KTA Epic 40k Battles

1997

This was my first 'proper' E40k match, and I played against Tommi, my friend with no experience with miniature games but excellent general in other strategy games.

The game was (again) the bridge war, with both armies trying to get hold on both bridges. In general, this scenario is very hard to win but easy to gain a draw in. Again, marine whirlwinds blow orks into bits, but orks drove marine assault troops and bikes back and destroyed them, but had no chance to capture the other bridge.

Result: A draw after 6 turns

Notes: artillery with no LOS needed feels a bit overpowered, especially because it can be used to fire detachments inside forests or otherwise out of sight of any enemy detachment.

This second, even more proper match of E40k was again against Antti, which played epic scale games for a second time. I had an eldar army with 25 jet bikes or vyper, 14 aspect warriors, some wraithguards and scouts and 2 wave serpents. IG army had 7 heavy artillery units, rough riders, leman russes, tactical and support guardians and hydras.

The battle started with eldars advancing fast, but the IG opt to march with most troops, and thus fell into a firefight with jet bikes in the first turn (Antti was just trying out any tactics in epic, anyway). The battle then went as heavy pressing from eldar (they had 3/4 of the table all the time) while being bombed by the imperial artillery. Finally even the imperial artillery went on assault orders and in the final close combat and firefight the rest of the imperials were forced back to the corner of the table, giving the eldar the control of the entire table. At the moment of their victory, the eldar had only 1 jet bike, 2 farseers on vypers and 3 wraithguards left...

Result: 8 to -5 for Eldars after 6 turns

Notes: Armies without any barrage are in quite a disadvantage - the opponent may pack his units into tight groups, gaining immense bonuses in close support and firefight.

This battle was against Jere, another friend with no experience with Epic. The battle was diagonally across the wide table with high hill on Squat side and big town on Eldar side. My squat army consisted of 2 artillery/shooting detachments, one ancestor lord on bikes and one colossus. Eldar had jet bikes, night spinners and aspect warriors, but none with jump packs.

The squats marched on the hill and kept their position while pounding the Eldar with support weapons and colossus - the Eldar had problems to cross the open area in the front of the hill (in fact, almost no standard shots were fired in the entire battle - it was only artillery and firefights!). Finally they succeeded to attack side of the Squat force and broke one Squat detachments, but were pressed back by the combined firefight power of the ancestor lord and his heartguards, overlords and colossus.

Result: 26 to -5 for Squats after 5 turns

Notes: Now that I have played a few battles my experience starts to show against players which have not played earlier. I must do some ready army detachments for them to choose and give some bonuses in army points...and the immense difference in army morale was because we used objective rules in a wrong way, giving morale from opponent's objectives.

Now it was time to teach E40k to Pare, yet another friend interested. I had 1500 point chaos army with 3 daemon detachments, some land raiders and noise marines, 3 chaos artillery units and a lord of battle. For Pare I had chosen general marine detachments from side to side with one land speeder detachment and one warlord. He has about 1800 point army for +20% bonus for being a freshman. The gaming table was filled up with hills and woods, with a large abandoned ork settlement in the middle.

The match started with infiltrator chaos marines seizing the ork settlement while imperial land speeders headed for rescue objective near chaos deployment area. During second and third turn rest of the armies entered the battlefield, with chaos slowly advancing toward the marines on the other side. One marine assault drop pod detachment tried to drop behind the chaos lines but were instantly slaughtered - otherwhere, the chaos slowly advanced destroying or forcing to retreat everything in their path. In the 5th turn the warlord met the chaos land raiders, and in a bright light of laser fire all the shields of the warlord collapsed and its reactor was hit. This was the final strike against the marine chapter and they started to retreat...

Result: 16 to -3 for Chaos after 5 turns

Notes: An almost destroyed detachment still sucking up morale with blast markers feels bad - especially with disrupt-army! Maybe there is need to limit the loss of morale for blast markers...

This battle was against Tommi, and was played diagonally across a battlefield filled up with hills and forest, with one river crossing it and a long road, with a small city at the half of the table. My eldar army had one phantom, 8 night spinners, 2 detachments of jet bikes and vypers, some falcons and fire prisms, two scorpions and some aspect warriors. Ork horde had a gargant, loads of bikes, buggies, nobz and boyz, some stompas, speedstas and battlewagons and 14 big gunz and 6 pulsa rokkits! For bonus, I gave him one squadron of fighta bomberz.

The battle started with orks advancing in march and assault orders, filling up the entire quarter of the table. The eldar took its position and started to rain web on orks. No losses in the first turn. Then the orks kept on advancing and smashed and shot eldar aspects and other jet bikes to bites, forcing them to retreat, while more monofilament dropped on orks, and with combined firepower of the phantom and some odd falcons the other kult of speed was reduced to a few bikes and lots of blast markers. Then the gargant met the phantom, and with two shots from the distortion cannon the gargant exploded, leaving a hige black smoldering carcass at the battlefield! On the right side of the battlefield the orks pressed the eldar back, but on the left side, other jet bike detachments pushed orks backward. At the final turn, a huge firing and firefight was held between the phantom and 2 ork detachments, while remaining aspect warriors pushed back snake bite detachment on the right corner, and was immediately pushed back by the remaining bikes of the other kult of speed. Still, the immense disruption in the ork army forced them to retreat.

Result: 16 to -11 for Eldar after 4 turns

Notes: Disrupt is still too strong, even with reduced morale reduction! We will either prevent all morale loss from disrupt weapons (distinguishing blast markers caused by them) or reduce more the overall loss from blast markers.

1998

This time I played against arx, my net-friend, who haven't played before games like this but had extensive experience with other strategic games. The battle was played across the table with a road crossing it, lots of hills and woods in my side and a sinken town. My squat force had one colossus, 4 goliath detachments with thunderfire flak unit, 3 tunneler detachments, 2 bike detachments and 3 gyrocopters, which were my starting force. Ork horde had warlord mega gargant, 2 fighta-bomberz squadrons, several infantry clans, 2 bike/buggy detachments and one battlewagon detachment,with that +20% bonus for freshman.

