Apocalypse!

On Saturday, I played in York Garrison's Ten4Ten Apocalypse event and it was seriously fun. Just seeing that amount of miniatures and that amount of carnage made it for me. This event was the climax to a campaign which has been running each week for the last couple of months or so.

The teams were around 15K points per side, with 4 players on the Imperial team, and five on the Disorder team.

The Imperial team consisted of a mix of Space Marines, Grey Knights, Black Templars, Guard and Sisters of Battle. They also had 5 Baneblade chassis tanks, and 2 Masters of the Chapter formations.

The Disorder team consisted of a mix of Chaos Space Marines (that was me who acted as team captain), two Ork armies, Space Wolves (evil for this game), and Traitor Guard. We had a Doomsday device, a Baneblade variant and 2 Gargantuan Squiggoths.

We had an independent GM overseeing things, and the GM was in charge of objectives. He placed three fixed objectives on the table after deployment. Each side also had a number of secret objectives to complete. For our team, we had to destroy 3 Land Raiders, destroy a Baneblade in close combat, and take the entrance to a bunker which was on the table. For the Imperial team they had to destroy 3 Basilisks, kill a gargantuan squiggoth in assault, and take a landing pad in our deployment zone. Now, killing 3 Basilisks is easier than killing three Land Raiders, but bear in mind the Basilisks were right at the back of our deployment zone. Finally, each army had a general character which was an objective for one side or the other depending on whether it was alive or dead (both ended the game alive in fact). We used 4th Edition objective holding rules.

The final quirk was that there was a load of Inquisitor games running simulatenously. Depending on who won these, there would be bonus strategic assests awarded to either side. The GM was also free to award assests as required.

This was the table we played over, which was 3 6'x4' tables:



It was possibly a little small for the points we had, as some players arrived late after we'd already starting to setup, although the small size meant we were on top of each quickly so the carnage could begin as swiftly as possible.

We bid 18 minutes to setup, and ended up setting up first and assumed we'd get the first turn. Unfortunately, the Imperial side stole the initiative which left us on the Disorder side on the back foot given we looked to have a truck load less models on the table, and we had setup assuming we'd be going first. The table looked awesome after deployment:

A marine's eye view:



Ultramarines, Black Templar, Guard and Sisters hold the Imperial right flank, faced with the evil Space Wolves and my Chaos Space Marines. You can see the heavy concentration of Imperial armour as well. The bunker we were trying to take is at the end of the road. In the centre, a general BT/GK and Marine advance continues. There was a particularly brutal unit of 10 terminator with Lightning Claws, a terminator Librarian, terminator Chaplain, and a Chapter master here:


Orks and Grey Knights clash in the centre of the board during Disorder turn 1. On the left is a squiggoth with a Rhino hull howdah. The Grey Knights had a Captain in their unit, and destroyed the Orks and the squiggoth easily. The following turn they were annhilated by Orks, Guard and a Defiler:


One of the Imperial secret objectives was to destroy three Basiliks on the Disorder side, a task made much easier by the unexpected gain of the Flank March assest from the Inquisitor game. This meant we had a load of Grey Knights and BT terminators supported by Marine terminators suddenly appear at the rear of our army and minced the Basilisks. Later in the game, Orks led by Gazghkull Thraka, arrived and extracted their revenge.


The combat was fierce around the central objective of the board. This was about turn 3. The Imperials had clear control of this objective by the end of the game after I'd fed 7 Plague Marines, 5 Chaos terminators, a Chaos Sorcerer and 20 Lesser Daemons into the meat grinder.


One of the static objectives was only held by a handful of Grey Knights by the late turns of the game, who were forced to face their nemesis, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle supported by Ork boyz. This objective was finally held by Disorder despite some hairy moments in the last turn:


Serious carnage by the start of turn 5. The game ended after this turn:


Death on a massive scale. By the end of the game, I still had 2 Daemon Princes (one of whom was hiding as he was the general), my Doomsday device and one Plague Marine from a 3300 point army.

We used a number of amusing assests which the GM sprung on us. On the Disorder side we got the Rok 'em Boyz assest from Apocalypse Reloaded. This is where the Ork hulks in space starting throwing meteors down. These scatter D6 feet which was entertaining. They always scatter unless you roll a hit and a 1 which I managed to do with the first one (we got 3). They're a 10" balst destroyer hit when they land. One took a structure point off an Imperial super heavy, one destroyed a Land Raider, a squiggoth, some other infantry, and the last one killed 12 of my newly arrived Plague Marines.

The Doomsday device proved pretty amusing as well, it was a turn highlight to see what it would do. I activated it first turn (making an outrageous demand of course), and then rolled a 6 which meant it started firing straight away. Over 5 turns I got 4 Apocalyptic Barrage(4), S8, AP3 shots and 4 S10, AP1 10" blasts. I could have done with it going super nova towards the end of the game as the only things near it were Imperials. For some reason, no one shot at the thing for the whole game despite it being a very obvious target.

Anyway, the final result was a draw as we ran out of time at the end of turn 5. Had some dice rolls not gone our way, the Imperials would have won it at the end, and a sixth turn would have seen them take it I think. We both completed two of our secret objectives (both the destroying/killing things ones), and held one static objective each.

The overall campain result was a victory for the forces of Disorder, as we held more planets than the Imperials.

I'll probably post some more things I learnt from the game later in the week.