Ancient Apocalypse
Long since buried and forgotten in Imperial records, an early contact with the Necrons lost in the confusion and dismay of the sundering of the Empire during the Horus Heresy. The Necrontyr do not forget however…
It was on Occulus in the Corellian sector that an armada of the rampaging Human marines attempting to relieve their illegal colony were confronted by Warmaster Ohgron and his Battle group.
Overlord Dylakrion led a Stormcaller war cell comprising nine whip coil equipped wraiths which occupied our right centre, Overlord Malacax led a Resurrection War Cell comprising thirty immortals centrally, twenty equipped with gauss blasters, ten with tesla carbines. Illuminor Szeras had enhanced one squad.*
*But the warmaster forgot this during the battle. D’oh!
Ohgron himself occupied an objective in our deployment zone escorted by a royal court of four lords and two crypteks. Orikan the Diviner and fifteen warriors were also on the right with the Ghost Ark the NNV Determined close behind and a second Ghost Ark, the NNV Crown Of Pride on the high ground that dominated the east of the battle ground, our right.
Seven Pariahs provided close support to Ohgron’s unit and on the left a Triarch Stalker and the Annihilation Barges NNV Avenging Whirlwind and NNV Arisen Splendour marked our western edge. On the northern edge of the eastern escarpment, Illuminor Szeras led five eldritch lance equipped crypteks and a lord.
Also on the high plateau, a C’ Tan shard and at the southern end, the Doomsday Ark NNV Queen of Darkness. On the highest point, a Sentry Pylon with a second deep behind our left centre. In the centre of the eastern high ground, the Tesseract Ark NNV Resurgent.
Our heaviest units were spaced across our lines with the Tesseract Vault NNV Unyielding centre left, a transcendent C’Tan holding an objective in the centre and the Obelisk NNV No Compromise more to the east.
Enemy units included a huge Shadow Sword in the centre and a Titan on our left. Thousand sons and raptors faced our right at the base of the cliffs and two large troop carriers faced our centre with a couple of rhinos lying deep behind them.
Two squads of troops in a trench system held the objective on our far left with space wolf cavalry centre left. A vindicator also firmed up their right flank whilst a squad including a tech priest lurked at the base of the titan. Another marine squad held another objective in their deployment zone to the North West.
An artillery piece occupied a third objective on our left and a heavy weapons team was forward on their extreme right together with another Land Raider heavy transport packed with chaos marines. Another tank occupied the ground between the enemy centre and their raptors and thousand sons.
We had the initiative and opened up on the enemy inflicting heavy losses on the thousand sons, mainly thanks to the crypteks and destroying the enemy armoured unit on their left courtesy of the Resurgent and a pylon, whilst the Avenging Whirlwind and Arisen Splendour with support from the stalker took down sons of Horus on their right and badly mauled the forward heavy weapons unit facing our left.
The wraiths and our immortals advanced and a tomb spyder summoned by Malacax deep struck on the left close to the enemy trench network. The night Shroud NNV Undoubted victory flew in and bombed the enemy super heavy tank which took a number of hits from various units including the transcendent C’Tan.
From the west the Doom Scythes NNV Supernova and NNV Decisive Strike wiped out large numbers of troops in the trench system with their death rays and tesla destructors, whilst a third, the NNV Measured Response destroyed a number of space wolves behind the enemy centre despite interceptor fire.
Our wraiths meanwhile made progress towards the raptors whilst the No Compromise kept the raptors’ heads down. Orikan and our warriors held station expecting enemy reserves to attack our rear.
Blood Angel gunships now appeared from the North West and shot down the Decisive Strike and the Land Raider on our extreme left eliminated the Avenging Whirlwind. A huge bastion dropped on Overlord Dylakrion killing him and three wraiths despite a potential defence against deep strikes possessed by that unit.*
*Forgetful warmaster again I’m afraid
The Unyielding was targeted by heavy weaponry and destroyed by the enemy super heavy weights; the No Compromise was struck by lightning and eliminated whilst Szeras fell to enemy fire. The Measured Response was then shot down by a chaos marine flyer and our Stalker was also destroyed. Orikan’s unit took losses to a lava eruption.
The Unyielding returned behind the enemy thanks to our stratagem and the wraiths-led unit got into assault range of the raptors and engaged them. We destroyed the bastion with concentrated fire from our heavy units and the thousand sons were wiped out by long range fire from the escarpment.
Our troops continued to advance across the centre to threaten the objective there and a small number of scarabs deep struck to the west. A squad of warriors led by a cryptek emerged from secret tunnels to the west and destroyed the enemy vindicator with their gauss fire and haywire ability. Behind the enemy right and centre we brought in more reserves: A tomb stalker and three destroyer squads totalling six heavy destroyers, nine destroyers and a destroyer lord.
The Vault destroyed an enemy rhino and another was destroyed by the tomb stalker,* whilst the destroyers’ gauss cannons made a mess of several units of space wolves.
Aconthrites attacking from the south against the land raider found their meltas inadequate but destroyed it in assault.* Another squad of troops using tunnels threatened the enemy right inflicting more losses on marine units there. Two destroyer squads were key in the elimination of two squads behind and under the titan but the tech priest survived.
*In an illegal assault. Being forgetful can be useful sometimes
The enemy now brought in considerable reinforcements; The enemy warlord arrived by drop pod amongst our destroyers eliminating one unit. Daemon squads however arrived all across the centre of the battleground threatening the rear of our advancing immortals. A huge winged bloodthirster daemon and a squad of nurglings arrived behind our HQ and on the escarpment, three squads of blood angels, two of sanguinary guard and a drop pod containing a walker arrived.
