Invictus & I squared off yesterday at the casa for a mega battle extravaganza. The battle re-enacted a small bit of the Armageddon wars, with Admurl Orkbeard and his freebooter warband battling it out with Commissar Yarrick and his mechanized forces.
My list was this:
Orkbeard - Warboss (claw, heavy armor, cybork body, bosspole - joined a shoota mob)
Runtbot - Warboss (Mega-armor, joined meganobz)
Long Dong Silvork - Mekkboy (kustom forcefield, heavy armor, grot assistant)
Squiggy McGee - Warphead
14 Burna boyz
9 Meganobz
30 shoota boyz w/
PK nob
30 shoota boyz w/
PK nob
12 trukk boyz w/
PK nob and trukk
12 trukk boyz w/
PK nob and trukk
20 stormboyz w/ Zaggstrukk
3 rokket buggies
3 rokket buggies
3 kans w/ rokkets
Kaptain Badrukk and 10 cybork flashgitz w/ a painboy
1 deff dred
1 kustom battlefortress (killcannon, megazappa, flakkadakka gunz)
1 killbursta battletank (bursta kannon (D
str, 7'' blast)
1 looted wagon w/ a boomgun
1 big choppa squadron (12 choppas /w rokkets - 1/ claw)
1 fightabomma
His list was this (more or less - chime in if I'm wrong Invictus!)
Commissar Yarrick w/ 7ish ogryn
1 command squad w/ lord commissar (2 power fists)
1 platoon (4 squads + command squad - all with chimeras)
1 weapon squad with heavy bolters
1 stormlord (with vulcan megabolter)
1 shadowsword (with volcano cannon)
1 baneblade
1 warhound (with vulcan megabolter and laser destroyer)
1 leman russ (command tank)
2 leman russ (with predator cannons)
3 basilisks
6ish chimeras
2 X 3 sentinels w/ multilasers
Here's the battle field on deployment - as you can see, the 10X4 table was a bit full. For deployment, we laid a tape measure diagonally across the table and the deployment zones were everything more than 3'' off either side of the tape. There are 3 objectives, 1 in his corner, 1 in mine, and 1 in the dead center. He deployed first and took the first turn:
Being both of our first game of apocalypse, we were a bit at a loss as to what strategy to take. With a shrug, I focused my deployment on having boyz ready for the assault early on, with all my heavy hitting squads occupying the craters and buildings along the no-mans land across from his superheavies. The stormboyz and the fightabomma were held in reserve. The koptas redeployed to get the turboboost save, but couldn't cross no mans land without violating the 12'' rule. This strategy was not to turn out well for me.
His first turn started energetically, with Yarrick disembarking with the Ogryn and moving into assault range of my Mekkboyz squad. His command squad did the same, fearlessly threatening to assault the Warboss with his 30 boyz. The rest of his squads moved up a bit to enable rapid fire lasgun shots into my other mobz.
Then began the dying.
His tanks opened up on everything, destroying 60ish boyz across the battlefield, including all the burnaz, half the flashgits, the dread, and most of the 2 30 man boy squads. He also knocked the kopta squadron down to 5, in spite of the invulnerable save. His warhound and shadowsword powered up their D strength guns and hammered the battlefortress like a redheaded stepchild. It stumbled into my turn with all of its structure points, but no weapons, and an immobilized drive. His assault phase started out well for him, with Yarrick killing the last of the mekkboyz mob and chasing off the mekkboy and nob (they escaped). His command squad wasn't so lucky, and was krumped handily by the warboss - only the lord commissar and commander survived, although he did kill most of the boyz as well. We both held.
Here's a pic of that:
My turn was next (huzzah!). The battlefortress powered down to repair stuff, fixing the killkannon and the drives. Everyone that could, roared across the battlefield, with the weirdboy rolling up a WAAAGH! My trukks moved into his area and disgorged the boyz, one headed for the leman russ on the west flank, and one headed for Yarrick. The deffkoptas strategically redeployed into the corner of his deployment zone (behind his basilisks) and destroyed a good number of infantry with their bomb attack en route. The kans moved up to assault his sentinels on the western flank. The meganobz hopped out of the white building to prepare to assault the the stormlord, the buggies shot forward to get a few flank shots in. Shooting was passable. The Killbursta hit the stormlord, 2 sentinels and the weapon squad, destroying the cannon on the stormlord, killing 1 and immobilizing the other sentinel, and killing all but one of the weapon squad. The flashgitz whiffed shooting at Yarrick. My assault phase went well, with the admurl finishing off his command squad, the meganobz pulverizing the stormlord (6 penetrating hits knocked off all but 1 structure point, and most of the weapons.), and the trukk boyz and meganobz killed all the ogryn but one, leaving Yarrick in a precarious spot. The kans assaulted and stomped the western sentinels.
The imperial turn two saw little movement, with tanks shuffling to address the kopters, and the titan holding his position. Imperial shooting was again horrendously effective, destroying all but 1 kopter, knocking a structure point off the killbursta, and killing all the remaining infantry in the center except the meganobz. He also stunned and shook the battlefortress, ensuring it would be useless in my turn. My guys really suffered by not being able to lock down anything in combat. Once the initial killing was done, his tanks would back up and annihilate me. Combat in his turn went my way, with the kans flattening more sentinels, the meganobz finishing off the stormlord (small explosion finished off the heavy weapon team).
My second turn began with the advance of all my armor on the right flank - the orks owned it pretty well at this point. The kill bursta, all 6 buggies, looted wagon and trukk were still alive and strong. In the center, my fortress again repaired (given that it could do nothing else) and brought all its weapon systems online. I fired at one of the basilisks with the last kopter, destroying it and unfortunately leaving itself very vulnerable to return fire. The killbursta fired a shell at the warhound, downing a void shield and blowing bits off a nearby chimera and leman russ. During the assault phase, the surviving trukk boy nob in the center assaulted the leman russ in the center, knocking off the punisher cannon. The meganobz assaulted the sentinels trying to close in on the warhound - they couldn't finish the last one off in spite of causing an obscene number of penetrating hits. My turn ended on a sad note, with the meganobz in a terribly vulnerable position, and little else surviving.
I'll summarize the last few turns, as the rest was basically mopping up for the imperium. He destroyed the meganobz with a demolisher shot iin turn 3 and rattled my killbursta, finally killing it in an apocalyptic explosion that wiped out most of the vehicles on the eastern flank in turn 4. The battlefortress rumbled forward to try and ram the warhound, but ended up on the bad end of a turbo laser destroyer and volcano cannon. The kans continued stomping away on the western flank, and killed the sentinels, a plt command squad and a regular squad, but never really made enough progress to get the western objective. My stormboyz and fightabomma came in and wrecked a bit of havoc, but the boyz were smashed when they got stranded in the open. Yarrick went down twice, but stood back up both times.We called the game during his 4th turn, because I had very little left.
Yarr! Curses on Yarrick and all his imperial brethren.
This was a really fun game, although I guess I like
40k better at smaller point values. I think apocalypse doesn't lend itself to infantry heavy armies, although I'm sure I could have mitigated this with better play! The D strength weapons and the huge quantity of 5-10'' templates turned my 400 point elite infantry squads into green pulp, feel no pain, 2+ saves and force fields aside. I should have outflanked with the deffkoptas.
Mike's a great opponent, and his mechanized list is solid and well themed - I think I would have been able to put up a better fight with more super heavies myself - like a stompa or two. All in all, it was a good game - we'll be back!
Dan
2,500 pt Vulkan's Fist 0-0-3 
1,850 pt Krazykan's Junkyard Strike Force 5-1-5 