5,000 point Dornian Heresy Apocalypse - Sigismund's Black Crusade v. Iron Hands

[FashaTheDog]

Had a 5,000 point Apocalypse game back on the 24th. My foe brought Necrons, but for the sake of story we called them Iron Hands, since they are in the Dornian Heresy universe. I came up with a few Iron Hand equivalents for the Necron units, so do try to follow along.

Sigismund's Force - Codex Chaos Marines
Sigismund (Abaddon) - Warlord
10 Terminator Champions - 2 Autocannons, 2 Pairs of Lightning Claws, 2 Combi-flamers, 2 Combi-meltas, 2 Lightning Claws, 2 Chainfists, 6 Power Claws, Icon Undivided
Doomhammer
Necronomicon (Doomsday Device) - this is the Forgeworld model that looks just like it
Imperial Fists Sorcerer - Plasma Pistol, Familiar, Doom Bolt, Warp Time
Imperial Fists Sorcerer - Doom Bolt
10 Imperial Fists Chaos Marines - Power Claw, Icon Undivided, 2 Meltaguns, Rhino - Havoc Launcher
5 Imperial Fists Havocs - Missile Launcher, Lascannon
Dark Angels Sorcerer - Bike, Familiar, Icon, Doom Bolt, Warp Time
Dark Angels Sorcerer - Terminator Armor, Familiar, Icon, Doom Bolt, Warp Time
Dark Angels Sorcerer - Doom Bolt
4 Deathwing Terminators - 2 Chainfists, Power Claw
Deathwing Land Raider
10 Dark Angels - Power Claw, 2 Plasma Guns, Rhino
9 Dark Angels - Power Claw, Plasma Gun, Icon Undivided, Rhino
Maelstrom of Gore
-Ragnar (Kharn) the Betrayer
-20 Space Wolf Berserkers - Power Claw
-10 Space Wolf Berserkers - Power Claw, Rhino
-10 Space Wolf Berserkers - Power Claw, Rhino

I traded all my psychic powers for random draws, but due to the number of psykers and the fact I wanted to sample the powers, my opponent agreed that no power could be duplicated, including Primaris ones. This way I just pulled out the three Primaris powers for the Disciplines I had shuffled, and then dealt to a psyker swapping a Primaris if I wanted and continuing on until every psyker had their own set of cards. It was a nice way to ensure I got to try out a variety of powers without any real bookkeeping for who has which power.

Iron Hands - Codex Necrons
Imotekh (1st Company Captain)
Royal Court - Cryptek of Destruction - Solar Pulse, Lord - Resurrection Orb (Techmarine, Company Champion, respectively)
Overlord - Warlord, Warscythe, Phase Shifter, Mindshackle Scarabs, Catacomb Command Barge (Commanding Captain on Landspeeder)
Royal Court - Cryptek of Destruction - Solar Pulse (Techmarine)
Destroyer Lord - Mindshackle Scarabs (Captain on bike)
C'Tan (Unknown creature)
Triarch Stalker (Dreadnought)
5 Deathmarks (Scouts)
5 Lychguard (Veterans)
15 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Warriors (Tactical Marines)
10 Immortals - Tesla Carbine (Honor Guard)
5 Immortals (Command Squad)
5 Tomb Blades - Nebloscopes, Gauss Blasters (Jetbikers)
5 Destroyers - 2 Heavy Destroyers (Bikers)
6 Wraiths - Whip Coils (Assault Marines)
10 Scarabs (Unidentified Swarm)
10 Scarabs (Unidentified Swarm)
Monolith (Land Raider)
Monolith (Land Raider)
Doomsday Ark (Vindicator)
Doom Scythe (Unidentified Aircraft)
Tomb Stalker (Unidentified Monstrosity)
5 units of 1 Canoptek Spyder - Gloom Prism, Claw Array (Unidentified Machine)

