1600pt battle report - MAWS Challenge nids Vs nids!

Here's the second of my MAWS tournament matches. This was a four-way tournament between my local friendly neighbourhood Gaming club - The Lost Boys against The Ribble Warriors, Northern Warlords, and our hosts the Manchester Area Wargames Society [or MAWS]. There were three battles of 1600pts with a time limit of 2 hours, sadly this meant I was pressed for time, you know me, so pictures are sparse given the need to actually play. Also it's been a week so memory may be sketchy in places. Pat Divers was my second match but my first game ever against Tyranids! To be fair though there were at least 4 'nid players competing out of 24 so the odds of playing another Tyranid army was quite high.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ CC Tervigon T Tal Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Endurance Endurance NA Life Leech Iron Arm Life Leech Haemorrhage NA Haemorrhage Endurance Doom of Malan'tai Haemorrhage

The low down:

• Purge the Alien (I started with 13VPs on the field to Pat's 11).
• Vanguard Strike
• I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
• Warlord Trait - Master of Defence - Counter Attack in Deployment Zone

Pat was to go first with two Winged Hive Tyrants, two Tervigons, two broods of Termagants to make the Tervigons troops, the large flock of Gargoyles in the centre, two broods of two Hive Guard [behind the L shaped ruin top right] and a brood of three Zoanthropes right at the back! I set up with most of my Monstrous Creatures on the left out of range of his Hive Guard forcing him to take a long trek. The Trygon looks far forwards so I must have seized, again! Stealers are all to the left Infiltrating in the ruins. My Hive Guard targetted the Tervigon on the left. Pat was under the impression that Hive Guard were BS3 so he was delighted to find out they were BS4. Probably more delighted in his own turn rather than after the 3 wounds or so on the Tervigon. There were further discrepancies regarding cover saves from Impaler Cannons but again for expediancy they just didn't get cover saves from them* Also my Biovore managed to kill 6 of the Termagants in one brood!

Pat rolled for Spawning on the tervigon on the right and suffered three 1s for his pleasure [perhaps i should have targetted those with the Biovore? He then flew the Gargoyles forward, which was fine by me as I fancied 14 of those fellas against my 10 Devourers and 4 Deathspitters I managed to take out 10 of them. However, Pat had brought forwards both Hive Tyrants and I had to torrent them with the Deathspitters and Stinger Salvos in the hope they'd be grounded. I managed to get one down and he failed his save and took a wound. 





Which suddenly changed my focus on the left. The Trygon had to take out the Tyrant while he was gorunded, he'd taken wounds from the Brainleech Worms and neede to stop him while he could. He made it into assault but was on 4 wounds versus 2. Meanwhile the other Tyrant was to Brainleech the Stealers in front of him





On came the Doom and sucked the life from a load of the Termagants and after all shooting one was left! The Doom also took a wound and a model off the Hive Guard  Broods and wounded the Zoanthropes.





The Gargoyles set up to charge the Hive Guard





But before that the Doom and it's Spore Pod was splatted to finally get First Blood for Pat in turn 3. Once again it was just one saving throw I had to make with 10 wounds but it was Instant Deathed by Impaler Cannon Fire - he so needs Iron Arm! 





The Trygon couldn't take down the Winged Tyrant and instead was punished thanks to Prefered Enemy re-rolling to-hits and to-wounds. Somehow the Stealers managed to get into assault with the Tervigon, the Broodlord challenged and stripped the remaining wounds off it but as they were both Initiative 1 the Tervigon squashed the Broodlord in it's death throws. I think it also killed off the 4 gaunt Brood next to it too, unless the Biovore did that...





In an effort to get more guns on the field one of the Tervigon spawned and they raced to try and get firing on the remaining Termagant.  





Everything else moved forward I may have killed the wounded Tyrant but not before the stealers got splatted, losing me Line Breaker. The Warriors tried to get there but it was too far just yet.





The other tyrant swung round the grain silos and killed the Biovore for an easy VP but was grounded and took a couple of wounds. The tervigon pounced on it while it had the chance.





