Sunday 28 July 2013

Battle Brothers Game 1 - Tyranids Vs Imperial Guard/Space Marines

A few days ago you'll have seen a battle report for the Relic against Ben's Imperial Guard/Ork list with my Bastion taking centre place. And now you get a similar rematch at Battle Brothers, only this time I made sure to position the Bastion in such a way as I get the benefits without preventing my own force from getting to the objective, see how we get on in game 1.

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant HQTervigon CC HQTervigon Plain TrTervigon Adrenal Tr
Iron ArmIron ArmWarp SpeedIron Arm
SmiteLife LeechEnduranceEndurance
Doom of Malan'tai
 Psychic Shriek

The low down:
  • The Relic.
  • Dawn of War
  • We won deployment and went first.
  • Warlord Trait - Strategic Genius - Re-roll reserves
We were up against Alistair who had travelled from Adelaide Australia, although we couldn't rib him for the Ashes as he had a British passport. He was fielding both sides of his army, which made me think Dan could have done the same but he was adamant he was happy having asked for a Battle Brother. Anyway, Dan had the Defenders of Vogan, an Imperial Guard/Imperial Fists force.


 I don't have a list but there was a Demolisher, Storm Talon, some mortar behind the ruins in front of him Aegis [which he artfully employed to get two layers of cover saves, Quad Gun Vet Squads and some Rough Riders!


Interesting how the Aegis doubles back, no? And he also maxed out his back field making it very difficult for the Doom or any other deep strikers to make an impact.


As you can see we pressed forwards, my Tervigon spawned 9, which headed towards the Relic, the other 11 went through the woods. Dan spawned out on 14. The HQ Tervigon spawned out on 5! and failed his Iron Arm roll with 11.


By the end of turn 1 we'd surrounded the Relic with Dan's Devgaunts holding the Bastion. We managed to take down a few of the front rank of Imperial Guard [I think with the Hive Tyrant swooping through the ruins on the left] but the ADL was quite efficient in saving their behinds, although the Commissar shooting one of them dead did prevent them running off the board


Alistair repositioned his forces.


My vanilla Tervigon takes a wound, despite Endurance and four of my gaunts are killed alongside four of Dan's, that Relic is looking slightly more accessible now.


The Defenders of Vogan hunker down for turn two.


And all hell breaks loose! The Doom arrives alongside the Trygon, using the ruins as cover so his Quad Gun can't target them. My Tervigon spawns 11 more gaunts and eventually picks up the Relic, he passed his Endurance roll on Snake Eyes suffering another wound while the HQ Tervigon fails his Iron Arm on 11 again! Dan's Tervigon gets Iron Arm and his Termagants move up in support of mine, while my other 11 break from the woods.


The Iron Armed Hive Tyrant jumps over the building, I think he failed his dangerous terrain test but passed his save.


He shoots some of the Space Marines to thin their numbers. The Hive Guard blow up the Chimera on the left, First Blood perhaps.


Or perhaps this, the guard squad beside the ruins, get Doomed, Bio-Electric Pulsed, and Deathspitted.


Leaving that flank open and the Doom with a lot of wounds. My Termagants split either side of the ruins.


The Tyrant gets into combat, I think Dan challenged so he could stay in combat during Alistair's turn and hopefully break free for ours, he was very good at judging this, I never think that far ahead, its always kill now, repent later! 


Storm Talon arrives, we have no answer to this. You may also notice there are no Termagants in front of that ruin, those las-guns were vicious!


Tervigon takes another wound.


The Rough Riders had very cleverly kept out of the Doom's leech range, they get first hits in - they manage to wound 5 times and it saves all of them killing one in return.


My Tervigon spawns out finally on 16 sending them and the remaining 5 from the first turn on another suicide mission. The Trygon immediately after smashes through the ruins.


My Tervigon then takes the Relic and together with his non-identical twin head back to the hive, at the end of our movement he hands it off to it's twin. The Devgaunts leave the Bastion and move to join up with the Tervigons.


HQ Tervigon Iron Arms up and smashes through the ruins


Hive Tyrant takes a wound and Termagants support the Tervigon.


The Doom also gets a bit of support and the Rough Riders hold their nerve against Spirit Leech. The Trygon gets to grips with the mortar and blows that up.


But one rider goes down.


The Storm Talon zooms off towards the board edge.


And my suicidal Termagants get their wish like their lemming-like predecessors.


The Hive Tyrant gets blown to pieces by Melta Bombs I think.


Despite +1 Toughness the Tervigon takes a wound and my Termagants are roasted in hot Promethium.


And buoyed by their success the Vets charge down the Tervigon, 


Only for their Sergeant to be eaten alive.


