Kampfgruppe Engel: July 2018

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:

And here is my other blog post from this event:

Army on parade:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/07/ajax-campaing-horus-heresy-army-on.html

Game 1:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/07/ajax-horus-heresy-event-game-1-aar.html

Game 2:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/07/ajax-horus-heresy-event-game-2-aar.html

Game 3:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/08/ajax-horus-heresy-event-game-3-aar.html

Game 4:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/08/ajax-horus-heresy-event-game-4-aar.html

Game 5:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2018/08/ajax-horus-heresy-event-game-5-aar.html

Monday, 23 July 2018

Ajax - Horus Heresy event game 1 AAR

Here follows a short after action report from the first game I had at Ajax, an Horus Heresy event that was held at Alvesta Sweden.

The venue was really nice and worked great for us. Before the first game each player was awarded a number of special reroll dices that could be used each game. The softer the list more reroll dices was awarded and and the hardest list was awarded less. This was an attempt to give players with funnier, themeier list a better chance against the harshest lists.

My first game would be against Alex, he was visiting Sweden and had borrowed my friend Tobias Space Wolfe army for this event.

We were both a bit rusty about the rules in the beginning but picked up speed into the game.

I was a little afraid of all his numbers and the fact that he was much better then me in close combat.
I chose the Counter attack as my Alpha Legion special rule as I thought that combat would be unavoidable.

As he had a close combat orientated army with lots of foots on the ground my plan was to hold back and wait until my reinforcements would arrived and hopefully strike at an week angle.

We would be playing on table 13

The scenario had a special rule that a dice roll of a 1 at the start of each players turn any unoccupied area terrain would be inhabited by a swamp monster...
So I tried to place a unit in my deployment zone in all the terrain pieces that I didnt want any monsters to appear in.
But left a piece where I hoped a monster would appear to charge the flank of my enemy if they charged my centre (seen just behind the bikes on the picture here under). That was the plan atleast... Im not sure I had informed the monster about that plan though...

Here under follows the after action report from the first game, all is of course seen from the Alpha Legions point of view and is more then probably wrongly remembered...

From the back to front we can see an Rhino with a unit of Marines inside, a unit of Recon Marines with cameleoline and sniper rifles behind a Land Raider Proteus with a unit of Seekers and my Preator inside.
In front of that we have my Damocles Command Rhino and a unit of Recon Marines with shotguns.

Alpha Legion Recon marines with shotguns had taken up defensive position in the ruined swamp.
Behind them a Damocles Command Rhino, it would later in the game wreck massive havocs with its ability to call in Focused Bombardment on those large Space Wolf units...

A small unit of Recon marines in scout armour had infiltrated their way up and laid in wait in the forest ready to harass the enemy flank.

The enemy Dreadnought would have none of it and charged into the forest.

At the end of the combat a lone Alpha Legion sergeant was all that was left, good thing the unit had been equipped with melta bombs...

Recon Sergeant 126.545 codename "Alpharius" had infiltrated the enemy position and used their scouting abilities to sneak upon the Space Wolves. They had found a patch of swampy ground covered by some trees for their ambush point. And watched as a Land Raider Spartan rumbled forward, that would be a juicy target for their meltabombs. Besides it an Contemptor Dreadnought also an target for their action.
But the Contemptor saw their movement some how and was spotted, it charged forward gunning some of recon sergeant 126.545s men down as it intended to finish it of with its power fist.
The recon marines were being shredded but finally the sergeant found a week spot and planted the bomb and the Dreadnought were no more.
Recon Sergeant 126.545 was the only survivor but they had managed to take out an Contemptor.

Just behind the enemy Spartan a swamp monster can almost be seen. It had stripped down the Spartan to two hullpoints, including one of the quad lascannons on the sides...
Good thing that as I sure as hell couldnt scratch its front...

The Primarch Leman Russ dismounted from his Spartan with his Terminators and large wolves ready to assault...

They made short work of the Recon Marines in the ruins... Maybe not to surprising.. But I was more then happy with that as the shotgun volley that they met as they charged in actually managed to take down two of the Terminators... Fear the mighty shotgun...
And in the combat my Sergeant managed to acquitted himself more then enough but was killed by the terminators.
But as my whole unit was slew to a man, the Primarch, his wolves and the last of the Terminators was no longer locked in combat...

With both my Damocles Command Rhino and my Proteus Land Raider with Explorator array still on the table I had managed to call in my last reinforcements.

A quick redeployment of all my troops I had rearranged most of my army to strike at the enemy Primarch and his bodyguards.

A Fire Raptor gunship, heavy bolter from an Damocles, lascannons from a Land Raider, Sniper rounds, multimeltas and missiles from my Javelins, bolters from my regular marines, , combiplasmas from my seekers, a boltpistol from my Preator and finally a multimelta and bolter from their rhino...
In a massive encirclement of the mighty Primarch the Alpha Legion had tried to lure him into a position were he could be gunned down from all sides...
All his body guards fell as they tried to protect their Primarch.
And the massive Primarch was at last seen falling...
BUT... Alex used one of the reroll dices I talked about at the start of this post to reroll the last failed invulnerable save...
And the Primarch Leman Russ had survived, badly wounded on his last wound but he had survived.

Unfortunately we had to call it game here as time was running up. We deemed it a minor victory for the Alpha Legion. Had we just played one more turn I would have had him...

I had managed to use my bikes and a small recon unit as distraction and keep most of my enemy's army far behind as I engaged where I wanted the combat to take place. Alex had bad luck with a deep striking unit that ended up in the table corner long away from any action instead of behind my lines as he wanted.
The Swamp monsters had more or less been convinced by my diplomatic skills and did far more damage and hindrance on the enemy army then on mine.

The Space Wolf had been bogged down in the swamp and the communication base had been secured for the traitor forces to give an bonus in the campaign.

Here are some more pictures I took during this game on the other tables.

Sunday, 22 July 2018

Ajax campaing: Horus Heresy Army on Parades

I have been rather quiet on the blog but rest assured I have been painting...

Alot...

I havnt had time posting anything here as I was stressing to get a 3500pts Horus Heresy Alpha Legion Recon Company ready for Ajax, an event held in Alvesta Sweden.

More about the actual gaming event in an later post.
The Ajax event was held at 7-8 July 2018 http://dirtyk.se/events/ajax

Here is a photo dump of the 3500pts armies at the event.

First up is my Alpha Legions that I spent all to many late nights getting ready for the battles at Ajax. Lots of work and details still left but good enough to but on the table atleast.

This was the first time for me to actually see all my miniatures in daylight as I spent even the last night before the event painting...