The Cleansing of Galatus Prime

For the first game of our crusade we decided that with the sisters landing on the planet they would first have to send in a small force in order to establish a foothold on the planet.  We decided that there would be two objectives that the Sisters of battle would have to secure in order to win the game, one being the landing pad and the other being the comms tower inside the compound.  The objective for the sisters was to at the end of any battle round, hold both objectives with no enemies in range of said objectives.  As for the Guardsmen their objective was to stop the sisters from holding both objectives for five turns. As the Guardsmen and women readied the defences, the Sisters of battle came hurtling towards them.

Before we get into the game, first you’ve got to meet the teams!  We’re both starting off our crusade at 500 points each so we have relatively small armies to start with.

Shay is playing as the Adepta Sororitas (Sisters of battle) order of the Ebon Chalice.  He is bringing one Canoness, one imagifier, one squad of Novitiates, two squads of battle sisters and one immolator

John is playing as the Astra Militarum (imperial guard) Cadians.  He is bringing one Cadian command squad, three squads of Cadian storm troopers, one squad of heavy weapons, and a suqad of three scout sentinels.

Now that you’ve met the teams let’s get into the action!

Turn 1 Deployment – John puts his Cadians into a defensive stature, hiding behind cover and concealment while Shay places his Sisters of battle right at the edge of the deployment area in preparation for a headlong charge!

Shay manages to win the roll off for initiative and chooses himself to go first.  Moving all the Sisters up as far as he can he sends the Novitiates along with one of the battle sister squads towards the landing pad which is concealing a whole squad of Cadians and a command squad.  The immolator and the other battle sister squad speeds towards the comms tower currently being protected by the sentinels, a guard squad and a heavy weapons team!

Time for the shooting phase.  The sisters of battle ready their bolters and the promethium tanks of the immolator are full and ready to be unleashed!  The Novitiates and sisters of battle attacking the landing pad don’t have line of sight to any of the guardsmen so don’t fire this turn.  However, over by the comms tower is a different story.  The sisters of battle being led by the Canoness and the Imagifier ready their bolters against the scout sentinels.  The sentinels stand strong as only a few of the bolter shells deal damage.  The immolator fires its heavy bolter and hunter killer missile into the scout sentinels missing all of the shots.  The immolation flamers however are trained onto the heavy weapons teams on top of the barracks building and it deals heavy casualties killing two out of the three teams and wounding the third!

If the middle finger lurking in the background of each photo didn’t give it away, John wasn’t one bit happy about the outcome of the engagement.

And with that, Shay’s turn one is over and it’s onto John!

Starting off by moving his command squad and supporting storm trooper squad towards the landing pad, John is staying defensive and keeping his Cadians behind plenty of cover and concealment.  Over by the comms tower John opts to keep everything where it is.  The sentinels are able to see everything they would want to shoot at, the heavy weapons team gets bonuses for not moving and the cadian squad at the back doesn’t want to get in range of the immolator flamers after watching their brethren turn into smoke and ash.

It’s time for the guard to put some hatred down range at the sisters for their audacious manoeuvre!

As with the sisters by the landing pad, no one could see anything so no shots were fired on that side of the board.  The sentinels will be the first to fire for the guard with one lascannon and 2 krak grenades into the immolator dealing three wounds to mighty machine!  the remaining heavy weapons team joins in on the barrage but narrowly misses the immolator.

John has a few units within charge range but decides not to charge any of the sisters.

That brings us to the end of turn 1 so onto turn 2!

Shay starts us off with turn two moving the sisters ever closer and the immolator pulls into the compound heading towards the comms tower objective.  Onto the shooting phase!  The novitiates and battle sisters by the landing pad are hiding like cowards!  They should charge into the firing line and die for the Emperor!  but alas they stayed hidden and cannot see anything to shoot.  The immolator aims it’s devastating flamers toward the squad of troopers at the back of the compound eliminating nine out ten cats!  The sisters of battle backed by the Canoness and Imagifier all fire their bolters at the sentinels finishing off the one with the lascannon.  No charges declared for the sisters this turn so it’s onto John.

In John’s command phase he has to take a battle shock test for the one remaining guardsmen in the compound ad surprisingly he’s completely unfazed and acts as normal this turn.  The Cadians being led by the command squad towards the landing pad finally catch a glimpse of the sisters of battle waiting on the other so set themselves up in a firing line ready to hose down some sisters of battle in the shooting phase!  As the comms tower defenders are dropping like flies the singular guardsmen fixes his bayonet and barrels out of cover towards the oncoming hoard of sisters.

This is turn where john has to deal some damage to the sisters.  Every gun is trained on the enemy all they need is the order to fire.  The Cadian command squad starts off the shooting by firing their bolt pistols and lasguns at the sister novitiates causing a few of them to drop lifeless to the ground.  They’re then followed up closely by the Cadian squad behind them who unless a hail of lasgun fire aswell as a couple of frag grenades for good measure.  The novitiates are given a bloody nose but their faith in the Emperor holds strong as most of them make it out unscathed.  Over on the other side of the board the sentinels fire two krak grenades at the immolator but the armor is too much for the grenades to penetrate leaving it unharmed.  the mad guardsmen fires off a shot at the sisters but in his blind rush he misses.  No charges declared for the Imperial Guard this turn.

Onto turn 3 then.  The sisters don’t have any battle shock tests to make quite yet but the novitiates are getting very close.  The novitiates come flying around the corner of the landing pad in preparation for a charge during the charge phase.  The sister of battle squad climb up the side of the landing pad securing the objective for the Order of the Ebon chalice.  That’s one out of two objectives secured for the sisters!  Over by the comms tower the sisters of battle squad head directly for the sentinels in an attempt to block them from entering the compound while the immolator sticks it in reverse and starts making it’s way towards the comms tower objective.  time for the sisters bolters to fire once again.  The novitiates repay the favour to the command squad by lighting them up with bolt pistol shots and a plasma pistol shot taking out three of the five leaders.  The sisters who have climbed the landing pad beside them open up on the guardsmen below with bolter and flamer dealing heavy casualties to the two squads.  the sisters by the comms tower fire at the sentinels dealing some wounds but not enough to put any of the remaining two walkers down.  Finally the immolator decides that there’s no kill like overkill and proceeds to fire both immolator flamers at the one remaining heavy weapons team burning him to a crisp.  Finally we get to see some charge action!  the novitiates charge one of the wounded guardsmen squads and the sisters of battle by the comms tower charge into the sentinels stopping them from accessing the compound.  The novitiates start hacking away at the guardsmen dealing a few casualties to the squad.  The sisters attacking the sentinels get into combat but can’t seem to do any damage to the metal legs of the sentinels.

P.S. I don’t remember how the singular guardsmen died i think my canoness shot him.  Please don’t sue me x