Horus Heresy Battle Report 7: The Extraction

"What of honor? What of glory? The only glory is victory; the only dishonor, defeat. Honor without victory is worthless. The methods of war matter not, only that my foes are dead while I yet fight."

 - Sergeant Albrecht, leader of Kill Team Ritter,
Death Guard Legion

Campaign To Date:

The planet of Xhorik Prime is engulfed in civil war as two rival blocs of nations, only united during the Great Crusade, now align themselves with opposing sides in the Horus Heresy. Falling directly in the path of Horus' long march to Terra, an advance force of Death Guard has been tasked with bringing the Xhorik System into compliance so that the main war host can safely resupply and move on quickly. Standing in the way to control of the main planet is a small garrison of White Scars and their Kozar military allies, their sworn brothers.

The early stages of the conflict centered around the Battle for Bielyr, a major city on the border between the two sides. After a long, hard-fought struggle through the ruined streets, the Death Guard were able to drive the loyalists north out of the now-destroyed city. Once they had lost the city, the White Scars fell back before the Death Guard advance and lured their forward forces into a trap. Thanks to some unexpected assistance from a small band of Imperial Fists, they cut off the traitor vanguard and captured their commander, Praetor Wolfgang.

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Korab squinted into the setting sun, but with the dust, the glare and the fading light, it was as useless as peering into thick fog. As the sun sank below the horizon, he could feel the temperature dropping, seemingly by the minute. For hours he had endured the blazing heat and now he only had a moment to enjoy the coolness before the wind started to chill him through his sweat-soaked uniform. But that was life on Second Duty: sweat for hours and then freeze until Third Duty relieved him. Korab gave up staring into the setting sun as his comm link blinked, notifying him that he was due to report. 

"Patrol oh-six checking in. Western perimeter clear. Over." 

'As if I had any idea what's more than 50 feet in front of my face...', he thought. 

He knew they had the auto-sensor perimeter nodes lined up around the entire outpost. 'So what is the point of all this endless partolling around out here in the damned wind all damn day like this?' He looked around at his patrol;  Jori and Orik were trying to stand downwind of one of the storage tanks of the processing facility they had re-purposed as a makeshift outpost. Korab gave the hand signal to move on and started toward the pumping station. When the wind picked up at dusk like this, he knew he would either have to shout to be heard or use the comm link, which needed to stay clear for official reports only, so they had gotten used to communicating non-verbally.

"Patrol oh-one checking in. Northern perimeter clear. Weather conditions just beee-autiful," came a voice over the comm link, slightly broken up by static. Korab grinned at Tomor's sarcasm even as he shivered; the temperature was dropping fast now that the sun was all but gone. All that remained was a reddish glow reflected by the clouds of dust. 

Korab turned his head to the left as we walked. He noticed a large shape materializing out of the darkening swirling dust. Panic gripped him as he reached for the comm link button. The shape moved at unexpected speed. As he reached the button, a large blade was driven straight through his throat. Korab tried to scream, but all that came out was a wheeze as his hand fell away from the comm unit and he collapsed in the dust. 

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PRE-GAME AND MISSION:

To represent a small team of Death Guard sneaking into the Loyalist outpost, we decided to use the Kill Team rules from Horus Heresy Book Six, but we used the original set from the 40k 4th Edition Rulebook where the defender had Brute squads to make it easier to manage the large number of infantry. For anyone not familiar, the sentries start unaware with only a random chance for the Defender to control them, but as the Attacker makes noise, Klaxon counters are accrued and the sentries are increasingly likely to investigate. We also made a slight change that if the attacker charged from outside the sentries' spotting distance and wiped out the Brute squad in the first round, they were considered to have been killed before they could shout out or raise the alarm, so the Defender would not accrue a Klaxon counter.


BATTLE:

View of the Loyalist outpost from the west. 

As an industrial facility without many options for securing prisoners, Wolfgang was housed in the empty processing chamber on the upper level.  

Horus Heresy Battle Report 6: Ambush!

"Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack."

