Vaminar Apocalypse

Vaminar Apocalypse


Apocalypse of 24.5.14

Overlord Kl’ Tek led an attack against the Imperial and Dark Eldar Forces who had had the impudence to lodge on Vaminar VI. He gave them more than five days notice to evacuate, but the foolish alliance ignored the warnings.

His force was led by the Tesseract Vault NNV Ultimate Solution in the centre, he also has a Transcendent C’Tan on the left and the Obelisk NNV Cyclonic Force on one of the river bridges towards the right of his position.

He personally led two squads of Triarch Praetorians supported by a stalker mounting a heat ray centre left. He also had monstrous assistance from a Tomb Stalker, a C’Tan and three whip coil equipped wraiths. His chief lieutenant Destroyer Lord Florashkhi headed nine destroyers, six of them heavy, these lurked centre right behind our ammo store.

Adding their heavy support, the Annihilation Barges NNV Armoured Fist and NNV Honourable Sacrifice, both fitted with Gauss cannon and watching the right flank over the bridge. Anchoring the position, one on the left and one on the banks of the central river, two sentry pylons scanned the skies for enemy fliers.

In reserve, a trio of Night Scythes, the NNV Excellent and NNV Wings of Wrath, both bearing deathmarks and a pair of crypteks, and the NNV Graceful Flier, empty but equipped to enable operation of the translocator hypertunnel transportation system.

He also had bomber support including the Night Shroud NNV Surgical Strike and the triple threat of Doom Scythes NNV Utter Destruction, NNV Escalation and NNV Glorious Destiny. Underground, three tomb spyders supported by three scarab swarms were ready to spring a surprise on the interlopers. His total strength was 5997.

The attack opened with bombers softening up the Blood Angel assault marine squads facing our centre and right causing casualties in three of the squads including the deepest one holding an objective. The Baneblade, central to the enemy defences was slightly damaged.

Another squad occupying a tall ruin were unharmed, as were the three terminator squads that formed the Blood Angel’s right flank. Three vindicators backing up the Baneblade escaped our attentions. Of the Dark Eldar there was no sign other than three webway portals that opened behind our left and centre.

Our attack opened with reinforcements arriving in the skies, the Doom Scythes arriving on the left joining the attack led by our Triarch Stalker on the terminators. The Transcendant C’Tan did a lot of damage there with its wave of withering. Supported by our left hand sentry pylon the central squad was destroyed except for its priest and the other two squads took around 50% casualties.

The transports arrived and engaged causing casualties amongst a fourth terminator squad cowering in trenches near the centre of the enemy formation. The initiated a Transdimensional tunnel sending our tomb stalker deep into enemy territory between the deepest objective and the vindicators.

Massed destroyer weapon fire from the Ultimate Solution and heavy destroyers now destroyed the BaneBlade which exploded, further depleting nearby marine squads. Our C’Tan advanced and reduced one squad to just three but failed to assault. More marines fell to our destroyer fire as our destroyers took advantage of our ammo store.

The Obelisk was out of range but edged closer to face the marine advance whilst our annihilation Barges also manoeuvred expecting a dark Eldar threat against our right hand objective from the open ground east of the city ruins. Our wraiths assaulted the right hand squad of terminators, but were destroyed by their heavy thunderhammers.
The Surgical Strike also arrived, flying up the river toward the enemy. Kl’ Tek meanwhile had forgotten to call in his orbital support to further spread mayhem.

The enemy responded by calling in Dark Eldar reserves, however, our disruptor beacon successfully relocated the first webway well off to the east and a fleet of raiders, ravagers and a tantalus found themselves far distant from the action instead of directly behind us. A Razorwing also appeared, resisting the first of several hits from the Cyclonic Force as it did so.

The Razorwing engaged the Honourable Sacrifice with no result but the enemy vindicators destroyed the tomb stalker. The depleted assault marines took out some destroyers and the three survivors of the smallest group assaulted the Ultimate Solution but failed to damage it in a melta bomb attack.

Other marines with a sapper advanced to the northern most bridge over the river aiming to blow it up. Over on the left, the left hand terminators, joined by the priest, sole survivor of the central squad were locked in assault with our transcendent C Tan and were doing better than we would like.

Having destroyed our wraiths the now central terminators engaged and assaulted our Praetorians, destroying the squad of eight armed with void blades and particle casters, and felling Kl’ Tek who reanimated. The right hand terminators attempted to deal with our C’Tan but failed to assault.

Now atmospheric conditions deteriorated with magma storms sweeping the field and casualties began to be suffered by both sides as weapons got hot. The assault continued on the left with the terminators and Transcendent C’Tan still pounding each other, Kl’ Tek and the Doom Scythes engaged the terminators in the centre causing a few casualties but not enough because of poor death ray co ordination.

Although two night scythes had been damaged, the Excellent now landed her deathmarks close to the right hand terminator squad which was wiped out, the Wings of Wrath sent her deathmarks against the right hand assault marines almost destroying them with destroyer assistance.

