One of our core developers had the audacity of having a birthday. So naturally we had a giant game to celebrate Alex.
At 6000 points my table was getting a bit small, so I made a basement accessible from two sides of the table (mechanical pencils). The basement was immune to Indirect Fire, Aircraft, and Titanic units can not enter it. To make it spicey, I put two objectives down there.
With me playing my Armageddon Steel Legion, I went with a hive city theme. Lots of tall and tightly packed buildings. At 6000 points there would probably be a lot of Titanic units crushing terrain anyways.
Alex won initiative for being birthday boy. He chose to be Objective grabby and made Team Melee go first.
Snakebite Orks deployed all around the entrance to the basement. Khorne deployed in the middle, with the Goff Clan on their flank. They had not brought any Titanic models like I had expected. Snakebites brought lots of Boyz, a Kill Rig, and two very angry Ork Bosses on giant squigs. Goff brought big combat walkers, lots of Boyz, and Buzzgob. Khorne brought some Jakhals, some Berserkers, a daemon engine, and a terrifying death ball of Eightbound and Daemon Prince held in Reserve.
We deployed with Eldar vying for control of the basement and supporting the rear objective. We were testing the rework of Eldrad and Wraith units today, and Alex was running Iyanden Craftworld, meaning that his Wraith units gained Objective Secured. Supporting them were two units of five Swooping Hawks (also being reworked like everything in their Codex) and two units of Defenders.
Meanwhile, Lord Commissar Sebastian Yarrick (hollowed be his name) rode forth on his mighty Dedicated Transport, The Fortress of Arrogance! With him three Chimeras prepared to be aggressive with Valkyrie support. Veterans helped hold the middle Objective while the Platoon Command Squad and 2 Heavy Weapon Squads grabbed the elevated terrain on their flank. Three guardsmen squads took to Chimeras to deploy as needed. Lastly, a unit of Stormtroopers held in reserve.
A Morkanaut and a Gorkanaut prepare to push the flank hard! For those of you wondering, both of these Valkyries are 5$ rescues. A third one exists unpainted as of yet. The non-smoking one is 1/3 card stock!
Orks began flooding the basement, bringing their Kill Rigg with them.
Eldar joined and then quickly realized they were in for a slog fest in the tight corridors.
Berserkers came in as the Orks flowed over the industrial landing pad.
The Fortress of Arrogance saw the incoming Berserkers and moved to intercept, deleting half of them as well as a few Orks.
The Eldar Wraith Lords swapped to go topside after seeing what they were running into downstairs.
One of the Nauts failed a Poor Maintenance roll and got left behind. They shot the heavy weapon Squads out of the building and then began hammering the Platoon Command Squad downstairs.
The Chimeras pulled together and began plugging the orks and Jahkals coming in.
The Naut failed its charge, but crippled the Chimera’s engine! As the Steel Legion pulled back and formed a wall of, well, steel, it was forced to break off and do its best to get to safety by driving through some ruins. All Hunter Killer Missiles fired at the lead Naut. Everyone rolled a 2 or 3 To Hit. The Fortress of Arrogance could work with this thanks to its elite commissariat crew, but the energy shields of the Naut shrugged the blow! The Mega Battle Cannon and Demolisher Cannon were less forgiving. Both them and one of the Lascannons got through. In turn they crippled some secondary weapons and its engine as well!
The Eldar Wraith Knight lended some fire power as well, but the pilot spent all game trying to figure out how its multi blast weapon worked and shot up just about everything it wasn’t aiming at.
Meanwhile, in the basement, Orks smashed into the blob of Wraiths. The intent of this super Wraith blob was to make them as broken as possible. If the strongest combinations don’t break the game mathematically than its ready for public release. Enter Eldrad and his new super spell. The unit itself is over 1500 points of mostly defensed stats and rules.
As such, the Orks hit fairly hard without about 600 points of light cavalry and two bosses. The managed to do minimal damage and lost some light cavalry. Unfortunately, the Kill Rig had to wait for everyone to die to get involved or this could have gone differently early game.
The Valkyries had passed overhead, fragging Orks and blowing out a gun on the Forgefiend. It retreated into a building, firing plasma cannons at Chimeras and taking out an engine on a second one.
Eldar Defenders moved into grab the objective on their side. They could get close enough, so a unit of Swooping Hawks Deepstriked on top of it. Well kind of. They went off course and splattered into the wall, but it was enough to claim us 2 VP! Now you may be asking how one Deepstrikes from the sky underground. No idea. Webway gate shenanigans. The game wasn’t written with multi-level in mind.
The subsequent shooting and Charges did not end well for them. One of the Warbosses had fallen back and then rallied. He came through the wall like a green Kool Aid man (technically Infantry and Steed, not a Monster). Ducking his head (and avoiding the Dangerous Terrain Test), he joined in the fun!
Meanwhile, above them a Wraith Lord took the objective while the other Charged the Orks to occupy them. Apparently the Orks had anti-armor rounds and knives because they managed to hurt it several times despite its durability. The Power Klaw on the other hand did a number on it but it held its ground.
