With the recent buffery of the AI, I hereby retract some of the slander I levied against the Astartes in the previous report, because they carried the day here. Allied with me are the fine warriors of the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels.
Now, to start:
There will be some questions about my custom regiment, the Bay Rangers.
Let me say that first of all, they look quite swank in their uniforms, and if they get a tad frisky in the barracks, hey, it's none of my business.
Furthermore, there is a reasoning behind this color scheme. In a galaxy where the enemies of the Imperium can drive men mad with symbols and images of their Chaotic taint, I fully believe in fighting fire with fire. And this is positively the most nauseating thing I've ever seen.
Know fear, Chaos, for the Bay Rangers are coming for you.
The Baneblade looks even more ghastly. Shame I didn't get one to use for this battle, but I'll post a pic of one eventually.
Okay! Start of the game, the usual run and grab the strategic points. The Rangers boldly advance to take ground.
Knowing full well that the enemy will be swarming hard fairly quickly, I move up to build an infantry bunker near Base Three, our Space Wolf ally and the one closest to the hostiles.
In the meantime, Space Wolf lead elements have boldly moved forward and engaged the enemy on the bridge that lies between our territory. Under the old AI, the bridge was a major chokepoint that would be contested all game long. Now, it's just a highway for reinforcements for either side.
The Space Puppies do good in the initial engagement, driving back enemy advance forces quite nicely. Hmm... Chaos. I'm betting that there are three nasty Chaos buggers over there.
They're running, but I know that won't last...
Sure enough, with visions of glorious news coverage and promotions in their heads (or extra kibble, in the case of the Space Wolves), the Astartes charge too far ahead and get their heads handed to them by upcoming enemy forces.
In short order, the Marine advance force is utterly annihilated, leaving nothing between them and Base 3 but a cloud of bad intentions.
Chaos comes in with a whole raft of infantry in a classic pincer attack.
Coming at our right flank:
Two squads. Not too bad, yet.
Coming at our left flank:
A considerably larger force.
Guarding our right, the Bay Rangers stand ready and resolute in the face of the onrushing enemy.
Guarding our left is...
Thin air.
Nothing good can come of this.
The hammer drops. On the right, we've got things under control. On the left, well, they're shooting shit up. This situation is mildly acceptable. If we can hammer the left pincer of the Chaos attack, we can turn and flank the other force, and hopefully get some Blood Angel reinforcements in to clean them up.
It's a good plan. (Probably wouldn't have worked, but it was a good plan.)
Nevertheless, a commissar decided to take matters into his own hands. Deciding that we had the left pincer well in hand, he lead his troops into a particularly stupid charge into the massed heavy bolters of the right Chaos pincer.
If you look carefully at the right side of the picture, you can see him getting gunned down like a dog as a consequence.
So instead of defeating the enemy in detail, we are now getting murdered in a crossfire, as the pincers close and everyone starts shooting up the remaining two squads.
There is only one answer for this- run like pussies. The surviving commissar bravely leads the charge back to the bunker. It means I'll lose the use of my grenade launchers, but right now they're not going to have a prayer against the massed firepower anyway.
Run, commissar, run!
Okay, no reinforcements, the bunker is full of my surviving troops, I need somebody to draw some fire while I figure out how to unfuck this situation.
So I set the bunker to producing troops, hoping to overwhelm forces on my flank with sheer numbers, or at least draw fire off the bunker.
Draw some fire, boys.
Draw some more fire, boys.
Good lads, draw some more fire.
Guess coming up with Grant on that test was somewhat accurate.
Bad news. The other flank is still fucked, and they're about to start knocking out the Space Puppies' critical facilities. There goes the Chapel Barracks, and with it the Space Puppies' ability to produce anything other than scouts...
Oh, but wait! Blood Angels to the rescue! A squad of assault marines land on our flank to go hand to hand. They promptly start getting the shit kicked out of them, but while they're there, my troops can come out and do some damage. We promptly step out of the bunker and support them the best way we can... by lobbing grenades right into their midst. Hey, they were fucked anyway...
Blood Angels are all dead, and... well, that's a lot of heretics. Time to retreat back to the bunker.
Okay, in the meantime, let's build some defenses behind the Space Wolves base, so that if the line collapses entirely, we at least have something to fall back behind.