Zalitai Zherdan, Praetor of the Brotherhood of the Wind, 

when asked about preparations for the Death Guard advance

Campaign To Date:
It is the middle of the Age of Darkness, as the Warmaster Horus makes his long march toward Terra, leaving shattered star systems in his wake. Lying in the path of the traitors' advance, the planet of Xhorik Prime is torn apart in civil war after only recently being united in the Great Crusade. The largest nation, The Federation of Unimund declare for the Warmaster and Mortarian as their living gods and liberators, while their ancient rivals to the north, the stratocracy of Kozar and her allies, side with their kindred spirits and sworn blood brothers, the White Scars.

The first few weeks of the conflict centered around the battle for the border city of Bielyr, which quickly degenerated into small, isolated infantry detachments engaging in desperate close quarters street fighting. In the tight confines of the ruined city, the Death Guard proved their mettle as their Eradication Teams systematically killed and drove back the over-matched loyalist forces of White Scars Astartes and Imperial Army Auxilia street by bloody street, block by ruined block. The only victory for the loyalists came in the form of a daring raid behind enemy lines south of Bielyr to destroy a fuel plant, thus delaying the Death Guard heavy armor from arriving to the battle zone and allowing the remainder of the loyalist forces to fall back from the city before the unrelenting Death Guard advance.

Praetor Wolfgang of the Death Guard left the final mopping up and garrison duty in Bielyr to his reserves as he pushed on northward after the fleeing White Scars, looking to crush his enemies before they could regroup and be reinforced.

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The bitter eastern winds brought clouds of grey dust down from the distant mountains, scouring the vast sheet of bare volcanic rock known as the Vaalbara Plateau. Somehow, scattered clusters of tough, stunted plants clung tenaciously to the rock, their  sharply spiked forms testament to the unforgiving environment. The Death Guard detachment pressed on in their northerly march, restlessly pursuing the fleeing White Scars and Kozar Army regiments. 

Through the swirling clouds of dust and sand, Praetor Wolfgang spotted the silhouette of the mining and processing outpost that, according to his scouts, the fleeing loyalist forces were using as a rallying point. Wolfgang had taken Bielyr through the single-minded application of  calculated logical maneuvers, executed by his men without any thought of individual safety or glory. Acting as a single vast machine with a multitude of parts, the Death Guard marines each knew their role and carried it out, no matter the cost; death was no excuse for failure. And now Wolfgang calculated that the logical result of the pursuit was that the loyalists would dig in at the only defensible location in the vicinity, surrounded as it was by a vast, bare plateau. He computed that the resistance would be fierce and there would be many casualties among his forces, but the inevitable result would be victory for the superior forces of the Death Guard, especially if he could hit them quickly and under the cover of the dust storm before they had a chance to fully fortify their position. 

The shrieking black wind abetted somewhat as the column entered the cluster of processing stations and administrative buildings, intending to strike the final blow through the heart of the enemy division.  Wolfgang and many of his men dismounted from their transports, ready for the dangerous door-to-door fighting through the facility that they expected. But as they advanced into the outpost without resistance, Wolfgang realized it wasn't just due to the cover of the dust storm as he initially thought; there was no one here. Instincts honed over hundreds of campaigns immediately told him to fall back. His scouts had been deceived. 

But the moment he began giving the order, an eruption of plasma and missile strikes broke out all around him and the lead elements of the column. Deafening explosions burst nearby with such force that Wolfgang felt them deep in his core rather than heard them. Through the smoke and flames, he saw the hated enemy advancing from all sides. Surrounded and heavily outnumbered, he knew he could not win this fight. He had no fear of death and knew he would take many foes with him if he stood and fought to the end. But his orders were to achieve victory and deliver Xhorik Prime to the advancing traitor army, not to die here. Lifting his ancient blade, he called out to the scattered survivors, "To me! To me! Forward, for the Death Lord! For Barbarus!" Gathering a small band of survivors, he prepared to break through the encirclement and only then, with unrelenting hatred, take his vengeance on his enemies, whether it take a day, a month or a hundred years. 

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PRE-GAME AND MISSION:

Since we had more painted loyalists and traitors, we decided to play the mission Between the Hammer and the Anvil from Horus Heresy Book Six. Pete (the traitors) would get victory points for each unit that escaped the table and Phil (loyalists) would earn victory points for each traitor unit destroyed.


BATTLE:

The Death Guard have pursued the fleeing loyalists to this mining and processing outpost on the Vaalbara Plateau. 

The outpost is an industrial and administrative center surrounded by barren rock and stunted, spiked trees.