Last pic and I think the game was called shortly after with Pat winning by 2 VPs thanks to Line Breaker and First Blood. Unfortunately the Hive Tyrant I killed was not the Warlord, which would have helped

This was a really good game, it was funny though how much we both had to keep referring to our Codex for rules. You'd think between the two of us we'd have had every stat and ability covered but it was like we were newbies. I certainly had a newfound respect for the Winged Hive Tyrant, although it may be more to do with the fact there were two in play. You have to hit it with a lot of shots to ground it and if there's two it certainly reduces your chances to do that. Now if I can get an extra pair of Tyrant Wings and Fleshborer Hives I could run two as well!

Personally if I'd been Pat as soon as I saw my set up I'd have shifted the Hive Guard and Tervigon nearer in the following turns, they didn't do very much, as you can see in the last shot they're practically irrelevant to what was going on! But it was really a great game and interesting to finally face another 'nid force.



* The Impaler Cannon ignores cover saves for intervening terrain, however the FAQ states:

Q: Can a unit take cover saves from any source other than the terrain they are in, or touching, against Wounds caused by ani mpaler cannon? (p47)

A: No.

So, you can get a cover save if you are touching or within area terrain, just not if it's between you and the Hive Guard.

1600pt battle report - MAWS Challenge nids Vs Chaos Marines

Here's the first of my MAWS tournament matches. This was a four-way tournament between my local friendly neighbourhood Gaming club - The Lost Boys against The Ribble Warriors, Northern Warlords, and our hosts the Manchester Area Wargames Society [or MAWS]. There were three battles of 1600pts with a time limit of 2 hours, sadly this meant I was pressed for time, you know me, so pictures are sparse given the need to actually play. Also it's been a week so memory may be sketchy in places. First up was my battle with Chris Green [I think] with his Chaos Marines.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ CC Tervigon T Tal Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Iron Arm Enfeeble NA Life Leech Hypnotic Gaze Haemorrhage Warp Speed NA Haemorrhage NA Haemorrhage

The low down:

• Crusade (5 objectives blue poker chips, I had 2, Chris had 3, the third behind the central Bastion).
• Dawn of War
• I lost deployment, but eventually stole the initiative
• Warlord Trait - Tenacity - Feel no Pain within 3" of Objective

As you can see here's my setup and I think I may have stolen the initiative too. Devgaunts hiding in ruins with Warriors and a couple of Hive Guard. Stealers pushed forwards [perhaps too exposed?]. Further pictures indicate that at least one of the Rhino's is gone so I'm guessing the Hive Guard on the left did their job and shot one down for First Blood.

The disembarked Noise Marines had buffs for their Sonic Weapons and managed to shoot the pants off the Toxin Stealers, leaving the Broodlord with two remaining wounds. While their Adrenal counterparts stayed in their crater and were promptly ignored. The right Hive guard must have got a Penetrating hit on their nearest Rhino - immobilising it.





Everything bundled forwards, the HQ Tervigon had taken 2 wounds as well it also spawned out of gaunts on turn one with only 4! While the Troop Tervigon spawned 14.





Devgaunts, spawned gaunts and Stealers took a beating and the Troop Tervigon also suffered a wound.





The rather stunty winged Heldrake managed to be rather effective toasting most of them with his Baleflamer. The lack of Trygon in this shot suggests he also fell to massed Obliterator, Noise Marine and Predator fire.

Throwing caution to the wind the Toxin Stealer went for the Noise Marines. Fair Play to Chris he actually accepted the challenge to his Warlord. Unfortunately we decided I would not get to cast Hypnotic Gaze on him as a quick look at the rules and instant interpretation Chris felt it would be cast on the model he assaulted into base contact with, not the one he ended up challenging. For the sake of expediency I agreed but it's a 5th Edition rule before the 6th Edition Challenge mechanic. I'd argue you would be able to attempt it in a Challenge otherwise there's no point having the power at all. I'd still allow a Deny the Witch, regardless the ability was not needed as the Broodlord slaughtered the Chaos Warlord getting me another VP for Slay the Warlord [obviously].

