8th Cadian sees action! (battlereport)

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

It was an overcast day on Cadia, the land ahead of Captain Knoll's force was pock marked with craters of all sizes. An occasional hill reached skyward upon the wasteland ahead of the patrol force; the hills blasted time and again, perhaps targetted countless times simply because they were not flat ground and thus deemed worthy of shelling. The hills had been shredded to the bone, all dirt long since blasted off the rock core of the once lushly forested hills.

"Such change since the Chaos fleet emerged from the Eye of Terror and beseiged the Cadian Gate" thought Captain Knoll. "No matter, we shall fight them until they are no more" Captain Knoll resolved.

It had been a bumpy ride in the back of the force's Chimerae as the tracks rumbled down the crater pocked road that had led them out to their current position. Reports had been passed down of a splinter Chaos force that had been harrassing Imperial supply trains and the forces that had so far been dispatched to track them down and annihilate them; today was the end of that all to well known waiting period that separated the times of horrible and violent battle that made up a warrior's life.

Old Ironsides, the company's Leman Russ Demolisher came to a halt beside the company command Chimera in which Captain Knoll and his staff was riding in. Popping the hatch, Lieutenant Ernst appeared out of the turret of the Demolisher and regarded his commander who was surveying the scenery from out of the top hatch of his command Chimera.

"Sir, Auspex is picking up readings at maximum distance, I'm having a hard time distinguishing the size of the contact, but I'd bet my lucky silver beltbuckle that them's the boys we're sent out here to take care of" Lieutenant Ernst spoke.

Nodding slowly to the overweight tank commander, Captain Knoll returned "Lieutenant Stephens, our sanctioned psyker, senses the presence of Chaos emanating from the warp close by, so I dont think you'd lose your lucky beltbuckle today if we made that bet. Lets get ready to take this scum down..today we've got a suprise for these bandits."

motioning to the Land Raider Crusader, Predator Annihilator, and a fearsome pair of fire support dreadnoughts flanking the Black Templar Column, Captain Knoll signed that contact had been made with the enemy and it was time to deploy.

Keeping silent the communication between the guard contingent and the Black Templars marine force had been Captain Knoll's ploy to suprise the Chaos marines who he hoped were still unaware of the Loyalist Space Marine presence.

Getting on the comm, Captain Knoll ordered his men to dismount and deploy north of the east west road they'd been travelling on. With one last coded radio transmission, the Imperial Guard Captain reported in hostile contact and requested support.

Dismounting and taking to the ground, Captain Knolls men began their foot patrol into the cratered wasteland of Cadia's countryside.

Responding to confirmed auspex reports of the Chaos raid group, Captain Knoll sent the patrol's one serviceable sentinel to top one of the crater blasted hills to the northwest.

taking cover behind a large crag of rock that jutted up out of the cratered field, the company mortar team quickly set up their mortar and the company standard was taken up to the top of the rocky crag and planted atop it, a mark of defiance to the traitorous Chaos scum that were inbound to their location.

With a crackle of the vox, the sentinel pilot's report came in "CONTACT!" to his west Captain Knoll saw one of the sentinel's legs separated from the rest of the vehicle at the knee by a brilliant, thick red laser beam, one that could only come from a lascannon. The sound of the hit finally reached the Imperial commander's ears about the time that the sentinel had hit the ground, having fallen over sideways, it's gyroscopes unable to balance with a missing leg.

As Sergeant Fitz scrambled out of the top of his fallen sentinel, traitor autocannon rounds punched in the face of the fallen sent, wrecking the vehicle but good.

Before Captain Knoll could speak any orders more thick red laser beams ripped open the predator annihilator that was rolling up behind the sentinel. The Black Templar Predator blew up with a hit to it's internal fuel tanks, and as the crew was scrambling out of the vehicle that was spewing more and more fire out the engine bays (thank the emporer for fire shields built into the predator design) a loud 'WHAWOOMP' sounded, reporting the dread sound of a traitor demolisher cannon as it fired, the sound reaching Captain Knoll's ears as the Black Templar Land Raider Crusader took a Direct hit, Blowing one side of the Raider's frag launchers as the round punched thru and de-tracked the Raider.