Orks swarmed the objective, using numbers to grab ground given by the Steel Legion.
While distracted by the Orks, the Berserkers failed their Ld save for The Nails Bite. Despite intending to be held in reserve, they charged the Chimera, lightly damaged it, and then chased it 1.5 inches. One Wound remained, but it killed one in return.
Meanwhile, Khorne had been feeling all sneaky git like after hanging out with so many Orks. Waiting until Round 3, the Daemon Prince Eightbound 1100 point deathball of doom arrived. Not only did they arrive on target in a crowded space, the Daemon Prince used both of his Ritual Skulls to successfully cast one of his two spells.
Charging from the torn veil of reality, they were not constrained to simply Deepstrike and then Charge next turn! They slammed into the back of the Wraiths. The Wraiths were still 1500 points of mostly defense, but they took their first casualty. Worse still, Eldrad found himself stabbed in the face several times. He lived by hiding from Challenges, but Characters rolling nat 6 To Hit could still target him!
In turn the Wraiths did some light damage in return. They had mostly paid for defense and Eightbound still had moderate defense for their points.
Meanwhile, the first Naut charged and destroyed the crippled Chimera it was pursuing. Its cargo were Forced Disembarked, but the Fortress of Arrogance claimed its mighty kill!
The Wraith Knight moved up, firing at Orks wildly and then charging the ones on the Objective and trampling them, earning 1 VP for our random objective.
The Valkyries came around from strafing more Orks and began picking shots at random, taking out a few stragglers. The third Chimera, who somehow ALSO had its engine blown out moved at half speed and continued to turn infantry into charred husks.
The Wraiths in the basement had a bad day get worse. Eldrad nearly died and several Wraiths were slain. DESPITE THIS, they continued to hold!
Mean while, the Chimera with 1 Wound left not only survived melee against the Berserkers, but it also killed another! In addition, they botched their Leadership roll and suffered casualties from being overwhelmed as a Fearless unit!
Next turn this was no longer the case, they put a plasma pistol round through its side, destroying it. The Guardsmen were Force Disembarked and subsequently charged! The Sergeant survived!
The second Naut killed the Wraith Knight, which blew up and killed all of the Orks around it. 16 of the 17 Orks were slain from the explosion!
In turn, I dropped my Stormtroopers on the Objective, because of course we rolled it again. Meanwhile, the Fortress of Arrogance put some extreme prejudice up the Naut’s tail pipe! Its movement was damaged twice, putting it at 25% speed! Buzzgob managed to fix the engine somewhat, making it only 50% speed penalized!
The Naut obliterated the Stormtroopers with its guns and made a miracle 12″ roll on its charge! Just enough to barely make the 6″ due to its damage!
It banged up the Fortress of Arrogance a little bit, but it revved its engine and ran it over, claiming its second major kill of the game!
Meanwhile, the Berserkers were in a great spot. They had two separate objectives needing them to hold #5. They instead once again failed The Nails Bites and had to charge the Baneblade instead. They proceeded to do 1 damage to it and miss out on 2 VP.
Eldrad and the Spiritseer were slain. With the last of the protection gone, the Wraith blob fell rather suddenly to the potency of Waaagh! Aura fueled Khorne murder machines. The Daemon Prince emerged from the basement on the Imperial/Eldar side, ready to do some damage!
Meanwhile, the Valkyries had drifted over in Hover mode, firing rockets and machine guns at Orks. They were Charged by the Kill Rig emerging from the other basement entrance! The Valkyries actually took damage and fell back after ramming the Kill Rig Rambo 3 style.
During this time, almost every Ork was killed by the Wraith Lords, but the last one with his Power Klaw slowly finished them off as they botched attack after attack.
Meanwhile, the Fortress of Arrogance simply rolled away from the Berserkers, pivoted to crush the cover Buzzgob was hiding in, and then engaged three priority targets.
Buzzgob was raked with heavy bolter fire, barely surviving. The Berserkers met the Demolisher cannon and ceased to exist. And the Daemon Prince’s unit got slammed by the main cannon, Lascannons, and more Heavy Bolters! His unit survived okay, but some Eightbound became unbound.
However, I failed to kill either Warlord so we missed that Objective at the very end.
Despite this, IG and Eldar won a solid 12 to 8, a moderate Victory!
Body count was abandoned in the chaos and tallied afterwards. Roughly 110 Orks, 10 Jakhals, 10 Berserkers were killed on their side.
On our side we lost an acceptable 45 out of 55 Guardsmen and 3 out of 3 Chimeras, but the Fortress of Arrogance was only lightly damaged! With Yarrick that was over 1200 points alone! Eldar were board wiped, but if we are being honest it’s an improvement for the Galaxy.
This battle was primarily testing Eldar Wraith durability. It was tough and capable of claiming one Objective really well, but at 1500 points with a Unique HQ and an Advisor, it can’t win a game on its own (as intended). With a slight tweak to them we are marking them as safe and continuing the Eldar rework! It’s going to be great and I think we are beyond internal and external balance adjustments. It is a matter of confirming stress tests for quality control at this point.
Alternate 40k Rules 