Breakout
As the bright white light of teleportation cleared from Inquisitor Soulis' vision, he beheld the broken form of Canoness Ekaterina laying on the ground, surrounded by her faithful Celestians. The Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor ponderously moved towards the wounded canoness in his ancient terminator armour. As he knelt beside her, the Sister Hospitaller looked up.
"Father Inquisitor," she said. "Our beloved canoness will live, but she is gravely wounded. A commissar from the tainted guardsmen's unit did this to her."
Inquisitor Soulis grimaced at the irony; Ekaterina had no doubt bounced that commissar on her knee at the Schola Progenum when he was a child. The canoness weakly lifted her head to look at the Inquisitor. Her finely crafted black armour had been shattered into many pieces and blood smeared her in many places. She tried to speak, but Soulis shushed her.
"Rest now, daughter of the Emperor." He cast his eyes down momentarily at the mention of the god/ruler of the Imperium. "I will lead the remainder of your forces into the jungle to finish those fallen children. Do not trouble yourself … take this, it will see you through the worst of your injuries."
He removed the Rosarius that he wore on a chain about his neck and placed it in the canoness' hand. He folder her fingers so that they gripped the holy object. Then he stood and spoke to the Sister Hospitaller.
"Take her back to the Sanctorium with the Dominion squad. I will lead the rest of the Order into the Xenthali Jungle and bring these heretics back into the embrace of the Emperor once again!"
View from the North View from the South
Nicholas Wansbutter
(a.k.a. Ice Czar): Brock's
Catachans have been a regular opponent of mine for some time, but I've only ever faced
them once as a pure Deathworld army. The first thing to note is that I won't be facing any
armour, since the only vehicles Catachans are allowed are Deathworld Sentinels and Brock
doesn't own any! What I do know to be prepared for, is taking lots of fire from units that
I can't shoot back at, booby traps, and guardsmen that are harder in hand-to-hand than I'm
used to. That said, I am sticking to some basic principles, such as taking lots of troops.
So the Redemptionists and Battle Sister Squads were a given. They have been kitted out
with flamers and frag grenades since we are fighting on a Deathworld Jungle map. I decided
to upgrade one of the Battle Sister squads to a fast attack squad by giving them a Rhino
since my objective in this mission is to get as many troops as possible off the table as
quickly as possible. The Canoness is out of this mission for fluff reasons: she was badly
wounded in Batrep 034. Inquisitor Soulis is
suiting up in his terminator armour to take charge of the Sisters of Our Martyred Lady and
finish off the Chaos-tainted Catachan
XVIII Green Devils once and for all.If I had the models, a unit of Dominions with four flamers might have been nice. However, the Celestians will still be zooming around the battlefield in their rhino with a heavy flamer and a flamer. They will also be carrying an auspex for detecting any nasty little treats Brock has hidden in the trees for me to 'find'. I'm sticking with heavy-flamer equipped Retributors in an immolator. Since we were playing a 1000 point battle, some of my regulars had to go. I decided to leave the Seraphim at home, since knowing my dice I'd lose more to the rough terrain rolls than to Brock's Catachans!
As for my attack plan, my aggressive style of play will serve me well, I think, since my one and only objective is to get 50% or more of my army off one of the short table edges in less than six turns. This will be difficult with all the booby-traps and ambushes that the Catachans will have set up for me. The hardest thing will be to keep in mind that my objectives are not to destroy the enemy, but to escape them. I will have to resist the temptation to charge into battle all the time. Other than that, it will be full speed ahead, always keeping an eye on the terrain, trying to figure out where the Catachans may be hiding. This should be interesting! .…
(rosters coming soon!)
Brock
Jansen (a.k.a. Commissar Akrim): Jungle Fighting: DWV (Deathworld
Veteran) armies play in a much different fashion than regular Imperial Guard armies. The
list has some weaknesses, namely no big guns or armour. To compensate for this you must
use your deadly troops and the jungle to your advantage. Playing a Breakthrough mission
against the highly mobile Sisters of Battle with no armour is not an easy task. In
selecting my army list, I’ve chosen two Veteran Assault teams armed with heavy
flamers, meltaguns and demolition packs, which I consider to be the big guns of the
Catachans (equivalent to a 6’ range battle cannon round!).
My troops consisted of two platoons, each with two DWV squads armed with a mixture of assault/anti-armour weaponry. In addition I took a Veteran Patrol team for a flamethrower bushwhacking and 3 Captains geared for close range combat. In brief, the battle plan requires me to split my main force in two, I must hold my lines long enough for my Catachans to bring their numbers to bear and trap the enemy.
Deployment: As per the scenario rules for Breakout (page 154 in the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook), the attacker (Nick) deployed his troops first. Nick deployed his entire force as far to the north as possible within the 12" deployment zone he was allotted. The dismounted sisters were placed in the centre clearing since they would already be moving slow enough without having to make more rough terrain tests than was necessary. The Celestians on their flank could crush the barbed wire that lay at the edge of the jungle. The Immolator was put up on the hill more because Nick had run out of space than for any other reason.
It was clear which table edge the Sisters were headed for, so once Brock had deployed the HQ, Troop and fast choices evenly half to a side, he put all of his elites on the north end of the table in the hopes of slowing down the Sisters as much as possible until the force to the south could close in (elites were allowed to be deployed separately and not evenly as the rest of the force did).
On any roll but a one, the attacker got first turn. A four was rolled and Nick prepared to try to break out of the carefully laid trap the Catachans had surrounded the Sisters of Our Martyred Lady in.
Sisters of Battle Deployment
Catachan Deployment North / Catachan Deployment South