The battle started with starting forces advancing, followed immediately by almost entire armies (we were lucky with reserves, except perhaps with the tunnellers, which I had hoped to arrive later). To slow down orkish horde, 2 squat tunneller detachments emerged in front of them, causing them to halt before being entirely wiped out by the mega-gargant or 2 bomber squadrons. The goliaths keep on pounding the orky hordes while ancestor lord biketeam and gyrocopters performed hit-and-run tactics against ork horde, which kept on moving forward.

After the wipeout of first 2 tunneler detachments, all casualties to squats were random odd bikes and infantry units while all ork detachments slowly shrunk in golitah bombardment. In the last minute of the battle the orks were already starting to fall back from the morale loss when the mega-gargant finally got its massive armament in range to colossus, vaporizing it in 2 turns of continual firing. The sight of an exploding colossus boosted up the orky morale, almost achieving a draw or victory to them.

Result: 2 to 1 for Squat after 6 turns

Rules Notes: New flyer rules felt good, althought had certain problem with orders - had to think about that. Limiting morale losses from blast markers to 3 certainly changed the result and lenghtened the battle, but felt much better. Maybe a bit lower starting morale.

Strategic Notes: 2 cleanse objects for squat army in their deployment zone were the major key for squat succees. The orks detsroyed only one bunker, and did not claim any other objectives. Likewise, the squats forgot the fighter bombers in the later turns, which then allowed them to do massive damage with their bombs to detachments in frontline - all flak units were protecting goliaths. On the other hand, the orks should have marched more in the early stages of the game, and should have used lifting more extensively.

This time I played against Tuukka, which like almost everyone else, had never played Epic 40,000 (nor SM/TL) before. The battle was played over a hilly landscape with large demolished city in the middle and a river close to guard deployment corner. I had a chaos daemon force, made entirely from daemon engines and packs, with 9 nurgle engines, 10 khorne engines and hordes of lesser daemons with odd greater ones. Imperial Guard army had 8 siege artillery units, 6 basilisks, 11 leman russ tanks, 2 shadow swords and some infantry and rough riders.

The battle started with chaos marching forward, filling the ruined streets of the demolished city, with flamers hopping fast forward deep into the enemy territory. The guard took firing position and shot some random shots at daemons in the city. At the second turn, melees started and chaos kept on pushing forward, wiping the guard from their path. At third turn, the last chaos forces were in melee, destroying shadow swords and rough riders in right side, while flamers were forced to retreat and they failed a morale test on the other side. In the final turn, the chaos main force, now reduced to a few dozen daemons, assaulted over the river deep into the guard positions, but never reached artillery detachments. However, all other guard detachments were broken and most of them wiped altogether from the battle area, granting clear victory to chaos.

Result: 17 to 2 for Chaos after 4 turns

Rules Notes: Limit of 3 morale from blast markers prevents powerful wipeouts and makes things hard for armies without very long range weapons. The IG would have lost 10-20 more morale with the original rules, as its units were overrun. Perhaps not to limit morale loss when the entire detachment is wiped...

Strategic Notes: Pure daemon army with very little firepower is very vulnerable to firefight, and is practically always sent back after melee phase. A bit more guns is required. Flyers were quite useless, because they spend their time shooting at each other. Moreover, the battle area was quite beneficial for the imperial guard, because they had a river in their side, forcing chaos to advance over some odd bridges.

At last I played against Asko, a veteran of many SM/TL and Epic40k matches. We randomized armies, selected troops and then rolled for scenario. Neither had played planetary defense before, nor had I played any defense scenario. The battle field had large hilly area in the right side, a river with 3 bridges dividing it in the middle, and large city and some odd forests in the bigger left side.

My eldar army, defenders, had 30 jet bikes, 15 vypers, 2 detachments of night spinners, some swooping hawks, dark reapers, avatar with striking scorpions, scouts and 2 squadrons of bombers (see separate listing). In the initial deployment, I had 3 jetbike/vyper detachments hidden some distance away from the city, one detachment of scouts and guardians and the avatar with bodyguard. Chaos army, attackers, had about 60 daemons, most of them bloodletters, chaos cultists, chaos space marines, land raiders, predators, some nurgle engines and cannon of khornes. In the air, 2 squadrons of doomwings kept watch on possible bombers.

The battle started with daemons dropping down in their drop pods, caughting most jetbikes in surprise and slaughtering avatar, most jetbikes and some aspect warriors in the city. In the second turn, they started to retreat while most remaining eldar troops entered the table, with jet bikes roaring forward to engage daemons in firefights and night spinners raining web on them. On the right side, chaos artillery and flamers destroyed everything, with last detachments wiped out in the 4th turn.

Meanwhile, in the left side, jet bikes and vypers kept on pushing backward daemons and cultists which have entered as reserves from this side. The second squadron of eldar bombers arrived, and while doomwings dropped down the other one, the other bomber squadron bombed nurgle engines and chaos artillery into oblivion, with swooping hawks wiping out the remaining.

As the fourth turn started, the chaos know that end was near, but kept on trying. In the left side, the eldar kept on pushing back the chaos horde with firefights, jetbike shurikens and night spinner disruption, and the horde there would have been completely wiped out in the next turn. However, in the right side, the last eldar detachments there were wiped out, with many blast markers, and the chaos also managed to destroy vital bunker there. This all dropped eldar morale from 21 to 1 in one turn, but the chaos was pushed deep below 0, granting victory to eldar.

Result: 1 to -7 for Eldar after 4 turns. Note: If the eldar would have been pushed to 0 or below, they would have still won, because they controlled 3 important objectives while chaos only 1.

