Trajan Campaign - Game 3 - The Imperial Vanguard

The Space Marine expedition was able to identify the location of the Xenos planet with it's investigation of the asteroid colony despite being ambushed and destroyed along the way. Having located their target the Space Marines sent another expeditionary force, this time to the Xeno home planet codenamed Trajan. They were successful in engaging and nullifying the the space defence array, this opened the path for more numerous Imperial Navy to begin its invasion of the planet Trajan. The first task for the Navy is to recon the planet's surface for targets, critical infrastructure and threats. The Xeno forces were surprised by initial incursion that took out their space stations defences, however, they were prepared to meet this invasion in force.

We played the Vanguard Recon scenario with each side having 1250 points, thus far in the campaign the Xenos have 2 campaign points and the Empire has 3. 

Both sides maneuvre into place on the first two turns of the battle. 

The Imperial Navy advances quickly on their left flank with the aim of scanning as many clusters as possible, their frigates lead the charge with the heavy cruiser, Moscow, and battlecruiser Avalon behind.

The Xenos are more cautious and counter with a pair of cruisers and battlecruiser on their right, with their carrier group in the middle.

The Imperial battlecruiser is attacked by a swarm of Xenos bombers and monitors, it hadn't adequately anticipated the range of the Xenos launch assets and had taken spike on it's approach.

Meanwhile the Xenos use their initiative to pile on to the heavy cruiser Moscow with pinpoint burnthrough laser accuracy. The left flank of the Imperial Navy was collapsing due to being in a vulnerable position.

The Imperial navy still had fight left though, the Taipei frigates made a missile run against the battlecruiser, however, their volume of fire didn't produce the anticipated damage. Meanwhile the battleships made their entrance from the horizon.

The Imperial battleship New York finally arrived to provide launch support and reclaim the battle for the humans. As a detachment of Imperial light cruisers and destroyers, originally deployed on the far right flank moved towards the centre to support.

The end of turn 3 saw both sides launching all of their assets as fighters and bombers fought for superiority. 

The situation on the Imperial left flank did not improve any in the fourth turn, the heavy cruiser and the Xeno battlecruiser exchanged fire, with the Moscow taking the worst of the damage and blowing out of the sky. The escort carriers were left alone on the Imperial left.

The Imperial detachment came out aggressively against the carrier group in the middle, blowing a carrier out of the sky.

This move was countered by the Xenos sending their battleship into the centre of the action to stop the forward momentum of the Imperial right flank. The Imperium focused their fire on this target and in the launch phase the New York launched it's torpedo against the mothership.

One the Xenos turn, they again had initiative and were able to counter fire with great effect from their mothership and battlecruiser.

In the final turn, the battleships exchanged salvos, damaging each other greatly, again the Xenos fire was more accurate and knocked the New York out, including its admiral out of the sky.  The Imperial fleet, or whatever was left of it, was forced to retreat.

The Imperial Navy took a licking in its first battle of the invasion of Trajan. However, the memory of the devastation caused on Scipio still haunted the senior leadership and they were determined to nullify the Xeno threat once and for all. The next battle will be the final struggle in this epic war.

The Xenos now have a 6-3 advantage in campaign points, they will be able to secretly the pick the final scenario. The winner of that scenario will be the ultimate winner of the campaign.