Battle Report: Breaking The Terminus Line

Background: Due to heavy shelling and rain, a marshy pocket opened up in the Terminus line, the final defense of the chaos bastion. However a full scale assault wouldn't work, the rest of the line is still to heavily defended, and the pocket is fairly small. So a single platoon was sent in to breach the new found pocket in the line.

Battlefield: Smack in the center of the 5X4 table was a large marsh, with a single duckboard bridge leading across it. On the attackers edge I placed a small forest that was clearly heavily shelled (i.e. no leaves, broken trunks, and craters). Two craters were also placed at random, I represent that by using a scatter die. And that's all the cover the attackers got. Defenders got plenty of cover: a watchtower, over 5 sandbagged positions, and a small generator next to command post at the very edge of the board.

Forces:
attackers:
Captain Colt (colonel straken)
special weapons squad w/ three flamers and a democharge
veteran squad w/ three snipers and an autocannon
Lieutenant Wal (chenkov)
and two squads of basic guardsmen with boltpistol sergeants and grenade launchers

Defenders:
Lieutenant w/ bolt pistol
5 squads of blank guardsmen
autcannon squad
mortar squad
stormtrooper squad
leman russ

Deployment:

Defenders deployed first, placing the Lieutenant in the watchtower, along with three of the squads
at the base of it deployed in sandbags. Then smack at the end of the bridge were the autocannons, and the tank. Over on the right side, were two more squads behind sandbags, and the mortars were hidden behind the generator, touching the edge of the table.

The attackers then deployed with their two squads and Lieutenant wall in the craters facing the majority of the enemy at the lip of the marsh. Special weapons squad, along with the command squad were placed as close as possible to the duckboard bridge. Lastly the veterans were placed in the bombed out forest, across from the two squads and mortars.

First Turn:
My plan here was to use my veterans to pin the .50 cal autocannons, who would simply pulp my men crossing the bridge. Well, instead of pinning the autocannon squad, they killed them all, which was unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. The two squads with the Lieutenant moved up, and fired upon the defending platoon, and rolled terribly only causing three enemy casualties. At the end of the turn I used scatter die to represent where shells would fall, these shells however weren't explosives, but smoke canisters, representing the support a unit would get in this position. I rolled a 3 sided die, and rolled a two, so I got two smoke shells. Then I rolled a die for each, which represented the size of the smoke, one was a large, the other small. Then I rolled a scatter for each. Now the large one landed smack where I wanted it to, right next to the duckboard bridge, provided a nice coversave to my men who were marching in a single file clusterfuck. The other I tried to use to support them as well, but rolled off to the right, and in front of the forest.

So now the defenders opened up, and the two squads and Lieutenant took a heavy beating, losing all but three men in a squad, and the Lieutenant missing all of his men, save a standard bearer. Other than that, they didn't manage to kill anyone.

Turn Two:
The Imperial Guard side managed to get revenge on their fallen comrades, and then some. The passing special weapons squad, and the Command squad burnt the living bejesus out of the entire platoon. The attack was punctuated by the demolition charge blowing up the watchtower and causing it to collapse, killing the Lieutenant as well. The remaining few chaos worshipers ran off praying to their new found gods for deliverance. Which unfortunately was answered.

It was answered in the form of stormtroopers raining from the blood red dawn, just as the sun came up they landed right at the head of the duckboard bridge, and fired everything they had at full auto on to the men. Them accompanied by the coaxial bolter killed the entire special weapons squad. But again, the mortars and the other two squads failed to do anything.

Turn Three:
The captain and his retinue charged the stormtroopers, in an attempt to save themselves from the tank's cannon, which barely missed last turn. However the heavy flamer wiped out all but one of the stormtroopers, and the other fled, leaving my Captain totally exposed to a finishing shot from the battle cannon.

The Leman Russ fired its cannon with a thunderous roar, only to have the shell splat harmlessly in the mud. Again, the other squads and mortar, did NOTHING, honestly it was getting embarrassing, but against a 3+ coversave, and armed only with lasguns, and firing at range, there wasn't a whole lot they could do.

Turn Four:
The Captain and his unit assaulted the Leman Russ, ending up with two penetrating hits, and rolling a 2 and a 5, leaving the tank destroyed.


At this point the battle was simply mopping up, which was rather easy, which just proves, that though outnumbered, the forces of the Imperium were not outclassed, and won the day.



I purposefully massively outclassed my forces, I mean really, 60+ against 30+ and the 60+ had a tank to boot. The big turning point was certainly when all the flamers opened up, and the democharge went off. To lose 35 men in a single turn was a death knell for them. However any awards I would give my special weapons unit, would be awarded posthumously. Other than the Flamers, MVU would probably go to my veteran snipers, who failed to kill anything after turn one, but turn one, they certainly saved the day. I know that my men wouldn't have stood a chance of getting across that swamp had those autcannons been able to fire.