Rules Notes: This time everything seemed to work fine, no acute needs to change anything arise. We judged that retreating units cannot cross razorwire. Limit of 10 morale from wiped unit seemed fine. And a note about gaming time, this kind of scenario required much extra time for setup and strategy planning.

Strategic Notes: Defense scenario and razorwire combined with a river is a real killer, if someone must cross it. This ensured that chaos has too many spare detachments in the right side of the battlearea, while main fighting was on the left side.

See also fiction from the battle (in Finnish)

This time my opponent was Samuli, who had neither played epic before, but has at least read the rules and made his own marine army composition. He had lots of tactical detachments, 2 assault detachments in drop pods, 2 whirlwind squadrons, 2 land raider squadrons and 6 thunderhawks and 5 thunderbolts (see separate listing). The army had usual newbie bonus of +20%, so it was 3000 pts in total. My ork army had lots of speed and large detachments, with about 25 bikes and buggies, 20 battlewagons, 2 squadrons of bombers and then almost 20 pulsarokkits, some odd nobz and dreadnoughts and over 10 boarboyz and stormboyz (see separate listing).

The battlefield was a bit larger than before. It consisted of multiple hills and woods as usual, and it had a road from one end to another, including a tunnel through a hill. There was a river in half of the battlefield, but it had 4 bridges and ended in a small lake, thus not dividing the entire field. Across the river, in the marine side, there was a large ork settlement, and in the ork end of the field was a ruined city. As objectives, the orks were going to reclaim their city after they have heard that marines were close. On the other hand, marines needed to dig some archealogist things from the ruined city and rescue their informant close to it, while destroying a bunker above the tunnel and slaughtering an ork scout in open close to bunker.

The battle started with marine bike detachment speeding into the ork settlement while ork flakwagons marched to position across a small clear area in front of the settlement. In the second turn, main armies entered, with assault marines in drop pods dropping right into the ruined city. They were immediately driven back and suffered huge casualties in concentrated big gun, stompa and pulsa rokkit fire. First thunderhawk squadron bombed one mekz mob, with one 'hawk shot down by the orks. Fighta-bomberz intercepted them but missed all. In the end, marines claimed all their objectives except the take&hold in the city, reducing ork morale by 11 points.

In the following turns, the orks advanced to the border of the small clearing before the settlement, driving and slaughtering assault marines (and dropped terminators) before them. Other marines kept on firing, reducing ork battlewagons, bikes and buggies into heaps of metal. As final attack, ork warlord charged with his stormboyz across the river to kill land raiders and devastator marines there while Goffs across the battlefield charged tactical squads there. Several marines and tanks were destroyed and the rest driven back, forcing them to retreat from the battle. Orks never achieved their settlement during the battle.

Result: 10 to -9 for Orks after 5 turns. As side notes, Marines had achieved 80% of their objectives, at least for a while, Orks none.

Rules Notes: Everything seemed to work fine. Some open questions were concerning mainly cavalry.

Strategic Notes: It became clear that orks would never reach the objectives in the city, as the river and clear in front of it became the borderline between the forces. Some cleanse objectives would have been much better. In overall, objectives modifed the morale values by 15 in behalf of the marines.

This scenario was played against Jere, who had played epic twice before. The armies were selected after scenario and defender was selected. The ork horde, with +15% bonus, consisted of one great gargant, 3 battle fortresses, some battlewagons and pulsarokkits and other usual ork stuff. My guard army had 2 super heavy tanks, 12 leman russes, some guardmen and rough riders (see separate listing). Both armies had one squadron of interceptors.

The battlefield had in the Imperial end a large city and some odd woods and hills, a large and high hill on the center, and a bit more clearer area on the ork half. The imperial guard was deployed hidden (well, all the three detachments that turned out to be defenders...) and razorwire was spread over the large hill, dividing the field in half. The battle started with the ork horde marching forward.

As an unstoppable horde, the orks moved over the large hill, with battlewagons carrying nobz and shooty boyz while fortresses and gargant followed. On one side, the ork horde was stopped by a leman russ detachment, and in other half, combined razorwire, minefield and artillery (entering as reserve in turn 3) wiped boarboyz and stormboyz trying to advance there. However, the main force in center kept on advancing, blasting all guards in the way, and capturing vital sguig containers and destroying imperial communications bunker.

As the great greenskin machines advanced, all smaller targets around them were annihilated and even the great gargant fell target of intense bombardment and direct fire, and as its doom become inevitable, the remaining orks turned to retreat...

Result: -8 to -10 for Imperial Guard after 5 turns. A very marginal victory, but clearly stronger situation for the guard. All ork mobs except kult of speed were broken and great gargant had 2 damage capacity left and in a open, facing anti-tank weapons and guardsmen.

Unit Notes: Super heavy tanks were surprisingly good, with their ability to assist melee combat.

This first ambush scenario was against Samuli, who played for the second time. He had a squat army with horde of normal and berserker warriors, some robots and goliaths and one colossus, including +15% bonus to make things fair. My chaos army had various daemons, 12 khorne engines, one lord of battle and subjugator and some cultists and chaos bikes (see separate listing).

The battlefield was a black ashwaste, with a large city in one corner, ruins in the other and lots of scattered hills and woods across the battlefield. The chaos was defender, and had its marching columns from one corner to city to other corner with ruins.

The battle started with goliath fire, directed at nurgle engines. They succeeded to destroy only one engine, but the detachment did nothing for the rest of the match, thanks for the luck with blast marker removal. Then the chaos started to advance, but were quickly stopped by their tracks in random firing and failure in morale checks. Only big assault from the city, backed up by 2 war engines, succeeded to advance and finally destroyed squat supreme commander and damaged colossus. The subjugator never reached the colossus because it was stuck in the woods while nurgle daemons couldn't advance in heavy fire.

Result: -16 to 0 for Squats after 3 turns.

Strategic Notes: Squat side was not aware of hidden unit capablities, and so their deployment was not optimal. Likewise, chaos had too much power in one place and some useless detachments, at least with failed morale tests. Similarly, chaos really has problems when cannot win initiative in movement nor assault phase, because daemon packs are so subjectible for firefight.