Mission
Similar to the standard Apocalypse mission, except six placed objectives were worth 3 VP and secondary objectives (per main rules) were worth 1 VP. A few Assets were modified, but the only one that mattered for this game was Hold at All Costs, which made all non-vehicles in a single FOC section scoring or made just the vehicles in a single FOC section scoring or made one super-heavy scoring. While we didn't announce our Assets prior, I chose Indiscriminate Bombardment and Hold at all Costs (Non-vehicle Elites) while my foe took Subvert Machine and Hold at all Costs (Non-vehicle Fast Attack). As per our agreement, I set up the table since I got there first and marked off the deployment zones and then my foe then got choice of side and first turn, although seizing the initiative was still allowed to be attempted. Obviously I failed to do so despite my best efforts to convince my die a 6 was what it wanted to roll. We also stated that outflanking would be from one of the three short table edges with a roll of a 4 on a D4 being choice. No one outflanked anything so it was a non-issue. There was one house rule for the Doomsday Device and that was that my foe could prevent it from being activated that turn if he gave into my demand. Finally for table edges, his was clear, but for mine we flipped a coin, heads it was the long 8' edge near the factory ruin, tails the other side. He flipped and got tails.

I provided four objective markers, two 60mm bases with a scene on each (a Dark Angel fighting a Fallen and a Possessed walking his Bloodletter), a 25mm based computer terminal, and a 40mm based skull icon thing. My foe had a matched pair of Resurrection Ark Necrons on medium Privateer Press bases. I handed him the terminal for his third to deploy. We alternated placing them and it ended up where the terminal was in the factory ruin, the Possessed and pet Bloodletter next to the toll bridge, the Dark Angel and Fallen in the fortified corner, the skull icon next to the tower on the hill, a Necron in the heart of the crashed Aquila Lander, and the other Necron in the small ruin near the road intersection. I joked that models needed to pay with exact change to pass through the toll booth and anyone attempting to jump the toll would need a dangerous terrain check.

Deployment


To make the deployment workout so no part of the table was really off limits, I curved the central line of no-man's land using a row of dice and with the larger size made the deployment zones go 12" off either side of that line. Seeing that I could only squeeze a little into the corner on the table that was predominately his, he focused much of his deployment on heading the long ways down the other table, but to be safe left a flank guard. Wraiths with a Destroyer Lord, Deathmarks, Destroyers, and a Doom Scythe of his were held in reserve.




I decided that I would throw the Maelstrom of Gore and Dark Angels at the heart of his force but mount Sigismund, his ten Terminators, and both Imperial Fists Sorcerers in the Doomhammer with the Imperial Fists in their Rhino acting in support. Just in case, I left the Dark Angels Sorcerer on the bike in reserve.




The Battle

In the dark of night, Sigismund lead a flanking force of Dark Angels and Space Wolves towards the loyalist lines while his Legion fought the deluded followers of the false Emperor head on. Suddenly, skeletal machines appeared in force barring his progress. In the gloom a scattered series of reports confirmed the heraldry of the Iron Hands. What they had done to their Legion was appalling; had they no pride in who they were? Of course not, they had forsaken the Arch-betrayer on Terra and now their pursuit of their own goals interfered with his Black Crusade. There would be a reckoning this night.

Commanding that the Necronomicon be prepared, the unholy book would soon be tested against his machines in preparation for the real battle to come. The very act of laying out the alter turned the river into a blazing torrent of blood as swarms of small mechanical spiders crossed followed by larger ones that seemed to be producing yet more of the smaller ones. The Space Wolves howled at the blessing of their god and expected none to emerge. Indeed the burning river of blood immolated a number of smaller creatures and even visibly scarred one of the larger, but no appreciable harm was done as the swarm relentlessly advanced. Rushing over the fortifications, Ragnar lead his Wolves headlong off the bridge and into the blaze in a blind frenzy. As they splashed into the flow of burning blood Khorne's great blessing claimed two of his own as the seals of gray power armor burned away and the flaming blood drowned then immolated the Berserkers furiously wading to reach the strange constructs.

