Suggested by Rookie
Battle for Tallarn was one of the biggest land and space battles in W40K history, second biggest battle in Horus Heresy war, right after Siege of Terra. In this battle Iron Warriors faced full might of the Imperium and tasted defeat. For the first time entire space marines Legion lost not to other space marines, but to regular forces of the Imperium and Mechanicus. So let’s have some fun with this battle then!
For this match Iron Warriors and defenders of Tallarn are united against common enemy. Star Wars and StarCraft armies.
First space forces of team 2: Golden Armada, Death Squadron, Scourge Squadron, Emperor’s fleet, Vengeance Battle Group, Imperial First Fleet (Sith Empire fleet).
Transports: They carry entire separatists land army and Malgus’s army that he used during his attack on Coruscant. Team 2 also have 6 Leviathans fulled with zerg troops and all Golden Armada troops transports, as well as Vader’s army from battle for Hoth. Also team 2 have 2 500 of Phase III dark troopers. All “heroes units” (except for Palpatine and Sith Emperor) that served on the fleets or among forces that listed above are included in the team 2 forces.
Defenders space forces: Iron Warriors fleet, Tallarn first and second defence fleets and lastly Golden Fleet.
Land forces: Tallarn defence army, Mechanicus titan legions, Iron Warriors land army and 1 000 of alpha legion spacemarines (who were spying for Iron Warriors forces).
Defenders must survive for two months. Attackers must managed to land their army to the Tallarn, take both Perturabo’s main base and IoM main base and kill both Perturabo and IoM commander to win here. Orbital bombardment not allowed, Tallarn atmosphere restored back to habitable for more fair battle.
Who will win?
This is one of those books I haven’t read before. The only notable thing I see so far is the alpha legion. They do an extreme amount of nonstandard things. One example, is when they use these high tech amulets that reduce their volume to that of a regular human, and changes their appearance to that of any pre programmed clothing style. They are extremely good at infiltration and information gathering. They are also very good at making people work for them regardless of allegiance.
@pimpmage
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Not a problem:
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Land battle for Tallarn and some of the Mechanicus weapons during this:
forums.spacebattles.com/posts/20209141/
Will post something about space battle a bit later.
“They carry entire separatists land army ”
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Is this in the entire Star Wars galaxy during the Clone Wars? That’s quadrillions of droids…
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“Tallarn atmosphere restored back to habitable for more fair battle.”
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Tallarn will probably nuke itself again anyway.
Perturabo’s main base:
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“Beneath the ground it was possible for Perturabo’s forces to pass unseen, and emerge in the ruins of cities or in the empty, fog-shrouded wastelands. Artful concealment protected most of the peripheral entrances, their ramps and blast doors hidden in the shells of buildings, or in folds in the ground. The main gates to the Warren sat amongst the corpses of cities, ringed by slaved weapon emplacements, mazes of mines and the eyes of tank patrols. From its heart in the ruins of the Sapphire City to the outlying bunkers on the heights above the black sludge of the Crescent Ocean, the Sightless Warren ran for hundreds of kilometres.”
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Space battle:
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“Ships upon ships had come to Tallarn since the battle had begun. Many had died, some had fled back to the warp, but most came in small groups, ragged clusters and lone battlegroups. Not since the Iron Warriors main force arrived had a substantial fleet arrived together. The fleets which vied with Perturabo’s forces were an amalgam of all the disparate forces drawn to make Tallarn their battleground.
The coming of the Golden Fleet broke that pattern.
It came from the warp without warning. Clusters of war barques, bombardment barges and battle cruisers, spread into a wide sphere from the wounds of their re-entry. The Eagle Claw drifted at their centre, its ancient hull glimmering in the thin light of the stars.
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There was always a ship burning in the orbit of Tallarn’s star. Above the war world battles never ceased, as both sides fought to control the key approaches. Battlegroups came together in spirals of silent light, and broke apart again, leaving the cooling debris of their meeting. Even in the orbits close to the system’s star ships clashed, as they tried to skim the gravity and radiation-thick zones to reach Tallarn itself. Further out on the system edge, battlegroups ran the outer reaches of the Oort cloud, hunting for ships fresh from the warp. Battle light never left the skies above Tallarn. But the coming of the Golden Fleet brought a fire to the void like no other.
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Ships from both sides filled the close orbits of Tallarn. Support fleets held station at different hemispheres, trading turbolaser fire at landers. Both sides had sensed a lull and rushed to drop supplies and troops on to the surface. Bulk promethium carriers, munitions barges and macro landers moved beneath shells of escorts. They were vulnerable, but both sides had deployed so that they were screened from enemy fire. They had not prepared for a battlefleet striking them from another quarter.
The Golden Fleet hit a school of bulk carriers which had just begun to sink into the planet’s atmosphere. Above them ten battle cruisers held station to protect them. They fired at the Golden Fleet.