"After the defeat on the ashwastes, Magnus the Red headed north, gathering scattered chaos forces yet to again assault puny squat strongholds. While moving to north into bio-engineered grassplains, he gained information about a large ork invasion horde headed their way. Magnus would not avoid some greenskins..."

This battle was against Pare, who had played once beforesome time ago. He had an ork horde of multiple clans, shooty boyz, some field guns and pulsa rokkits, a warlord in a great gargant and two bike/speedsta and boar detachments. My chaos army had much firepower, two flamer packs, one lord of battle and some odd units (see separate listing).

The meeting engagement was played across the battlefield filled up with high hills, random woods and large ruins in the middle. The chaos took it sfiring positions behind hills and forests, marching Emperor's children forward to take first impact, and flamers flanking the orks from both sides. Orks advanced as a large green mass, with one bike and boar mob flanking the right side. Only minor casualties in the first turn, while other ork bike squadron firefighted Emperor's children after being hit by nurgle engines.

In the second turn, a hell broke out as almost 4 entire ork mobs were annihilated, with one bike mob completely wiped out by the chaos artillery, another one shot by the Emperor's children and one boar unit assaulted by the flamers. On the left side, flamers and bikes destroyed some stompers and nobz, after stompas lost a firefight against bike squadron (!). In the middle, the great gargant advanced and did great damage to Emperor's children.

In the third turn, orks managed to push flamers back in firefights, but the second boar mob was completely wiped out by the Emperor's children with some firebackup. The great gargant advanced, and almost destroyd the lord of battle by shooting and firefight, while shooting also some chaos marines and land raiders. It was then assaulted by bloodletters and 'thirsters charging from the forest, causing massive damage to it.

Result: 16 to -7 for Chaos after 3 turns

Strategic Notes: The chaos had a strategy idea and stick to it. Orks didn't, and lost all fast units after they moved in front of huge firepower or were annihilated by the chaos artillery.

Army Notes: Neither had flyers, but had several flak units. The ork army was illegal, but luckily not in very drastic way.

This battle was my first time against tyranids. My opponent was Hena, old SM/TL veteran, but had never played E40k. My ork army consisted of one great gargant, big artillery unit and other firepower (see separate listing). Hena had total of 4 detachments in his army; one bio-titan, one dominatrix, one artillery/gunnery detachment and mycotid swarm worth 500 points! He declined from +20% bonus to freshman I offered.

The battlefield had hills, woods and a road crossing it, with large ruins around it. Tyranids advanced from other side while orks moved forward on the other side of the ruins. In the first turn, no casualties were inflicted.

On the second turn, bio-titan crashed through the forest to face stompas, great gargant and speedstas (Hena wanted to test it in this new edition) while mycotid swarm dropped next to orky artillery. In the firing phase, bio-titan was shot to pieces by dethray speedstas, mycotid swarm lost half of its number in combined fighta-bomber bombing and total of around 40 firepower - in overwatch! In the following assault phase, tyranids swarmed from the forest, hacking pulsa rokkits and some field guns to pieces, and retreated before orky fire back into the forest.

On the third turn, orks detachments with blast markers declined to move, but other units advanced toward tyranids. In the shooting phase, more genestealers and tyranids from the mycotid swarm were blasted to pieces, and dominatrix almost finished by one dethray speedsta and great gargant. In the assault phase, last 'nids from mycotid swarm assaulted other artillery mob, but were beaten back, almost annihilated (they had 19 blast markers after the fight, if the remaining one would have failed to run away....). On the center of the battlefield, great gargant charged the dominatrix and with concentrated fire shot it into bits. Stormboyz assaulted tyranid artillery and killed some tanks.

Result: 32 to -11 for orks after 3 turns

Strategic Notes: A mycatid swarm dropped next to 14 field guns, 4 pulsa rokkits and other units in the overwatch are not going to survive very well..

Army Notes: As known already, tyranids are much weaker than in old game. And bio-titans are a joke. We modified them so that they regenerate each wound inflicted to them on a d6 roll 4+ at the repair phase.

After a long break, I once played against Tommi, the old strategy game veteran. We chose to play blitzkrieg, the only standard scenario not yet tested. I was the defender and played Eldar, and my army consisted of standard eldar stuff, including one phantom, 2 scorpions and only 4 night spinners (see separate listing). Marine, the attacker and led by Tommi, consisted of 2 drop pod detachments, one bike/land speeder detachment, 4 detachments with miscellaneous infantry and tanks, and one reaver and warhound.

The battlefield had a large city in the middle, heavy hills in the eldar end and a small river. In the Marine end, Eldar had laid razorwire across the entire battlefield, which slowed the main force of the marines, preventing marching. In addition, hidden Eldar jet bikes struct against marine bikes that crossed the razorwire, destroying almost them all

With the aid of reserves, the Eldar kept its position in the left side of the Marine attack, destroying all units slowly. On the other side, Marine advanced almost undisrupted, claiming objectives. With the aid of two droppings, the important take&hold objectives were claimed. The first dropping was quickly destroyed by Avatar, striking scorpions and vypers, but the second (larger) one kept its position.

On the main war, eldar grav tanks, scorpions and phantom (which arrived on turn 4) shot both the warhound and reaver to bits, but suffer heavy casualties on imperial fighter bombardment and marine fire. The phantom titan was dropped to 1 DC until its holo fields finally held. Even that wasn't enough, and Eldar was faced to retreat, after losing the important hill to Marines.

