Chaotic Wolves

Chaotic Wolves

Saturday at Palladium VI*and Space Wolves and chaos forces including traitor guard, two Bane Blades and a Titan, had determined to destroy our 1739th Brigade, presently replenishing its WD40 stocks at the major refinery base on the planet’s smaller continent. The Space Wolves were around 3000 strong but the combined chaos daemon, marine and traitor guard were reputedly at 25,361 according to intelligence intercepts.

*Older readers will appreciate that Bruce Forsyth was due to arrive that evening

Warmaster Ghalerjaf had a mere 15,385 at his disposal and in desperation* had negotiated with Dark Eldar Asdrubel Vect** for assistance which would take the form of a 4,000 strong force of the Dark ones.

*You might say come the apocalypse
**Who was to tragically fall during the battle

The enemy were seeking six objectives: In the west a wrecked vindicator containing an unspecified but doubtless valuable cargo. To the south and east, ammo dumps, to the north east a heavy weapon installation on a fortress. Centre south a strategic command centre and to the north a skypad.

It was a hectic encounter with limited time and in the fog of war all sides made mistakes. As usual, the Dark Eldar failed to deploy initially, but their shimmering webways sprang up as the enemy approached. The alien forces had divided with the wolves of the corpse emperor attacking from the west and the forces of chaos from the east.

Protecting the western objective: A unit of tesla carbine armed immortals and a small squad of lychguard with war scythes. The North had a squad of gauss blaster armed immortals with four wraiths, to the south nine pariahs and a tomb stalker swarmed around the third objective.

The north eastern fortress had a squad of warriors on its battlements and the eastern objective was also held by warriors. The command centre was held by a full squad of lychguard with particle casters and dispersion shields, plus a cryptek.

On the eastern flank Nemesor Zahndrekh led twenty flayed ones behind the eastern objective, ahead of him, two ghost arks the NNV Relentless Advance and NNV Veiled Threat, both packed with warriors were flanked by six tomb blades. Two more squads of warriors were to the south east occupying two ruins there.

To the west were two more squads of immortals. A C’Tan started centre west and a sentry pylon was mounted on the southern end of the fortress. Another was in the south western quadrant of the field. A Tesseract ark, the NNV Decisive Engagement was centre west and behind it facing east, the huge form of the Tesseract Vault the NNV Impregnable.

To the North West, the NNV Cannonade, a Doomsday ark covered that sector whilst to the North East, to the west of the fortress was the Annihilation Barge NNV Aroused Fury with a tomb spyder and five scarabs. To the south east, another barge, the NNV Punisher and in ruins North West of the centre, a Transcendent C’Tan lurked.

Covering the immortals around the wrecked vindicator to the west, a Triarch stalker with heavy gauss cannon and behind the ghost arks to the east was a second tomb spyder. The third and final tomb spyder was behind the Decisive Engagement.

Thirty six units deployed of a planned deployment of thirty seven, one unit of wraiths failing to appear on schedule. A total of 7074 awaited the attack, less than 6% of these initial forces would survive the battle. In a further setback, chaos machinations in the warp prevented nine deathmarks from entering reserve. Thirty nine units remained in reserve instead of the forty planned.

The action was confused and proceeded at great pace so this account is sketchy at best, however, it opened with the Chaos battle cruiser Decadence opening up a barrage. Although it was in high orbit at the initial stage of the battle its opening barrage still inflicted terrible losses including our warriors holding the eastern objective.

The Heavy Monitor NNV Pre-emptive Strike retaliated with a bombardment of our own and the first enemy casualties were caused. The western wolves had a landraider north and south of their formation with an aegis defence line to the north. There was wolf cavalry and long fangs, mainly concentrated in the north focussed on the western objective no doubt. There were also Rhinos to the north, already popping smoke in cowardly imperial fashion.

To the east the titan bestrode the centre shrouded in its multi layered void shielding. A Baneblade was on both sides with lots of armour including a hydra flak tank to its right, Vindicators away to the far right and a chaos defiler, an early victim of the bombardment.

Traitor guard formations enhanced by psychic defences were in force to the titan’s left with heavy gun batteries and an aegis defence line also to the south of the formation. Abbadon and a formidable panoply of chaos heroes were at the rear to the north. There were transports and many walkers plus a Chaos Imperial knight Walker.*

*Cheating Chaos

The enemy advanced their super heavies, inflicting early heavy damage on the Impregnable but failing to destroy it. Our tomb blades were all destroyed protecting the Ghost Arks but the Relentless Advance eventually fell to a Blood Slaughterer. The wolf cavalry wiped out our immortals holding the western objective and most of the lychguard, both our sentry pylons were knocked out by the Hydra and a Predator and the long fangs wrecked the Cannonade.

