Battle Report: The Silent Array

[Kajae]

Interrogator-Chaplain Essau gazed pensively out the windows of the observation deck of the Dark Angels Battle-Barge Epitaph of Vengeance. The nameless planet below lay on the outer reaches of the space occupied by the Empire of Man, almost entirely forgotten. Although it had a sparse population of colonists, the real importance of the planet was the massive communications array armed by the men of the Imperial Guard. The array meant to relay any information of imminent incursions into Imperial space by any Xenos – hostile or otherwise.

 

Essau didn’t care about the array. The fact that it hadn’t broadcast its regular transmissions in months didn’t concern him in the slightest bit. What did interest him was the intelligence the Inner Circle had received that there was a member of the Fallen operating on this planet, and Essau would stop at nothing, not even declaring the entire planet exterminatus, to capture the traitor.

 

Hearing the clanking of massive boots upon the deck plating behind him, the Chaplain turned to see the massive form of Sergeant Harridan of the fifth company. The sergeant was younger, only two hundred years of age, but he had already proven himself countless times on the battlefield.

 

“You were right, sir,” he said in his calm, flat voice. “There is a small Tau force in the vicinity of the communications facility. The filthy xenos are probably the reason that this sector has gone silent.”

 

“Prepare for planetfall,” the elder marine intoned. “We will take squads three and four in the strike force.”

 

With a quick salute, the sergeant turned and exited the room. It didn’t hurt that this segment of space was so close to the fledgling Tau empire. The gray-skinned xenos were constantly looking to expand their territory, and as Sergeant Harridan wasn’t a member of the inner circle, he wasn’t even aware of the existence of his fallen brothers. The Tau were a perfect backdrop for this mission.

 

Glancing once more at the planet slowly revolving outside the observation deck, Chaplain Essau donned his skull-visaged helmet and prepared for the drop pod descent to the planet below.

 

This battle report will cover the first game that Ben and I have played in years. Since we haven’t played a game of Warhammer 40k since third edition, we figured we would start out with some fairly small armies and slowly build our way back up to 1500 or 2000 points as we familiarize ourselves with the new rules. Thus, we each built up a 500 point list (well, 515, but we were even in points!) with which to beat each other to pieces.

 

The Armies:

 

Dark Angels Strike Force:

 

Chaplain Essau with Jump Pack

 

Tactical Squad Harridan – 10 Marines with Rhino, Plasmagun, Power Weapon

 

Tactical Squad Sevante – 5 Marines with Rhino, Meltagun, Power Fist

 

510 points

 

Tau Expeditionary Force:

 

Shas’El with two Shield Drones

 

10 Fire Warriors with Marker Drone

 

7 Fire Warriors with Pulse Carbines, EMP Grenades, Gun Drones, and Devilfish with Smart Missile System

 

514 points

 

The communications building was placed in the center of the table, flanked on one side by the ruins of a city and on the other by forests and rocky outcroppings. We rolled on the scenarios table and fell upon annihilation. Our first battle would be a straightforward bloodbath! The roll on the deployment table produced groans, though, as we landed on Dawn of War. While we didn’t have to place any units in reserve (we each only had two squads and an hq!), the first turn of the game would be night fight.

 

http://roninmodern.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/img_20111109_184211.jpg?w=478&h=358

 

Ben won the roll for first turn and we had completely forgotten about seize the initiative, so he began deploying his forces. The fire warrior squad with the pulse carbines went into some ruins in the left side of his table edge. His Shas’el commander joined the main fire warrior squad and set up camp right behind the comm center, their warfish transport waiting in ambush behind the forest on his right.

 

As for myself, the rhino containing Squad harridan deployed in a position where it could rush the Shas’el as soon as possible. Chaplain Essau was deployed in some ruins across from the squad with the pulse carbines, intent on assaulting as soon as possible, while the rhino containing squad Sevante waited in a corner, planning to do the same.

 

Turn One:

 

Ben’s warfish skimmed along the edge of the forest on my left flank, bringing itself into range of Sergeant Harridan’s rhino and opened fire with its smart missile system. The missiles scored two solid hits, but failed to deliver even glancing blows to the vehicles armor. The commander’s squad edged forward warily, unable to see into the darkness before the dawn.

 

I was far less timid in my first turn. Sevante’s rhino sped forward a full twelve inches towards the ruined building in front of it, not knowing that he wouldn’t even be able to bring his squad’s forces to bear on the xenos hiding in it. Chaplain Essau’s jumppack burned bright as he propelled himself towards the aliens in the ruins. Firing his bolt pistol, he managed to see through the darkness and slay one of the fire warriors.

 

Sergeant Harridan moved his squad forward around the comm station and disembarked, boltguns blazing at the fire warriors in the ruins and slaying four of them. The plasmagun missed, but thankfully rolled a two. I didn’t want that thing getting too hot on me!

 

Finally, Chaplain Essau rushed into combat in the ruins, finishing the rest of this squad of fire warriors. One whole squad down on turn one!

 

Turn Two:

 

The warfish continued to strafe around behind my lines, and opened fire on squad Harridan felling two brother marines! The commander’s squad stayed put and shot a volley of pulse fire and missiles at Harridan’s squad, but only managed to kill one brother marine.

 

Harridan wasn’t about to take the loss of his brother marines lightly and his squad fired on the xenos scum, killing one of them while Essau jumped toward them, too eager to fire his pistol accurately. Yet again the plasmagun missed on a two, and I thanked the Emperor for not having to make an armour save because it got hot! Savante’s rhino moved closer, but his intended target had already been defeated – would his squad ever see combat?

 

Essau plunged into combat, swinging his holy crozius wildly, killing a further two Tau warriors. Little did he expect to get injured by them as they fought back! One of the short-statured aliens’ bonding knives found a chink in the Space Marine’s powered armour and caused the great man to howl in pain. It wasn’t often the the Chaplain saw his own blood spilled!

 

Turn Three:

 

Ben’s warfish swung back around the communications array, intent on destroying the squad of marines bearing down on his commander. It fired its full volley of missiles at the squad, but what did manage to hit them bounced harmlessly off their ceramite armour. Combat proved futile as the Tau didn’t manage to inflict any wounds on the Chaplain after he dispatched yet another fire warrior.

 

Sergeant Harridan moved ever closer to the melee, intent on adding his power sword to the fray. Meanwhile, the rhino carrying Savante got close enough to finally enter the battle. He and his men disembarked and the melta gunner took aim at the warfish transport, but through all of the dust and din the shot went wild.

 

The remaining combat was short and ugly. It saw Chaplain Essau and Sergeant Harridan tearing through the rest of the fire warriors and the Shas’El commander, making very quick work of them.

 

With all of the kill points in my hand and the transport being all that was left on the table, the game ended after only three turns.

[Vulkan454]

Nice battle report, I enjoyed it thoroughly. (I was listening to it through the speak text function my iMac [voice is Zarvox is anyone is interested]).

 

List wise, seems a solid start, I would add some assault marines to the chaplain to give him a bodyguard, or ditch his jump pack and join some Vets in a Rhino.

Looking forward to more :)

 

Vulkan

[death_incarnite]

Its always nice when people write a bit of fluff for their missions. really enjoyed the report.

[Kierdale]

Very entertaining!

The fluff intro definitely helped and it sounds like it was a good, fun first game back in the hobby.