Our tomb spyders now erupted from underground in the centre of the enemy rear, collapsing their ammo store and the ruins containing a full squad of assault marines. Two units of scarabs and two spyders deep struck successfully into the pall of dust created by the quake, a third scarab squad misshaped and remained in reserve and the third spyder emerged well off to the east near the approaching Dark Eldar fleet.

The Ultimate Solution destroyed its attackers but the Surgical Strike and Cyclonic Force were largely ineffective, whilst the two annihilation barges remained out of range of the enemy right. Now the enemy deep struck with two squads of sanguinary guard arriving behind our centre and left, the latter led by Dante himself.

From the western webway portal poured Dark Eldar beasts, wychs, jet bikes, half a dozen Hellions, a viper and a large number of scourge descended on the far left. Two storm eagles appeared to the rear centre. Interceptor fire took out several sanguinary guard but the left hand unit destroyed our Triarch stalker and the right hand one was able to destroy the Ultimate Solution which exploded.

The left hand terminators and transcendent C’Tan now destroyed each other and the central terminators killed Kl’ Tek in his finest hour. The Dark Eldar knocked out our western sentry pylon and their superior ranged weaponry exploded both the Honourable Sacrifice and Armoured Fist. The viper was wrecked though as its weapons got hot.

The enemy assault marines now took our ammo store finishing off our destroyers there; the vindicators had destroyed our deathmarks on the right and the sapper set his charges successfully on the bridge. The Dark Eldar Fleet easily destroyed our stranded spyder.

We brought on a replacement Transcendent C’Tan which almost finished Dante and his squad with its Transliminal stride. The surgical Strike missed with its bombing run against the few marine survivors of the sapper squad, but its destructor systems finished the job, the C’Tan destroyed the enemy unit holding their rear objective.

Dante fired up a shield generator to protect himself out new transcendent C’Tan wiped out a squad of wychs, nearly all the scourge and three quarters of the dark Eldar jetbikes. A lone marine survivor was left holding the ammo store objective after our Transcendent C’Tan that had survived the destruction of the Ultimate Solution attacked. It also wiped out the sanguinary guard that had destroyed the Vault.

Our flyers generally engaged the enemy Storm Eagles but whilst both were destroyed, the Graceful Flyer was destroyed as its weapons got hot. The Utter Destruction was shot down and the Wings of Wrath had lost weapons. Our Triarch praetorian survivors armed with rods of covenant had fallen back to their objective and our two spyders and scarabs assaulted the trio of vindicators, destroying two and immobilising the third. The last squad of scarabs arrived on the east end of the southern bridge.

Now the northern bridge blew and Dante destroyed our Transcendent C’Tan, the last two jet bikes killed the C’Tan taking the objective back. A replacement Baneblade arrived but did little whilst the enemy Razorwing took the southern bridge but was destroyed as its weapons got hot firing on the Ultimate Solution’s C’Tan. The wychs finished our praetorians just before taking heavy losses to the C’Tanic explosion which also destroyed the Hellions. The scarabs holding the bridge were also destroyed.

The battle broke off; the majority of the Dark Eldar forces had not even engaged though some of the two raiders and two ravagers had taken damage largely thanks to gets hot issues. The Tantalus had also survived and held the right hand objective. Of the forces that had engaged, two jet bikes, one scourge and a few wychs remained, plus the majority of the beast squad enough though to hold two more objectives. They had lost their Viper, Razorwing, a complete squad of wychs, with their Kabal warriors and HQ not even engaged Dark Eldar losses are estimated at 25%.

The Blood Angels had lost all four of their terminator squads, both Storm Eagles, all but one marine from five assault marine squads, two vindicators and a baneblade with a third Vindicator immobilised, they had also lost both squads of sanguinary guard, though Dante survived, wounded despite his cowardly use of a shield generator. Marine losses were estimated at 90%, but they still held one objective and had achieved three more victory points through destruction of the bridge by the sapper (who also survived).

With five more points awarded for killing our warmaster and super heavies, plus stopping our finest hour, plus points for holding objectives throughout, less one for replacement making the final allied score 19.

We had lost completely the Ultimate Solution, 2 transcendent C’Tans including the replacement, the Graceful Flyer, one Deathmark squad with its two crypteks, Kl’ Tek and Florashkhi, all three destroyer squads, both units of Triarch Praetorians and their Stalker, one tomb spyder and one squad of scarabs, all three wraiths, the Armoured Fist, Honourable Sacrifice and Utter Destruction, plus one of the pair of Sentry Pylons.

Our rallied strength was 2448 a loss rate of close to 60%: A Transcendent C’Tan, The Cyclonic Force, the Excellent and Wings of Wrath, seven deathmarks, two crypteks, nine scarabs, the Surgical Strike, Escalation and Glorious Destiny, one sentry pylon and two tomb spyders. Nearly all of these were damaged or had lost wounds however.

We held only one objective at the end plus three points for preserving the southern bridge. During the engagement we had gained a further point for destroying the Baneblade and accumulated 10 points for holding objectives less one for replacement making 14 points. A decisive defeat therefore with poor positional play by us a major factor.

25.5.14