A group of gaming friends and I like to hold monthly Apocalypse games, last night was the first involving Titans!
The teams were as follows
Greg- Imperial Fists and Legio Ignatum
Jackman- Ultramarines
Both marine players chose mostly Terminators as the core of their armys with Greg choosing a variety of Techmarines/ Enginseers for titan repairs.
The Reaver titan was armed with a Laser Blaster, Gatling Blaster and a dreaded Vortex Missile.
against
myself- Craftworld Ulthwe with Phantom Titan support
Leon- Craftworld Eldar
Lee- Craftworld Eldar and Orks
Lee chose a variety of Ork units including a few surprises as well as some Dark Reapers and a Falcon,
Leon had his entire points invested into one surprise formation
I had a 10 man Seer council, a few Guardian units, a wave serpent with Firedragons, a Firestorm AA tank and a Scorpion super heavy tank.
The Phantom was armed with a Phantom Pulse Laser, Heat Lance, rocket launcher and Prism Cannon using the
Bell of Lost Souls datasheet.
Points was rougthly 3000 for each imperial player and the cost of the Reaver Titan, Eldar players have around 1900 each and the cost of the Phantom titan
The game was played on a 8ft X 6ft floorhammer table which gave us more manovering space then our usual 9X4 apoc table set up.
Assets chosen for Imperials was Disruptor Beacon, Ambush and hammerblow .
Eldar chose Flank March, Disruptor Beacon and Vortex Grenade.
The Objectives were as follows
Primary Objective- Destroy each others titan!
in event of a draw Secondary Objectives were to capture the 6 objectives.
Turn One
Imperial players bid 15 minutes deployment and Eldar players bid 30 minutes
Imperials deployed as follows thanks to a rubbish scatter roll by me for deployment zones using rules in the apocalypse book.
Eldar only deployed a single unit of Dark Reapers.
Turn 1 was was mostly moving by imperial players to grab objectives, no sign of the Reaver titan.
Turn 2 the Imperials still didnt bring in their titan, next to no shooting again but a Rhino filled with Sternguard get closer to the Dark Reapers.
Eldar Turn 2 sees a fury of reinforcements arrive, Leon at this point got excited and passed me a CD to put on
*Brian Blessed voice* The Hawkmen have arrived!
Leon then spends a good deal of time placing 11 5" grenade pack blast templates on his chosen targets from Barohoth and his 10 units of 'Hawkmen', he repeats this process up untill turn 5 taking advantge of the 'yo-yo' tactic Eldar hawks can use.
Orks begin to arrive to capture objectives in the city fight area of the board
I bring on the Scorpion and procede to vaporise the Imperials Disruptor Beacon to stop it interfering with our Deep striking hawkmen in following turns.
Imperial Turn 3
The God Machine arrives!
and procedes to open fire on my Scorpion with its Gatling and Laser blaster, resulting in one lost structure point and movement reduced (i got lucky with my holofield saves)
Eldar Turn 3
The rest of our reinforcements arrives, The Ulthwe Titan strides onto the field of battle assisted by the guardians of Ulthwe as a anti closecombat defence shield from the fast aproaching Terminators
Hawkmen arrive again and continue their grenade bombardment, Orks get to grips with some Guardsmen and some Burna Boys chop up some Terminators, a unit of Firedragons deploys and kills a number of Terminators.
Lee makes full use of Flankmarch, up from Orbit teleports a Stomper into the rear of the Imperial Lines! MetallOrca the Stomper charges into hand to hand combat with the Reaver!
Resulting in some Reaver titan weapons stunned and a lost structure point, in return the Stomper suffers a lost structure point.
Due to the close proximity of the Stomper the Phantom and Scorpion decide to thin the ranks of aproaching termnators, scoring a good tally of kills
Imperial Turn 4.
Jackman declares the use of Hammerblow! this targets a random super heavy on the table and deals D3 hits.
rolled a D4 to see which super heavy got hit 1- Phantom, 2- Stomper, 3- Reaver, 4- Scorpion
Jackman rolled and managed to get a 3 hitting his own sides Titan! luckily for them this dealt only one hit removing 1 of the Reavers 4 Void shields.