The darkness did not remain unbroken long after as green beams of energy crossed the distance flaying trees and rubble and harmlessly impacting upon ceramite protected by the Ruinous Powers. Imperial Fists disembarking from their Rhino gunned down three of the Iron Hand jetbikes, although two somehow repaired the grievous damage and resumed the fight. The magma cannon of the Doomhammer blasted apart a number of the Iron Hands Tactical Marines, if the squad markings were any indication of what they once were, and Sigismund and his Terminators gunned down the survivors from the firing platform aboard the mighty 312 ton vehicle.

A bolt of lightning, seemingly summoned from the Iron Hands' First Company Captain blasted a Dark Angels Rhino, skewing it to a halt as the crew was stunned by the power of the blow. Not to be outdone, Sigismund commanded that one of his cruisers, he cared not which, lay down a bombardment of the area. Knowing better than to ask for clarification, a Strike Cruiser opened fire upon the general location of the flanking force. As the naval bombardment rained down upon near the bridge, the Dreadnought and the swarms around were blasted to pieces, the Iron Hands Honor Guard and their Techmarine vanished while the First Company Captain took only minor damage, the Iron Hands Land Raider took a telling hit, and a pair of Space Wolves were blown apart. Yet through whatever means they possessed the Techmarine rebuilt himself. Through the entire conflict, this was to be common; Iron Hands repairing as if through sorcery, yet the Warp was never tapped.

As the dust settled the Berserkers rushed a strange being that seemed to defy all natural laws, hovering just atop the blaze while Khorne claimed yet more of his own, yet it was no daemon. Ragnar refused to allow any other to battle this foe and the two clashed, yet after several exchanges the Betrayer fell. By then the vast swarm had reached the Wolves and battle was eagerly joined as the Deathwing Terminators stepped through the Immaterium nearby, ready to aid their comrades in battle thanks to the foul sorceries of the one leading them.




As the Wolves smashed hundreds of tiny spiders and were in turn smashed by the unknown creature, a strange crescent shaped fighter of the Iron Hand strafed the Doomhammer, doing no damage to the powerful vehicle. At that same moment, a unit of five heavily armed Iron Hands marked as bikers simply appeared right in front of Sigismund's transport and managed to stun the driver with a shot from one of their heavier guns. Irritated by this, Sigismund, his Sorcerers, and some of his retinue removed all trace that the bikers had ever been there in a hail of fire nothing could have hoped to survive.

Iron Hands Tactical Marines and a Land Raider killed both Imperial Fists bearing meltaguns, but were avenged by the magma cannon vaporizing four times that number of the offenders. Yet for al their firepower, nothing more could the Iron Hands achieve; their floating Vindicator scored a direct hit upon the hull of a Dark Angels' Rhino, yet the incredible energies of the enhanced vehicle did little more than mar the paint upon it. Even the powerful ordnance employed by the Iron Hands' Land Raider bounced from the steep angled shot off the other Dark Angels Rhino. Truly the dark gods smiled upon their servants this dawn. With war cries to Chaos, the Imperial Fists inflicted more damage upon the Iron Hands, damaging the large spider machines, gunning down jetbikes even as the arose from ruin, and felling yet more Iron Hands Marines.

In a voice that carried across the entire field of war, Sigismund demanded that the Iron Hands' Vindicator, or whatever it was that was marked as such, be handed over to him or doom would fall upon the Iron Hands the likes of which they could not imagine. Such an offer was met with silence and thus the words "klaatu barada nikto" were spoken and the Necronomicon opened. Reality was ripped apart for but an instant and the full terror and unbridled horror of the Sea of Souls was unleashed upon the Iron Hands. The Land Speeder and a large squad of Tactical Marines were torn to shreds as they were pulled into the Warp alive, feeling pain and terror for the first time since their internment in their new bodies. The Captain who had rode upon the Landspeeder only survived as he has disembarked moments prior to challenge the Deathwing as more of the swarm of large and small spiders.

