Battle Report: US Open 2023 Tacoma - Occultaris Campaign M5 - Squats + GSC

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It was the fated hour for the Battle for Occultaris: with the vaults being cleaned out of relics and ancient technology, all that was left was to drive the spear into the heart of the enemy.  By the grace of the Emperor of Mankind himself, a brief vox window opened in the interferance allowing Faustus to contact the battle barge above:

Send everything down.

And so drop ships and drop pods decended to the surface, reinforcing the Ultramarines with much needed supplies, equipment, and additional forces.

The Ravenous Hordes would be sending everything they had, but they would be ready to stomp them into the mud.

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Battle Report:

Ruleset: 2023 Tenth Edition Leviathan US Open Narrative Missions, Tyrannic War Crusade
Mission: Against the Swarm

Points: 2000 

Special Rules: 2 vs 1 (as they needed someone to play 2 opponents)

Mission Objectives

At the end of the battle, the defender scores 20VPfor each objective marker that remains on the battlefield, and the Attackers score 15VP for each objective marker that was destroyed.

At the end of the battle, the attackers score 15VP if they have two or more units wholly within the Defender's deployment zone that are not below half-strength.

My Forces:

+ Leaders +

• Primus Leo Exevio Faustus - Captain in Terminator Armour: Warlord - Enhancement: Artificer Armour, Crusade Relic: Artificer Weapon: Power Fist, Brutal Heirloom Storm Bolter
• Praelior Tarquinius Iulian Regulus - Chaplain in Terminator Armour:  Crozius arcanum, Storm bolter
• Lexicanium Flavi - Force Sword, Bolt Pistol

+ (Troops) +

• Squad Cornelius - 10 man Tactical Squad - Power Fist, Plasma pistol, Bolt pistols, Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, Bolters
• Squad Kaiel- 5 man Tactical Squad - Chainsword, Plasma pistol, Bolt pistols, Meltagun, Heavy Bolter, Bolters

+ (Elites) +

• Squad Tourbillion - 5 man Terminator Squad: Teleport Homer, Power sword, Storm bolter, Assault cannon, 3x Chainfist, Power fist, Only the Swift Survive
• Squad Nox - 5man Terminator Assault Squad: Teleport Homer,  5x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield
• Squad Lazarus- 5 man Assault Squad w/ Jump Packs: Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, 1x Grav-pistol, 1x Power Fist, Headhunters
• Squad Velox - 5 man Vanguard Veterans Squad: Heirloom Relic Blade, 4x Storm Shields, 3x Heirloom Thunder Hammers, 1x Heirloom Lightning Claws (pair)
• Venerable Brother Psigoras "Fury" - Dreadnought: Dreadnought melee weapon w/ Storm bolter, Twin Lascannon

+ (Heavy Support) +

• Squad Nero - 5 man Devastator Squad: Power sword, plasma pistol, 3x Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• Land Raider One - Land Raider - Twin Heavy Bolter, 2x Godhammer Lascannons - Reinforced Superstructure

+ (Fast Attack) +

• "One Charlie" - Land Speeder Tornado: Heavy flamer, Multi-melta, Finely Balanced, Precise Multi-melta

Takeaways & Analysis:

This was the battle I was waiting for.  As luck would have it, a player came up to me and asked if I would be ok playing a 2000 point game 1v2.  I said 'sure....' a bit surprised and unsure if he was being serious as I though the factions were still balanced.  Sure enough he was serious, apparently some players had to leave early or something and they needed someone to take on two opponents.

Mark and Max had Squats and Genestealer Cults respectively - or a mining guild that had some mysterious contact with strange xeno organisms inadvertently.

This would be great because I knew that at 1000 points it was really tough to put together a good list with the stuff I have and control the larger board, but with 2000 points everything clicks into place and I have a lot of options.  I threw together a list I had been experimenting with already a bit, but afterwards I realized I didn't field Squad Uzziel when I should have, so I actually played about 1900 or so points.  This is ok though since typically in a 1v2 situation the side with two players is at a slight disadvantage.

They started with more crusade points than I did so I took the basic "High Strategy" crusade blessing to keep it easy.  Turns out that really paid off starting with 2 CP.

Everything was a bit of a blur and I think we only got through 2 battle rounds, but it was a lot of fun.  The genestealers swarmed at me really fast but while Squad Nox took the brunt of the assault, Squad Velox, Squad Lazarus, and the rest managed to drive them back.

My opponents realized they made a bit of a mistake thinking they could do a shock & awe style blitz to push me back into my deployment zone while the space dwarves swooped in to destroy the objectives.  It turned out that only one unit per turn could perform the action to destroy the node.  Just like my mistake the first game, this somewhat sealed their fate early because by pushing so hard I was able to make a brutal counter-strike.

Remembering the lessons learned from the prior games, I concentrated my heaviest fire towards the side of the board that had their hardest hitting vehicles, and this time I had enough firepower to ensure that Oath of Moment could take out at least one vehicle per turn.  I actually ended up destroying two mining trucks and the big land fortress, which exploded in what might have been the first and most impressive explosions of the day!  Smoke was amazing for the Land Raider and allowed it to barely survive and return fire.

Squad Nox falls but Squad Lazarus moves in with the Hammer of Wrath to support Regulus

Also, this game I loaded up a tactical squad lead by a librarian into the land raider for a 4++ invuln OC 20 unit that was really hard to shift off the objective on that same side.  Between them, Squad Nox, and Squad Velox I had 3 extremely durable squads in each third of the board and it really helped me maintain a presence.  

By the end of turn 2 I had beamed in Squad Tourbillion lead by Brother Captain Faustus into the Votann backline and they were really in no position to continue.  It was an epic finale to a really fun weekend, and my opponents were great sports.  Also, while they lost the battle, their faction actually won the Occultaris Campaign by the slimmest of margins which will advance the story for the grand narrative later in the year.

It was really great to finally play a 2000 point game - its nice to see how the full army works.