The Punisher was badly damaged to the south but survived for the moment but the Triarch stalker did not fare so well, exploding under fire from the northern wolf landraider. Our counter fire thinned the enemy ranks here and there but we had suffered casualties across the field, however, at the end of the first exchanges we still held four objectives, the enemy having driven our warriors away from the collapsing northern third of the fortress and swarmed around the vindicator wreck to the east.

Further bombardment took place and now both sides’ orbital support had reached optimum range and the incoming fire was entirely destroyer strength. The traitor guard attacking to the south east destroyed our two warrior squads there including the survivors of the Relentless Advance and the south western immortals were destroyed by wolves disembarking their landraider. The Veiled threat was destroyed too, its survivors pinned down by enemy fire.

More jump infantry wiped out the lychguard to take the centre south objective with minimal losses and the enemy super heavy walker wrecked the Aroused Fury. The Impregnable now exploded under heavy fire from an enemy Thunderhawk that arrived from the west and the two of our tomb spyders fell. To the south west, the damaged Punisher was finished off.

Our pariahs took heavy losses as the wolves brought on their flyers against the southern objective and the tomb stalker and both squads of scarabs were killed. All this despite a shield generator protecting several of our western units from shooting attack and a smokescreen protecting the centre from the east.

Meanwhile our flayed ones were still being whittled way and we had lost wraiths too. The Night Shrouds NNV Leading Edge and NNV Unbreakable both made bombing runs against chaos but unbelievably both missed. The Doom Scythes NNV Empire builder, NNV High Explosive and NNV Directed Malice made attack runs against Abbadon and his unit but the first two were forced to jink disrupting their death rays and damage was minimal as a result.

The Night Scythe NNV Dashing Blade dropped the Warmaster and his royal court close to chaos reinforcements in the east, the NNV Star Sovereign dropped Overlord Maxillia and his deathmarks close by with the NNV Perfection dropping crypteks and deathmarks also in the north eastern area. The Night Scythe NNV Intense Focus dropped more deathmarks close to the southern Space wolves where their fire was quite ineffectual against the imperial troops. They would be easily destroyed by the counter attack to come.

The other deathmarks did much better however inflicting reasonable losses on the enemy chaos marines. A C’Tan appeared to the rear of Abbadon’s unit by deep strike and across the field more deep strikes took place: Three units of aconthrites dropped close to enemy armour, two to the north east and one to the south east. Only the latter was successful in destroying its target however despite delivering point blank melta attacks.

A third sentry pylon, this one equipped with a heat ray dropped centrally to the east and a destroyer lord and ten destroyers dropped around the wolves to the south west. Six heavy destroyers dropped behind the enemy super heavy walker. Unfortunately the planned additional deathmark attacks that should have gone forward at this point had been thwarted, but worse, the scheduled insertion of the Monoliths NNV Destructor, NNV Exceptional and NNV Goliath, plus the Obelisk NNV Unwavering failed to take place as planned. The third C’Tan was also forced to delay its arrival.

The transcendent C’Tan was now destroyed in assault the explosion taking out our lychguard, the Decisive Engagement and some nearby destroyers. All our destroyer attacks were less successful than hoped and our wraiths assaulted the Imperial Knight and came off second best though it was dangerously low on hull points now. Our orbital attack had destroyed the southern Baneblade though the Thunderhawk, Titan and second Baneblade had little damage to show for our joint efforts.

Speaking of joint efforts, the Dark Eldar had been arriving throughout and engaging across the field with their Tantalus, Viper, Raiders and Ravagers. They mainly concentrated on the wolves especially in the NW sector. Payne engines and troops were doing good work but we had little time to even consider their actions as we struggled for our very existence against the overwhelming enemy numbers.

The battlefield to the east was thick with troops and the smoke from burning enemy tanks including their Baneblade, hydra and others. Nemesor Zahndrekh cut down an enemy walker with overwatch though the flayed ones were down to a handful.

At the end of the second turn’s action the enemy held the western and eastern objectives plus the centre south. We held the other three so a draw, but we had lost two super heavies to the enemy’s one, so whilst the first turn had scored four – two, we had lost this one seven – eight.