The Ravenwing Sorcerer made a desperate attempt to thwart the slithering monstrosity that stalked towards the heart of battle. Rushing under the segmented bulk of the mechanical nightmare, the warp empowered blade he bore struck true against leg and underbelly many a time, but not once did it penetrate. As he weaved and jinxed out from under the full length of the centipede like machine, a single blow skewered him and plucked him off his bike, sending the heavy vehicle careening of of control into the building nearby. Drawing his pistol and firing into the "face" of the thing, the bolt rounds had little effect before the creature tore the Sorcerer asunder and slithered into the nearby woods, disturbing a Razorwing flock.




With many of the Iron Hands pinned by Chaos firepower, the pair of their Land Raiders pulled their forces back from imminent destruction through unheralded technological prowess. The minor amount of return fire upon the Imperial Fists saw the yellow Rhino blasted, the shrapnel felling one of its former occupants as the Iron Hands fighter soared towards the tower where the Havocs were taking aim upon it. The only other effective firing was the destruction of the Rhino previously vacated by the Dark Angels who took station in the upper floors of the factory ruins. Yet the arrival of the Iron Hands Scouts near the First Company Captain and the appearance snakelike machines marked as an Assault Squad far behind Chaos lines gave the impression that the Iron Hands had not yet fully committed to this battle.



A large mechanical spider clashed with Deathwing Terminators, but was cut down even as it ripped open one armed with a power sword. The Deathwing Sorcerer finished off the last of his foes, finding that only one of his Terminators survived only to repeat his earlier trick and step through the Warp again even as the remaining Space Wolf Berserkers charged into the swarm and unnatural monster nearby. Their screams of rage matched only by the fury of being denied the chance to clash with the being who felled Ragnar the Betrayer as that strange entity drifted across the river with his Veterans following loyally after slaying the last of the Sons of Russ who had accompanied Ragnar.

The blood lust of the Space Wolves was not limited to the Berserkers as their Rhino drove right through the enemy. One of the large spider machines tried to smash aside a blood coated transport but was crushed beneath the tank's treads as the claw glanced from off the hull. An Iron Hands Marine behind him fired a shot at the rampaging Rhino, but failed to do any damage and was likewise smashed to ruin. The wrath of the vehicle came to an end when the stalking centipede machine managed a glancing hit that finally put the battered machine out of action only inches away from crushing it. Even that Rhino weaved through the street between the factory and an hab block, the other one smashed through an Iron Hands Marine, sending parts under the treads and over the top of the hull even as bolter and plasma shots rained down around them from the Dark Angels in the factory, felling yet more as the Deathwing returned to reality below them. Still, the near complete damage was not enough and the Iron Hands rose again, seeking ever more punishment.

Again, the three words were spoke and again the Warp was brought forth upon the Iron Hands. More of the skeletal forms, including the Scouts, were torn from reality as was a portion of one of their strange floating Land Raiders, leaving the devastating and terrible machine a gutted wreck. Even as his transport ground ever forward, mounted guns and embarked troops smiting those before it, Sigismund was pleased with this new weapon, it would make for a devastating surprise when the real battle against the loyalist scum as joined.

[FashaTheDog]

Having survived a direct hit from a lascannon, the Iron Hands captain leading the attack possessed the Deathwing Land Raider momentarily, sending a stray shot into the tall hill tower the Imperial Fists had claimed. The beam passed through the soft brick, but did no damage, save cosmetic. Yet the violent and intrusive possession ravaged the internal workings of the venerable tank, leaving it on its last legs, ready to break down should it take any more damage. The other Iron Hands captain, on what was now identified as some form of bike, provided more than that a heartbeat later when he cleaved the tank in half with a single stroke that left a smoking crater in the place of the tank as the commanding captain climbed aboard his Land Speeder to join the rest of the battle.

The other Space Wolf Rhino finally succumbed to Iron Hands' firepower even as they continued to be gunned down from above and return to their feet. It was as if the Iron Hands enjoyed this or simply did not know any better. No matter, they would fall again and again. Each time, fewer of their number stood. Yet, that was not the cause for concern. The Necronomicon was opened without the words having been said. An ominous glow came from the book as the cultist charged with reading it simply ceased to have ever existed. Such a paradox should have adverted the disaster that was to come, but Chaos cares not for causality. With the Iron Hands rushing back through the toll sensing the danger, the Space Wolves only followed suits as they stomped out the last remnants of the spider swarm that plagued them and were in pursuit of those they perceived as fleeing prey.



