Saturday was the fifth event in our Solypsus 9 campaign: Apocalypse! Their retreat last month having been a feint, the Legions of Discord returned en masse and assaulted the Forces of Order at all the colony’s installations. Battling it out with 16,000 points on the table were:

• Legions of Discord: Chaos Daemons, Chaos Space Marines, Necrons
• Forces of Order: Swords of Dorn, Sanguine Hunters, Dark Angels, and Kingbreakers Space Marines

More photos are in the gallery. Results and a few details are on the event webpage.

The Apocalypse underway!

Solypsus 9

Months ago a starving Tyranid horde dropped on the small, forgotten, and largely barren Imperial outpost of Solypsus 9. Caught off guard, Imperial forces rushed to defend the colony and safeguarded the major technical installations, reinforcing the Mine, Lab, Comms Tower, and Starport, but leaving the miserable civilian population trapped within the Hab Blocks to be overrun and feasted upon.

All manner of xenos then joined the fight, whether simply to revel in the bloodshed or for darker motivations. The significance of Solypsus 9 then shifted, as the Forces of Order continued reinforcing the planet rather than abandoning the fight or declaring it Exterminatus. Meanwhile the Spoiler Horde made a new, purposeful assault on the Laboratory and knocked the defenders back to the Generator.

Intrigued by this deeper shading on the conflict, the Chaos gods finally sent their minions and champions to the conflict. Intense multi-faceted fighting between all three alliances splintered control for the colony, knocking the Spoilers out of all the major installations and securing a breachpoint on the planet for the Legions of Discord among the Hab Blocks, and Order regaining the Laboratory.

The war then continued to escalate, with ever larger forces drawn into battles over the primary installations. Backed by their sheer numbers, the Spoilers stormed in from the desert and claimed the Mine. Order chased Discord out of the Hab Blocks, but had no idea what was awakening below them…

Disposition of Solypsus 9 after our fourth map event, Apocalypse to come…

Scenario

Seven players turned out for the Apocalypse on Solypsus 9. The board was 12’x4′, with lightly themed terrain sections representing the colony’s six installations: The Laboratory, Mine, Hab Blocks, Comms Tower, Starport, and Generator. Primary objectives were placed roughly evenly in fixed locations for each of those. Secondary objectives were then placed by each alliance outside their own deployment zone; these wound up largely along the centerline of the battlefield. Each player designated a warlord as usual and one of these for each alliance was chosen as their overall warmaster.

Battlefield for the Apocalypse on Solypsus 9.

Scoring was conducted every game turn, with alliances earning:

• Primary Objectives: Victory points worth the turn count divided by two (rounding up) per marker;
• Secondary Objectives: One victory point per marker;
• Warmaster: Six victory points for eliminating the opposing warmaster;
• Warlords: Three victory points for each enemy warlord eliminated;
• Superheavy vehicles, gargantuan creatures, and mighty bulwarks: Two victory points for each such enemy unit destroyed.

We also ran an individual tournament inside the battle. Before the game each player selected an overall mission for their alliance to work toward and be scored on. Throughout the battle they also earned points through personal tactical achievements, such as holding an objective or killing psykers.

Personal missions and achievements amidst the Apocalypse.

Battle!

With a keen interest in why the Imperium had not simply written off the barren rock, the Legions of Discord once again descended on Solypsus 9. Their onslaught quickly supplanted the Spoiler Horde both physically on the planet, and mentally in the minds of the Forces of Order. With its existential foe now truly engaged, the Imperium had no choice but to commit all of its greatest resources to a final apocalyptic showdown for the planet.

Older minds, however, had other plans. Though their increasing presence throughout the war should have been a sign, all were caught off guard by the eruption of a Necron Citadel below the Hab Blocks, pushing aside and crumbling entire buildings as it rose to the surface. Solypsus 9 was thus revealed as a hidden tomb world, sleeping through the eons until the fighting awoke the martial ranks of the Old Ones. Chaos warriors and daemons quickly adapted, implicitly working in tandem with the automatons against the arrogant Emperor.

Against this combined threat, the Imperium’s finest leapt into battle. The Swords of Dorn and the Sanguine Hunters dropped an entire army onto the Necron Citadel. Squad after squad rushed from Drop Pods and Stormravens in an urgent attempt to preempt the legions of Necrons sleeping within from gaining a foothold on ground level. Kingbreakers dropped on the Starport directly among entire buildings of Nurgle’s pustulent champions in hopes of preserving orbital access from the ground. Dark Angels drove amongst the heavy machinery, cranes, and power silos of the Mine against the Iron Warriors building a fortress in its works.

Kingbreakers Squad Harbinger and Dark Angels Tacticals work to purge the alleyways and rubble surrounding the Hab Blocks.

