[Apoc in 6 mm] Death Guard vs. Death Korps of Krieg 250 PL

[Sherrypie]

Battle report time, ~250 PL armies!

 

The first contact between Death Korps of Krieg 17th line korps, under marshall Karis Venner, and the XIV's 3rd mechanised,

led by captain-commander Erasmus, had ended with the mobile astartes claiming the area and gunning down all opposition as

the Krieg consolidated their still formidable armoured assets away from the confrontation. Much was learned in the clash,

such as the imposing nature of almost unstoppable Spartans and the fear of destructive if short ranged Demolishers.

 

* Krieg order of battle *

 

- Supreme commander marshall Karis Venner, along with his court of aides, medics and 4 squads of 10 infantrymen.

- 40 grenadiers in 5 Chimeras led by a field officer, towing two heavy stubber teams along.

- 6 heavy weapon teams led by a commissar.

- 5 mortar teams led by a commissar.

- 5 Leman Russes with battlecannons led by a vanquisher commander.

- 3 Leman Russes with demolishers led by a battlecannon commander.

 

All Krieg tanks are of robust make and have Ignore Damage (6+).

 

* XIV order of battle *

 

- Supreme commander captain Erasmus (Chaos Lord), leading 4 squads of 10 (plague) marines.

- 4 squads of 10 marines, led by a witch (Malignant Plaguecaster).

- 4 super-heavy Spartan transports with havoc launchers transporting the above two detachments.

- 2 squads of 10 marines, led by a biologist (Putrifier).

- 3 long range support dreadnoughts (Helbrutes) led by a lieutenant (Chaos Lord).

- 3 assault Contemptors with lascannons and soulburner fists.

 

All marine squads are equipped with two blight launchers.

 

 

Our second game turned out to be a raid, with both sides trying to strike through the opposing lines and raze their supplies.

The XIV was still on the attack and like rolling thunder, the 3rd mechanized entered the battle.

 

Objectives ringed with red, VP's awarded for controlling and destroying those on the opposing side.

 

 

First detachment, led by a plucky biologist, enters the soon to be nicknamed "House of Death" in the center of the field

as Contemptors rain lasfire on the faraway Russes.

 

 

Catching the Krieg line in a crossfire, the support dreadnoughts on the

right flank take position to bully the grenadiers' rides. This prompts the Krieg to move towards their right flank in an

attempt to bypass the marines' firing positions midfield and protect their important Demolishers until they are ready to

pound the Spartans to dust.

 

 

Midfield, Spartans rumble forwards and pour more lasfire into the flanking Chimeras, half of which explode midway spilling

men and flames everywhere. Return fire from the battlecannon Russes and heavy weapons lays low the squads occupying the

House of Death, leaving the biologist all alone in his tower. Despite losses, grenadiers push forwards through the flank

and speed to their objective, which they manage to take and burn to the ground despite a talon of Contemptors blowing their

rides open with deadly radiation.

 

 

The midfield starts crawling with marines as Spartans' ramps crash down under ceramite boots and bolter fire fills the air.

Marshall Venner sees his chance and urges his cohorts onwards to take the building in front of them before the astartes can,

leaving the XIV in the open for a crucial minute that allows the Russ squadrons to blow holes in their midst. This does not

come without cost as the lonely biologist calls an air strike on the Demolishers, taking most of the nearby infantry and

some command personnel to their grave on the side. Unceasing tank fire manages to down one Spartan, which crashes against

the tortured walls of the main building, shaking dead men down like leaves in the wind. More marines took position in the

House of Death, only to be gunned down like dogs by the autocannon teams in the woods while shooting apart some of the

Demolishers in their sights.

 

 

Uttering something horrible, the witch pulls out all stops and rampages through the Krieg forces with corrosive winds of

unearthly sickness, blasts apart brave footslogs with mind bullets and bends reality so that the three forward Spartans

blink forwards ready to roll the opposition under their tracks. Both tank squadrons are taken by some surprise and lose

valuable shooting time as the assault tanks from their nightmares are trying to capsize them by force. They try to fall back

as well as they can, taking positions by their own objectives but open themselves for the support dreadnoughts to pour fire on.

