1500pts battle report - Caledonian Highlander 3 - Tyranids v Khorne Daemonkin

Game 3 and who am I up against but my mate Liam! I could begin with the question what would be the odds of Liam and I facing each other in this tournament but given how you end up fighting against people of similar ability/success and historically how bad we tend to play the odds were actually quite high! That said it's over a week now since we played and it was already difficult to try and piece together what was going on what with Maelstrom cards difficult to track and that.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC TR Broodlord Onslaught Dominion Dominion Paroxysm Psychic Scream The Horror Dominion

The low down:

• Eternal War missions -
• Maelstrom missions - the one where you start with 6 cards and each turn you lose one
• Vanguard Strike
• Liam deployed first and went first but not sure if that was him winning deployment or me nominating him!
• Warlord Trait - Warlord and 3 non vehicle units get Infiltrate
• Not sure about night fighting. 

Usual Hive deployment technique, cos that's worked out so well for me in the past.

 Daemon Princes galore.

Some more marines.

Baby Brass Scorpion Defiler with three Spawn.

 Tyranid Trampoline.

Oh yeah, the rest of my Infitrating units hiding in the factory..

Carnifex, Tyrannofex, Malanthrope and Genestealers out of sight and in cover.

Liam's tunr 1 surge forward.

Prince's jump forwards.

Unlike my Flyrant they can afford to stay on the ground, probably scoring points for objectives.

This looks like top of turn 2, I've surged everything forward and Liam has brought his Heldrake on.

The Heldrake can now flame the Stealers with impunity, ignoring the cloud of cover from the Malnthrope should it so wish.

Possessed and Spawn eye up the Tervigon and the Hive for extinction.

Cultists hold the high ground in the tower.

 No idea, looks like one of the daemon Princes has doubled back to get in the way of my Flyrant, not sure why/

The Spawn assault my gaunts.

Not sure how many got killed.

But I imagine I came off worse.

Stealers got roasted, the Broodlord was taken down to 1 wound, more of a worry was the loss of the Malanthrope.

 Daemon Prince's plan becomes clear as it assaults the Tyrannofex.

Which just gets slaughtered, I think with an insta-killing axe.

I'm thinking this might be the Flyrant shooting at the Heldrake, as it flew behind the building which allwoed him to save everything thanks to the cover, regardless my dice roles were nearly as bad as my tactics.

Broodlora assaulted the Defiler, yeah thatls not going to end well fo rme either.

The Carnifex twins assaulted the Daemon Prince.

Not sure how sensible this was.

But my luck was in and they mullered him good!

 The Broodlord got squished.

This looks like the Defiler and then the Marines wanted the Carnifex.

Some wounds were taken but I'm not sure if they got killed.

Apologies, the battle report is thin on details and the rest will be just as anorexic I'm afraid. We did only get through 3 tunrs, which ordinarily would have been  a penalty in this tournament but we were having a lot of fu, so much so I've no idea what the score was but Liam won. You could tell it was a laugh as I was swearing like a trooper by the end. My dice were mocking me at every turn and everything was just ineffective. Aside from the Daemon Prince being killed I was pretty much outclassed across the board.

Actually, I;m struggling to think have I ever beaten Liam... goes to check... erm that would be a no! Since I returned to gaming I've never beaten Liam once! No wonder he's got such a grin on his face ;) anyway, i'm with the chance of the Wooden Spoon now, onwards and downwards!

1500pts battle report - Caledonian Highlander 2 - Tyranids v Chaos Space Marines

Round 2 and I was drawn against Gary Marsh who runs Castigators Chaos. Gary was running Chaos Space marines, the only one in the tournament. Of interest was his Fire Raptor, Kharybdis Assault Claw and two Rapier Conversion Beamers. Anyway, the ETC format is full of scoring elements so I'm not sure how my report will reflect what went on but I'll do my best.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Tervigon CC TR Broodlord Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught The Horror The Horror Catalyst

The low down:

• Eternal War mission - the Relic
• Maelstrom missions
• Dawn of War
• I went second whatever happened with deployment and whoever went first.
• Warlord Trait - -1 to opponents reserve roll
• Not sure about night fighting. 

From turn 1 the Eternal War mission was pretty much scuppered.

Gary was able to pile forwards with Chaos Spawn in the centre of the board.

Then under their cover snatch the Relic with his Chaos Bikers and move out of reach. 

The Spawn then assaulted the Genestealers

and wiped them out with ease.

My turn 1 and I advance but the Relic looks pretty far away at this stage.

The Flyrant targets the bikers but I'm not sure if he actually killed a single model!

I think this guy was a 'master blaster' noise marine. He kept on sending a pretty impressive ignores cover blast into my nids, rendering my Malanthrope useless against those attacks.

This must be later in the game, Gary's Fire Raptor had come on. So had my Tyrranocyte and Rippers whowere trying to snatch Objective 4 out from under the cultists but to no avail.

Gary's Heldrake also came on, onceagain his attacks ignoring the shrouded effect of the Malanthrope. However, he was performing admirably in thwarting the Rapiers, their Conversion beamer shots failing to penetrate the spore cloud.

The Kharybdis came on my left flank to be in position to secure the objective in the ruin next turn. I was struggling to reach it with about 8 spawned gaunts and still stay within Synapse of the Tervigon on my Skyshield.

 The Fire Raptor set it's sights on the Flyrant.

And I became fixated on the awesome deamonette livery on the wings [like Charlie's Angels]/

but the flamework where the daemonettes were the negative space was even more impressive.

Up until it wiped my Flyrant off the board, Catalyst or not!

Next turn and the Heldrake Vector Struck either the Tyrannofex or Malanthrope and zoomed over to roast my spawned Gaunts.

The Fire Raptor re-positioned to dominate the centre.

The Asault Claw landed, disgorging it's cargo who promptly took up position underneath the objective in the ruin.

The Malanthope fell, leaving my advancing army far more exposed than they'd previously been. The Heldrake roasted all the spawned gaunts leaving my left flank completely open and uncontested.

With their mobile cover gone the Carnifex and Tfex started to take wounds alongside all the Hormagaunts being killed.

 The Tyrannocyte just about survived while the Rippers were wiped off the board.

Master Blaster managed to finish off my Tervigon, which despite the Skyshiled had taken 5 wounds already from the Fire Raptor.

Small comfort and the Tyrannofex makes a Herculean charge on the Rapier gunnery but with little success.

Not sure if I'd started to pack up here with all the objectives but that's all that was left of my Hive, I think the Carnifex had perhaps fallen too. I think the end score was something like 20-0, once you do all the differentials.

But once again it was a great game. Although I essentially lost turn 1 with the theft of the Relic, Gary was really great to play against. I was going down tables fast but looking good while doing it ;)