The Battle for Zandesh III - The Skies are Alight

Historically speaking, the fury and the suddenness of the renegade assault took the defenders of Zandesh III off guard. The Steel Revenants were forced to withdraw, leaving the crippled hulks of their tanks burning behind them. The Chaos forces siezed control of the warp beacons, but not before the loyalists managed to send an urgent distress call to the Segmentum fleet. With traitor ships and Imperial Navy vessels both en route, a clash in orbit was a foregone conclusion. This scenario represents one side seizing the initiative and attempting to land their forces planetside.

Mission Type: Planetary Assault*
* Special note - the defender does not recieve the usual d6*10 points per 500 - their advantage comes in the form of the bonus points they earned from the previous battle.
Zandesh III is a Medium-sized planet.
This battle will require a Low Orbit table as well as the standard battlezone.

Attacker: The Attacker in this scenario is actually the loser of the previous one. This represents the increased space presence of whichever force controls the warp beacons - the winner can land with relative impunity, while the latecomer must push their way through the blockade. Historically, Chaos arrived first, so the Imperium would be the attackers here.

The Attacker recieves 1000 points to spend, selecting from the Space Marine Dominion Fleet list. No ship larger than a Battleship may be taken - that is, no Ramilies Star Forts, Fortress Monasteries, Planet Killers, or the like.

Historical forces: Steel Revenants Strike Force (Space Marines Dominion Fleet)
Imperial Mars-Class Battlecruiser Aegis Kokytus (plus Space Marine captain) - 295
Imperial Vengeance-Class Grand Cruiser Ockham's Lens (plus Space Marine captain) - 255
Imperial Viper-Class Missile Destroyers [2] Uller's Arrows -90
Space Marine Strike Cruiser Spear of the Lightbringer (plus extra shields, plus Master of the Fleet) - 210
Space Marine Strike Cruiser Charon's Ferry - 145

Defender: The Defender in this scenario chooses from the Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade Fleet list. No ship larger than a Battleship may be taken, and the Planet Killer may not be taken.
Historical forces: Traitor horde of Demagogue Gorma Deska (13th Black Crusade Fleet List)
Desolator-class Battleship Burning Heart of Tzeentch (plus Chaos Warmaster) - 400
Hades-class Heavy Cruiser Maim (Plus Mark of Khorne) - 220
Murder-class Cruiser Burn (Plus Mark of Khorne) -190
Slaughter-class Cruiser Kill (Plus Mark of Khorne) - 185

The next battle is a Planetstrike. The winner of the previous battle becomes the attacker in a Planetfall mission. Each player gains one Orbital Bombardment for each cruiser, heavy cruiser, grand cruiser, or battlecruiser that survived the space battle without withdrawing or being crippled, and two for each Battleship. Orbital Bombardments are rolled for exactly like normal units held in Reserve and shoot with the following profile:
Strength 5 AP 2 Ordnance Blast 1

The Battle for Zandesh III: Hostiles sighted!

This is the first mission in the Battle for Zandesh III campaign. It is a scenario that uses the core Warhammer 40k 5th Edition rules. There's a fluff section a'coming, but for tonight you mostly get the crunchy bits. The basic story is that, after months of crime and cult activity, conditions on Zandesh III have come to a head. Creatures of the Warp have been spotted in the outskirts of Zand City. The Planetary Defense Forces are struggling to send off an emergency distress call before the forces of Chaos arrive, but they are hampered by the ancient, indecipherable technology. Suddenly, the sky rips open, unfathomable howls ripple across the sky, and the Chaos forces attack the unsuspecting Imperial forces.

The Battle for Zandesh III

First of all, apologies for the Wednesday post - I was sans internet from Friday night through Tuesday and I didn't think to schedule a post in advance.

In the search for ever-more-ambitious fluff projects to distract me from my current fluff projects, I have decided to create a campaign for Warhammer 40k that borrows from numerous different rulesets within the Warhammer 40k umbrella. The campaign would include Apocalypse, Battlefleet: Gothic, Epic 40k, Planetstrike, and core 40k games in a grand "conquer this world or burn it to cinders" style campaign - a no-holds-barred grindfest that envelops every major aspect of planetary conquest. This is the story of that battle. On one side of this grand campaign are the forces of the Imperium, driven to conquest by the greed of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the zeal of the Ecclesiarchy. On the other side, the forces of Chaos. However, I plan to make the rules flexible enough that one or both sides can be switched for other factions (although I can't promise the fluff will make the jump so easily).