At the same time, the grenadiers take the fight to the enemy and charge, shovels in hand, against the Contemptors to tie them

down while their last Chimera bravely rushes deep into enemy territory to take the second objective in preparation. Their

commading officer, who due to much confusion though he was a commissar this far into battle, charges the lone biologist

in the House of Death and ultimately bests him, kicking his broken body down from a window. Orbital lasers sweep the tanks

and evaporate the commander of the mortar teams, who then in turn get wiped almost to a man by the anti-personnel rounds

from the Spartans nearby. Though it seems that the Spartans are next to untouchable, there is a loud cheer in the Korps

as the autocannons kick into overachieving gear again and pour hit after hit on the tank sitting on objective 1, slaying

the beast in a spectacular explosion that also greatly hinders their nearby Russes' survival. Captain Erasmus and his

remaining men charge the last sneaky Chimera, but do not manage to destroy it outright.

 

 

 

Before the poor machine can drive towards the last objective further away, it is surrounded and torn down.

 

 

The fighting in the Krieg's left heats up to its final crescendo. The last Russes blaze through their last moments under

dreadnought's fire but manage to almost wipe them out in return with the aid of the autocannon teams on the right side of

the field, but the objective is finally lost under the weight of XIV's wrath as bolt fire tears through the last remaining

mortar team and everything burns to ashes.

 

 

On the right flank, the last Demolishers have retreated to the final objective (having given up the midfield where the

infantry holding it was lost to bolter fire after the Spartans' rampage) but cannot hold their nerve under the fusillade

of lascannons coming their way. Krieg is now out of tanks and their morale is wavering, but the battle is not yet over.

 

 

Out of the burning wreckage of the last Chimera scramble two heavy stubber teams, coats blown to bits and packs aflame,

but with the gusto of the grenadiers and imperial steel in their hands manage to tear down the enemy commander! Erasmus is

wounded by the assault and as the last proper grenadier squad falls back from the Contemptors, the Krieg actually does have

more units near the objective, bringing the situation to an exciting 2-2 as we enter the final turn.

 

 

The final charge of the grenadiers is sounded through a dastardly Seized Initiative by the field officer, who charges the

marines from one side while the grenadiers plunge suicidally into the other squad, buying time for the now free heavy teams

to leg it at the double towards the third objective. At the same time there is a fierce firestorm from the witch and his

marines into the woods holding the last couple of autocannons, but they do not manage to cut their targets down in any

meaningful numbers as they swarm the final objective on their side of the board to prevent the charging Spartan from taking

it as it comes crashing down on the ragtag heroes defending it.

 

On the other side, the XIV see there is no victory to be had any longer and turn their remaining guns to ensure the grenadiers

won't be smiling in victory either. The marines on the ground slaughter their assailants while the trio of Contemptors turns

around to bathe the would-be arsonists in agonising gamma bursts before puncturing them with over the top lasfire. With a

harsh "KA-FREEEM!" sound and a whiff of burnt flesh, the heavy stubber teams are no longer.

 

As a final note to a bitter draw, marshall Venner (having already marched through a bombardment, weathered several salvos

of bolter fire and a Spartan assault that crushed the Demolisher's next to him) charges the final behemoth and drives his

power sword through its thick hide in a spiteful gesture of defiance.

 

 

Phew!

 

A 2-2 draw on objectives, with almost complete destruction of the Krieg forces at the end. Bloodied but unbroken, the guard

had only two officers and two autocannon teams left alive in the end while marines had lost about half of their forces in

total. 60 men, two commanders, two Spartans and two dreadnoughts were lost in the engagement. Being mechanized is a HUGE

boon in Apocalypse, as casualties are not taken until the end of the turn you can always get some way up the board and it can

deny your opponent a lot of fire as they don't have light targets available until turn two. Being able to actually get

somewhere helps, too

 

I'm really enjoying the system, though there are some wrinkles we'll settle among gentlemen anyway (like making it harder

to shoot characters, using some thematically fitting command cards on factions other than those specified, using hidden

Orders through the whole turn instead of revealing them all before acting etc.). I must paint more stuff in this scale for

variation, as my buddy was getting a bit demoralized by the near indestructable Spartans without having super-heavies of

his own to counter them. Well, it's easy to fix that hole given we both have Titanicus armies to go, too

 

Thanks for looking!

