sitrep (40K), Salzburger Schlachthaus Crusade

"you are a strategic genius - (I) never dared to think about such sophisticated manoeuvres"

-Colonel Koch commenting on the the Sisterhood of Steel battleplan for the Salzburg crusade

Opting for the element of surprise the Sisterhood's first single tournament in Germany is in, eh, Salzburg, Austria.  Salzburg famous for Mozart, The sound of music and the Salzburg Schlachthaus (slaugtherhouse.) Four rounds of bare knuckle 40K pitting 31 Austrians against the sisterhood. To make it interesting the rules pack is in german (fair enough) with special rules for each mission also in german (hmm).

Another reason for Salzburg is that I have friend living there I have not seen for a couple of years so its about time for catch-up.  The train from Dresden to Salzburg takes way too long but the scenary is fantastic so its not to bad. Friday night consisted of catching up and [SCENE DELETED].

Saturday morning got off to a ropey start.

Round one vs Patrick

Location; random table

Mission; Pitched battle, capture and control, 

Rules of engagement; capture the flag (+1 extra objective at center of table, each flag is worth 600 vps)

The enemy;  Imperial Fist moonlighting as Blood Angels

1 Libarian

2 five man assualt squads (one flamer, one melta)

1 five man scout squad

2 land raiders (one flamer, one bolter)

1 Storm Raven

2 Baal predators

Furisio

Attach bike with multi melta

Not the frist thing I wanted to see in the morning

The game;

Patrick said more than a few expletives when he counted the number of meltas in the Sisters force. Then a few more when the Sisterhood won the roll to go first. The entire Sisters force deployed in the centre except a rhino/sister squad and a celestian/immolator squad which deployed to the left.  In response Peter deployed his units behind a land raider wall.  The two assault squads went in the Raiders while the Scouts and Furiso mounted the Storm Raven  The sisters went first and bolted forward. All the Exorcists opened fire but only succeed in stunning/shaking/ destroying a weapon from the Storm Raven. Return fire destroyed a rhino, immobilised the cannoness's immolator and stunned an exorcist.

The Sisters started to get into effective melta range.  Lady Tabita smoked the attacked bike while squad Rose destroyed the Bolter Land Raider.  The

Exorcists again targeted the Storm Raven and again only succeed in stunning/shaking/ destroying a weapon.  The Imperial Fist soldiered on with the surviving Land Raider firing on the nearest Immolator but only to immobilising it 11” away from Land Raider.

The Exorcists final managed to bring down the Storm Raven, pinning the scouts and releasing the Dreadnought.  The immobilised immolator opened fire and destroyed the last Land Raider as Celestians closed with the Baals and destroyed one.  With the Imperial Fist running out of units, their turn was brief.  The furisio got in an assault on a nearby squad of sisters and quickly destroyed them.  The remain units had little impact.

Sensing victory the sisters rampaged through the Imperial Fist lines. Lady Tabita shot and killed the Libarian, who had left the scouts.  The scouts were destroyed by squad Rose.  The immobilised immolator destroyed the marauding dreadnought.  Squad Sword tracked down and destroyed the last Baal.  The exorcists finished of a squad of marines while squad Thorn pinned the few army survivors in combat holding them up until Lady Tabita could arrive and finish them off to wipe out the army

The result; Sisters victorious

Round two vs  Austrian Jan

Location; Table one

Mission; Spearhead, seize ground,

Rules of engagement; 5 objectives fixed each worth 350 vps

The enemy; Black Templars

Emperors Champion

3 squads of Terminators with tank hunter skills and cyclone missile launchers

3 sqauds of marines with lascannon and plasma cannon ( two squads had rhino)

2 Autocannon/lascannon Predators

2 Tornado Speeders

The game;

Austrian Jan knows Polish Jan having played against him in one of the previous ETC. In fact there was a couple of the Austrian ETC players in attendance looking for ETC points.  I was amused by their enquiries into TNI asking “if they had learned to play 40K yet?”. I wonder are challenges allowed for the last round of the ETC.

Sisters take heavy fire

The battlefield was fairly barren enough cover Terminators to get a cover save but not enough for the Sisters vehicles to avoid nineteen Lascannon equivalents plus Jan got to go first.  The sisters opted to all go in reserve.

Turn one was uneventful with the emperors champion and terminators advancing into the centre of the table in terrain.  When the Sisters started to arrived they did so in small units which were predictably pummelled by lascannons and frag missile.  Slowly the survivors for successive waves worked their way forward through the mangled wrecks of the previous wave. Lady Tabita was matyred on the third turn after she destroyed one of the scoring marines squads.

The exorcists showed up on turn four and destroyed a second scoring unit. Hoping to stave of defeat the surviving scoring sisters units, a total of three models made a break for it. One sister seized an objective while the second unit, of two sisters, shot up the last marine scoring unit guarding its objective. The Templars took a casualty but passed their morale test and only moved 1“ to keep control of the objective.  On that the game end.

Afterwards I realised I had lost something in translation on the victory conditions because all the objectives had VPs attached it looked like all the games were VP based but it was objective grab and if I had of ran the second sister instead of firing them I would have contested the marine objective and got an ill deserved win.

An inch to far

The result; Sisters suffer a losing draw.

