Wednesday 9 August 2017

2000pts battle report - Tyranids v Harlequins & Ynnari - Game 1 - North West Open

The North West Open Tournament @ Wargames is an ITC format competition using the following rules pack: ITC 8th ed Combined Arms Missions. Each mission was rolled for randomly before the game and we were then all told which one to play.

Game 1 low down:
  • Scenario 3 - No Mercy [kill points based on Power Level]
  • Vanguard Strike deployment
  • Kill points [power levels] and Maelstrom
First game and it was opposite Max Koch and his lovely Harlequins, now I hadn't intended to do a thorough battle report so forgive the fact I didn't get much of Max's first turn but it's clear those Venoms made some ground into the centre of the board and in the trees on the left.


To which I totally got sucked into dealing with. I'm not sure if that was Max's intention but having put 9 wounds on the Tervigon I had to use it to deal with the nearest Venom but in so doing left the Termagants outside of it's range to reinforce and add rerolls to 1s on their shooting! My whole reason for it's inclusion dismissed in the first turn!


I did manage to get First Strike this turn  - the combined shooting of the Bastion, Hive Guard and Flyrant on the Venom in the top, middle of the board. But with secure Objective 1 [in the centre of the board] and have three Tyranid units and none of my opponents within 12" of my board edge I couldn't quite secure any Maelstrom missions.


Max disembarked some Harlequins who flipped over my Termagants so they could target the Carnifex with their Fusion Pistols - wiping it out.


My Trygon Prime and Genestealers had come on in a hope of removing the Dark Reapers in the ruined bunker. They'd failed their charge, or I didn't even bother with the woods adding 2" to their charge. They then paid the price with the Tygon being shot to pieces, I think from a Soulburst action at some point.


I suddenly remembered I had Command Points so re-rolled a save and he went back in place with just 3 wounds left - foolish?


The Venom on my left got destroyed and it's occupants took revenge on the Tervigon - the one saving grace it was too far from my gaunts to cause any synaptic backlash.


More Harlequins somersaulted through my lines, killing the second Carnifex


And then the Malanthrope.


The other Troupe used their Fusion Pistols to surgically take apart the Bastion, killing a Hive Guard in the process. This left the Aeldari exposed allowing my Warriors to whittle their numbers down a bit.


Teragants suffered some more casualties and with no Synapse battle shock took a further toll.


Genestealers and Trygon assaulted the Dark Reapers


And made them pay the price for their visious long range attacks. Unfortunately their consolidate left them far away from the remaining action and my Rippers were hoping to secure an objective.


However they were shot off the board and thr game came to a close.



Max had secured the most kill points so scored 8VPs for that. He also beat me for Maelstrom Mission points and gained another 8VPs. He secured 2 bonus VPs for King of the Hill [most units in the centre of the board] and Slay the Warlord. He failed to get First Strike [kill a unit in your first turn] but I got it in mine. Final score 18:1


Max was a great player, subsequently I found out he'd previously won the WarhammerFest GT and in his next NWO match tabled Richard Hope from Geeks Wargaming. The fact I still had some units on the board made me feel a little better about the loss, but it was a really relaxed game and any moment where things had gone wrong, he brushed the errors aside with no issue. For instance Max was unaware my Trygon Prime had synapse so hadn't ensured he killed it outright [no doubt thanks to my re-rolled save], when he realised it was anchoring the Genestealers a casual "mistakes were made" and we moved on. To have someone so successful in tournaments and yet play so casually without forcing an issue and so keep the game flowing was a real pleasure, not to mention his army was really nice too. Onto game 2.

Tuesday 8 August 2017

North West Open result

As you saw in the last post I was off to Wargames for the North West Open and the picture below clearly indicates I had some success. Typically it also reveals 'I'm a lover [of the hobby], not a fighter' as I came 49th out of 54 or something. I was actually on the bottom table for the final game!


