The Battle of Salt Storm: Straken's First Hoo-rah!

Greetings. I have deceided to try to rekindle my batrep habit. The game was played a couple of weeks ago but storm Aowyn but a halt to that by tearing doen trees and leaving myself and many thousands of others in Ireland without power. So enough about real life, it's time to retreat into my fantasy world.

Inquisitor Jao of the Ordo Astartes was on the Imperial planet Almyrós tracking evidence of a full tactical squad of Adeptus Astartes that had apparently turned renegade and departed their chapter. They were from a Blood Angel successor chapter called The Blood Swillers. His spy network informed him that a sizeable force of Blood Angels, led by commander Dante himself had landed on the planet. He was then  sent a curt message to desist any attempts to track the renegades as it was effectively being taken over as a Blood Angel business. Jao then decided to meet and discus the matter with Dante in a settlement known as Salt Storm due to it's proximity to the vast sodium granule desert and subsequent regular weather phenomenon . In accordance with his elevated suspicion he commandeered a force of Astra Militarum as an escort and arrived to find the blood Angels arrayed for battle. Without waiting for the Astartes  to attack Jao gave Commander Straken the order to deploy and thus the Battle of Salt Storm began.

 This game I will be referring to my Tabletop Battles app so I can accurately state what objectives were acheived and in what turn. This game was also pre-Astra Militarum codex so I'm just using the datasheets. I'm using Combined Regiment and Aaron my opponent used Liberator Assault Group. Mission set up was using the Pariah mission deck with Sweeping Engagement, Strike Force and Fog of War. I chose to be defenders and got first turn. All in all, it was going exactly as I wanted so far.

Aarons Army;
Astorath : The Executioner's Axe
Commander Dante : Perdition, The Axe Mortalis, Warlord
Captain with Jump Pack : Gift of Foresight, Melee and Pistol, Relic Weapon, Plasma Pistol

10x Assault Intercessor Squad 
5x Intercessor Squad 
10x Tactical Squad 

5x Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs (90pts)
5x Death Company Marines with Jump Packs (130pts)
3x Eliminator Squad (85pts)
5x Infiltrator Squad (100pts)
3x Sanguinary Guard (130pts)
5x Terminator Assault Squad (180pts)
Baal Predator (135pts): Armoured Tracks, Hunter Killer Missile, Storm Bolter, 2 Heavy Bolters, Twin Assault Cannon
Brutalis Dreadnought (160pts): Twin Icarus Ironhail Heavy Stubber, Brutalis Talons, Twin Multi-melta
Land Raider Redeemer (285pts): Armoured Tracks, 2x Flamestorm Cannon, Hunter Killer Missile, Multi-melta, Storm Bolter, Twin Assault Cannon

My Army

‘Iron Hand’ Straken [Legends] (55pts): Auto Shotgun, Bionic Arm with Devil's Claw, Plasma pistol

Leman Russ Commander (235pts): Armoured tracks, Hunter-killer missile, Demolisher battle cannon, Lascannon, 2 Multi-meltas, 2x Multi-melta

Primaris Psyker (60pts): Force weapon, Laspistol, Psychic maelstrom

Inquisitor in Terminator Armour [Legends] (70pts): Warlord, Force weapon, Psycannon, Psychic gifts

Jokaero Weaponsmith [Legends] (30pts): Close combat weapon, Jokaero weapons

10x Cadian Shock Troops (65pts)

10x Cadian Shock Troops (65pts)

Death Korps of Krieg (65pts)

3x Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (50pts)

3x Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (50pts)

3x Ogryn Squad (60pts)

9x Attilan Rough Riders (120pts)

Basilisk (140pts): Armoured tracks, Earthshaker cannon

Hellhound (125pts): Inferno cannon, Heavy flamer, Armoured tracks

Leman Russ Battle Tank (175pts): Armoured tracks, Leman Russ battle cannon, Hunter-killer missile, Lascannon, 2 Heavy Bolters, 2x Heavy bolter

Leman Russ Battle Tank (175pts): Armoured tracks, Leman Russ battle cannon, Hunter-killer missile, Lascannon, 2 Heavy Bolters, 2x Heavy bolter

Daemonhost [Legends] (40pts)

11x Exaction Squad (90pts)

12x Inquisitorial Agents (100pts)

Inquisitorial Chimera (70pts): Armoured tracks, Hunter-killer missile, Lasgun array, Heavy bolter, Heavy stubber, Heavy bolter

From up to down mortar heavy weapons, leman russ, cadians, leman russ, leman russ demolisher commander, another heavy weapon squad, catachans with straken and a chimera filled with Arbites. Inquisitor Jao is waiting in strategic reserves.

 

Turn One

Turn one mission objectives were Assassination and no prisoners. Commander Dante was up in space, Astorath was hiding in a Death Company unit and the captain with the gift of foresight, had the foresight to hide in the redeemer landraider with the assault intercessors. Aaron's infiltrators infiltrated onto the objective on my right so right off the bat I had to try to get them off (ooer!) that objective with extreme prejudice from the start. I gave the kriegers with the primaris psyker the order to move move move to attack them and virtually all the rest of my units got take aim! I trundled my demolisher forward and unleashed hell on the landraider. The demolisher very nearly one shotted the bugger when I rolled two 6's to hit with the multimelta. I also very nearly offed the Death Company, but not enough to get to Astorath. So I failed assassination but killed both the Eliminators and the Land Raider. Aaron drew assassination as well and sabotage. He held the right hand objective (barely) and advanced up to attack my hellhound and chimera full of arbites.

Kriegers using military tictacs and a can-do attitude nearly kill a unit of Reivers. After this picture was taken they charged the marine, almost killing him.