Even as imminent doom was announced, the Havocs stayed true to their mission of holding their vantage point. With his careful aim, the lascannon cut through the center of the crescent shaped aircraft, sending the craft cartwheeling wildly out of control to crash in a fiery ball harmlessly to the side of the tower, well, harmless to the Imperial Fists anyway.

While the mighty Doomhammer continued pounding the Iron Hands' flank to ruin and the remaining Dark Angels Rhino unloaded its cargo of 9 Marines and a Sorcerer, Sigismund and his Terminators disembarked with one of the Sorcerers. Their target was the other Iron Hands Land Raider. The vehicle was smashed to ruin with contemptuous ease as the Despoiler set his sights on new prey. The other Imperial Fists Sorcerer had left in the opposite direction to give chase to the jetbikes that knew not the meaning of death. He soon taught it to one of them as eldritch energies ensured that no amount of technology could save him.



The Iron Hands had been mauled, yet still they fought on for some unknown objective. The Dark Angels Rhino was destroyed by an Iron Hands Techmarine utilizing a strange, but powerful staff that lanced out to the heart of the vehicle to detonate it in a massive fireball. The massive energy cannon on the Iron Hands' Vindicator now took aim at the Dark Angels in the open and fired. Yet the Chaos gods protected all of the Dark Angels who were engulf from harm, their black armor and bone colored robes untouched by the immense energies capable of felling titans.

As the Imperial Fists Sorcerer dispatched the last of the Iron Hands' jetbikes for good, the world shook upon its axis as the book inked in blood and bound in flesh floated into the air, its pages rapidly fluttering from cover to cover, yet impossibly never actually reaching the end. With impossible colors and images that could never be, a Warp rift opened upon the plain of battle, expanding so slow, it should have been easy to walk to safety, but with the full power of the Immaterium made manifest upon the world, no one could outrun it, no matter how fast they were or by what means they traveled. The rift covered an area from the the toll booth all the way to the edge of the crashed Aquila Lander. The river of burning blood was not vaporized or dried up, it simply never was. The hill and tall tower upon it where the Imperial Fists had been disintegrated, the fate of those unknown. The entity that had felled Ragnar was dragged out of the material realm to the hellscape of the warp along with one of the Berserkers who continued to fight him even as they were unmade. Ruins, the Iron Hands Landspeeder, wreckage, corpses, trees, even the ground all became part of the Warp and beholden to whatever fancies that would take it.

As reality finally reasserted a tenuous grasp and forced closed the breach to the twinkling sound of laughing daemons after what could have been a second or could have been a millennium, there remained but three things. The first was a massive crater, still smoking with colors that should not be. The second was the commanding Iron Hands captain, who survived for reasons best not considered. Finally in the very center, undamaged and closed, lay the Necronomicon Ex Mortis.

Still the battle raged on as the First Company Captain of the Iron Hands and his accompanying Techmarine were gunned down by the Dark Angels following the nightmarish opening of a Warp Rift. Despite being told not to, the last of the Space Wolves charged the Iron Hands Veterans who had been far enough to survive the rift. They were cut down with ease. And then the Iron Hands vanished. With them were two stasis pods, one in the Lander wreck, the other a small ruin. What they contained was unknown to Sigismund, but the fact that it was what they were after angered him.

The battle had seen the Space Wolves take the worst of it; not a one survived the fighting...or so it seemed. Staggering from the crater, Necronomicon in hand came Ragnar. He was near death and muttering mainly gibberish intermingled with coherent snippets about being returned by the Blood God. Nothing more could be gleamed, but it was sufficient enough to allow the madman to be treated by the vile chirurgeons of the Black Crusade. The loss of the Rhinos was a problem and would slow the advance, but it this would not stop it...