A moment passed and the assault ramp of the crusader opened up, the Templars inside yelling and bailing out of the vehicle. All was not well when Captain Knoll saw the crew bailing out of the vehicle and shouting that the hurricane bolter's ammo bay was cooking off from the hit.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

Receiving reports from his men scattered in a line between him and the ruined space marine vehicles to his west, Commander Knoll ordered his men to hold their ground and engage the enemy at long range.

Receiving coordinates for fire missions, Captain Knoll ordered his comm officer to report to the mortar crew nearby.

Churning up muddy dirt as it rolled up to the rocky crag that was serving as the field command post for the company, Old Ironsides came to a stop and set to blasting with it's demolisher cannon at targets downrange.

The Black Templars had brought up support to the east of the Imperial command post that was now engaged in lobbing mortar rounds to aid the guardsmen that were engaged in a fleeting phase of long ranged target practice. A Templar fire support Dreadnought with twin lascannon and missile launcher had taken cover behind Old Ironsides and was blasting twin blue beams of Lascannon fire downrange at enemy targets.

Popping the hatch of his track, Lieutenant Ernst popped his thick frame out of the top of his tank and called out over the din of heavy weapons fire at Captain Knoll. "Sir! we have a traitor Vanquisher at 12 O'clock! Requesting Templar support in toasting that sucker!"

Getting on the vox, and switching over to the templar frequency, Captain Knoll reported the coordinates given from Lt. Ernst to him to the Templar Commander. "The Emporer protects." Finished the Imperial Captain as he turned back to his men to issue more orders.

With a swiftness that belied it's lumbering appearance the fire support dreadnought that had taken cover behind the Imperial Demolisher strode out from it's hiding spot and loosed a devastating volley that finished the imposing Chaos Vanquisher.

Cheers went up across the imperial lines and the templars struck back on the western front, blowing up a Chaos main battle tank, that once appeared to be a leman russ.

By now it was clear that the enemy was from the Chaos faction known as the Iron Warriors, thier steel armor mixed with black and yellow caution striping and 8 pointed Chaos stars gave little to guess at as to their affiliation.

His squad of Kasrkin reporting to him, Captain Knoll ordered they take the fight to the enemy on the eastern flank. Looking up to his scout who'd planted the company standard atop the hill, Sergeant Kaufman looked back to his CO, turning away from his binos for a moment to report a metamorphosizing chaos entity making his way towards the lines and a Iron Warrior's Rhino hunkered down behind a distant hill.

Ordering the squad of Kasrkin to take down what seemed to be a Chaos Obliterator, the squad of elite guardsmen moved off with nothing but a loyal salute.

Reports came in from multiple line squads at once that a Gigantic Demon Prince had been sighted rounding the west side of a ruined graveyard which was north of the middle of the imperial lines.

"Focus fire on that foul entity, bring it down! For the Emporer!" replied Captain Knoll into the vox. Weapons fire renewed from the middle of the imperial lines; it seemed as if fear of the oncoming beast was overruled by the men with each weapon firing, and that it brought them just enough hope to keep them from turning and fleeing.

The veterans of Captain Knoll's men encouraged their men. Everyone had heard of the Captain's first time into battle, during the height of the 13th black crusade and how at that time the force which had just been a platoon had brought down a demon prince in one healthy volley.

Following a descending whistle, A deafening roar of painful heat, fire, and fragmentation tore thru the command section's reality. A thunderous 'BOOM' pressed the Captain and his men's faces into the dirt with the concussion of the secondary explosion. Blood streamed from the Captain's ears and he disorientedly righted himself, most of his command squad had lived thru the blast, but as he looked over at Old Ironsides he saw that it's left track had been totally obliterated by an enemy shell. A gigantic gouge had been carved down thru the side of the old Demolisher that gave away the trajectory of the enemy guns.

Lt. Ernst and his crewmen crawled, in obvious pain from their hatches with the pained hurry of an injured crew escaping their vehicle before any rounds could cook off and kill them from inside their own track.

"Who's got eyes on that Basilisk that just levelled us over here?" Captain Knoll called into his vox.

"Sir, 190th here, we've got eyes on the enemy tango, but she's bed down behind a spine of rock and we've got close to nil for a shot at her, want us to engage anyways?" came the reply.

"No, focus fire on that demon prince, we've got to bring that sucker down or this day is going to get really painful for all of us; lets hope that that basilisk focuses it's energy elsewhere for now." responded Captain Knoll.