The hellhound moves up to burn some marines. Quite unwise as it makes 'em angry.

A crazed nearly dead Space Marine gets put into an even bigger suit of armour so he can mess shit up, in this case a hellhound that torched some of his mates. Sadly for the dread, his stubby legs couldn't get him to destroying range of the hellhound.

As all my characters were fairly well protected and his snipers were gone assassination was a tough ask. The big blob of intercessors started sabotaging some industrial pipe. Aaron made the sensible decision to shoot the chimera with his dreadnaught and charge the nearer hellhound to kill two birds with one stone. This worked out badly as he failed to kill the chimera (to let his assault intercessors gobble them up) and then failed the charge into the hellhound. So at the end of the turn no secondaries were scored. 4 - 0 to the astra militarum. 

Turn Two

I was still hopefull of assassinating someone so I kept that card and drew overwhelming force, which was very doable with all my tanks still in play. I moved the Cadians up to create a bit of a buffer for any deepstriking chapter masters that might be about and brought my rough riders on the left flank to attack a unit of intercessors and maybe steal the objective over there. The lone infiltrator was beaten up by the Kriegers and the Death Company on the centre objective were blown off it giving me 5 points for overwhelming force. The dreadnaught got demolisher cannoned to death before he could start using those nasty claws. The Rough riders however failed their charge to get the Blood Angels vandalising the pipes. The Arbites jumped out to try to arrest Astorath, but it was another failed charge.

So Aaron got his sabotage and drew area denial. Oath of moment went on to the Rough Riders (I don't remember what it went on first turn). Luckily for me it was only the intercessors and predator that had a bead on them but them were well reduced with shooting and subsequently charged, almost killing them. Fortunately for me as well Dante and his sanguinary guard couldn't deploy close enough to any of the tanks, saving their bacon and the Terminators came in in my back right flank witha view to taking, then scorching the objective there. Dante's unit charged and wiped out the Cadian speed bump but the terminators charged the Kriegers giving them a larruping and grabbing the objective. At the end of the turn the scores were 20 - 13.

After receiving the oath of moment, the Attilans barely made it out of the 2nd turn.

                                                                                   

Turn Three

Turn three saw some see sawing between units taking an objective and then losing it when the big burly Astartes show up to kill for the Emperor. Inquisitor Jao arrived killing both the intercessors fighting the Rough Riders, who had skedaddled into Aaron deployment zone. Some concentrated battlecannon fire wiped out Astorath, Dante and his bodyguard. The Arbites were all chopped up and the assault intercessors move in on to the chimera which had been living a charmed life so far. The Ogryns arrived on the backfield to try to charge the marines holding their home objective. I finally moved Straken out of his cosy little deployment zone. Grenaded the Terminators. I scored extend battle lines and establish locus. Aaron secured no man's land and recovered assets in his turn. Scores were 43 - 35.

Assault Intercessors, one of my all time least favourite things in 40K. They have a bajillion attacks donchaknow?

Prepare to be arrested Space Marines!

The Arbites aren't really a match for the Blood Angels and to make matters worse Astrorath the Grim is thinking about getting involved.

Some Terminators crash the party, after they minced the Krieg, some enthusiastic Cadians looking for all intents and purposes as Catachans walk up and throw grenades at them.

Meanwhile, Inquisitor Jao makes his entrance. His motley crew of mainly Necromundans try to kill a Predator.

Colonel Straken lolls about overseeing all the Cadians and Kriegers getting killed.

Having dealt with the cops, these transhuman lawbreakers go for a tank, vandals! Straken is coming to the rescue though.

The marines are getting a bit thin on the ground, assault intercessors, a banged up predator and a combat squad of intercessors are all that's left.

Just before Straken's heroic charge to save the day.

Last Two Turns

Straken and his mates got stuck into the Assault Intercessors, the Ogryns and Hellhound did the same in Aaron's backfield and a lot of battlecannon and earthshaker cannons done in the Terminators. At the end of the game all the marines were dead and I had been very lucky to have saved the Adeptus Munitorum a lot of cash as most of the tanks were still on the table. Of course a lot of posthumous commendations had to be sent out to Krieg and the smoking ball of rubble that was Cadia too. All in all the renegade Space Marines were put in their place and were taken into custody by the Inquisition if any survived.

Aaron's score sheet.

Victory!

I'd love to say that I'm a tactical genius and Aaron just got beaten by the better man. This isn't true, Aaron's army had considerably less anti tank that it should - particularly against Astra Militarum. Some of the tactical objectives cards he drew weren't really helpful, and as is commonly the case, first turn is pretty important. Aaron's army was great looking but a little close combat orientated for a AM gunline, plus some of the main targets either failed crucial charges or (in the case of the assault Intercessors)had their ride shot out from under them. Lethal hits were also incredibly usful, in particular multimelta shots on the landraider. My second turn screening was pretty good giving Dante a 65 point Cadian unit to kill and not much else of tactical value. When all's said and done it was a fun game that i hope my opponent enjoyed as well. A by product of the game is Aaron has since purchased some lascannon army predators to even things up next time, so I look forward to that.

I suppose to try to keep some sort of narrative going within the game, Inquisitor Jao, once all the blood and guts were swept up conceeded that the Blood Angelss attacked when they saw his daemonhost - Barlsusnart and the whole thing seemed 'dodgy'. Luckily, neither Dante, or Astorath were properly dead and everybody laughed about it later. Inquisitor Jao still has his suspicions about the Blood Swillers, but he gave them a pass this time. Probably a fairly non grimdark epilogue but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Thanks for reading.