The Good V's the Bad (32,000)

[Cthulhu_gump]

Good V’s Bad!

Tuesday the 17th of March saw the combined forces of Imperial Guard and Ultramarines come together to do battle against the vile forces of the Chaos Iron Warriors. The game was to be 16,000 per side, but with the Imperial forces grabbing the defense of the city we decided that it was a good idea to allow 2,000 points for defenses, so it ended up being Emperors forces: 14,000 V’s Chaos:16,000.

Heres a breakdown of the armies:

IG @10k

• Regemental HQ with support squad
• Artillery Co. #1 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Artillery Co. #2 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Artillery Co. #3 (6 basilisks and 3 Manticores) with 1 Hydra attachment
• Superheavy tank Co. (2 shadowswords & 1 Baneblade) with 3 Russ support
• Tank Co. with 3 Russ support
• Inf Co. #1 with support squad & Snipers
• Inf Co. #2 with support squad & Snipers and 3 Griffons
• Stormtrooper Platoon #1 in Valkyries
• Stormtrooper Platoon #2 in Valkyries
• Hydra Flak Battery #1
• Hydra Flak Battery #2
• Hydra Flak Battery #3
• Hydra Flak Battery #4
• Rough Riders
• Deathstrike missile Battery #1
• Deathstrike missile Battery #2
• 2 Warhounds
• Warlord #1
• Warlord #2
• Thunderbolt fighters (2 squads)
• Marauder Bombers (2 squads)

Ultramarines @ 4K (I think this is right….)

• Tactical squad with Force commander in Razorbacks and a Hunter
• Tactical squad with Rhino’s and a Hunter
• Whirlwinds with Hunter
• Scouts on foot
• Devastator formation #1 in Rhino’s with a Hunter
• Devastator formation #2 in Rhino’s with a Hunter
• Assault Formation
• Teleporting Termies with a Librarian
• Land Raiders Formation
• Warlord

Chaos @ 16K

Ground Forces
• Chaos Marine Retinue #1 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Chaos Marine Retinue #2 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Chaos Marine Retinue #3 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Havoc Retinue #1 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Havoc Retinue #2 inc lord with Havocs, Rhino’s & Vindicators
• Armoured Company of Predators #1
• Armoured Company of Predators #2
• Armoured Company of Predators #3
• Armoured Company of Land Raider #1
• Armoured Company of Land Raider #2
• Assault Artillery Company of Vindicators
• Assault Company of Decemators
• Artillery Company #1
• Artillery Company #2
• Forlorn Hope #1
• Forlorn Hope #2
Strike Team
• Devastation Class Cruiser
• Chosen Retinue #1 with Lord, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chosen Retinue #2 with Lord, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chaos Marine Retinue #1 with Lord, Havocs, Champion, Obliterator & Dreadclaws
• Chaos Marine Retinue #2 with Lord, Havocs, Champion, & Dreadclaws
Titan Legion
• Abominatus Imperator Titan
• Banelord Titan #1
• Banelord Titan #2
• Reaver Titan with Plasma Blastgun, Vulcan Megabolter & Wrecker
• Reaver Titan with Vulcan Megabolter, Missile Launcher & Claw
Chaos Navy
• Helltalons #1
• Helltalons #2
• Hellblades #1
• Hellblades#2

Turn 1

The Board was set up and the defenders were deployed into the safe places behind their defensive lines. The three main IG Infantry units taking the main dug out line just shy of the halfway mark on the board at the southern end, with Snaps Ultra’s taking the defenses at the Northern.




Then the Hoarde of metal came, the Iron Warriors!





It was basically a Gentlemen’s game, so we agreed the Attacker should go first (I knew this was a bad idea…) and so Cal decided to use the biggest and nastiest weapon in his arsenal, The Imperator. He opened fire on poor innocent IG defenders, they took this in their stride as the defenses gave them a huge amount of cover from these weapons. The IG Artillery replied and sent one of the IW’s Artillery Co’s running for cover, which received a reply from the 2nd IW Artillery, and so began a game of Artillery hammering the board, the 3 IG Artillery Co’s were to be quite pivotal in the breaking up of the lines of the IW’s, but the strength and the re-rolls of all the large units of Chaos Land raiders (carrying troops) made them almost impossible to stop this way.

The Highlight of the day for the Chaos came with the 2 IG Deathstrike batteries hitting the Imperator and both of them rolling snake eyes for damage!!!! It was almost enough to cry about, but the game had to go on and the Shadowlords did a few more hits on the void shields. On the other side of the board we saw the two Warhounds hit the Decemator formation and do some serious Blast marking and wounding, while on the other side the UM’s Warlord moved foreward to hit one of the Banelords and it was supported by the Land Raiders hitting a Predator formation and doing some damage to it.