Imperials open fire at the Guardians at the feet of the Phantom removing most of them, whilst in closecombat they charge a good number of tank hunting hth units at the Stomper dealing a structor point or two of damage leaving the stomper with 1 left, The Stomper and the Reaver then atempt to smash each other resulting in another lost structure point for each and the destruction of the Stomper! sadly no Apocalyptic explosion.
Eldar Turn 4
Eldar players make their moves for the various objectives resulting in a lost mob of Orks in close combat at one objective
With the Stomper no longer a concern the Phantom and Scorpion target the Reaver, but sadly the reaver still has 3 shields up thanks to poor rolls from the 6 strength 6 shots from the long range Firestorm tank.
The Phantom open fires with its 2 Prism strength 10 shots taking down 2 Void shields on the Reaver, this is followed up by the Heatlance that removes the last void sheild and thanks to the 7" template takes out a good few of the HtH troops at the base of the stomper/ Reaver
The 5 combined Pulsar shots from the Scorpion and Phantom deal weapon damage results on the Reaver taking out the Vortex missile and Laserblaster as well as dealing a structure point and slowing down the movement of the Reaver, cripling blows, or so we thought.
Imperial Turn 5
Imperials send out some lurking enginseers/ techmarines and suceed in repairing the Vortex missile on the Reaver and the Laserblaster.
Imperials move to various objectives in an atempt to halt the fast aproaching Eldar/ Orks, by now the Sternguard have been wiped out by a Ork Warboss and his Powerclaw Nobz.
Shooting!
The now rearmed Reaver fires its party trick, the Vortex missile lands slap bang on the Phantom removing 3 structure points and taking out the Pulsar laser. The remaining shots of the Reaver takes of 2 more structure points and totaly immoblises the Phantom meaning the 4+ holofield save will no longer work! would be a small miricle if the Phantom survives turn 6.
The Reaver manages to bring up 2 Void shields.
Eldar Turn 5
Its time for the crunch, the Hawkmen land one last time killing a few more various models with the 11 grenade templates and procede to run towards the Reaver titan
Shooting
The Eldar side now had vastly reduced firepower with the loss of 3 D shots from the Phantom Pulsar laser. the incomming barrage still sucseeds in removing the 2 void shields taking the Reaver down another structure point leaving 2 as well as totaly immobilising the god machine, the Laser Blaster also gets blown off.
In hand to hand combat the Orks manage to kill a unit of Terminators.
Imperial Turn 6. The final turn!
The imperials launch a desperate assault on 2 units of Swooping Hawks in an atempt to limit the amount that can get to grips with the helpless Reaver with their dreaded EMP grenades with mixed results
Meanwhile the Phantom is finaly brought down by the combined Imperial firepower resulting in a wreck, the deathblow belongs to a Terminator with Cyclone missile launcher.
The Reavr regenerates a void shield.
Eldar Turn 6
A few units of Hawkmen drop down onto various uncontested objectives, using their run moves to capture them, the Hawks near the Reaver jump over defending Imperial units to get to gribs with the monster
The Eldar Seer Council and Ork Warboss advance on the Ultramarines commander
Firepower from the Scorpion sucseeds in removing the remaining weapon from the Reaver, and Barrohoth unleashes his Vortex grenade leaving one structure point left, its up to the Hawks and their grenades to secure victory!
In close combat Ultramarines commander and his Terminator unit suffer casultys but hold leaving that objective firmly contested
Now in the finaly stages of the game Leon assaults with Reaver with 20 Swooping Hawks, he rolls each units attacks seperatly, 3 units fail to remove the final structure point... its down to the last unit, RESULT! The final structure point is removed resulting in an explosion, a few Hawks fall from the resulting blast leaving the rest victorious!
VICTORY TO THE ELDAR (with a little help from Orks)
With both sides achieving their primary objective of destroying the other sides titan it came down to objectives, the Imperials held 2 whilst contesting the 3rd, Eldar held 3 whilst contesting another.
Overall a very bloody game with plenty of destruction, the Imperials suffered by not being creative enougth with their Terminators but im sure they'l learn from this in other games.
The super heavys were a fun adition to the game and both sides felt they added to the game, the Reaver was one tougth cookie with the Eldar side having problems fielding long range firepower to remove the Void shileds before unleashing the D strength guns, once the Phantom got immoblised it was done for.
Next game theres talk of a tank battle, will the God machines march again? guess we'l find out next month.