It's not much, but I don't have a lot to work with right now. Still not a lot of support from the Blood Angels, whose names I am thoroughly cursing right now.
But at least I can sort of start building up a force instead of tossing it into the fire.
Now in the meantime, I've been running the old Tech Priests back and forth reparing the bunker and the Space Puppy command center, as the heretics subject the facilities to withering hails of fire.
The heretics expressed their disapproval of this by jumping Raptors in to chastise my Tech Priests.
So my waiting reinforcements helpfully lob grenades onto everyone. I think they were rather waiting for an excuse to bombard the snotty Tech Priests anyway.
Okay, got some forces built up, and once the Tech Priests had finished bitching about the friendly assist via grenade, we launched a spoiling attack against the heretics.
It started out well.
In fact, we were starting to push their flank back a bit. I committed the cardinal sin of becoming optimistic.
Chaos Sorceror- "Howdy."
Why do I always fall for that?
Uh, lads?
Run again.
Oh, look, one Tech Priest dead. And soon to follow will be the Space Puppy base and my bunker! And more heretics are arriving every minute!
And there they go, leaving my troops exposed and in the open, under focused fire.
The commissar who bravely led the retreat to the bunker? He redeemed himself in the eyes of the God-Emperor with his final stand.
Aha! But even as my flank starts to utterly collapse, the first real reinforcements arrive. It's not just one against three, bitches! The Space Wolves rebuilt at the Blood Angels base, and here are a couple of friendly dreadnoughts dropping in for tea and crumpets!
Unfortunately, that's ALL they have.
But fear not! For the Blood Angels are about to make up for everything, and at least for a day, earn my respect and admiration.
That red thing on the upper left? That's the orbital bombardment they're about to call down on the area their close combat troops are about to charge into. At first, I thought it an act of utter stupidity. But I was wrong, for the true genius of the Blood Angel commander was revealed when the explosions propelled his close-combat troops INTO the enemy line.
FUCK YES! ASSAULT TERMINATORS! GO BOYS!
Chaos had laden itself down with bog-standard Traitor Marines, laden with firepower. Needless to say, they were rather nonplussed by the arrival of melee units and responded poorly.
GO BLOOD ANGELS!
And with a sudden, ghastly silence, the battle for Base Three is concluded. No more heretics, just piles of bodies everywhere.
Against all odds, three to one, with some help from the lousy armor-killing ability of standard heretic weaponry, the Bay Rangers held the line until relieved.
And now?
Payback time.
With the Chaos army shattered, the Blood Angels launch into an enthusiastic counterassault, while I quickly patch up my forces.
The last surviving heretic on our side of the bridge boldly runs away...
The Blood Angels smash through anyone foolish enough to try to impede their passage across the bridge...
The heretics attempt to stem the tide at their end with a scratch defense of Berserkers and Horrors.
Think that'll work?
Naaaaaaaaaah.
No, we're going for the throat now. From the bridge, into the first Chaos base...
Which falls without much fanfare.
In fact, we're on such a roll that the boys get a tad overenthusiastic and charge willy-nilly into the next base unsupported...
Only to learn the hard way that it was the rally point for the next concentration of enemy troops that were building to drive us back...
Hmm... lots of Berserkers and Horrors, all just waiting for us to arrive. Not good, not good at all.
In fact...
Let's just pull back a bit while we sort all this out.
Oh, look! Terminators! Run hide behind them, men!
And, um, helpfully bombard them with grenades to inspire them on to victory!
For some reason, after this battle both the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels announced they would never go into battle with the Bay Rangers ever again.
The boys decided that there was a lot of big nasty ugliness going on at that chaos base, and they would probably do better to attack the other one. So they joined a Space Wolf attack, already in progress.
Bye bye!
Okay, time for the rematch. And this time, we've got friends.
Including a motherfucking LAND RAIDER.
Oh, you're going down now...
The enemy had collected their facilities at the final base, which is what made it such a tough nut to crack. For non-players, those round thingies are the vehicular production facilities.
But at that point it mattered not, because their doom was inevitable.
Let this serve as a warning to all who would oppose the might of the God Emperor...
For no matter what the foe or where he lurks, the men of the Bay Rangers stand ready to strike him down.
For the Imperium!
