Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Apocalypse, 23/03/18 - 25/03/18 The following transcript is a summary of a battle myself, @Charlo, @GawFang, and @One_happy_hippy took part in earlier this year. It has been striped out from the original thread over in the Blood Angels forum here.Please note that some of the images are large and take a while to load on certain devices... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Introduction It's that time of year again! Charlo and I will be participating in an Apocalypse game that my group hosts annually. These tend to be pretty epic and this year it should be no exception! With this thread we intend to update it as the battle goes along. It's a full weekend of playing (schedule to follow) so stay tuned! The particulars: 14 x 6 board 2300 PL per side Mission: Night March (CA, page 16) Team 1: Blood Angels (Jolemai); Blood Angels, Ad Mech, Adeptus Custodes (Charlo); Chaos Space Marines; Daemons Team 2: Raven Guard; Imperial Knights (GawFang); Imperial Knights (One_happy_hippy); Astra Millitarum,Titan Legions, Imperial Navy House Rules:Open Play rules however: Armies have to be battleforged. This means individual Command Points pools and Stratagems are in play The Warmaster has a team pool of 12 CP to spend however he wishes (within the rules). This pool will be lost once the Warmaster dies... Special Characters are limited to one per battle Armies to be strict WYSIWYG and painted (three base colours and based minimum) Player can't buff each other's armies *** *** *** As you can see, we struggled to get an ideal balance. We've elected to go for a player and PL match at the expense of the fluff. We've also got a David Vs Goliath game on our hands but this should be fun all the same. My army clocks in at 642 PL (just over 11K points) and is the third largest in attendance. It looks a little something like this: (There will be expanded shots on my blog at some point) More to come... Schedule:Friday15:00 - Arrive and setup17:30 - Order Pizza22:00 - Deployment01:00 - End of DaySaturday08:00 - Breakfast09:00 - Turn 1: Team 111:00 - Turn 1: Team 213:00 - Lunch13:45 - Break14:00 - Turn 2: Team 116:00 - Break16:15 - Turn 2: Team 218:15 - Curry20:45 - Break21:00 - Turn 3: Team 123:00 - Break23:15 - Turn 3: Team 201:15 - End of DaySunday08:00 - Breakfast08:45 - Break09:00 - Turn 4: Team 110:30 - Break10:45 - Turn 4: Team 212:15 - Turn 5: Team 113:15 - Turn 5: Team 214:15 - Game End14:30 - Lunch and packupThe only things set in stone are the curry and the game's end. The large gap on Friday is due to unavoidable rl circumstances.We've decided to add scheduled breaks for each team turn because we don't want the team that goes first to blow away the reserves of the team that goes second each time. ALERT - A full maniple of Legio Astorum has gone rogue. In its treachery it has swayed Knight Houses, a fleet of Aeronautica, a Regiment of Sacred Cadia and hat appears to be... By the Emperor, a company of the venerable Raven Guard Adeptus Astartes.The Blood Angels are on route but they will need support. Heresy such as this demands the highest response;Send the Captain-General.Belisarius Cawl shall recover the God Machines for the Imperium.We've also heard that the Sanguine Vision chapter are en route, lead by a Mysterious Avatar of the Angel himself.These traitors actions Will. Not. Stand.=======625PL / 11,000 points of Blood Angels, Adeptus Mechanicus & Adeptus Custodes, ready to battle the god machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Board Setup Board pre-terrain: Post Terrain: It looks sparse but we need space for the titans and the flyers...We've also decided to do a 12x6 instead as there's less chance of knocking stuff over... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Deployment Pre-Battle Deployment: Some models eye view shots:Scouts on Both sides survey the oncoming hordes and god machines: Helldrake swoops in to support the Khornate Horde and Sanguine Vision, onlooking at the Titanic goes: Cawl surveys the Warlord, however the Warlords attention is fixed on the frothing Hordes: Did somebody say... PICS?Top Down Deployment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Turn One Cawl is our Warmaster (in deployment 2). Veridian is theirs and she's hidden under a building in their deployment 1. Charlo should have full deployment pics to throw up shortly. Meanwhile, we've been subjected to Preliminary Bombardment... We got first turn and we're just finishing off the fight phase now. Highlights from our team 1:* Brass Scorpion eating a Warhound* Charlo's Flybrarian Dreadnoughts get into combat and destroyed a Land Raider, I spent four CPs avoiding perils with mine...