Flame swallowed shields and gouged the gilded ships’ hulls, but they kept coming. They had selected their targets hours before, while Tallarn was still just a bright dot to the naked eye. They did not know, or care, what allegiance their targets were.
The lead ships of the Golden Fleet peeled back, scraps of shredded shields trailing them. The ships behind them were true battle cruisers, their hulls studded with weaponry, their armour thick under skins of gold. The nova cannons in their prows had been loaded, and the time triggers in each warhead were already running.
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The Golden Fleet fired. A deluge of nova shells hit the fuel transports.
A flattened sun spread above Tallarn. The energy wave skimmed outwards, catching ships and orbital platforms in a freeze-frame instant. Hulls the size of great cities split, and spilled the blood of their reactors into the burning storm. And the tide surged on, growing in seconds and feeding off ships too slow to slip its embrace. The Golden Fleet fired their engines and flipped over. Kilometres of metal and stone screamed under the forces twisting through their hulls. They rose into the empty void as behind them a skin of fire spilled across Tallarn’s skies, fizzing with the death of ships.
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“It began, like so many offensives before it, in the heavens. The Inferno Tide had scoured the lower orbits of Tallarn of ships and defences, but in the high spheres the Iron Warriors still held sway. A circlet of weapon platforms and warships had been set above the Sightless Warren since its creation, guarding its approaches from the void, and watching over the approaches to its northern hemisphere. The Iron Warriors, never needing to set war to poetry, called this cluster Outer Defence 1.
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Strike Force Indomitable emerged, gliding along high orbits from behind the face of Tallarn. Twelve warships came in the first wave. They were not the heaviest ships the loyalists had in the system, but they were the fastest and most heavily armed. They had a single task: to kick open the door to the planet’s northern hemisphere. They began to fire as soon as the first torpedoes found their marks.
Beams of las-fire laced the dark. Rushes of plasma formed comets as they boiled across the black gulf. Walls of shellfire spat from vast gun mouths. Kaleidoscope light boiled through the Iron Warriors ships. High orbital platforms split, burned, and began to tumble down the hungering gravity well into Tallarn’s embrace.
”
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@Neon Lord
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“Is this in the entire Star Wars galaxy during the Clone Wars? That’s quadrillions of droids…”
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Yep, that’s a lot of transports. No need to make it easy for team 1.
Uh, since the droid armies are legion- how well will 40K do with ammo? Even assuming one shot fells 10 droids that’s still 100,000,000,000,000 shots that need to be fired. Obviously I’m sure they have chainswords, tanks, bombs, artillery and whatnot- and they can shoot down the transports probably- but I thought I’d just point out by sending in the droids first the Defenders are going to use a significant resources to take them all down.
@Friendlysociopath
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“Uh, since the droid armies are legion- how well will 40K do with ammo? Even assuming one shot fells 10 droids that’s still 100,000,000,000,000 shots that need to be fired. Obviously I’m sure they have chainswords, tanks, bombs, artillery and whatnot- and they can shoot down the transports probably- but I thought I’d just point out by sending in the droids first the Defenders are going to use a significant resources to take them all down.”
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Tallarn was fighting against Iron Warriors Legion for months. I am pretty sure that they have enough ammo, there was huge battles every day.
Does Grand Admiral Thron count as a “hero” unit? If so the 2nd team has one hell,of a tactician
If those Droid landers and tactics are anything like in the movies, those droids are fucked. Operating slow moving, slow deploying units 100 meters from the front lines, then waiting till everyone is in neat formation BEFORE activating them from orbit is backassward retarded.
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Oh, and since there are chaos forces active, that means the possibility of the machine scrap code virus to completely wreck Droid armies. This isn’t just a machine virus, it’s supernatural,
@Shadow-Knight
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“Does Grand Admiral Thron count as a “hero” unit?”
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Yes.
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“Oh, and since there are chaos forces active, that means the possibility of the machine scrap code virus to completely wreck Droid armies. This isn’t just a machine virus, it’s supernatural,”
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I am not sure that DM could do this at this point of Warhammer history. At least during Tallarn campaign they never did anything like that.
However DM did craft several dozens warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Leviathan_Pattern_Siege_Dreadnought for Iron Warriors.
“I am not sure that DM could do this at this point of Warhammer history.”
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Scrap code was released onto the galaxy during ‘Mechanicum’. So the very beginning stages of the horus heresy when mars was split by loyalty. Hereteks make up any and all chaos mechanicum forces. In some books, their regular binary speech is infected with scrap code. Simply talking infects machines.
Oh yeah, scrap code existed during the invasion of u ltramar too.
Which Emperor’s fleet is this?
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Team 2 shouldn’t have a problem defeating the ground forces as they outnumber them by multiple orders of magnitude. It comes down to a space battle. How many ships are in the Golden Fleet?
No offense but these battles are getting out of hand.
@Rookie – the scrapcode viruses were there in the WH universe since almost the beginning of the heresy itself.
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honestly Team 2 land forces aren’t anything special for what was on Tallarn. It’s the space forces where they might have the advantage.