Battle for Armageddon

  In 1992 Gamesworkshop released Battle for Armageddon in a series of Board games, they released a further expansion 'Chaos attacks' letting you play the first war of armageddon. The game has an asymetric setup, with all Orks units starting on the board and only a Token Imperial force defending rivers and Hives, as the game progresses the Imperial build up and eventually (if the Imperials can manage it) they overwhelm the Orks.

The game began with a really aggresive Ork push and some good dice rolls allowing them to push across the rivers and past the border defenders.

A quick Imperial couter offensive cut off the initial Ork push, not long afterward the orks swept away the rough riders.

The Battle along the Stygies river quickly turned into a stalemate as wave after wave of Orks smashed into the Factory and Hive defences. West (up) from this combat a disaster occured as the Titans and Guardsmen holding the Diabolus river are wiped out by a wave of Gargants.

In the east the Orks managed to encircle the Defenders along the Stygies river losing half the defenders to starvation, at the same time Ork Biker boyz ran reckless across the wastes destroying factories.

The Imperial counter attack now occured, the massive factories poured out army after army of Tanks and guardsmen, the Spacemarines landed cutting off the Attackers in the west whilst in the east the Imperial Guard tank divisions blew holes in the Western attackers, in this turn Ghazkull also died assaulting the defenders along the Stygies river, leaving Helsreach as the only objective left to achieve for the Imperials ending the game.

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 11 - Part 3 of 3: This bear swims - Bunker assault scenario

  The Red navy shepherded it's flock of across the Kerch strait and supported their initial landings from the water with direct fire from the Bronekaters, the Red airforce having run off any Luftwaffe support provided a shield no large scale air assault could penetrate with only the lucky single aircraft penetrating the screen. The 'Black Death'  charged up the beaches and quickly moved inland to clear out the bunkers of the Heer on the peninsula.

 This game we used a D-day scenario from the Warlord website to simulate the assault on the fortifications on the Combined arms map. 

Turn 1

The massive soviet army poured onto the table after a powerful preliminary bombardment.

The KV-8 fired it flamethrower into the Heer squad defending the first line, wiping them out but also running out of fuel.

Turn 2

The Conscripts charge the Heer defenders and overwhelm them in combat before the rest of the force pushes forward screened by smoke from the Light Howitzer and Medium mortar.

Turn 3

The Heavy howitzer gets a good shot on the rearmost bunker and demolishes it rolling killing the MMG crew inside.

Turn 4 

The Soviet Veterans charge the Heer infantry, dodging closing fire and defeating them in combat.

The MMG crew narrowly survives the soviet flamethrower attack

The KV 8 knocks out the Jagpanzer I

Turn 5

The Flamethrower finishes off the MMG team in the bunker and an infantry squad occupies it.

At this point the Germans had a medic, LT and 1 heer squad and the Soviets were yet to lose a whole unit so we called it considering we had 10 more turns to go.

Campaign ended when the newly won fortifications card was drawn awarding the soviets the 10 and final victory point.

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 11 - Part 2 of 3 Clear the Beach

 Laying mines south of the Kerch Peninsula the Kriegsmarine was preparing to defend against another thrust by the Soviet navy through the Black Sea. Air recon showed large scale boarding of Soviet troops onto transports only to discover the ships sail directly for the Peninsula rather than swinging south. All ships were immediately despatched to attack the convoy.

 This game we played scenario 7 'Invasion', modifying it slightly to double the points to 2000pts, doubling the number of transports as well as swapping the roles from Germany being the attacker to being the defender and the Soviets the attacker. Victory is achieved once one fleet loses half of it's ships or 4 of the transports land troops.

 The game began with both fleets closing, only the soviet Fugas minesweepers had guns that could hit across the board at this stage and both ship put shots into the Verpostenboote.

End of turn 1 the soviets had released torpedoes and began moving towards the beach.

Turn 2 the 4 soviet bombers came in and began strafing the Schnellboot's, the combined fire from the IL-2's and the Bronekators started to systematically destroy them.

The G-5's push forward and began laying down extensive smoke screens to protect the transports from the long range guns of the German Large ships.

By turn 4 the Germans lost 5 Sboats out of the 10 total ships in their fleet, the soviets had lost 1 G-5 Torpedo boat

End of the game I rolled to destroy the Germans fleets but rolled a 1 and 2 so they only retreated! 

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 11 - Part 1 of 3 - Clear the skies

 

As the Campaign moves towards its close both armies now bring their full force to bear, Having successfully locked down the factory the Soviets once again attack the Fortifications - this time from the seaward side, the Soviet navy cordons off the Kerch strait with the Kriegsmarine sailing hard to engage, all the while waves of bombers and fighters clash above them. This  game the Soviets had a 3:2 advantage in points.

Turn 1 deployment

Turn 2 - the soviet bombers and escorts maintain a tight formation

Soviet High cover dives in

The Luftwaffe split their force to try and wedge the Soviet air force between the heavy firepower of the FW190A and JU88's and the Manoeuvrability of the BF109E, the soviet Ace and Veteran shepherded the IL-2's across the board forcing Luftwaffe planes to become disadvantaged and then lining up deadly dive attacks from the oncoming reinforcements.

The IL-2's turn away

Excellent dive and Shot from the Yak-7b

Downed by Flak

Game ended turn 5 with the Soviet air force getting a clean win against the Luftwaffe through an excellent dive and shoot and a Lucky shot from Flak downing a BF109E, rolling to destroy the planes on the Combined arms board the Soviets managed to cripple one squadron. Their bombing runs made little impact on the Heer Defending the Kerch Strait.

Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 10

  Turn 10 snow began to fall slowing down everyone's troops, whilst the Luftwaffe and Red Air force flew out to spar, their patrols didn't clash. The army units were too far from each other to engage one another but the Navies clashed over sea control of the Fortifications at the Kerch strait.

The scenario we rolled for was 'Control the sea' where players score VP each turn for being within 10cm of an objective as well as vps for destroyed and damaged ships.

Sea conditions this game are Stormy - Good luck getting those torpedoes out!

Turn 1 through 3 our fleets slowly crawled towards one, stormy weather conditions mean ships can only go slow.

Turn 3 the IL2 Flew in and heavily damaged an Schnell boat with rockets and cannon fire

Turn 4 the Fleets began to close on the objectives and the smaller vessels actually got the chance to shoot at one another.

The first of 2 Stuka dive bombers come in and attempt an attack on my Fugas, but missed all its shots.

Turn 5 the Fugas destroyed an Sboat before a Bronekater was lost to long range fire from the M40 Minesweeper.

Turn 6, an Sboat rushes the objective but ends up being to perfect cover for my own ships to get onto the objective before they blew up the Sboat.

German Fleet destroyed.