Story Mission 5: Countdown To Destruction
I’m doing something different this week. I played my first real Warhammer 40,000 game and it was a lot of fun. I managed to get some pictures, so I thought I’d share a battle report. Let me set the scene for you. The planet of Drenthal is under siege my the forces of Chaos. Imperial High Command has decided they would rather destroy the planet, then give a victory to the heretics. Terebral Station Sigma, a mining platform, has been overcharged, and will soon explode taking the planet with it.
Combatants
The Fate of Conor campaign takes place in the Ultramar system, home to the Ultramarines, which are who I brought today. My force was as follows:
- 2 Primaris Intercessor Marines Squad
- 1 Primaris Hellblaster Marines Squad
- 1 Primaris Inceptor Squad
- 1 Primaris Ancient
- 2 Primaris Lieutenants
- 1 Primaris Captain
My opponent went the xenos route, bringing Orks. Nuff said right?
Victory Condition
As the Imperium player, I was the attacker for this story mission scenario. My objective was to escape the planetary destruction with more than 1/3 of my force. This would be considered a major victory (lol). I had a slight speed advantage over Orks, but as you can see they had quite a numbers advantage. Not pictured is my Primaris Inceptor squad, which I elected to keep in high orbit to drop down on a later turn.
What really made this campaign fun was the planet collapsing behind me. After each turn, 6 inches would disintegrate behind me! I would have to push across the board fast.
The Battle Turn 1
I immediately started moving forward and shooting. The big swarm or Orks you see on the right gave me a lot of trouble. I rolled lots of 1s and 2s, only killing a few of them. On the left I did a little better. I tagged his big monster unit with a couple of good shots, and started wiping out his melee squad.
The Orks used their turn to close the gap, but thanks to their generally slow speed, I would get another round before they were on top of me, which would be a problem.
The Battle Turn 2
With the board now starting to collapse behind me, my only option was to push forward and keep shooting. Another round of fire into the huge swarm of Orks on the right was only mildly successful, so I had to charge in with my Primaris Marines. The Ancient and Lieutenant stayed on the outskirts to support them. On the left I was having much better luck, I managed to wipe out their heavy melee squad before it could do any damage. My Primaris Captain made it to cover, breaking line of sight from all immediate threats. The Hellblasters also managed to destroy the walking melee monstrosity. This was quite a productive round.
On my opponents turn, he wiped out my Primaris Marines squad on the right. He also began to wipe out my Hellblaster Squad the left as well.
Battle Turn 3
On the right, I did what I could, but I just couldn’t make a big enough dent in the Ork squad. My Primaris lieutenant threw a grenade which only killed one Ork. One. Whole. Ork. On the left I laid down some fire but couldn’t connect with much damage. Meanwhile up top, I landed my Inceptor squad this turn behind the building second from the left, opening fire on the Orks atop the tower wiping out several of them! My captain used a special ability that nearly doubled his move speed, edging him closer to the escape route!
The Ork swarm, well, swarmed my Primaris Ancient on the right. The flag bearer went down fighting in the melee. The big gray Ork boss/leader you see on the left decimated my remaining Hellblasters and then began to chew on my Intercessors.
Battle Turn 4
This was the final turn. I charged into the Ork swarm on the right, tying them up to keep them within the encroaching fire’s reach at the end of the turn. A noble sacrifice. On the left my other Primaris lieutenant did a simliar remover, preventing the slow moving Ork boss and support crew from being able to stop my Primaris Captain.
At this point my Ork opponent conceded, as the fire was rapidly encroaching and his units would not be able to get away from it, and he had no way to prevent my Captain and Inceptor squad from moving to safety and scoring me the win.
