Apocalypse Now: Battle for Ebirnan

Me and Kieran recently made the trip to visit Zzzzzz at his pad and take part in an Apocolypse-scale game.  This was the first time we'd played anything on this scale, and my word what a day it was.  Readers of Adm Drax's blog will have seen the recent post on his own visit earlier this year.  He summarised the spirit of the day brilliantly: great company, plentiful brews, a frankly staggering collection of models and terrain from Zzzzzz and a fantastic narrative Apocalypse game.  As well as coma-inducing quantities of bacon.



The Devos IV blog will have a full fluffy report in the coming weeks with all the photos in full so I won't tread too much on how this affects the ongoing wider campaign, I'll just use some photos to illustrate what sort of a day it was and pick out some good moments for the Palladians (and some shockers).  Photo credits are all Zzzz's - the rest of us struggled with phones while he got some great shots on his camera.

The basic setup was:

• A thin line of beleaguered Valhallans of 903 Division (about 1,000pts) on one short table edge; 
• The infamous 'Hunter' Division of the PLA, plus reinforcements in the centre of the table (maybe 3 - 4,000pts);
• The cavalry in the form of the Palladian 905 Division and the Arcomet 887th (fully 7,000pts) on the opposite table edge, coming to support the Valhallans.  Played by me and Karitas of Excommunicate Tratoris fame.

The Bloodcoats in the centre

And the thin line of Valhallans trying to prevent a breakout

Blessings from above!  Keritas' deployment of the air assets made me feel like Tom Hanks at the end
of Saving Private Ryan, blasting away with my .45 at a Tiger, with the Mustangs sweeping in to save the day.

The Motorbike Team, all the way from Mordian 7th!

Huzzah for the Palladians!  Tightly-bunched, the infantry platoons suffered at the hands of the PLA mortars.

That 'one' is the number of wounds left at that stage - the inevitable result when you insist on riding into battle on a white horse waving a sword around.  The highest-ranking casualty in the regiment for nearly forty years.

Nasty - 'Chimeltavets', who unfortunately found themselves on the receiving end of a Demolisher shell

In the end we only had time (5 hours) for two turns, but that was enough to get a pretty good idea of the result.  The Valhallan line was shredded but not wiped out - the timely arrival of the 887th ensured that the PLA's tanks were lascannoned to bits, although not enough to prevent a disjointed breakthrough of individual elements through the Valhallans.  The 'cavalry' suffered very heavily in the first turn, loosing four tanks to missile and lascannon fire from the tops of the buildings.  The Palladians took a pounding with about 50 of 70 men dead, although their artillery accounted for a large number of Bloodcoats and by the start of the third turn the advance was beginning to get underway.

In the end the Palladians did what they do best - looked smart and died in droves, giving the artillery and mortars the time to do their stuff.  Thanks go out once again to Zzzzzz for hospitality and a smashing game - cheers mate!

Ed