GSC Battle Report. 4 Armed Emperor VS Iron hands

[Link2edition]

The fortis system. A cursed place. Only a few years ago the inquisition was fighting a chaos incursion around this star, and now this... The Hive city that dominates the majority of this star's closest planet has only been free of chaos taint for a generation, and now a civil war seems to have broken out. This world is no stranger to conflict, but it is not often the governor as requested Astartes support to deal with his troubles.

And this is certainly the first time he has gotten it...

Scenario: Narrow the search
Points 2k
Armies: (attached as images)

SM Turn1:

The Iron hands made planetfall in an area of the hive that was already beginning to crumble from the fighting, tasked with recovery of an artifact of some significance to the local populace. The marines didn't pretend to understand it, but whatever it was would boost the morale of the defenders for sure, and it was important enough to dispatch astartes  to retrieve it... This area was full of rubble though, even though the rough location of the item was known, it would take time to find it in this mess. But the marines were not alone.

Tanks rumbled into view down the shattered streets. 3 Hellhounds and 2 Leeman russes by the look of it. Accompanied by about 40 guardsmen. The vehicles did not bear the iconography of the planetary governor, looks like the rebels. Two predators, armed with lascannons and autocannons opened fire on the first hellhound to come into view, destroying it. 2 dreadnoughts turned and fired into another, its volatile cargo detonating and taking a few of the guardsmen with it, but they did not waver. They just kept marching.

The space marine infantry tried to thin the ranks coming in, but only managed to knock one 10 man squad down to only its sergeant. Once again the man didn't waiver, almost uncaring about the loss of his comrades. This is strange even for the most well trained of guard regiments, let alone rebels.

GSC Turn1:

Soon the rebels responded. A few streaks of energy flew threw the air striking some of our scouts. Did they have a psyker? It wasn't clear where the shots game from. A leeman russ battlecannon burst through a nearby building and opened fire, an entire squad of 3 Marine bikers was cosumed in the blast, when the smoke cleared there was nothing left of them. Heavy bolter shots thundered out as the tanks raked a unit of scouts that had been searching for the objective, a few getting caught by the shots. The remaining hellhound turned its turret around and began burning the second story of a building next to it. The screams could be heard over the din of battle,  another unit of scouts had been searching that room, and now all but one lay consumed in flames.

A platoon leader appeared from behind the line of advancing guardsmen and started barking orders. They leveled their lasguns and eliminated the last of the scouts int he center of the field. Another unit of guardsmen let a mortar loose into the now burning building, but didn't manage to finish the scout off, as the rest of his unit continued exchanging fire in the rubble.

The second Leeman russ opened up on another unit of bikers, but all but one avoided the shots through use of cover. It is strange they would allocate their firepower to clearing out our infantry instead of our tanks clearly right down the street, but its best not to try and comprehend the logic of rebels. Rebels are to be met with fury and fire.

SM Turn 2:

The rebels were numerous and it seemed best to try and contain them. We brought in deepstriking primaris marines on grav chutes to secure the center, while our reivers outflanked the enemy. Our outflanking troops managed to cut down the guardsmen manning the mortar, but the mob running towards the objective would take more firepower to dissuade. Bikers drove forward and spread out looking for more targets, one unit of 3 started burning the mob of guardsmen coming at the objective, but killed few. Only massed firepower from our holy bolters ended that threat, with some assistance from a thunderfire cannon.

Predators and dreadnoughts opened up on the tanks again, this time destroying the remaining hellhound and the russ that was moving down the street. Most of the attacking force was gone now, it looked like this would soon be over.

But as the dust cleared a large figure became visible through the ruins, a hulking mass with four arms....

GSC Turn 2:

The figure lunged out of the ruins and began running directly at the bikers that had torched the guardsmen moments before. It looked like a genestealer! but it was HUGE! Before we had time to contemplate this manhole covers on the streets burst open, and a purple tide began pouring out!

On the right flank, bio-horrors carrying mining implements, in the center a mass of 3 armed creatures carrying saws. on the left another group armed much the same way. We could faintly make out some sort of command staff in the back directing the horde.

This wasn't a rebellion at all

This was an insurrection

A Genestealer insurrection!

The Large genestealer leveled his gaze at the bikers carrying flamers. They dropped their weapons, some sort of hypnosis? It also looked back at the horde it was leading, suddenly their muscles began to bulge in unnatural ways. Try as he might our librarian was unable to stop whatever was happening.

A group of these monsters appeared just infront of our firing line. Acolytes I think imperial records call them. 10 of them, every one of them carrying a flamer. They didn't come from the sewers, they must have been lying in wait for us! when the flamers opened fire only one primaris marine fell, but the inferno was incredible (OOC: 10D6, and I rolled 49 hits!) the remaining leeman russ changed targets and started firing on our vehicles. A battle cannon shell hit one of our dreadnoughts square in the chest and blew it to pieces. Only in true death does duty end. Lots of autopistol fire patterd off the Marines armor, but to little effect. Some sort of gunslinger appeared and shot into our bikers but couldnt seem to find a chink in their armor. The worst was yet to come.

The big genestealer, which records now indicate was a patriarch, charged into our bikers holding the center. They never stood a chance, and were gone in mere moments. Our grav-inserted troops didn't fare much better, a horde of rocksaws descended on them and tore them to shreds before the rest of the Acolytes could even swing. On the left flank another horde with rocksaws charged the reivers but this time we were faster. Interrupting their charge with a counterattack we slew many of the beasts, but the rocksaws remained, and killed all of the rievers.

