Escalation!

Finally got to try out Escalation at Hobby Night last week. And it was awesome! Of course, I am slightly biased about Escalation - I do play IG, and have a decent collection of super-heavies. So the chance to play them in a regular game of 40k is real good stuff.

My opponent was Rizal. He brought his Warhound Titan, supporting an IG force of a Company Command Squad w Astropath, 2 veteran squads, Marbo 2 Leman Russ, a Hydra and 3 Vendettas. I brought a more conventional force of a Lord Commissar, 2 Platoons with 35 men each, a regular commissar, 2 Vendetta, 2 Leman Russ and a Baneblade. You could say my force was a bit outclassed.

In the first turn alone, a single shot from the Titan took out 7 of my Baneblade's 9 hull points. The next turn, my big tank blew up, and it was really fun to see how the new explosion mechanics work. The blast threw the Baneblade to the right, flipping over the mighty machine onto one of Rizal's Leman Russ, obliterating both.

In the meantime, my venerable infantry advanced implaceably towards the enemy, under whithering fire. The last remnants of first platoon actually reached Rizal's other Leman Russ, parked right at the edge, and charged it with krak grenades, quickly destroying it. But they eventually got wiped out themselves. Second platoon was hunkered down near 2 objectives but was also eventually reduced to around squad strength.

The funny part was, Rizal's Titan actually felt the sweat. Somehow. Following age-old anti-Titan tactics, Leman Russ battle cannon were tasked to take out void shields while heavier guns like the Baneblade battle cannon and lascannons took out hull points. My Vendetta reserve rolls weren't great but when they did arrive, they made a difference. The Titan was reduced to 3 hull points by the time the game was over. And all the while I was paraphrasing lines from the first Star Wars movie - "sir, we have analyzed the rebels' attack patterns and identified a weakness in our defenses ... should we make ready your escape pod?"

In the second game I wanted to try what it would feel like to use a conventional 40k force and take on an Escalation force. I whipped out my Eldar Alaitoc Windriders for this. And it was quite one-sided actually. The Eldar won decisively, leaving only the mon-keigh Commander and 2 very badly damaged Vendetta (1 hull point left on each) alive. The Warhound Titan was destroyed in turn 2 under concentrated bright lance and fire prism (lance) fire. In the resulting apocalyptic blast, the dying Titan took out one of my jetbike squads which was deep in mon-keigh territory having just destroyed his Hydra.

Eldar tactics vs Titan paraphrased Imperial ones. Multi-shot weapons like Serpent Shields were used to rapidly take down void shields, while lance weapons followed up to destroy the beast itself. I must say I was lucky too - a D shot only clipped one of my Fire Prisms, and the resulting penetrating hit only destroyed its shuriken catapults. Another memorable moment in that battle was my relatively tiny and nimble lone Crimson Hunter flying amidst 3 bulky mon-keigh Vendetta. And after the Titan was destroyed, the exarch executed an impossible manouver putting him on the six of the Vendetta carrying the mon-keigh HQ, blasting it to pieces.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to my next Escalation game. I'm going to try out my Shadowsword next time. See how that works out.

In the meantime, I've started painting my Heldrake - wish me luck! Keep them dice rolling!