The one thing to remember about this first turn was that this was a game of 1’s. 1’s were rolled for hits, 1’s were rolled for saves and most importantly 1’s were rolled for initiative. About half of Cals forces suffered this problem, my Death strikes as I mentioned suffered from this and also my Marauders, who were busy in the officers club drinking Iced tea when the call came up to go onto CAP. The Thunderbolts did as they were told and when Cal’s first set of bombers came, the thunderbolts jumped into action, this however lead to Cal’s fighters hitting them and my fighters then hitting him from a 2nd squad of fighters. At the end of it I lost 2 thunderbolt squads and had a broken stormtrooper formation, while Cal had lost a single fighter formation and one other fighter from the 2nd formation.

The end of turn one saw the centre of the city was still quite strong with the 3 Artillery Co’s and 5 Flak Batteries, the front line holding its own against the heavy pounding that the Chaos were hitting it with and the Ultramarines moving into position for the enemy that was coming from the front. But both Snap and I knew that this would not be the case by the end of turn two with so much still not on the board, meanwhile Cal’s mischievous smile just continued to stay there while he listened to the crazy ramblings of two beginner Commanders.









Turn 2

Turn two began at about 1:30 with Snap having to leave at 2!!!! So to get him into the game and with the good guys gaining control of the Initiative he decided to deep strike behind the lines of one of the Artillery Co’s, this had a terribly devastating effect on the Artillery who were there one minute and then gone the next. The retention of initiative led him to hit the Predators with his Land Raiders and they ran away. Cal replied by annihilating the Super heavy Tank company and then the sky’s then opened up with the Orbital bombardment coming down onto the IG front lines where the super heavies had been, with only limited effect.

The Ultramarines Titan tried to take the stage and opened fire, trying to take down the nearest opposing banelord, without too much success. Then the pain came next…

Three Dreadclaws landed in the Ultramarines quadrant, opened fire on everything within 15cm’s and then 2 Retinues and a Chosen formation appeared. The words that Snap wanted to say are not allowed to be published here but went something along the lines of Moley Fire truck! However luckily for the Marines most of them had taken cover in fortifications and most of the damage that they received was vehicular damage and not Infantry. But a retention of initiative saw a retinue formation charge Snaps command formation, it was a fairly close combat (from what I can remember, as it went very quickly so that we could Keep snap as long as possible), but in the end it saw Snaps command running from the scene and the formation taking control of an objective (1 out of 4 attained).


At this point Snap had to leave and we had a quick bite to eat, then the pain commenced. With my turn being next I decided to repay the favor and hit three of the dreadclaw units with Artillery, and this was where my rolls came into their own, I hit 12 out of 17 guys that were in cover and 6 of 10 that were in the open, not enough to break anything but enough to get the ball rolling, I retained initiative and then hit the same 3 units with a stormtrooper formation, the missile pods that are disrupt caused two units to panic and the third were chosen and so they didn’t run, but they were in serious problems.


Cal began the hard push into Snaps titan hitting him with a Predator detachment, a land raider detachment and a Banelord over the next 2 activations, he took some serious wounds, but was still standing which Im sure would have brought a smile to Snaps face. Meanwhile over the same two activations one of my Warlords hit the Decemators and made them run and the warhounds and a Marauder squad hit a Predator formation, breaking them as well. But the Land Raiders were still just coming…

A few more turns of Rever punishment for the IG infantry saw them come out pretty much only with more blast markers that they were to later marshal, the front line of IG still held. The final actions that we both did were for my 2nd Warlord to hit a Reaver with a few shots and Cal replied with a Land raider formation coming up on the 1st Warlord and doing a wound that was to cause a critical and made the reactor unstable.

We called it at about 4:30 as we both needed to end it here, we called it a draw as neither side had scored any of the EA objectives that they could, but seriously, there was no real chance of the IG/SM being able to take down the Imperator, let alone the rest of those huge formations.







A big thanks goes to Cal for the organization of the day and also a special thanks to Snap for running late to work on account of the biggest game of Epic that either of us has ever seen.

I definitely want to do this again sometime soon. Bring on the pain!

[onyx]

;D

[ortron]

Nice report CG,

That must have been one cool game. I remember having a similar large game with CAL in brisbane and it took 3 nights to finish.

Nice armies to.

[Snap]

Once again - many thanks to cal001 for letting us have the game at his place & also to Mel for making lunch! Too cool...

Learning the ropes the hard way is the best way to remember your lessons - after school was finished (DreadClaw bombardment), that lesson won't be forgotten in a hurry... Although there's not much you can do to counter it. Just hope things survive for counter-attack...

Thanks to my fellow commander-in-chief (Cg) who kept up the good fight when I ran for the hills... Hopefully I can stick around for the conclusion of the next game.

Bring on the pain... ;D

[ortron]

Sounds like a good time was had, how long did it take to setup/packup? I love these big games but find the time to prepare and setup seems to waste most of the available time.

Any plans for a follow up?

[skeem]

I loved it man, I think it was great and after reading this bat rep I think I will start an Epic army. I have just 2 questions though?

1) Why would you give the attackers and defenders the same amount of points to build there armies with? The 2000 points the defenders put into fotifications gave them an advantage, not a disadvantage. In most war games that are played on a strategic scale like this the attackers would have more points on there side to represent the fact that in reality an attacking force would consentrate there forces at the defenders weakest point. And history has proven that the defenders have almost never had enough resources to meet the attacking force with equil force because of the very fact that they have to defend evrywere wile the attacking force only has to attack somewere.