Result: 3 to -1 for marine after 6 turns

Strategic Notes: The objectives were the most important factor of the game, and overlooking of them caused the loss of Eldar. Eldar had 2 cleanse objects turns 3-5, but marine claimed their both take&hold objcetives from turn 2 onward and claimed 2 one-shot objectives (and yes, some nutrition might be a good idea, I forgot to move one detachment in the turn 4, and did lots of minor tactical errors)

"Hamington III claimed independency. The complete army located in garrison backed up the claims for freedom. The response from Imperial government was hard, and Imperial Purgers close to Hamington III were send to quench the rebellion. As the fourth day of the rebellion started, Purgers closed to rebel army located close to city of Bucham..."

This first IG versus Space Marines battle was played between me (IG, the defender) and Samuli (Marine, the attacker). Armies were selected before the actual scenario, battlefield nor side was known. My IG army consisted of 2 artillery detachments, lots of infantry and sentinels and some tanks, with one interceptor squadron and no war engines (see separate listing). Samuli had in his marine army almost 30 land speeders, half that number of bikes, dozen of land raiders and whirwinds and only some odd infantry units, with 3 drop pod detachments. He had no war engines nor fliers, but had +10% bonus for less experience with E40k.

The battle started with almost entire marine army marching toward razorwire in the half of the battlefield. As the first bikes and land speeders reached it, camouflaged leman russes and booby-trappes were revealed. As the Basilisk artillery in the forest joined the first shooting, 2 complete detachments of bikes and land speeders were almost completely wiped out.

On the second turn, the remaining guard reserves entered the board, and the siege artillery detachment joined to annihilate all bikes and speeders, while marines closed to razorwire and crossed it with some speeders. The first dropping, 7 terminators and librarian, took its position on one take&hold objective, but suffered heavy casualties in artillery fire.

On the third turn, last remaining drop pods fell on the battlefield, but the emerging assault marines were wiped or pushed back by the sentinels and tactical guard units. The marines succeeded to destroy both objective bunkers, but lost with almost all detachments broken, and 4 detachments completely wiped out. The guard had only 3 detachments broken.

Result: 26 to -3 for imperial guard after 3 turns

Army Notes: As noted in earlier games, bikes and similar scout units are very vulnerable to long range artillery.

This time, I once again played against Tommi, who again used Marines. Forces were chosen before the battlefield or scenario was determined, and turned out to an engagement scenario. My squat force consisted of all normal squat stuff, but this time with no desire to get everything to cost even 50's or just below that, and had some interesting robot/overlord tests (see separate listing). Tommi's Imperial Purgers had interesting detachments of mixed units, and no war engines nor flyers.

The battle started with marine bikes marching toward squat end, claiming one take&hold objective. The squat gyrocopters likewise marched toward marine end, claiming both capture objectives of the squat army, reducing marine morale by 10! (the rest of squat objectives were 3 cleanse objectives in their end of the battlefield, which they held all turns through 2 to 6). On the second turn, massive armies entered, and all tunnelers and drop pods, too. As the squats took their firing positions in their end of the battlefield, marine suicide units dropped right on them! In the following firing phase and assault phase all marines get wiped, except for one support weapon. The squats lost some artillery and other units in the process.

In the following turns, the main marine force closed to squats, which kept on firing and harassed marines with their gyrocopter unit. But the marine morale held, and althought squats had huge morale advantage, kept on pressing and survived until last turn, in which a massive loss of about 30 morale in one turn forced remaining marines to retreat.

Result: 29 to -25 for squats after 6 turns

Unit Notes: Iron Eagle gyrocopters were worth the points, they turned out to be an excellent choice, as long as they always fall back out of range of marine artillery.

Rules Notes: Drop pod detachments dropped right on units seem a bit silly - ok, they get snap-fired, but marines have armor 5+, and terminators get their save - and then they can be put on overwatch!

This a bit larger battle was against Samuli, the notorious mr. Luck. This time, I gave him no more bonuses. My Marine army consisted mainly of infantry, with only 3 land raiders, 2 AA whirlwinds, some rhinos and other tanks. One warlord, reaver and 5 Thunderhawks were used as back-up. Ork army had various clans and mobs, with 3 battle fortresses, one gargant and one warlord great gargant. Air was defended by 2 squadrons of fighta-bombaz (see separate listing). The battlefield had a large ork settlement, ruined city and lots of hills.

The battle started with main marine force advancing from left, while orks swarmed onward in the middle. No real damage was done in the first or even second turn, but the last two turns were heavy firefighting and assaulting, with both imperial titans trying to destroy the great gargant, which wiped marines in its sight. Otherwere, orks were forced to a small hill, where they started a counter-assault, with big guns and pulsa rokkits blazing. However, marines in right side held their positions, retreating only behind woods nearby, and preventing orks from captuing all their objectives.

Result: 8 to 6 for marines after 4 turns - a very marginal victory. Please note that many units were unbroken.

After a long break, I had a match against Henrikki, who played with his trusty Tyranids. Neither had any bonuses in his army and after the scenario was rolled, the tyranid was designated as the attacker. His tyranid army had one dominatrix, one hierodune with a close combat weapon, one large assault spawn swarm, one biovore/artillery swarm, one anti-tank swarm and one very large mycatid swarm with many carnifexes. My chaos army had one large chaos artillery units, some large daemon hordes, one warlord and lord of battle and a few chaos marines. Only slow bloodletters, chaos artillery, Angron, my supreme commander, and warlord was deployed as the initial defense force.

The battle started with tyranids marching onward. The chaos responsed with fire from chaos artillery, almost entirely wiping out the biovore/artillery swarm - only 2 tyranid warrior stands survived! The chaos tried to wipe the rest away with orbital barrage, but the tyranid had captured the space ship (darn, fifth time in the row for the opponent to have 'Curses, foiled again!' against me!). The warlord damaged the hierodune heavily, cutting deep wounds to it with warlord's plasma destructor.

On the second turn, tyranids swarmed onward and started to shoot at the warlord, which endured the heavy fire and in response kept on pounding hierodune and the dominatrix. On the other side, assault spawn swarm was charged by the bloodletters, which wiped the genestealers but were forced to retreat, and the tyranids kep on advancing. The mycatid swarm dropped on the other side of the field, and only chaos bombers arrived as reserves.

