Ich Kayan's battle training report to Ganzorig Khan
Boneheart, as you may already know, we had the pleasure of meeting our Salamander brothers on the Equator Island of Liam Tor.
As previously for Chaplain Melfurtayan, our green armoured brothers were so kind to meet us on the field to train us for these inhospitable regions we now find ourselves in.
They didn't make it as easy as Melfurtayan had it, probably since they knew my force was a -not so easy- target, still I am pleased to report of our glorious victory in this training battle...
To our surprise the heavy grav centurion brothers found a way to deploy on top of an impassable building, safe from our bikes as there was no way in and too steep to climb (what machinery must have been used to get these brothers up there is still a riddle to us). These centurions had the high ground and an almost complete overview of the battlefield.
The Land Speeder "Speed of Flame" on the other hand was almost cowardly positioned in the farthest possible corner of the field, in its green camo it was neigh impossible to spot between the greens of the ankle deep seaweeds.
Since these were the only targets to practise upon we had to move forward, otherwise they would never get into range which would have resulted in a fairly boring day. After our Land Speeder fired a flare at the centurions, I called in some orbital support to scare away a third of the centurion squad.
As soon as it was clear to them that we were indeed looking to flex our muscles, the leader G-thong and a squad of his brothers landed with a drop pod almost exactly where they intended (arrow five and three), in between our land speeder, a recon squad of bikers and of course me and my command squad.
A second drop pod, filled to the rim with 'master' flamers landed even better, although they overpowered their landing engines so if not for the luck of the emperor himself, they could have landed in an entirely different region (hit with two sixes).
G'Thong and his brothers must have mistaken the Land Speeders flare as hostile since they completely unloaded upon the poor thing, making sure our techmarine brother Ficere had some dents to repair (First Blood and Line Breaker Salamanders). The "Speed of Flame" did a similar number on our newly recruited attack bike. They must not have been really aiming at us with their melta's and missiles because in both occasions it was their sturdy bolters that incapacitated our machinery.
The 'master' flamers had been sniffing too much exhaust fumes from their spectacular landing, they came out of the drop pod as drunken sailors, flipping the switches of their flamers at the unfortunate direction of our Land Speeder Storm. If I had been a lesser man I would have said they wanted all of our machines dead in the water, but again they were not targeting our scout brothers since the squad could exit the Storm almost unscathed.
I decided to go and give G'Thong a gentle nudge with our bikes but after the waves settled, he and his squad were nowhere to be found, maybe they had gone swimming? (Warlord Kill Grey Scars)
Our overeager scout bikes returned fire on the flamer squad (they wanted to test their freshly issued astartes grenade launcher) and looking towards my example they too decided to give the remaining few flamers a gently nudge with their bikes resulting in the swift tactical retreat of the 'brown' brothers.
The salamanders came looking for their leader with two sea kings (storm talons), to make the search for G'Thong easier, they launched some flares which blinded our second attack bike. The third drop pod went looking for a supply crate in the backfield.
As they were leaderless the ranks of the salamanders just started firing blindly in our direction with a swift response on our side. This resulted in some minor casualties within my force (two 3 man bike squads reduced to 1 marine, 2 remaining scouts from the Land Speeder Storm, 1 scout bike remaining, attack bike 'flooded' engine) and almost no casualties amongst the salamanders (remaining flamer squad succumbed to impact hits, 1 drop pod destroyed and 1 drop pod reduced to 1 hull point)
My command squad decided to give those heavy grav centurions something to aim at, but not before we unloaded some 'grav' ourselves. One of them must have collapsed the roof of the ruined building, because the sergeant decided to jump of the roof (leadership test fail 6+4). To our relief he landed like a feather in the soft seaweeds behind the building. Thanks to our superior driving skills (jinking like a 'motha') and the perfect placement of our scouting brothers (to ground behind sandbags for 2+ cover) we didn't lose anything of our forces.
Let me take a moment to express my praise to the masterful construction of salamander drop pods, no matter how many krak grenades our men place upon the things, they do not seem to falter. (Damn I hate those things)
I and my command squad had to prove that we Grey scars are nothing to mess with... (Turn 5 clear win for Salamanders)
Luck was on our side and the light on Liam Tor wasn't fading yet so I got my chance. (Thanks Pieter!)
As the evening set in, I couldn't stop myself in shaming the remaining Salamanders, Me and My chaplain rode off alone to secure an important objective, while driving there I must have encountered the last 'green' squad, because I was sure they had just secured that objective for us. In the meantime I dispatched my command squad to secure the supply crate the dragons had left in the open (Might have destroyed their ob-sec drop pod to do so) The sea kings started hovering because they had run out of places to fly (killing the remaining scout biker and 1 lone biker in the backfield... and securing some objectives at same time) The centurion sergeant and "Speed of Flame" incapacitated some of my command squad (3 storm shield bikers) but everything was looking good. The fates decided to give the poor Salamanders another go at gaining the upper hand (Thanks again Pieter!)
At dusk I made some genius last minute decisions. Brother Chaplain went for the supply crates, the remaining veteran biker with apothecary went to check upon the wounded centurion. (Line Breaker Grey Scars) The scouts went to check on the Sea kings (ob-sec scouts for the win).
These decisions left me off course to deal with the full focused might of the Salamander machinery which I almost shrug off (Warlord Kill Salamanders)
In the end it was clear that the Grey scars prevailed with control of most of the battlefield. The remaining Salamander Sea Kings took to the sky.
In the foreign tongue of our green battle brothers:
"Nipte win voor Bolle zijn volledig OP leger met 15-14. Bolle had Warlord Kill en Line breaker, ik had Warlord Kill, Line breaker en First Blood. Geen van beide warlords heeft dus het slagveld verlaten"