That's not to say I was disappointed with my tournament result - far from it. Every match was fun for one reason or another and each person I gamed with was the very definition of what is great about the hobby. I was really hoping for the wooden spoon but actually managed to be successful and win my final game while all my other losses belie the insanely good dice rolling in most of my games - fortune was on my side, success was not ;)


YouTube legend and all round good guy Aceface hisself, John Hickton ably managed the crowd, with Martin from Wargames and Dave [the real brawn keeping the socring and pairings on track. Ace, was well aware by the time you got to the second floor, and those lower down the tables the chill factor, and fun factor, was so much more evident. This reaffirms my view that the bottom tables may not be where the cool kids are at but we're definitely having the most fun :)


And lets not forget all the chickens that were sacrificed for us gamers!


Anyone for a baguette? If you recall one of the main reasons for picking up the spare ticket was to try and get to grips with 8th and as much as I loved all my games and all the players were amazing sports I'm not convinced of how 8th plays. To me it's become geared to a cuthroat all or nothing first turn and that's just not something I'm comfortable with - either by skill, unit choice or basic lack of a killer instinct. Equally it might be the nature of matched play, although the narrative game I played the other week felt similar. In fairness the ITC format, although a little weird did help mitigate those unfortunate rolls on the Maelstrom table in normal games.


But I think it also becomes apparent that the way I'm learning to play bears no resemblance to how someone trains in other activtities. When you look at most sports, or my kendo past, the activity is proken down and you work on techniques and skills - creating scenarios so that when you take part in a competition or any kind of one-on-one you will have muscle memory and visual cues that when the moment arises you can act without thinking and confident in your ability. And yet my 40k experience is always just the one-on-one now and I'm not sure that's the best way to develop but I'm not entirely sure of how you can engineer 'real world' training exercises in 40 to develop greater understanding and tactical nouse...

My 8th Edition Wound Marker Transport Case
 Anyway, I took these pictures of some Forgeworld Rippers as I want to try and get some of my plastic ones and recreate these, regardless of how ineffective my Rippers were all weekend.


They scored me a Linebreaker though so I shouldn't be too hard on them.


But overall the NWO was great, Wargames were fab, my partners were all awesome, my army was rewarded for being pretty [if not effective] but there's still a ways to go before I love 8th. Luckily though the gaming crew will be off on tour to Warhammer World in February for the third heat of the 40k GT, so if you're going we'll see you there! Now, on to my battle reports...

Tuesday 1 August 2017

North West Open


Earlier in the year tickets went on sale for the North West Open - the largest ITC format tournament in the North West [or wider UK, not sure]. This tournament is the brainchild of YouTube legend and all round good guy Aceface hisself, John Hickton.

As such it generates a lot of interest and demand for the 50+ spaces is unsurprisingly high, particularly from those who are after ITC points and other YouTubers/bloggers. You can imagine I was therefore unsuccessful in securing a ticket, but thankfully a couple of cancellations came along last week and for various other reasons I had funds and family support to throw my hat in the proverbial ring.

It's a two day tournament, 2,000pts but with 3 hours per game to take into account all the 8th rules gazing we're likely to do. Granted there are some who are going with a competitive mindset but I thought 5 games under such conditions will either make or break my approach to 8th. Luckily it seems there are a few casual gamers also attending and I think some of the recent FAQs have cleared up some of the [absolute] filthy lists that have begun to crop up.

I'll be taking the 'nids and given the way I've begun to observe 8th, my Fortification of choice will be... the Bastion! Points wise it's ridiculous, the Aegis would have been a better option, but it's really not much to look at. The Skyshield would also be cheaper and is undeniable as a centre piece but without confering cover saves [as well as it's reduced invul save] to those sheltering behind/underneath it I'm much more inclined to take my own LoS blocking terrain piece that is harder to destroy [T9] and has a Quad Gun to attempt to deal with Flyers [although 8 shots at 5s to hit isn't as good as when you could fire it with a single Zoanthrope with twin-linked :( ].

