Kampfgruppe Engel: 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.