* Just moving and a few skirmishes. Jump DC only got in combat with five Devs (annihilated) but annoyingly lost four to a DA Command Squad from the LR getting a "free hit" on them. Turn One Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Turn Two So sadly not a lot of action from the Custodes thus far in the Apocalypse.However, the Coronus tanked the combined fire power of two twin turbo lasers (one Warhound & one Reaver), a Preator missile tank, and a squad of Deathwing before finally succumbing to some other Militarum missiles. Not to mention the first Turbo laser is mistakenly didn't take my invuln against.And then a Callidus Assassin appeared behind Cawl (our Warmaster) and the Shield Captain heroically intervenes to slay it. So my BA are REALLY good at stripping wounds from Warhounds, Meltapod and some Devastators, Tacticals, Deredeo etc all helped lay a second Warhound low.As I Speak the Custodes Contemptor exemplar has landed to Las-Pulse a Bandblade into the floor along with my the Vindicator.I also hear that we have something big heading in to take out the Raven Guard Thunderhawk... Charlo should have some more pictures to out up but not a great deal happened in my turn two yesterday. My Shadowsword detonated a Knight for a cheap VP and whilst it seemed like a waste considering the firepower it has, it cleared a space for drops on T3 (VPs were looking tight anyway).Hyperios took out a Valyrie too which was pleasing after years of neglect by FW.The rest of my force was still off the board...Seeing how the schedule was "optimistic" at best, we had enough time for one turn today before we had to pack up. As Charlo has alluded to, their turn two saw a bunch of super-heavies arrive for our opponents (Baneblade, Valdor, Malcador Internus, Praetor) and a tank company, along with a handful of "sweep striking reseves).Naturally our Shadowsword and Cerberus were shot off the board ongoing with some chaff clears from our deployment zones (which were gridlocked due to being less than optimal and having a gazillion grunts)With turn three being our last we had to go for broke. As well as getting on all the remaining Knights (anything not on the board is automatically destroyed, so we'd rather they worked for any VP kills), notable inclusions were my Predator, Stormraven, Sicaran, Terminators and everything with a jump pack. A load more TDA and Charlo's jump troops arrived too. Turn Two My Highlight from turn 2:Combined fire from a Vindicator, some Devastators weakened a Warehound Titan just enough to create an opening for my Relic Contemptor. I'll let the pictures show what happened: ENGINE KILL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Turn Three I also hear that we have something big heading in to take out the Raven Guard Thunderhawk... As it's an Apocalypse, there's always something I try and pull off that's memorable. One of my favourite early Apoc memories was getting Mephiston into combat with a Stompa back when they were first released (great pre-fight picture...*) and since then, it's been things like my Cerberus stopping the twin lasblaster and dual turbo-laser Reaver from firing (2015), or pulling off Apoc Stratagem shenanigans like a Blind Barrage right infront of the board guns we'd just lost control off (2016). This Thunderhawk had only lost four wounds by turn three and Mephiston deploys on the board. Proceeds to cast Wings and Rage (whiffs Quickening), then gets himself to just outside of 1" of his target and easily makes the charge: However, the Thunderhawk had already blown away the chaff sent in to eat overwatch meaning he had some saves to make. The lascannons were dodged and after the 24 heavy bolter shots had ceased firing his was left on two wounds. Then came the turbo-laser destructor. One wound got through which became five damage and sadly only three Lord of Death saves were passed That said, I ran through the numbers anyway (we hoped Only in Death Does Duty End would activate but alas). With Red Rampage Mephiston would have generated seven attacks all of which wounded, only for the RG player to make five 5+ saves, which would have translated into a mere five damage It's a shame because the plan was sound... Mephiston with Quickening, Rage, and Red Rampage active generates a maximum of 33 damage and if the numbers hadn't been there I'd have gone again with Honour the Chapter. Ah well, maybe next year. *This Stompa had a survival streak up to Apocalypse 2015, but Mephiston still did some significant damage iirc With turn three being our last we had to go for broke. As well as getting on all the remaining Knights (anything not on the board is automatically destroyed, so we'd rather they worked for any VP kills), notable inclusions were my Predator, Stormraven, Sicaran, Terminators and everything with a jump pack. A load more TDA and Charlo's jump troops arrived too. In a game this big it really has to be pointed out how much faster the psychic phase is without any Eldar. Once the usual spread of buffs had been cast it was on to the shooting phase...On our left flank two Knights