Kampfgruppe Engel: Avarii XI, part 4 Horus Heresy 30k

Sunday 4 November 2018

Avarii XI, part 4 Horus Heresy 30k

This is part 4 of my Avarii XI, Horus Heresy event experience.

My Solar Auxilia would be facing Thousand Sons and Magnus the Red.
I have never played against Thousand Sons or Magnus, rarely even against more then a single psycher. This could be interesting.

I had won the roll to set up first and bunkered down in a corner, trying to deploy my heavy hitters to get a nice field of view for any enemy forces and combatants.

My opponent was of an different tactical view and instead opted to have much of his forces in reserve in a sort of late-game objective grabbing.

Thousand Sons forces starts to deploy in the cover of darkness. Using night-fight rules the first turn should give my opponent greater survivability.

As my opponent held so much in reserve and what he had on the table was rather heavy hitters I was a little reluctant to advance with my squishy troops before my big guns had started to work on the enemy.
So just some minor adjustments of the lines, except for my unit of Thallaxes that advanced up the middle of the board.
In the first round of shooting I managed to damage the legs of a psychic dreadnought (whatever they are called...) but that was all my gunline army could manage. I tossed loads of fire on the Leviathan but he just shrugged it of like nothing.
I had managed to chip of a hullpoint on the Spartan with my barrage firing Medusas, hitting the side armour but nothing important.
So not an impressive start, I would need to do a lot better if I would be able to stop the enemy before he hits my lines.

Enemy Spartan rumbles forward, this one is filled with Magnus, a unit of special Terminators and some kind of apothecary.

One dreadnought had its leg damaged but the big guy had no problem walking... I landed shot after shot on him but he just continues forward...

Magnus deploys from his Spartan and start throwing magic around, his Terminators sits tight in the Spartan fearing my pie plates with good reasons.

Later on with Magnus on the loose, all I felt I could do was full speed backwards.
I had managed to take out the Spartan and forced the Terminators out. When out, my Super Heavy Siege Tank swings around the street corner and splatters the squad in the combination with a Dracosan and Medusas...
When dust settles the area was cleared of terminators...

I had managed to immobilised the Leviathan finally stopping the beast advance, and blown up a Rhino.
Enemy flyer loaded up with infantry kitted for close combat inbound.
Troopmaster Natalia Kolochev ordered what was left of her squad to form a line and take what was coming my way as all other just backed away and was glad they did not belong to her squad...

Dismounted enemy troops tries to find cover behind a large wall.

Enemy Storm Eagle starts to descend and releases its cargo.

Thousand sons marines with two power swords deploys and the powers of the warp easily distort the reality giving them "Iron Arm"s, transmuting the warriors to living metal.

This... this was a really powerful magic... especially for 1 warp charge.
With Toughness 7 I could do little with my S3 lasrifles in defensive fire.
Then in combat the unit had over 50 attacks hitting on +3 with reroll and wounding on 2+... Yeah... Natalia Kolochev and her soldiers did not even had time to react...

Luckely for me, my Malcador Infernus was packing chemical ammunition so the Toughness of the enemy matters little... And the whole area was covered in chemicals, and rolling really good none of the enemies survived.
Troopmaster Natalia Kolochev had made a brave last stand, holding the enemy just long enough for the Malcador Infernus to react and not giving the enemy time to spread out.

On the other side I could do little to stop Magnus so all I tried was to just move troops in his way, hindering him from advancing any more as I secured objectives with my troops and tried to take out his.

In the end I think it was a minor victory for the Solar Auxilia. I managed to take out a lot with my heavy guns but Magnus and his Storm Eagle born troops did some damage in return.

I think he got a little afraid of all my big pie plates and wanted to soften up my force with dreadnoughts, a spartan full of special psychic terminators and of course Magnus the Red him self before striking with his then fresh reserves.
But on the opposite side I got really afraid about his heavy hitters and all the reserves that I did not know where they would enter, this made me play to defensibly then would have been optimal.
I think things could had looked a lot different if my opponent instead had tried to rushed my lines.
But then again my Dracosans and other big gun tanks would have had better targets to shoot at so...

Here under is some other pictures from the other 30k players table.