With my entire force of Tallarn painted, we decided to take them all into a large fray where I could show off the collection in glorious battle! Short on time, we made as much haste as one can when fielding over 170 infantry and 18 vehicles.
Deploying in a Dawn of War formation, the infantry heavy force deployed first. Uncertain where these supposedly powerful daemons would appear, they covered the entire 8′ deployment zone with the intent to collapse inward. Heavy weapon squads were deployed on rooftops. Support squads with long range fire power were deployed to form a shield wall for them as they moved up, and if necessary, become the second assault wave to claim Objective Markers. Lastly, the Veteran squads and assault loadout squads formed a formidable front line! The Tank Commander and Leman Russ Vanquisher took the left side, allowing the left flank to be a major threat to the greater daemons.
The two Platoon Command Squads and the Company Command Squad spread out to provide a wide coverage for Orders. Commissariat forces were distributed as well to ensure the first wave did not collapse easily. A unit of 8 Scout Sentinels and 6 Armoured Sentinels took the far right flank, ready to deal punishing fire to any greater daemon that dared to show its face. The center was heavily concentrated with Veterans and two Taurox transports to provide mobility if the center needed to swing.
Aetoas’rau’keres deployed on the Tallarn’s right flank behind a massive building.
Ahriman deployed with a large unit of Horrors of Tzeentch. His intent is to take the forces massing in the center and eliminate their many melta weapons to remove the additional threat to their powerful assets.
Magnus the Red lurks in the warp, ready to be summoned to the field of battle!
The left flank of the Tallarn surges forwards! Leman Russ tanks Advance with the infantry, creating a heavy wall that will be difficult to penetrate. Waves 1 and 2 begin to separate, leaving the defensive Wave 3 holding the rear line.
The right flank sees the Sentinels rush forwards, with Scouts leading the way. Armored Sentinels move on the outskirts, spreading out to avoid the devastating Apocalypse Barrage that Aetoas’rau’keres is going to unleash momentarily. They open fire with heavy weapon Teams supporting them. Hunter Killer Missiles streak across the sky and slam into the largest daemon they have ever seen. In return it… laughs? Something akin to that at least. Its warp magic proving to be formidable as its daemonic nature shrouds it from nearly all the incoming fire. As the smoke clears from the heavy weapons, it remains nearly untouched!
Tallarn rushes to secure the heavy building first! Fire from some flanking support units and the two Taurox inflict some minor damage. To their horror, the Purple Horrors are obliterated, only to scream back into existence as two Blue Horrors once they are ripped in twain!
Forces racing to secure the building. The Taurox moving to provide early fire on the Purple Horrors.
Aetoas’rau’keres lifts into the air with a horrendous screech that pierce the souls of the Tallarn! Ominously, he swoops over the building the right flank is attempting to secure and begins working his dark magic! He first summons Magnus out of the warp with a forceful tear in reality, defying the normal limitations of daemonic incursions (cannot arrive from Reserves on Turn 1 in A4R normally). He then grabs one of the Commissar’s mind and makes him slash down Veteran with his Power Sword. The Commissar proves extremely resilient, resisting to the point that only one is cut down! His staff summons a powerful barrage, but it is off target and only destroys one sentinel!
Moments later, Magnus does the same thing, forcing another to be slain. A powerful beam of energy erupts from Magnus as he Gazes upon the Scout Sentinels, blasting the damaged one to pieces and evaporating several Veterans that were in the way! The commissar, getting slammed by transmutation spells from both Magnus and Aetoas’rau’keres, throws himself in front of the beam to try and protect the squad. He is able to knock two Veterans out of the way be he is obliterated, denying Tzeentch the chance to turn him into a Chaos Spawn!
Ahriman closes in on the central building. His Purple Horrors send waves of fireballs into the building, but the stealthy nature of the Tallarn meant they were hard to kill without a clean line of sight! They charged into melee, finishing off the squad brutally.
