Operation Downfall Battle Report 4: The Last Bastion

 "Today, we don't fight for an objective, or for a general, or for some distant Emperor. Today, we fight for our home planet and everyone we ever knew, plain and simple."

-Captain Skander Xhaer. 3rd Company, Xhorik 87th

Background:

It is the middle of the Horus Heresy and civil war rages across the galaxy on a thousand worlds. Everywhere, former brothers and sworn allies have turned against each other in a fury of betrayal and hatred. The Warmaster Horus has begun his long march to Terra, crushing all resistance before him. In his direct path is the Xhorik System, located at a strategic crossroads of Warp currents in a sector of space known for smooth transitions between realspace and the Warp. This prosperous system has become a focal point for the Traitor war effort as they attempt to seize control of the key spaceport facilities to enable a rapid refuel and resupply of the main Traitor war host as they make their way to the throne world. 

On Xhorik Prime, the key trading and transport hub of the system, Traitor forces are newly victorious over those loyal to the Emperor in a massive planetary civil war that erupted along old, pre-Imperial factional rivalries. A combined force of Death Guard and World Eaters has crushed the stratocracy of Kozar and their small garrison of the White Scars Legion. The major space ports are now securely in the hands of the Traitors, although small bands of Loyalist survivors continue to wage a shadow war along the fringes of the high desert wilderness. 

On Xhorik Secundus, the planetary governor has remained loyal to the Emperor and maintained control of most of the planet. As war raged on Xhorik Prime, armies began mobilizing for an invasion of the heart of Traitor territory, in the Federation of Unimund. The first phase of the invasion was codenamed Operation Downfall and called for a massive nighttime drop assault on key enemy installations in order to clear the way for the massive, lumbering landing craft that would be bringing the bulk of the invasion the next day.

Although suffering significant casualties in the war for Kozar, the Xhorik 87th Drop Troops Regiment, the Firebirds, were called upon to support Operation Downfall from Xhorik Prime, along with several dozen drop regiments from Xhorik Secundus attacking from orbit. They would be making simultaneous night drops to secure key landing zones, disable defense and communication capabilities, and clear roads and bridges to allow the Loyalist forces to move quickly out of the vulnerable landing zones, establishing a beach head. 

Battle 5 - 1: Night Drop

Battle 5 - 1: The Battle for Alteron Bridge

Battle 5 - 3: War Train Raid

At this point, the campaign is at a stalemate with each side claiming a win, loss and draw. With the drop troopers making some gains and being repulsed elsewhere, the success of Operation Downfall was balanced upon a knife's edge. Would the fourth battle be the tipping point?

Scenario: The Last Bastion

For something different and thematic, we decided to try a mission from one of the old Horus Heresy Black Books. The goal was to hold the bastion at all costs, and only if it becomes clear that you cannot win by holding it, to destroy it rather that let it fall into the hands of the enemy. 

For our campaign, the bastion would represent a planetary shield generator that would control access from low orbit to the surface at the nearby space ports. This would be crucial to allow or prevent the Loyalist invasion force to arrive in earnest, with heavy planetary landers bringing in tanks, titans and other massive war machines.

Belligerents:

Traitor Militia: Pete

General Titus Ghoulv’s Iron Battalion:

“The Marauders of Meddeon VII”

“The Pirates of the Northern Fringe”

“The Chem Hounds”

Provenances of War: Warrior Elite, Industrial Stronghold

• Force Commander General Titus Gholv: Robber Baron, power armor, power fist, iron halo, bolt pistol, frag and krak grenades
• Discipline Master: carapace armor, refractor field, laspistol, ccw
• Discipline Master: carapace armor, refractor field, plasma pistol, power sword
• [Line] Grenadier Squad A (15)- The Tongue Collectors: bayonets, plasma gun, flamer
• [Line] Grenadier Squad B (15) - The Psycho Slaves: bayonets, melta gun, flamer
• [Line] Grenadier Squad C - Harkhathe Hammers: bayonets, 2 x plasma guns
• Fire Support A (5 teams): 3 x lascannons, 2 x missile launchers
• Fire Support B (5 teams) - Black Bombardiers: 2 x lascannons, 3 x missile launchers
• Auxilia Medicae (3): Dr. Cut and Dr. Cauterize and Nurse Hatchet
• Ogryn Brutes (5) - Dregg Nukem’s Shrapnel Eaters: boss w/ power axe, carapace armor, 2 x ccw
• Leman Russ Battle Tank
• Leman Russ Demolisher
• Leman Russ Vanquisher
• Malcador Battle Tank Chimaera  

1855 points

General Titus Ghoulv leads his Marauders, in service to his Death Guard masters.

