Battle Report
Battlefleet Gothic
Admiral Cochrane's Hunt
Turn Six
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Turn One Turn Two Turn Three Turn Four Turn Five |
Turn Seven Turn Eight Turn Nine Conclusion |
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The Six Imperial turn opened with the Courageous reloading its flight decks, although the Glorious failed its reload order. The three carriers then continued their holding pattern, moving forward and making a turn. The remains of the forst Imperial wave also glided forward.
In the weapons phase, the isolated Corba fired its weapons at the Astaroth, but failed to finds its mark. The Hood knocked down both of the Slaughters shields with well-placed lance shots, but failed to score hits on the accompanying Idolators with its weapons batteries.
In the ordnance phase, torpedoes from the Hood streaked towards the Astaroth. One was brought down by defensive turrets, but the rest of the salvo managed to inflict two hits, crippling the vessel. The three remaining torpedoes then continued their assault, following through to destroy the Saurva, from the Idolator squadron behind.
Imperial bombers then darted forward, only to discover that they were just out of attack range. The eight wings were then set upon by Chaos fighters, which intercepted and beat off the entire wave. A second wave of Starhawk bombers then moved up towards the stricken Slaughter cruiser. To augment this attack, the Courageous launched four wings from its newly reloaded bays as five blast markers faded back to nothingness.
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One of the Idolator squadrons managed to Lock On, but the second squadron failed its command check. The Idolators then pushed forward with the Astaroth, as the rest of the Chaos fleet followed up behind, getting closer and within range slowly.
The Astaroth opened up the weapons phase by targetting the Hood and knocking down both shields, leaving the vessel open to fire from the Idolators. F squadron performed badly, unable to hit the Overlord class ship with either weapons batteries or lances, but E squadron more than made up for it. Their weapons batteries scored two hits, including a critical strike which damaged the thrusters and caused an extra point of damage. The squadrons lances then caused another three hits, as they had locked on and were able to reroll misses. I managed to roll a six and score a critical, again scoring a thruster result. Unfortunately for Tim, this scored an additional damage point, crippling it and reduced the vessel to blazing hulk. While my Slaughter cruiser had stripped the shields from the Hood, my five Idolators had managed to score a total of seven points of damage on the Hood in a single phase!
The Sariel had pulled into range with its lances and batteries, and managed to knock down the remaining Cobras shield with its weapons and destroy the small ship with its lances, clearing the way for the rest of the fleet and leaving only the cowering Dictator class carriers at the rear of the Imperial fleet. All in all, a pretty good phase for the forces of Chaos.
To add insult to injury, both the Iblis and the Sariel managed to hit a wave of Imperial bombers each. In retrospect, we realised that we had been playing this rule wrong, and had been using that a hit on attack craft took out a single wing each, not the entire wave. Each of the hits on the Imperial bomber waves should have destroyed them all, but four wings from each still remained and attacked the Astaroth and Idolator E sqadron. The Astaroth scored a single hit with its turrets before the bombers managed to inflict a total of ten points of damage, reducing it to a drifting hulk. Similarly, the Idolators turrets accounted for a single wing of bombers before the Guta was torn apart.
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The Courageous signalled its readiness to deploy attack craft, but all eyes were concentrating on the battle
being laid out before them on the tactical display. Johanson had never actually seen a Chaos vessel before, only
pictures of them and targetting grids, but he had observed the Hood in dock. He could not believe that anything
could stand in the way of one of these ships, and it seemed a vast city in space, unstoppable. The Chaos
Slaughter icon flashed as hits were scored and shields were overloaded and Johanson held his breath. Then,
more numbers appeared as torpedoes ripped through the vessel, continuing on to hit a squadron behind it. He grinned manically and decided to personally talk to the torpedo crews on board the Hood, they had managed to cripple the Chaos cruiser and devastate one of its Escorts as well. The small wings of attack craft darted around the display, the Imperial bombers weaving to try to create a passage to the larger ships, but the Chaos fighters deceived them and intercepted the wave, sending the survivors fleeing back to the carrier ships. As Johanson turned to the external view cameras, he saw the Courageous launch another wave of bombers. As the vast armoured bay doors retreated, a fountain of diamond like crystals errupted from the openings, as the water in the remaining oxygen froze instantly. The Starhawk bombers blasted out of the bays, regrouped and settled into flight paths around the carriers like gnats around a huge dinosaur. A shocked gasp echoed around the bridge of the Furious and brought Johansons attention back to the tactical display. At first he thought that there was an error in the device. Where the Imperial fleet had been was only a number of grey icons, but looking more closely he saw that the ships had all been reduced to hulks or destroyed completely. As he watched, the lead Chaos cruiser was hit several times, and an Idolator was blown apart by bombers, but he had had his emotions and any sense of victory savagely ripped from him. An icy determination was all that was left and he turned to his terminal, running one more set of tests. When the Chaos fleet arrived, his watch would be ready for them. Admiral Cochrane had suffered a severe blow, and it would not be known whether he was still alive until after the battle. With luck, he had managed to board escape ships and could be picked up later. Johanson doubted it though. From what he had heard of the Admiral, he would have stayed with his ship, although there was still the chance that he had survived somewhere on board. |
Date: 11/03/2002
Written by: CyberShadow