Our destroyer lord and his five destroyers were almost destroyed by the enemy assault but four of five casualties reanimated. The raptors were losing heavily and were eventually wiped out by the six wraiths, our aconthrites took heavy casualties and the Vault was destroyed again.
The blood angels in a text book display of massed melta fire destroyed both ghost arks, the doomsday ark and a sentry pylon, failing only against the Tesseract Ark, but the dreadnaught assaulting the crypteks was destroyed by powerful overwatch fire, apart from one of their gunships that chaos forces turned on, their only loss of any significance.
The Undoubted Victory was unluckily hit and destroyed by a random orbital bombardment having missed the vindicator with its second bomb earlier and our scarabs were wiped out and tomb spyder damaged by enemy terminators that had appeared to bolster the enemy forward right wing holding an objective.
The chaos force now fired on the marines destroying one of the two blood angel gunships and the imperials began to suspect that all was not well, although they continued in assault against our forces destroying the tomb stalker. Fortunately the deep striking daemons were not able to assault immediately or it would have gone hard on us. We agreed to an appeal from marine loyalists to concentrate on the chaos spawn that was appearing across the field.
With time running short we threw on our final reserves: A Triarch stalker that attacked from the north, Vargard Obyron leading on his charnel lychguard from the south and a full unit of Triarch Praetorians armed with particle casters and void blades moving to support the depleted aconthrites.
The Annihilation Barges NNV Spear of Destiny and NNV Outright Victory were sent in to aid against the daemons and the main mass of demonic malevolence was surrounded by three deep striking Monoliths, the NNV Majestic, Triumphant and Incisive who set up an apocalyptic formation. To the west we picked off the artillery piece from range and continued our assaults though frustratingly the Praetorians could not yet engage.
The warrior survivors of the ghost arks were left with no opponents now that the blood angels had indicated that they were turning their attentions entirely on the forces of chaos and the two reserve squads to the west met varying degrees of success; one wheeled to try and contest an objective that would be seized by lone space wolf HQ, the other was destroyed in assault.
The resurrection war cell summoned another tomb spyder, again deployed on the left, but this one unlike the first was fully equipped with all upgrades, not that its particle beamer did any damage.
In the centre the Annihilation barges poured fire into the daemon hordes together with the transcendent C’Tan, immortals and HQ. The remaining sentry pylon fired on the huge daemon and the Pariahs destroyed the nurglings. Orikan, now empowered, led the attack against daemons together with a leading blood angel destroying one unit,* at least one other had already fallen to the hail of fire from all angles. The Triumphant and Majestic were successful with their eternity gates, the former picking off some marines with it though the Majestic forgot to fire its particle whip.**
*Despite the warmaster forgetting yet more of his abilities
**Yes, some wonder if he was actually on our side at all
At the behest of the marines, the Transcendent C’Tan spared the enemy Shadow Sword, a significant error. The Night scythe NNV Resplendent arriving from reserve attacked the enemy HQ with its deathmarks, setting up a deadly crossfire in concert with destroyers occupying the North West objective causing the famed enemy warmaster to flee with his one surviving bodyguard.* Meanwhile the enemy heavy weapons squad on our left was down to just one survivor and the land raider passengers were almost gone too.
*Angron was Angoroff
The destroyers lost a couple of their number just after this triumph when the objective they were holding blew up in a titanic explosion. The destroyer lord and his last escort despite successful use of mindshackle scarabs was finished off by the space wolves. The deathmark squad was almost wiped out with just one survivor.
The enemy daemons now assaulted at last, two units were destroyed on overwatch and a third by Overlord Malacax’s immortals despite them having to cope with chaos marine assault as well. One of the gauss immortal units was destroyed however. Both tomb spyders fell to the enemy right wing though the Arisen Splendour narrowly averted disaster with a successful jink. Our HQ took care of yet another daemon unit using mindshackle scarabs to good effect.
But Warmaster Ohgron and three of his lords now fell to heavy weapons fire from the spared Shadowsword* and the unit was destroyed by other daemons including the huge one, though three survivors reanimated.** The action broke off: Objectives wise we held only one and the enemy had taken three victory points for our super heavies and one for the warmaster.
*Which had passed through the Monoliths’ protective shields which ought to have had an effect but you guessed it…
**Despite the warmaster forgetting resurrection scarabs and chronometron. Shouldn’t a warmaster have to pass some sort of test?
Chaos held two objectives, space wolves two and one had been destroyed. Our losses totalled over 6200 out of an original force of 12007 though reinforcement stratagems had actually meant we had deployed 12787 in total. We had lost approx 48% of this including 26 out of 58 units involved. See table below.
The enemy losses in terms of unit were estimated at 20 complete units, estimated casualties for Chaos, 70% but both of their super heavies remained and the Bloodthirster remained. Blood angels suffered very few losses, just two units, space wolves perhaps 50%. The wolves are thought to have made up around a sixth of the enemy, the blood angels perhaps 25%.
Units Intact Destroyed Heavy Slight Total
Damage Damage
HQ 3 4 1 1 9
Troops 0 2 0 6 8
Transports 1 2 0 0 3
Elites 4 3 1 0 8
Fast 1 4 2 2 9
Heavy 7 8 1 1 17
Apocalyptic 0 3 1 0 4
Total 16 26 6 10 58
10.8.13
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