Apocalypse Battle 2 - "Howling City"

The sprawling ruins of Agrona's capitol city has now become a hellish battlefield for the stalwart forces of the Imperium and the corrupt legions of Chaos. Both sides now unleash their most lethal weapons upon each other in order to obtain six valuable objectives.

Imperial Forces:

Cadians

Elysians

Ultramarines

Dark Angels

Ebon Sun Marines

Chaos Forces:

The Fallen

Death Mages

Angels of Ecstasy

As we started, we sort of suspected something was out of place. All the players were unpacking their armies and setting them up off to the side. Jay (playing the Fallen) had kept one rather large box unopened to the side. Then, he waited to the last moment to unveil his latest hobby purchase. A friggin Imperial Reaver Titan!

I admit it. I had a huge smile on my face. Before now, none of Chaos players had any super heavies to throw against Cundo's Baneblade. Now, Jay brings a Reaver to the battle! *Ahem* newly turned traitor by the seductive whispers of Chaos of course....

So the game began. Chaos had a ton of firepower on their side and they used it to hammer the Imperials turn after turn. The traitor Titan made the Baneblade on the right flank a priority. Soon, it was destroyed. Then, the Reaver started to turn its massive guns on smaller targets.

Tank Commander (last words): "You will bow down before me! Both you and one day, your heirs!"

Meanwhile, on the left flank, the Ebon Sun Marines planned to rush forward and grab the objective near the river. Unfortunately, things weren't going their way and their charge was being stalled by mass anti-tank fire.

Yes, things were looking very nice for Chaos. However, looking at the clock, they realized that time would soon run out. They needed to start grabbing some objectives away from the Imperials! A tie would be unacceptable. The Angels of Ecstasy were already well aware of this and had started to push forward on the right edge early in the game. Now, in addition, the Fallen dropped in their Raptor jump pack assault troops behind the Imperial lines in an attempt to cause some mayhem there and grab the furthest objective. The only thing in their way, some frail Guardsmen. Surely the Imperials were now doomed. Right?

Well, you gotta admit, things weren't looking too good when a bunch of Ravenwing bikers got annihilated by an orbital bombardment as they tried to ride across the river. (see picture below)

Although, as veteran players know, you can still make a come back in the fourth quarter. So don't count the Imperials out yet. Sure enough, a timely arrvial of fresh Imperial forces started coming in from reserves at just the right spots to counter the Chaos push and turn the tide. From the back edge, the Ultramarines enter the fray and engage the Fallen Raptors. On the right flank, even more Ultramarines arrived to push the Angels of Ecstasy off the objective near the pond. Then, screaming in from the sky, Elysian Drop Troopers landed right by an objective on the Chaos side of the river. Right underneath the Reaver Titan! With the aid of Sentinel walkers and Tarantula sentry turrets (also dropped in), the Elysians laid down a withering storm of lethal fire that cleared the area of any Chaos Marines near the objective. Even before the smoke cleared, they ran into the nearby ruined building and seized the prize.

Most of the Chaos players weren't worried though. They still had plenty of manpower and firepower left to counter the Imperials. A Defiler and two squads of Chaos Marines were on their way to take back the objective from the Elysians. Also, the Reaver Titan was still unharmed and ready to continue decimating the worshippers of the corpse Emperor. Right?

Well, that's the thing about Apocalypse games. You gotta watch the clock. Time had run out and even though Chaos still had plenty of lethal units on the battlefield, it didn't matter. In the end, the Imperials owned four objectives. The Ebon Suns finally seized the objective by the river, the objective by the Ultramarine Land Raider on the right flanked remained in Imperial hands, the objective that the Angels of Ecstasy held by the pond was being contested by a handful of surviving Ultramarines, the brave Elysians held the Chaos objective in the ruins near the Reaver, and finally . . . the far objective that the Fallen Raptors were after was still perfectly safe in Imperial hands. Which is good, because it was secretly worth double points! Chaos had only a hold of one objective. A crude alter to the left of the Reaver, not far from the Elysians.

FINAL SCORE

Imperial Forces: 4

Chaos Forces: 1

Lessons learned? Well, I believe this was the group's third or fourth Apoc game since that ruleset came out. At the time, we hadn't gotten the flow and feel of how Apoc games tend to go. Lately, I've noticed in our newer Apoc games, we hold a lot more back in reserves in order to surprise the enemy and deploy reinforcements where they're needed. Keeping less deployed on the table also means less things getting blown up from crazy pre-game bombardments. Also, a three and a half hour Apoc game isn't going to allow you to play out a full dramatic epic battle. It's not really an Apoc game. More like a Mini-Apoc game. We know this, but sometimes you are limited by the schedules of players and where you can play. It happens. The whole thing was still loads of fun. Hopefully we can have the final Apoc campaign battle be a full 6-8 hour epic.