Following is a battle report on a game I ran the other weekend at our local convention, Con of the North.  Not a turn by turn report, more just an overview based on the pictures we took.   The battle was a clash in an Imperial City with Orks (6000 pts) vs Imperial Guard (4500 pts) with a small Space Marine support force (1500 pts).  Table was 4 x 8.  For simplicity we just designated 5 buildings along the center line as the objective buildings, whoever controlled more objective buildings at the end of the game would be the victor.

Board layout with objective buildings:


Deployment:


Imperial Center


Ork Center


Gork & Mork gaze down upon their boyz before battle in order to inspire them to crush the uumies.


On the Ork far right flank, the Kult of Speed deploys opposite the denied flank of the Imperials.  

Early on, the Kult raced across the city to threaten the single Shadowsword that was holding the flank.  To counter this fast moving threat, the Imperials responded with a nearby Sentinal squadron, Rough Rider platoon and a Space Marine Land Speeder squadron that redeployed from the far right of the Imperial battle line.  A Rough Rider engagement with Sentinal and Land Speeder support destroyed the Kult of Speed with heavy losses to the Rough Riders.

Ork Gunwagonz prepare to move out trough the Imperial streets.

The ground shakes as a Gargant and Stompa mob advance.



The Regimental HQ and Tank Company with Commissar move through the hab blocks and take up position around an Administratum building.

An Infantry Company and Flak Battery move to take control of the Governor’s Palace objective.  Later the Infantry company come under repeated  heavy fire, including the attention of the Ork Great Gargant which would break them and force them to retreat from the objective.


A Bad Moon Stompa Mob with a Mekboy Supa-Stompa advance through the city towards the Governor’s Palace.



A lone Shadowsword rumbles down the deserted Imperial street opposite the Bad Moon Stompa mob.  With the Supa-Stompa as a priority target, the Shadowsword lets loose with the Volcano Cannon and the crew lets out a mighty cheer as their shot hits the mighty war engine right in the face and blows it’s mechanical head off.


A view from both perspectives as a Reaver pours fire into the Deathskulls Mob holding the Censorium objective building.  



The Deathskulls Mob was a big mob with 5 big guns attached, truly a big mob.  As a result they hung tenaciously to the objective though out the battle despite being continuously pounded by the Reaver, Leman Russ Company and Basilisk Battery fire. Although they collected an impressive amount of blast markers, it was never enough to break them.

On the Ork left flank, a second Kult of Speed rushes forward towards the Mechanicus Forge objective.  Waiting on the other side of the Forge are Space Marine Tactical squads from the Phantoms Chapter.  




Around the Forge objective, one of the three Phantoms tactical squads was destroyed by a Stormboyz assault supported by the Kult of Speed.  In revenge for their fallen brothers, the remaining two tactical squads engaged and destroyed the Stormboyz while breaking the Kult of Speed.  The Phantoms then consolidated their position to claim the Forge objective.

An impressive and devastating roll for the Phantoms Whirlwind's indirect barrage on a large Bad Moon mob caught while advancing in the open through the city.

The Goff Stompa mob smashes it’s way through an Imperial warehouse, but is broken when it comes under fire from the Warlord Titan.



The Ork Warlord and his Great Gargant stomp inexorably (would Orks even know the meaning of that word?) towards the Governor’s Palace.  The Great Gargant would be responsible for breaking and driving the Imperial Guard Infantry Company and Flak Battery off of the objective.





Surging forward, the Reaver crosses into Ork territory and unleashes it’s weapons on the Ork Gunwagonz mob, breaking them and contesting the Censorium objective.



In an effort to break the stubborn Deathskulls mob contesting the Censorium objective, the Tank Company pushes forward and pours fire into the beleaguered Orks.  However the pre battle gaze down of Gork and Mork (pictured previously) seems to have filled the Deathskulls with Orky courage and they refuse to break.

As the battle drew to a close, it was only fitting that the Titans and Gargants would end up facing off against each other.  No significant amount of damage was caused to each other by these behemoths other than the Warlord impressively stripping all 12 shields off of the Great Gargant in one massive salvo.




In order to reclaim the Governor’s Palace that had been abandoned by the broken Infantry Company, the Regimental HQ mounted up in their Chimeras and raced from behind the cover of the Administratum building to secure the vital objective.


Final positions:





As the dust cleared, the Imperials had won the day by controlling three objectives, contesting one, with the Orks being in control of one objective.  


A fun game that saw one Epic virgin playing and enjoying the game plus a number of people coming by expressing interest in getting into Epic, either for the first time or having been players of previous editions.  All in all a good time, and that’s what it’s all about.

More pics of the board layout can be seen here:
TacCom terrain thread

Excellent stuff M4jumbo!

Great photos and well done getting the game out there.
With a board and minis as beautiful as this it must've made quite an impact.

Good onya mate.

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As Onyx says, great work. Looks like a very good demo of the game as well as having loads of scratch built terrain. Good pics too - I love the 'eye-line' shots from various formations.

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Great report and great photos. Really love the Imperial city you've put together.

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

Looks terrific! Great collection of buildings.

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Thank you for showing us the mother of all cityfights. That looked like it was a blast to play. Good "Apocalypse" take on objectives as well.

/Fredmans

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What a stunning board!

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Very atmospheric look the city gives to your report. Fantastic looking action (like) pics too. Exactly what I hope to aspire to someday.  Thanks, great incentive.

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[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Yeah thats what an epic game is supposed to look like!

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Thanks for the positive comments.  It definately felt like and "epic" game of Epic fighting amongst all the buildings.  The board seemed to catch people's eye so it was a good chance to plug Epic to them as they stopped to ask questions.  

The "Apocalypse" style of objectives works well for convention games, it's straight forward and easy to grasp for first time players.  The majority of players in Epic games I have run at Cons and stores, (which are multi-player games rather than one on one), are new to the game and their eyes tend to glaze over when going over the Tournament Victory Conditions, which they promptly forget about as the game goes along.  A simple "claim more objectives to win" can result in a more satisfactory conclusion to the game in this case.  

Kudos to my brother, (playing the part of Mork in this battle report, or is it Gork?) for taking most of the pictures of the battle.

wow, what an amazing set up! How did you find war engines and tanks in the confines of a dense city? Do you think a more mobile/ teleport based army and guerrilla tactics would have worked better? It would be interesting to see how Eldar played in a similar situation.

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mattthemuppet, the dense set up did change the performance of the Titans and Gargants, not alot of long range shooting possible due to very limited lines of sight.  With all the buildings blocking LOS, War Engines with close combat weapons can actually get closer to other War Engines to engage them without getting all shot up in the process.

The tank company did feel pretty unwieldy in the built up urban terrain.  Hard to get all the guns trained on an enemy unit.

I didn't throw any teleporting units in this particular game in order to keep it basic.  But teleport/drop based army would definately be interesting in this environment.  And mobility is key, so I think the Eldar would do quite well here.  One of the guys in our group and myself are putting together an Eldar force, so we'll get to see how they do in urban terrain.