Scouring The Xenos II
With the surrounding systems and space cleansed and patrolled, the legions land to scour the prine and verdant world of all traces of the xenos Eldar.
Planetfall has been initiated. What will become of the legions...
The game was 3,000 points of Apocalypse with titans and flyers on both sides. The Salamanders were the main force of the marine side with a small elite contingent of Raven Guard in the form of Shrike and his Van Guard wing. An imperial navy thunderbolt provided air cover and a warhound from Legio Ignatum provided long range and close assault support.
The Eldar were less numerous keeping 4 fire prisms, a Revenant titan and a Nightwing in reserve. The rest of the force consisted of 2 guardian squads, 2 jetbike squads and 2 vypers. The force was led by a council of Autarch and Farseer.
With the marines in orbital control they began the game first, the salamanders moving up 6 rhino transports and disembarking 3 tactical squads behind the cover of their vehicles. The warhound titan moved up the left flank and the thunderbolt began its strafing run across the eldar lines wreaking havoc on the exposed guardians. 2 vypers were caught in the blasts from the warhound's weapons taking them out of the game along with the remnants of the first guardian squad.
The eldar in response moved deeper into position to take the brunt of the marine advance in turn 2. With little else to do it was back to the marines.
The marines continued their advance under cover from the rhinos of the Salamanders and the presence of the warhound. A barrage from the whirlwinds tore apart the defensive position of the path finders.
The eldar brought on their second unit of jet bikes that flanked the enemy, a unit of guardians appeared behind the whirlwhinds parked in the corner and all 4 fire prisms entered play behind the salamander lines and Baharroth and his Swooping Hawks enetered play in the middle of the field.
The eldar still had some naval units, calling down an orbital bombardment on 3 tactical squads, wiping 1 ut and reducing a second to half strength. The nightwing descended from the skies and fired its salvoes at a whirlwind preventing it shooting next turn. The guardians attacked the remaining whirlwind damaging its motors and shaking the crew.
Turn 3 saw the Salamander command squad emerging from their Land Raider and making for the Farseer at the edge of the eldar line. Little did they know but the farseer had also been targetted by the warhounds primary weapons. His invulnerable save managed to shake off the first blast, not so the second!
In response to the assault threat of the hawks, Commander Shrike launched his assault with his assault wing of van guard, landing and declaring a heroic assault into the hawks. The brave eldar were summarily torn apart by Shrike and his men.
The Fire prisms opened up on the marine lines, wreakinga rhino forcing the transported marines to disgorge themselves. They also targetted the rear of the warhound but failed to do any damage.
The nightwing swooped round behind the warhound removing the void shields protecting the mammoth war machine. The Revenant titan entered play behind the Autarch and launched its lancing batteries into the warhound. Rolling on the Super Heavy damage table for all 4 shots saw the titan take serious damage, losing 2 of its 3 structure points. Close but not enough! In the assault phase the revenant turned its attention to a solitary rhino and punted it to the horizon for daring to disrupt the sacred soil of the maiden world.
In turn 4 the warhound fired everything into the opposing titan before charging in and the resulting clash ruptured the plasma reactorr of the graceful titan resulting in a meltdown that also took the lives of 13 salamader marines.
The battle was over, the marines had established a beach head to begin a full scale assault on the planet.
Result: Victory for the Marines