The Templars looked like they were having a rough time of things, their assault marine reserves had been called up and had arrived in a bottleneck with the survivors of the land raider wreck just in time to receive the fire of the traitor basilisk, vindicator, and defiler all in rapid succession.

The vox came to life "Sir, enemy obliterator eliminated, request permission to continue our advance and engage the Traitor Rhino."

The Kasrkin squad had done it's job and now wanted to bite off more than they could chew. "Emporer protect you, permission granted." replied Captain Knoll. He was going to gamble this one and hope that backup arrived before the remaining special forces troops he had out there could be cut down by whatever was riding in that Chaos Rhino.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

Reports were coming in, and multiple guard squads had been taken out of the fight by enemy fire, casualty reports were climbling, and some of his guard squads had failed to comply with his orders about taking down the demon prince after the initial volley of firepower had been merely shrugged off by this infernal demon prince; instead the guardsmen had engaged a squad of chaos marines making their way thru the soldier graveyard north of the middle of the imperial lines. though they had done major damage to the squad, the demon prince had almost reached the imperial lines.

Cries of suprise reported thru his vox caster as a squad of 10 chaos terminators crackled into reality, teleported directly in front of Lieutenant Bracen's command squad as it surged forth to direct his soldier's fire onto the demon prince. Caught flat footed, the Lieutenant and his squad were engulfed by the flames of the chaos terminator's flamethrowing weapons. they stood no chance, and were all burned to death in a firey hot inferno of Abbadon's wrath.

The lines had begun to break, it would only slide downhill into a total route now. Captain Knoll hoped that the imperial support he'd requested would arrive soon enough to cause the Chaos forces to attempt to flee for the shadows from whence they'd come before the day's fight could reach it's now evident conclusion.

Just after the Chaos Demon Prince reached the imperial lines and begun his massacare, support arrived, and the wounded contingent of Imperial forces retreated from the field, to return for their dead after the Chaos forces had been forced to flee.

"Damn the Chaos control of the airspace, because of that we'll end up facing these scum another day, and that day I will look forward to, to avenge my men who've fallen this day to them." Captain Knoll vowed.

As the remanants of the Captain's patrol reached it's transport column, a brigade of Imperial armor raced northward in hot persuit of the now fleeing Chaos raid group.

After getting the report of dead and wounded, the Imperials set about recovering their kinsmen from the battlefield; some would make it to the surgeon, some were already gone, and some would go on the way.

Blood Soaked hands recovered the company standard from it's perch atop the jutting rock that it'd been driven into and a battered imperial force came home to lick their wounds.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

AFTER ACTION REVIEW

ow what a painful battle vs iron warriors. it all started on turn 1 when the space marine player was just destroyed vehicle wise, then on turn 2 he was annihilated with pie plates. terminators came in but didnt do too much damage, other than taking out a command squad and a few templars..the templars had their revenge though, killing 4 terminators in one round of combat..their commander was fierce.

I had the middle of my lines ripped apart by fire then decimated by that demon prince. I should have focused fire on it better until it died. pretty much everything from the middle of our lines to the left was dead except for a handful of space marines. my ally (the templar player) began packing his things about the time round 4 came and went but I was having a blast, cheering every time I killed like..anything.

at one point my ally replied 'guard arent very good at getting results, are they?' to which I replied, hey when they shoot me they're not shooting you, and I give them alot to shoot at!

haha oh well. I had a blast despite the loss, and asked my opponent what I should/could work on. he mentioned I should field more tanks, unfortunately I have none at the current time, though I do have a few more sents to paint up. I also figured that the infantry version of tanks is heavy weapon squads of which I have 2x 3 team boxes sitting on my shelf.

his armor survived far too well, and I think I'm going to put together 2x 3 lascannon team AT squads for next week. that'll be my goal, to paint them up and all by then.

oh well, it was good to be back at the 40k table and rolling dice, even though it ended in my boys getting routed

highlights, were my 6 man kasrkin squad who were initially reduced to 2 men, going on to kill a chaos obliterator then immobilize a rhino (though they then were about to be totally taken apart by 10 chaos marines but hey, we called the game as the game rounds had devolved at that point).

that was about it..my rolling was pretty crappy..I had some late game instakills vs normal chaos space marines but that was no big deal..just felt good to kill something

I'm pretty sold on the fact that I should manoeuver until my lasguns are in range cuz I have alot more effect when my whole squad is firing vs just heavy weapon pot shots.

