Assault Terminators, as you can see. That was my second squad and I got a little bit more creative... At least they have the shoulder pads in their squad-specific heraldry and that is repeated on their little shields. Actually they have been repainted several times, as I wasn't so sure how to do them and as my paint skill improved I decided to add some more details to them.
As you may realize that is the same model I used in the Batrep as a master. I painted this model of Lysander somewhat around autumn last year and he had to be finished rather quickly so I haven't been that creative with the banner and he overall looked a little bit flat with the white shield on his torso and all the Imperial Fists-details I had removed. So I decided to give him a little bit more attention as I think it is a really great model (except the strange pose of the hammer itself....). I am pretty pleased with the banner and the new torso shield and the cross on his coat. Maybe I will re-do his right leg a little bit but I have no idea yet.
As usual the 5th turn began with psychic powers. The farseer fortuned himself and doomed the LasPlas marines on the tower.
The dire avengers and the avatar continued their walk towards the mechanicum and on the left flank the wraith lord and the guardians not in close combat advanced as well.
The dark reapers exterminated the LasPlas marines on the left and the wraith lord shot again on the librarian but missed entirely. The avatar shot his melta sword on the landspeeder and shook the crew. The doomed LasPlas squad on the tower lost one marine to the fire of the last three dire avengers. The guardians ignored the librarian and shot at the devastator squad and downed 2.
The master could only kill 1 guardian but that broke the morale of them and they ran away. He repositioned himself facing the advancing wraith lord he intended to charge.
Death-defyingly the master charged the wraith lord but could dodge the deathly blows and kicks of the monstrous xenos warrior. In return he landed 4 devastating blows and wounded it severely (2 wounds). The Librarian attacked the remaining guardians but could just kill 1. But the righteous charge of the psyker was too much for them and they broke close combat and fled. The librarian just turned away from them and tried to reach the mechanicum.
Turn 6
The warp must have been very turbulent over the battlefield and even the farseer couldn’t focus and so the last turn began with no successful psychic powers.
Both decimated guardian squads had their morale broken and ran away. But the nearest unit to the mechanicum building shot their star cannon on the flight but after close combat with the librarian they were too confused to hit anything. The snipers of the pathfinders targeted the remaining LasPlas marines but couldn’t do any harm. The dark reapers tried to shoot the librarian in the back but the missiles weren’t able to penetrate the terminator armour. And one barely could believe it the shadow weavers killed 2 space marines! (LasPlas on the tower).
The avatar moved into the building and shot again on the landspeeder and destroyed the assault cannon and then charged. The burning sword cut cleanly into the reactor of the flyer and ripped it apart in a gigantic explosion consuming the avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine!
On the other side of the battlefield the wraithlord was too stunned by the hammer blows and was smashed down by the marine master who then moved towards the dark reapers.
On my turn the master further advanced and finally charged the dark reapers, killing them both. The last missile launcher shot a fragmentation missile into the dire avengers what killed 2. The last marine on the tower aimed his by now really hot plasma gun at the farseer. But the ancient technology was too stressed after having fired so rapidly and exploded killing the marine.
That pretty much ended the game. No one had brought a scoring unit into the enemy building and so we concluded on a draw!
This game was really fun to play as it was exciting to the very last round! We both nearly wiped out the other army that only a few (non-scoring) units had been left (ok, except the shadow weavers and the pathfinders…but ugh…should they really be there?...).
I think we both enjoyed the game and there have been some really funny moments!
Again the farseer tried to fortune the avatar but this time it didn’t work but he doomed the master of the marines and the bodyguards.
The avatar moved towards the assault marines, the dire avengers marched in the direction of the devastator squad and the banshees jumped over their wrecked transport and headed towards my left flank. The last 3 warp spiders did the same.
The ranger fired again on the LasPlas squad on the tower and shot 1 of them down. The combined fire of the warp spiders and the dire avengers took 3 of the devastators down but the morale of their brothers couldn’t be broken.
On the other flank the guardians targeted the advancing terminators and killed them all. The wraith lord again tried to kill a space marine leader but failed. The dark reapers fired their missiles on the LasPlas squad in the ruins but they ducked behind the rubble and nothing happened. Needless to say, that the shadow weavers failed again to kill anything.
The banshees stormed howling into close combat with the LasPlas squad and sliced effortlessly through the power armour and killed 2 of them. Dazed by this furious onslaught the marines couldn’t do anything. The assault marines faced the avatar of war and lost 4 brothers to the burning creature. The sergeant tried to hit it with his power fist but wasn’t able to do any harm.