went down fast (including a killshot from the TDA Librarian's storm bolter and third was left on five wounds :/ The centre and right saw two Warhound go down, one of which in spectacular fashion, the Knight-Atrapos twins being downed, and some smaller TITANIC units were popped to get the numbers up. Their Baneblade was also left on a handful of wounds following my Stormraven whiffing it's attacks :/Combat phase didn't add to the kills as the Knight overwatch was stunning (better than their shooting phases tbh).With the final player turn about to begin it was apparent that our opponents needed to grab five out of six objectives and remove all our remaining TITANIC units. Knight and chaff cleaning commenced and by the end of the shooting phase two objectives remained contested and a Knight had somehow survived.Team Small Fry had won 15-12 Turn Three pt.1 Turn Three pt.2 Turn 3 pt.3 Post Game Best MomentSeeing the weakened God-Machine struggling, the Dark Apostle aims his ancient and terrible bolt pistol at the cockpit, letting off a shell containing what must have been a bound greater daemon that proceeds to run rampant inside the machines internals causing a full reactor meltdown! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jolemai Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Summary Despite the win we made a number of mistakes: Mission: Night March Deployment zones and reinforcements take a few reads to get your head around. We ended up with non-optimal deployment zones (size wise) and when your reinforcements arrive within 18" of a marker and only 6" deep, it can be hard to get enough models on the board. Deployment was far too sparse. We left too many holes because we were playing it safe and were a tad naive about the schedule (as in, we could put it on later). We should have flooded our deployment zones. The first turn is at night and thus nothing can target more than 24" away. We didn't use this to our benefit for moving stuff up and we didn't alpha strike - meanwhile the titans we assumed we were out of range of moved 24/20/18 a turn when undamaged (Warhound/Reaver/Warlord)... Arriving via Deep Strike is hard in a normal game late on, so trying to drop stuff late game was never going to work :/ A lot of stuff never made the board, which was namely down to naivety and a lack of understanding about the mission/Apoc rules Individual:Plan for jump DC was to Forelorn Fury towards something tasty, then drop Lemartes and the model with Angel's Wing for charging fun - due to congestion they only killed five Devastators :/ What I should have done was be less rigid and played Upon Wings of Fire to move them somewhere tasty and then pulled off shenanigans. Angel's wing got thrown away in the above scenario. Should have hung around with Mephiston (or the Sang Guard)... Techamrine should have started on the board. I brought him on with my Cerberus but he had my Veritas Vitae (not that I gained back lots but it's the principle of the thing) Wasted my Scouts and Assassins trying to clear chaff for drop space Forgetting about things like Hellfire Shells and Flakk Missiles early on Put my transports on at the start. Every year I leave them off and every year they do nothing due to range. Not using Smite!!! Making Dante my Warlord - now now, here me out. Granted he's the fluffy choice and as he was accompanying the Sang Guard they would have benefited from re-rolls should they have made it to combat. However, a static Warlord on a the start would have meant for using an Orbital Strike (tightly packed deployment zones and fluffy) and for being easier to hide (given Dante was supposed to be in combat) ... and a myriad of other little things Honourable mentions:Very happy with the tiny contributions made by my Hyperios (finally!), Sicaran (finally!), and Predator (finally!) My sniper Scouts killed a Devastator Squad in one shooting phase (they are gaining a reputation for this sort of thing) Sadly everything else was there to make up the numbers Aye to back up what Jol has said, even with first turn, the mission rules combined with insane fast movement of titans meant little in terms of giving us an advantage to press.We saved on dropping in all of our troops for fear of being shot up wholesale but probably should have just dropped AS MUCH as possible to box in the enemy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theredknight Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 Looks good mate. I’m looking at running an apoc event early next year for 30k if your guys are interested in having a bit of a go. Or any input is good. Used to play a fair amount of apoc back in 7th and had a couple of heresy ones since. Trying to finish my second darned sector.. when you look at something and think ‘why did I start this’ lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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