The cerberan wars: first turn

The cerberan Wars campaign tells the story of the struggle for the hiveworld of Cerberan between the bio titans of hivefleet Garmann and the engines of Legio Metallica led by grand master Mannheim.

 Campaign setup, the objective is to control the most infraestructures of the hiveworld Cerberan at the end of the fourth battle. The are five infraestructures: north of the river Enyalos the hive citites of Cerberan Primus and Secundus, with the promethium refinery at the top right corner; south of the river there are the water plant and the Mallian mining complex.

Orbital pict capture of the Cerberan hiveworld

 First turn movements: The legio moves north towards the river, while the tyranids abandon their infraestructures leaving control runes in their place, to engage the titans, two army runes clash near the Malahan bridge

Rolling on the battles table we scored campal battle, wich all the titans in reserve and appearing from opposite corners of the board 

 The first one in is the Imperator Steel Hammer, with grand master Kurtiz Mannheim aboard

 Some of the bio titans also make their appearance, four hierodules and one hierophant

 In the imperial third turn two more warlords appear: Imperius Tenebrus and Galgamech

 Finally the legio's weapons have the range and the Imperator kills one hierodule with concentrated fire

 The remaining hierodules close upon it, but the combat is a draw

 In the imperial turn Imperius Galgamech inmobilizes the hierophant with a well placed vortex missile shot

 but the bio titans win the combat, destroying the imperator, wich explodes causing some damage upon one of its destroyers. Princeps Mannheim won't be seeing any more action in this campaign

 Warhorns roaring in vengeance, Imperius Galgamech launches its second vortex missile wich kills one of the hierodules, while his brother Tenebrus causes havoc with its death ray weaponry

 The two battered survivors charge against Imperius Tenebrus

 The hierodule, healed from its inmobilitzation also advances to counter the +1 in combat provided by the suporting Galgamech. The Dominatrix makes her appearance, but since it is the fifth turn, she will do nothing. The combat is a draw. In the imperial turn Galgamech finishes off the hierodule with its melta cannon.

Finally, in the tyranid sixth and last turn, the hierodules manage to rip the head from the body of Tenebrus destroying another titan.

Outcome:

Tyranids 30 victory points

Legio Metallica 24 victory points

Victory to the bio titans

Since the tyranids have won, the legio retreats to the other side of the Enyalos river.

In the camapign phase we used Neil Hunt's titan battle honours table and Andy Chambers epic experience system to give new skills to the surviving titans. Imperius Galgamech got heavy armour, wich increased its damage capacity to 16, Imperius Quintus got damage limitation wich makes him ignore the first critical; the domiatrix got an endo skelleton wich reduces the criticals in -1, the I hierodule got accurate, wich means that his cluster spines will cause criticals with 5+, and the hierodule II rolled improved regenaration repairing at 3+ instead of 4+. All the titans wich took part in the battle advanced from green to experienced.

Tyranid bio titans

 2600 points of kitbashed tyranid titans ready to fight against the titan legions of the Imperium.

I made them with termagant bodies plus diverse tyranid weapons, the ones that look like pistols represent bio-cannons, while the others with lots of holes cluster spines, the assortment of swords, spikes and claws represent close combat weapons.

I liked a lot the movie Pacific Rim and I wanted to reproduce the look of the kaijus in the film in my titans, let's see what I'm talking about:

 Two dominatrices/Hierophants, the tentacled head count as the hierophant's ripper tentacles, while the gun emerging from it's back its the dominatrix's dorsal cannon

 Both options are great, the dominatrix provides the only death ray (wound and critical at 2+) weapon of the bio titan range and a 4+ special save althought she doesen't have a close combat weapon; while the hierodule can trap an enemy titan's close combat weapon rendering it vulnerable in assaults. The Dominatrix sould act as the tyranid meatshield-fire support, while the hierophant is designed to close to grips with the enemy.

 Hissss!

 Those other models are hierodules, the lightest bio titans, all but one are equipped with cluster spines (the other having a bio cannon) and all have close combat weapons.

Their best chance at taking out an imperial titan is to charge it with a 2 to 1 advantage if the titan has close combat weapons or if not in a 1 to 1 fight. In epic 40k if you win a combat equipped with a titan sized close combat weapon, the enemy titan is automatically destroyed!

A size comparison shot with my favorite model: the three headed hierodule

Hiveworld terrain: ash wastes

 The heavy industry of the imperial hives has a devastating effect upon the planet's enviroment, turning the surrounding landscape into a toxicaly brutalized desert by generation after generation of uncontrolled contamination. Tribes of scavengers, mutants and worse roam those blasted lands, fighting for the scraps of the hive and the meagre reources than can be found on such an inhospitable enviroment. Worse are the rad and chem storms wich rain down from the poisonous clouds of the planet's tortured athmosfere wich are capable of melting the meat from the bones of an ogryn in a heatbeat or rip the heaviest vehicle to pieces.
 Those are the ash wastes of the imperium of man.

Sludge

The hives produce daily many tones of residues, wich the city is unable to process. This highly toxical mud is thrown out of the city by means of gargantuan pipes and into the desert. The sludge is so deep and treacherous that it's considered impassable

Mine
Even after millenia of continous exploitation of the planet's resources new veins are sometimes discovered and the huge lifter cranes raised upon mining pits that venture miles underground, next to those can be found the piles of mining slag useless for recovery which are simply dumped away near the pit.

Ash dune
The winds of the wastes blow furiously,  and their action creates dunes wich provide cover for even the biggest of machines.
The dunes are dangerous terrain,  as they tend to give way under the feet of those who tread upon them.

Toxic leak
The corrosive subproducts of the chem plants present a griveous threat to any hive, since their vapours might kill much needed labourers and their acidic propieties might eat through layer after layer of habitation levels. That is the reason for wich they are spilled into the wastes heedlesly of the harmful effects upon those who inhabit the place, this frees the hives from the dangers of toxic contamination, but also increases the number of vengeful mutants upon the surrounding area.
The toxic leak is dangerous terrain to vehicles and infantry, but war engines step upon them like they are nothing.

Drybrush effect closeup

Ash waste

And finally, what would the ash wastes be without some ashes?
The ash just prevents you from marching as the ground is loose and sinking.

Parol's sacrifice

 Our las tbattle of the campaign is an attempt by Admiral Parol to block orkimedes's escape from the system. If the dreaded ork genius went off who knows what new devices will plague the imperium in the next years? 

If the ork hulk carrying Orkimedes exits the board with above half damage the orks will be victorious, if it exits but the damage it's below half the result will be a draw, since the warp jump will be extremely difficult for the crippled "vessel" if the hulk doesen't exit the board at all, then victory for the imperials.

Imperial forces

Admiral prol L8

Retribution battleship

Tyrant cruiser

sword class frigate

Ork forces:

Space hulk

 the hulk advances while the imperial wheel

 assult boats in the void!

 double wave!

 The hulk's forntal gunz cause some damage to a battleship that has it's prow and engines offline thanks to the assault boats. menwhile the imperials just score glancing hits with the nova cannon due to bad calculation

 starboard torpedoes of strength 11 cause little damage against the armoured prow

 but three humble torpedoes destroy the frigate

 Fighta bomberz cripple the battleship

 The two imperial capital ships close on the hulk coming close to crippling it (19 damage done during all the battle)

But the orks power up and leave behind the desolated imperials

And so the campaign ends with a resounding ork victory!