And here's the same Toxin Stealer later on - having also killed a Chaos Sorcerer in a Challenge and then wiping out most of the squad - what a beast!





The Doom finally makes an appearance, sucks the life from a few marines and then promptly has to make one saving throw and unsurprisingly fails! Just over in the top left you may just make out three grey blurs - these are a squad of Chaos Cultists that came on in reserve and are capturing the other objective in Chris's Deployment Zone





So we made it to turn 5 at least. I'm thinking perhaps that clear 'negative space' the Marines are encircling is where my HQ Tervigon once stood.

So the game came to a close and I was convinced I'd lost but having read the rules pack it was revealed objectives were only worth 1point each. I'm not entirely sure what was left holding my home objectives but the end result was a draw! I think Chris was actually holding 2 objectives, which in a normal game would have clinched it with Slay the Warlord but because I had both Slay the Warlord, First Blood and an objective it may have been 3VP each [I think my Toxin Broodlord was just out of Linebreaker range].

I felt a bit guilty at the end, because of this rule, Chris beat me quite comprehensively although once again Warriors did little, the Trygon was bested too soon and the Doom was just a distraction for a single turn. The Toxin Broodlord was a beast but the Adrenal Broodlord did nothing, I faffed about with him leading to his downfall. Anyway, a draw meant at least I wouldn't suffer a whitewash.



'nids part 74 - another take on Mycetic Spore Conversion

Russian Tyranid fanatic and fellow 40k addict Erle had a simple and effective tutorial on making your own Mycetic Spore. I've seen a couple of plastic balls covered in Hot Melt Glue but I think this was the first I've seen where gravity was used to make the shell/tendrils droop and then the ball was positioned at an angle, instead of letting the glue just drip down onto the base.

Anyway check out his blog and the tutorial here:
http://hive-fleet-hyenna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/mycetic-spore.html

Dead easy to do, cheap and effective. You could even go a step further and add Chitinous armoured plates to the front of it so it had something protective to hit with similar to my own spore pod...

My mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame, and his Chaos Marines

Well you must have been good so as promised here are the pics I took of my mate Liams Chaos Marines, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame. Firstly his Chaos Lords and Chosen from the Dark Vengeance box. All his bases have broken chaos symbols glowing with ethereal light.

The leader of the Chosen.

His converted Nurgle Chaos lord.

Alongside some of his brtheren.

Yellow glowing plasma guns.

Kharn the Betrayer and his Khorne Marines. 

Having based Kharn on the mound of skulls the normal 25mm base wasn't sufficient so it magnetically attaches to a 40mm base so he can be more stable.

The Khorne Marines are awesome, although I'm not 100% convinced with the running pose on the left - there's something comical about it, although I wasn't laughing when these guys tore through my nids so what do I know!

I love the green glowy effect.

Seriously you wouldn't believe the quality of these kit-bashed Defilers. The actual weathering effect is super detailed and apparently the same effect will be matched on the Aegis. The effort put into the weathering achieves an amazing trompe-l'œil effect where there looks to be far more texture in the rust than is actually there. In person it actually looks like Liam used Photoshop to print the red panels and just glued non-metallic metals onto the printed sheets!

The Chaos forces amass.

Here comes the Heldrake and you can see the Chaos star that Liam cast and used broken on the Marine's bases.

Here's a close up of the star.

A couple more shots of the Khorne Marines as I was trying to get the lighting right for the pics.

Hope you like what Liam's don, big him up on the facebook group if you do ;)

28.02.13 "It's just one of those things Son".

Obviously this is a 40k blog but I've covered a wide range of topics that go beyond gaming and the hobby, references to my martial arts past and just general personal chit-chat. You should know this about me by now, but even so if you're not into autobiographical parts of the blog I'd recommend, and understand, should you choose to stop reading this post because it's about as personal and non 40k as you can get.

Long time readers may recall 2 years ago I returned to Cornwall, where I studied at the art college there, to attend the funeral of my Landlord and Godfather to my children. It was a sad but rewarding experience. Since then my birthday has often meant a time of reflection and at 38 now I'm starting the downhill side of life that just seems to get quicker each year. Anyway this year was no different - work and to treat myself to an eye test. The opticians seemed to be surprised by my choice of both working and an eye test but I kept thinking to myself once you've attended a funeral on your birthday nothing much else seems out of place.

