Battle Report: 4 way fight to the death

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Now you know me, I like fantasy games ... I play games with Dungeon and Trolls and Magic Swords and my miniature collection reflects this for the most part. But occasionally when the planets align and strange forces are at work in the universe I will take interest in 40k ... not Spacemarines obliviously, this is a freak alignment of the planets, not divine intervention (or Wish! – D&D joke)

and so it came to be that on saturday I found myself in command of a small force of Chaos Spacemarines ... not my own Chaos Spacemarines – they sit still untouched in several boxes collecting dust ... all the forces on the table belonged to my friend Mutt.

Now lets see what I can remember ...

This was a one-off game played purely for fun and we didn't worry about point values, by tried to make the forces roughly even (well 3 of us did), we decided on 2 HQ troops, 2 Squads of troops and 2 small vehicles (or one large vehicle)


so here's the line up as it appeared on the table

Me (MortiS) 
Chaos Space Marines 

1 Chaos Spacemarine Lord in Terminator Armour
1 Chaos Spacemarine Champion in Terminator Armour

5 Chaos Spacemarines Armed with Bolters
4 Chaos Spacemarines Armed Chainswords and Bolt Pistols and 1 armed with powerfist and Bolt Pistol

1 Land Raider (transporting the close combat squad above)

(nothing special here really, I could have taken the guys with chain swords as Berserkers but I chose not to)


Axl
Space Orks

1 Ork Warboss in Mega-Armour
1 Nob in Mega-Armour

10 Shoota Boyz
10 Slugga Boyz

1 Looted Land Raider fitted with Zapp Gun

(as we where using 3rd edition rules I felt a lot of sympathy for Axl, as 3rd edition rendered Orks useless on the battle field)

Mike 
Eldar

2 Farseers

10 Guardians
10 other Guardians

1 Falcon Grav-Tank
1 Fire Prism Grav Tank

(Mike was playing his first game of 40k ever)


Mutt
Space Wolves

-5 Assault Marines with jumppacks
-5 Devastator Marines

-2 Razorbacks with twin Lascannons

(Mutt informed us that his command choice was inside the second Razorback)

the scenario: 4 way fight to the death!

and so the games began, things looked to be in the Space Wolves favour already as Mutt had chosen to put specialist squads on the table rather than the bog-standard troops the rest of us had taken. Things seemed to even out a little when Mike's Fire Prism destroyed the first Razorback.
Mutt responded by having his Assault Marines chew their way through a unit of guardians while training all his heavy weapons on my Landraider, which promptly exploded leaving my close-combat troops standing in the wreckage looking rather surprised - so much for my plan to get them into close-combat quickly. With no heavy weapons remaining in my force Mutt's second Razorback loomed threateningly on my right flank, a long, long way from my close-combat marines. I moved my Terminators forward and let off several rounds of Bolter and Reaper-Autocannon fire at the devastator Squad on the opposite hill. The Orkz all moved forward firing most of their weapons at the Eldar taking cover in the valley below, the dice did not favour the poor BS 2 Orkz and most of their shots missed.
The game went on the Orkz ground slowly forward, firing their ineffective weapons, the Eldar Fire Prism malfunction and was rendered useless. The Falcon blew up and some Guardians died, after a long sprint across the valley my close-combat marines ground the Mutt's devastator squad down to 2 men. My Terminator Champion took 4 lascannon shots to the face and died and Axl's Slugga boyz and Nob took down a few of Mutt's Assault Marines at great cost to themselves. Then in their darkest hour, when all hope seemed lost for the Spacewolves ...

... a Squad of 5 terminators with Lightning Claws Teleported into the middle of the Ork lines and a Rune Priest with 3 Giant Wolves stepped out of the back of the remaining Razorback !!!

a huge cry of HEY! What the fuck?! Came from 3 sides of the table as Mutt explained that these where his HQ troops. I decided that 2 could play at that game and declared that if he could teleport Terminators on the board so could I and promptly did so. We gave Axl 5 Warbikes as re-enforcements and allowed Mike to bring a brand-new Fire Prism onto the table to even things out a little. The poor Orkz concentrated all their barely effective fire-power (including the Looted Landraider's Zapp Gun) onto the terminators and by some miracle of successive lucky dice rolls managed to kill 2 of them. The Eldar Guardians remained safe behind their waist high walls in the valley, and the Falcon headed toward the Rune Priest and his wolf pack all guns blazing but did no damage what so ever. The New Prism did manage to disable the Orkz Zapp gun though. My Terminators advanced on the Space Wolf Terminators who made a retreat, cunningly disguised as an Assault on the Orkz. My Bolter Marines fired at the Rune Priest but failed to do any damage and were rewarded for their actions by having the Remaining Spacewolves Assault Marines descend on them. The Orkz ground down the Spacewolves Terminators to 1 man at great cost to their own numbers and the remaining Terminator killed all the remaining Ork foot Troops the next turn, then the Fire Prism utterly annihilated the Looted Landraider leaving the Ork forces at the grand total of 5 warbikes. I took pity on the Orks, who where no real threat to my troops and moved my terminators toward the Rune Priest, the Reaper Autocannons failing to do any damage to the Wolf pack.
Mutt's Assault Marines destroyed my Bolter armed Squad and chased the survivor off the table, and his Razor back disabled Mikes Falcon. The Ork bikes sped down the valley toward the Eldar Guardians gunning down a few with their Twin Autocannons, but ended up in close combat with the Guardians and due to some very luck dice rolls on the part of the Eldar and unlucky dice rolls on the part of the Orkz got reduced to 1 bike.
In the final round of the game The Rune Priest and his Wolves managed to kill off most of my Terminators in close combat and the Razorback rendered the remaining Eldar Grav Tank useless.


 ^Where it all went wrong – the release of 40k 3rd edition