Four of us got together for a big game of 30K Horus Heresy, pitting the Loyalists (Adeptus Custodes & Blood Angels) against the Traitors (Thousand Sons & Night Lords) in a battle near the Inner Sanctum on Terra.

Can the Loyalists hold ground against the unending waves of Traitor forces.

With 4000pts each, we ended up with three Primarchs on the table - Sangiunius, Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red plus Valdor himself leading the Custodes.

Mission was Domination and Vanguard Strike deployment

2022-01-09 11.17.12 2022-01-09 11.17.54 2022-01-09 11.18.06 2022-01-09 11.18.36 2022-01-09 11.19.35  Five objectives across the 102"x48" table

Deployment

Traitors First - from the left flank with the bulk of the Night Lords, Thousand Sons holding the middle and a smaller force of Night Lords on the right flank

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Loyalist Second - intermixed Custodes and Blood Angels with close on 1900pts of models held in reserve by the Custodes!

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Then we have a couple of squads of Night Lords infiltrating

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Start of game goes to the Loyalists as JamesM had taken an Onslaught army list - but then again the Loyalists knew we were coming so not a big surprise.

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Blood Angel Comtemptor and Land speeders range on the Night Lords

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Sanguinius and his Dawn Breakers advance between the Hab Blocks

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Suicide Squad of Blood Angel Legion Terminators deep strike to destroy the Thousand Sons Land Raider

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Meanwhile Magnus and his six units of Sekhmet Terminators watch as the Loyalists close the range (or not)

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So far away for the Night Lords - at least they are holding an objective

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View down the Avenue between Sanctum ruins

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Where will the fit happen?

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Thousand Sons advance (well as quickly as Cataphract Armour will allow you to)

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Blood Angel reserves - in comes a Fire Raptor looking for targets

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Moments before the charge...

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Loyalists have claimed the central objective - for now

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After some brutal fire power from the Traitors - Sanguinius and a few Dawn Breakers make it to combat

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Meanwhile initial clash in the centre between the two sides

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Oh Hello - what do we prefer to fight - A Primarch or some Custodes?

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Traitor reinforcements as first of the Thousand Sons Fire Raptors arrive

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And here is the second - eyeing up the Blood Angel Assault Squad with its Avenger Cannon

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Still the fight in the middle continues, Magnus brings up fresh troops to hopefully sway the fight

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Blood Angels Storm Eagle delivers a squad of Legion Terminators and a Praetor to neutralize a unit of Thousand Son Legion Terminators

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Wow - incoming, Custodes Orion Transport, Curze looks up and wonder what's inside?

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Murder in the streets, Custodes looking for targets

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Fire Raptor advances looking for targets

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Magnus lines up his Sekhmet Terminators ready to face who ever is in that Orion Ship

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But wait a minute - I need to finish my psychic phase - anyone else want to join in? No just me then - Blam Blam Blam - oh some more dead Blood Angels

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Here they come - the best of the best of Custodes led by Valdor

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Can they banish the Thousands from the Sanctom

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The fight is on - Magnus challenges Valdor to single combat

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Meanwhile on the flank the Loyalists look to clean up the few Night Lords hanging around

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Thud - Valdor is no longer as a Biomancy fuelled Magnus smacks him with a number of Strength 10 hits 

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What! It's all over, the Thousand Sons survive many killing hits and vanquish the Custodes

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Even the Orion Ship is taken down by a Fire Raptor from behind!

The Loyalists managed to leave the battlefield with just three Adeptus Custode Warriors.

Result:

Loyalists 6 Domination VPs

Traitors 9 Domination VPs +1 for Attrition +1 for Orion Super Heavy +1 for Sanguinius +2 Slay the Warlord, for 14 VPs

I am now banned from using my Thousand Sons, due to the Sekhmet having 2+/3+ saves and 24 levels of Psychic power which is near impossible to stop (though they did manage to 'deny the witch' at least 6 times.

By the end of the game I had lost 18 Sekhmet Terminators (out of 30), 10 Legion Terminators and a Land Raider, while Magnus, the Praetor and the Librarian had all also lost a wound each.

NOTE: JamesM had most of his force still alive at the end of the game, Konrad Curze had not even suffered a single wound.