Time was running out and another orbital bombardment took place, destroying our transcendent C’Tan that had survived the Vault’s destruction and the second Baneblade, The flayed ones were finished but Zahndrekh escaped uninjured. Friendly fire also took out our sentry pylon. The western C’Tan was now destroyed by the wolves and the few remaining pariahs were wiped out by enemy fire as the storm fang nosed up against the southern objective.

The enemy had deep struck with countless daemon units across the field and used its powers now to prevent our north eastern units opening fire and forcing them to assault their nearest opponents this turn. We had lost the Perfection’s deathmarks to the orbital bombardment plus their two crypteks, and now a basilisk shot down the Perfection itself. Enemy storm ravens, both damaged by our fliers resisted damage from our orbital bombardment and would survive with just one point left.

We had already lost the two Night Shrouds and the Doom Scythe Directed Malice, and now the High Explosive became our fifth flyer to go down. Our final wave of reserves: Twelve units total strength 2400. Our monoliths and the Unwavering now deep struck, but only the Unwavering was successful on a very crowded battlefield. The Destructor ended up atop the very pinnacle of the fortress whilst the Goliath was destroyed. The Exceptional aborted and returned to reserve.

With an enemy drop pod holding the eastern objective we targeted it with our final Triarch stalker and two squads of Praetorians whilst Zahndrekh took possession of the objective. The pod was destroyed easily, and our Dark Eldar allies re took the western objective. Our south eastern warriors had fallen to assault but now we brought two more units up from the south which destroyed the wolf land raider. We also brought on the Annihilation Barges NNV Unsleeping Sword and NNV Coiled Fury, which shot down the wolf transport, unfortunately dropping its marines onto the objective.

We had five destroyers still in the area but only two marines fell to their attack. Our other destroyers took out a pair of marines holding the south central objective but it wasn’t enough to take possession. The last C’Tan moved on to reinforce the North East sector but would play little part.

The enemy had moved to seize the skypad with more wolves, and our immortals and wraiths failed to drive them off or destroy them and we lost the wraiths. Our tomb spyder and last wraith failed to destroy the Knight and the spyder was destroyed after failing its smash attack, but our North Eastern warriors did have that objective again.

Our destroyer lord’s tachyon arrow took out a wolf rhino and time ran out before our forced assaults could take place in the NE sector. With us holding East, West and North East and contesting South and North, it looked good for us, but the wolf units contesting both had objective secured skills and so it was a draw again, three all on objectives, unusually all the objectives that we held had been lost and retaken. Both sides had lost a super heavy so ten all the score that turn for a total result of 21- 20.

We had lost almost 56% of our force, rallied strength was 6781. 41 complete units had been destroyed, 24 of the surviving 34 were unscathed. Survivors were: Nemesor Zahndrekh and both Overlords; All five Lords; Five of ten crypteks; The destroyer lord; 28 of 80 warriors; Seven of 40 immortals; Two of three C’Tans; One of eight wraiths; Two of Four annihilation barges; One of two Triarch stalkers; Eight of 26 deathmarks; One of three Doom Scythes; three of four Night scythes; Two of three Monoliths; All nine Aconthrites; Seven of ten destroyers; All six Heavy Destroyers; The Obelisk; All 15 Triarch Praetorians.

Enemy and Dark Eldar losses are unknown but the titan still had void shields and the Thunderhawk had taken only light damage. Some estimates put Chaos losses around 30%, it is believed that not all chaos reserves committed so the true enemy strength is difficult to gauge, best estimate 27,000 with perhaps 8,000 + casualties. The Dark Eldar had suffered terribly; their losses are thought to have been about 85%.

There were at least four squads of wolves left, all largely if not fully intact plus a rhino, the Knight was badly damaged but intact and there were two storm ravens, both badly damaged and the wolf gunship. We had destroyed several wolf vehicles but the main damage done to them was inflicted by our Dark Eldar (temporary) brethren. Perhaps two thirds of the Imperial renegade wolves who chose to fight with chaos fell in the action.

Daemon forces remained in strength and largely untouched and even the traitor guard had some resources left. Abbadon’s unit and characters had suffered a few losses and he had even suffered at least one wound and there were a fair number of lesser armoured vehicles and walkers/ dreadnaughts still intact. From committed forces of perhaps 19,000 v 27,000 total survivors amounted to something like 7,500 v 18,000.


23.8.14