The Immortal Host know they need to get out of the murder grounds as soon as possible. Loathe to engage the Templar, they consider the xenos and heretical threats. The Death Guard are well regarded as durable and able to withstand damage so the Host decides to turn its full might to bear upon the Dark Eldar forces.
Early salvos cause a miss from the Vindicator and a poor showing from Azamerac’s orbital bombardment. A predator finds a use though, as it blasts a Venom from the sky, and other Raiders are scorched and damaged.
The Sternguard unleash waves of flame into a Raider and one of the disembarked squads, cutting a swath in the xenos line, their goal to burn a hole to allow Azamerac and the Thrakul to withdraw.
The force of the Imperial armor surges forward, an unending tide of spirit and steel.
What’s this!
The Black Templar enter play with an *unpainted* Inquisitor!?!
HERESY!
The Black Templar spring from their Spartan as it fires upon the Imperial battle line. “Sword Brethren, with me!” Melthas takes command, forming up they let loose a howl of eagerness as they rush upon their former battle brothers. All they know is the Immortal Host has twice showed dishonor, and now appears to be corrupted by a desire for heretical xenos tech!
Flames blast forth from the Rhino firing ports, but the shields and armor of the Templar Terminators proves proof against such minor annoyances.
“Kill them all, bring me the Thrakul!”
Chaos moves forward quickly, unleashing a punishing array of melta shots into rear and sidearmor of assorted Immortal Host vehicles.
…anyone who knows John’s dice will be unsurprised that the end result is not much of anything.
He also perils on himself and wounds a sorcerer putting up invisibility (which he got on both sorcerers and both basically cast every turn)
A scene of the Chaos advance, also visible is the damage caused by the Templar assault on the convoy, as well as how stuck in the Immortal Host got into the DEldar.
“They dare seek to deny me my prize?” Brizelya laughed in a crazed way that almost sounded like a howl of anger even as she smiled. “To arms! To blood, pain, and fury!” She waved her arm and at her command a wild pack of strange beasts roiled along after her, advancing on the Immortal Host.
“To the Thunderhead!” The Trueborn are not going to be left out of the fight, and rush forward, eager to bring their blasters to bear on the filthy mon’keigh rabble.
You almost can’t tell that the DEldar took any damage, as their entire force begins to muscle in on a small part of the Immortal Host army. Basic DE tactics – never fight fair.
The Beasts charge in, absorbing some damage from the Sternguard flamers, but closing the distance.
“Ahhahahaha!” Brizelya sweeps along the side of the Predator, her hellglaive sawing through the thick armor like nothing as she tears it to pieces, disabling the warmachine. Meanwhile, in an amazing showing, a single Sternguard manages to survive the assault, I can’t remember if that was my bad dice or his good ones, but that was the result – not that I was complaining really. I’ll take a turn of not being shot to death.
In a flash of fire and a bright flare of 3rd edition Goblin Green, the Legion of the Damned appear, already starting to fire on the Dark Eldar.
Meanwhile a Chapter Master decides he can handle two Dark Eldar.
Azamerac actually takes time out of his day to deal with one of them in assault.
A Rhino tries to force its way past the line, still trying to push through the Dark Eldar ambush.
“Heretics one and all, we shall cleanse you with fire and fury!”
Marshall Melthas leads the way, battering aside Immortal Host Marines as he and his men rip apart the rear of the armored column, vehicles erupting in flame around them as their thunder hammers flashed and sparked in the fiery gloom.
There are few sights so furious as two sides convinced of their righteousness engaged in open battle.
“The xenos taint is inside that vehicle, let us welcome it back to the light, my brothers!”
As the Templar advance continues on seemingly unstoppable their Land Raider, previously untouched by any damage suddenly erupts in a blast of flame, torn apart by a single shot.
“AV 14?, lol!”
A little hard to see here, but the entire DE army had actually moved sideways, easing away from the core conflict, and eradicating a Rhino, and then Brizelya and the beasts dealt with the Sternguard inside.
The Dark Eldar consolidate their position and consider the situation and how to best exploit it. (the first core idea is ‘let’s not fight that Termie death star till it gets beaten down a bit!’)
A Sorcerer pays the toll of being invisible, by having his brain melt out of his ears. The invisible bikers had been functionally invincible to all damage except that they were causing themselves by perils.
The Nurgle forces are playing it a bit like the DE, waiting to see which Marine chapter comes out on the top of that brawl.