The librarian tried again to focus but failed yet again.The master moved towards the guardians to take revenge for his fallen terminators and the landspeeder moved into position to fire on the dire avengers and killed 3, the nearby LasPlas squad killed another 4 of them. The warp spiders were blasted apart by the missile launchers and the heavy bolter.
Meanwhile the avatar killed the assault sergeant and moved towards the mechanicum building. The banshees killed 2 more but 1 died in return by the marines until the librarian reached the fight and killed the last of them with his force staff. Before the master could smash 4 of the guardians under mighty hammer blows he was attacked by the couraged cicilians in arms and thy managed to pierce the terminator armour and inflicted one wound.
All psychic powers of the farseer worked and the avatar became fortuned and the assault marines were doomed. But the warp tried to break through into reality and the farseer was attacked but his ghost helm held off the perils of the warp!
Moving phase was done quickly, the spiders jumped in front of the assault marines and the harlequins and dire avengers further moved towards my lines. On the other flank the wraith lord and the guardians did the same. Farseer and avatar stayed a little bit behind.
The fire of the warp spiders sent 5 assault marines to the ground and the dark reapers finally wiped out the heavy bolter devastator squad. Both star cannons took the librarian and his last terminator bodyguard as target and killed the elite warrior in a blaze of plasma fire. Now that the librarian was on his own the wraith lord fired the bright lance and missile launcher on him but the Emperor protects and nothing happened! The rangers killed another marine on the tower but weren’t able to pin them. The shadow weavers again had no luck and killed nothing.
On my turn the master and his terminators advanced in direction of the dark reapers to bring the assault cannons to bear. The librarian moved a bit behind them. Seeing the harlequins in range the assault marines moved in a probably suicidal jump out of cover right in front of them.
Both flamers of the assault marines opened fire and bathed the xenos in a gout of promethium and completely burned them to ashes! The LasPlas squad on the tower and the landspeeder targeted the warp spiders and killed 4. Having witnessed their comrades shredded into bloody mist by sustained bolter and plasma fire their courage broke and they retreated 16” towards the avatar. Seeing this mighty incarnation of war their spirit rose and they regrouped.
The librarian tried again to focus his psychic energies but the warp was too dense that he couldn’t cast the fury of the ancients.
The assault cannons of the terminators tore 3 dark reapers apart and the missile launchers of the last devastator squad killed another 2 banshees.
I achieved my unofficial goal to kill the harlequins ;-) but I had to sacrifice the assault marines for that. But I think that they would have caused more damage if they had reached my lines.
From my point of view the battle looked a little bit grim for me since my troops became really decimated that turn and a lot of eldar stood near my building and I only had the master and his retinue near the enemy position facing the wraitlord, 2 star cannons and the 2 remaining reapers.
But have faith in Him! The Emperor protects!
This turn would see some serious firefights so let's see how it turned out:
The second turn started with psychic powers and the farseer fortuned the avatar and tried to doom the librarian with his retinue but the psychic hood denied that.
Trotzki rolled for reserves and his dire avengers became available and appeared at the sewer entry next to his harlequins facing my right flank, he then moved them 2” back trying to get into cover but did not reach it. The warp spiders and the serpent moved in front of the dire avengers, the harlequins stood in the back of them. The farseer and the avatar moved forward as well.
The shooting phase began with the warp spiders wiping out the lower LasPlas squad, quickly followed by the upper LasPlas squad which was blade-stormed by the dire avengers. The serpent killed one marine of the heavy bolter devastator squad, the dark reapers killed another 3 but the decimated marines passed their leadership test and held the ground. The star cannons of the two guardian squad and the wraith lord targeted the librarian squad again and killed 2. The shadow weavers shot on the assault marines again, but killed none. After the shooting phase the warp spiders made a fatal second jump: they lost one in the warp (Trotzki rolled double six) and that took them partly off the field what killed another 2…
I moved the landspeeder away from the backward sewer entry and faced the warp spiders but hid behind the ruin to stay out of sight of the rest of his army. The terminators advanced further forwards but I consistently rolled badly for difficult terrain so they moved just another 2”.
The serpent was my worst concern at this moment and I tried to down it so that the banshees would be entangled and maybe lose some. So both LasPlas squads and the devastator squad with the missile launchers shot at it. And all I achieved was to shake it. This thing was nearly as resilient as a falcon… Following the "always concentrate your fire-rule" both terminator squads had to shoot at it as well. Again another shaken result and the last assault cannon shot it down and destroyed it. 5 banshees died in the crash. The heavy bolter devastator squad then shot at the guardians and killed 4. Finally the landspeeder targeted the warp spiders but the xenos armour held off all incoming bullets. The serpent having soaked up nearly the whole firepower of my army this round really was very bad for the marines and I had a very bad feeling for the third turn. At least the banshees were pinned and the dire avengers would not shoot after having blade-stormed.