Magnus was a series threat. More importantly, easier to kill and had materialized conveniently near a large amount of Veterans armed with Meltaguns. Three squads of Veterans, one slightly battered, swarmed him. Taurox transports delivered two of them, surrounding Magnus in a cone of lethal fire! Nine Meltaguns were fired at point blank range, but Tzeentch’s magic was powerful to behold and none harmed him (Jordan, stop rolling so many Invulnerability Saves against my powerful weapons lol). With lots of Orders coming through, the remaining guardsmen fired everything they had! Lasguns blazed hundreds of rounds into him, Taurox heavy weapons gave him everything they had, Heavy Weapon Squads adjusted aim and poured fire into him, and the Armoured Sentinels even shifted to fire on him. Despite the strong magic, Magnus the Red was nearly dead! (1 Wound left).
The Leman Russ tanks split up, one taking the north flank of the building and another the South. The Tank Commander was able to line up a shot and put a Vanquisher shell up Aetoas’rau’keres’s tail pipe!
As Magnus reeled backwards from the brutal onslaught of fire, it was clear that he could be slain before he could act again. But it was going to be a tough one. Only two characters were able to Declare a Charge against him. The Master of Ordnance went first, but fell on his face in fear when he got the order!
Captain Al’Rahem, heavily wounded, came in and Charged! Despite how it appeared, his Claw of the Desert Tiger had a decent chance on delivering the fatal blow! He raced in to the amusement of Magnus. His first blow was absorbed by the magic of Tzeentch as expected, but his second missed by mere millimeters as Magnus pulled his leg back just in time!
As expected, Al’Rahem was booped on the snoot and turned into a Chaos Spawn!
Aetoas’rau’keres weaved his dark magic and turned the Master of Ordnance into a Chaos Spawn as well! Both charged into the nearby squads, dealing damage and tying them up in Melee.
Magnus pulled back and charged the Veterans holding the top of the center building! He hoped for booping another Chaos Spawn into existence, but the Lord Commissar was tougher than he expected! Through a nail biter defense roll, he just barely survived the incoming Power Fist!
In the building, the Purple Horrors charged a Command Squad and began a fight. As expected, they crushed several guardsmen, but they took casualties in return. The fight continued!
Aetoas’rau’keres dropped his Apocalypse Barrage weapon on some of the Veterans that were trying to kill Magnus. The Taurox was hard to spot and managed to survive multiple hits but picked up a flat from the shrapnel. The Veterans it had deployed were annihilated.
Blue Horrors flamed several Autocannons to death, but one Heavy Weapon Team remained on the objective! They then engaged the Veterans and locked them into Melee. Neither side broke and the fight continued! The Heavy Weapon Team was forced to fall back when a Chaos Spawn stumbled into them, wounding the loader.
Magnus beamed the squad on the wall. While he failed to damage the Taurox with the Snap Shot, he did fry half the squad on the wall.
By this time, the Scout Sentinel Squad had rallied, they continued to fire into Aetoas’rau’keres, pounding him with Lascannon rounds. Unable to engage Magnus locked in Melee, the entirety of the Tallarn force in range fires into him as well! Both Leman Russ tanks could now draw a line of sight to him. Combined with nearly two dozen heavy weapons, Aetoas’rau’keres was fatally wounding and nearing his demise!
Magnus was incredibly lucky when the Order to Repel Borders came through and every Meltagun failed! The melee fight went on and neither were able to slay each other!
We had to call game at this point, but it was a Draw with Tallarn at 2 VP and Tzeentch at 1VP. Had the game continued, the sheer volume of Guardsmen would have ground them into dust. The Purple Horrors would have continued to do a fair amount of damage, but they had nearly 1000 points closing in on them as well. The Chaos Spawns were both nearly dead and would not have lasted much longer either. This was a fun test of Aetoas’rau’keres and the Purple Horrors. They are fantastic for what they do. They keep regenerating over and over again in the form of lesser infantry.
Alternate 40k Rules 