Necron constructs engage the Swords of Dorn deploying from their Drop Pods.

But even as the alpha assault struck hard and Discord seemed to teeter on the precipice, the opposing forces were simply preparing for the counter-attack, the battle hardly begun.

Fleets of Necron flyers darkened the skies, raining bombs and Gauss blasts on ground forces before discharging Necron Warriors into vital positions. Their soldiers deployed to a myriad of critical locations across the battlefield, they then turned and took up dogfights with the Imperial air forces, harrying them throughout the conflict. Thus supported from the air, their legions quickly struck at the lightly guarded base of the Dark Angels’ charge on the east flank, contesting the Generator. Meanwhile, the first chapter’s forces already in the field were slowly ground to a halt against the impregnable defensive positions the Iron Warriors had already constructed among the Mine’s works. Their assault was finally completely repulsed when a Decimator’s malefic demon spirit rose from its own wreckage to lay Ezekiel low with a furious fusillade of Butcher Cannon fire.

A Soul Grinder exhorts Iron Warriors and Flesh Hounds on through the alleyways toward the Dark Angels’ advance.

To the west, Kingbreakers and Nurgle daemons swept back and forth in mortal combat. Far extended into enemy territory and hotly embattled, the tide shifted for the Imperials when burning warriors of the Legion of the Damned materialized among their midst, blasting away the plague-ridden enemy hosts with eldritch fire. Such were the numbers of the horrors however that even this was not enough, and final control of the Starport came down to the lone Sergeant Titus holding his ground against a chittering insect daemon, locking the monstrous creature in close combat long enough for the facility to be secured.

At the beating heart of the battle, the Swords of Dorn and Sanguine Hunters together fought wave after wave of Necrons emerging from their risen Citadel. Harried by daemons prowling the edges, they carried the fight to the very entrances of the underlying tombs, eventually overcoming the defenders and stemming the tide of living metal gushing forth.

The Swords of Dorn fight to the very doorstep of the tombs.

Nurgle is beset on all sides by the Legion of the Damned.

From the mounting piles of dead though lumbered the most horrible monstrosities. Towering above them all loomed The Lord of the Blighted Pit himself, Scabeiathrax. Called through The Warp by the rampant suffering, disease, and death wrought by the campaign, The Maggotspore coalesced into being already shuffling inevitably toward Order’s defensive line around the Laboratory. From mighty Knight Errants to foolhardy Tactical Marines, any that dared oppose its path were absentmindedly swept away by its foul claws. Soon it came to stand over the burning carcass of the Laboratory complex, unchallenged by all the Imperium’s might.

Scabeiathrax and the Knight Errant Greenheart face off among the Laboratory.

Outcome

After six turns, The Forces of Order emerged triumphant with 61 points to The Legion of Discord’s 51. At the final moment, Order held the Hab Blocks, Comms Tower, and Starport, while Discord claimed the Laboratory and Mine, and the Generator remained contested.

Jason and Alex won the individual honors for Discord and Order respectively with their daemons and Swords of Dorn, as well as claiming all the painting votes. TJ’s Sanguine Hunters claimed the prize for best general.

Mortalis Solypsus

This was the last stage for now of the battle for overall control of the colony. Later this summer though the combatants will descend into the wreckage of the Laboratory and Mine in search of the secrets buried deep therein. Stay tuned for yet more fighting in the campaign for Solypsus 9!

Even on one knee in his mountainous power armor, Titus had to jam his chainsword into a rent piece of deck plate to keep from sliding back. His free hand instinctively tried to hold together his shattered torso, but of course could do nothing through the bloodied remnants of his armor. The furious windstorm beat by the daemon’s insectile wings was near overpowering. More than twice as tall as he, it was even more imposing nonchalantly hovering a few feet off the ground. Dismembered parts of his squadmates rolled past Titus in the gale and off the edge of the landing pad the monster had turned into its personal arena. As the wind shifted aside for a moment, Titus’ head lolled heavily, utterly exhausted. He saw what had caught the monster’s attention, a technical team moving into the nearby control buildings to attempt to activate any of the remaining bulk lifters. The beast gave another of its piercing shrieks, ratcheting up the pitch and volume so high it somehow blew out all the circuitry in his helmet. Vox traffic, sensor signals, the constant noise of a roiling battlefield, it all cut away instantly. In the sudden silent clarity that followed, Titus understood. He was going to die here, or worse. But if he could keep the daemon engaged and away from the control building, he would die doing his duty to the last. Shakily he stood up and freed his chainsword. With not a moment to spare, he charged forward and drove its revving blade up to the hilt in the side of the beast’s chest. It screamed at an even higher pitch and turned back toward Titus. Now he had its full attention.

Titus battles the daemon fly to keep it from the control building.