[Deleted]

Wow! Nice..! I haven´t read all yet, I have to go, but I really look forward to read this when I´m back.

Great stuff!

[Deleted]

Great report turtleboy!

I brewed a large cup of coffee and put my feet on the desk and read it (with a hangover... ;D), made my morning, a great read!

First turn really sounded painful, with all that armour busted...

I do think you should try out those heavy weapon teams, they might be just as good as tanks for you. 3 lascannons sounds like a good thing to worry about, for that Chaos guy.

Do you have a rough list of the armies..?

Cheers!

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

I let the iron warriors guy play with a couple of VDRed main battle tanks - basically he had a leman russ and a vanquisher VDRed, beyond that they had a basilisk and vindicator to fill out their pie plate chucking section, then a beast of a demon prince and an equally expensive chaos lord with like 5 or 6 squads of marines and a half dozen obliterators and a squad of 10 deepstriking terminators. the army seemed pretty big for 2750 but what can you do but believe your opponent when they dont have a full armylist. that many pie plates hurt and with no real focused firebase units I couldnt do anything but ignore them and accept their shelling gotta run for now but I'll post more tonight

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

ok I've got a few minutes to type now so here's roughly me and the black templar player's list.

black templar player:
2x lascannon/missile launcher dreads
land raider crusader w/ squad tooled for close combat (?)
predator annihilator, sponson lascannons
assault squad w/ 2 powerfists (?) and a stormshield or 2
2x dismounted squads w/ missile launcher and maybe plasma gun (?)

me:
6 kasrkins, grenade launcher/meltagun
25 man platoon, autocannon, 2x missile launchers, assorted special weapons
35 man platoon, 2 plasma guns/medic, heavy bolter, missile launcher, assorted special weapons
leman russ demolisher, 3x heavy bolters
autocannon sentinel
command hq w/ mortar

that was it.

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played a 1000pt game vs tau yesterday. I've never beaten tau with my guard infantry and this was no exception. the only highlights were me taking out 2 crisis suits in one volley from my freshly introduced missile launcher squad (they were the only unit to make their points back :? ) and my mortar took out a stealth suit *cheer*

other than that it was a slugfest that turned into an all out route. the tau player employed a strategy known as the 'devilfish shuffle' he moved up one devilfish (which are hard as heck to destroy!) and dismounted his firewarriors which rapid fired death into me, then the next turn mounted em up, moved back, moved up with his other devilfish, dismounted the squad, and rapid fired into the next squad I'd moved up to keep my ground. he kept this up shuffling his devilfish/firewarrior squads, occupying my attention in trying to engage these bastard units while moving in with his burst cannon/flamer crisis suits about the time my conscripts charged out of the woods and failed to make their difficult terrain charge move to engage a firewarrior squad it was over. he remounted all his firewarriors, moved off with them and socked me with flamer death from the crisis suits. I conceeded the game as he had a rail gun with submunitions dumping ordinance blasts on me, crisis suits geared toward anti-light infantry burninating me, stealth suits unloading into me, and a pair of damnable devilfish squads with firewarriors shuffling around rapid firing me to death.

it was painful.

[Picklenose]

I really enjoyed to read it!
MAKE MORE Battle reports!

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

haha will do. I've got a battle tomorrow, so I'll see what I can do to write up a batrep

[Deleted]

One thing I have learned time and again is that a pair of 1500 point armies will usually get pounded by a single 3000 point army. The 300 point army has much more access to heavy support, elites, and fast attack and the pair of smaller units have much more tied up in troops.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

yeah there's truth in that but still, I'm trying not to rely on heavy support to win my games.

[Deleted]

How did your next battle go..? This one was such a good read so please, give us more..! ;D

Too bad it seems this place is a bit quiet at the moment...

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

bump for nostalgia and also a request to have this archived in the batrep forum

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

woot thanks

[Deleted]

Wow, I had alot of fun reading that if you can find the time maybe we could open up a short stories section on the forums... that was great

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

hey thanks! my ego has been totally stroked

[Deleted]

that took a long time to read............but it was worth it ;D
really really great work