Pete: Leading up to the battle, I spent a couple weeks re-painting my entire traitor militia force. The first time I painted them I utilized a speed painting video I found online to complete the entire army in 30 days… and the results admittedly looked like a speed painted army. I chose Death Guard green as their new secondary color and changed their backstory to be recently corrupted by the blight lord. In addition, I converted a smaller Forge World model space marine into the notorious General Titus Ghoulv himself – someone I saw as well-equipped and armed after having plundered an imperial garrison. Phil had given me a non-GW helmet with two respirators which fit the new army theme quite nicely. Then I added some spikes, wires and the skull of a planetary governor and came out with a nice force commander.

For tonight’s battle, I was relying on my 4 tanks to punish Phil’s militia army, as they’ve done in the past. Using the tanks for cover, the orkish ogryn brutes could be shielded from small arms fire and pesky bikers and sentinels while they push toward the objective. The grenadier squads would pile in and attempt to hold the objective in the rear, while the ogryns chopped up Phil’s infantry loitering around the center of the battlefield. 

I placed the Leman Russ with the vanquisher cannon across from the Phil’s ordnance battery, incorrectly thinking that it could pop it open with one well-placed BS 3 shot. That dumb assumption would come back to bite me later. 

The heavy weapons fire teams I tried to place in areas with some decent firing lanes. They could at least shoot at the Thunderbolt when it made its appearance. 

With the mighty Malcador I hoped to drive around Phil’s flank and end up behind his army, devastating his infantry huddled up behind the bunker objective.

Loyalist Militia: Phil

Xhorik 87th Drop Troopers, 3rd Company:

"The Firebirds"

Motto: Into Hell We Go

Provenances of War: Warrior Elite, Legacy of the Great Crusade

• Force Commander Captain Skander Xhaer: Marcher Lord, power sword, cyber familiar, iron halo, blast pistol
• Discipline Master: Refractor field, power sword, bolt pistol
• Command Cadre (8) - The Sokhët: Lieutenant with refractor field and power fist; carapace armor, melta gun, militia standard, laspistols, lasguns, frag and krak
  
• [Line] Infantry Squad (20) - First Platoon: sergeant with laspistol and ccw; lasguns, frag grendades, flak armor, melta gun
• [Line] Grenadier Squad A (10) - The Survivors: sergeant with melta bombs; lascarbines, carapace, plasma gun
• [Line] Grenadier Squad B (10) - Stormtroopers of the 501st Company: sergeant with power sword and plasma pistol; lascarbines, carapace, frag and krak, plasma gun, melta gun
• [Line] Grenadier Squad C (10) - Stormtroopers of the 501st Company: sergeant with power sword; lascarbines, carapace, frag and krak, 2 x flamers
• Fire Support Squad (6 teams) - Stone Rain: 6 x missile launchers
• Recon Squad (5) - The Sand Snakes: 5 x sniper rifles
• Sentinel Squadron (3) - Rojets: 2 x lascannon, missile launcher
• Militia Cavalry (10) - The Hunters: laspistols, ccw, lascarbines, carpace armor
• Militia Thunderbolt Fighter - The Avenger: 4 x krak rockets, 4 x autocannon, 2 x lascannon
• Rapier Battery A: 3 x gravis heavy bolters
• Rapier Battery B: 3 x laser destroyers
• Ordnance Battery - The Spear of Heaven: Earthshaker, 4 additional gunners

1855 points

Captain Xhaer leads the Xhorik 87th in a desperate attempt to help reconquer their homeworld.

Phil: Pete and I had been looking forward to trying the new militia army list for Horus Heresy Second Edition since we first saw the PDF. The army is full of fun and flavor, although it seems designed to be uncompetitive with Legion armies. Most infantry options, other than Levy Squads, seem to be exorbitantly over-priced compared to tactical marines, transports such as the Arvus and Cargo Hauler have no effective weapons, and the few more capable vehicles are saddled with Third Line. So we decided the only fair way to use a militia list would be to put it up against another militia list!

I tried to fit my collection to the new rules, often having to use a model as the closest available alternative, although that seems very much in line with the intent of the militia list as it is meant to represent the spectrum of irregular fighting forces from across the galaxy. To that end, I used the Avenger as a Thunderbolt, the Tarantula sentry guns as Rapier batteries, the bikes as cavalry, and the Tauros as a Sentinel, all fairly good matches. The only model that did not really have an equivalent in the militia list was the Valkyrie, so I had to leave that out for now. I suppose I could have used it as an Arvus and just ignored all of its weapons, but in an edition that is not kind to fliers, I cannot imagine what the purpose of using a weak, defenseless transport that must come in from Reserves and face Interceptor fire while carrying a unit of fragile infantry. More fittingly, I could have used it as a gun ship using the Thunderbolt rules. But in any case, I did not have the points or the fast attack slots to bring it after I already included everything that more clearly fit with the militia rules.

