Bloody Angels
Overlord Tylamekh led a battalion against Imperial forces on Sephren Minor. He accompanied a unit of deathmarks and a cryptek aboard the Night Scythe NNV Stellar Conquest with a similar force aboard the NNV Killing Blow.
On the ground, he had five destroyers spread across a broad front with heavy destroyers to the rear on each flank. Four tomb blades were also scattered across the front together with four wraiths with whip coils. In all 15 fast attack units. Centre left, the Annihilation Barge NNV Aggressor was his only available heavy support. His force strength was 1495.
The Angels had two squads of marines facing our right, an honour guard protecting their warlord and two units of sanguinary guards. Two storm ravens were inbound from low orbit.
The human (ish) forces hung back initially, one marine was cut down by a heavy destroyer then they charged as their gunships arrived. There was no early score as our wraiths failed to take the correct objective in the centre. The gunships destroyed three tomb blades that had advanced on the left and hit the Aggressor once whose shields held.
Our Night Scythes arrived at speed and engaged the enemy fliers damaging both, the left hand one was hit seriously by the Killing Blow, the centre one less seriously by the Stellar Conquest but it did lose a weapon system. Both scythes were damaged by the Ravens in turn but not seriously. A destroyer in the centre was lost however.
Our destroyer trio on the right took out more marines and our scythes dropped their troops to engage the enemy. Three wraiths attempted to assault the marines but only one succeeded. Our deathmarks on the left now wiped out the enemy HQ unit assisted by the Aggressor and destroyer fire. On the right the unit dropped behind the marines took out two thirds of their targets. Both Night Scythes destroyed the enemy storm ravens now wit their trusty destructors.
Sanguinary guard now attacked our deathmarks destroying them and our warlord whilst our lone wraith fell to the enemy marines. Our last tomb blade was knocked out by overwatch fire as it assaulted marines and the survivors of the right hand marines destroyed another wraith as they advanced towards our centre and the objective in the ruins there. Others now assaulted our central heavy destroyer where they became deadlocked for some time.
We had been scoring well – six points for outgunning the Imperials on objectives by 2-1 and killing three characters, a sergeant, priest and the warlord. We had also lost our warlord too and the Angels had drawn first blood. We had also scored on hidden objectives and multiple scores for objectives held.
Our fliers continued to circle the field with the Killing blow turning anti clockwise and the Stellar Conquest clockwise. The Killing Blow was shot at by a priest with a melta weapon as the enemy tried to achieve a tactical objective but he missed. Our deathmarks were assaulted by sanguinary guard and broke and fled, after losing heavily including their cryptek, but they rallied swiftly and joined in the attack which destroyed the marines holding the objective in the circular ruins.
The sanguinary guard finished off the deathmarks with little effort but the Imperials were now down a handful of hardy survivors. The Aggressor continued her series of high speed manoeuvres to claim a final objective despite dangerous terrain.
The Killing Blow killed the isolated priest in the centre and our last heavy destroyer took a final objective. Our last wraith and the Stellar Conquest almost wiped out the forward sanguinary guard at the end of turn seven. But he was one of only four marines left to the imperials. Two other guards and a priest held the westernmost objective at the end. They had suffered 85% casualties.
We had lost almost three quarters of our forces including 16 complete units. Our survivors totalled 395; one wraith, the Aggressor, the Killing Blow and Stellar Conquest, both slightly damaged and one heavy destroyer. The final objective score: 21 – 19 in our favour. We had scored for holding our own ground and done well when multiple points were on offer, not even having to use our warlord trait that potentially benefited that area, and vitally had out scored the Angels when they scored their multiple victory point objectives.
Score
Turn Cumulative
1 0-0 0-0
2 1-1 1-1
3 6-3 7-4
4 5-1 12-5
5 4-3 16-8
6 2-5 18-13
7 3-6 21- 19
16.8.14
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