Later on in the afternoon I got a call from the wife to see how my day had been, she'd left early for work so it was pretty much the first time we'd spoken. She also asked if I could come home early as my mother had been in touch to ask if my Dad had been round. Last year he was diagnosed with early stages Alzheimer's and finding out he actually left the house at 10:30 for a dentist appointment and had still not returned by 3pm brought concerns this may be the start of him forgetting what he was doing, getting lost etc. Thankfully my boss is extremely understanding and was OK with me leaving.

Unfortunately before I could leave my brother rang me. He'd stopped off in town to try and retrace my Dad's steps around 3:30pm and came across the aftermath of an accident in a local car park. Tragically having left the dentist and heading for the library my Dad had crossed through the car park around 11:30 and someone accidentally reversed into him. Despite efforts to save him he passed away at the scene. My brother was called upon to go and identify him and I was home to see my Mum by 5:30.

My father and I had a good relationship, I don't suppose we ever really fell out. I'm not sure he quite understood me, or perhaps the things I did. He was an engineer fitter by trade so my older brother, whose hobbies ranged from remote control cars to real racing cars were a much easier thing for him to get his head round and support. But it never really bothered me and for the most part our time together was more of the mundane things, just sharing each others company and he would sit patiently and listen as I vented about the latest thing to annoy me.

He was a good, honest man, a Roman Catholic [should that mean anything to anyone] but having married a Methodist he was 'ecumenical' in his belief and had joined the Street Pastors to just try and be there for people when they're a little the worse for wear. Ultimately he was a man with a strong work ethic [unlike me] and a need to feel worthwhile. Following his diagnosis of Alzheimer's he feared he was useless and was terrified of how the disease would progress. The Street Pastor work was the only thing that kept him going during that period as despite a successful test to prove he was capable of driving the DVLA recalled his licence due to a misdiagnosis of an additional sleep disorder. Thankfully he had just got his licence back last week and although he'd said to my brother it didn't matter if he ever drove again, it was the physical proof that he needed to validate he was still useful.

At the moment he left us he was the happiest he could be given the circumstances, his annual check up in December had shown that the Alzheimers had not progressed in the last 12 months and we hoped the medication he had was keeping it at bay. The silver lining is that he never had to suffer the indignities he so feared. I will always wish we could have been closer but I knew he loved me and my family greatly, even if it was a few weeks or even months between seeing each other [despite only living 10 minutes walk away]. I will regret the lost moments but I will also try to learn from them and try to be closer to my own sons.

Anyway the funeral is still to come we're all coping and getting on. My Mum came out and watched the eldest play rugby today, the first time she's been, so despite it all we are keeping each other strong. As my Dad was commonly fond of saying "It's just one of those things Son". Thanks for the indulgence.

Edward Henry Weston, my Dad.

1600pt battle report - nids Vs Chaos Space Marines

I got chance  to have a game with my mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame. Since last we fought he's been busy as a bee in painting his Chaos Space Marines and they're nearly all done by the looks of it. The only real painting to be done on all the cultists and finishing off his suitably chaotic Aegis Defence Line. If you're all good I'll post some of my character pics of his army later on, the lighting isn't great but they're betetr shots than the in game ones.

Psychic Powers Tervigon HQ CC Tervigon T Tal Broodlord [Adrenal] Broodlord [Toxin] Enfeeble Endurance Iron Arm Enfeeble Life Leech Iron Arm Endurance NA Life Leech

Hammer and Anvil with 5 objectives as per the MAWS scenarios. Liam had three and I had two and he placed his in the 'triangle of doom' formation behind his Aegis Defence Line. I tried to position all my troops out of view, with the Hive Guard hiding in the ruins on the left with the Troop Tervigon and the Warriors holding the objective in my back field. Lastly the Devgaunts manned my defence walls.