You can also see some of the…awkward alliances the mission was creating. The Vindicator was basically flanked by DE behind it, and had backed up next to the bikers, but both armies weren’t attacking it in the hope it would drop a pie plate on the Termie deathstar and poke some holes in that unit.
Dark Eldar shooting and just shredded the Legion of the Damned, who failed every single save they were asked to make.
Marshall Melthas grabbed up the Elendil Thrakul (or, rather, the corpse of the Techmarine who had been holding it…morbid!)
He had two options of retreat, one of them back along a relatively open field, and the other straight towards Chapter Master Azamerac.
“Azamerac! I shall have words with thee!”
The Templar choose the path of glory.
The Templar Deathstar and the Immortal Host beatstick meet in a brutal clash of steel as Azamerac and Melthas meet in challenge. Azamerac will suffer two wounds before it is over.
“Your vile alliances with the Inquisition and Xenos end here!”
“Fool,” snarled Azamerac, “you cannot save this sector without them!”
“I can save everything within the reach of my blade!”
More Legion of the Damned appear as Azamerac falls back from the fury of Melthas.
The Vindicator eases up and drops another huge blast on the Black Templar. Thus far, besides it’s attempted shot (and miss) on the DE, it has fired at the Templar every other turn.
Melthas rallies with the Legion of the Damned and, swinging his thunder hammer around his head, leads them back in against the Black Templar.
“Give me the artifact! We can yet save this sector!”
“If the only way to save it is with xenos heresy, then better it burns, like you shall!” Melthas raises his flaming blade and leaps to the attack.
Again Melthas calls out Azamerac, this time the Immortal Host Chapter Master chooses to avoid the fearsome Marshall. The Templar settles for tearing apart the Legion of the Damned, his men’s weapons flashing and sparking as they battered their foe into submission.
The Legion’s damage rolls probably don’t exactly help their situation.
“So it is a bunch of Termies, with priests who let them re-roll failed saves? Okay…um…let’s just keep circling around them!”
“So it is a bunch of Termies, with priests who let them re-roll failed saves? Excellent, let’s kill them all!”
Brizelya and the Beastpack burst upon the scene, roaring into the melee.
Fangs and claws meet ceramite and powered weaponry as the three way battle becomes a true bloodbath.
The Dark Eldar succeed in downing a priest, which does hamper the Templar, the Legion are cut down to a man. Templars and beasts fall.
Azamerac, deciding discretion is the better part of valor again, withdraws, the Dark Eldar meanwhile use hit & run to spring out of the fight.
“In this life or he next, coward!”
Melthas continues to call out Azamerac, not feeling their duel is settled.
Unfortunately, he should have paid more attention to the Dark Eldar, who just wanted the chance to charge again.
“Your pain is my meat, your sorrow my wine, and your screams…ah, your screams are sweet music!”
Brizelya leads the way, and this time, without rerolls on their armor, the Termies are brought down by sheer weight of attacks. Brizelya herself grabs up the Elendil Thrakul, letting out an estatic war whoop as she orders her force to start withdrawing.
“NURGLE!”
Their last sorcerer slain (by, yeah, you guessed it, perils) the Death Guard figure it is now or never, so as Azamerac peacefully withdraws past their lines, the bikers rush forward, guns blazing, as they take their stab at the Dark Eldar.
Their combined shooting only wounds a flock, and in the assault Brizelya happily duels one of their sergeants as her beasts tear apart the other bikers. Leaving only one alive, the Dark Eldar again use hit and run, retreating through cover as they gain more distance on their foes and fall back through a waiting support gunline.
Every single Immortal Host vehicle you can see is a wreck (the Vindicator and a Pread had been gunned down by DE shooting, as well as one of the Oblits) The lone Nurgle biker is all that is left of the Nurgle army beside one Oblit that can’t be seen in a building off the right side of the picture. You can see the edges of the DE Warrior line, all but one Raider had been shot apart (and that one immobilized) so the Warriors were now in a loose skirmish line guardin the exit path.
The last of the Immortal Host units, besides also the Dread in the tower.
At this point, with a lot of the DE army still on the board, Azamerac down to 1 wound, and the Templar and Death Guard either totally or almost tabled, the game was called because nothing was going to be able to stop the fleeing beast star.
Dark Eldar win!
Subject: 4 Way battle - SM v. Death Guard v. Templar v. Dark Eldar 
Sun Jul 27 2014, 21:33
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