Prospero Burns Planestrike Game

[Vash113]

Ok so tonight I went to the local GW for a 1500pt per person Planestrike Game. The setting was "Prospero Burns" aka the sacking of Prospero. However of all the players there, roughly 24 spread over 4 tables split into 2 groups of 2. However players left and more arrived to replace them so I dunno what the final count was. But about 6 per side per table. Anyway of all of em, there was only 1 Thousand Sons player and 2 Space Wolves players. Myself and one other. The majority of the armies seemed to be Eldar and Imperial Guard, with a number of Space Marines, Tau, Necrons and Tyranids making up the rest.

 

I got stuck on the left table with a Valhallan Imperial Guard army, Sisters of Battle, DIY Space Marines, Aurora Chapter Space Marines and Eldar. The Guard took the far right, the Aurora Chapter the far left. The DIY was deep striking a bunch of Terminators and the Eldar and Sisters took up the right side towards the middle as well as deep striking.

 

The objectives were the two towers of a huge bastion in the center of the board. Aegis defense lines surrounded the building and a sky bridge connected the two towers of the fortress. A Battle Cannon was mounted on the bridge and a lascannon was ontop of each tower. A Planetstrike bastion was to the left of the fastness with a hydra turret ontop.

 

The opponents were a Space Marines player in Black Templars colors but not rules I don't think, Tau, Necrons, Renegade Imperial Guard, Thousand Sons and Grey Knights.

 

I wound up deploying just left of the bastion, set to attack a bassilisk artillery position defended by the Renegade Guard. Chenkov and Command Squad along with a Heavy Weapons squad and a bunch of Conscripts held a sandbagged bunker fortification. Another mass of conscripts held a small bit of terrain just above the bassilisk implacement.

 

My army was a Wolf Lord, 14 Blood Claws, 18 Grey Hunters, 2 Rhinos, a Land Raider Crusader, Venerable Dreadnaught and 3 Wolf Guard Leaders. Nice and compact but effective me thinks.

 

Anyway the Crusader full of Blood Claws and the Wolf Lord went to the left of the fortification on Turn 1, the Rhinos went on either sideof the emplacement and the Grey Hunters charged into the Guard. The Dread did not arrive Turn 1. The Crusader rolled forward, blew up a Land Raider with it's multi-melta and deployed the Blood Claws into the middle of the table Conscripts, who subsequently all died horribly. The Grey Hunters hit the Renegades hard but Chenkov fought back firmly and soaked up a lot of damage while his Conscripts got massacred all around him.

 

The Eldar had a bunch of Swooping hawks deep strike to the left of the fortress and soak up a lot of attention and hurt. The DIY Marines, Sisters, the Eldar Wraithlords and Wraithguard all stormed at the fortress from the right while the Guard unleashed their fury at enemies appearing in their midst and at whatever else they could shoot at whenever the opportunity presented itself. The Aurora Chapter rolled up behind me and had Terminators Teleport on the far left flank.

 

So now you know the setup... I'll just say it all went to heck and back over the next 4 turns.

 

See one of the "rules" the GW was using for the event was every player took a marker from a mug, one marker was dark, the others clear. Whoever had the dark marker was supposed to turn traitor before Turn 4 and switch sides. Well... as it turns out the Aurora Chapter were the traitors and they were right behind me. The Aurora Chapter Land Raider blew up my Crusader.

 

What I thought would be nice reinforcements to take the Bassilisk emplacement and the Hyndra Bastion, turned into a stab in the back. Meanwhile one of my Rhinos immobolized itself and the other moved to block LOS to the fortress from the emplacement and keep the fight as much between the Wolves and the renegades as possible.

 

But the renegade chenkov had lots of conscripts to call upon. The victims of the Blood Claws came back as well as two more slightly smaller groups of Conscripts totalling about 40 I think. They all stormed into the Grey Hunters and the area became a whirlwind of multiple combats.

 

For the next 4-5 rounds the Grey Hunters did alright, one of the Packs nearly fell off the board edge when Chenkov's command squad hurt them more than they hurt it and they rolled an 11 for leadership. But they came back and by the end of Turn 3 there were only 2 Grey Hunters left alive, 1 from each Pack but they fought on anyway. While the Blood Claws massacred a group of Thousand Sons and then headed towards the fortress.