Having handed off the Relic my Tervigon races off to take charge of the Termagants


The Trygon heads for the Guard Command Squad.


The Rough Riders just will not die, they pass their Leech test and hold the Doom up for a third turn. We all agreed they were absolute stars of the game for Alistair. The Storm Talon breaks right and heads for our back field.


The Trygon eats the Command  Squad but is open to fire from, well just about everyone!


So not surprising he goes down.


The Doom sucks the life from the remaining horsemen.


My Tervigon is on 3 wounds now having typically failed his Iron Arm with yet another 11.


And I'm assuming a combination of melta and probably more melta puts it down, giving Alistair Slay the Warlord.


And by the end his back field was clear at least and some big beast had gone down.


But we had the Relic, Slay the Warlord [I think], Line Breaker and Firstblood giving us the max 6 VPs to Alistair's 1 VP. So a first round win. I threw away some gaunts needlessly heading for the ADL instead of through cover and the Devgaunts didn't do a great deal in the Bastion but we can't complain with max VPs. Alistair was a great laugh too and Dan and I seemed to find a natural symbiosis with playing, We both were very comfortable with our armies and where we were deficient the other player had advice or their own experiences to support the decision making process. I was liking this format.

9 comments:

  1. I've never seen a report with so many pictures. To be honest, I didn't read it through, but that's because I stopped when I read your chart. Two Tervigons with Iron Arm, and you rolled up the Relic!??! That seemed like an auto-win to me. I skimmed through looking to see who'd picked it up and to ensure you'd won (as it seemed unavoidable).

    Gotta' love when the pieces come together like that...

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    1. To be honest I had no idea how many I'd taken until I clicked on one after it was posted and saw there were 42! Too much? Yeah probably, no wonder they take me so long and why I keep putting off doing them. Indeed we certainly had 'all the tools' to get the job done, I love Biomancy :)

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    2. Ermm... I missed something. You had 42 Tervigons with Iron Arm? That can't be right. Are you saying that one Tervigon survived to make 42 offspring? That's quite a feat.

      Even without offspring, Tervs are ideally suited to holding relics--especially when you throw Iron Arm into the mix. Is it safe presume from the list that you didn't have a way to give any of them FNP though?

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    3. No, sorry, 42 pictures. In actual fact we had the psychic powers we just couldn't manage to manifest them - my HQ Tervigon failed three times to roll Iron Arm, each time on 11!

      We had Endurance on two of them so there was FnP available too but then you have to juggle which you want +D3 S&T or FnP and It will Not Die?

      Also one of my Tervigons spawned 36 in total but we also had a much more productive game later on!

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    4. Yes, I s'pose 42 *pictures* makes far more sense than anything I'd suggested.

      On the subject of FNP vs. S&T, I guess it depends on what role each Terv is playing, and where they are. In general terms, I'd prefer to put Iron Arm AND FnP on the Tervigon that's actually holding the Relic (which looks like was possible). Otherwise, it depends upon what weapons you're facing. Since T8 makes you immune to S4 weaponry (and T9 makes you immune to s5), I'd rather go with Iron Arm if my opponent has a significant amount of small arms fire. If he has alot of S6+ heavy weapons, FNP would be preferable.

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  2. Great report! Always love to see the Nids get some love. Too bad we can't ally with other races. Damn you GW.

    Do use bigger pictures so we lazy gits don't have to click on them! Thank you!

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    1. Yes, there's a certain disparity between nids and the other races. As for the pics, well I hear what you're saying but with 42 if I don't have some of the action just a little smaller it'll take a week to get to the end of the report.

      Clearly I need to edit my content a little more but when I drop pictures I generally miss out on what happened in the battle so it's a fine line. In the end it's a small price to pay to click the image for the full sized version :)

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  3. Hey there. Long time reader of your site and got some of my nid buds loving up your site. I do have one question about the battle report. You mentioned your hive tyrant failed a dangerous terrain test, but passed the save...... why. Just saying cause I play daemons and am praying I am right. But Monstrous creatures get Fear, hammer of wrath, MOVE THROUGH COVER, relentless and smash. According to move through cover a model with MTC special rule auto passes dangerous terrain tests. I am really hoping I am right cause I been rocking this rule with my greater daemons for a while now.

    Anyways not trying to nit pick. Awesome blog and models.

    Phill

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    1. No worries Phill, not nit picking at all. You're correct of course, that is part of the rules and something I forget all the time. In this case I think the error is more in the writing of the blog post. Given I write these a day or two afterwards sometimes the facts are 'educated guesses' based on what's going on in the pics, although I do try and take notes as we play.

      Thanks for bringing it up though, it may help to retain that part of the rules in my noggin :)

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