Aftermath
The final score was 7 VPs for my foe, 4 VPs for me, and 1 VP for the table: his two 3 VP objectives to my one 3 VP objective, plus 1 VP to each for having a scoring/denying unit in the opposing deployment, and we agreed the table got one VP since the first kill, which was his model, was to dangerous terrain (the game was winning for the first turn). I gave away the game, though. I had two Berserkers claiming an objective at the end of my last shooting phase with nothing he could do about it, which would have given me 7 VPs, but just outside of contesting range sat the Lychguard and no one could tell me that I did not make the right decision charging the Berserkers into them for the glory of Chaos. Had I not, I know my next game would see me only roll 1s for everything in punishment so I do not regret it. You know this to be true.

Now, all things considered, I beat the living hell out of his army. The Doomsday Device was simply spectacular, and like always it detonated before the end of the game, although this time it did so when most of my army was far away. The river was mysterious as Fireblood, but why not give credit to the Doomsday Device? Anyway, had we continued on I could have wiped out everything he had left except those Wraiths way off on the far end in another two, maybe three, turns. It makes me think of that Gordon Lightfoot lyric, "sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning when I'm losing again." Games like this are always fun, win or lose. Besides, I've been on the opposite end of that a number of times. Heck, my Krieg win most of their games by losing 80% or more of their points and last time I ran a Space Marine Battle Company in 2,000 points, they took 86% casualties and I still won (my opponent lost maybe a quarter of his army, possibly less), so what goes around comes around. Still, we'll call it a draw! :lol:

Remember how I joked about the Gov. William J. Le Petomane Thruway Toll booth? Well, yeah we ended up taking it serious. My foe mumbled something about needing to go back for a load of dimes and went to the register to go make change so he could pass through with Scarabs and Spiders and I did likewise later on, although one of my Berserkers did try to go around it and passed his dangerous terrain test. And yes, everyone did go through single file.




When the one Cryptek got up, we noticed that he and the model he used for Imotekh could high-five:


We encountered an odd, but kind of cool situation when my Land Raider opened fire on a unit of Wraiths and the attached Destroyer Lord. The closest model in the unit to the heavy bolter and one of the sponson lascannons (which missed) was a Wraith, yet the Destroyer Lord was closest to the other lascannon, so I got to put the heavy bolter shots into the models I wanted and the lascannon into the one I wanted.

The Gate of Infinity was great, I used it three times, twice with other Terminators in tow, and once to join him to a Chaos Marine squad who advanced into coherency with him and thanks to my strategic placement of icons, I was hopping all over without fear of scatter, not that my scatter die would let me down.

I was also worried that the gambit of putting the Doomhammer and embarked DOOM!!! squad where I did would have backfired and left them out of it or he would swing around and focus so heavily upon it that they would crumble, leaving me in trouble. Instead it was a rather hard pressure in his side he could not ignore and diverted enough attention to keep the rest of the force going, while still allowing it to fold his flank instead. To quote Tzeentch, "Just as planned."

I tank shocked a Tomb Spyder, Necron Warrior Squad, and Tomb Stalker all in one spectacular 12" move. The Spyder failed but glanced and left the Rhino with one hull point, the Warrior rolled a 3 and was flattened (but he got better), and then my foe penetrated the Rhino and took the last hull point off, wrecking it. As a what-if, he rolled to see what the penetration would have been had I not run out of hull points. It was a 1. In the last edition, I would have gotten the Stalker too, if it weren't for you meddling hull points and your little dog too! :lol:

[Shadow Lord]

Moehaha, Blood for the Blood God!!!...and toll for the Blazing Saddles!! Excellent battle...it was a bit difficult at some times to follow everything that was going on while still remembering that they were Iron Hands...not foul Necrons...! But it worked nevertheless...good idea of using Necrons as IH, I admit.
Charging when it isn't necessary makes you a true follower of Chaos...who cares if it did cost you the battle, skulls had to be claimed in honor of the Skull God! Thx for sharing!

[Sqallum]

True epicSauce. I love the Dornian Heresy over at DakkaDakka, as I think it is so much better structured than the current one. Great work, and a fabolous batrep!