Spring Weekend Wargaming

Well Mark, Sam and Ben came round for a weekend of wargaming and a smidge of drinking this weekend and it was a rather good weekend.

I hosted this time and wrote a story around an Eldar Exodite world called 'Saim-arch' to fight over.
The guys got here Friday and we did some  smaller games that added some elements to the bigger game on Saturday.



The story from the game pack:

"Warhammer 40,000 -Defence of Saim-arch

Saim-arch
Saim-arch is an Exodite world that for many years was thought lost. The paths through the webway to the planet were inaccessible, seemingly blocked deliberately rather than through a collapse in the webway system. This combined with heavy warp storms that surrounded the system Saim-arch is located in resulted in the planet being cut off from Eldar and alien alike. The fact that the planet cannot be accessed would not be of much concern except for what is located there. An energy generator that is thought to be part of a larger device that’s name translates as ‘god killer’ in new Gothic.

The Device
‘God killer’ is an ancient Eldar device, a device that’s origin is hidden by the veil of time. Legend amongst the Eldarholds that the device has the power to kill gods and generate such energy that it could shatter star systems. But even the Eldar know little of the devices true ability, most other races don’t even know its name. The element of the device found on Saim-arch used to be housed in one of the great relic stores on one of the Eldar home worlds. It was secreted away to Saim-arch by those Eldar who knew of it and left the Eldar worlds in the run up to the Fall. They took it fearing what their kin may do with the device in their lust for ever more twisted pleasures.

Break in the Storm
Now the Eldar who call Saim-arch home, and have survived isolated for so long, have re-opened thewebway gateways to their world and dispatched messengers to their kin requesting immediate aid. The message was simple. “The Mon Keigh are coming, the device is at risk”.
The Warp storms surrounding Saim-arch have ended, this bringing the unwanted attention of mankind, eager to expand in to any new space. Exploration craft have been dispatched to study the region and assess its worth. Little did they expect to find a lavish world abundant with forests and water ways; with an atmosphere so clean and perfectly suited to supporting human life. The only issue to be found with this world was the discovery of its current tenants. A seemingly small colony of the Xenos identified as ‘Eldar’. Not to be denied such a world by a small group of Xenos a task force of Imperial guard were sent to remove them. What the task force found was not a ‘small colony’ worth of enemy. Whilst the settlement was relatively small, the defences were great. Force shields and gun emplacements surrounded the location and a huge war host pushed out from the settlement and crushed the task force before it could even react. The Eldar of Craftworld Biel Tan had responded to the call for aid. The lingering question on the Imperial commanders mind was why they did so with such a great force; what was it that was on that planet that was so important? A question the inquisition soon caught wind of, and would not leave unanswered.

Imperial Might
At the ‘request’ of the Inquisition, and as a direct result of the Eldarwarhost on the planet, the AdeptusAstartes were called. Heading towards Saim-arch are the combined forces of the Raven Guard, the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels. The Space Wolves will join up with a contingent of Imperial Guard and provide the forces for the initial planet fall, with the Raven Guard and Blood Angels landing as soon as they arrive.
The Paradise planet, un-touched by war for so many years, is about to feel the true reality of the 41st millennium."



The lads brought the Imperial Forces to attack the planet with.
Sam brought his Space Wolves and Praetorians, Mark brought his Blood Angels and Mark brought his Raven Guard (using the Blood Angels codex).
Ben kindly lent me his Eldar to defend the planet with, which was a nice change and made the weekend even more enjoyable.

I  changed the standard rules to allow any HQ choice and any form of infantry to capture objectives, and also changed the FOC to be custom for each game to make things fit with the story more or make them more doable for the points.

Friday consisted of three 500points games, one against each Imperial force as the Eldar tried to stop the invaders gaining ground and the invaders tried to create a beach head.

Game one was against  the Blood Angels. The objective was just to annihilate the enemy but rather than the normal victory points system of 1 per unit points were worked out on an actual cost bases, e.g. 1 marine = 16pts.
If the attackers won then they gained the ability to launch artillery in to the defenders camp before turn 1 on the Saturday game, if the defenders won they prevented this.

This game saw a victory for the attacking Imperial forces, salad fingers dreadnought was too touch for my Eldar forces and the lack of anti-armour weaponry saw the pointy eared slaughtered.

Game two was against the Raven Guard. The objective was for the Ravens to destroy an Eldar generator under the cover of darkness. If they managed this then the Eldar defenders would find one of their disruption units to be inactive in the main battle.
The generator was basically treated like an objective that the Eldar had to prevent the Raven Guard from capturing.

This game also saw a victory for the attacking Imperial Forces, things didn't go as terribly as against the Blood Angels but still we couldn't stop the power armour coated apes.


