So the siege of Alcazar Prime has begun! I was dumb, I should have waited for my friend because he has the fluff and everything. Thanks to some problems with Facebook, his post was removed and I wrote my narrative based on my own memory. That last post with Tanaka and his Knights of House Yato descending to take back Alcazar Prime. Seems like I made a lot of mistakes, whoops! Well, it doesn't matter, here's the fluff! I hope you can read it, just click on the image and make the words as big as possible.
Today we had the Adeptus Titanicus campaign. It...didn't go so well for the Loyalists, unfortunately. We had to attack and take the Colossibast South (Intercontinental cave transitways), Capitolis Slums and Hives of Alcazar-Tetra. House Yato worked with the maniples of Legio Defensor (Nova Guard) and Legio Astorum (Warp Runners) to hold back the Titans of Legio Tempestus (Storm Lords) and Legio Audax (Ember Wolves). House Yato was first dispatched to the Capitolis Slums to conduct hit and run attacks on Legio Audax, but the reinforced armored Warhounds annihilated them in the streets of the slums. It was a closer game than I thought - first, plasma blasts with maximal fire from the Warhounds wiped out the entire Knight Lance of Cerastus Knights. Ouch. However, the Acastus Knight banner fought back, with the Knights Porphyrion laying waste to the squadron of Warhounds - one of which exploded catastrophically and set off a chain reaction. I think about two or three Warhounds died in a single go, leaving two.
The Cerastus Knights Castigator and Questoris Knights surged upward and took out the Princeps Seniores of Legio Audax with coordinated strikes and melee, laying waste to him. Meanwhile, the two surviving Warhounds destroyed the Knights Porphyrion with more maximal fire plasma blasts, then turned around to finish off the Knights Castigator and Questoris Knights. They did manage to kill one more Warhound, but the final Warhound wiped out the Knights with more plasma. Literally, the match was decided on who would seize initiative and begin first, and alas, the dark gods favored Legio Audax. Otherwise I would have pulled off a charge and destroyed the heavily damaged Warhound, but yeah. My remaining Knight got nuked off the table instead with First Fire before I could make the charge. It was a close battle, but in the end the slums fell to Legio Audax.
Legio Astorum, on the other hand, was destroyed by Legio Tempestus, who took over the ruins of Alcazar-Tetra Hive. Legio Defensor was similarly annihilated by another maniple of Legio Tempestus, but strangely enough they failed to achieve their objectives whereas Legio Defensor actually secured their objectives and won the game through points. I'm guessing they were retrieving something or secured something, but I'm not sure. Whatever it was, the Loyalists managed to get hold of Colossibast South while the Hives of Alcazar-Tetra and Capitolis Slums fell to the Traitors.
The Loyalists attempted to attack the Traitors once more, but this time, my Knights were completely eradicated by Legio Tempestus. Though I was trying to hide them using the mountains and caves of Colossibast South, it didn't go well and blasts of volcano cannons and plasma just wrecked my Knights. In the first turn, the Acastus Knights were nuked by the Nemesis Warbringer Titan's Belicosa volcano cannon before they could fire a single shot. Ouch. It was...pretty bad, and in the end I only managed to take out a single Reaver Titan...which promptly exploded or collided and killed the Knights who slew it, tabling me. It was an incredibly one-sided defeat, and I'm not sure how else I can put it...a single Reaver and absolutely no damage on the other Titans, while my Knights were erased from the board. Yikes. Colossibast South fell back into the Traitors' hands.
On the other battlefronts, the Loyalists were being driven back. Legio Tempestus struck Legio Astorum, and despite a brawl between two Warlord Titans, they eventually destroyed the Warlord Titan of the Warp Runners, leaving the Storm Lords to run rampant over the remaining Loyalist Titans. Ugh. Legio Defensor was also defeated by Legio Audax. I believe they took out the Nemesis Warbringer early on, and the two surviving Warhound Titans ran to push the front, winning the game on points despite suffering tremendous casualties. Most of them had been destroyed by the Warlord Titan, and despite bringing down a Reaver Titan, the surviving Warhound Titan and Warlord Titan fired after the fleeing Warhound Titans of Audax, but they survived long enough to win the game. I think one died, so actually only one survived eventually, but still...a victory was a victory.
The Loyalists have suffered a crushing blow from which they couldn't recover, and the Traitor Titans continued to consolidate their gains and counterattack. Legio Tempestus continued to push in and destroy Legio Defensor, and despite the Warp Runners taking the initiative by taking out a Warhound in a single salvo, their surviving Titans closed in and slowly ground them down, allowing the Traitors to secure the Capitolis Slums. Meanwhile, packs of Warhound Titans hunted the beleaguered Titans fo Legio Astorum in the underground caves of Colossibast South, the Ember Wolves latching onto the bigger Titans with their ursus claws and pulling them apart. The subterranean tunnels belonged to the Traitors for certain.
