This, my friends, is what real wargaming is all about: Nicely painted miniatures, pleasant looking terrain on the table, excellent rules, and friendly players. That pretty much sums up last nights Epic Armageddon game. This was a very enjoyable evening with lots of laughs, decisive actions, miserable luck, and heroic fights that will be long remembered. (Actually, I might want to forget that part where my Tac Marines were chased out of town by some mole mortars).
Greg & Dean ably commanded the Squats while Trent & I led the heroic Space Marines. While we ran out of time to complete the game, and thus counted it as a draw, both sides had their moments of glory and tragedy. The Squat War Engines, which were numerous, proved the biggest problem for the Marines. Very hard to take out. We soon adopted the strategy of “hit ‘em where they ain’t”, picking off the lighter stuff and going for objectives over body count. While no more successful than the Squat strategy, it gave us a viable mission. Just shooting at the monster Squat War Engines certainly wasn’t going to get us anywhere. Had the game went longer, a huge force of Squat Tunnelers would have erupted in front of one of the objectives giving the already overstretched Ironclaw Marines a hard time indeed.
One of the last actions proved the most interesting. Marine Terminators had jumped near the Squat Mega cannon, hoping to take them out. However, we lost the initiative that round, so a very large mass of Squat infantry with the head honcho Squat moved first, and screened the cannon. Two Warhound Titans entered the fray and the Terminators attacked with Titan support. A long & involved 2 round battle followed that saw the Terminators & 1 Warhound dead and the other routed.
Battle forces
The Ironclaw Space Marines Task Force
4 x Warhound Titans,
4 x Predator Annihilator platoons
3 x Tactical Marine platoons.(ONE WITH COMMANDER)
1 x Whirlwind units
2 x scout unit
1 x Terminator unit.
Squats force
IRON BREAKERS [700] WARLORD unit, 12 Warrior units AND 4 Gorgon
IRON EAGLE [275] 4 Iron Eagle Gyrocopters
GOLIATH MEGA-CANNON [300] 2 Goliath Mega-Canons
COLOSSUS [450]
LEVIATHAN [350]
THUNDER BATTERY [500] 10 Thunders and 5 Spartans
GRAND BATTERY [300] 9 Mole Mortar units
THUNDERFIRE BATERY 2 Thunder Fire Guns
BERZERKER BROTHERHOOD 12 Berserkers in 6 Termites.
Deployment
The deployment was pretty standard and both side deployed their units evenly across the battle line. The first picture gives lay out of table
Turn one
The Iron claws won the initiative and marched a tactical unit up the left flank and that was end of their first activation. So the squats rolled to fire the Mega cannons and manage hit the whirl wind and tactical unit. The whirlwind unit suffered a hit and mange to make their arm save and the tactical suffered no hits, both units received blast markers. So the Squats retain the initiative and get’s a unit of robots to shoot the scout unit that’s in front of them, causing a hit which the scout fail to save and so receive two blast markers. The Iron claws then send another tactical unit on a march move and put on the other side of the forest that was on the left flank and in view of the town(near the mole mortars). The squats then open on the tactical unit, that’s in front of the Gyrocopters and manage to kill three figures all up. So the Squats retain the initiative and move the IRON BREAKERS unit so that its just out of town and deployed the infantry. The iron claws double move their warhound unit on the right flank and then fire at the IRON BREAKERS unit, killing a couple of units. Squats active their bike squad and move it over towards the object in the middle of the table roughly and so the squats try to active the THUNDERFIRE BATERY and rolled a 1, so nothing happens and the initiative is past back to the Iron claws, which send in the scout unit against the bikes and so two rounds of combat happen with the scouts begin victorious, but are left with two rhinos and a scout stand. The squats have initiative and a so shoot up the scout unit that just won combat before had, killing a rhino and routing it. The Squats retain the initiative and double move the LEVIATHAN so that it was facing the Tactical unit out front of the town(near the mole mortars) and fire all of it weapons at it, killed units and add blast markers, but didn’t break the unit. The Iron claws then moved a predator unit up and shot at the LEVIATHAN, after the smoke cleared all was to was a blast maker and few scratch's on the beast.So squats turn and they moved the THUNDER BATTERY up and poured fire and death into the predator unit, only to kill one and that was it. The Iron claws then moved another predator unit up and shot at the THUNDER BATTERY and after the smoke settled. They had manage to only place a blast marker and that was it. The iron claws on the right flank move a predator unit up and fire for little effected. The squats then move their COLOSSUS and fired at the predator unit and giving it another blast marker. The iron claws move their other warhound unit and blasted the THUNDER BATTERY and manage to kill three Spartans. Not enough to break the unit. The iron claws moved the rest of their unit into position, for the started of turn 2. The end phase both side removed blast markers and the routed scout unit didn’t rally for the iron claws.
Turn two
The Iron claws deployment their Terminator on the right flank near the Goliath Mega-Canons, in the hope they would get the initiative, they don’t and roll a 1, so the initiative goes to the squats. The squats double move their IRON BREAKERS so that they are in between the Terminator and the Goliath Mega-Canons and then shoot and they manage to kill one stand and add two blast markers all up. So the Squats retain the initiative and Goliath Mega-Canons are the unit they want to active and they roll a 1 and so they use the supreme commander ability and re-roll the dice and only to get a 1 again, the Goliath Mega-Canons shoot directly at a unit that’s with in 120cm and line of sight. They hit the tactical unit that’s near the town and manage to kill some stands and add blast markers. So the iron claw sends a tactical unit into assault the mole mortars and after much dice rolling, fails and is routed by the mole mortars. The squats then open fire on other tactical unit with the Iron Eagle Gyrocopters and manage to get a few hits, the unit failed it’s saves and was broken and fled back to their starting point. Then Iron claws turn the heat up on the THUNDER BATTERY by using their warhound squad and killed six stand, enough to break the unit and make it run behind the hill. The squats use their COLOSSUS and fired at the warhound unit managing to take shields down and kill one warhound and wound the other, this broke the warhound unit and it went fleeing back to their base line. So the Squats retain the initiative and THUNDERFIRE BATERY fires are the Blue predator unit, getting three hits and the unit failed all saves and was wiped out. The iron claws move a tactical unit on the right flank and fire fight the robots unit that’s holding the objective there, after the smoke clears there is only the Tactical unit left, it wipe the robots off the board. So the squats through the last unit of robots out on a double movement to get into range of the routed war hounds and they did, fire and only manage to do one hit, not enough to destroy the unit. The iron claws double move their other warhound unit, into 6cm range of the IRON BREAKERS fires its guns and when the smoke cleared the squat were still standing, they all made their saves. The squats triple move the LEVIATHAN so that it was in 15cm range of the objective marker.So the iron claws had the rest of the turn to them self’s, so they move the red predator unit in the centre of the board to the objective on their right to claim it. The other red predator unit move back to the objective behind them, so they could claim it(Blitzer). Then move the blue predator unit to the objective were the LEVIATHAN was so that it was contested. Then they did a close combat with the Terminator unit on the IRON BREAKER unit, which bought in the Goliath Mega-Canons and it also bought the warhound unit in. It took two rounds of combat and buy the end the Iron claws had lost a Terminator unit and war hound, with a warhound routing. The IRON BREAKER also broke and fled. This end the game and it was called a draw, but another turn thing could have been different.
I will echo the same comment that was at the start of the AAR, which was written by Britt . This was a very enjoyable evening with lots of laughs, decisive actions, miserable luck, and heroic fights that will be long remembered.
Any ways may the dice roll high for you.
Regards
Greg