On the third turn, only one bike unit arrived to help the chaos, which was neatly wiped in the middle - the hierodune carshed at the warlord, ripping it in the half, generating a huge reactor meltdown, which took the hierodune with it! In the middle, almost all the rest of the initial chaos horde was wiped.

On the fourth turn, the main chaos reserves arrived (over 1000 points were missing before this turn), and they started to push and destroy mycatid swarm in the middle. However, the chaos horde arrived too late, and as the last flamers arrived from the other side to mop the tyranids, the chaos had already lost too many troops, and they started to retreat...

Result: 10 to -9 for tyranids after 5 turns.

Notes: Regenerating bio-titans seem to be horrible strong, especially that Dominatrix - to get them broken is a pain in the ass.

This time, a battle against Petri, a netfriend, was in schedule. Petri was building up an eldar army, and his army had +10% bonus for he had only played a couple of times before. His army had one Phantom and one Revenant, 2 small detachments of swooping hawks, 2 jet bike squadrons, 2 night spinner back-up reserves, 2 bombers and some miscellaneuos small units.My Ork horde had one warlord megagargant, 3 battlefortresses, one small bike/buggy mob, a large boar assault mob, one battlewagon/flakwagon mob and one big artillery mob. The battlefield was filled with random hills and woods, with a large ork settlement in the eldar half and one road crossing the field.

The battle started with Eldar avatar marching forward to ork settlement, and likewise Ork kult of speed marching across, claiming the lost beer cases in the ringes of the settlement. On the second turn, ork war engines arrived from the back and started advance, while eldar jet bikes and titans arrived from the other end of the field. In the middle, ork speeders destroyed Eldar avatar and one jetbike in a firefight.

On the third turn remaining Eldar forces arrived, and so did Ork battlewagons. Eldar bombers pounded on Ork speeders in the middle, and they failed to retreat, and get wiped out in the following firefight. In the fourth turn, the titans closed to firing range, and megagargant opened its guns, casting Revenant aside, crashing it to nearby forest, where it blow up destroying some jet bikes therein. The phantom survived all the fire targeted at it, but the fortresses then succeeded to penetrate its fields, and it was immobilized. In the return fire, one battle fortress was almost destroyed and almost all the power fields in the gargant were knocked down. Otherwere the battlewagons assaulted disrupted jet bikes in the side, almost wiping them out. And remaining Ork artillery march marched onward, desperately trying to reach the battle until it was too late...

On the fifth turn, Orks kept advancing, and with combined war engine fire, battlefortress assault and battlewagon melee and firefight, wiped out 5 detachments of eldar, all remaining except for Night Spinners far away. The phantom was torn to pieces by the super lifta droppa, and Tempest blow up in the firefight, killing up the last Striking Scorpions.

Result: 19 to -40 for Orks after 5 turns.

Notes: This time the luck was on Orks side, gaining assault initiative each turn and 3 times initiative in the regular movement phase, althought they also have some bad rolls (and 'Curses, foiled again!' was used sixth time in the row against me!)

This time, I had a squat force consisting of one large Goliath battery, one large robot/overlord detachment, 5 gyrocopters, one land train and some bikes and warriors. My opponent, a fresh epicer, had Ork horde with one huge battlewagon/nob mob, one huge shooty boy/ordinary ork mob with a few stompers, 3 battle fortresses, 12 bikes with 4 speedstas and 3 bombers. The army had a +20% bonus.

The battle started with orks assaulting onward while squats took their firing positions. On the second turn, Goliaths in overwatch opened their mouths while overlords and robots fired bikes to pieces (46 firepower in overwatch!). The battlewagon/nob mob was stopped in its tracks by the heavy disruption caused by the Goliaths, and on the third turn, Orks didn't advance very much, and just got shot to pieces by Goliaths.

Result: 36 (they started from 31!) to -4 for Squats after 3 turns.

Notes: A far too big skill level difference, my opponent didn't even know the rules...

Again I played against Harri, this time with Imperial Guard artillery army while he had Ork horde. The scenario was ambush and I had the ambushed army.

Result: 15 to 6 for Orks after 4 turns. IG was dropped to 8 after second turn, but they bravely tried to hold their position.

Notes: A bit too many sixes were rolled by Harri, grumble grumble.. And an IG army like this had real problems with Ambush scenario as the defender. New barrage rules were not that great, but flyer rules worked.

This time the game was against Laikku, old gw and other figurine strategist but with no experience with new Epic. My Chaos army was a chaos space marine army; only standard chaos marine detachments and armoured chaos marines. On the other hand, Laikku's marine army had 3 huge detachments, one flyer detachment and an inquisitor lord. He had +20% bonus, but it finbally was more like +30% because he took a bit too many troops while being a bit dozy.

Result: 8 to -10 for Chaos after 5 turns.

Notes: Fixed barrage rules worked fine.

This was a large 1500 points, twice, against other two armies. I played Eldar while Tommi played Marines, Harri used IG (with some +10% bonuses) and Bass Chaos (+20% or so).

Result: 24 to -3 for Eldar and Marines after 3 turns.

This time, I played again against Tommi. Our armies were hastily done, Tommi had marine army with lots of assault troops, I had ork army with large (400 pts) mobs. As for random scenario, we rolled planetary assault for a chance, and orks were randomized as attacker - bad luck, no mobs without at least one vehicle, so no drops in the first turn.

As orks started to arrive at the second turn, the initiative was snatched from them with Curses (damn, again) and defending land raiders and predators inflicted some serious damage before they were destroyed. The battle seemed to be a clear victory for marines, but then orks destroyed all 3 objective bunkers, won at last initiative in the assault phase and pushed marines back. Only a miss with lifta-droppa and gargant losing a firefight (all rolls 1 or 2...) granted the victory to marines.

