The Imperium Strikes Back!

This Week's Campaign Results

As the battle for Duglum XIII rages on, territories are conquered and lost, fortifications built and destroyed, troops recruited and killed.
Still the Imperial forces under the lead of the Nebula Raiders are steadily gaining ground in the Battle for Duglum XIII. Not only have the Nebula Raiders scored one more victory in battle against each Orks and Necrons this week, but they have also managed to capture quite an amount of territory in the process. The Orks have been bashed by the other factions too, resulting in them being beat up pretty badly.

The Xenos, initially holding 29.7% of the warzone, have lost 0.5% of territory and can now only claim 29.2%. [-1]
The Orks, initially holding 11.0% of the warzone, have gained 1.7% of territory and can now claim 9.3%. [-3]
Chaos, initially holding 40.1% of the warzone, have lost 8.2% of territory and can now only claim 31.9%, but can call sector M their own. [-15]
The Imperium, initially holding 19.2% of the warzone, have gained 10.5% of territory and can now claim 29.7% and call sectors E and J their own. [+19]


Short Battle Reports

vs. Orks
Annihilation (first time for me in the entire campaign) with spearhead deployment. I win the roll to decide who goes first and pass the honor to my opponent.
Orks deploy most of their force which outnumbers mine by almost four to one despite having elite units and quite an amount of heavy ranged weaponry with low AP. I deploy my scouts with Telion in good cover and my vehicles -three vindicators and three typhoons- in a column hidden from line of sight for most of the Ork "artillery", bike squads all in reserves. I do not try to steal the initiative.
Orks begin the game advancing the boyz, heavy guns trying to get into firing position. Only a looted tank shoots its ordnance, hitting my vindicator and bouncing off without effect. In my first turn the landspeeders take out the bigmek and his snotzooka while the vindicators stun the looted tank, blast some boys, and decimate the waaaghboss-led bikers who also end up pinned by my scouts.
In the Orks' second turn some tankbustas come in from reserves destroying one of the vindicators with hits into side armor. Not much else happens except for the boyz advancing, as the artillery still can't draw line of sight yet and everything else is stunned or pinned. In my second turn my captain and his bike squad come in from reserves and hurl themselves into forty boyz to guard my flank, taking their toll among the xenos with flamers, bolters, and in close combat. The vindicators blow up the looted tank and kill some tankbustas, while the typhoons charge forward to take out the artillery at the last possible moment before it could shoot. Telion puts a wound on the waaaghboss, but the scouts fail to pin or break the Ork bikers.
Orks' third turn has some nobs in mega-armor charge forward in a red-painted trukk, waaaghing into a typhoon, blowing it up. The tankbustas try to smash another vindicator but the destroyed one serves me well as cover and they are up against front armor this time. The waaaghboss and his bikers charge forward, shooting away at my scouts who are saved by cover. The boyz manage to instantkill my captain with a lucky powerklaw hit. I combat tactics to break from combat, not falling back far enough though - the Orks consolidate towards my unit and chase it off the board. But my other two bike squads come in for rescue. They shoot some more Orks and charge them, while the vindicators shoot most of the meganobs and some more boyz who ran up the middle instead of the flank where my bikes were, the typhoons shoot most of the tankbustas and the scouts kill the bikers, Telion putting another wound on the waaaghboss and making him run for his sorry life.
The Orks don't have much left to kill me with. The lone remaining mega-nob advances towards my vehicles, its trukk shakes my vindicator with a wrecking ball. The rest of the tankbustas again fail to do any damage on my vindicators while my bikes finish off the boyz. It's my turn and I advance the bike squads towards the remaining tankbustas to finish them off together with the scouts, the speeders kill the trukk, the unshaken vindicator blasts the remaining mega-nob and it's over.
Nebula Raiders win by total annihilation and by score (11:4).

vs. Necrons
I tried a different list this time for fun (four powerfisted bike squads plus a not-too-tooled-up biker command squad with captain and three typhoons - but I totally forgot the typhoons and had to play without them). Seize ground (four objectives) with dawn of war deployment. My opponent won the roll to decide who goes first and did so himself.
He deploys a warrior squad and his lord in cover, another warrior squad as far to the front as possible (to keep my deployment at bay), his destroyers behind them for fire support, and his scarabs near them as a speed bump. Monolith, wraiths, destroyer lord, and a third warrior squad are in reserves. I deploy nothing but plan to bring it all onto the board on turn one, reserving nothing. I try to steal initiative and fail.
My opponent pulls back his warrior squad, running it into position alongside the other one. Nothing else happens. I turboboost my whole bike force up to the middle of the table in a broad front.
I take a few casualties from enemy shooting in the turn thereafter because he doesn't run his warriors to safety and instead rapid-fires me. I lose the first powerfist (argh, the whole squad made its saves but the sergeant fails) and get that squad tied up by scarabs. Warriors would come in from reserves but can not enter play because of the monolith not being on the board yet, who opts not to arrive as do the wraiths with joined destroyer lord. I retaliate by sweeping one squad of warriors (with which my opponent blocked off my command squad) and inflicting heavy losses on the other one with the lord, but I lose a lot of models (along with another powerfist) due to very unlucky dangerous terrain tests.
The wraiths and monolith (and warriors) enter play, deploying and fortifying their position on the right half of the board which has three objectives rather close together, the destroyers kill one veteran biker. The warriors and lord get sweeped by my bike squads, so I boost within six inches of the destroyers with my command squad (forcing them to turboboost away next turn) and assist my squad against the scarabs or take some random shots (to no effect) on the destroyers with the rest of my force.
The Necrons turboboost the destroyers into safety and hide everything else behind the monolith, holding one objective with the warriors. I move into position to claim objectives on turn five, moving out of line of sight or turboboosting and spreading out. The command squad advances towards the Necron units, staying out of rapid-firing range of the warriors but trying to lure the wraiths into charging.
The Necrons charge my command squad, putting two wounds on my captain, and I only kill one wraith in return. I opt to try and break from combat, but high initiative and chronometron beat me, forcing a couple more saves which I easily pass with the help of feel no pain from the apothecary. The monolith blasts away at one of my bike squads which is closing in to capture an objective and hits, but cover saves from turboboosting save most of the wounds, morale holds. I capture two of the four objectives but fail to capture the third one due to suffering some more heavy losses from dangerous terrain. I tie combat against the wraiths and destroyer lord with no faction doing any damage.
My opponent rolls for turn six and the dice comes up with a two - game ends, Nebula Raiders win 2:1 (with 1230 versus a 1498 points).


Campaign Storytelling

I promised to give an update on the story-telling part of my gaming group's campaign and how things have evolved on Duglum XIII.
I had posted part of our background story here but the blog entry became too long. Thus I will have to post another entry. Be sure to look out for it!