Battle for Vogen 10 – Salt Flats patrol ambush

Previous battles
For Ashshore: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

The uprising against governor Kadulus was not only contained to the major cities of Vogen and Ashshore. The barren, but resource rich Great Salt Flats was another sector of the civil war that saw a lot of action. View more about the planet of Khai-Zhan here.

The pre-historic dried-out sea bottom had always had issues with wasteland raiders hitting convoys or isolated outposts before disappearing into the wastelands again. The crucial North-South Highway and railway was patrolled and garrisoned by several PDF regiments. With the celebrations of governor Kadulus’ 150th birthday, almost half of the PDF regiments, including the majority of the mechanised regiments, have been sent north to the capital of Vogen to join the parade in his honour.

Realising that breaking the North-South highway would isolate Ashshore from the spaceport in Vogen, and thus cut off-planet reinforcements to the Ashlands, the rebels viewed the area as one of the most important battlegrounds. Controlling the highway would also cut Vogen off from the food shipments coming from Ashshore, with potential catastrophic results for the entire Cadian sector defence. The rebels hoped that contol over the food would allow them to pressure the Imperial forces into conceding control over Khai-Zhan to the rebel leaders. To this end, the rebels recruited the wasteland tribes to their cause. These men, already living as outcasts, gladly joined the rebel cause. On the day of Kadulus’ birthday, with PDF forces at low strength in the sector, the wasteland tribes launched the assault.

The patrol of 504th regiment rolled along a branch of the North-South highway north of the Gorgoris refinery. They were returning from a week long patrol, and were within a few hours of Outpost 191. As they rolled through the dusty landscape, the scout sentinels at the front of the column radioed in to Captain Umai. “Captain, there is a road-block up ahead near the ruins. What are your orders?”
Captain Umai, riding at the back of the patrol, was not too worried. His patrol was heavily armed and armoured, lead by an AT83 Brigand.
“Blast it to pieces! Probably some wasteland scum waylaying freighters.”
Before the Brigand could fire though, the sound of high-revving engines and large dust-trails heralded the arrival of the wastelanders.

Back to the Vogen campaign, this time I am playing with 3rd edition warhammer 40k rules, the “3rd-a-palooza” rulebook, which contains chapter approved additions and some other minor changes.

The wastelanders are played with the Ork Speed Freaks lists from codex Armageddon, and the PDF patrol is using the Steel legion list from the same book. The lists are 750pts, and both get +50pts for “silly fluffy / funny upgrades”

Wastelander ambushers

Big Mek, kustom force field, more dakka slugga, super stikkbombs
– 3 Mekboys, 2x rokkits, 1x shoota
– Battlewagon, 3x twin rokkits, 1x bolt on big shoota, force field, armour plates, reinforced ram

3 Warbiker Outriders, nob, powerclaw
3×1 Warbuggy, twin rokkit, armour plates
5 Burna boys, 4 burnas
– Trukk, rokkit, armour plates, reinforced ram, stikkbomb chukka
5 Tank bustas, 3 rokkits
– Trukk, rokkit, armour plates, reinforced ram, stikkbomb chukka

PDF Patrol

Command Platoon
– Commander, plasma pistol, ccw, bionics
– 4 flamers
– Chimera, multilaser, heavy bolter, heavy stubber, extra armour, smoke
– 2 scout sentinels, heavy flamers

Armoured fist squad
– plasma, heavy bolter
– Armoured truck (rhino), storm bolter, extra armour, smoke

Armoured fist squad
– plasma, lascannon
– Armoured truck (rhino), storm bolter, extra armour, smoke

Leman Russ, heavy bolter, extra armour, storm bolter, smoke, crew escape mechanism (forgot about this)
Hellhound, extra armour, smoke

Postgame thoughts

Well that was a massacre! A mechanised imperial guard column is likely one of the worst ambush defenders in the game, with those weakly armoured flanks and the inability to melee, while it is a perfect mission for the glass cannon speed freaks. The imperial side did a couple of major blunders in deployment, the sentinels actually being a huge liability next to the battle tank, as the enemy bikers could tag them to stay invulnerable to shooting for a round. The brigand should likely have been put at the rear of the column too, to avoid it being charged. Better to sacrifice the hellhound and the armoured fist squads.

The wastelanders had some really good rolls in the first round too, the burna boys just exploding everything with their 2d6 penetration, and a generally, there were a lot of (twin-linked) 5+ shooting that just ripped apart the imperials.

The outrider bikers were the MVPs of the battle. They knocked out the brigand battle tank (ripping the weapon off and stunning it), the sentinels, a squad of guardsmen, the offender IFV and the command squad, losing just one of their own after their domination run.

I enjoyed the 3rd edition ruleset with the 3rd-a-palooza and chapter approved changes, although the vehicle damage charts being even more damaging than normal 3rd edition felt like a bit too much IMO, especially since the updated rules from chapter approved removed rhino rush as a possibility. I will use the normal 3rd edition vehicle damage chart for the next game.

The “orks” having just S3 felt really weird, but actually fits my human orks quite well. I have a bunch more light vehicles and bikers, so I will continue to bulk out the wastelander speed freaks for this campaign. We will see how they fare when meeting the imperials in more head-on battles.