Result: 1 to 0 for Marines after 5 turns. Neverthless, the battle was quite apparently victorious for marines. Orks just managed to get points from the objectives and broken marine detachments, and almost won the day, only bad luck stopped them...

1999

This battle was against Harri, whilst Simpi was helping me. Harri had a 2200 pts army while we had about 2100 pts in our combined Eldar army. The scenario was ambush, with Marines as defender and Eldars (with 25% of their force in initial setup!) ambushers.

Neverthless the small initial force and lost initiative in the first turn the Eldar started to get ground and as its main force arrived on second turn the Marine forces were quickly forced to retreat, surrounded and destroyed.

Result: 6 to -25 for Eldar after 4 turns.

Now it was time to test the new KTA (I had moved) and new Firepower rules. We used most new rules, including armor bonuses and cover for infantry from tanks, but not war engine orders. The battle was against Tommi who used a Squat horde whilst I had Imperial Guard, with total of 4 super heavy tanks!

The battle was quite even, and the main tie-breaker was a lone take&hold objective in the middle that Squats held.

Result: 16 to 12 for Squats after 6 turns.

2000

Again KTA had moved, and so had to check the new place. We (I and Tommi) had an ex tempore battle with randomized armies, with IG to me and Orks to Tommi. I had a quite standard IG army with supporting Warhound, while Tommi had 2 Great Gargants! Neither had any fast-moving troops nor flyers.

The battle started with IG hammering the advancing Orks, but as soon as they reached the IG forces there was nothing to stop them except the end of time.

Result: 5 to 4 for IG after 4 turns. Consider as a draw.

2001

After many, many months without Epic we finally had a battle, with randomized armies and scenario. I rolled Orks while Asko, my opponent, rolled Tyranids. After we have constructed our armies and battlefield was built, scenario was rolled - so that Tyranids would never be a defender (that would sound stupid, after all). So, the Dawn Assault was rolled, with Orks defending their town on the other side of the battle field.

My Ork army had only a few but very big detachments, with no war engines. See seperate listing. Tyranid horde neither had any war engines but 4 big mycatid swarms.

For battle report, see seperate illustrated report.

Result: 16 to 0 for Orks after 4 turns.

Notes: Some rule changes after this, see house rules page. Also, Tyranids and objectives (they do not use) are a problem with these special scenarios.

A new game very soon after last one. This time against Tommi, against whom I had played many games earlier. We rolled random armies and random scenario and did armies after that. My Chaos army did not have any war engines (not a good idea against IG, I think), but instead had some fast units and heavy firepower. See seperate listing. Tommi's IG had 2 siege artillery detachments, 3 super heavy tanks, rough riders and some other tanks.

The game board had one long road across it, one big city on the other side of the road and miscellaneous woods and hills on the other side. Imperial guard started from one end of the road and Chaos from the other. As battle started, chaos bikes seized one Take&Hold objective (which they eventually held for the entire battle) before second turn reinforcements arrived. For chaos, only 2 out of 12 showed up while first IG siege artillery made it to the board. As the battle went on, Chaos marched and assaulted onward, meeting IG tanks and rough riders at the half of the board. But at the end of the turn 5 the morale was still at 63 to chaos and 40 for IG!

In the last turn, chaos charged forward with two flamer hordes (last reserves) and pushed IG forces into middle of their artillery.

Result: 62 to -4 for Chaos after 6 turns. Chaos started from 51 morale and scored unbeliavable 18 morale from one Take&Hold objective, but in any case, only 3 Chaos detachments were broken.

Notes: new wood/building rules were okay, as were clarified out-of-command range rules (well, they were not needed) and 'bunch rule'. There was some problems with modified barrage, will see on that later.

2002

This large battle was between my and Pare's (see battles 5 and 13) Eldar army against combined force of Space Marines (Tommi) and Imperial Guard (Samuli, see battles 10, 12, 16 and 18) built with new Imperial Army rules (if you use IG, you have to spend at least half of the points on them). Our Eldar army was an interesting one without any Night Spinners or airforces but lots of melee aspect warriors and 2 phantom titans, one with close combat weapon (see separate listing). The Imperial army had one wing of 5 thunderhawks and normal artillery, tanks and devastator marines, but no assault forces except for one rough rider, bike and land speeder company each.

The scenario was meeting engagement, which we decided beforehand to hasten the battle (which neverthless took 6-7 hours). The game board had one city on one side, ruins on the other and quite clear in the middle - neither entry side had any big differences as city and ruins were in the middle of the board. Armies started opposing each other, with the city almost between them.

On the first turn, Imperials snatched the movement initiative and forced Eldar to do some careful advance toward Imperials lines. Some odd eldar scouts were killed, but luckily to Eldar, Imperial Deathstrike was aimed at Phantom titan, not to 3 falcons carrying their Avatar. In assault phase, Eldar jet bikes roared to meet advancing Imperials and pushed them back - except for one detachment which did not want to move because of some scratches in one bike.

On the second turn, Imperials again got the initiative in the movement phase and again Eldar was forced to move first. Eldars switched to full frontal assault hoping to get enough damage and cover with their wave serpents. Then the thunderhawks attacked almost obliterating Eldar Farseer commander despite of 2 psychic blasts targeted at them. In shooting phase, Imperials did some very extraordinary shooting and thus Eldar could not perform a very powerful charge later in assault phase.

On the third turn the Eldar finally won the initiative in movement phase, and used this advantage to try assault again. Titans plunged onward and rained death with their Pulsars, saving every hit they took. In city end of the table, remaining Eldar assault troops forced Imperial troops back, hacking them to pieces in melee combat

On the fourth and last turn, Imperials yet again took the movement initiative (lucky bastards) and forced Eldar to move first. In the middle of the game board, Titans forced Imperial artillery back, while in the city the eldar finally took control of their objective therein. In the other end, Imperial Rough riders galloped to Eldar flank and took their first objective. But the game was over and only a few Eldar's were left.

