The Battle for Brind's World Rages On!

It's the Victoria Day long weekend in Canada and we got in a few games of 40K yesterday afternoon. We invited The Boyz over to play with us as well.

Astra Militarum vs. Necrons

383.018.M41

North of the tropical zone, Brind's World was a desiccated wasteland. An endless expanse of sand and rock, punctuated by the occasional ancient ruin, left by a long dead civilization that disappeared millennia ago. Jumana Erakat felt right at home. 

The 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment and the 17th Tallarn Super Heavy Tank Regiment had deployed to the planet in support of operations currently underway by other regiments of the Astra Militarum. The 451st found it would soon be in direct support of fellow brothers and sisters of Tallarn - 382nd Tallarn (Desert Raider) Regiment. Having just made planetfall, however, the regiment was still shaking down their equipment after such a long warp passage and only just beginning to patrol their new area of operations. 

Sergeant Erakat found herself acting commander of #2 ("Arkan") Troop, 2 Squadron 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment. The regular troop commander's Leman Russ was being serviced by the techpriests. The machine spirits needed supplication. She would be leading two other tanks from the platoon on a short patrol to the east of their Base of Operations. To get the lay of the land. No hostiles were expected to be in the vicinity, but then, they never are... 

Attached to her Troop was a Demolisher from the Support Squadron.

Scenario

We played the Patrol Scenario, right out of the core rulebook - with the exception that I had no "Troop" elements. 

Victory points were scored solely for enemy units destroyed. 

Forces

When we had invited the Boyz over I had indicated that I'd be rolling out with a tank force (I even sent them the picture of all my armoured forces from the previous post so it would be absolutely clear they'd be facing armour!). I had told them to bring up to 50 Power Level of stuff. I fully expected to be facing the Necron's Doom Scythe, Monolith, Annihilation Barge, and/or Tesseract Vault - all the heavy hitters which I knew they had (as my Guaiacan Commandoes had faced them before!)... but the lad, for some reason, brought infantry to a tank fight!? Oh, they're still Infantry that still keeps getting up again after you shoot them down (unless you can wipe out the whole damned unit in one turn), but infantry none the less... 

Elements of 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment

Tank Commander with Leman Russ Punisher (Power Level 12)

3x Leman Russ Tanks (2x Battle Tanks, 1x Demolisher) (@ Power Level 10) 

Spearhead Detachment, Power Level 42, 4 Command Points

Elements of Necron Task Force: Space Herpe 

Overlord (Power Level 7)

2x Warriors (10)(@ Power Level 6 = 12)

1x Lychguard (5)(Power Level 8)

1x Scarabs (3)(Power Level 2)

1x Deathmarks (5)(Power Level 5)

1x Annihilation Barge (Power Level 7)

Patrol Detachment, Power Level 41, 3 Command Points

The Game

For hours the tanks had rolled over the desert. The heat and the long days, dulled their level of awareness. It was all Sergeant Erakat could do to stay awake. She was sure at least one of her sponson gunners had fallen asleep - she could hear his snores from down below. She sat high in the turret, scanning the endless horizon with her magnoculars. Nothing. Kilometre after kilometre, there was nothing. And then there was. 

At first she thought it was a mirage. Then adrenaline shot through her body, wrenching her into full awareness, as it dawned on her what she was actually looking at. She quickly voxed back to the squadron commander to confirm that there was no friendly infantry in the area and to the other tanks under her command to make sure they were awake and aware of the infantry on the ridge beyond another ancient ruin. Before she got her response from command, she got her answer from the enemy! Green tinged energy rounds started arcing across the desert and bouncing off the skin of her tanks. 

Jumana dropped into the turret and started shouting commands. "Gunners! Enemy infantry on the ridge at 11 o'clock" 

A chorus of "Identified!" responded - except Billah in the right sponson who shouted "I don't have a target!" 

"Driver veer left 10 degrees, give Billah a target! Gunners FIRE!"

There was an angry roar as the punisher cannon unleashed it's mighty fury! The gunners of sponson and hull heavy boaters joined in as well, but were drowned out by the thousand round per minute torrent of the rotary cannon next to her. The view of the ridge through her visual scope was reduced to a cloud of dust and flying metal parts....

Orders were issued to the other tanks to scan for and engage any enemy on the flanks. 

I took pictures of the initial deployment and stuff and then realized at the end of round one that I didn't have a memory card in my camera! DOH! (It's good to know I'm not the only one that does this!). So this first pic is at the end of the first round - I've already blown one of his units of Necron Warriors into wee little metallic fragments that "Reanimation Protocols" can't even bring back! BOOM! So THAT's how you deal with those annoying Necrons!

One Victory Point for me. 

ROUND TWO

Puffs of black smoke dotted the ridge as the other tanks of the troop engaged. Where was that Demolisher from the support company? Jumana called for a cease fire as the enemy fire had stopped for the moment. Then out of the clouds of dust and smoke MORE enemy infantry emerged firing their guess weapons at the tanks. Hits were taken.... they really only scratched the paint a bit - but it was alarming enough to get everyones full attention on the task at hand! 

All but the Overlord showed up as reinforcements for the Necrons on Round Two. The Annihilation barge seemed like it could potentially do some damage... If he could stop rolling ones and twos to hit!? 

The volume of fire from the enemy was large, but, for the most part, ineffectual. Jumana had to keep repositioning her tanks to get an angle on the enemy that tried to make use of every bit of cover they could amongst the ruins or rocky outcrops.  