2) Fortafications are always a force multiplyer. If one side gets to spend 2000 points on building fortified postions? The attacking side should recieve a resanoble amount of points on breaching equipment.

In MHO the defending player should have the more exciting game. He should be the guy who has to decide from were to pull reinforcments from to plug a potential breach without compramising the hole defence.

OK im really sorry, I know I said only 2 questions, but I have 1 more. Why would anyone go through the trouble to set up a game on this scale with multipul players if you all werent prepared to play the game to its conclusion? This game clearly looks like it was a 2-3 day from the start. I would have liked to see it played out to the end even with the inbalance of forces I pointed out.

Thanx anyway guy, you got me ampped on Epic anyway. Ill be placing an order to GW for some models.

[e moustachu masqu]

Wow, nice battle. It look so cool to play such "big" battle!

[Cthulhu_gump]

Apr 3, 2009 19:10:11 GMT 10 skeem said:

I loved it man, I think it was great and after reading this bat rep I think I will start an Epic army. I have just 2 questions though?

Gday Skeem, thanks for joining and welcome. Thanks also for the great comments, its nice to hear that others have enjoyed our fun as much as we did.

Let us know where your situated and theres bound to be someone nearby who's got a spare army to give the game a go.

Apr 3, 2009 19:10:11 GMT 10 skeem said:

1) Why would you give the attackers and defenders the same amount of points to build there armies with? The 2000 points the defenders put into fotifications gave them an advantage, not a disadvantage. In most war games that are played on a strategic scale like this the attackers would have more points on there side to represent the fact that in reality an attacking force would consentrate there forces at the defenders weakest point. And history has proven that the defenders have almost never had enough resources to meet the attacking force with equil force because of the very fact that they have to defend evrywere wile the attacking force only has to attack somewere.

Yep, you are right about the advantage of the 2000 points and it was probably through my own neglect of not explaining it correctly that the 2000 points of defences actually came out of my army budget, so the Good guys (snap and myself) actually only had about 14K worth of army.

If you have a look at the points cost above each army list, the IG has 10K and the Ultramarines have 4K, while the chaos had 16K.

I'm not too sure if we actually ended up having 2K worth of defences as i thought there should have been alot more than was actually there, but it didnt really matter.

Apr 3, 2009 19:10:11 GMT 10 skeem said:

2) Fortafications are always a force multiplyer. If one side gets to spend 2000 points on building fortified postions? The attacking side should recieve a resanoble amount of points on breaching equipment.

In MHO the defending player should have the more exciting game. He should be the guy who has to decide from were to pull reinforcments from to plug a potential breach without compramising the hole defence.

Yep, I agree with the part about the defender, I had alot of fun, even though with almost all other games I play a very much more aggressive style.

Apr 3, 2009 19:10:11 GMT 10 skeem said:

OK im really sorry, I know I said only 2 questions, but I have 1 more. Why would anyone go through the trouble to set up a game on this scale with multipul players if you all werent prepared to play the game to its conclusion? This game clearly looks like it was a 2-3 day from the start. I would have liked to see it played out to the end even with the inbalance of forces I pointed out.

Thanx anyway guy, you got me ampped on Epic anyway. Ill be placing an order to GW for some models.

Well the problem with both Cal and I is that we love the big games, I reckon 5K is where you start with Epic (cause theres so many toys that you want to use) so when we all got the ok's from our loved ones to journey off to the darker recesses of Cal Garage, we did it with the best intentions of playing it out.

But unfortunately, time got the better of us and with an hour and a half return trip through Sydney peak hour traffic, we decided to call it a day.

Realistically in hindsight we should have either played smaller or done it over a couple of days, but I'd never played something this big and jumped at the chance without too much thought.

But next time!!! I am already gearing up my IG to be over 20K, and Ive got to beat Cal sooner or later , so who knows what will happen.

Did that really answer your questions...?

[gr00v3r]

Gump...what are your movements over Easter?

[Cthulhu_gump]

Sorry dude, I'm booked solid. Got some friends coming down from Brizzie to stay

[gr00v3r]

Doh! No worries.

It's all good, though; I'm going to attempt to trial my campaign rules with horse tomorrow. If all goes well with that trial, I'd like to kick off a larger Order vs Disorder campaign with all the Sydney-siders. Stay tuned...

[Snap]

I've got my rabbit ears out for reception...

Easter jokes suck don't they - no matter how good they sound in your head. *slams door on head*

[cal001]

Keen for a big game again soon, I will be at home for the next two weeks, just got out of hospital after getting the knee reconstructed again, lets hope this one works better than the last one.

I would like to be the good guy for a change too. I think my Marines are feeling rather neglected at the moment.

Cheers
Aaron

[gr00v3r]

Campaign trial a success! We're on Turn 3, but only a single Epic battle has been played thus far: an Eldar assault on the fortified outskirts of an Imperial city held by the Ultramarines. Classic stuff, and it made for a GREAT game! =)