Result: 3 to -12 for Imperials after 4 turns. Eldar were almost broken in 3rd turn, but survived to last turn.

Notes: new rules (defense fire, new flyers, new start of the turn sequence) were not very heavily used, but seemed to need some tweaking. Barrage is going to be changed, still, and some other new rules acoming. However, they worked fine, just weren't perfect, and Eldar was not too weak despite some changes.

This battle was against my brother, Pema, who had never before played new Epic 40k but had played 20 or so games of old Epic. We had 2000 point forces as he refused for any bonuses. His army was made entirely of Khorne troops, from Chaos Artillery to Khorne Engines, one Warhound, 2 bike detachments and some infantry. My Ork horde had some experimental very big mobs, like one with total of 4 battle fortresses (see separate listing).

The scenario pre-determined and played was Blitzkrieg!, with Orks as defender and with new reserve rules (more rules, less randomization, same average). There was one big Ork village in Ork end of the table, one smaller in a canyon, some ruins in Chaos end of the table and lots of small woods, but some very open areas.

The battle started with Chaos bikes roaring across the battlefield spotting hidden detachments (hm, maybe there should be some rule that they must stay in some kind of formation, instead of each going 105 centimeters in completely opposite directions..) and one Orky tank/infantry mob was spotted near other side, blocking march of Khorne engines and Fleshhounds.

On the second turn, Chaos chanrged forward toward Orky mob and almost annihilated it with heavy artillery, Khorne engines and Warhound. Moreover, Fleshhounds ripped some reinforcement bikes. On the other side, Chaos destroyed first bunker objective but was stopped by Ork warlord and his trusty Stormboyz.

On the third turn, more Ork reinforcements arrived and they hit back with heavy pulsa rokkit battery and battle fortress mob, forcing Fleshhounds to retreat. However, Chaos destroyed the second bunker and held the Take&Hold in canyon.

On the fourth turn, the turn was started with Chaos artillery blasting half of the pulsa rokkit detachment into bits with preparatory bombardment. However, last Ork reinforcements arrived with big boarboyz mob close to chaos artillery and blocking retreat of the Khorne engines. In the assault phase, Ork battle fortresses charged Khorne engines and Warhound - boarboyz refused to aid because of heavy artillery losses (one blast). In melee combat, Warhound crashed to ground and its reactor melted, exploding in huge fireball and destroying both Battle Fortresses next to it! Khnorne engines were also forced to retreat and almost wiped out as some of them could not escape.

Result: 16 to -2 for Orks after 4 turns. Only two Ork mobs were reduced to half power, but Chaos had achieved both bunker objectives.

Notes: new house rules seemed to work okay, but there was no flyers to test them completely. As normally, initiative in assault phase was very important, like a fundamental problem as others just watch from side as others are assaulted.

We planned to have a larger 3 player battle of Eldar vs. Orks, but the third player had to go elsewhere, so we had a fast 2000 point battle with pre-determined armies - Tommi wanted to test Chaos while I then took Squats which have not been used for a while. Then the scenario was rolled and turned out to be Ambush, with Squats as the ambusher. They are not very good at that, but they have once before won a similar battle (and Squats have not yet lost a single match!).

The battlefield had two long roads, running on two edges; this was where Chaos was marching. Then there was a river close to road on shorter edge, some hills and woods plus big ruins close to corner where the two roads met. The ambushed Chaos army was entirely made out of Chaos Space Marines (and engines) and thus had strategy rating 5. There was Noise Marines and Nurgle Engines in the Chaos entrypoint, preceeded by Armored Engines, Chaos Artillery, another Nurgle Engine detachment (next to ruins), second Armored Engines (Land Raiders, Khorne Engiens and Terminators), Predators and then another Noise Marine detachment. A detachment of Chaos Space Marine bikers roamed next to second Armored Detachment.

My Squat force had 4 artillery detachments, 2 Trike detachments (for Daemon hunting), one Land Train, one Tunneller heavy firepower detachment and Ancestor Lord leading close combat bikes (see separate listing). Of these, 2 close range artillery and one trike detachment started the ambush with Ancestor Lord. The battle started with Chaos force moving forward spotting hidden detachments, and the foremost detachments of Predators and Noise Marines were soon surrounded by Squats (all ambushers were concentrated around foremost Chaos detachments, as Squat objectives were there, too). In upcoming shooting phase, Noise Marines destroyed most Trikes shooting back at them and almost all Predators were blown to bits with combined firepower of two artillery detachments. Chaos Artillery tried to help out, but were out of range. In assault phase, Chaos Bikes forced other artillery company to retreat, while Ancestor Lord and his trusty bikers charged from their hidden location and smashed at Noise Marines - only their terminator armor prevented wiping of the entire detachment - Predators were not that lucky.

On the second turn, Squat Goliath artillery and Gyrocopters entered the battlefield next to other Squat detachments. Both sides kept shooting at each other while tailing Chaos force switched to marching and tried desperately to reach the combat. Ancestor Lord and his bikers assaulted forward and wiped remaining Noise Marines. Chaos was left with only 5 morale at the end of second turn.

On the third turn, Squats again won the movement initiative (they also won it on the second turn) and Chaos was forced to march forward, still trying to reach the combat. Squat artillery retreated before it (still on retreat commands) while Ancestor Lord and most his bikers were almost wiped out in a heavy barrage fired by Chaos Artillery with preparatory bombardment. Still, Goliaths punished Chaos detachment, Land Train used its bombs to destroy some Land Raiders (along with marines on them) and bikers were wiped out in artillery fire.

Result: 19 to -14 for Squats after 3 turns. Only 3 squat detachments were broken and 2 had not yet even reached the battlefield.

Strategic notes: Chaos initial setup was far from a very good one, as it was too wide spread and artillery was out of range when foremost troops were annihilated.

Notes: This mission was played with partial Firepower Ambush modifications: objectives were added but attacker was not fere to select troops to be deployed.