200th Post: Battle of the Palace Steps

Yes, that's right - 200 posts!  I did have a mushy 'it's all you guys' post, but the other day me, Ollie and Coldsteel Dan had one of the most enjoyable and epic games of 40K I've had in a long time.  So I decided that it would be more interesting - and appropriate to this blog's theme - to make this milestone post a battle report instead.

The Story So Far

The restive moon of Edethor stirs ... this looks more than mere discontent - it's an uprising!  Read the full background post here, but the bottom line is the Palladians (Me) are fighting the Breaker Insurgents (Dan), while two Space Marine Chapters (Ollie's Storm Wolves and Kieran's Mawrynites) persue their own secret agendas on the planet.  It's a fluid, casual and friendly narrative campaign.

The first two battles were both between the Palladians and the Spears of Mawdryn (searching for ancient Chapter relics on Edethor) - a bloody hard-fought draw followed by a win for the Palladians.  So the Spears have been fought off for now, but the powder keg is about to blow on Edethor as the rebellion begins in earnest.


The Battle of the Palace Steps

The plan was originally to fight two battles.  One 500pt game with me facing off against Dan's Breaker Insurgents, and another with Ollie's Storm Wolves playing the winner.

Second Platoon, 122/7 Company, The Praetorian Guard
  • Command Squad led by Over Sgt Faustinius (Power weapon, vox caster and Commissar)
  • Five Ratlings
  • Five Infantry Squads with Heavy Bolters
Palace District, Breakers' Revolutionary Front
  • Cadre of Chaos Marines led by Quirinus Decanus
  • 10 local Police Enforcers (Guard Squad with Carapace Armour, Grenade Launcher, led by Overseer Deburgh)
  • Huge (40+) mob of revolutionaries with a motley assortment of shotguns, stubbers, knives, autopistols ... you get the idea!
The game was a 'wave defence' scenario we cuffed in a very informal fashion.  The palace on one side, industrial zone on the other.  The Breakers would start lurking in the industrial zone and charge across the square to seize the palace.  They would also have the endless horde special rule, so Dan could decide to recycle units from his own board edge.  If I held the palace after six turns, the Imperium would win.

The Breakers look across the square.  It would be a challenge to cross, but there were limitless men to try...
Some of the heretic bigwigs, standing next to the grinding machine.  We noted there were quite a lot of open toxic waste pits and pieces of industrial machinery - Unecessarily Dangerous Industrial Equipment (U-DIEs)
Stand firm men!  In the first few turns, with the aid of First Rank Fire I cut swathes through the Breakers,
but on about Turn 4 I fell behind and they kept inching closer - bite and hold tactics.
The Ratlings in the tower did a great job of taking out key targets.
In the end, the objective was contested and Dan had his Chaos Squad (which had taken out two Guard squads) locked in combat with my Platoon Commander.

The plan was, at this stage, to wrap up that game and start another with Ollie.  Then we decided instead to have Ollie join in this battle, and play another six turns to turn it into an epic, three-way twelve-turn megabattle!  We allowed Ollie to bend some of the Patrol Clash rules so he could get his Commander and bodyguard into 500pts (the fluff was he was just arriving on the planet, angry at his ship being shot at by the Blades of Fire and the Palladians refusing him sanctuary).

The game took on a whole new dimension and my battered Palladians were spared, as Ollie charged his elite close combat unit of Huscarl veterans into squad after squad of charging rebels, wiping out 100 models in two turns with some overrunning of the mob units.

Meanwhile, my Platoon Commander managed to beat Decanus in close combat, thanks to some jammy rolling and a power sword!  In the end, Ollie was happy that his chapter's honor was satisfied and left the field with his head held high.  I decided that my surviving six men couldn't face the horde alone, so I gracefully withdrew and Dan took the Palace, resulting in a Breaker victory!

That probably sounded a bit complicated, and to be honest it was.  There isn't enough room to tell of the challenges, the twists, the collapsing gantries crushing important people, the falling into pits of toxic waste... all round one of the best games I can remember and I only hope you got a sense of it here.


My Lieutenant was beaten in close combat, but Ollie graciously decided to spare his life because of his bravery.
This is what it's all about.  After two hundred posts I'd like to thank everyone reading for their comments and suggestions over the months and years this blog has been going (two, to be precise).  Special thanks are due to my regular readers (you know who you all are) who have been reading and commenting all this time.

If any of you fancy a laugh, this is my first post.  Where it all started.

Thanks for reading ... everything.

Ed

Comments

  1. Congrats on the 200th, also a really nice battle report, certainly enjoy some good IG actions

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    1. Thanks Commander, hopefully I'll be able to bring you some more soon.

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  2. Damn good batrep and congrats on the 200!

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  3. Hurrah for 200. Looking forward to 300 !

    You win extra points for adding the third player and making the whole thing unneccessarily complicated (but probably better !)

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    1. It'll be round before we know it. We were a bit worried about overcomplicating and got bogged down in rules discussions, before we decided to just cuff it and it turned out fine in the end!

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  4. Always love the pics you take of your games - very atmospheric for 40K.

    Congrats on the milestone mate - you're almost at 100 followers too, another milestone!

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    1. Thanks mate - yes, it's largely an unintended consequence of the poor lighting in The Bunker (Ollie's cellar) but with some slight photo-editing tweaks we get that lovely grim lighting effect. I hoped I would get both on one day, perhaps a bit optimistic!

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  5. Congrats on the double century, mate! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog over the last couple hundred posts, and I'm looking forward to a couple hundred more!

    Great battle report, love how moody the pics are - awesome stuff!

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    1. Cheers Mordian, and the same to you. There are plenty of projects slated up so hopefully I'll have plenty to keep you chaps from going hungry! Thanks for all your reading and comments as well over the years.

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  6. Congratz on 200th!
    Amazing pics by the way

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    1. Thanks! Think I'll stick to these, they seem to be working well...

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  7. First off, congratulation! Double century! Wow! And what’s more every post is a cracker!

    I actually posted a message back on the 4th but it seems to have been lost in the warp.
    Glad I came back for a re-read!

    Endless waves of heretics! Three way battles over 12 turns! 100 models killed in a few instance! Fantastic photos! All with just 500p forces!
    My god man, this is the epic battles of the old 40k glorydays! I tell you, I’m not surprised that everyone loves you blog so much; It’s flippin awesome. Good, solid entertainment!

    Cheers to you and another few hundred posts!

    Please keep enjoying your hobby and we will be here enjoying it with you!

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    1. Meant to write "I’m not surprised that everyone loves YOUR blog so much"
      Freudian slip?

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    2. I'm going to frame that comment on my wall; very kind sir. I always say blogging is a two-way street, and any good blog is only as good as the comments and interaction with the readers... so right back at ya.

      Yes! To all those hopelessly chasing after 20,000pt Apocalypse Armies - you don't need to spend a bomb to have amazing games!

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    3. Ah, Freudian slips...where you mean to say one thing but say your mother...

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  8. Fan-bloody-tastic. I'd absolutely love to play on that table of yours one day, y'know...

    Congrats on the double-century too. Well done you!

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    1. One day we'll have to get everyone squeezed into the bunker for a game... thankyou kindly, and thanks for all the helpful comments over the years!

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