Return of the THeX: Homefront

"This must have been the threat the Black Templars acted on.  They just got it wrong,” said General Quinn as he poured over a series of pictograms displayed on the data slate,  “Typical, shoot first ask questions later.”

 

“You would’ve been there if it weren’t for that xeno raid on Trihoth,” stated Col. Abrathis

 

“I can’t help but think that if I were there at that slaughter could have been avoided.  Eckes’ enthusiasm was always his weakness.  I can’t say that I agree with Hoggar about Eckes, but certainly  someone a bit more grounded would have saw that disaster coming.” 

 

A sudden stirring in the air caused their attentions to shift from the data slate toward the door.  Lt. Talman entered fresh from patrol on the barren wastes of Tetrahoth.  “Sir, Captain Vertrees hasn’t reported back from his scouting mission in sector 7G,” said Lt. Talman.  “I expect that he has met resistance.”

 

“Take out THeX 8^th company to investigate.  Keep the T-47’s on standby and roll out one of the T-4B’s for support.”

 

Mission:  The Emperor’s Will

Points: 1250

THeX objective:  Captain Vertrees

Traitor objective:   Chaos Anomaly

Deployment:  Hammer and Anvil

 

Highlights:

 

 

 

 

First turn was supposed to be Jonny.  I seized the initiative.  First time that has happened for me.  First turn firing was mostly ineffective for me.  The traitors were able to decimate the tauntauns down to 2. 

 

 

 Those damn armored sentinels were a huge pain.  I couldn't kill them.  Missiles wouldn't hit, autocannons wouldn't penetrate or even glance, and the Leman Russ would just scatter off.

2 remaining tauntauns blow up the traitor Russ with the Sgt's meltabombs.  Earned those points back.  Told you so.

 Cool pic of the company command but couldn't do anything with this squad.  They died to sniper fire soon after because I forgot that it was only sniper fire and took my CO off by mistake.  By the time I realized what I did it was several turns later. 

 Storm troopers (SM) came down perfectly despite the scatter and did some damage to the Platoon command. 

 Snowspeeders took out the shook the hydras so that they couldn't do anything to hurt them.  Unfortunately I flew by the walkers so they continued to do whatever the wanted.

 The sentinels were unstoppable. 

 The tauntauns were finally shot to death.

 The stormtroopers got pinned by sniper fire and then assaulted. The resulting wind tunnel created a little mini tornado that carried away 2 models a few turns later.  That only left the Sgt with nothing to do.

 The snowspeeder heads off the board for a strategic redeployment next turn.

 Jonny realized in second shooting phase after I had destroyed his russ that he had nothing that could hurt armor 14.  He decided to use his unstoppable sentinels to kick my T4-B to death. 

 It almost worked as it took off the main battle cannon.

 My futility in shooting the sentinels caused me to consider ramming the damn thing, but that would cause me to look up more rules and it was getting late.  Should've just done it though because it would've been awesome.

 The futility of the two man assault.

 The snowspeeders finally finish off the sentinels in a bout of overkill.  It was like opening a peanut with a jack hammer.

 Mid turn 5

 

 

General Quinn stared into the footage of the battle on the holoscreens in front of him.  The vox squawked, “They’re on the run, sir.  Orders?” asked Lt. Talman.

 

“Do not pursue.  We have eyes on the targets and are tracking them back to their source.  What of Captain Vertrees?” asked General Quinn

 

An image emerges from the the dozens that dance across his dataslate as Lt. Talman responds, “He’s alive, but barely.  We found one of his squad.  She says that she saved Vertrees.”

 

“Execute her, fire the anamoly, place Vertrees in suspension and transport him to the installation at Rayzice Ridge .” The vox channel closed and General Quinn returned to the tracking reports. 

 

Col. Abrathis looked up from his dataslate, “Why Rayzice Ridge, sir?”

 

General Quinn flipped a switch on his data slate to display the image on the holoscreens.  The picture of Captain Vertrees displayed.  Through the gore of the innards of the creature that preserved his life and the darkening effects of frostbite the signs of perversion had begun.  "Because only they will know how to deal with the threat we face."