 

That's when a bunch of Black Templars showed up, while the help was nice it would have been better if the new arrival had gone to the other table, he might not have been able to get stuck into a good fight but his 40 Crusaders could have made the difference on that table, helping to capture at least half of the fortress on that table and pulling a win for the attackers overall. But the player was stubborn and cowardly and refused to go there and risk getting shot up, sad really. So instead he beat up on the surviving Conscripts while the last two Space Wolves in the emplacement finally died.

 

Every turn the attackers and defenders got to bring one destroyed unit back. My Crusader came back Turn 2 and blew up the Aurora Chapter Land Raider (VENGEANCE!) and a Vindicator. Turn 3 I had to bring back a Rhino because neither Grey Hunter squad was totally dead yet, and Turn 4 I brought back one pack of Grey Hunters, who with the Dreadnaught finally arriving on Turn 3, slaughtered a bunch of Traitor Space Marine Terminators and another group of Conscripts and consolidated into the closer of the two objective towers helping solidly capture them. The Tau in the Hydra Bastion finally got ousted and Wolf Lord Silvar detatched from the Blood Claws to slaughter them while the Claws continued towards their objective.

 

Meanwhile the Black Templars set about killing an endless swarm of conscripts and Aurora Chapter Marines (who were honestly too far away to be bothered with anyway). The Sisters Seraphim and Eldar Swooping Hawks deep struck repeatedly on and around the fortress, throwing themselves into the defenders meat grinder style and slowly but surely wearing them down. The Eldar Wraith Lords and Wraith Guard stubbornly advanced into the defenders tearing them apart whenever they got close enough. The Guard and Necrons traded firepower while the Thousand Sons were a thorn on the right flank but were largely ignored in their small bunker entrenchement though a Defiler continued to harass the rear of the Valhallans.

 

By the end of Turn 4 the Space Wolves, a unit of Sisters and a unit of Eldar Wraithguard held the closer bastion. While Space Marine Assault Terminators, Swooping Hawks and more Sisters stormed the farther bastion and secured a win for our table.

 

The other table did not fare so well and was pretty soundly held by the Defenders, and from what I could see without a whole lot of contest either. So overall it was a draw but the table on which my Wolves fought was won by the attackers. And I killed a squad of Thousand Sons so that makes me happy.

 

Overall the Space Wolves killed roughly 60 conscripts, 5 Command Squad Guardsmen, 3 Heavy Weapons Troopers, 5 Terminators, 8 Thousand Sons, 11 Tau, 2 Land Raiders, 1 Vindicator, 1 Rhino, 1 Manticore, and lost 29 Wolves and 3 tanks in the process. So about a 3-1 Kill/Death ratio, not too shabby considering for most of the game the Wolves were far away from most if not all support and were stabbed in the back by allies. The Stormblade Great Company stubbornly bulled through and carried the field in the end.

 

Victory to the Sons of Russ and another saga to tell in the feasting hall.

[Forseti]

Heh I kinda dislike those types of games where there's no reason for the teams to be on the same side..Renegade guard, thousand sons, necrons and grey knights all on the same side is just..bleh..especially for a game that's supposed to have a story.

 

Sounds like it was fun though, the turning traitor was a very nice touch, too bad they were right behind you XD.

[Vash113]

Heh I kinda dislike those types of games where there's no reason for the teams to be on the same side..Renegade guard, thousand sons, necrons and grey knights all on the same side is just..bleh..especially for a game that's supposed to have a story.

 

Well yes however whenever you have a large event at a game store, most of the participants only have one army and there aren't enough of the desired group to turn those without the "fluffy" armies away. Gotta make do with what ya got.

 

Sounds like it was fun though, the turning traitor was a very nice touch, too bad they were right behind you XD.

 

Yea the traitor thing was interresting, coulda been far worse than it actually ways, after blowing up my Land Raider the Aurora Chapter forces didn't do much moving or fighting and were really just ignored by all save the Templars.