Kampfgruppe Engel: Ajax - Horus Heresy event game 2 AAR

Wednesday 25 July 2018

Ajax - Horus Heresy event game 2 AAR

Here is the after action report from the second game of Horus Heresy at the Ajax, event.

My Alpha Legion Recon Company would be facing Tobbe Larsons Taghmatas on table 9.
As this was the second game the objectives for this game was to capture objectives. Tobbe had won the roll to see who had the first turn and I didnt fancy my chances to seize, meaning I would deploy in an defensive position.

With a triangular deployment it would be some spaces between us from the start. The initial plan was to try to make him come to me and then hit him in the sides with the reserves. All those monster robots was a bit scary.

Using the scout moves the Alpha Legion starts closing in.

This robot had an anti air duty and started shooting as soon as my gunships entered.

Recon Marines moves out, the plan is to advance to an objective and then hunker down.

Lots of big robots and a Warhound Titan... A large unit of tech-trals was seated, protected in the "train".
What cant be seen here is that a small unit of Recon marines with scout armour is located behind the ruined building to the up most left in this picture, the plan is to irritate the Titan or attack the "train" with their meltabombs.

This must be a turn or two later and I have deployed reserves in the form of a Fire Raptor gunship, Veterans have moved in from the flank and a Saboteur actually managed to do anything, blowing up the "train" with the explosives he attached during the night..
In all this my Land Raider with my Preator and a unit of Seekers inside a Land Raider moves up and my unit of Bikes tries to take out a lone Mechanicus HQ.
Using the turmoil for cover my Recon Marines in Scout armour rushes forwards with meltabombs at the ready... lets try to damage that Titan..

Same turn seen from the other side of the table.

I had consentrated the firepower on the Titan, taking down the shields with the Fire Raptors Autocannons. I shot more or less the largest part of my army into it. Land Raider, Saboteura and Veterans with Combi meltas started to take out hullpoints.

But in the end it was the charge of the lowly Recon Marines in scout armour or rather their meltabombs that took the final hull points and the Titan made an massive explosion.

Recon Sergeant 126.545 codename "Alpharius" had led his squad in an flanking manoeuvre. Using the bomb-out city for cover, creeping from ruin to ruin. They had spotted their target from miles away...
Sergeant 126.545 had planned to take out an Titan...
The Mechanicus Taghmatas sentries and scanners had failed to notice their infiltration and in an coordinated attack from an Fire Raptor gunship and other Alpha Legion forces hell was let loose. In the ensuing chaos of gunfire, explosions and movement of troops Sergeant 126.545 found a open window of the Tagmatas defences and his squad of Recon Marines rushed forward.
The shields of the Titan was taken down by the gunship and a squad of veterans that had outflanked the beast dismounted to engage it with their combi-meltas.
The Titan had still failed to notice the small unit of Recon marines in their camouflaged armour.
They managed to ably the meltabombs and activated their bombs...
In an massive explosion the mighty Titan was taken out.

Standing all to close from an exploding Titan both the veterans and some of Sergeant 126.545 men died.
Their work was done here.

Later reserves enter, my second gunship and two Javelins.

The last of the bikes was chopped to pieces from the combined might of the Magos Dominus and a unit of close combat themed Castelaxes...

As recon sergeant 126.545 "Alpharius" and few recon marines still alive tried to take cover behind the ruin of their ambush point the were attacked from all sides. I had tried to use a Rhino to give them protection but a deepstriking unit of Thalaxes had no problem with that.
Exactly what happened to the sergeant is unknown but he is listed as missing in action at the time of this recording.

The large robots started to slowly move forward.
My Javelins pummelled the close combat Castelaxes as I didnt want them near my Recon Marines with shotguns holding one of the objectives with an potential STC-0299-E.

My Seeker squad and my Preator is getting ready to dismount and let loose with the combi-plasmas...

Unfortunately I didnt take any more pictures from the game from here. The focus from my side was now to take out his scoring units, two unit of Thalaxes and a heavily decimated unit of Tech-trals.
The Fire Raptors zoomed over the city with their Twin-Avenger and Reaper Autocannons spraying the city with gunfire.
My Recon Marine squad in their dedicated Storm Eagle had outflanked and was using its rockets on the Tech-trals and lascannons on some Mechanicus officer-robot thingy...

The next round I made a heavy gamble of the game not to continuing for a sixth turn in that I had landed all my fliers in a denial of objective role. My Recon Marines from the Storm Eagle run at my lines or more precisely to the objectice close to my Seekers and Preator.
The Shotgun equiped Recon Marines had secured one objective and a unit of regular Bolter Marines dismounted to secure another. My Sniper team tried to reach another but was not in range.

It was time for the dice roll for another turn but luckily for me the game ended.
I risked alot of my army on this roll. Had it continued the big monster robots would had no problem tearing my landed aircrafts apart and probably the close combat Castelaxes maybe could had charged my Recon marines with shotguns. Had we played another turn, things would have been a lot differently.

But victory favours the bold and this meant that it would count as a massive victory for the Alpha Legion and the Traitor forces in the campaign at the event.

In hindsight I think this mission favoured my force alot more then my opponent, he only had three units to score objectives with and I had a lot.
The deployment zone and the fact that you get additional point for Line breaker meant he had problem getting to me with his slow shooty army as I harassed his lines and I had no problem getting to him with my fast army.

Here is a few other pictures taken at the event during this game: