Astracide

So the first day of Astracide begins! After the war between Titans yesterday, it's time to witness the conflict at a lesser scale - between infantry, vehicles and tanks! The Knights of House Yato finally get to fight!

Or so I thought, but unfortunately, there were too many Loyalists and not enough Traitors, so I ended up playing Thousand Sons today. Anyway, let's provide some background.

ASTRACIDE!

The GALAXY BURNS 

It Is the thirty-first millennium, and the Warmaster Horus has betrayed the Emperor. He has lain waste to the galaxy and begun a bloody march towards Terra, where he plans to overthrow the Emperor in the name of the dark gods of Chaos.

However, in the face of his advance, the forces loyal to the Emperor have attempted to rally, and even now move to block Horus and the traitor host. Yet even with the myriad forces of the Imperium set against him, the relentless march on the throneworld seems to conquer every obstacle. Few worlds can dare hold out for long against such an advance, and any that fall, regardless of the valiant defense, are stripped bare. Their resources, their industrial capacity, even their people, all pressed into service to feed the armies of the Warmaster.

Imperial forces have witnessed now the insane fate of those worlds that dare resist the Warmaster. Either plundered like Hydra Cordatus, or annihilated like the dead planet Tallarn, to attempt to halt the traitor advance is to willingly accept doom. Standing against the host of those that have turned their backs from the Emperor’s light only invites an unsustainable siege, or simply death as the Traitor fleet smites the world from orbit.

The forces of the Emperor have witnessed the mastermind Horus Lupercal see through their most carefully laden plans. His spearheads rip through their lines, his fleets outmaneuver and annihilate the mightiest armadas, and the heaviest and most fortified worlds are simply bypassed and cut off to slowly starve, as the Warmaster understands the arithmetic of war and knows what fights are worth his attention.

As a result, the Imperium has been forced to adopt a scorched earth policy and have begin the cruel practice of burning the galaxy for him. They take whatever supplies and resources they can in the Warmaster’s path, and the worlds not worth saving are destroyed. Whole continents are scorched baren by nuclear fire rather than allow their harvests to feed traitor mouths. This tactic has seen whole armies send on suicide missions, to bait trators into bombing zones or to tempt them into overextending. 

At the same time, Horus grows impatient. His warlords have become embroiled in petty wars he cares little for. He peels his Lord of Iron from the wastes of Tallarn to drag the Red Angel back into the fold. He sends the Golden One to remind the Perfect Prince where his loyalties lie. He knows the Lord of Macragge and his angelic brothers are mustering the strength to challenge him. Time is short. He knows his advance must not stall.

One of the systems in his path is Ophelion. rich with tech-lore and vast resources, the Imperium musters to defend it, even as the Titan legions selfishly bicker for the knowledge they can plunder. He orders his forces to take what they can, slay who they can, burn what they can, and if there’s anything left, annihilate it. Should his forces take it, he’ll bolster his legions. If not, well, if he cannot have the riches for himself, no one can.

Likewise, the Imperium is split with disunity. So-called “loyal” titan legions have broken ranks and committed fratricide to plunder the STC library of Aleph-110, and the distrustful commanders are willing to sacrifice their own allies to ensure victory and survival. Should they fail to hold the traitors, they know they may well find themselves burned by their own fleets to deny the enemy the prize of the planet.

The age of heroes is over. There is no glory left to be found. Honor has been discarded for cruelty.

There is no peace amongst the stars, only the laughter of the thirsting gods.

So yeah, that's the gist. 12 people showed up, and there were 7 Loyalists to 5 Traitors. I decided to go to the Traitors to even up the numbers, and so instead of Knights, I played Thousand Sons this year. Oh, well.

The first game was against Iron Hands, and I think we were doing contesting a city or something. I was the third Thousand Sons player out of 6 Traitors, so fully half of the Traitors were Thousand Sons. Why? I have no idea. I'm guessing the Thousand Sons were out to plunder the data caches of Ophelion in full force or something. Maybe there's something they saw in the future, information and knowledge. Whatever the case, the Thousand Sons were there in force today. Wow.

Um, so I had to move my Thousand Sons and their allied Knights (the models are House Yato Knights, but we'll just pretend they're from another house). Anyway, we tried to meet the Iron Hands in the middle of the table, but their implacable phalanx withstood the firepower. Contemptor Dreadnoughts met Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts in combat, with one equipped with dual conversion beam cannons standing in the back and laying down a swathe of destruction.

