If you play Warhammer you’ve probably heard about the Fate of Konor campaign going on this summer. You can play battles with your friends and log them at your local store.
The results of this campaign will affect the actual Warhammer 40,000 story. So if Chaos wins this campaign that will actually happen in the story. It feels pretty awesome to take part is shaping the universe.
My buddy Mark and I decided we wanted to take part. Due to previous commitments we couldn’t get a game in week 1 but we were able to play the 2nd week’s special mission.
Mission
The mission lets you play with armies of any size. There’s one attacker and one defender. The player representing Chaos is the defender.
You deploy pretty close to each other.
And the mission has a few special stratagems:
Armies
Mark has a lot of toys so we decided to play a bigger game. It happened to work out to 122 Power Level each.
Iron Hands Army
HQ
Primaris Captain
Primaris Librarian
Techmarine on Bike
Elites
Apothecary
Apothecary on Bike
Techmarine
Iron Clad Dreadnought
Venerable Dreadnought
Contemptor Dreadnought
Redemptor Dreadnought
Troops
The flesh is weak. DREADNOUGHTS all the way.
Fast Attack
5 Space Marine Bikers
– 2 Plasma guns
5 Scout Bikers
Heavy
5 Hellblasters
3 Centurians
– 2 Lascannons with missile launchers
– 1 Gravcannon with missile launcher
3 Aggressors
Imperial Fists Army
HQ
Lysander
Captain
Elites
Dreadnought
– Twin Lascannon
– Missile launcher
Contemptor Dreadnought
– Multimelta
10 Assault Terminators
– 5 Lightning claws
– 5 Thunderhammer + stormshields
Imperial Space Marine
Troops
10 Space Marines
– Sergeant
— Powerfist
– Grav cannon
– Flamer
1 Rhino
10 Space Marines
– Grav cannon
– Plasma gun
1 Rhino
10 Scout
– 9 Sniper rifles
– 1 Missile launcher
– Camo cloaks
5 Custodes (from another detachment)
– 2 Guardian Spears
– 2 Shields
– 1 Shield + Vexilla
Fast Attack
None
Heavy
10 Devastators
– 2 Lascannons
– 2 Missile launchers
– Armorium Cherub
Thunderfire Cannon
Deployment
We had some pretty big armies. And both of us had really points heavy units. I had a 10 man terminator squad and 5 custodes. Mark had a billion dreadnoughts.
Battle
I was a bit surprised when I read the rules for this mission. Because unlike regular games the attacker goes first instead of the person who finishes deploying first.
So Mark takes the first turn and advances all of the bikes using his scout bikers as a screen. And his dreadnoughts following closely.
He spends the rest of the turn peppering the Terminators with shots. With a bit of luck on my side and Mark’s usual poor luck they shrug off just about everything.
I lose a few scouts and a terminator or two.
On my turn I move my terminators, custodes, and contemptor dreadnought forward to charge the scout bikers.
In the shooting phase I try to take out his contemptor dreadnought with my devastators, my dreadnought, and the imperial space marine. The bad luck continues because I only inflict 2 wounds to the contemptor.
At least I annilate the scout bikers in close combat. First blood to me.
Turn 2
Mark moves his dreadnoughts forward to charge the terminators & custodes… but don’t worry he’s going to pepper them with fire first.
- After polishing off the scout bikers the terminators & custodes are out in the open
He whips his bikes around and moves his contemptor in charge range of my scouts.
He shoots the terminators with everything he has and wipes out a few more. he charges the terminators and kills two more.
His aggressors with their insane amount of shots blow away most of the scout squad.
On my turn I move the custodes & contemptor forward to get in the massive assault.
Lysander moves towards a squad of bikes and fails a 5 inch charge. I use a command point to re-roll the dice and he still fails the charge. Now he’s stuck in the open.
Unfortunately in the assault phase my contemptor (who needs 2’s to hit) rolls three 1’s. I wiff and only cause 3 damage when I should have killed the ironclad entirely.
I plan to shoot those bikes in my next turn with my tactical marines.
Turn 3
Mark moves his contemptor towards my lines and he moves his techmarine on bike towards vulnerable Lysander.
And he shoots everything at Lysander. Luckily with his 3+ storm shield he shrugs off the heaviest stuff. But he’s taken down to 2 wounds.
In an embarrassing turn of events Lysander gets cut down in combat to the techmarine and never gets to swing.
On my turn I move the Imperial Space Marine in rapid fire to get some shots off at his contemptor.
With a huge amount of luck I hit twice with his disintegration gun, and once with his disintegration pistol. And I would 2/3 times.
He fails both invulnerables and the disintegration gun deals 10 damage the contemptor killing it on the spot.
And at the end of my turn I’m finally able to take down those dreadnoughts which is good and bad. The good is they’re dead and I got points. The bad is now I’m totally wide open to be shot at.
Turn 4
On his turn Mark moves his bikes into my deployment zone to threaten everything.
He kills the custodes with dedicated fire from his heavy weapons in the back.
He does some damage to the contemptor.
And he kills the scouts & a tactical squad. It’s not looking good for the Imperial Fists.
On my turn I focus everything I have on his bike squad. If I can kill the squad and kill the techmarine & apothecary on bike I can get 6 points and push into the lead.
Despite the captain’s leadership the tactical marines, the imperial space marine, the devastator squad (in the building), the dreadnought in the back, and the thunderfire cannon can’t seem to hit or wound the bikes at all! They only manage to kill 4 bikes letting the techmarine & apothecary off the hook.
I’m forced to charge them with my last two terminators.
Sadly my terminators need to go back to space marine school. They completely miss the techmarine.
Turns 5 & 6
On the last two turns I had a good chance of winning. All I had to do was shoot the techmarine off his bike and I’d get 2 points and move to the lead.
Unfortunately the Imperial Fists couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn (they watched too many Star Wars movies).
And Mark’s Iron Hand’s 6+ The Flesh is Weak Saves were insane! Any shot that did get through blew off a bionic and didn’t inflict any damage.
Conclusion
The game was great. Mark won the game. I had a chance on turn 5 if I could have picked off his tech marine. And then on turn 6 I had a slimmer chance of winning. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it happen.
A couple things I learned:
- The redemptor dreadnought is awesome. So many weapons to shoot.
- Hellblasters are phenominal
- Centurions are great with damage output. But I shot them off the table in one turn with my devastators.
- Aggressors do an insane amount of damage when they don’t move. They’re terrifying.
- I need more long range firepower to take out these somewhat fragile but really powerful units
Unfortunately since I’m working on Orks right now I don’t know when I can add that firepower to my marine army.
Stunning quest there. What happened after? Thanks!