Captain Sicarius was in a hangar bay monitoring the loading of the Thunderhawks when he received the transmission.
"My lord, we are getting reports of a counterattack on the landing site-I'm patching through picts now!"
Knowing his loyal and apparently rather resiliant chaplain was at the water treatment plant trying to make contact with local authorities Cato ask, "Who is in charge of the landing site?"
"Sir, there are no command personnel there; the senior most official is the Techmarine who brought down the thunderfire cannon and the two squad leaders."
Sicarius knew that the last drop had deposited a scout squad, a predator, two rhinos, a razorback, and a single apothecary who had gone down alone to treat the wounded, and the thunderfire cannon with a techmarine and two servitors who were there to maintain the site and install an aegis defense line. In addition to the two tac squads that had seized the site were there as well. "I'm on my way to the command center-keep me appraised."
As he arrived, the first orbital auguries gave him an idea of what the group faced: the fell powers had pulled out all the stops apparently: Two small squads of chaos marines with corrupted rhino transports, a squad of depraved cultists, not one but two helbrutes and a defiler! In the rear (Cato found his cowardice appropriate) was a champion, "encouraging" his troops forward.
Cato watch the battle unfold. The chaos forces surged towards the hastily assembled defensive lines. Slowly cultists and chaos marines were picked off with the defiler and predator crew trading ineffectual shots off of each other. The first Ultramarines casualty was the razorback as one of the helbrutes struck home with its twin-linked lascannons.
The predator shuddered as it took a hit, damaging the hull but failing to do crippling damage, but in return the defiler was felled.
Rallying the nearby squads, they quickly elmininated the quickly advancing helbrute and wounded the far one with its lascannons. The closes chaos rhino was taken down by the scouts and the chaos marine squads were cut down just as they were reaching the defensive lines. The chaos champion quickly mounted the remaining rhino to escape but it was blown up underneath him. He emerged from the wreckage and bellowed a challenge to the loyalists but they cut him down instead; they would spare no honor for this traitor to the Empeor.
Captain Sicarius nodded in approval as the apothecary moved towards the wrecked razorback to try to recover the crew. Cato was pleased with how the battle had turned out; the price had been low this time. Now to take care of the mercenary group that had attacked the water treatment plant...
Note: Sorry for the lousy pics-my digital camera is on its last legs and this is a side effect of the flash not working. Next time I will break out the tripod and do this right. This was a narrative battle so the force org was played with a little; normally there would be an actual HQ choice but for flavor this was the group I was assigned to work with; it was a great way of representing a force that thought it was in a secure area. Also, I did set the aegis line up incorrectly per the actual rules. It didn't affect the outcome any but I will do my homework in the future. I was worth every point paid for it though and it will be seeing its way onto the battlefield again!
Second are some chaos havocs because I refuse to drop the coin on the finecast reworks of crappy models that don't give me the weapons I want in the first place:
And lastly, here is a heavy bolter marine to trade into tac squads in lieu of a missile launcher and a Heresy-era rhino (although these keep finding their way into my regular games and again, why not?):
Sicarius knew that the last drop had deposited a scout squad, a predator, two rhinos, a razorback, and a single apothecary who had gone down alone to treat the wounded, and the thunderfire cannon with a techmarine and two servitors who were there to maintain the site and install an aegis defense line. In addition to the two tac squads that had seized the site were there as well. "I'm on my way to the command center-keep me appraised."
As he arrived, the first orbital auguries gave him an idea of what the group faced: the fell powers had pulled out all the stops apparently: Two small squads of chaos marines with corrupted rhino transports, a squad of depraved cultists, not one but two helbrutes and a defiler! In the rear (Cato found his cowardice appropriate) was a champion, "encouraging" his troops forward.
Cato watch the battle unfold. The chaos forces surged towards the hastily assembled defensive lines. Slowly cultists and chaos marines were picked off with the defiler and predator crew trading ineffectual shots off of each other. The first Ultramarines casualty was the razorback as one of the helbrutes struck home with its twin-linked lascannons.
The predator shuddered as it took a hit, damaging the hull but failing to do crippling damage, but in return the defiler was felled.
Rallying the nearby squads, they quickly elmininated the quickly advancing helbrute and wounded the far one with its lascannons. The closes chaos rhino was taken down by the scouts and the chaos marine squads were cut down just as they were reaching the defensive lines. The chaos champion quickly mounted the remaining rhino to escape but it was blown up underneath him. He emerged from the wreckage and bellowed a challenge to the loyalists but they cut him down instead; they would spare no honor for this traitor to the Empeor.
Captain Sicarius nodded in approval as the apothecary moved towards the wrecked razorback to try to recover the crew. Cato was pleased with how the battle had turned out; the price had been low this time. Now to take care of the mercenary group that had attacked the water treatment plant...
Note: Sorry for the lousy pics-my digital camera is on its last legs and this is a side effect of the flash not working. Next time I will break out the tripod and do this right. This was a narrative battle so the force org was played with a little; normally there would be an actual HQ choice but for flavor this was the group I was assigned to work with; it was a great way of representing a force that thought it was in a secure area. Also, I did set the aegis line up incorrectly per the actual rules. It didn't affect the outcome any but I will do my homework in the future. I was worth every point paid for it though and it will be seeing its way onto the battlefield again!