There was a Forge Father, 3 tactical squads - one of which was wiped out by my Knight Lancer. There were also two squads of Thallaxi, a Master of Signals who accompanied a heavy support squad with 9 volkite culverins, apparently my opponent had to cut 1 to fit the 3,000 points list. Um, there were probably 2 Vindicator Laser-Destroyers, two laser destroyer rapiers, and 1 Scorpius Whirlwind. Between the immense firepower, they wrecked my two plasma Predators, and took out an entire tactical squads with a techmarine, 2 squads of 2 Castellax-Achea automata - one accompanied by a Previan, and even the Numerologist Cabal were slaughtered by the Thallax. Yikes. What else, uh, I think I had to face 3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts, including the dual conversion beam cannons one, and I did manage to kill only 1, but at the cost of both my Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts and 1 Armiger Warglaive. Ugh. The second tactical squad broke and ran when bombarded by the Whirlwind, but they rallied by the end of the game to take an objective. I wasn't able to do much else with only a single surviving Armiger Warglaive. Between the Vindicator laser destroyers and the Thallax with multimeltas, they blew up my Knight Lancer, and that's when the game pretty much went downhill for me. Yikes.

In the end, the Iron Hands won! The Thousand Sons were beaten to a bloody retreat, with only a few tactical marines, a single Armiger Warglaive and the Praetor in Cataphractii armor hiding at the back like a coward, and failing his charge against Thallax. Oh, well. My opponent still had 2 tactical squads, two Contemptor Dreadnoughts, the volkite heavy support squad with Master of Signals, the Forge Father, the Vindicator laser-destroyers, rapiers, and Scorpius Whirlwind. Yeah, that was brutal.

The second game was against Raven Guard. I can't remember, but I do recall Corvus Corax leading 5 Delivers, two squads of a lot of Dark Furies, a Chaplain, 10-men heavy support squad with lascannons, 2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts, a 15-men tactical squad, an assault squad, and...I think that's pretty much about it!

The Knight Lancer fared better this game, killing almost the entire tactical squad while hiding behind the mountains so that the heavy support squad couldn't draw a bead on him. The Predators managed to thin their numbers with their 60" range plasma executioner destroyers - yay! And then between my 2 Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts, 2 Armiger Warglaives and Knight Lancer, we managed to kill both Contemptor Dreadnoughts. The assault squad were hit hard by my tactical squad and Castellax-Achea automatas and they actually broke and fell back. There was quite the furious tussle in the middle, but I managed to grab a few objectives here and there.

In the end, my Knight Lancer ran up the table and killed the surviving lascannon marines, while my second tactical squad killed the two survivors of the beleageuered tactical squad. The Dark Furies did kill all my Castellax-Achea automata and first tactical squad in melee, even without Corax leading them, but the Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts and an Armiger Warglaive killed one squad of Dark Furies, while the second was wiped out by the 2 Predators. Corax was running rampant, but he failed to kill an Armiger Warglaive in combat, though the Deliverers did kill an Osiron Dreadnought, which blew him up. The second one was probably still locked in combat with just 2 guys left. The Lancer then charged Corax, and his Aucteiler ability gave him an extra attack, which was all I needed to kill Corax. Yay! The Knight Lancer finally did something! Woohoo!

Leading on primary objectives and almost wiping out my opponent's army allowed me to pull a win this time, but I think we made several mistakes. I'm pretty sure she should have Shrouded for her Raven Guard. I don't know how the Raven Guard rules work, but...yeah, she should have Shrouded or something?

Um, the last game was against Blood Angels, led by Sanguinus. He was leading 3 assault marine squads, 3 Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, 1 Contemptor Dreadnought, that special jumppack Contemptor Dreadnought unique to Blood Angels, and a heavy support squad with 5 iliastus assault cannons. And 3 Land Speeders with iliastus assault cannons. I think there was a Praetor with one of the assault marine squads, and a moritat with inferno pistols.

He blew up my Cerastus Knight Lancer with the moritat, deep striking him in the Knight's rear arc and doing some chain shooting with his inferno pistols and scoring two Explodes! results. Damn. He went on to kill one tactical squad and all of my Castellax-Achea automata, and led on primary objectives by taking them and burning them or something. Sanguinus and the Dreadnoughts went around killing both Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts and 1 Armiger Warglaive, though the Armiger Warglaive actually killed one of the Castraferrum Dreadnoughts in combat before he could swing at his initiative (I didn't know they had lower initiative, hmm). Interesting. I did manage to take out all of the Dreadnoughts, whether Contemptor or Castraferrum, and erased one assault squad through sheer amount of plasma or something. I also killed 3 Land Speeders, and I think by the time the game ended, he only had the heavy support squad, 2 assault marine squads and Sanguinus left. I also only had a single Armiger Warglaive, remnants of a tactical squad, the Numerologist Cabal, my Praetor and the Predators left. I did kill the Moritat with an Armiger Warglaive, though, so there's that.

Unfortunately, he scored 5 objectives and I only took 1 as a consolation prize in the last turn. The victory went to the Blood Angels, but at least I didn't lose as many units like in the first game.

I think the Traitors are leading at the moment, though. Last I heard, they were up by 2 points by the second round, but things might have changed in the third round, though I left before they wrapped it up. Anyway, that should be it. We'll see what happens tomorrow. There's one last match tomorrow, so till then!