Sertoria Comitus, Chapter 1 Game 1: Death Korps of Krieg Armoured spearhead is ambushed

Reconquest of Sertoria Comitus campaign: Game 1

Prelude: https://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.se/2017/11/sertoria-comitius-40k-campaign.html


The Death Korps of Krieg from the 317st Grand Armeé had made planet fall and secured area of control, met up with planetary overlords and the local defence forces and reinforced important locations for future operations.
It was now time to move out.

Here follows the Armoured Spearhead under the command of Tank Commander .198 Janusch Blitzen that was pushing westwards through the Jormungand Depression in force. The Spearhead had been tasked to push in force to expand the initial area of control, destroying any enemy encountered.


To his help he had been given an armoured task force with additional anti tank weaponry in the form of three Nashorn pattern Basilisks lead by Master of Ordinance officer Wigher Schiller, a Hydra AA and a small unit of Grenadiers in a Centaur for securing terrain ahead of the formation.  

 The task force had made good ground but had yet to encounter any enemy contact.
Closing in on a area ahead with different terrain features the spearhead heightened their senses and the Grenadiers were ordered forward.

This was the place the xenos had chosen to spring their ambush...

The Grenadiers scouts ahead and makes contact but dont have time to raise the alarm before the enemy opens fire.

The combined fire of the Fireprism take out a Leman Russ before I am even able to react.

Leman Russes moves up slowly making the most of their impressive gunfire.
Tank Commander Janusch Blitzens plan is to make good use of the tank guns in an attempt to inflict enough damage on these flimsy looking skimming tanks so they cannot hit us back and open up a free window that allows me to move at the double unhindered.

 

Enemy fast skimmers had tried to totally outflank me but I swung my tank hunter around...
But the fast skimmers was proving hard to take out.
 

My Leman Russes faired better and took out an enemy skimmer tank.

 Enemy commander looks rather happy about the current state of the ambush.

Xenos skimmer tanks moves at an incredible speed, taking up fire position amongst the bushes and unleashes its large cannon...

Enemy fast skimmers moves amongst my vehicles with guns blazing...

Payback time... The Punisher with its anti infantry cannon blasting away at the enemy tanks with double amount of dices for moving half speed....

The Grenadiers runs forward with their meltaguns at the ready but fails to hit these xeno gravtanks, it must be some kind of cloaking technology thats clouds their sights.

The Grenadiers and their Centaur are unfortinutly short lived and are cut down in a hail of shurikens...

 One of the enemy lighter skimmers are taken out but these proven to be rather resilient.

The Atlas moves up making field repairs with enemy bullets flying around....
 

The combined fire of my Leman Russes and Basilisks are starting to inflict heavy damage on enemy gravtanks... But its not enought to take them out and clear a path for me to advance on.

The Hydra is chasing after the fast skimmers but cannot take them all out.

The Leman Russes has taken a lot of beating and are in really bad shape. The crew of the Atlas are working as fast as they can patching up damages and reinforcing weaknesses in the armour but thats not nearly enough. Things starts to look grim indeed...

The Basilisks moves up, I needed something to make a pressure on the enemy but the Leman Russes was in no shape to do this...
 

One enemy skimmer tank is taken out.

But it cost me another Leman Russ...

In the end the Xenos ambush had stopped the Spearhead formation in its tracks and the troops under
Tank Commander Janusch Blitzen had taken a beating.
But all is not lost, Janusch had lost most of his Leman Russes but he still had Wigher Schiller with all of his Basilisks intact, an Hydra, an Atlas and his own tank was operational, in bad shape but still operational.
Could he just link up with other troops in the vicinity he would still have a force to reckon with.


The Xenos had not made an perfect ambush and the kill numbers had totalled up on their side. It had been far more costly then the Aeldar farseers had anticipated. 
They were not strong enough to take all of the humans out with the force at hand, and reinforcements were needed to be able to finish of such an job.

Tank Commander Janusch Blitzen was last seen being towed away in safety for field repairs...