at resistance and closing on Tarokeen. The Rinn'va attempted to borrow from the tactics of the first Taros war, engaging in hit and run attacks and trying to exploit the superiority of the Railgun over the battle cannon in long ranged armored clashes. However, much was different this time around. The Imperium was better prepared, and largely enjoyed air superiority. The Rinn'va were not as well equipped as the original defenders of Taros, who had been front line Tau military. In addition, the Imperium order of battle included a company of Shadowsword super heavy tanks for which the Tau had no good answers. These behemoths turned the tide of any long ranged engagement in which they appeared.

There were two bright spots for the Tau - first, the Imperium had not captured Dawnwater's edge intact, and thus lost access to its formidable planetary bombardment capability which would have rendered hundreds of kiloms of the surface uninhabitable for the tau. Second, the Rinn'va's efforts to integrate other species into their vision paid off, as Laura Montaign, the "Human Etherial" convinced the entire 3rd Valarian Armored All Terrain Rangers to defect. Including the Valarians had been a questionable choice from the onset, but every armored regiment that could found was needed, and thus they had embarked to Taros... ...to the Imperium's cost.

The most notable engagement of the first phase of the ground war occurred in the deep desert. A massive dust storm descended, leaving both sides blind. In an effort to seize an advantage and avoid air attack, both sides sent columns on flanking maneuvers - which then collided.

The carnage was enormous. A tau mechanized DemiCadre and a Valarian reinforced armored platoon encountered two shadowswords and an imperial armored company. Both sides engaged at point blank range while trying to break through according to their original orders, leaving the field littered with destroyed vehicles. Tanks rammed, infantry scrambled through the dust attempting to plant grenades on enemy armor. In the center the shadowswords blasted any target that appeared supported by their Trojan vehicles, while conquerers, chimeras and devildogs clashed on the flanks. One side resulted in so much wreckage that some vehicles were hemmed in unable to move amid the burning tanks of both sides. The Valarian Basilisk "Ferra Domina" survived the battle and caused notable damage to the Imperium. Tau disruption fields provided critical protection against the heavier Imperial firepower, but in the end it was not enough and the Imperium won the day.

The Imperium was victorious in that it suffered lower losses, but several Valarian vehicles did manage to break through, including the "Lucky 13", one of their few Leman Russ tanks. Lucky Thirteen would go on to shoot up the Imperial rear areas, though the damage done did not outweigh the loss of the entire DemiCadre and most of the Valarian infantry.

That night both sides sent out recovery forces - the Imperium fielding Atlas recovery vehicles and powerloader sentinels supported by the surviving tank crews and infantry. The Tau fielded an eclectic mix of Valarian Mechanics, Night fighting optimized crisis suits, Void Ogryn auxiliaries and a vehicle never seen before - the Flatworm drone carrier which provided highly effective at locating and recovering prized hammerheads with functional railguns. Both sides fought with ingenuity and tenacity, sentinels seeking out targets, tank crews taking control of semi functional vehicles (sometimes those of the enemy), and mechanics making hurried repairs under fire.

Although the Imperium had narrowly won the day, the Tau were somewhat more effective at night, recovering more of their hulls than the Imperium.

Still, the Imperial Onslaught drove on towards Tarokeen, though its strength in armored units dwindled as the drive continued.

After action report. Knight Commander Katya Georgena 3rd Platoon 4/495th Armored. The worse than expected weather did its job of providing cover from air attack with the added benefit of successfully countering all auspex beyond a few hundred meters. Our detachment rendezvoused with two Shadowswords from the 114th Guard regiment and escorting elements of the 123rd reconnaissance. The area of our action had been scouted but transit routes were not secured as per SOP. At 1417 hours we engaged Tau forces with accompanying PDF troops. The Tau preformed as expected during the day battle as did the accompanying human auxiliaries. The Shadowswords were particularly effective against the Tau grav tanks as expected. The close range combat took a heavy toll on both sides. My own platoon deployed as a duo, being one track short. During the short engagement we lost our second Destroyer to a fire in the main guns capacitors, per SOB the crew abandoned the tank, "Thunderbolt". That evening my platoon returned on foot to aid the 114th Guard in the recovery of damaged vehicles. During the recovery attempt we noticed that the vehicles we engaged were not local Auxiliaries but troops from the XXXXXXXXXX. During the fight we encountered new Tau recovery equipment in the form of some sort of drone powered lifting framework. The XXXXXXXXX employed some overly large labor mutant of questionable origin.