Game three was against the Space Wolves. The objective was the capture of three points, each point having a randomly assigned card that gave a special rule to who ever captured it.
This game again saw the Eldar being beaten back. The fury of the Wolves was too much to handle and despite their best efforts the Eldar could not hope to hold out. The Space Wolves did only manage to capture one point though meaning they only gained one rule for the big game.




Saturday saw the attacking Imperial force make ready to assault the main Eldar strong point.
Their objective to fight through the defending Eldar and reach the inner sanctum to capture the Xeno tech.

The Eldar had 4000pts worth of army backed up by multiple spirit stone guided weapons turrets, a handful of webway gates, disruption generators to stop deep striking, walls, and general fortifications.
The attacking Imperial forces had 6000pts to field, 2000points for each player.

The Eldar defenders, some units were in the webway to jump in where needed.

The Imperial attackers rolling forward with all their armoured might. Some units were in reserve to deep strike and drop pod.

The view from the door of the inner sanctum.

The attackers had the first turn and wasted no time in getting to grips with the enemy. Those fast tanks and fliers making ground at an alarming rate and the drop pods arriving in the gap created by the faulty forward disruption unit due to the Raven Guard tampering.
One of the fire prism was taken down before it had the chance to fire even a single shot and the rangers were completely wiped out. The striking scorpions took some damage but managed to hold out.
The Eldar responded by targeting the Raven Guard rhino that was advancing on the Dire Avengers, blowing a Raven Guard dreadnought up with lances to the back plate and pushing forward with the remaining Scorpions to assault the dug in Imperial Guard heavy weapons. The Wraith Guard also eliminated the Ball pred that was coming down the middle of the board.

The battlefield after turn one.

The defensive line after turn one.

The Imperials then took advantage of a locator beacon in the Raven Guard drop pod to land 5 Assault Terminators and a Space Wolve drop pod in to the hole they created in the lines.
The rest of the army advanced slightly to get them in line with the the defences and a lone wolf jumped out of his land raider and assaulted the Wraith Guard taking them out in a flurry of hammer blows.
In response to this the Banshees with an Autarch left their transport and the Harlequins jump out of the webway to assault and kill the assault terminators, the Wraithlord assaulted the Land Raider Redeemer, cutting off one of its flamestorm cannons, the Avatar killing the lone wolf and advancing towards the Blood Angel vindicator.
Also a good shot from a bright lance saw the Stormraven wrecked leaving its occupants with a long walk to the objective.

At this point it was a case of trying to hold out as long as possible to make the invaders pay for every bit of ground gained to hopefully stop them reaching the objective in time.
A case of fall back, shoot, fall back, until there was no where left to go. The melee ability of the attackers was proving to be an issue.

The Banshees and Harlequins managed to kill Njal(Nigel) Stormcaller and his merry band of wolf guard before being utterly destroyed by the Blood Angel dreadnought wielding his lovely Blood Talons.....
The Valkyrie with the Veterans inside blasted over to the door of the sanctum before being shot down. The Blood Angels squad that jumped out of the Crusader were dealt with swiftly after they killed the Fire Dragons that fell out of the wrecked Wave Serpent.

The Eldar were really on the back foot by this point, the attackers were knocking on the front door of the inner sanctum and more had just arrived, risking a deep strike into a narrow section that was not covered by the disruption grid. The gamble paid off and the arrival of units behind the Eldar lines saw a new gap open up where more units could arrive from once the disruption units generator was taken out.  This let the Eldar little choice but to try and fight on two fronts, a battle they had no hope of coming out of alive.

The battle is brought to the Eldar from both sides, there was no where else to fall back to now. 

The Eldar fought on, killing as many of the attackers as they could before falling but it was not enough. The Raven Guard raced to the objective whilst their allies held up and/or killed the remaining Eldar forces.

The Eldar losses.

It was a fantastic game, and I have my first time playing with Eldar properly was fun. A well deserved victory for the Imperial forces, they had to work for it despite the initial look of it being a walk over.
Look forward to some more games like this in the future was there were some truly epic moments  where you could picture the events happening as if it was a film. Brilliant. 

After the big 40K game we played some Warmahordes, me borrowing Bens Khador for a game against Marks Trollbloods. I have to say I enjoyed the game and it has re-tempted me despite my trepidation after the ordering fiasco when I tried to get in to it before...we will see what the future holds. 

The main casualties of the weekend.

We did have a Kill Team game lined up for the Sunday, but due to not so much sleep and many beers (sept for Mark of course) on the Saturday both in house and in town the effort required to set up and play was less than present shall we say. So that will have to wait for another time.


A good weekend, something I sorely needed, so thank you guys for making the effort to come over and I cant wait for the summer trip to Bens.