Fateful engagement
Overlord Scurrio and his Ninth Combat battalion were destroyed by marauding alien wolf marines making an incursion in the Frezzastian System. Holding two objectives with two squads of warriors, the forward group well dug in to ruins and led by a cryptek, Scurrio stayed centrally behind in reserve with a third team.
He made the first of several fatal errors before even engaging, failing to bring any heavy support confident in the firepower of three heavy destroyers when a doomsday ark would have been a better choice. His next mistake was to split his six aconthrites which he used to secure his right, from the three wraiths with whip coils that he used to hold the left.
The Imperial force had two transports loaded with assault troops which they deployed against the centre and our left. A huge walker hung back with a team of troops holding an objective, plus a battery of missile troops. On the right a lone wolf accompanied by a pair of wolves led the attack as the enemy seized the initiative and advanced their pair of transports under a barrage hampered slightly by the darkness.
Despite this, our warrior squads took their first losses and two heavy destroyers were wiped out without firing a shot, causing the third to retreat on a day when Scurrio’s forces displayed poor morale time after time.
Our wraiths switched to the right assaulting the advancing lone wolf and the aconthrites would move in subsequently to assist, but one wraith had already fallen to a pair of lucky shots before engaging, and the lone wolf proved highly resilient through the wolves quickly fell.
On the left the enemy transport with a rune priest aboard was engaging our centre and jaws of the werewolf destroyed Scurrio himself. His unit also broke and fled before rallying. The central transport disembarked its troops and they were cut down and destroyed by our troops, the transport pulled up alongside the central objective where it was wrecked by the cryptek’s voltaic staff.
The left hand transport disembarked its passengers under fire, taking a couple of glancing hits from our troops and the last destroyer, but we continued to have losses from the long range barrage picking off odd warriors.
The wolf on the right finally fell leaving our wraiths and aconthrites to regroup: They had a choice, to advance against the three reserve enemy units holding one objective, or to retreat to defend the two objectives we still held that were being threatened by the enemy HQ. Our warriors by now were down by 50% of their original strength. They opted to fall back and assault the enemy HQ, by now they were down to one wraith and three aconthrites as the jaws of the werewolf struck again.
Several marines fell as the assault went in to the assault and melta fire, but the enemy was too strong and destroyed the attack. By now the last destroyer had gone too, and lightning claws and further bombardment finished off our central warrior groups leaving just our rearmost warrior squad holding one objective.
This fell under further barrage as the engagement ran its full course, a final ignominious morale failure removing our last chance of rallying. A pathetic display of poor tactics inaccurate shooting and cowardice of the highest order. Three and a half enemy units destroyed and first blood no consolation. A 990 point force wiped out.
2.2.13
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