Another issue I ran into was that all of the artillery (Ordnance Battery and Rapiers) required quite a few models for crew, unlike the old unmanned Tarantula Sentry guns. Thankfully I have a pile of Steel Legion troopers that I could use as crew to man the guns. They actually worked quite well for this since they are on the small side and therefore make the big guns look appropriately large!

Looking at the assembled force, I decided my advantages were in numbers, with over 120 models on the table, and ranged firepower, with the three units of big guns. As I was making the list, I was surprised to see the effective gun options for the Rapiers. Their gravis heavy bolters would be extremely damaging to militia infantry with 4+ saves and with their laser destroyers it looked like I finally had something that could reliably destroy tanks, even with AV 14 like the Leman Russ.  In previous games, even with more air support, I really struggled to deal with the quantity of tanks that the Chem Dogs bring so I was definitely concerned about anti-armor. Another worry was how I would handle the beastly Ogryns who could easily crush anything I had in melee. Therefore, my strategy was to keep feeding Line units into the objective area to always have someone to contest or control it, even as they suffered heavy casualties. My back line would lay down a withering hail of covering fire, while my cavalry would zoom forward and try to disrupt my enemy's supporting fire.

With the army list written, the army photo taken, and the general strategy thought-out, it was time to head to Pete's for the game. When I arrived, he had an awesome thematic table setup for the clash. He had also done some great work to improve the painting of his army by adding more color and more details and giving them their proper commander. We both knew this game would be an experiment, being the first use of the new rules for militia and their first time playing with second edition rules. We were most excited to see these fantastic painted armies lined up on table full of painted terrain and to throw some dice and just have fun with the humble militia. 

Deployment:

The Xhorik 87th won the roll and elected to deploy first and take the first turn. Phil selected the southern deployment zone as the artillery bunker in the southeast corner offered an elevated position for the fire support squad. He elected to go first because with the objective being a building, it seemed critically important to get there first and occupy the building, making that unit extremely hard to shift away from the objective.

The Loyalists deployed first in the south, then the Traitors in the north.

Speed Painting Challenge: 36 models in 36 days - COMPLETE

 In an effort to work through some of the "pile of shame" and have more fun painting by getting results quicker, I have been experimenting again with Contrast and finally getting better results (see the recent White Scars Scouts, for example).

So, I have set myself the goal of painting this entire 36-man platoon of grenadiers at an average pace of one model per day, an ambitious target for me since it can usually take me at least two or three weeks to finish a ten-man squad.

Here is the test speed-painted model on the left compared to some of the models I painted in my classic-style recipe of base-shade-highlight-highlight for each color.

Xhorik 87th Drop Troops - Reinforced 3rd Company Strike Force

 After making orbital drops to secure key objectives, the Xhorik 87th Drop Troops move to quickly deploy artillery to support their light infantry against the enemy's counterstrike. In the fierce fighting for the planetary shield generators, the 3rd Company was bolstered with significant artillery elements and multiple units of the elite 501st Company of Storm Troopers fighting in the role of heavily armed grenadiers.  It was also common to have air support from naval fighters and ground attack craft such as this Thunderbolt. Recon squads, sentinels and mechanized cavalry provided mobility and adaptability. This force configuration trades their usual high mobility for heavy firepower needed to destroy heavily armored foes and additional tactical flexibility.

This image shows a typical strike force of the reinforced 3rd Company during Operation Downfall on Xhorik Prime. This force was engaged in heavy fighting for one of the planetary shield generators, crucial to enabling the deployment of heavier units from orbit to the surface. 

White Scars Sniper Scouts

In an effort to try to speed up my glacial pace of painting, I decided to try painting a unit almost entirely with Contrast and washes/shades. The cloaks and fatigues of the old space marine scouts seemed to make them a good set of models to try this approach. Of course they needed a head swap from their giant heads with buzz cuts and square jaws. I spent some time searching around for heads with the right look and size, and that came in a combination of hooded and bare options to match the mix of models with cloaks being worn or folded up. I think these heads give a great ninja-like stealth feel to the unit, perfect for snipers. 

The Contrast painting is still not perfect and there are some areas that still came out a bit blotchy but it is a huge improvement over where I was previously with these paints. I found you need to thin the paints with wash medium and then possibly apply multiple coats, depending on how dark you want the color. And the new Soulblight Grey shade does a really impressive job on white.

With this unit complete, my White Scars now have two 10-man scout squads and a 5-man recon squad. This gives me more than enough to build a force based around the Recon Company Rite of War. I always thought this sounded very flavorful for the V Legion, which started as a collection of recon companies for the Great Crusade.