"The Battle of Halcarth Cross -AAR with pics" Topic

Salmolan could always make his voice hang in the air, even over the roar of battle. I never knew how he did it.

"They're heeerrreee."

I could see that. They were moving fast on our position and with force. We hadn't seen this concentration of their forces yet. Whatever was in those landers we shot down must have been pretty important to them. Still, if they got through us, the defensive AA systems were going to be sitting ducks. We just had to hold them here while they moved them to another location.

On both sides of my position I could hear heavy machine gun fire and distantly you could hear it ricocheting off their armour plate as the white figures advanced on our position. One of their tanks was racing up the center towards the building we were in.

It was difficult to keep track of what was going on all around. Voices crackled over the com-links, everyone seemed to think the enemy was shooting everything they had at them.

It wasn't like that. They were everywhere, shooting at everybody.

Looking to my left I saw Lt. Nescrit sending one of his squads forward. Presumably they were going to try to hold the barrier just North of their position. I got on the com-link to tell him to pull them back but it was too late. Explosions ripped up the ground all around them, they just disappeared in the light and the smoke. In the second it took for the scene to clear only two of them remained standing. To their credit they didn't run. They held their ground and opened up with their weapons.

For all the good it did them.

We had snipers pouring fire into the advancing enemy from all three sides, it did nothing to stop them.

The Kroot I never trusted, but they held firm, firing with grim determination at the enemy as they advanced. Their snipes didn't seem to have much more luck than ours did.

There are flashes of light to my left and I hear yelling that we are surrounded now followed by burst of gunfire all around.

Savage roars can be heard over the sound of gunfire. I can't imagine the tortured souls emitting those wails were once human.

Then there are explosions to my front as the building shakes and more savage guttural yelling is heard, followed by screams of paint. They have crashed their tank into our building and men came pouring out of the front with vicious close combat weapons. I watch in horror as they tear the squad defending the front o the building to pieces.

In less time than I could blink in, their were 10 corpses where their used to be soldiers. Our men open up on these savage fighters and one after another they drop from the fire until one runs back into his assault tank.

It pulls out of the front of the building.

More of my men have disappeared on my right as this assault has distracted my attention The few that I can still over there are fighting back valiantly. They all deserve medals or heroes graves. I'm pretty sure I can't provide them with either.

The flying Kroot that have held their ground behind my position throughout this battle, suddenly leap into the air. I am ashamed that I doubted them. They planted themselves right between me and the enemy just as my right collapsed. Everyone of them was scattered, in pieces, on the rubble strewn street not a minute later.

The croaking cheer of the Kroot can be heard to my left followed by cheering from my men. I look over and see five of their heavy assault troops sprawled on the ground at the feet of the Vilisian Anthro-mech. I had question the utility of such a device when I first saw it. Thankfully no one listened. It saved our line this day.

I was shoved to the ground suddenly by one of my orderlies, I landed hard just as the assault tank smashed through the building where I had been standing.

The lone madman inside came bursting out of the front of the tank which protruded from the side of the build where the wall had slowed its advance.

He ran towards the assault troops who fired at him as he moved on them. Shots ricocheted off of his armour, but some struck home, his twin blades were hoisted over opposite shoulders and he brought them across him in an arc. I could see, even through he dust of the falling wall, the head of the assault trooper shoot into the air, a gout of blood trailing it. Then the Sergeant of that squad rammed his monofilament blade into the ear of the attacker. The man grabbed the sergeants arm but his body went limp and he collapsed in a spreading pool of gore.

The assault tank gunned its engines and roared out of the building. Our bikers roared off to the rear but the Anthro-mech and the assault troops held their ground.

I go the call over the coms, the AA guns were moving. We could withdraw.

Just then an explosion to the front of the building blasted what was left of the front wall out into the street. The Antrho-mech that had held the front defending my command post was gone leaving a large crater where it had been.

Our loses were heavy enough, but we had held them.

We disengaged and they did not pursue. They fired at us as we withdrew but seemed intent on the position we had held.

All of the pictures can be seen at these links:

imgur.com/a/iK3IE

imgur.com/a/iK3IE

imgur.com/a/T45CO

I posted one of the sets of pictures twice. Here is the middle set:

imgur.com/a/fJBL7

The game was a fight between the Hurloon confederacy, a human/alien collaborative "empire" that came into contact with the Imperium. The Confederacy was not so much of a single political order as it was a convenient way of trading and dealing with intrastellar political problems. Each faction had their own military although they were organized similarly and had a roughly equal level of technology.

After incursions by the Imperium the various confederates came together to repel the invaders, thus beginning a system-wide war that ultimately led to a last stand on the fourth planet from the star Hurloo. After initial attacks by Raven Guard and Night Lords the World Eaters were sent to finish the job.

As the forces of all the different confederates were reduced by the fighting they combined into what became known as Remnant armies which reorganized retreating forces and got them to fight against the common enemy.

As each race within the confederacy had different strengths and weaknesses they were used in conjunction where possible but slowly the brigades were reduced to battalions, then to companies and then to platoons. Reorganization was again undertaken combining units even at the squad level in many cases.

The troops were rested where possible, reorganized with other units that came away from the front at the same time and then sent back out.

This battle took place where two Imperial assault landers were shot down near a mobile AA battery. Angron was in one of them and a ferocious effort was made to recovery the fallen Primarch.

It failed to recover him in a reasonable time and his injuries will have taken him out of the campaign for some time while they heal. This also allowed the Remnant Company to remove the AA batteries to another concealed location.

Those Kroot and really kewl looking and I would pay $64 USD for 16 of those……

Nice report…….

You can get them from GW for $36.25 USD. Or from your local retailer, the Game Room, probably.

Or did you mean the ones with the wings? I don't even remember how I did them. I must have put those together 14 years ago now.

It was a fun game. The two new units I did, the Red Butchers and the Rampagers, way underperformed. The Rampagers at least did something they were supposed to do by wiping out a whole squad, but they did it too well not leaving any alive to pursue. So they got shot to pieces. They did manage to kill 11 enemy models for only 5 of them, so it wasn't all bad, plus made a dramatic entrance with a nice photo op.

The Red Butchers deep struck next to a dreadnought with two DCCWs that they couldn't hurt. When it waded into combat with them they were pretty much just stuck tying it up and getting killed. Even tying it up wasn't that useful as it was just going to sit there waiting for any marines that came into the lines to counter attack them. It barely had any shooting capacity.

So the longest running Law of wargaming remains intact, your newest painted units are going to suck on their first outing.