Blog Wars 6 1850pt battle report - nids vs nids - game 1

With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one and a similar list to my own [pic at the end of the post]. Adam Robinson managed to beat me at my own game with Mycetic Spores and 18 Devgaunts per pod and with Ymgarls instead of my fortification, Biovores, Hive Guard and Mawloc. He also lulled me into a false sense of security by admitting this was only his 11th game with nids - I smiled inside, pride before a fall?

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Endurance Enfeeble Life Leech Endurance Enfeeble Warp Speed Warp Speed Haemorrhage Doom of Malan'tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• Purge the Alien
• Hammer and Anvil
• I think I lost  deployment but was promoted to go first.
• Warlord Trait - Master of Ambush [acute senses :( ]

This is the end of my first turn, I'd swooped the flyrant off to right in the hope of flanking in later turns. I realised that with only one piece of area terrain in my table half that's where the ymgarls were going to turn up so I positioned my Tervigons to cover the terrain. With hindsight it wasn't enough, I should have spawned and covered the terrain but I was deluding myself that I was 14kp to Adam's 12kp, which was irrelevant as the VP's were based on actual points of units destroyed so I could have spawned to prevent the Ymgarls turning up and gaining me their VPs

Having made my conservative move Adam opted to be aggressive.

Moving everything forward getting his flyrants into range of my front Tervigon and getting 5 wounds on the beast. My response was to swoop my Flyrant off round the flank, taking cover from the Bastion in the centre. Everything else came on from reserve except my second Flyrant.

  

In total I managed to put 2 wounds on the Iron Armed Tervigon and 1 wound on the other one [Axehead]. Overall I think my shooting was pretty ineffective I think I was starting to feel like I may have made a tactical error at this point.

Adam was able to fit almost all the Ymgarls in the terrain, I think losing only 2 miniatures.

Adam's Doom appeared smack bang in the roofless Imperial Church.

18 Devgaunts began to disembark from the Mycetic Spore

And were joined by their two Flyant overlords, yeah at this point I knew Id messed up. If I'd taken the advantage in turn 1 and attacked, with both my flyrants on the board I might have killed one or perhaps two of Adam's Flyrants while they were still on the ground. He may well have set up differently but I really should have siezed the opportunity. However that flyrant is my Hive Commander specialist so I do tend to be a little cautious with him to protect my deep strike bonus to guarantee it's success.

Shooting phase and the Doom sucks life

And my Hive Guard roll on their leadership...

Yeah, Ben, Liam, Otty, PeteB I know what that feels like!

The Doom engorged on 10 wounds, first blood to Adam.

Devgaunts set up to target my Flyrant - 54 shots, enough for one grounding test at least.

Ultimately the Flyrant was killed, not sure how many of the foes arrayed against him took part in his demise but he was toast and another bundle of VPs and Slay the Warlord to Adam.

My Vanilla Tervigon fell to the Ymgarls but my CC Tervigon smashed a good few for the loss of 1 wound.

My Mawloc took four wounds thanks to poisoned attacks from the Termagants, while my Doom was assaulted by Axehead, more fool him.

Axehead paid the price for his temerity in my turn, losing his remaining wounds.

And being sucked dry to strengthen my Doom. My second Flyrant landed to the right of these ruins but I'm not sure he did enough to bring down any opposing FMCs.

My Tervigon spawned to hold up the Ymgarls , he took another wound but killed the two Ymgarls he was in combat with, you'll notice a new spore pod has just landed next to him though, another 18 Devgaunts in my back yard!

My Devgaunts had passed their instinctive behaviour test, retreated into Adam's DZ and let fly on the opposing gaunts. I managed to wipe out the unit but then Adam spawned the magic 15 to replace them!

Adam's Devgaunts set up to take down the Tervigon.

All his other gaunts positioned to torrent the Doom out of his 6" bubble of death.

Both Adam's Flyrants jumped into combat with my Bastion and blew it to pieces, killing the Biovores inside and doing more damage to themselves and the Devgaunts than I'd done so far.

My Flyrant vector struck one Flyrant killing him and them shot the other one.

Unfortunately this put him with range of the Doom as it emerged from the Church... 

 

yes, again!

The Tervigon was thankfully out of range of the Doom, but not the massed Devourers which managed to wound 3 times.

And these were my saving throws!

Leaving my entire DZ empty and overrun by an alien Hive Fleet

As time was called Adam had killed 1660 points worth of models to my 1021, which if I'm honest was more than I thought. I think I still had the Doom and most of the Spore Pods in place but other than that I was overwhelmed. I totally believe I threw this away in turn one, with such a similar force I surrendered the advantage of going first by not attacking. I also failed to prevent the Ymgarls arriving by saturating the only area terrain with models so they couldn't arrive, that would have been 276pts dead instantly without shots fired or saves being made! Still, onto the next game...

Adam's army list