Round three vs Tomas

Location; Table three

Mission;  Pitched battle, Annihilation,

Rules of engagement; bonus 250 Vps for kill point

The enemy;  Blood Angels

Mephstion

Librarian

Sangarian priest

7 terminators with hammers and sheild

2 five man assault squads (one flamer, one melta) in las/plas razorbacks

1 five man scout squad

3  Autocannon/Lascannon predators

Pysker Dreadnought

The game;

The battlefield was a themed Ork village the main feature was a fortress on the Sisters right flank.  The Blood Angels won the initiative and after much deliberation spread out evenly over their deployment zone.  After much less deliberation most of the Sister force deployed behind the fortress.  Except for an exorcist which when on the opposite flank lurking for side shoots and Celestian/immolator and Sisters/rhino who went in reserve. Both armed with hunter killers again looking for side shots. The marine scouts infiltrated into the fortress

The Sisters seized the initiative.  The flanking exorcist destroyed a razorback while the others immobilised the dreadnought while the rest of the force advanced forward.  The marines fought back with the scouts destroying an exorcist while the rest of the force redeployed to counter the Sister deployment. The immolator and rhino rolled on.  The immolator raced forward and deployed squad Rose in close range on a predator trying to flank the isolated exorcist. Squad Iona went after the scouts officially to clear them from the fortress but hoping lure the terminators in close range of the rest of the sisters force to. Squad Rose destroyed the predator while squad Iona panicked the scouts forcing them to flee.  Lady Tabita assaulted Mephison hoping to pin him for a while. The Terminators struck back destroying Iona and their rhino.  Elsewhere a Predator popped another Exorcist. 

The marine successes forced a rethink of the sisters strategy instead of going after the Terminators the sisters wrapped around them bring two Celestian squads and their immolators into close range of the several marine vehicles. A couple of melta gun shot later all three marine vehicles were reduced to smoking wrecks at the cost of four celestians killed in the explosions. Lady Tabita and Memphison continued to trade blows with the cannoness scoring a few wounds and taking none in return.

The marines continued to resist and succeed in destroying an immolator and more importantly the last exorcist.  Lady Tabita was killed after the terminators had to come to rescue their lord.

The Sisters immolator crashed into a building and immobilised itself trying to getting a flanking shot on the last marine predator.  In reply the predator destroyed a lurking rhino to give Tomas the game.

The result; Sisters defeated 8-9 on kill points

Round four vs Fabian

Location;table five

Mission; Dawn of war,

Rules of engagement; "King of the hill", one single objective at center of table, must be held by at least two standard units within 12" around.

The enemy; Daemons

Fate weaver

Blood Thrister

1 pack of eight Blood Crushers with all the trimming

2 packs of six Fiends

3 packs of five Plague Bearers

1 Soul Grinder

The game;

 The daemons won the roll off and let the sisters go first.  In response  the sisters rolled on and went into anti deep strike formation.  The chosen wave of daemons arrived consisting of Fate Weaver, the Blood Thrister, one pack of Blood Crushers, fiends and plague bearers.

The Sister countered by mounting up and moving into attack positions.  The Exorcists targeted Fate Weaver but had no effect.

The next wave of daemons arrived consisting of the last squad of Fiends and the Soul Grinder who immobilised one of the Immolators.  In position the sisters final struck a rhino broke formation and tank shocked Fate Weaver out of position. All the remaining units opened up Blood Crushers and wiped them out with single round of shooting.  Squad Iona went after a outflanking pack of Fiends and destroyed half their number. Perturbed at the loss of the Blood Crushers the Daemons got stuck in.  Two squads of sisters and the immobilised immolator were destroyed while the fiends assault the last sisters squad and the cannoness who actual won the combat.  Still sticking to the plan the rhino again tank shocked Fate Weaver out of position this time the blood Thruster was targeted and destroyed. Elsewhere the survive Celestians went after and destroyed the damaged pack of Fiends.  The Daemons fought back but could not inflicting any significant damage.  The Soul Grinder was destroyed by a rear shot from an outflanking immolator.  Losing units, Fate Weaver spawned the Cannoness allowing the Fiends to finish off the remaining Sisters squad.

The tank shocking Rhino again went into action forcing the Fiends out of cover to be destroyed by the Celestians bolter’s while the exorcists started to destroy lurking Plague Bearers and the new spawn.  With just two squads of plague bearers left Fate Weaver tried and failed to destroy one of the exorcists. Another tank shock, this time from an immolator, forced another pack of plague bearers into the open to be destroyed by the Exorcists. While the tank shocking Rhino fired on Fate Weaver inflicting a wound and banishing from the table.  The Rhino was named Blessed for a reason it seems.

The game end with five worried looking Plague Bearers about to be tank shocked into range of the celestians and exorcists

The result; Sister get a winning draw

The aftermath;

With one win, two draws and one loss the Sisters came 7^th of 32 players. The Slaughter house was a first time event for the organisers, Tomas and Tomas, aka TnT and they did a great job. I really like that every player got a cert for attending and that they were called up to accept it.  The food and beer was excellent,  and I don't normal drink beer.  I am also beginning to appreciate what fantastic tool the T3 website is.  For this event I can tell who was going and what codex they are bring months in advance. I can offer/ask for lifts from players in near by areas. After the event I get a feedback email and the event is scored and the records are kept so I can review past reviews to see if any of the previous events were positive.

Next up, hopifully, a forge world friendly with 76 players  !!!!

More of the photos from the event can be seen here.