Anyway, the rest of my army is standard fare, just some Warriors, Malanthrope and Rippers added and made sure my Trygon was a Prime for the Synapse. It did mean I threw away my competitive advantage by swapping out the Swarmlord for a Flyrant though, it's almost as if I'm rejecting GWs attempt to help out nid players! I'll just have to see how it all plays out, but then that's the point. I'm a bit apprehensive about such a long weekend, it finishes at 8pm on Saturday and then 5pm on Sunday, but hopefully I'll survive it.

Meanwhile I've been adding some extra touches to my Genestealer Cutlists but nothing worth noting and this has somewhat impacted the blog. I'm hoping the NWO may kickstart my 8th interest, although I don't imagine in-depth battle reports afterwards, whatever we'll play it all by ear.

Monday 24 July 2017

'nids part 217 - Genestealer Hybrids - environment suit highlights

I mentioned something about counting chickens... I know it's been over a week since my last post, don't worry I'm not going to apologise, I'm just going to blame Lewis Hamilton. I know it's not hobby related but I had the opportunity to go to the British Grand Prix the other weekend [it was a Christmas/Birthday gift] and in some respect the lead up, night away and nights after put serious brakes on my hobby momentum. To be fair though it was an unbelievable experience, I'm still recovering from the assault on the senses.


That's not to say I haven't been painting, I've done all the Stonewall Grey highlights and then all the white highlights. At this stage there were just five Neophytes left to highlight and the process had proved less than satisfactory.


In my last post I'd identified picking out the ridges was less precise than I'd hoped but the white highlights might mitigate where I'd failed. Sadly that didn't quite bear fruit, most of the white highlights are just not fine enough. I really don't know what the problem is here. I think the Army Painter white I use is sufficiently thin, any watering down just results in the paint bleeding into the grooves.


But even unthinned you can see it's far from defined. I was also beginning to struggle with my eyesight, trying to pick out the ridges and I think perhaps I've reached the the limits of my skills, which is a little disheartening, although I can live with it.


At a distance they'll look fine but given the time I spent trying to be neat I really hoped for better results. Adding in general fatigue and another forthcoming trip away even completing these before the end of the Hobby Season just became a challenge. I'm still going to work on both the Acolytes and Neophytes where possible but I'm pretty sure as the deadline looms I'll switch focus to the Acolytes - there's less of them and the Tyranid elements are familiar and so should be straighforward.


That said I'm far from giving up, I certainly don't envisage the self-sabotage to the 2015/15 Season that I did with the Ravenwing Land Speeders. I still think there's plenty of time to finish both Acolytes and Neophytes but eventually committing to one will most likely guarantee a success with a chance of completing both, rather than jeopardise the whole enterprise to complete both...

Anyway, I've got all my orange highlights done too, next it's red...

Thursday 13 July 2017

2000/1500pts battle report - Tyranids v Astra Militarum - The Meat Grinder

What the flip?! Narrative play?! GW is like some insidious infection convincing us of 'new ways to play'. Well we will do a narrative game but we'll do it with good old fashioned matched play points values thank you very much! Ben had suggested the Mwat Grinder mission, he had 1,500pts of Astra Millitarum and Otty and I had 1,000pts of nids each to set up on Ben's new Winter terrain board. First up my Carnifex went down in the stream bed - why not, it's not like it hampers movement anymore.


Ben countered with his rather well-endowed Basilisk provocatively placed in the woods, ooh,er.


Tervigon next, followed by Hellhound.


Termagants and Wyverns.


Otty laid down the three Hive Guard.


Snipers in the tree line.


And this is the way you deploy in 8th - everyone in the foxhole - BUNDLE!


Otty deploys Genestealers, Tyrannofex and Broodlord in the centre.


Valkyrie holds the guard centre.


Tfex and Broodlord ready to kick off, bear with me I started to enjoy taking pics as they looked pretty cool.


Ratlings in the trees. I realised pretty quickly Ben's trees are probably the best way to represent woods in 8th. A big base to show the area, tall trunks so you have plenty of scope to arrange miniatures underneath and full foliage at the top to give the 'tree' structure. I was super impressed.


Ben is going first but I roll to seize, fail and we rashly expend a command point to re-roll and we snatch the initiative back!


