Very well, decided to shelf the Immolator and got a Land Raider. Also, ditched the max level vyper and got a fire prism, as the fp's stats at level 0 are marginally worse than the vyper, and if we manage to keep it alive and leveling, it will become a beast.
Pretend that this box says 'Walking the Silken Path, Codexia's deployment'.
Right, so this is the region in which craftworld Iyanden-Codexia stages its assault this time.
First objective.
Band of space marines that we need to rescue. They will be getting quickly overwhelmed by the incoming swarm. This is like Macragge all over again.
A small derelict farmhouse.
And the final objective - a webway gate.
We need to secure all the locations, and we have barely 16 turns to do it.
Some enemies that come to greet our taskforce.
And with the Space Marines, first thing we do is check both the locations in their vicinity. First one is just flavour.
But the second one's bonus will come in handy during the defence.
And so it begins... the off-screen arrows are genestealers attacking the librarian and gargoyles attacking jump marines and terminator devastators.
Meanwhile...
Holyfuckingshit. That was a close call.
As you can see, the space bros are most likely doomed if we don't aid them.
Also, the jump marines would be perfect against all those hormagaunts, as they are flying units, if not for the silly fact that they use melee attacks
Well, that's sum clusterfuck, alright.
Anyway, I order the great harlequin to do a hit'n'run on the tyranid warriors, when suddenly...
The fucking invisibility didn't fucking kick in, and the harlequin was shot dead before he could even attack
We just lost our primary scouting unit. What, sixth? casualty in the campaign?
Fortunately, there's still the seraphim that has a p. long spotting range thanks to the scanners item.
The space marines keep getting clobbered.
The Librarian dies to a leman russ's blast. Casualty number 7
The 4 hp devastators miraculously survive.
Not much going on here, just some warriors harrassing our dire avenger.
Genestealers are eliminated. The gargoyles are forced to retreat, giving devastators enough buffer space to rest.
Some mopping up here.
More enemy forces spotted.
Interestingly enough, the leman russ doesn't kill any of the space marines he attacks. Probably because of the bunker they are in. But then the hormagaunts kill 10 of them. Sigh.
Land Raider and off-screen lictors lower the wraithguard to 4 hp.
Assault terminators kill the hormagaunts, devastators raep the gargoyles. The space marines are most likely doomed, so there's not really much point in pulling them out. Other squads rest to regain strength.
Meanwhile, more clusterfuck ensues.
The leman russ again doesn't kill a single space marine.
But its hormagaunt bros do the trick well enough. Farewell, space marine squad, you fought valiantly (casualty number 8)
Meanwhile, a swooping hawk miraculously survives with 1 hp. Battle fortune
Devastators got horribly raped by hormagaunts last turn. Assault marines rest, while the others kill the left hormagaunt brood. Only a miracle can save the devastators now...
The hawk rests, seraphim and dire avenger whack down the venom warriors, while wraithguard kill the hormagaunts.
The dire avenger got many wounds, so I boosted him with insane courage, as keeping him next to a horde of enemies with barely 5 hp is not a good idea.
Remember when I talked about a miracle? Well, it just happened. The dumb AI sent gargoyles after the devastators, inflicting only 1 wound on them, instead of just side-stepping the hormagaunts for a sure kill. However, the regular terminators are under heavy assault and left with barely 1 hp, so it might not have been that dumb after all...
The hormagaunts try to get an easy kill on the wraithguard, but both horribly fail their initiative rolls and get severely raped by distortion.
There's nothing that can save the terminators now, I guess.
We manage to get to the fortress.
But this pop-up here is a bug. In fact, there is no medipack in this city.
And did I mention dumb friggin AI? Instead of blasting the terminators with the leman russ, and then proceeding to kill devastators with gargoyles, the computor attacks termies with gargoyles, pulls out the heavily wounded gargoyles and makes hormagaunts suicide.
But still, the gargoyles are enough to finish off the terminators. We salute you, casualty number 9
Not much going on here, except for wraithguard getting raped by land raiders.
Brood missile team is down, the land raider gets doom cast upon it next and gets vapourised.
Also, this is the point at which we split forces. Aerial units, scorpion, death jester and wraithguard will go aid the space marines, while everything else proceeds to the webway gate.
Remaining space bros here pull back and rest.
And finally, the cavalry's arrived.
And at this point it struck me how dumb of an idea was to send the seraphim (only scouting unit) north.
Rollin' through the road, our armoured column meets a leman russ.
Now, take a wild guess what this leman russ is going to do.
Indeed! It's gonna fry our land raider!
Casualty number 10: Land Raider busted by Darth Roxor's lack of planning
The farseer takes vengeance upon the leman russ.
Here, our forces begin to reclaim the northern fortress. Also, the fucking useless jump marines managed to lose 5 men while attacking the missile team.
Meanwhile, a whirlwind protects the farmhouse.
...
Jump Marines get collectively blown up by the leman russ. That wasn't a part of the plan, FFS
But whatever, they were expendable anyway. We salute you, casualty number 11
We have 5 turns left to get to the webway gate.
Bye bye, whirlwind.
This time, we DO find a medipack.
The northern part is pretty much contained.
And here's the item.
lololo popamole.
Great success. Although storming the mountain fortress did leave our squads rather battered.
I remember, once I actually managed to keep all the space marine defenders alive, but it was achieved through great abuse of save/load.
Three turns left, ffffuuuuuuu
As you can see, the webway gate is pretty heavily defended.
Venom warriors open fire on the avenger.
Dumb gargoyle tried to get behind us, but flew straight into an undetected fire dragon
Aaaaaaand the dire avenger manages to survive with 1 hp.
Battle fortune
How many times did that happen already in this mission alone? 4?
Genestealers die.
Venom warriors suicide to support fire.
That's an incredibly high dose of luck those dire avengers are getting
The magus and carnifex don't offer too much resistance, and we are free to liberate the site.
That mission was fucking brutal. We lost a total of 6 units (although four of them were rather expendable, but still).
Right, first thing we do when we get to the barracks is get a new great harlequin. Good thing we got those unupgraded harlequins a few missions ago.
And here's the new unit: The D(ick)-cannon. Basically, an artillery version of a wraithguard - also has distortion and gets 3-hex range, but at the expense of a bit lower damage and pitiful defence. Not worth it.
Also, we have to reshuffle the army a little due to the heavy losses. The new units (assault and devastator terminators + great harlequin) were enough to get our army cap back to maximum, but we don't need all of them. I guess I'll keep the assault termies 'cause they're pretty neat, I'll also keep the harlequin, as we need serious scouting. But we already have 5 devastators, so I think I'll kick the terminator devs to barracks and get the immolator back to compensate the loss of the Land Raider.
Also, I updated the first post with a 'hall of the slain', where I'll store all casualties from now on.
Next mission we'll be assaulting the capital of Davinuus. Stay tuned