The abberant bio-horrors on the right flank were the worse of it. I saw some kind of medic inject them with a syrum that turned their hides as tough as adamantium, the bolt shells coming in couldn't find a weakness in this new threat as they charged in at our bikers on that flank and our intercessors. Both units had fallen in mere moments, and the abberants ran into a nearby building seemingly to hide form our retribution.

SM Turn 3:

The horde was upon us! we brought in another unit of grav chutes from reserve to bolster our lines and let loose into the xenos! we killed about half the horde in the middle, and our thunderfire cannon let loose a volley into the horde on the left, finally destroying it.
Our tanks focused on the abberants, but they were hardy, a few died, but most shrugged off the damage. I don't know how.

Seeing the dire situation at hand our commander lit up his jump pack and dove into the fray, our librarian boosting his power. He slew Acolytes left and right but they looked to their patriarch and refused to yield. even when their rocksaws proved ineffective against his storm shield. (OOC: we realized after the game you can't take invulnerable saves if you are on the objective in this mission, but it made for a good story).

GSC Turn 3:

Despite their loyalty, the patriarch abandoned his minions to their fate, and charged into the newly arrived space marine reserves. Turning only for a moment to try and break our commanders mind with its unholy warp abilities, our leader was strong however, and couldn't break through. The leeman russ, now safe from the flanking threat opened fire on any primaris marines it could draw a bead on, but they proved resilient, and our brothers would not fall. The Abberants rounded the corner and charged one of our predators from behind! The gunner managed to swing the weapons around in time and 3 of the mutants were blown away as they approached. The abberants tore into the tanks, reducing its combat capability by at least 65% but not destroying it outright.

The patriarch killed most of a unit of marines, but a few would escape, breaking contact so our gunline could do its work. Bolstered by the influence of the librarian, our captian made short work of the rocksaws facing him before they got to swing (OOC: I didn't know warp time let you swing first or I would have fallen back. Lesson learned.) .

SM Turn 4:

Our remaining dreadnought threw everything it had into the patriarch, but only one shot was on target, he was submitted for maintenance after the battle. The one shot that did come in... ended up hitting the Patriarchs familiar, killing it but sparing the xenos warlord. Our bolt shells similarly bounced off the solid hide of the patriarch, I had never seen a genestealer quite like this one before.

Our remaining predator in good running order fired into the abberants, this thinned their numbers but was not enough to eliminate them completely.

The cult command staff made themselves known. A banner, a creature carrying a large array of speakers, and some figure the cult seemed to treat as a general, all started going through the rubble themselves looking for the artifact. The general, imperial records show this is called a primus, pulled something from the rubble...

Seeing this our leader charged the primus with the librarian moving in to support. The commander swung first, landing a blow that staggered the primus, but before he could finish the xeno filth the banner bear jumped in the way of the blow. Dying instantly but saving his primus. The librarian killed the creature carrying the audio system, and looked up in time to see the primus dissapearing back into the rubble. He had used the distraction from the banner bearer to bury a toxic claw in our commanders face, before disengaging from the fight.

GSC Turn 4:

Our commander looked up where the primus had been, he was staring down the barrel of the cult's leeman russ. A volley of battle cannon fire and heavy bolter shots rang out. shot after shot hit the commander, the storm shield was knocked free from his hand from the repeated impacts, and the hail of shots beat him into a bloody pulp. Abberants were moving in from the right, the gunslinger was back and firing into our lines, and the situation was getting dire.

The librarian grabbed what was left of our brave commander and began dragging him back to our lines, In absence of our leader it was up to him to maintain order. The librarian called the retreat, our tanks provided covering fire as we pulled back. The streets were littered with fallen brothers and dead abominations, as we tried to secure our positions and gather the geneseed the incoming fire stopped. I looked up from my perch in the 2nd story of my building, some embers still burning from when the hellhound killed most of my comrades.

The cultists, they had left as quickly as they had come. As I looked up from behind the ruined structure of my smouldering perch, I could just make out a 3 armed figured dissappearing back into a manhole with something in his mutant hand, I strained to make out what it was. A Vial? Maybe a bio-weapon? What had been stored in that ruined building? Is that what they had been after?

My perch from atop this building gave me a good view of the battle, I hope you will find this information useful.

That concludes my report, Inquisitor.
 

[Link2edition]

End result was a victory for the cult, We called it because even though he had killed most of my guys, I was absolutely running away with the VP, and even if he tabled me he couldn't pull ahead. My list is attached. From memory his was:

Iron Hands Brigade
HQ:
Captain (thunderhammer shield eternal)
Librarian
Lieutenant
Troops
3x Intercessor
3x Scout
Elite
Dreadnought (Missle/Las)
Dreadnought (Las/Fist)
3x Rievers
Fast Attack
3x Bikers with flamers
Heavy Support
2x Predator (Autocannon/las)
Thunderfire Cannon

[brother_b]

I don’t see the photos brother but I do love that write up.

[Link2edition]

I don’t see the photos brother but I do love that write up.

turns out I only had a photo of my list, and none from the battle itself.

 

That said I added a,comment with the lists in it.