One round two I blasted one of the stands of scarabs and finished off the Deathmarks - another Victory Point! I forgot to roll for reserves. 

ROUND THREE

Jumana's tank took a solid hits. Lights flickered and there was cursing from down below as the hull gunner was hit in the face and shoulder with some spalling. More targets fickered into view beyond the ruins and the Punisher Cannon reduced them to many small spare parts. 

No reserves for the Necrons. The Anihilation Barge actually scored TWO wounds on the Tank Commanders tank. I think a few of the Lychguard were blowed up, but they all came back the next turn... 

The Demolisher finally decided to join the fight. 

ROUND FOUR

The Necron Overlord finally showed up. the Annihilation barge scored two more wounds on the Tank Commander's Punisher. The Scarabs were squashed (another Victory Point), 5 necron Warriors were destroyed and the Annihilation Barge took 4 wounds. 

The battle raged on. The Xenos constructs just kept coming and the tanks of #2 Troop just kept smashing them to bits. There was no sense in it. Did they not have any sense of self-preservation in their programming? While Jumana had no complaints about the ease at which they were able to wreck these robotic clods, their relentlessness gave her a sense of unease, and she shuddered at the thought of facing more heavily armed and armoured troops with the same inability to retreat... 

ROUND FIVE

Eventually the enemy guess fire slackened and then stopped altogether. Jumana called for a ceasefire and they sat, ready for more to appear out of the smoke and dust, but none came....

The Punisher and Demolisher finished off the Lychguard and the two Battle Tanks destroyed the Annihilation barge. The writing was kind of on the wall at that point - I had five victory points. There was no way the Overlord and half a unit of Necron warriors was going to destroy all four tanks in their next two turns (assuming there WAS two more turns, as we were to roll at the end of the next two rounds to see if the game continued). 

ELSWHERE ON BRIND'S WORLD

Orks vs. Chaos Space Marines 

While I was playing the Necrons, Finnegan and his Orks fought some Chaos Space Marines. 

The followers of Khorne came to Brind's world in search of a great weapon believed to be hidden there. As they tromped through the jungle, a small detachment of Chaos Space Marines under a Sorcerer wandered into the territory of Warboss Blitzagg....

They played an Ambush Scenario with the Orks being the Ambushing attackers. 

 

While the Hellbrute, cultists, and Sorcerer came to blows with one of the Ork Mobs, the Raptors and Biker zipped around (or OVER) the orks and were off the table on by Round Two or Three - effectively ending the game as that accounted for nearly half the forces Power Level and they only needed one third of the force to escape to secure a victory.

After our first games were done, we switched up and Finnegan's Orks fought the Necrons in the Jungle and The Girls' Harlequins faced the forces of Chaos out own the desert....


Necrons vs. Orks



For this battle, the boys tried an Eternal War scenario: The Scourging. The scenario had a random length and points were awarded at the end for whoever controlled objective markers. There was one marker worth four points, two worth two points and one worth only one.



By all accounts it was a pretty epic battle (I was busy helping the others play their game and only popped by to take the occasional picture).



The orks started with the two objectives worth six points within their grasp. Not content to rest upon their laurels, Warboss Blitzagg lead the charge with his mega nobs to wrest the other objectives from the "clankies".



The warboss and his meganobs went toe-to-toe with the Overlord and his Lychguard - and took them OUT!

Elsewhere the Mobs and Lootas holding their objectives were savaged by Necron fire... had the game lasted another turn or two it might have swung in completely the opposite direction. but as it was, the game ended after Round Five with he Orks scoring ELEVEN victory points (eight for objective markers, and one each for First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker) and the Necrons only two!

Chaos Space Marines vs. Aeldari

 Meanwhile the Chaos space marines had evacuated the Jungle and started searching the ruins in the desert, they must have been getting close because our of nowhere the Aeldari appeared and savagely attacked their search party...



They too decided to try and Eternal War Scenario. They rolled "Big Guns Never Tire", but as neither has any Heavy Support, they would only score points for Objective markers (three each) and the standard one for First Blood, Slay the Warlord, and Linebreaker...



Chaos went first and delivered some serious Alpha Smite. Due to some poor positioning of troops, The Girl nearly lost Jain Zar in the first round (all but ONE WOUND lost!) and the Howling Banshees were nearly wiped out (loosing 3 of 5 - and the other two surviving by rolling some incredible saves!)



But after that it was all downhill for Chaos...



The grievously wounded Jain Zar and the remaining Banshees advanced on the Bikers and wiped them out with fire and then charged the Hellbrute.

The Hellbrute took two turns to take down, but didn't manage to do much damage to the Eldar.



the Raptors dropped in behind the Eldar lines. The Eldar lost one of their Warlocks - I can't remember if it was to the Raptors or the Sorcerer (I THINK it was the Sorcerer...?) The other Warlock took out two of the Reports.



Somehow I didn't get any pictures of it, but he Eldar dropped some Swooping Hawks behind the Chaos troops and they wiped out the Cultists.

The Farseer laid some smack down on the sorcerer and then the remaining Chaos forces decided to call it a day....

Fun was had. I got to blow shit up. The Eldar got to lay some serious smack down (which was important because I think The Girl was starting to feel like they "weren't very good" after a few set backs in previous games).


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I've been working on assorted bits and bobs for 40K/Rouge Trader and slowly making some progress on the Arvis Lighter...