Incensed by their crushing and total defeat by the Legio Tempestus previously, Sir Tanaka - the Seneschal of House Yato - gathered his lances and launched an all or nothing attack on another maniple of the Stormlords in the Hives of Alcazar-Tetra. Making good use of the hab-blocks and blasted structures, the Knights weaved through the roads and charged into the Titans. First, Tanaka's Lance of Cerastus Knights Lancer crashed furiously into the Princeps Senioris's Warlord Titan and slew it with their shock lances, bringing the mighty war engine down. The Knights Castigator and Questoris Knights slew another Warhound Titan, while the Acastus Knights wrecked the other Warhound Titan. With only a single Dire Wolf and Warhound left, the Traitors fled, routed by the vengeful Knights. The Loyalists were thus able to claim at least one final victory, gaining a foothold in the Hives of Alcazar-Tetra. Perhaps they would be able to conscript the population into their armed forces to beat back the Traitors.
And thus the Adeptus Titanicus campaign concluded with a decisive Traitor victory. Two of the three sectors are still in the hands of the Traitors, who have scored an overwhelming advantage...for now.
On the other hand, the more conventional forces continued to fight on. We had a couple of pickup games at night, and I had the pleasure of playing against the Sons of Horus. The Knights of House Yato, fresh from their victory in the Hives of Alcazar-Tetra, launched a counteroffensive against an orbital drop from the Sons of Horus. A Cerastus Knight Lancer Dolorus and Knight Errant Seneschal led 4 Armigers Warglaive, and an allied Mechanicum detachment with a Magos Prime Macrotek, two Tech-priests Auxilia with their accompanying servo-automata, and 4 Armigers Knight Moirax. The Reavers and a heavy support squad armed with lascannons fired upon the Knights, but the Armiger Knights Moirax and Knight Errant managed to kill the latter. The Cerastus Knight Lancer took out a single Contemptor Dreadnought and wounded another before charging the Reavers and killing about seven of them before he fell to a thunder hammer from the Consul. Ouch. Well, he tried. But the Armiger Knights Moirax wrecked the remaining Contemptor Dreadnought with haywire shots from their grav pulsars, while the Armigers Warglaive took out a squad of Tartaros Terminators. The Master of Signal was also killed by the melta shots from the Knight Errant, and one heavy support guy survived until the next turn before he was promptly electrocuted by more lightning locks fire.
Then the dreadclaws descended, with Horus and his Justinerean retinue dropping out and killing the Knight Errant. I managed to conduct Interceptor and Overwatch, and wiped out all but one of the Justinerean Terminators, but Horus proceeded to utterly dismantle the poor Knight in combat. His explosion did kill the last remaining Terminator, though. The two other dreadclaws with tactical squads had a mishap and landed on the other side of the table, but they decided not to land and instead zoom to the other side. Meanwhile, the Reavers charged and damaged one of the Armiger Knight Moirax, locking him in combat for a couple of turns. I think by this time there were two of them and the Consul left.
My entire army focused fire on Horus, and it took two whole turns of shooting from lightning locks (thank the Emperor for 4+ Rending and Shred), grav pulsars and melta to finally slay him, but during that time, Horus proceeded to wreck an Armiger Warglaive. Ouch. The Armiger Knight Moirax with grav pulsars was finally destroyed by the Reavers, who proceeded to the table edge, only for the Consul to survive because I charged with a Tech-priest Auxilia and his servo-automatas, who killed two Reavers with their servo-arms. But the Consul wiped them out. Oh, well.
The tactical squads poured out to secure my deployment zone, but my surviving Armigers - about 6 of them - piled into his depoyment zone (it was Shatterstrike, so line units score 2 points if they are in the opponent's deployment zone, denial units score 1 point each), along with the Magos Prime Macrotek. The tactical squads killed the other Tech-priest Auxilia, and yeah...we rolled, and the game continued for a 6th turn, where I proceeded to lay waste to one entire squad and a dreadclaw. That reduced his scoring units to 1, and denial units to 2.
In the end, I won the mission 14-8 because my 6 Armigers (3 with Line) and Magos Prime scored 10 for primary, and then I had Attrition and Slay the Warlord, along with 2 points from the D3 from Price of Failure. On the other hand, my opponent scored 4 for primary (a single tactical squad with Line, a dreadclaw, and a Consul), Slay the Warlord and 3 points from the 2D3 from Price of Failure. If the game had ended on turn 5, I think he would have gotten 11 points to my 14 instead. Damn, that was so close! Horus is a beast, but the Knights of House Yato managed to prevail over the Warmaster! He might be alive, but wounded from so many melta shots, his surviving Sons of Horus had to drag their gene-father back to the ship for him to recover. Yay, a victory for the Loyalists and the Knights of House Yato!
Apparently, the World Eaters had descended upon the Solar Auxilia in barbaric fury and massacred them, so the Traitors won somewhere else. Ouch. Oh, well...we did our best. The Knights continue to stand strong in defense of Alcazar Prime! We will continue our campaign tomorrow, but I have the sense that there are way too many Loyalists and too little Traitors, so I might switch sides and play Thousand Sons instead tomorrow. Till then!
No comments:
Post a Comment