Battle Report Chaos vs Space Marines and Imperials Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse

Today I am bringing you a battle report of monstrous proportions. We finally had our apoc game this weekend. It was imperials vs chaos. As you can see from the pictures the imperials had to hold a fort. The chaos guys could only win if they controlled 2/3 of the 3 sections of the fort. There were 90 victory points available to take, 45 of which were available to whomever held 2/3 of the fort.

In the pictures you will notice 1 imperator titan, and 2 warlord titans. They were on the chaos side. The armies combined for a total of those titans, 7 or 8 reaver titans, 10ish warhound titans, 20+ baneblade chassis of various types, 9 imperial knights, 20+ flyers of various types, well over 200 additional vehicles between tanks, dreadnoughts, skimmers, transports etc, and 1,000's of infantry. I played personally in this game for approximately 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday. The game was started on Friday which I did not play in. So my guess is this game went for between 30 and 35 hours.

 

The first 2 turns were mostly dominated by titans and super heavy tanks just getting destroyed all over the place. Many simply died because another super heavy blew up near them and caused a chain reaction. Most things that went on the board not in the fort quickly died. 1 of the 2 warlord titans died from amassed fire power. 7 of the imperial knights were placed in the front of the fort to hold the tide back as much as possible. The knights had to deal with a lord of skulls, the giant bloodthirster from forge world, and the giant keeper of secrets from forge world just to name a few. They went out to die and clog up the middle as long as they could. Their 2 remaining brothers were stationed on the left and right side of the fort to help provide additional covering fire. Sadly though, the sheer destruction that was taking place due to the number of d weapons made the imperial side far too cautious with placing anything out that wasn't a super heavy. This would come back to bite them on turn 3 as they left far too much open space in the fort. 

On turn 3 the chaos players deep struck over 60 terminators and well over 100 demons of various types into the fort. At that point the game stopped having any meaning for the imperial side beyond holding the fort and clearing out all of those chaos scum from inside the fort. Granted the battle beyond the fort still raged with flyers just trying to shoot each other down while having an impact on the ground game, tanks trying to kill other tanks while also attempting to stop the slowly advancing horde of chaos troops that were making their way toward the walls of the fort to climb them and reek havoc.

The chaos forces that deep stuck outright killed much of the forces in the fort at that moment. The imperial players were looking at the forces that had just teleported inside the fort and feeling very grim about anything more than a loss. The imperator titan and remaining warlord were still outside slaughtering things and the imperials had no more resources they could devote towards even beginning to take down the layers of void shields protecting the armor of those behemoths. So the imperials did the only thing they could do. 2 of the few remaining baneblades on the imperial side turned there guns on the fort and fired on their own men in the hopes of killing enough demons to clear more room for reinforcements on the fort. Those were the last shots those 2 baneblades fired before being killed by titans.

 

On the bottom of turn 3, which was then the imperial sides turn, we deployed as much as we possibly could. An entire leman russ tank company arrived on the right flank of the chaos horde. My entire mechanicum army deployed inside the fort, I promised my team mates I would personally make sure that the chaos scum in our fort would die. We had 4 knights remaining that were desperately attempting to keep the front part of the fort gates clear from the chaos tide. the other 5 had already died killing numerous named greater deamons, land raiders, a lord of skulls, spartan heavy assault tanks, and soaking up fire from titans. They could not die in vane. Hordes of dark angels, imperial guards men, templars, blood angels, and space wolves arrived on the sides of the fort. Assault marines deep struck all over the board just to cause a distraction and sacrifice their lives to save the seemingly doomed fort.  The imperator titan and remaining warlord titan left the battlefield in order to make sure they didn't destroy the weakening fort. Whats the point of capturing a destroyed husk?

Just as things were looking up, the departure of the titans and the arrival of so many reinforcements, the night hit its darkest hour. Cypher showed up and made the call, all the dark angels were secretly traitor scum. The imperial flanks were now filled with traitor dark angels. Things on the outside of the fort quickly devolved into pockets of space marines and imperial guardsmen shooting back and forth at the traitors. Thankfully the fort only had a few squads of the traitors inside along with 3 dreadnoughts. With this new development in mind I set about the grim work of trying to clear the fort.

