Battle Report: Mega Battle

Suddenly overhead, a swarm of sleek xenos craft emerged from a shimmering portal and moved along side the Imperials a safe distance away. Laurentious was incensed by a strange alien voice that cut into his Astarted comm network “The Swordwind approaches, and those you call heretics will pay with their lives” With a mixed nod of understanding and revulsion, the Death Guard commander spat into his comm network “All Imperials, treat these Eldar as Non-Hostile, but don’t take your eyes off them. The Emperor Protects… ADVANCE!!!“

The Mega Battle was played at Battleforge Games on three 4’x6′ tables laid end-to-end. On the left was a sparse desert table, the center was a highly packed urban board, and the right was a mixed terrain snow table.

Each team had 4 players each with a 2,000 point army and each side had one 1,500 point titan. So 9,500 points per side. Objectives were five markers placed equidistant along the centerline of the tables, to be claimed by scoring units at the end of the game. No VPs were used. Turn 1 used the Night Fight rules.

Bigred:Loyalist Death Guard (and the Reaver)

Mkerr: Blood Angels

Aventine: Eldar

Robert: Eldar

Robert and Aventine, setup their Eldar scattered mainly in the central city and a light skirmishing force in the desert. Bigred focussed all forces and the titan on the snowy right flank. the Blood Angels split to support the central city and the Death Guard.

Brandon: Chaos Space Mainres (the Techno-guard)

Kingsley: Imperial Guard

Abe: Imperial Guard

Bulwark: Orks (and the Gargant)

Bulwark’s Orks deployed mainly opposite the Death Guard with their Gargant AND the surprise appearance of their Battle Fortress! A small skirmishing force set up in the desert to oppose the light Eldar forces there. Brandon and Abe deployed their CSM and IG forces in the central city and the snowy plains. The evil Colonel Kingsley concentrated solely on the central urban table.

With the cover of night, the Imperials advanced to midfield across the tabletop. Limited fire stripped some shields from the Gargant, but no real damage was done. A handful of Heretic troopers fell across the three tables.

In return, the Heretics came on like a thunderbolt. On the snowy plains Bulwark’s Orks advanced midfield and over FIFTY Orks disembarked hitting the Death Guard picket line like a tsunami. In perfect Death Guard fashion, in the face of overwhelming odds, the men under Capatin Laurentious’s personel command held, and the Blood Angels assault wave moved in for a feast!

Determined fire from the Brandon’s CSM and Abe’s IG stripped the Reaver’s Void Shields and stunned its Plasma Blastgun.

In the central city, the IG and CSM exchanged fire with the quickly approaching Eldar vehicles, Rangers, and Harlequin Masques that were getting so very close.

The Desert saw no major combat with both sides’ picket forces sliding in the night ever closer.

With Night Fight rules lifted the battle was on in earnest! In the snowy zone, the Blood Angels hit the huge Ork mob already engaging the Death Guard with Dante’s Honor Guard, 2 Assault Squads and the Death Company! A huge fight was on. Elsewhere, the Blood Angel and Death Guard forces hit the orks emerging from the battlefortress and some nearby CSMs. The rest of the the Death Guard heavy fire and the Reaver “Metalica Sepulcra” laid into the Gargant, stripping the last of its fields and doing minor damage.

In the city, the Eldar reaped a large toll of CSM and IG, as they hacked their way from room to room of the giant urban center led by their Avatar and two Masques of Harlequins. Lord Brandohn was heard to sigh loudly in disgust. 😉 In the desert zone, Robert’s Eldar continued to play cat-and-mouse with some isolated Ork buggies and Sentinels. They were no challenge to the Falcons but their were many of them.

The Heretic’s counterattack was ferocious! The Reaver was badly damaged by concentraed Gargant fire and lost THREE structure points (to a single Glancing hit!) and the Plasma Blastgun. Brandon’s CSM’s and Bulwarks Orks broke free from the Battle Fortress assault and headed deep into the Death Guard rear lines! Dante however was a whirling dervish of death. His golden armor covered in the blood of a dozen Orks and his Blood angels were grinding the huge Ork mobs down to nothing.

In the central city, the Colonel Kingsley, Lord Brandon and Major Abe threw bodies into the fire to slow the Eldar onslaught, relying on their weight of numbers. It was working!

The Imperials were losing the initiative. Eldar and Blood Angel assault forces had cut deeply into the Heretic side of the table, but had slowly been stopped and destroyed by weight of numbers. With their elite squads all but gone, the rear line of Imperials readied their weapons and prepared to cut down the Heretics who would advance upon their positions.

In the snowy fields, the Reaver repaired its Plasma Blastgun and finally got a clear shot on the Gargant, doing 4 structure points of damage to it, and destroying its Soopa Zzap gun!

In the city and desert, the Eldar rear vehicles moved up to midfield to claim the objectives against any comers.

The Heretic’s fury was indeed strong. A deepstriking Kill-Team arrived on the central desert objective and claimed it! In the city combined fire did little to the Eldar Falcon’s, but in the snowy plains disaster was awaiting….

With a single void shield back up, the Reaver’s Princeps Senioris was preparing to deliver the killing blow to the Gargant, but was taken by surprise by a torrent of IG and CSM fire from Major Abe and Brandon’s forces. Barely standing with no structure points remaining, Bulwark’s Gargant delivered the kill shot directly into the stricken titan’s plasma reactor and it blew skyhigh in a 24″ radius explosion, that killed a dozen marines and orks, damaged a Dreadnought, and utterly destroyed the completely intact Ork Battle Fortress!!!

Dazed, the survivors covered in debris and ash rose to their feet and surveyed their surroundings.

The loss of the Metalica Sepulcra was a devastating blow (even for the Heretics)! With the snowy plains virtually undefended, the remaining handful of Death Guard and Blood Angels focussed on denying the table objective to the Orks. The gargant was charged by Dante and Terminators and was too slow to contest the objective, but to every Imperial’s horror Major Abe pulled out a “dormant” Chimera that had lay patiently in wait and sped onto the central objective, claiming it with an intact IG command squad.

Of the desert table, Bulwark sped forward a lone surviving Ork Buggy and contested that table’s central objective from one of Farseer Robert’s falcons…. Mkerr however would not be denied, and claimed a table edge desert objective with a Baal Predator that drove through a fusilade of Brandon and Kingsley’s fire without a scratch!

In the city, both Eldar, CSM, and IG forces were exhausted. With bitter determination, Colonel Kingsley pushed forward a Leman Russ Demolisher and contested the central urban objective from one of Aventine’s invulnerable Falcons.

It all came down to the last urban board-edge objective. Aventine flew a lone Falcon up and sat atop it. The Heretics surrounded it and blazed way with fire from a Stormtrooper squad behind it, 2 Russes, a Basilisk, a Defiler, 3 Traitor Missile Launchers, 2 Traitor Lascannons, a Rokkitt Launcha, and a CSM Havoc squad pouring 4 Tank-hunting Sutocannons into it………………………… for nothing!!!! The Falcon survived and successfully contested the final objective leaving us with a grand total of 1 to 1 objectives with 3 contested….