SN 40k Battle Report: Daemonkin vs Assassins & AM

SN Battle Reports brings you another great battle report using the Assassins Execution Force formation, Enjoy!

Mission: Crusade (3 Objectives)
Assassinate (3vp if any Assassin manages to kill the enemy Warlord)
Assassin Skulls (1vp for every Assassin Slayed)
Points: 1500pts
Deployment: Dawn of War

Imperial chronicles are strangely silent on the topic of Lord Militant Vondonnan. A colossal figure in the history of the Segmentum Tempestus, the Lord Militant rose through the ranks of the Astra Militarum during the glorious Attalid Crusade, eventually rising high enough to be appointed as Lord Militant Attalus’ successor in the event of his demise. A catastrophic failure of the Emperor Class battleship Imperia Victrix’s gellar field during a short warp jump between the Archosian salients brought a tragic and premature end to Attalus’ heroic career. Vondonnan immediately moved to take command of the crusade lest the momentum gained during Attalus’ great victories in the Castrian System be lost amongst the political infighting that invariably occured when a position of as much power as a crusade leader becomes vacant.

 Vondonnan’s inspired leadership silenced his many detractors and within twelve years the Attalus crusade came to a victorious conclusion when the final bastion of the greenskins was pounded into the dust of Redna, which was renamed Vondonnus Prime in his honour.

 Using his own considerable leverage and a wide web of political allies, Vondonnan gathered a force including fourteen Astra Militarum regiments, three Imperial Navy battlegroups, two chapters of Adeptus Astartes and one Titan Legion for his crusade which was launched with much fanfare in 899 M41. The Vondonnan Crusades ambitious initial aim of launching a three-pronged strike into the Galactic Eastern portion of the Lenova Cluster soon came to grief as all three army groups encountered horrifically violent resistance from billions of deranged militiamen who could call on the infernal powers of the warp and, perhaps most distressingly, traitor Astartes. In the central sector the esteemed Sons of Orar chapter suffered near debilitating losses forcing a landing, and then stubbornly defending the beach head on Bassus against waves of cursed men and daemons. Only an orbital bombardment saved the chapter from being overrun though in the process the planet was rendered tectonically unstable and therefore unsuitable as a forward base for the central thrust.

 The Sons of Orar immediately withdrew from the crusade, their losses pushing them almost to the edge of extinction. Shorn of its most powerful strike asset, the central front quickly bogged down into a hellish meatgrinder on a front spanning three systems. The Southern army group, spearheaded by the God engines of the Legio Fidelis was considered by Crusade Command the most powerful of the three army groups and on its shoulders would rest Vondonnan’s hopes for a “knockout left hook into the heart of the beast.” Legio Fidelis made planet fall on Xcrib in near full strength with 14 titans, led by the warlord class Gladius Repenta and backed by three regiments of Constantian Cohorts.

 Initially encountering little resistance the purpose of the unusual surface markings on Xcrib became awfully apparent when they blazed into fiery, daemonic life and the imperial vox network was filled with the sounds of the exquisitely painful possession of most of the titan crews. The fallen titans of Legio Fidelis immediatley turned their awesome firepower upon the hapless Constantian Cohorts, wiping them out in an event now mourned on Constantia as the Xcrib Massacre. The Northern army group initially fared best, spearheaded by the renowned Red Scorpions chapter they managed to secure two planetery systems and put to flight a sizeable band of Khornate traitor Astartes. All hope of the crusade being realigned to take advantage of this success was dashed when the Red Scorpions were forcibly removed from the crusade by an Inquisitorial edict following rumours of a massive Astartes rebellion in the Maelstrom Zone. With no hope of reigniting the crusade’s momentum Vondonnan’s sanity began to slip as he spent long hours agonising over the tremendous casualty tallies that were sent by personal request to his private quarters.

 The crusade struggled on under its reclusive leader for a further twenty years achieving little more than the loss of eighteen million Imperial lives. Such waste of Imperial resources brought the crusade to the attention of the highest levels of the Adeptus Terra, who in turn petitioned the Senatorum Imperialis to remove the Lord Militant from command. The decree of the High Lords, carrying the weight of the Emperor’s seal, was the final straw for Vondonnan’s fragile sanity. Upon reading its contents he is said to have breathed “Finally” before explosively evacuating his braincase with his gold chased bolt pistol.

With Vondonnan’s unlamented passing fresh impetus was injected into the crusade as direct intervention by the High Lords themselves brought in fresh reinforcements and a slew of more unconventional allies in the form of Inquisitorial warbands, Adeptus Sororitas and most unusual of all, an assassination force tasked with rooting out the corrupt leaders of the forces of chaos and exterminating them with extreme prejudice. Imperial Prognosticar Strategos began to re-estimate the crusades successful conclusion to being a matter of approximately four years.