Despite my setup to ensure my figures were hidden I forgot that Liam would actually get the opportunity to move his figures in his turn DOH! so he repostitioned his Defilers [Brass Scorpions] and took some shots, along with his Obliterators in the ruin, mainly at the Troop Tervigon.

The blasts managed to put 2 wounds on the Tervigon and kills one Hive Guard and wounds another in the second Brood. It was a bad beginning, but it could have been much worse.

The Tervgion becomes Endured and spawns 12 Termagants to secure the objective on the first floor.

Nothing much happens. at least I guess not much happened as I didn't take any pics until my turn two and my outflanking Tervigon come on behind the ruined building along with the Toxin Stealers. 

The Trygon Deepstrikes alongside the Defiler and the Spore Pod and Doom deviate 11" backwards but the Doom can still get in range of the Marine Squad holding the objective in the ruins with Kharn.

The Adrenal Stealers also arrive and manage to make cover and hope the Doom becomes more of a target allowing them to get into combat next turn. I think the spore Pod took a wound for landing in some debris, obviously!

Not sure what else was happeing here but you can see I've still got a lot of cultists to get through to get that objective next to the Quad Gun.

The Troop Tervigon is on 3 wounds and spawns out on 10 more gaunts who head for Chaos Deployment Zone. The Devgaunts push forwards too, hoping that ll the back field drama of Spore Pods, Dooms, Stealers and Trygons will allow them the chance to cover the dead ground so they can actually have an impact on the game. Meanwhile the Heldrake make's it's presence felt.

Back in the ruins the Hive guard suffer another wound.

The Doom is on 8 wounds and everything turns to kill him. To a certain extent I didn't judge just how useful he would be in this situation. His 6" leeching power is usually nullified by people moving out of range but if I'm putting him near an objective then that forces people away from it or forces people to risk being killed by staying near it.

Sadly twin linked melta fire from the Obliterators caused 3 wounds and typically 1 failed save insta-killed him regardless of those lovely wounds. So it was disappointing for him to only be in the game for one full turn. If I'd not been so unlucky, though technically those 1 in 3 odds were borne out correctly, he'd have caused no amount of trouble around that objective.

As it was the Tyrgon was attacked by the Defiler, it's tentacle things reducing the Trygon's weapon skill but thanks to double Scything Talons I managed to get three penetrating hits on it.

Unfortunately it gets a 5+ save regardless and Liam rolled Yahtzee, colour me less than impressed at this point, although Liam was very giddy.

The HQ Tervigon spawned and then charged the Defiler, but not before it finished off the Trygon. For some reason I kept the stealers back which was a mistake as even a couple of glancing hits would have helped.

The HQ spawned gaunts head for the cultists by the end of the assault there are but three left and the cultists are down to 7 and their Lord.

The Broodlord takes on Kharn having assaulted through cover he's slaughtered without even getting a chance to fight back.

The HQ Tervigon smashed the Defiler to pieces and in return the Heldrake repositioned and flamed it and the genestealers and leaving the Toxin Broodlord with 2 wounds left.

The HQ Spawned gaunts are killed by the cultists but the Devgaunts make it into assault. I think I tried to get both Tervigons and the other gaunts in as well but only 1 assault succeeded and therefore the Devgaunts were reduced to three also. Meanwhile the HQ Tervigon is on 2 wounds.

Kharn smashes the face of the HQ Tervigon and my only hope at this point is to pull the cultists off the Quad Gun objective or smash them with the Troop Tervigon but yet again he fails to make it.

This was another late night finish and I'm not sure what happened after this, I was tired and stopped taking pics. I appreciate that's a less than satisfactory Battle Report but I'm struggling with these at the moment as they do take a while to write and that immediately reduces my motivation to do them.

Overall this the most fun I've had gaming with Liam, it's only been the third time we've battled since we hooked up again so it's still very much renewing our friendship. The fact I lost again isn't important, but doing so with laughs and painful dice rolls that tip the balance one way or another is.

I have to say though that having the HQ Tervigon outflank was the best thing that could have happened, without it the game would have been considerably less interesting so I will look to using the similar Hive Tyrant ability that you can Outflank a troop.