The center section of the fort was filled with demons and a single squad of chaos terminators. The newly arrived bloodangels set about killing the demons while I devoted a squad of myrmidon secutors to the task of killing the 5 terminators. On the left side of the fort I devoted 10 castellax class monstrous creatures and 12 thallax to the task of killing the 30+ terminators on that side. That side also had Abaddon the destroyer with an body guard of terminators to deal with. While I was assured in the knowledge that I could deal with this threat, my bloodangels ally was not and Astoroth the Grim, along with the sanguinor and 5 sanguinary guard were set with the task of killing abaddon personally. On the right side I devoted 10 more castellax, 18 thallax, and 5 myrmidon secutors with dealing with the other 30+ terminators, multiple chaos lords, and Purtabo the chaos primarch. Several more squads of bloodangel assault marines were there as back up for the additional 10 blood letters that needed dealing with and the 30+ raptors on the right. My remaining 5 secutors and 10 destructors were set in the middle of the fort to help keep the front gate cleared. Once the dark angels turned traitor though they had the task of killing them in the middle.

 

Of the 60+ terminators that arrived on turn 3, 50 of them died between my shooting and assaulting. Half the dark angels died to mechanicum shooting and roughly half the demons died at the hands of the blood angels. The fort was well on its way to being secured. My total loss of models to my mechanicum troops was 3 models.

The tank company that arrived on the flank tried its best to slow down the advancing horde of chaos troops. The 10 tanks focused entirely on destroying as many traitor guard chimera's and chaos marine rhinos as possible. They managed to kill or immobilze some 6 tanks. Sadly they were short lived and died safe in the knowledge that they did all they could to help protect the emperor's fort. The deep striking assault marines on the left flank of the chaos horde proved their worth by holding up the advance of 50+ chaos marines and several tanks. Most of them died but the distraction they provided gave the chaos players that much less to get to the fort walls.

On turn 4 the chaos side realized the mechanicum forces would in fact just slaughter any troops they sent up the walls and kill the remaining terminators. They needed help badly. The remaining 2 chaos reavers opened fire onto the fort in the hopes of killing off as many mechanicum troops as possible. Much of the fire power of their army that could shoot at my troops did. Numerous traitor guard leman russ tanks fired at them, lascannons,  and anything else they could throw to whittle down the numbers. Another 2 of the knights died. Leaving only 2 now. I lost 2 of my castellax guys, 5 myrmidon destructors, 14 thallax, and 5 myrmidon secutors. It was a good chunk but it took a ton of fire power to do it. They even dropped kharn and 20+ beserkers onto the right to help take that side back, it was all in vain.

The bottom of turn 4 saw the death of kharn and all but 4 of his beserker buddies. Surrounded by just too many guns that would punch through their armor they died. Kharn had to make something along the lines of 18 invulnerable saves to live. All but 4 of the remaining terminators were killed inside the fort. On the right side only purtabo, 8 raptors, 4 berserkers and a couple lords remained. In the middle only about 25% of the demons were left and no dark angels were still alive. On the left side, abbadon stood alone in combat. 1 terminator was left and 1 dark angel dreadnought. Sadly though a bunch of khorn hounds had climbed up the walls along with 15 dark angels.

Turn 5 was the last turn of the game. Chaos had to take the fort now or the game would simply be a draw. Again they devoted as much fire power as they could at the mechanicum forces. Another 6 thallax died, 2 destructors, and 7 castellax. Abaddon killed Astoroth the grim. The khone hounds managed to finish off the blood angels they were munching on, but 2 castellax had joined the frew and left no where for the hounds to go. Another 20 bersekers climbed the walls and managed to kill a very squishy squad of storm troopers and another castellax. Sadly for chaos though it wasn't enough. They could not take either the middle or right side of the fort. The left side was on its way to being over run, but it was the last turn and they just didn't have enough time to pull off a victory. The game ended in a draw thanks mostly to the mechanicum forces.

We had a lot of fun. The mechanicum forces in the heresy books from forge world are extremely resilient and deadly. The chaos players were really caught unaware of just how over powered they were. I don't know if the game had gone another turn if they would have be able to capture the left side for sure, but it would have been very possible. I don't think they would have captured either the middle or the right with another turn mostly because they just didn't have the bodies in range to throw at the walls on the right or to run up from either the two sides to the middle. We put a limit on reserves to save time. After turn 3 nothing more could come into the game. The mechanicum stuff really forced a tough choice for the chaos players because they needed to kill them but also get guys to the walls. The time limit we attempted to instill due to time constraints hampered both sides, but that is war in general. Sadly I was mostly focused on the fort and thus didn't get to see the true battle raging on the outside on the last 2 turns. The remaining 2 knights did die but i don't recall what killed them. Hope you enjoyed the read and pictures.