Everything bundles forward, with most of the terrain in our DZ offering no impediment - although watch out for all that tanglewire in front of the guard line later in the game.


My Hive Guard try to take out one of the Wyverns, I do a few damage but not enough to impact it's performance.


The Biovore also tries, hitting on 5s because it moved.


But I got a 1 for it's Mortal Wound roll...


As the narrative mission rules allow for any of our number to come back on if they die - what is our disadvantage in this game? I throw caution to the wind and deploy the Trygon and Genestealers.


Otty's Hive Guard take 9 wounds off the Valkyrie!


Given how far forward the Hellhound deployed it then paid the price.


It was swamped with Stealers - illustrating that the streamlined play gets extremely finickity  - Genestealers tipping over or their claws holding each other at bay and preventing you positioning them as close you can so not all the brood get within that 1"+1" of a model. It's far from streamlined and then you'll have your opponents saying some aren't in because those stealers will just wreck pretty much anything with weight of numbers...


Which they did! End of turn 1, one hour of play done!


Ben's turn the Valkyrie moves up and deploys his Vets, they take a few wounds off the Tfex[?].

My Tervigon became a prime target, taking 10 wounds. An artllery bombardment did some serious damage in this respect. So much for it's armour save and Tenacious Survivor - I need Venomthropes/Malanthrope. Another hour to fit in Ben's turn 1 and he only moved the Valkyrie and vets!


 The Tfex moves to take out the vets.


The Trygon slithered through the woods but out of Synapse it would shoot/charge the Ratlings without intervention. The Genestleaers also were going to have to negotiate the tangle wire, halving their charge...


I don't know whether this was a good idea or not but the Termagants with their re-roll 1's to hit and wound took the Ratlings down to their last [half]man, the Carnifex blasted him to pieces with Bio-plasma.


This allowed the Trygon to focus on the snipers but left the Genestealers witout a target in range. Meanwhile the Biovore hit and rolled 1 for Mortal Wounds AGAIN!


Tfex and Warriors removed all but one of the Vets from the battlefield, thr Valkyrie suffered some more wounds but was still flying by the end of the turn.


My Hive Guard were out of Synapse so they had to fire on the squad in the right hand fox hole - killing five! Otty's Genestealers meanwhile slaughtered everything in the remaining foxholes, Ben's Warlord,  and Commisar, then consolidated forwards.


The Trygon managed to scythe through the Snipers with ease and moved up towards the Basilisk.


The Valkyrie snuck up behind my Hive Guard and Biovore.


He took half the wounds off the Biovore.


But it was the Tervigon on only 4 wounds he could secure a pyrrhic victory with.


While the Trygon and Genestealers were about to inflict horrible damage on his artillery.


The Tervigon had to go.


And perhaps the Stealers [OK I was just taking pics now, not even relevant to the order of play]


The Tfex and Warriors surrounded the last Veteran.


The Left flank was about to be over-run


So finally the Tervigon was targeted


And I had to make 3 saves!


She could not survive.


He popped, taking six Termagants with her.


And at 12:30am we called it. Ben had wanted to stop earlier but with the Tervigon so close to popping I wante dsome satisfaction for him. Ultimately he was outnumbered from the off, we also got an orbital bombardment which wounded a few at the start of the game and although we never returned any models we had that advantage too.

But we still had a good game, it was Otty's first and we're still discovering how certain things make little sense or contradict the 'streamlined' headline we're being beaten about the face with - see the difficulties regarding assault mentioned above. I'm definitely beginning to get a better feel for my nids - replacing my choice of a Trygon with a Trygon Prime seems sensible - that synapse will really important.

I'm also looking forward to playing against a more mobile force instead of a static gun-line. I know it's pretty much the narrative mission but even with our enhance movement there were still a lot of models who did very little during the game because they never got into range. Even so how would that have impacted the length of the game... So much for quicker games too. Maybe it's still early days and we're referencing the rule book quite a lot to try and get it right but things are really slow, even if a lot is actually happening.

Anyway, bring on game 3