[Frostglaive]

Well done, to both you and your opponent! That was an enjoyable fight to read about. I liked the narrative you had going, rather than just saying "spartan killed a tank. Guardsmen shot marines. etc." It made things far more entertaining. You also took some good pictures as well, which I greatly appreciate. And lastly, both armies are painted quite well for such tiny boys and tanks.

 

I applaud you, good sir!

[Sherrypie]

Cheers, Frostglaive. It's fun to write these things, especially about larger conflicts

[Frostglaive]

I do have a couple questions though on how you played this, if you don't mind:

 

- For movement and ranges, did you just half everything, use centimeters instead of inches, or just keep everything as is?

- What sized table did you use?

- Why so little terrain on the table?

- Do you have any suggestions for rules changes from the Apoc book to better work for 6mm scale?

 

I've done 3 games of 6mm Apoc so far. My friends and I are still trying to figure out what works best and what doesn't. We just halved movements and ranges, which seems to work fine. But I'm considering trying centimeters next. All 3 games were on a 4x4 terrain-heavy table. First two games that worked out great, but they were Marine vs Marine. 3rd game not so much, my opponent being Orks. None of the games did we adjust or change any rules, just played as is. Just trying to figure out what works best for others and trying to see if that'll work for my group or not.

[Sherrypie]

This was basically a low-intensity tryout, so we went as close to the book on the core rules as seemed fitting but inevitably changed some things on the fly as is routine between us with various games.

 

For ranges we used inches as they are, it works just fine and looks good as A) things aren't arbitrarily clumped up and it allows movement to happen like movement should. My concern with lessening distances is the impact on verisimilitude as well as gameplay, because using centimeters a non-transported infantry unit moves a whopping 30 cm during the whole game. Woop. For gameplay purposes it's just one and the same what you decide to use, cm obviously allowing for smaller tables, but personally I feel inches produce more believable distances. 6 mm Russes shooting battlecannons 72" means they actually can engage targets that would be roughly 600 meters away in 1:1 ground scale. That feels better than milling around the same points. Down to aesthetics, really.

 

We played on a 6' x 4' table (as that's what my normal big mat was. Low prep tryout.) which was a bit small. As we played with relatively large forces, an 8' x 6' table would probably have been better BUUUUUT even here there was lots of meaningful maneuvering going on especially in regards to where one can go with non-powered infantry without being shot to bits and where to try and bait the opposing armour in ambush.

The terrain was relatively light because of the book's general suggestion of "something per 2' square" and what was in my bag at the time BUT we are very generous in how it's implemented. Woods were abstract LoS-blocking areas, those scattered rocks you see here and there worked as Obstacles and provided -1 to hits all over the place etc. We also discussed driving tanks through woods with a 1/6 chance of accruing blasts. Future matches will probably see denser terrain as I build more appropriate stuff, we tend to favour terrain heavy tables in general.

 

I don't think there's much that needs changing due to scale, some handwavium in LoS gets one quite far. We did reduce some distances, like having to be within 3" instead of 6" to garrison terrain, but mostly... eeh, it works.

Halving distances and using centimeters is basically the same given an inch is ~2.5 cm, except one requires less effort. Just use cm if you're going that route, checking things causes less confusion and measuring stays precise.

 

 

Something will probably crop up in the next dozen or so games, but for now it seems to be a "it just works" conversion.

Keen to hear if you come up with something that requires care, though.

[mughi3]

I think using regular 28mm ranges and movement at this scale kind of defeats the purpose of expanding the depth of the battlefield. at half ranges in inches many miniatures normally never used become important to the battlefield. suddenly certain transports like the sky talon become really important as do units that have infiltration/scouting. we use up to 4X8 tables and it pushes the max ranges of even basalisks giving you a real feel for the scope of the battlefield.

 

unless your DKOK manning a trench network(available from vanguard miniatures BTW) all infantry really should be in transports at this scale as we learned in WWII from maneuver warfare.

[Sherrypie]

That is a fair point, to an extent. I like the idea of transports being key, but that should be part of the mission concept that's known beforehand.