Looking really good

Knight Commander Katya Georgena, exhausted from little sleep over three days of combat operations, approached the regimental command bunker. She paused out side and watched as staff officers exited. The 3rd Valarian Armored having turned traitor and joining with the Tau has sent shocks through the senior staff and most everyone was moving with a sense of urgency. The camps mood was grim and tense. She quickly spotted her quarry; wool field cap, ornate cuirass, plasma pistol, power sword, unlit cigar.
"Col Helstrom?"
The Colonel turned to face the young tank commander.
"Knight Commander Georgena of the 495th, good to meet you in person, did any of the Thunderbolts crew survive?"
Katya was used to being recognized, it's not like she didn't have her name on her uniform or unit insignia but was surprised that an officer who was not in her chain of command would know the name given to a vehicle by its crew in her platoon.
"You must have read the after action report in detail. Sgt Oster and crew survived the first battle but all three were lost the next evening during the recovery efforts"
"The crew of the Thunderbolt were good soldiers, they well be missed."
After a pause he continued
"I didn't just read it. I tend to closely monitor hot spots when my regiment is engaged via available comms. Your team generated a lot of useful chatter during the fight. You passed on the kind of information we need up the chain. You have a good mind for the larger battle. Clearly you earned your knighthood. So, why have you hunted me down?"
"How much of my personnel file have you read?" Suddenly, she wondered if she had chosen the right person to approach with her concerns.
"None, but I think I should perhaps remedy that, I could be working for you someday, let's walk and talk" Col Helstrom turned and started walking briskly towards the motor pool and his staff car Greif. "I could use a sandwich, want one?"
Together, sitting on a sand bank under the cover of a camouflage canopy, they ate sandwiches of dry bread and partially rehydrated porcuswine.
Katya began "There is a classified part of my file that covers my previous units assignment. I was part of a garrison on Umia. Two Inquisition agents, Inquisitor Westwind and Inquisitor Sonfra arrived on Umia and discovered the Tau and Mechanicus involved in some sort of trade. Furthermore potential radical elements of the Inquisition were also present with the Mechanicus. My tank platoon was taped by the Inquisition to provide fire support. My platoon was assigned an Arbites squad for support and then it was classic hurry up and wait. We weren't at the first engagement where the Tau and their Kroot allies defeated Westwind. However, when Inquisitor Faith Sonfra returned she and the Tau warriors that were with her believed that the Tau commander had been corrupted. Apparently the Tau Commander had directed fire on some of his own troops and abandoned them on Umia. Sonfra also believed that the Mechanicus couldn't be trusted, although she wasn't sure if she and Westwind had stumbled on to what she called a poison pill operation or if the corruption started from something that was discovered in the excavations that the local Magos had been directing. My platoon became involved in an attempted escape from the planet. It went poorly. I and two of my crew were the only survivors of my platoon after a Deathmissle strike. We might have faced a firing squad but an Arbites Enforcer helped us blend in with prisoners being held overnight in a drunk tank. The whole garrison was broken up piecemeal and I ended up in the 495th. According to Sonfra the abandoned Tau didn't understand the significance of their commanders worlds but he apparently chanted "Blood for the blood god" when he fired on his own troops.

Col Helstrom scratched his head as he spoke.
"So to sum up your history, you fought alongside the Tau on Umia under the direction of an Inquisition agent, against other Inquisition assets working with Mechanis who were trading with the Tau. And said Tau believed their commander was under some dark influence caused by his interactions with aforementioned Mechanicus and that this irrational Tau commander had come from Taros?"
"Yes Sir, that's the high light. I don't think that the 3rd Valarian Armored are fighting for the greater good. I think the next time we see them they will have defiled themselves and their equipment with the dark signs of ruinous powers."
"You could be right Commander, we have had reports of some very unusual behavior amongst the citizens and aliens on Taros. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to request your platoon assignment to the 123rd is extended. I'll see that Thunderbolt is put back into commission ASAP"

Great Fluff as always!

Apparently GW has released a new game supplement to help us with our air champagne.

If I get the chance to play games, I want them to be games like this. Great work.

 youwashock wrote:
If I get the chance to play games, I want them to be games like this. Great work.

Well, if you ever make it to the North East drop us a line.

Well, huh. Now what do we do?



The timing kind of sucks.

You cry a little inside?

I'm so excited for this I peed a little.

Well, you painted the BFG stuff, so I could always do up the IA stuff. I plan to pick up the IA soon with this lurking in the future.