Imperial chronicles are strangely silent on the topic of Lord Militant Vondonnan. A colossal figure in the history of the Segmentum Tempestus, the Lord Militant rose through the ranks of the Astra Militarum during the glorious Attalid Crusade, eventually rising high enough to be appointed as Lord Militant Attalus’ successor in the event of his demise. A catastrophic failure of the Emperor Class battleship Imperia Victrix’s gellar field during a short warp jump between the Archosian salients brought a tragic and premature end to Attalus’ heroic career. Vondonnan immediately moved to take command of the crusade lest the momentum gained during Attalus’ great victories in the Castrian System be lost amongst the political infighting that invariably occured when a position of as much power as a crusade leader becomes vacant.

 Vondonnan’s inspired leadership silenced his many detractors and within twelve years the Attalus crusade came to a victorious conclusion when the final bastion of the greenskins was pounded into the dust of Redna, which was renamed Vondonnus Prime in his honour.

 Using his own considerable leverage and a wide web of political allies, Vondonnan gathered a force including fourteen Astra Militarum regiments, three Imperial Navy battlegroups, two chapters of Adeptus Astartes and one Titan Legion for his crusade which was launched with much fanfare in 899 M41. The Vondonnan Crusades ambitious initial aim of launching a three-pronged strike into the Galactic Eastern portion of the Lenova Cluster soon came to grief as all three army groups encountered horrifically violent resistance from billions of deranged militiamen who could call on the infernal powers of the warp and, perhaps most distressingly, traitor Astartes. In the central sector the esteemed Sons of Orar chapter suffered near debilitating losses forcing a landing, and then stubbornly defending the beach head on Bassus against waves of cursed men and daemons. Only an orbital bombardment saved the chapter from being overrun though in the process the planet was rendered tectonically unstable and therefore unsuitable as a forward base for the central thrust.

 The Sons of Orar immediately withdrew from the crusade, their losses pushing them almost to the edge of extinction. Shorn of its most powerful strike asset, the central front quickly bogged down into a hellish meatgrinder on a front spanning three systems. The Southern army group, spearheaded by the God engines of the Legio Fidelis was considered by Crusade Command the most powerful of the three army groups and on its shoulders would rest Vondonnan’s hopes for a “knockout left hook into the heart of the beast.” Legio Fidelis made planet fall on Xcrib in near full strength with 14 titans, led by the warlord class Gladius Repenta and backed by three regiments of Constantian Cohorts.

 Initially encountering little resistance the purpose of the unusual surface markings on Xcrib became awfully apparent when they blazed into fiery, daemonic life and the imperial vox network was filled with the sounds of the exquisitely painful possession of most of the titan crews. The fallen titans of Legio Fidelis immediatley turned their awesome firepower upon the hapless Constantian Cohorts, wiping them out in an event now mourned on Constantia as the Xcrib Massacre. The Northern army group initially fared best, spearheaded by the renowned Red Scorpions chapter they managed to secure two planetery systems and put to flight a sizeable band of Khornate traitor Astartes. All hope of the crusade being realigned to take advantage of this success was dashed when the Red Scorpions were forcibly removed from the crusade by an Inquisitorial edict following rumours of a massive Astartes rebellion in the Maelstrom Zone. With no hope of reigniting the crusade’s momentum Vondonnan’s sanity began to slip as he spent long hours agonising over the tremendous casualty tallies that were sent by personal request to his private quarters.

 The crusade struggled on under its reclusive leader for a further twenty years achieving little more than the loss of eighteen million Imperial lives. Such waste of Imperial resources brought the crusade to the attention of the highest levels of the Adeptus Terra, who in turn petitioned the Senatorum Imperialis to remove the Lord Militant from command. The decree of the High Lords, carrying the weight of the Emperor’s seal, was the final straw for Vondonnan’s fragile sanity. Upon reading its contents he is said to have breathed “Finally” before explosively evacuating his braincase with his gold chased bolt pistol.

With Vondonnan’s unlamented passing fresh impetus was injected into the crusade as direct intervention by the High Lords themselves brought in fresh reinforcements and a slew of more unconventional allies in the form of Inquisitorial warbands, Adeptus Sororitas and most unusual of all, an assassination force tasked with rooting out the corrupt leaders of the forces of chaos and exterminating them with extreme prejudice. Imperial Prognosticar Strategos began to re-estimate the crusades successful conclusion to being a matter of approximately four years.

Mission: Crusade (3 Objectives)
Assassinate (3vp if any Assassin manages to kill the enemy Warlord)
Assassin Skulls (1vp for every Assassin Slayed)
Points: 1500pts
Deployment: Dawn of War

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Author: Steven Pardo

Steven is a Gibraltar-based veteran tabletop wargamer with over 10 years of experience. He is the man behind SN Battle Reports. His specialty is organizing Warhammer 40K narrative events. He began writing for BoLS in 2015.