Trotzki won the roll and chose to begin.
Basically he moved everything to the front except the dark reapers, shadow weavers and the guardians. The shooting was opened by the barrage of the shadow weaver targeting the assault marines and causing 4 wounds but the power armour took the brunt of it and none fell. The bright lance and missile launcher of the wraithlord found their mark and one terminator of the librarian squad was evaporised. Another terminator of the same squad was hit by a starcannon but the plasma bolt couldn't burn through the thick armourplate. The missile barrage of the dark reapers killed 4 marines of the heavy bolter devastator squad. During this heavy pounding a sniper of the pathfinder team took a bullet right through an armour joint of a marine from the LasPlas squad on the mechanicum tower.
On my turn 1 I moved my Terminators forward but they just managed 3” due to difficult terrain. Since my Assault Marines were bunched up and targeted by the blasts of the enemy artillery I spread them a little bit but they held position. The librarian tried to focus to let a psychic construct rush towards the enemy but because of the runes of warding of the runeprophet he took a perils of the warp attack and lost one wound. The master’s terminators opened fire with both assault cannons and stormbolters on the avatar of Khaine and wounded him two times. Encouraged by this the terminator retinue of the librarian targeted him as well but didn’t wound him. The LasPlas Marines near the terminators tried to shoot on the dark reapers but failed their target priority check and had to shoot on the guardians and killed one. The devastators had more luck in shooting at the dark reapers and managed to inflict 9 wounds on them, but oh dear, they passed ALL NINE armour saves! Bad, very bad. Since nothing juicy was in range or sight for the other squads I tried to shoot on the harlequins but the veil of tears dazed all marines trying to target them.
This ended Turn 1.
We decided to play in the Cities of Death since that would grant us a much nicer background for the pics (I guess my carpet isn’t the proper background for the first batrep eh?).
We would play on level gamma the mission “counter attack” (don’t know exactly the English description for that mission): Each player chooses one building he wants to defend. To win the game one has to bring all defending enemy units in the building below ¼ strength and must bring one scoring unit into it. On gamma level we played without victory points. So no matter what happens, defending the own building and seizing the enemy building is the only way to win.
Trotzki took “sharpshooters” (no cover saves against sniper weapons! Nice for his pathfinders when they pump out ds1 shots…) and “sewer rats” as stratagems and he rolled for 5 entry points. In turn I took “power generators” (re-roll to wound) for my building and further fortified it to receive a 3+ cover save and, what convinced me, I would strike first against his Harlequins for the fortified building special rule negates the effects of enemy grenades! Trotzki won the roll for deciding in which quarter to start and he chose the quarter with the belltower (upper right). So I had to start in the opposite quarter in the mechanicum building.
So after deployment and a short prayer to the emperor the battle was ready to begin!
HQ:
Avatar of Khaine 155
Farseer (Ghost Helm, runes of warding, spirit stones, doom, fortune) 145
Harlequin Troupe 6 (Shadowseer, troupe master, veil of tears) 178
Howling Banshees 10 (Exarch, Acrobatic, War Shout) 372
Wave Serpent (spirit stones, vectored engines, star engines)
Dire Avengers 10 (Exarch, Bladestorm) 152
Guardian Defender Squad 10 (Star cannon, warlock) 130
Guardian Defender Squad 10 (Star cannon, warlock) 130
Warp Spiders 10 (Exarch, withdraw, surprise assault) 272
Dark Reapers 5 (Exarch, missile launcher, fast shot, crack shot) 227
Wraithlord 155
Support Weapon (shadow weaver 3, crew 6) 90
HQ:
Master (terminator armour, thunderhammer, storm shield) 140
Epistolary Librarian (terminator armour, storm shield, fury of ancients, fear of darkness) 164
Terminator Squad 5 (2 Assault cannons, tank hunter) 255
Terminator Squad 5 (2 Assault cannons, tank hunter) 255
Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115
Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115
Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115
Tactical Squad 6 (Lascannon, plasma rifle) 115
Assault Squad 10 (veteran sergeant, powerfist, 2 flamer) 262
Land Speeder Tornado (Assault cannon, heavy bolter) 80
Devastator Squad 9 (4 heavy bolter, tank hunter) 222
Devastator Squad 6 (2 Missile launcher, 1 heavy bolter, tank hunter) 163
Chapter Traits:
Suffer not the work of heretics
Death before dishonour
As you can see, my Marines are painted as Black Templar but I do not play them as those. They use the Traits for the Imperial Fists.
